April 3, 2025 • 36 mins
Hour 2 of A&G features...
- The world is charging us tariffs. Example: The European Union
- Bingo, Bango, Bongo!
- Everything isn't fair & our listeners react to Ezra Klein
- Re ordering of global trade & the stock market
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty arm Strong
and Getty and he.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Armstrong and Yetty.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
I think it's useful for all of us to step
back and ask us, ask ourselves, what has the globalist
economy gotten the United States of America? And the answer is, fundamentally,
it's based on two principles. Incurring a huge amount of
debt to buy things that other countries make for us,
and to make it a little bit more crystal clear,
we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things
(00:45):
those Chinese peasants manufacturer. That is not a recipe for
economic prosperity. It's not a recipe for low prices, and
it's not a recipe for good jobs in the United
States of America.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Jadie Vance is very, very smart, smart enough to know
when being full of crap will sell. There's a fair
amount of what he says that's full of crap. Trade
imbalances don't really matter with individual countries. It just doesn't matter.
We're a gigantic market. We're always going to be buy
(01:18):
more than we sell to these little countries. It's okay
to have a trade inbalance, but how about the tariff imbalance?
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Though I still somebody explained to me why it's okay
for Europe to tariff our stuff forty but if we
come close to terriffic back it's awful right that I'm
not saying it's not. I just don't understand why that
is the question.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Boiled down brilliantly by my partner, mister Armstrong. It helps
being dumb, well, it helps to get to the core
of the issue, as opposed to some of the more
fancy arguments that you're hearing. The Wall Street types will
make much, much, much, much more money over the next
(02:02):
two to eight years with the status quo than if
we change the status quo substantially and rejigger all the
tariffs and get into a quote unquote trade war, which
I don't actually think is going to happen, well two
to eight years.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
As we all know, most of your Wall Street companies
are worried about this quarter.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Correct, Yeah, I'm thinking about two years. What is best
for the American worker the American economy in the short,
medium and long term is often very, very different than
what's great for Wall Street now. I'm not anti Wall Street.
I got a who bunch of money invested, trust me.
I'm counting on someday retiring from this dead end or
racket anyway. So you've got so many competing interests here
(02:45):
which often intersect. If you have a four to oh
one K, you don't want to see the market go
to hell, catch fire and sing into the ocean, of course. Not.
On the other hand, a situation in which, for instance,
are good pals in the European Union have been hitting
us with thirty nine percent tariffs on the stuff they
(03:07):
let in they won't in let in lobster and beef
and a couple other things at all. And now we're
jacking up our horrific tariff against Europe to twenty percent.
They're still at thirty nine percent on our goods. In
what sense is that starting a trade war? It's not.
It's reshaping the playing field in a way that makes
(03:30):
Wall Street and American corporations very nervous because they can't plan.
So they're yelling and saying this is a terrible mistake
because it will cost them. They are sincere, but they're
not sincere about all of it. If I would love
to see the five or so points of view on
(03:52):
this staunchly in favor of it, somewhat in favor of it,
kind of neutral, blah blah blah, all fed sodium pentathol
or a couple good stiff drinks make them honest about
why they're objecting in the way they're objecting.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Should I be concerned that Bernie and Elizabeth Warren and
AOC are silent on this topic because this tends to
be a lefty thing over the years of wanting to
get into tariffs. Yeah, well, I mean politically, you know
your bedfellows. My bedfellows seem to be Bernie Sanders and
Elizabeth Warren.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah. Yeah, It's funny. Conservatism is evolving, and it's not
just toward quote unquote populism. I read a great, great
couple of sentences a while ago. I wish I'd had
a tattooed on my arm that the reason, one of
the reasons for the rise of Trump was that working
America had gotten nothing but condescension and judgment, no doubt
(04:47):
and dependency from the Democrats, and nothing but false promises
from conservatives. All those steel workers and car workers and
you know, washing machine workers and blah blah blah, who
are placed out of jobs because you can make it
cheaper in South Africa or Malaysia or wherever they got
(05:07):
false promises. Now, the rising tide did lift all boats
some but some boats much much, much more than others.
So now Trump comes along and says, no, We're going
to serve the American people, not the giant American corporations.
How does that contrast, by the way, with the whole
million ass a billion ass. Trump is half of the
billion as right.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Well, yeah, I was gonna mention The New York Times
today one of their side headlines around this, and this
is a giant story, this whole tariff thing.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Mean, this is enormous importance. You can't exaggerate how important
this is.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
But one of their analysis pieces, Trump's tariff's our latest
sign of his second term appetite for risk. He is
not taking the soft, easy way to glide through four
years of being president and try to stay popular at all.
I mean, this is really laying it on the line.
Another angle of this whole tariff thing and restructuring the
global economy. I've heard this from a couple of places
(06:04):
which I've always been bothered by the concept of jobs
Americans won't do.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
That just rubs me the wrong way.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
For a variety of reasons, including the fact that I've
done a lot of really, really crappy jobs and I
never thought it was beneath me to do those jobs.
I you know, I structured my life in such a
way that I wouldn't have to keep doing those jobs.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Those jobs motivated everything I have become.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
But the idea that we're too good for those jobs
just seems like a recipe. It's just, you know, I'm
a big fan of the French Revolution. It's got a
bit of a Louis the sixteenth culture to it. You know,
we don't have to do certain things, and you just
keep getting poorer and poorer.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
And how big a fan of the French Revolution are you?
I mean, if I like descend, am I going to
get the you know, the old chopper rony whatever it takes? Okay?
Speaker 4 (06:52):
But then this angle that I've heard a number of
times recently as I've listened to a ton of podcasts
on this. There's a piece in the Financial Times today
by this guy, Michael Strain. We should not be wishing
for American workers to return to the days of sewing
tennis shoes together in factories. So like if you got
Nike to come to the United States or Converse came
back to the United States like they had been, that
(07:12):
that would be a horror because you'd have Americans sewing
shoes and factories.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
No, no, Americans should be in cubicles typing into computers
for that wages. That is what God has ordained. Yes,
that's that point of view, which I find very odd.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
And if Converse through through the restructuring of the world,
Converse decides they need to be back in the United States, well,
they're going to have to pay workers whatever they got
to pay them to get them to show up, which
is the way it is with the fast food industry
and your cubical job and everything else. I just I
don't understand the horror there. And again getting back to
the reciprocal terrif idea. As you look at the chart,
(07:48):
and we'll post an easy link to find at armstrong
e geddy dot com if you want to look at
what the other countries around the world are charging us
in tariffs and what these new discounted reciprocal tariffs are
going to be on their goods.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
You'll see a that is very reasonable. And b that's
not the end point. What the end point is gonna be.
And it might be in like a week or two,
or it might be in a six months. There might
be in a year or two years. I don't know.
This is a a passing through point on the way
to the post post World War two trade uh norms.
(08:23):
In my opinion, here's what the Wall Street Journal said.
Their panties are like in a wad, then bronzed, encased
in amber, and coated with steel. It's the most wadded
panties in the history. End Well, it's the what do
you call It's a wedgie. It's the atomic wedgie. You
pull a clip over their head. Yes, forbidden by the
(08:44):
Geneva Convention. President Trump unveiled his new Liberation Day tariffs
on Wednesday, and they are another large step toward a
new old era of trade protectionism. Assuming the policy sticks,
and we hope it doesn't, the effort amounts to an
attempt to remake the US economy in the world trade
trading system. All details aren't clear as we write this,
but mister Trump's tariffs look reciprocal in name only. First,
(09:06):
he's hitting every nation in the world with a ten
percent baseline tariff to sell in the US market for
those he calls bad actors. He's adding up the tariff
rates on US goods plus an arbitrary estimate of the
cost of its currency manipulation and non tariff barriers. I
don't think it's entirely arbitrary. But he then takes the
total number and applies half that in tariffs on the
country's exports to the US. So if they charge us
(09:27):
forty nine percent, we charge them twenty four percent. That
doesn't seem that insane. Then they go into some of
the details not worth sharing because we've done it. He're
the main point new economic Oh, let's consider some of
the consequences already emerging in this new protectionist stage. And
again I question whether charging them half of what they
(09:49):
charge us is quote unquote protectionist. New economic risks and uncertainty.
The overall economic impact mister Trump's tariff barrage is unknowable,
not least because we don't know how countries will react.
Could be widespread retaliation, there won't be. I don't think
there will be. There will certainly be higher costs for
American consumers and businesses. Tariffs are taxes, and when you
(10:10):
tax something, you get less of it. Tariffs are taxes.
They are one hundred percent taxes. That is correct on imports,
so we will get fewer imports until the tariff rates
adjust again, and then we get more exports. Theoretically, car
prices will rise by thousands of dollars, including those made
(10:31):
in America. That's correct. Mister Trump is making deliberate decision
to transfer wealth from consumers to businesses and workers protected
from competition behind high tariff walls. Over All this, over time,
this will mean the gradual erosion of US competitiveness. It
will harm American exports. One long term US trade goals
(10:51):
to expand markets for American goods and services. Mister Trump's
unilateral tariffs blow up those arrangements and invite retaliation. In
what sense are they unilateral? I honestly, and if I'm
missing something significant, please drop us an email mail bag
(11:11):
at Armstrong in getty dot com. I would much rather
be corrected and eat crow than to be bellowing something
that is wrong on the air, So feel free mail
bag at Armstrong and getty dot com, or if you'd
prefer to text four one five, two nine five kftc
uh he makes the Wall Street Journal makes a couple
other broad points, and I'll just hit those very quickly
(11:32):
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(12:32):
Here are the other main points this and some of
this is persuasive. Like I said before, this is complicated stuff.
And there are some some harms absolutely that this will
cause that will be disruptive, at least in the short term.
A bigger Washington Swamp tariffs impose costs that businesses will
want to avoid. This. Thus this will be a windfall
(12:53):
for Beltwait lobbyists as companies can country seek exemptions from
this or that border tax. Trump says there will be
no tariff exemption, but watch that promise vanish as politicians,
including mister Trump, see exemptions as a way to leverage
campaign contributions from business. Liberation Day is by another yacht
day for the swamp woof, and it will be the
end of US economic leadership. The share of global GDP
(13:18):
has been stable at about twenty five percent for decades,
even as industries rise and fall. That era is now
ending as mister Trump adopts a more mercantile vision of
trade in US self interest. Don't bother you look it
up if you want. The result is likely to be
every nation for itself, as countries seek to carve up
global markets based not on market efficiency but for political advantage.
In the worst case, the world trading system could evolve
(13:40):
into a beggar thy neighbor policy as in the nineteen thirties.
And they say this will also be a major opportunity
for China. You know, I'm going to use that as
a measuring stick over the years.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
You're right, it's been We have been about a quarter
of the world's GDP for quite a while. Now, where
will we be five years from now, ten years from now?
An interesting way to look at it.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, we need to take a break, but there's more
to be said, and we will say it, and you
can take your input.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Yeah, you're your input at text line four one KFTC.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Corey Booker just delivered the longest speech in Senate history
at twenty five hours and five minutes.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
Check out the other historically long speeches that knocked off
the top of the list.
Speaker 6 (14:25):
Senator Strom Thurmond in nineteen fifty seven, your dad after
he found weed in your sock drawer. Your coworker telling
you about a dream they had last night. Adrian Brody
accepting the Oscar for Best Actor. Every group of bridesmaids
whose speech starts with for those of you who don't
know us, we're Becka's best friends from growing up. The
person over fifty when you asked them for directions, the
waiter reciting the specials when you already know you're just
getting the burger, and Joe Biden saying one sentence, Hey.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, that's a fucking good the list now he holds
the records are really good. Boy. That Corey Booker, idiotic stunt,
gotten zero attention, hilarious bride He's made for those who
don't know we've been best friends since here comes the
lost story.
Speaker 7 (15:05):
Boy.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
It's not for me, it's for them. It's their day. Sure,
so I'll just think about something else. Why I tell this?
Speaker 4 (15:13):
So let me run through a couple of things for
you in our limited time. In this segment, Kanye West
confirms split from his wife Bianca after his disturbing rants,
which Joe mentioned the other day if you haven't watched him,
he did an interview in.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
A full Ku Kus Klan outfit, but black instead of white.
The Pointy Hood and everything did the interviews through the mask,
so it was wrong and an interview guy had to
be thinking, dude, I get it, all right, you're outrageous.
Take off the mask. So this is audio.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
It sounds terrible anyway. So his wife is taken off.
He says he's tracking her on her on his app.
He's tracking her and she ran away. Okay, So there's
that Another New York Post got her chipped like a dog. Well,
you know you probably do. Maybe you do this, I
don't know, but you know, like you share your location
with youruse absolutely his sons whatever. Yeah, but i'd thought
(16:06):
she'd have turned dolf. Yeah, New York Post headline. Another
one dog breaks Guinness World record for a number of
tennis balls in mouth at once. M I didn't know
that was a record. The question is does a dog
know he was breaking a record? His dog has looks
to be like five tennis balls in his mouth the way.
That's a good boy, good boy, we've set a world record. Congratulations.
(16:28):
And I had another one I wanted to get on. Oh,
this high school baseball player whose name happens to be
Jack Bauer. If you're old enough to remember the TV
show twenty four, he wears the number twenty four on
his jersey because his name is Jack bar. I'm sure
his parents had to tell him about this because he
was born after that show was on. But he's a
high school kid and he throws one hundred and two
miles an hour. No and uh yeah, and he's like
(16:50):
everybody's paying attention to him.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Obviously. He had a game Tuesday.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
His fastball averaged between ninety seven and one oh one
in the Tuesday game. Now, as a high school player,
you gotta be thinking, can I just can me just
do they have a thing where I can just forfeit
my bat bat so I don't take one in the
head if he happens to.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Lose it, I would be at the far back outside
corner of the batter's box, covering myself up, saying, dude,
you're either going to throw three strikes or four balls first.
I'm either going to head to the bench or first base.
Go ahead.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
I'm not gonna be killed today. One other sport thing,
you know. So, I was at my son's volleyball game
last night. Real volleyball where you have howard eight people
on each side. That is so much more entertaining than
the two person beach volleyball. I don't care what anybody
says regular volleyball is really exciting.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
But they're not sexy babes wearing thongs, right, that's the thing.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
They aren't not bigini, So it'll never be an Olympic
sport that anybody pays the attention to.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
So we need to revisit the Ezra Kleine progressive view
of life that we touched on yesterday, and we've got
some great reaction to that via email more of talk,
including I've meant to throw in. Speaking for myself, there's
no question this is terrible for me in the short
term financially speaking. Oh yeah, Oh it's awful. So believe me.
I'm not touting this because I think it'll help me.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Armstrong and getty.
Speaker 7 (18:18):
You can see now that we are in a pre
civil war culture now, But I look at the politics
of it, of where people are in this country today
and the division and how they're holding fast and no
one's going to falter, no one's going to break or.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
A compromise, and it's bad. Hands up, hands up, don't shoot.
That's Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
I'm saying we're in a pre civil war culture.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
So I I hope he's wrong about that. I'll grow
my beard out. I don't I don't know what to
do alec.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
But we are quite polarized, and nobody's giving and I
don't know that I feel like it's improving any But
I've always been interested in the how, you know, people
grow up with a lefty view of the world, you
go up with a conservative view of the world, and
just they're so different and what causes that and all
(19:18):
that different sort of thing. But we were talking yesterday
about this interview I heard with Ezra Kline of The
New York Times in which he was asked to describe
the lefty point of view and to summarize it fairly succinctly,
And it made me scream out loud in my bedroom. Oh,
you've got to every beginning, because he got into the
whole Look, life is unfair, and people have different advantages.
(19:41):
Where you're born, how smart your parents were, how you know,
blah blah blah, the kind of school you went to
do So if you're successful, you didn't do that, you
didn't build that in the famous Obama thing. And so
the job of the government is to try to you know,
you can't get perfect outcomes, but the job of the
government is trying to level that out, right, I thought, Okay, yeah,
how so who's going to make those decisions?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
First of all? You, I guess yeah, And gosh, who's
going to end up really benefiting from the power to
make those decisions? Golly, I can't even guess.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
And always my thing, nobody ever throws in personal choices,
decisions you've made.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Throughout your life for how you ended up where you were.
It's just you were born in the right town and
your parents were this or that.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
My parents weren't rich, by the way, But whatever Evan
Jews have, nobody gives you any credit or discredit for
life choices.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Right, And we talked about how, as laid out so
beautifully by Thomas Sowell in his book A Conflict of Visions,
you got what he calls the constrained vision of mankind,
which is essentially more conservative. It relies heavily on the
belief that human nature is essentially unchanging and that man
is naturally inherently self interested, regardless of the best intentions.
(20:51):
And those with a constrained vision prefer these systematic processes
of the rule of law and the experience of tradition
compromises essential because they're no ideal solutions, only trade offs.
On the other hand, the unconstrained or progressive ezraclined point
of view, it relies heavily on the belief that human
nature is essentially good. Those with unconstrained visions distrust decentralized
(21:13):
processes like the free market and are impatient with large
institutions and systemic processes that constrain human action. They believe
there is an ideal solution to every problem and that
compromises never acceptable. Collateral damage is merely the price of
moving forward on the road to perfection, and the best part.
Saul often refers to them as the self anointed. Ultimately,
(21:36):
they believe that man is morally perfectible, and because of this,
they believe that there exists some people who are further
along the path of moral development and have overcome self
interest that's what Asraclined would tell you, and are immune
to the influence of power and therefore can act as
surrogate decision makers for the rest of us, which is
I can't decide whether to vomit or guffaw.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Yeah, yeah, that's hilarious that notion. So yeah, I'd buy
the view that even if I agree one hundred percent
that successful people didn't earn that. It's just you know, circumstances.
I don't believe at all that the government could have
a role in trying to fix that.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Situation right right now. If somebody is blind or different thing, yeah,
developmentally disabled, autistic, whatever, that's an entirely different question. So
we got a couple of interesting reactions via email mail
bag at Armstrong you getdy dot com. Is the email
addressed if you ever want to react to anything, keep
it short if you can. But Dan, who says he
(22:36):
signs off your backyard, California, get the hell out of
my backyard, Dan, You'll be shot all right. Wow. Anyway,
he's had mentioned earlier if you read one of my
emails in your life, this is the one I want
you to be aware. Okay, Ezra didn't say it out right,
but he's addressing your point about people's life decisions. When
he says life is unfair. Here's the scary, crazy point.
(22:57):
He's not saying out loud because it would make him
sound like a lunatic. He does not believe in free will.
Trust me. My brother and his girlfriend are liberal and
highly educated, and when having a friendly political debate with me,
they spat out Ezra's crazy worldview almost word for word.
And when I brought up your point that everyone makes
decisions in life greatly affects their outcomes, they defended their
position with this. There's a crazy, almost Marxist ideology going
(23:20):
around with progressives right now that we did not make
our own decisions, it was all predetermined or destined. I've
never heard this. This is I'm glad this is being
brought to my attention. I have heard mostly people of
a progressive bent, saying there is no free will. It's
an illusion because we are are genetic selves and it's
all okay, So what am I supposed to do with that? Well,
(23:40):
well exactly, Yeah, you've bottom lined it for me. So
I guess my genetics were be young, impulsive and not
a big fan of rules and make a series of
bad decisions from which I had learned and then started
to make much better decisions. But that was all predetermined,
I guess anyway. Oh ba ba bah. All they straight
(24:01):
up said to me, I get just got lucky, and
that every so called decision I made in my life
was predetermined. If you think about it for a little bit,
you'll realize how sick and horrible. This ideology is. Imagine,
they're able to convince more and more people that quote,
you don't need to feel guilty about your decisions, you
don't need to try to make good decisions because it
was always going to happen this way. Then maybe I
would shut down my business right now, because that's not
(24:23):
actually a decision. It was always going to be happening.
It always going to happen.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
I assume many of us have had this free will
discussion or heard it or whatever. But I mean, like today,
I'm either going to decide to stick to my diet
or I'm going to say, screw it, need a bunch
of donuts. And you're telling me that's predetermined. I'm not okay,
you have no say if your eyes open. Is this
sick philosophy spreads more and more amongst young people. I'm
(24:47):
thirty six, my brother's thirty eight, so we're not even
the young generation that it's susceptible to this crazy the ideology,
but it's spreading all right.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Then we got this from a frequent correspondent.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Obviously that's fantastic if you're on the Ezra Klein's of things,
because then that gives you the go ahead to have
the tremendous government and intervention to try to even things out.
Because nobody is responsible for their success or their lack
of success, the redistribution only makes sense.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
And while the Ezra clients of the world are exercising
the stunning, unimaginable power of making everything equal by manipulating everything,
they'll also carve off a certain percent for themselves. Happens
every single Timetris says, I.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
He's a richest person in Venezuela. You Goo Chevez's daughter.
H imagine that anyway I want.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Too, so JT and livermore right, say, Ezra's worldview about
progressives is total horse spit. He really cares about how
unequal different people's lives are. He should ask himself why
he doesn't give away all his money and wealth and
possessions that exceeded eighty three hundred and sixty dollars. The
median American net worth is one hundred and ninety two
thousand dollars. The median human net worth is eighty three
hundred dollars. I say, those bleeding heart liberals need to
(26:01):
first put their own money where their mouth is. Start
by example, you're in the upper half of people in
the world that have more than median value, and so
you should give all the rest to the un to
distribute to those who have less than you. It is
the exact same horse spit virtue signaling that rich liberals
are always spouting but failing to lead by example respect
to tax rates. Nothing is keeping Bill Gates or Warren
(26:22):
Buffett or Nancy pelosire Bernard Sanders from writing a big
fat check to the US Treasury to cover their proposed
wealth tax, or a big fat check equal to the
higher tax rate that they think is fair for somebody
of their wealth or income. But the next time I
hear about a wealthy liberal writing an extra check to
the US Treasury and support of their stated belief that
the wealthy should pay more in taxes, it will be
(26:43):
the first time. Yeah, hey, Isra do you fly first class?
I'm guessing you do.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
Why don't you fly coach and give that money to
that guy sitting out tried the airport begging for money.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
I mean you didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve it.
And finally, listening to as their speak, it sounded exactly
like the Marxists taking equity, talking equity and that equity
is just the latest iteration of something that's stuck to
the wall. They don't believe any of what they say.
It's just the latest method they can think to justify
their side. I would say that's true, JT. It brings
us back to a discussion Jack and I always have.
(27:16):
Are the people we're talking about, the activists who know
precisely what they're doing, or they're at least driving the train,
or are they the nice, dopey people who hear that
moral argument about No, Those people aren't like, don't make
bad decisions, or their culture doesn't reward learning or whatever.
They've just been unlucky and they think to be a
good person. I need to adhere to that point of view.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
I know smart people, really smart people smarter than me.
People that believe what you just said, actually believe it.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Uh, proving once again intelligence is not wisdom.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
It's hard for me to wrap my head around. And
then there's the whole cultural thing of if you believe
in decisions that will you believe you make decisions that
they aren't preordained the.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Way it affects culture.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
You know, I'm raising my kids, you raise your kid
I'm sure in a certain way, because you've looked at
the outcome of other families who did certain things, and
you want your kids to have a better outcome. So
you know, and I tell my kids all the time,
people that do this end up with this, People that
do this end up with this, And so you get
a better result from society when people are observing these decisions.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, in a hundred different ways, including much less crime,
for instance. Yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
Is this a new thing? I mean, I know it's
not entirely new, It's been around since the beginning of philosophy,
But is this a new thing among the American left
to talk about these are preordained decisions?
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I think it's a new version of that argument that
the really interesting thing that nobody ever talks about is
that if you had that point of view prior to
DR's presidency, you would die of starvation, right, going back
(29:05):
to the dawn of effing man. Sorry, folks, I'm adamant
about this stuff. It's only because the modern welfare state
that you can indulge yourself in. Think this crap, right,
it's only eighty years old. You know. The lefties they
love to talk about like our native peoples, the Native tribes.
They shared equally. They shared the game that they caught,
(29:26):
and the fish and the food and the labor they shared.
And because they were nomads, they didn't particularly accumulate material
goods either, which is probably good. But anyway, what they
always leave out is that if you didn't contribute equally,
you were killed or left to starve.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Yeah, the idea that you could decide, you know what,
I'm just gonna drink firewater and sit under this shade
tree all day long because that's all predetermined.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
I'm just less lucky than you, chief, and they'll share
equally with you. As hilarious. It's absolutely laughable. The crazy
ass ideas that people grasp. To quote Thomas Soul again,
there's some ideas so idiotic only an intellectual could have them.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
I had this same belief when I was poor, by
the way, I really did.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Oh yeah, yeah. I remember hearing about the progressive income
tax rates in high school as a kid wearing hand
me down clothes. I thought, everybody pays ten percent, so
of course people will make more money, pay more. That's
what a percentage is. But no, my teacher explained to me, no, no, no, no,
no no. The quote unquote wealthy, the rich whatever, they
(30:37):
pay a much higher percentage, And sitting there in my
handme down clothes, I thought that's wrong. Well, so that
ain't going away.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
But yeah, the whole idea of if you're successful, you
didn't you don't get any credit for that is just
a good way to destroy society.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Yeah. Wow, that's horrifying.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
You can comment on that line four one, five two
nine five Kftcara, are you terrified?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Ied? Is it terrifying?
Speaker 4 (31:11):
We've got some uh tariff uh of a way to
look at the whole thing in just a second. It's
the no good, horrible terrifule day. More on that to
come stay with us.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Plus, one of our favorite clips of twenty twenty four
has at long last been turned into a most song,
a remix of some sorts so well we needed. It's
ridiculous but kind of funny, So stay with us for that.
Just to follow up to our previous discussion that I
swear I will shut up about all this and if
you didn't hear it, grab the podcast Armstrong Getdy on demand.
We were talking about the progressive worldview and how you
(31:43):
didn't build that and it's all luck and blah, blah blah,
the other unholy side of that coin. During the break,
we were talking about a horrific shooting in a pharmacy
or a disgruntled guy killed some poor pharmacy worker who's
just there to make a living job. They probably didn't love,
as Jack said, and they might hate big farm as
much as you. Exactly. That guy believed his crappy life
(32:09):
was not his fault, right, and that he was a
victim of people and forces that control him. That is
the other side of that philosophy. You want to know
why there are school shooters now and there never were before,
including when every kid had a rifle in his gun
rack in his pickup truck at school in the country.
At least, it's because of that change in the culture.
(32:32):
There might not be a more corrosive and horrifying philosophy
on earth than You're not responsible for you.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Yeah, it should be considered child abuse to teach your
kid that failure is not your fault.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
End of rant. Oh, that is troubling anyway.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
So it is the whole tariff thing today. This is
worth talking about a lot because it's a huge, huge
deal for the whole planet and how it works out.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
We don't know. Nobody knows.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
Trump has been He's had a theory on this his
whole life, and we'll see how it turns out.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Anyway.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
Here's Howard Lutnik, who's one of Trump's big financial advisors,
being interviewed about it today.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
If the market here in the US opens at nine
am and things head south, is there a.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Red line for you pulling back and saying, Okay, hold on,
we're going to rethink things. No, you know, I mean,
come on the markets.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
When Donald Trump was the president last time, he put
on tariffs, and if you go back and look at
that news, everybody said, oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
And the stock market, as you heard him say yesterday,
up eighty eight percent during his presidency. So what you've
got to realize is sure, there's going to be some
short term movement, but this is a reordering of global trade.
(33:41):
It's time for America to manufacture again. And I think
these changes in the stock market while their initial long term,
you've got to assume a medium term and employment based,
you're going to see America thrive. Interest rates are going
to come down, as we said, and America is going
to thrive. And that's what Donald Trump is about is
(34:04):
about employing Americans, building in America and having Americans be
the winners.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Yeah, that's why I started the show with.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
In my opinion, any analysis of this that's going to
lean on what the stock market did today come on well.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Especially because the stock market is rife with speculation. It's
like the NFT craze. Nobody wanted a dumb ap yacht
society or whatever it was NFT. It was pure speculation,
and a lot of the stock market is too. Jd Vance.
I don't think we have time or do we have time? Yeah,
(34:40):
play fifty seven for us, Michael.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
What I'd ask folks to appreciate here is that we
are not going to fix things overnight. Joe Biden left us.
This is not an exaggeration, lawrence. With the largest peacetime
debt and deficit in the history of the United States
of America, with sky high interest rates, you don't fix.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
That stuff overnight. We know people are struggling.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
We're fighting as quickly as we can to fix what
was left to us, but it's not going to happen immediately.
But we really do believe that if we pursue the
right deregulation we pursue those energy cost reducing policies. Yes,
people are going to see it in their pocketbook. They're
also going to benefit from the fact that foreign countries
can't take advantage of us anymore. That means their jobs
(35:21):
are going to be more secure.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
If you're just tuning in, we've made the point a
couple of times and we'll dive back into it next hour.
That there hasn't been anything close to free trade going on.
The free traders are saying this is a trade war
Trump has started. The other countries around the world have
to either a greater or lesser extent, been tariffing the
hell out of American goods for the longest time. And
(35:44):
you know what, in the wake of World War Two,
when we stood astride the economy of the globe like
a colossus, I get that they needed help. We needed
to sell our stuff to someone. All right, exactly seventy
years down the line, now it is time for a
fundamental restructuring global trade. Will it work and how much
will it hurt? I don't know. I wish I did.
If I did, I would tell you we're not going
(36:05):
to find out in the first couple hours. No, there's
a new book out about the end of the Biden
presidency by a respected reporter, did an interview today. We
got some of the highlights on that coming up. Boy
Barack Obama did not think much of Kamala Harris as
one of the headlines
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Armstrong and Getty
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty arm Strong
and Getty and he.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Armstrong and Yetty.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
I think it's useful for all of us to step
back and ask us, ask ourselves, what has the globalist
economy gotten the United States of America? And the answer is, fundamentally,
it's based on two principles. Incurring a huge amount of
debt to buy things that other countries make for us,
and to make it a little bit more crystal clear,
we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things
(00:45):
those Chinese peasants manufacturer. That is not a recipe for
economic prosperity. It's not a recipe for low prices, and
it's not a recipe for good jobs in the United
States of America.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Jadie Vance is very, very smart, smart enough to know
when being full of crap will sell. There's a fair
amount of what he says that's full of crap. Trade
imbalances don't really matter with individual countries. It just doesn't matter.
We're a gigantic market. We're always going to be buy
(01:18):
more than we sell to these little countries. It's okay
to have a trade inbalance, but how about the tariff imbalance?
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Though I still somebody explained to me why it's okay
for Europe to tariff our stuff forty but if we
come close to terriffic back it's awful right that I'm
not saying it's not. I just don't understand why that
is the question.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Boiled down brilliantly by my partner, mister Armstrong. It helps
being dumb, well, it helps to get to the core
of the issue, as opposed to some of the more
fancy arguments that you're hearing. The Wall Street types will
make much, much, much, much more money over the next
(02:02):
two to eight years with the status quo than if
we change the status quo substantially and rejigger all the
tariffs and get into a quote unquote trade war, which
I don't actually think is going to happen, well two
to eight years.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
As we all know, most of your Wall Street companies
are worried about this quarter.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Correct, Yeah, I'm thinking about two years. What is best
for the American worker the American economy in the short,
medium and long term is often very, very different than
what's great for Wall Street now. I'm not anti Wall Street.
I got a who bunch of money invested, trust me.
I'm counting on someday retiring from this dead end or
racket anyway. So you've got so many competing interests here
(02:45):
which often intersect. If you have a four to oh
one K, you don't want to see the market go
to hell, catch fire and sing into the ocean, of course. Not.
On the other hand, a situation in which, for instance,
are good pals in the European Union have been hitting
us with thirty nine percent tariffs on the stuff they
(03:07):
let in they won't in let in lobster and beef
and a couple other things at all. And now we're
jacking up our horrific tariff against Europe to twenty percent.
They're still at thirty nine percent on our goods. In
what sense is that starting a trade war? It's not.
It's reshaping the playing field in a way that makes
(03:30):
Wall Street and American corporations very nervous because they can't plan.
So they're yelling and saying this is a terrible mistake
because it will cost them. They are sincere, but they're
not sincere about all of it. If I would love
to see the five or so points of view on
(03:52):
this staunchly in favor of it, somewhat in favor of it,
kind of neutral, blah blah blah, all fed sodium pentathol
or a couple good stiff drinks make them honest about
why they're objecting in the way they're objecting.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Should I be concerned that Bernie and Elizabeth Warren and
AOC are silent on this topic because this tends to
be a lefty thing over the years of wanting to
get into tariffs. Yeah, well, I mean politically, you know
your bedfellows. My bedfellows seem to be Bernie Sanders and
Elizabeth Warren.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah. Yeah, It's funny. Conservatism is evolving, and it's not
just toward quote unquote populism. I read a great, great
couple of sentences a while ago. I wish I'd had
a tattooed on my arm that the reason, one of
the reasons for the rise of Trump was that working
America had gotten nothing but condescension and judgment, no doubt
(04:47):
and dependency from the Democrats, and nothing but false promises
from conservatives. All those steel workers and car workers and
you know, washing machine workers and blah blah blah, who
are placed out of jobs because you can make it
cheaper in South Africa or Malaysia or wherever they got
(05:07):
false promises. Now, the rising tide did lift all boats
some but some boats much much, much more than others.
So now Trump comes along and says, no, We're going
to serve the American people, not the giant American corporations.
How does that contrast, by the way, with the whole
million ass a billion ass. Trump is half of the
billion as right.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Well, yeah, I was gonna mention The New York Times
today one of their side headlines around this, and this
is a giant story, this whole tariff thing.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Mean, this is enormous importance. You can't exaggerate how important
this is.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
But one of their analysis pieces, Trump's tariff's our latest
sign of his second term appetite for risk. He is
not taking the soft, easy way to glide through four
years of being president and try to stay popular at all.
I mean, this is really laying it on the line.
Another angle of this whole tariff thing and restructuring the
global economy. I've heard this from a couple of places
(06:04):
which I've always been bothered by the concept of jobs
Americans won't do.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
That just rubs me the wrong way.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
For a variety of reasons, including the fact that I've
done a lot of really, really crappy jobs and I
never thought it was beneath me to do those jobs.
I you know, I structured my life in such a
way that I wouldn't have to keep doing those jobs.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Those jobs motivated everything I have become.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
But the idea that we're too good for those jobs
just seems like a recipe. It's just, you know, I'm
a big fan of the French Revolution. It's got a
bit of a Louis the sixteenth culture to it. You know,
we don't have to do certain things, and you just
keep getting poorer and poorer.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
And how big a fan of the French Revolution are you?
I mean, if I like descend, am I going to
get the you know, the old chopper rony whatever it takes? Okay?
Speaker 4 (06:52):
But then this angle that I've heard a number of
times recently as I've listened to a ton of podcasts
on this. There's a piece in the Financial Times today
by this guy, Michael Strain. We should not be wishing
for American workers to return to the days of sewing
tennis shoes together in factories. So like if you got
Nike to come to the United States or Converse came
back to the United States like they had been, that
(07:12):
that would be a horror because you'd have Americans sewing
shoes and factories.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
No, no, Americans should be in cubicles typing into computers
for that wages. That is what God has ordained. Yes,
that's that point of view, which I find very odd.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
And if Converse through through the restructuring of the world,
Converse decides they need to be back in the United States, well,
they're going to have to pay workers whatever they got
to pay them to get them to show up, which
is the way it is with the fast food industry
and your cubical job and everything else. I just I
don't understand the horror there. And again getting back to
the reciprocal terrif idea. As you look at the chart,
(07:48):
and we'll post an easy link to find at armstrong
e geddy dot com if you want to look at
what the other countries around the world are charging us
in tariffs and what these new discounted reciprocal tariffs are
going to be on their goods.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
You'll see a that is very reasonable. And b that's
not the end point. What the end point is gonna be.
And it might be in like a week or two,
or it might be in a six months. There might
be in a year or two years. I don't know.
This is a a passing through point on the way
to the post post World War two trade uh norms.
(08:23):
In my opinion, here's what the Wall Street Journal said.
Their panties are like in a wad, then bronzed, encased
in amber, and coated with steel. It's the most wadded
panties in the history. End Well, it's the what do
you call It's a wedgie. It's the atomic wedgie. You
pull a clip over their head. Yes, forbidden by the
(08:44):
Geneva Convention. President Trump unveiled his new Liberation Day tariffs
on Wednesday, and they are another large step toward a
new old era of trade protectionism. Assuming the policy sticks,
and we hope it doesn't, the effort amounts to an
attempt to remake the US economy in the world trade
trading system. All details aren't clear as we write this,
but mister Trump's tariffs look reciprocal in name only. First,
(09:06):
he's hitting every nation in the world with a ten
percent baseline tariff to sell in the US market for
those he calls bad actors. He's adding up the tariff
rates on US goods plus an arbitrary estimate of the
cost of its currency manipulation and non tariff barriers. I
don't think it's entirely arbitrary. But he then takes the
total number and applies half that in tariffs on the
country's exports to the US. So if they charge us
(09:27):
forty nine percent, we charge them twenty four percent. That
doesn't seem that insane. Then they go into some of
the details not worth sharing because we've done it. He're
the main point new economic Oh, let's consider some of
the consequences already emerging in this new protectionist stage. And
again I question whether charging them half of what they
(09:49):
charge us is quote unquote protectionist. New economic risks and uncertainty.
The overall economic impact mister Trump's tariff barrage is unknowable,
not least because we don't know how countries will react.
Could be widespread retaliation, there won't be. I don't think
there will be. There will certainly be higher costs for
American consumers and businesses. Tariffs are taxes, and when you
(10:10):
tax something, you get less of it. Tariffs are taxes.
They are one hundred percent taxes. That is correct on imports,
so we will get fewer imports until the tariff rates
adjust again, and then we get more exports. Theoretically, car
prices will rise by thousands of dollars, including those made
(10:31):
in America. That's correct. Mister Trump is making deliberate decision
to transfer wealth from consumers to businesses and workers protected
from competition behind high tariff walls. Over All this, over time,
this will mean the gradual erosion of US competitiveness. It
will harm American exports. One long term US trade goals
(10:51):
to expand markets for American goods and services. Mister Trump's
unilateral tariffs blow up those arrangements and invite retaliation. In
what sense are they unilateral? I honestly, and if I'm
missing something significant, please drop us an email mail bag
(11:11):
at Armstrong in getty dot com. I would much rather
be corrected and eat crow than to be bellowing something
that is wrong on the air, So feel free mail
bag at Armstrong and getty dot com, or if you'd
prefer to text four one five, two nine five kftc
uh he makes the Wall Street Journal makes a couple
other broad points, and I'll just hit those very quickly
(11:32):
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It's super easy. Just picked more or less on at
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(12:32):
Here are the other main points this and some of
this is persuasive. Like I said before, this is complicated stuff.
And there are some some harms absolutely that this will
cause that will be disruptive, at least in the short term.
A bigger Washington Swamp tariffs impose costs that businesses will
want to avoid. This. Thus this will be a windfall
(12:53):
for Beltwait lobbyists as companies can country seek exemptions from
this or that border tax. Trump says there will be
no tariff exemption, but watch that promise vanish as politicians,
including mister Trump, see exemptions as a way to leverage
campaign contributions from business. Liberation Day is by another yacht
day for the swamp woof, and it will be the
end of US economic leadership. The share of global GDP
(13:18):
has been stable at about twenty five percent for decades,
even as industries rise and fall. That era is now
ending as mister Trump adopts a more mercantile vision of
trade in US self interest. Don't bother you look it
up if you want. The result is likely to be
every nation for itself, as countries seek to carve up
global markets based not on market efficiency but for political advantage.
In the worst case, the world trading system could evolve
(13:40):
into a beggar thy neighbor policy as in the nineteen thirties.
And they say this will also be a major opportunity
for China. You know, I'm going to use that as
a measuring stick over the years.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
You're right, it's been We have been about a quarter
of the world's GDP for quite a while. Now, where
will we be five years from now, ten years from now?
An interesting way to look at it.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, we need to take a break, but there's more
to be said, and we will say it, and you
can take your input.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Yeah, you're your input at text line four one KFTC.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Corey Booker just delivered the longest speech in Senate history
at twenty five hours and five minutes.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
Check out the other historically long speeches that knocked off
the top of the list.
Speaker 6 (14:25):
Senator Strom Thurmond in nineteen fifty seven, your dad after
he found weed in your sock drawer. Your coworker telling
you about a dream they had last night. Adrian Brody
accepting the Oscar for Best Actor. Every group of bridesmaids
whose speech starts with for those of you who don't
know us, we're Becka's best friends from growing up. The
person over fifty when you asked them for directions, the
waiter reciting the specials when you already know you're just
getting the burger, and Joe Biden saying one sentence, Hey.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, that's a fucking good the list now he holds
the records are really good. Boy. That Corey Booker, idiotic stunt,
gotten zero attention, hilarious bride He's made for those who
don't know we've been best friends since here comes the
lost story.
Speaker 7 (15:05):
Boy.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
It's not for me, it's for them. It's their day. Sure,
so I'll just think about something else. Why I tell this?
Speaker 4 (15:13):
So let me run through a couple of things for
you in our limited time. In this segment, Kanye West
confirms split from his wife Bianca after his disturbing rants,
which Joe mentioned the other day if you haven't watched him,
he did an interview in.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
A full Ku Kus Klan outfit, but black instead of white.
The Pointy Hood and everything did the interviews through the mask,
so it was wrong and an interview guy had to
be thinking, dude, I get it, all right, you're outrageous.
Take off the mask. So this is audio.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
It sounds terrible anyway. So his wife is taken off.
He says he's tracking her on her on his app.
He's tracking her and she ran away. Okay, So there's
that Another New York Post got her chipped like a dog. Well,
you know you probably do. Maybe you do this, I
don't know, but you know, like you share your location
with youruse absolutely his sons whatever. Yeah, but i'd thought
(16:06):
she'd have turned dolf. Yeah, New York Post headline. Another
one dog breaks Guinness World record for a number of
tennis balls in mouth at once. M I didn't know
that was a record. The question is does a dog
know he was breaking a record? His dog has looks
to be like five tennis balls in his mouth the way.
That's a good boy, good boy, we've set a world record. Congratulations.
(16:28):
And I had another one I wanted to get on. Oh,
this high school baseball player whose name happens to be
Jack Bauer. If you're old enough to remember the TV
show twenty four, he wears the number twenty four on
his jersey because his name is Jack bar. I'm sure
his parents had to tell him about this because he
was born after that show was on. But he's a
high school kid and he throws one hundred and two
miles an hour. No and uh yeah, and he's like
(16:50):
everybody's paying attention to him.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Obviously. He had a game Tuesday.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
His fastball averaged between ninety seven and one oh one
in the Tuesday game. Now, as a high school player,
you gotta be thinking, can I just can me just
do they have a thing where I can just forfeit
my bat bat so I don't take one in the
head if he happens to.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Lose it, I would be at the far back outside
corner of the batter's box, covering myself up, saying, dude,
you're either going to throw three strikes or four balls first.
I'm either going to head to the bench or first base.
Go ahead.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
I'm not gonna be killed today. One other sport thing,
you know. So, I was at my son's volleyball game
last night. Real volleyball where you have howard eight people
on each side. That is so much more entertaining than
the two person beach volleyball. I don't care what anybody
says regular volleyball is really exciting.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
But they're not sexy babes wearing thongs, right, that's the thing.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
They aren't not bigini, So it'll never be an Olympic
sport that anybody pays the attention to.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
So we need to revisit the Ezra Kleine progressive view
of life that we touched on yesterday, and we've got
some great reaction to that via email more of talk,
including I've meant to throw in. Speaking for myself, there's
no question this is terrible for me in the short
term financially speaking. Oh yeah, Oh it's awful. So believe me.
I'm not touting this because I think it'll help me.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Armstrong and getty.
Speaker 7 (18:18):
You can see now that we are in a pre
civil war culture now, But I look at the politics
of it, of where people are in this country today
and the division and how they're holding fast and no
one's going to falter, no one's going to break or.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
A compromise, and it's bad. Hands up, hands up, don't shoot.
That's Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
I'm saying we're in a pre civil war culture.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
So I I hope he's wrong about that. I'll grow
my beard out. I don't I don't know what to
do alec.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
But we are quite polarized, and nobody's giving and I
don't know that I feel like it's improving any But
I've always been interested in the how, you know, people
grow up with a lefty view of the world, you
go up with a conservative view of the world, and
just they're so different and what causes that and all
(19:18):
that different sort of thing. But we were talking yesterday
about this interview I heard with Ezra Kline of The
New York Times in which he was asked to describe
the lefty point of view and to summarize it fairly succinctly,
And it made me scream out loud in my bedroom. Oh,
you've got to every beginning, because he got into the
whole Look, life is unfair, and people have different advantages.
(19:41):
Where you're born, how smart your parents were, how you know,
blah blah blah, the kind of school you went to
do So if you're successful, you didn't do that, you
didn't build that in the famous Obama thing. And so
the job of the government is to try to you know,
you can't get perfect outcomes, but the job of the
government is trying to level that out, right, I thought, Okay, yeah,
how so who's going to make those decisions?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
First of all? You, I guess yeah, And gosh, who's
going to end up really benefiting from the power to
make those decisions? Golly, I can't even guess.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
And always my thing, nobody ever throws in personal choices,
decisions you've made.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Throughout your life for how you ended up where you were.
It's just you were born in the right town and
your parents were this or that.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
My parents weren't rich, by the way, But whatever Evan
Jews have, nobody gives you any credit or discredit for
life choices.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Right, And we talked about how, as laid out so
beautifully by Thomas Sowell in his book A Conflict of Visions,
you got what he calls the constrained vision of mankind,
which is essentially more conservative. It relies heavily on the
belief that human nature is essentially unchanging and that man
is naturally inherently self interested, regardless of the best intentions.
(20:51):
And those with a constrained vision prefer these systematic processes
of the rule of law and the experience of tradition
compromises essential because they're no ideal solutions, only trade offs.
On the other hand, the unconstrained or progressive ezraclined point
of view, it relies heavily on the belief that human
nature is essentially good. Those with unconstrained visions distrust decentralized
(21:13):
processes like the free market and are impatient with large
institutions and systemic processes that constrain human action. They believe
there is an ideal solution to every problem and that
compromises never acceptable. Collateral damage is merely the price of
moving forward on the road to perfection, and the best part.
Saul often refers to them as the self anointed. Ultimately,
(21:36):
they believe that man is morally perfectible, and because of this,
they believe that there exists some people who are further
along the path of moral development and have overcome self
interest that's what Asraclined would tell you, and are immune
to the influence of power and therefore can act as
surrogate decision makers for the rest of us, which is
I can't decide whether to vomit or guffaw.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Yeah, yeah, that's hilarious that notion. So yeah, I'd buy
the view that even if I agree one hundred percent
that successful people didn't earn that. It's just you know, circumstances.
I don't believe at all that the government could have
a role in trying to fix that.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Situation right right now. If somebody is blind or different thing, yeah,
developmentally disabled, autistic, whatever, that's an entirely different question. So
we got a couple of interesting reactions via email mail
bag at Armstrong you getdy dot com. Is the email
addressed if you ever want to react to anything, keep
it short if you can. But Dan, who says he
(22:36):
signs off your backyard, California, get the hell out of
my backyard, Dan, You'll be shot all right. Wow. Anyway,
he's had mentioned earlier if you read one of my
emails in your life, this is the one I want
you to be aware. Okay, Ezra didn't say it out right,
but he's addressing your point about people's life decisions. When
he says life is unfair. Here's the scary, crazy point.
(22:57):
He's not saying out loud because it would make him
sound like a lunatic. He does not believe in free will.
Trust me. My brother and his girlfriend are liberal and
highly educated, and when having a friendly political debate with me,
they spat out Ezra's crazy worldview almost word for word.
And when I brought up your point that everyone makes
decisions in life greatly affects their outcomes, they defended their
position with this. There's a crazy, almost Marxist ideology going
(23:20):
around with progressives right now that we did not make
our own decisions, it was all predetermined or destined. I've
never heard this. This is I'm glad this is being
brought to my attention. I have heard mostly people of
a progressive bent, saying there is no free will. It's
an illusion because we are are genetic selves and it's
all okay, So what am I supposed to do with that? Well,
(23:40):
well exactly, Yeah, you've bottom lined it for me. So
I guess my genetics were be young, impulsive and not
a big fan of rules and make a series of
bad decisions from which I had learned and then started
to make much better decisions. But that was all predetermined,
I guess anyway. Oh ba ba bah. All they straight
(24:01):
up said to me, I get just got lucky, and
that every so called decision I made in my life
was predetermined. If you think about it for a little bit,
you'll realize how sick and horrible. This ideology is. Imagine,
they're able to convince more and more people that quote,
you don't need to feel guilty about your decisions, you
don't need to try to make good decisions because it
was always going to happen this way. Then maybe I
would shut down my business right now, because that's not
(24:23):
actually a decision. It was always going to be happening.
It always going to happen.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
I assume many of us have had this free will
discussion or heard it or whatever. But I mean, like today,
I'm either going to decide to stick to my diet
or I'm going to say, screw it, need a bunch
of donuts. And you're telling me that's predetermined. I'm not okay,
you have no say if your eyes open. Is this
sick philosophy spreads more and more amongst young people. I'm
(24:47):
thirty six, my brother's thirty eight, so we're not even
the young generation that it's susceptible to this crazy the ideology,
but it's spreading all right.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Then we got this from a frequent correspondent.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Obviously that's fantastic if you're on the Ezra Klein's of things,
because then that gives you the go ahead to have
the tremendous government and intervention to try to even things out.
Because nobody is responsible for their success or their lack
of success, the redistribution only makes sense.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
And while the Ezra clients of the world are exercising
the stunning, unimaginable power of making everything equal by manipulating everything,
they'll also carve off a certain percent for themselves. Happens
every single Timetris says, I.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
He's a richest person in Venezuela. You Goo Chevez's daughter.
H imagine that anyway I want.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Too, so JT and livermore right, say, Ezra's worldview about
progressives is total horse spit. He really cares about how
unequal different people's lives are. He should ask himself why
he doesn't give away all his money and wealth and
possessions that exceeded eighty three hundred and sixty dollars. The
median American net worth is one hundred and ninety two
thousand dollars. The median human net worth is eighty three
hundred dollars. I say, those bleeding heart liberals need to
(26:01):
first put their own money where their mouth is. Start
by example, you're in the upper half of people in
the world that have more than median value, and so
you should give all the rest to the un to
distribute to those who have less than you. It is
the exact same horse spit virtue signaling that rich liberals
are always spouting but failing to lead by example respect
to tax rates. Nothing is keeping Bill Gates or Warren
(26:22):
Buffett or Nancy pelosire Bernard Sanders from writing a big
fat check to the US Treasury to cover their proposed
wealth tax, or a big fat check equal to the
higher tax rate that they think is fair for somebody
of their wealth or income. But the next time I
hear about a wealthy liberal writing an extra check to
the US Treasury and support of their stated belief that
the wealthy should pay more in taxes, it will be
(26:43):
the first time. Yeah, hey, Isra do you fly first class?
I'm guessing you do.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
Why don't you fly coach and give that money to
that guy sitting out tried the airport begging for money.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
I mean you didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve it.
And finally, listening to as their speak, it sounded exactly
like the Marxists taking equity, talking equity and that equity
is just the latest iteration of something that's stuck to
the wall. They don't believe any of what they say.
It's just the latest method they can think to justify
their side. I would say that's true, JT. It brings
us back to a discussion Jack and I always have.
(27:16):
Are the people we're talking about, the activists who know
precisely what they're doing, or they're at least driving the train,
or are they the nice, dopey people who hear that
moral argument about No, Those people aren't like, don't make
bad decisions, or their culture doesn't reward learning or whatever.
They've just been unlucky and they think to be a
good person. I need to adhere to that point of view.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
I know smart people, really smart people smarter than me.
People that believe what you just said, actually believe it.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Uh, proving once again intelligence is not wisdom.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
It's hard for me to wrap my head around. And
then there's the whole cultural thing of if you believe
in decisions that will you believe you make decisions that
they aren't preordained the.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Way it affects culture.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
You know, I'm raising my kids, you raise your kid
I'm sure in a certain way, because you've looked at
the outcome of other families who did certain things, and
you want your kids to have a better outcome. So
you know, and I tell my kids all the time,
people that do this end up with this, People that
do this end up with this, And so you get
a better result from society when people are observing these decisions.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, in a hundred different ways, including much less crime,
for instance. Yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
Is this a new thing? I mean, I know it's
not entirely new, It's been around since the beginning of philosophy,
But is this a new thing among the American left
to talk about these are preordained decisions?
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I think it's a new version of that argument that
the really interesting thing that nobody ever talks about is
that if you had that point of view prior to
DR's presidency, you would die of starvation, right, going back
(29:05):
to the dawn of effing man. Sorry, folks, I'm adamant
about this stuff. It's only because the modern welfare state
that you can indulge yourself in. Think this crap, right,
it's only eighty years old. You know. The lefties they
love to talk about like our native peoples, the Native tribes.
They shared equally. They shared the game that they caught,
(29:26):
and the fish and the food and the labor they shared.
And because they were nomads, they didn't particularly accumulate material
goods either, which is probably good. But anyway, what they
always leave out is that if you didn't contribute equally,
you were killed or left to starve.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Yeah, the idea that you could decide, you know what,
I'm just gonna drink firewater and sit under this shade
tree all day long because that's all predetermined.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
I'm just less lucky than you, chief, and they'll share
equally with you. As hilarious. It's absolutely laughable. The crazy
ass ideas that people grasp. To quote Thomas Soul again,
there's some ideas so idiotic only an intellectual could have them.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
I had this same belief when I was poor, by
the way, I really did.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Oh yeah, yeah. I remember hearing about the progressive income
tax rates in high school as a kid wearing hand
me down clothes. I thought, everybody pays ten percent, so
of course people will make more money, pay more. That's
what a percentage is. But no, my teacher explained to me, no, no, no, no,
no no. The quote unquote wealthy, the rich whatever, they
(30:37):
pay a much higher percentage, And sitting there in my
handme down clothes, I thought that's wrong. Well, so that
ain't going away.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
But yeah, the whole idea of if you're successful, you
didn't you don't get any credit for that is just
a good way to destroy society.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Yeah. Wow, that's horrifying.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
You can comment on that line four one, five two
nine five Kftcara, are you terrified?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Ied? Is it terrifying?
Speaker 4 (31:11):
We've got some uh tariff uh of a way to
look at the whole thing in just a second. It's
the no good, horrible terrifule day. More on that to
come stay with us.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Plus, one of our favorite clips of twenty twenty four
has at long last been turned into a most song,
a remix of some sorts so well we needed. It's
ridiculous but kind of funny, So stay with us for that.
Just to follow up to our previous discussion that I
swear I will shut up about all this and if
you didn't hear it, grab the podcast Armstrong Getdy on demand.
We were talking about the progressive worldview and how you
(31:43):
didn't build that and it's all luck and blah, blah blah,
the other unholy side of that coin. During the break,
we were talking about a horrific shooting in a pharmacy
or a disgruntled guy killed some poor pharmacy worker who's
just there to make a living job. They probably didn't love,
as Jack said, and they might hate big farm as
much as you. Exactly. That guy believed his crappy life
(32:09):
was not his fault, right, and that he was a
victim of people and forces that control him. That is
the other side of that philosophy. You want to know
why there are school shooters now and there never were before,
including when every kid had a rifle in his gun
rack in his pickup truck at school in the country.
At least, it's because of that change in the culture.
(32:32):
There might not be a more corrosive and horrifying philosophy
on earth than You're not responsible for you.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Yeah, it should be considered child abuse to teach your
kid that failure is not your fault.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
End of rant. Oh, that is troubling anyway.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
So it is the whole tariff thing today. This is
worth talking about a lot because it's a huge, huge
deal for the whole planet and how it works out.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
We don't know. Nobody knows.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
Trump has been He's had a theory on this his
whole life, and we'll see how it turns out.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Anyway.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
Here's Howard Lutnik, who's one of Trump's big financial advisors,
being interviewed about it today.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
If the market here in the US opens at nine
am and things head south, is there a.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Red line for you pulling back and saying, Okay, hold on,
we're going to rethink things. No, you know, I mean,
come on the markets.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
When Donald Trump was the president last time, he put
on tariffs, and if you go back and look at
that news, everybody said, oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
And the stock market, as you heard him say yesterday,
up eighty eight percent during his presidency. So what you've
got to realize is sure, there's going to be some
short term movement, but this is a reordering of global trade.
(33:41):
It's time for America to manufacture again. And I think
these changes in the stock market while their initial long term,
you've got to assume a medium term and employment based,
you're going to see America thrive. Interest rates are going
to come down, as we said, and America is going
to thrive. And that's what Donald Trump is about is
(34:04):
about employing Americans, building in America and having Americans be
the winners.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Yeah, that's why I started the show with.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
In my opinion, any analysis of this that's going to
lean on what the stock market did today come on well.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Especially because the stock market is rife with speculation. It's
like the NFT craze. Nobody wanted a dumb ap yacht
society or whatever it was NFT. It was pure speculation,
and a lot of the stock market is too. Jd Vance.
I don't think we have time or do we have time? Yeah,
(34:40):
play fifty seven for us, Michael.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
What I'd ask folks to appreciate here is that we
are not going to fix things overnight. Joe Biden left us.
This is not an exaggeration, lawrence. With the largest peacetime
debt and deficit in the history of the United States
of America, with sky high interest rates, you don't fix.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
That stuff overnight. We know people are struggling.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
We're fighting as quickly as we can to fix what
was left to us, but it's not going to happen immediately.
But we really do believe that if we pursue the
right deregulation we pursue those energy cost reducing policies. Yes,
people are going to see it in their pocketbook. They're
also going to benefit from the fact that foreign countries
can't take advantage of us anymore. That means their jobs
(35:21):
are going to be more secure.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
If you're just tuning in, we've made the point a
couple of times and we'll dive back into it next hour.
That there hasn't been anything close to free trade going on.
The free traders are saying this is a trade war
Trump has started. The other countries around the world have
to either a greater or lesser extent, been tariffing the
hell out of American goods for the longest time. And
(35:44):
you know what, in the wake of World War Two,
when we stood astride the economy of the globe like
a colossus, I get that they needed help. We needed
to sell our stuff to someone. All right, exactly seventy
years down the line, now it is time for a
fundamental restructuring global trade. Will it work and how much
will it hurt? I don't know. I wish I did.
If I did, I would tell you we're not going
(36:05):
to find out in the first couple hours. No, there's
a new book out about the end of the Biden
presidency by a respected reporter, did an interview today. We
got some of the highlights on that coming up. Boy
Barack Obama did not think much of Kamala Harris as
one of the headlines
Speaker 1 (36:26):
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