Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong, Joe Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Armstrong and Getty, and he.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Armstrong and Getty Strong. You have tuned in to a
real treasure. It's an arm Strong and Getty replay.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Well, let's think about the reality that you don't listen
to the entire twenty hours every week. So there's a
bunch of stuff even though it's not live, you've never
heard before.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I mean, let's be off and it's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
So kick back and enjoy and arms Strong and Getty replay.
We are the most pessimistic economically that we have ever been,
according to this Wall Street Journal Nork Pole that is out.
They found that the share of people who say they
have a good chance of improving their standard of living.
(00:58):
So that's the question, do you feel like you've got
a good chance of improving your standard of living? It
fell to twenty five percent. That's a record low dating
back to nineteen eighty seven. More than that is horrifying.
It is horrifying. More than three quarters said they lack
confidence that life for the next generation will be better
than their own.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
The Pole found, let me think about that question for
a a while. Do I think.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Do I think that life for my kids will be
better than mine? I don't know that I do, but
I wouldn't put it all around economics. Here's a question
of preliminary question before you ask that question. Is the
American assumption that every generation will be better off than
the previous, which began, you know, in the twentieth century
(01:47):
when America was, you know, just stood alone as an
economic superpower. Is that expectation realistic in the twenty first century,
I would argue it's not.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
No. I think it was a blip in time.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
An odd Yeah, How could you craft any system where
you can always expect your kids to do better than you? Well,
we could bomb Europe back to the Stone Age and
do the same dage, I guess, because that's what it took.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
The first time.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I should ask my plus head start because we're an optimistic,
freedom loving, entrepreneurial people, or at least I thought so
until this poll came out.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Back to the Poland just a second minute, and I'll
tell this story about visiting Iowa and my dad's side
of the family with my son. But we're talking to
my dad and we're at his older sister's house, who's
ninety four. She's still alive and as with it as
can be. And we all went out eating everything like that.
But they're talking about when they were kids and they
grew up with no electricity, no running water, going to
(02:49):
school in a horse drawn wagon. I mean, like it
was eighteen ten. But I doubt they ever even thought
about will my economic situation be better than my parents?
It's just what are we going to eat today? How
do I get warm? I think I don't know where
we came up with this standard. Well, right, and as
baselines go, I mean, it's pretty easy for the next
(03:13):
generation to do.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Better, really right anyway.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
So it's only twenty five percent of people who say
they have a good chance of improving their standard of living,
and seventy five percent lack confidence that life for the
next generation would be better than our own. Nearly seventy
percent of people said they believe the American dream that
if you work hard, you will get ahead no longer
holds true or never did. I don't agree with that,
the highest level of nearly fifteen years of surveys.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I do believe that if you work hard, you will
get ahead.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
I think that's clearly true, and you're using and if
you don't believe it's true, you're using it as an.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Excuse to not try hard. That's what I believe.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Will it necessarily get you as far ahead as soon
as you'd hoped?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Probably not. Well, are you rich and famous? No?
Speaker 1 (03:59):
And I know that's the standard for a lot of people.
If you're not rich and famous, then it was a failure.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Boy.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Optimism has powered this country since the beginning, since before
it was a country. And belief in self anyway more
of the numbers, well, so that bothers me way more
than those other numbers, though that they made the headline
in the Wall Street Journal, the fact that you can't
think you can get ahead, or your kid's going to
be better off or whatever.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Okay, you can pick around that.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
But the idea that if you work hard you'll get ahead,
very few people believe that. That is the most troubling
statistic to me of all. It's defeatism. Where does that
come from?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I don't know. I find this so troubling.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
What in your life experience are looking around you leads
you to believe that, you know, I can picture people
having done all the right things and then their industry
changing very suddenly, being rattled by that and having a
bad attitude about it. I did all the right things,
and I still look at me. I'm screwed. That's a
(05:09):
discouraging thing, it absolutely is. But the fact that sometimes
it doesn't work out the way you had hoped doesn't
mean that your.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Premise wasn't accurate.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
In general, working hard, looking for opportunities, believing in yourself
is good.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
It's not only good, it's necessary.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Does it always pan out as quickly as richly as
blah blah blah? Or sometimes do you get screwed? Yeah,
certain percentage of the time. Well maybe it's an expectations
always been well, that's yeah, that's what I'm driving it.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
You said it in far fewer words.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
It's all expectations then, because if you ever have the
idea that I've gotten into an industry and now I'm
set for life, that was an unrealistic expectation. Now here's
a stupid, stupid aspect of this poll, and that's that
there's a long standing trend that the party holding the
White House has.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
A rosier view of the economy than whoever's out of power.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Fifty five percent of Republicans had a negative view of
the prospects for themselves and their children over half of Republicans.
It was ninety percent of Democrats ninety percent. Because what
kind of message do you think they're giving to those
aforementioned children?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Right, good lord.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Boy, And that's what's that saying that I've never quite understood.
Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right, yes,
but yeah, if you're if you're telling your kids every
day or telling yourself every day, you can't get ahead.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
You just can't. Well let me guess how that's going
to turn out.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah, working hard and looking for opportunities and trying to
change the world.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
That won't do me any good anyway. So I'm not
gonna wow, what a depressing poll that is.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Yeah, Well, one of the guys behind it, this Stanford
economics professor, who is one of the good guys that stand.
I'm going to shame Stanford with all of my might
as soon as I can. They are just woke and
sick anyway. But this guy, Neil Mahoney says it sort
of saddens me. I think one of our superpowers as
a country is our relentless optimism. It is the fuel
(07:14):
for entrepreneurship and other exceptional achievements. But it's not just optimism.
It's also true if you work hard, you will get ahead. Yeah, eventually, sure,
as opposed to what, by the way, getting ahead by
not working hard or doing nothing? I mean what, I
don't even understand. I barely understand the question. You know,
(07:39):
one of the most interesting and powerful things I've read
in the last several years. I can't remember who said this,
I've got to look it up, but they said success
is temporary because you.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Want to go out and prove it again.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
You've got other hills to climb, more challenges to take on,
or you know, just staying on top so that challenge
never ends. If you quit, that's permanent. That's the warm,
huggy blanket of I'm not even gonna try because there's
no point in it, and everybody's against me, and that's
(08:17):
why I have a bad life. That is like a
drug that you take once and it numbs you forever. Hmmm,
that's why it's so attractive to people. Does that sound
ugly and judgmental?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Good.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
I'm on a big Bruce Springsteen kick, but I remember
something he said about working hard and getting ahead years ago.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
I'll tell you about that right after this. He is
a liberal jack.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
So, like I said, I've been on this big Springsteen
kick for a while his music, and I started reading
his autobiography Over the Vacation and everything like that, really
interesting stuff. As an artist, his view of economics and
politics is insane and it's hard to overlook to enjoy
the music. But I remember seeing a video of him
way back in the day and he said basically what
(09:00):
this pole is saying. Unfortunately, he said, they've been selling
that lie forever, and he was talking about working hard
to get ahead. They've been selling that lie to people
like us, our whole lives. And I thought, Wow, what
a depressing view of the world that somebody is selling you.
What advantage did they get out of that?
Speaker 1 (09:20):
What advantage is the somebody getting out of selling you
the lie that if you work hard you'll get ahead,
And what is your alternative method? Again, I can barely
wrap my head around the premise of this. Well, I
think like half wit Marxist, like Bruce, and he's not
a half wit in general. He's a very good writer,
but he just he has practically a child's view of
(09:42):
these things. He would say, Well, they convince you to
go down to the factory and bust your ass and
you wear out your back and then you're still poor,
and that's the lie they're selling. Well, dude, you figured
out what you were good at then worked like crazy
to become successful at it. I know you're story. Why
is that true for you? But it's a fantasy for
(10:04):
everybody else because you're the special man or you just
got lucky or what. I just I don't understand the reasoning. Yeah,
you know it's weird about this poll. Is the number
of people who rate the economy as excellent or good
is up significantly.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Yeah, there is will last and it sucks. It was
a different poll last week while you're gone. But there
is a certain amount of Oh, I'm fine, but it's
bad for everybody else that's going on in polling right now,
which is a strange phenomenon.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I'm doing okay.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
I think we're going to be okay my family, but
it's really rough out there for everybody else, which is
its own weird negativity. Right right now, housing is really
really difficult now for young people, it's brutally hard.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
So what are you going to do? Quit?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Because ninety percent of Democrats think there's no point. I mean,
that's that's a miserable philosophy of life. It really is,
you know, I I don't know. I'm profoundly discouraged about
humanity right now. We are not facing you, your kids,
your grandkids, your great grandparents. All of us face our
(11:14):
own set of challenges in the times we live. And
sometimes it's world wars. Sometimes it's horrific pandemics. Sometimes it's
just pretty bad pandemics that the government fs up the
response so badly it makes everybody miserable. Anyway, everybody has
their own list, every single generation that's ever lived. Just
(11:36):
because guys could stumble out of high school in nineteen
fifty onto an assembly line and make a good living
and raise a couple of kids, then retire with a
pension for like a blip, that's not where our expectations
need to be said. It's just not a good way
to be a human being. Try to be good at
being a human being.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
That's a good tea shirt.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Try to be good at being a human being. Us
listening to a podcast over the weekend where some journalists
were talking about how they use AI in their lives
and where they think it's going. The where they think
it's going part, everybody had a different guess, and boy,
who knows, We don't know, but how.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
They were using it now.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
One Washington Post reporter talking about how every article she
runs through AI to look for any logical inconsistencies or
that sort of thing, I thought was really interesting because
at some point, I mean, that's what being a good
writer is, right, is the ability to not do that.
And now you can use AI. So does that eliminate
(12:45):
a whole bunch of the talent involved in being a
Washington Post level reporter? About three quarters of the articles
I read from the Washington Post have giant logical inconsistencies
in them.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Well, this is one of the good reporters, but good
in my opinion. I thought that was interesting in a
more frivolous way for using AI. And I would assume
soon every car is going to have AI in it.
So Tesla's have groc in it now, because that's Elon's
AI that he's put billions of dollars into, and it's
right there in your car, and I can just tap
(13:17):
the screen and like yesterday, we're listening to a jazz
song on the way to eat breakfast And I just
tapped Groc. I said, hey, who's playing trumpet on this song?
And the AI chick said, oh, that's Wayne Shorter. Isn't
it amazing? He really kills it on here, she says
to me, and again, cool and disturbing. Cool and disturbing.
(13:38):
And my kids are like, I hate that. They hated
the voice and the way it sounded so like conversational.
It's it is kind of weird. You're a silicon chip.
Why do you have an opinion on jazz?
Speaker 1 (13:48):
And I said, hey, Groc, I'm taking my two boys
to ihop for pancakes.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Is that a good idea? Nutritionally? Oh boy, that's a
tough one. She says.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Pancakes are loaded with carbs. If you go with the
whole grain, it'd be a lot better. And don't use
the syrup. But you know they are, she says, but
they are delicious. And leave out the butter too. Boys,
here's some nice, dry, whole week pan and my and
my high schooler in the back seat says, stop doing that.
I hate this thing. And I said, hey, Groc. My
(14:18):
high schooler only answers in one word questions, Is there
anything I can do about that, and she.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Said, oh, high schoolers can be so surly.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Sometimes it's just hormones and sometimes that stop. Oh wow,
that's very funny. That is hilarious. It is weird how
she talks to you, though, Yeah, and I wonder how
other people react. My natural reaction and then watching my
kids their natural reaction to that conversational weird buddies style
(14:49):
is like revulsion.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
I mean, right, it's a.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Tardy, uncanny valley syndrome, which is what that's things that
are nearly human disturb us. It must not disturb everybody
is I've heard stories of people getting into relationships or
whatever with their AI. I'm immediately turned off by the
fact that it's trying to sound like a person. It
gives me the willies, like practically chills. Well, right, but
(15:15):
you proved my point, your point right there. You hear
these stories about people who get into relationships with AI
or the AI helps them kill themselves or whatever. Yes,
they don't sense the weirdness in the threat there.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
So they end up being swept away by it.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Oh yeah, it's funny, how odd, how repulsed my kids
were to her, her tone of voice, in the way
she talked just dad, you gotta stop.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
It's killing me. That's interesting. Good.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
I hope that we all react that way. Of course,
it's probably gonna.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Get better at it. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Again, you're a bag of silicon chips. I'll tell you
anything you want to know. I don't care. You're not
a person.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
It's weird. Although the privacy thing is, you know, significant.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Wouldn't you assume that soon every car will have this
it within five years?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
I don't see why not.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah, I mean it's pretty handy for the like the
song thing was cool, or uh, we want to go
to I Hop? Is there one around here? Oh yeah,
just go up two blocks and turn left. You know
that sort of stuff is pretty handy. Asking how to
raise teenagers, I don't know. Maybe that crosses a line.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
You like I hop more than anybody I've ever known.
They make great pancakes. They're good at pancakes.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Their other stuff is marginal, But if you want a pancake,
they're pretty good at it.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Oh yeah, the mail.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
You know what the main thing is though, and this
probably makes your point not mine, the diversity, because it's international, right,
there's not a line every other breakfast place we want
to go to especially on a Sunday, it's going to
be an hour wait, and we ain't waiting an hour
to eat our breakfast. I go to, I hop, we
walk and we leave. Nobody wants so you can just
(16:50):
sit right down. That's that's a good recommendation.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
No kidding here to tell you your name will be
just down. Cost you that armstrong and getting on the man.
That's the podcast. Subscribe right now are.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
So one of the biggest topics in America. Yesterday and
we talked about it a lot, was the so called
National report Card on our schools that came out that
showed once again they are headed in the wrong direction,
as they have been for three decades at least. The
coverage of it was exactly what I expected. Unfortunately, it
(17:45):
was blamed on COVID and then they would mention this
at a time that the Trump administration has fired half
of the people in the Department of Education. Uh, neither
of those things really relevant, as the numbers have been
going down, as I pointed out, for decades, and you know,
COVID didn't help, but it's not the cause by any
(18:05):
means whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Well, and the idea that your child learns to read
and write because of the federal Department of Education. Is hilarious, right,
I mean that's a canard? Is they say it's a falsehood?
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Please?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Well, and these minor and overblown duties and just tracking
test scores and forcing schools to adopt progressive policies for
the last several years. This data was from before those
firings happened, anyway, But I guess the idea from the
media is now, we're going to try to fix this
with half of the Department of Education. What makes What
is it that leads you to.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Believe that more government, more at the federal level, is
what would fix this anyway?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
And where where's that come from?
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Oh? And then I wanted to throw in, as I
mentioned last hour, an eighth grader I know, talking about
being in science class yesterday with kids looking at their phones.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
That didn't get discussed yesterday.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
How prevalent is that around the country, kids having phone
in the phones in the classroom.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
That's insane to me.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
I can't believe that lasts five minutes, yes, let alone
school by school, the whole classroom people are just sitting
there looking their phones. I was told that a couple
of girls sitting there with earbuds in watching.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Videos on their phone.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Of course you're not learning. Oh my god. Yeah. I
think it's a majority of states now have banned smartphones
in classrooms. But whether it's enforced or not, is you know, veries.
I'd imagine state by state, and even district by district.
Certainly Blue County to Red County, there's probably a difference.
(19:40):
We got this email from a twenty year school marm.
As she describes herself, I'm a twenty year veteran teacher,
having taught almost every grade K through eight. I've spent
the last seven or so years in kindergarten, and I
agree with all of your takes on public schools and
why we are failing. I believe very strongly the teachers'
unions and the inability to retain students our main obstacles
(20:01):
to real and effective positive change. Some other food for thought,
what was the number of retain meaning hold back or flunk?
Speaker 4 (20:10):
We think we used to call it flunk you flunked
second grade now, and then they called it held back.
Now I noticed they call it retain. Yeah, you're not
allowed to retain people? Why you can't read or do
math at the grade level you're in right now. Why
would I move you on to the next.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Grade, says the administrator, because that's easier for me. It'd
be super hard to justify to the parents and tutor
this kid and get them caught up to speed.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
It's super easy to pass them on.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Part of that, there's a number of reasons. Part of
it is the whole self esteem movement. It would hurt
the kid's self esteem.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Well, you're not going to help their self esteem by
sending them out in the world where they can't read
or do math, and they can't work a job. That's
pretty hard on your self esteem too.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
So anyway, some intriguing questions from the veteran teacher. What
was the per capita number of books or books per
household twenty years ago? How about the minutes per day
that children interact with crayons, scissors Plato before the age
of five twenty years ago, is compared to now? We
have kindergarteners arriving to school where we are now expected
to send them to first grade as readers, who cannot identify,
(21:17):
much less write their name, nor do they know how
to use crayons, and they've spent the first five years
coloring with fingertips on screens. I could go on, and
it's worth pointing out here that and a person could
certainly say, well, this is the computer age. They don't
need croons or you know whatever. But unfortunately, as study
(21:38):
after study has shown, handwriting is an incredible stimulator of
your brain, connecting the mechanical with the cerebral. We're talking
about your brain, and there's practically no substitute for it
for developing your brain.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
But I'm true.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
But it's not the same though, when you're coloring in
with your finger on a tablet, because I've done that
with my kids when they would do that, it's.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Very similar either sort of motion or writing. You're found
writing with your finger instead of holding a pen. I
don't know why that would be much different. I am
absolutely deeply in agreement with the need for a complete
overhaul with the way public schools operate government schools, but
we have to talk about the ways that families are
or not setting their children and teachers up for success
with what they are doing with their children before they
(22:29):
reach the school doors. Thanks for beating the drums for sanity,
k Ta Kacas. Keep talking about our crazy ass schools.
It's a twenty year school, marm. I will tell you this,
and this is a statement that any sane, decent person
must agree with.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
That's a good setup.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
And I will take all commers who deny that we
need to approach the failings of our government schools and
the failings more generally, of our kids to learn and
achieve with completely open eyes and honesty. And there can
be no sacred cows spared. If they shouldn't be spared. Teachers' unions,
(23:14):
we hammer them all the time. No, you do not
get to hide behind your rhetoric anymore. There can't be
any fear of quote unquote blaming the victims. There can't
be any fear of coming off as racist or what
have you when you and your progressive policies do them
little black kids and brown kids or whatever to low
achievement and failure. That's not being nice to them. That's
(23:35):
the worst thing you could do to them. It's got
to be dealt with honestly and bluntly. And don't have
a lot of hope that that's going to happen. And
as we pointed out yesterday, and I was going to
try to dredge up this article again by the absolutely
brilliant Harvard economists whose name is flitted out of my
head because I'm old.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
They figured out how.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
To turn around schools, and they successfully in Houston, poor
schools with poor kids. It's known what to do, but
the educational industrial complex has no interest in that. Schools
don't exist to teach your childs anymore, your children anymore.
They exist as a jobs program and a political patronage program.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
There's me.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
They're still doing the test scores up on CBS. I'm
happy to see because that should be a topic, and
it has gone down ten points. I forget if it
was reading or math, which one it was, but one
of them has gone down ten points in the thirty
years they've been tracking it for seniors. That's an amazing
drop given how much more money we spend per pupil
(24:42):
on schools across the country. More money, less results. But
one of my blind spots would be, you know, I
only know my own socioeconomic experience. I don't know what
it's like for most of the country, or you know,
the bottom third or whatever of schools. Because that person
(25:02):
that just wrote about kids showing up to kindergarten without
any of the skills that kindergarteners used to have. God,
where I live, the kids show up, they've already know
how to play the cello and speaking of their language,
and they've been to Europe and all these different things.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
But what I've always.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Wondered is it seems like the like kindergarten, first grade
is so much more advanced than it was when I
was a kid. Where does the drop off occur from
your doing like math that we used to do in
seventh grade in first grade, but then somewhere in between
it like falls off a cliff.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
That's what I don't.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Yeah, I'm happy to see up on the screen they're
talking about it, and it says American kids test scores
declining it should be talked about. It is a couldn't
hardly be a bigger deal. Like I said, the as
usual finger pointing goes in the wrong direction.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, the dominant media, like the media, excuse me, we
will all be saying, therefore, we need more money, right and.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Then so what.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
We've been throwing more money at it and it's been
going the wrong direction. You'd think for for decades, you'd
think that'd be enough to say, Okay, we gotta try
something different.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you'd think.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
But you Spanish progressivism has is their scam is easier
to sell than the truth.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
But you said blue states, Red states with like phones
in the classroom. I don't know is that the way
it would break down? What's the blue state argument for
phones in a classroom.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
I've heard various arguments about.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
You know, the progressive parents who tend to vote in
blue states say I need to be able to get
together with my to connect with my kids, they've got
to have their phone. And I would I would be
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(26:58):
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(28:01):
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Speaker 4 (28:10):
Francis government collapsed in a spectacular fashion yesterday after mccrone's
hand picked leader tried to reign in public debt. McCrone
understands that they're on a course of disaster and he
has been choosing people to be in his government that
(28:31):
agree with him, and uh, not enough voters agree. I guess,
so France's government I'm reading for The New York Post
some of it and from other publications. France's government was
toppled in a vote of no confidence yesterday, forcing Emmanuel
Macron to search for his fourth prime minister in the
last year and throwing EU's second largest economy into chaos.
(28:53):
The premiere was ousted overwhelmingly huge vote three sixty four
to one to ninety four, not even close against him
losing an apparent gamble the lawmakers would back his push
for France to slash public spending to repay its debts.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
That's the crazy idea that he had. Let's cut our
spending so we can pay down our debts. And he
got overwhelmingly trounced. He was voted out, ending his short
lived minority government after being appointed by Macron just in December. Yeah,
left wing and right wing joined together and said, yeah,
(29:28):
let's toss out the moderates and we'll fight for the scraps.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
The former president now admitted Monday that his last speech
as Prime minister was a gamble to tackle France's debt
crisis by standing by his unpopular economic plan, and it
didn't pay off.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
At the end of the.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
First quarter of twenty twenty five. France's public debt started
at three point nine to three trillion, hilarious number by
US standards. Obviously about four trillion dollars, but that's one
hundred and fourteen percent of gross to mess stick product.
When you go over one hundred percent, it's supposed to
be like serious doomsday spiral.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
By the way, just in case.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
You were wondering, the US debt to GDP ratio is
one hundred and nineteen percent. France is doing better than
us at this point.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Wow wow wow.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
The former president hoped to cut debt. Included a bid
to push a fifty one billion dollars savings plan that
called for scrapping two public holidays. They have a public
holiday a week practically in France. He wanted to get
rid of two of them.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
No, you can't do it.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
And freezing government spending at its current level, not cutting
like this is what happened with the Tea Party. You're
not even trying to cut, You're just trying to cut
the rate of growth, and you get.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Killed for it. They're doomed, they are, and so are we.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
True, the greatest risk was not to take a chance,
he said, to let things go on without changing anything
to go on doing politics as usual, he said in
his final space. Each the nation is facing a.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Silent, underground, invisible and unbearable hemorrhage of excessive public borrowing.
Submission to debt is like submission through military force dominated
by weapons, or dominated by our creditors because of a
debt that is submerging us. In both cases we lose
our freedom. That's what got voted against.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
And the unions and the leftists said no, we want
to keep getting stuff. And here's my favorite thing, he
said in his final speech.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
You have the power to overthrow my government, but you
do not have the power to erase reality.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Wow. That is some good ass right there. Wow. Reality
remains inexorable.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Spending will continue to increase, and the debt burden, already unbearable,
will grow heavier and more costly.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Good lord, how are there so.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Few grown ups in Western civilization willing to stand up
and say this? Well, they do, and you get voted
out immediately by bye the left and the right.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
I was thinking about you know, the US obviously reading
about France, and we're just a couple of generations, I
guess away from politicians who would not vote for unsustainable debt.
They would consider that a horrible betrayal of the trust
placed in them. They would consider it personally immoral and
a crime against the kids and the grandkids. You just
(32:25):
you could not get somebody to vote for what everybody
votes for now, And I find myself wondering whether a
democracy with our current you know, a moral view of overspending,
can save itself.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
By the way, just back to France briefly, that the
decision to boot boot him out created means there's no
dominant political block for the first time in France's modern
political history.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
I don't quite understand those systems, but they are in
a lot of terms over there. But back to you've
got to cobble together a multi party coalition that you
can't get anything done. Back to his quote that I
love so much. You had the power to overthrow the government.
You do not have the power to erase reality. God
dang it, that's the whole reality. Bats last.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
You can.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Ignore the growing debt and how it's unsustainable, and all
these programs are going to go broke for a while,
but the pain only gets worse. The pain that you
will not may will suffer at some point is only
going to be worse the longer you wait.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Meanwhile, there's a new report out in France about their
educational system and how it's just failing miserably sound familiar
and for the first time now experts educators. There's a
book out that's made a huge wave in France. It said, look,
we've had rampant immigration, just unfettered immigration, and now one
(34:08):
in five grade five essentially students speak a language other
than French at home, and forty one percent of under
fours are immigrants or immigrants children's and they're transforming the schools.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
That number on speaking French at home is astounding.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Yeah, more than one in five year five pupils speak
a language other than French at home. And much like
in Britain, we've been discussing this and Germany, and Germany's
a little behind Britain, but they're heading in the same
direction in France too, where it was just agreed upon,
it was literally agreed upon, I think it was in Germany.
(34:57):
I've got that around here somewhere by all of the
the major parties that we won't blame this on immigration,
all right, you don't bring it up, and we won't
bring it up and they made a behind the scenes agreement.
But now the people in Britain and France and Germany
are like, yeah, we are talking about it.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
We're going to talk about it loudly.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
And things are nutty in Europe right now, politically speaking.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Where it goes nobody knows.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
I mean, you combine popular disgust with being betrayed by
the elites, the immigration thing, especially in the Islamization of
European countries. They've allowed, you know, enormous numbers of people
who despise their very principles in their way of life. Anyway,
you combine that with the populist Once I get a benefit,
(35:44):
I will never accept you scaling anything back.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Where does that go?
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Why is there such a small number of us who
are willing to accept the pain that has to happen.
Right now, I realize my taxes are going to go up,
and eye hate my tax that's going up, and I'm
not on many government services, so I wouldn't notice those
being cut. But it's got to happen, So bring it on,
like tomorrow, let's do it tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Well, because those who profit from the status quo are
very very good at spinning the politics It is so
much easier to say, not only do you deserve it,
but I'm going to give it to you, and say
we can't give it to you anymore. And here's why
taxes or sales pitch is so easy.