July 2, 2025 • 36 mins
Hour 4 of the Wednesday, July 2, 2025 A&G Replay contains:
- Dog Shoots Man and Legal Pot Woes
- Joe's Gladiator Confession
- Recession and Government is 1/2 the economy
- Stop Naming Generations / Tik Tok Tips
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Arm Strong and get Ki and no Hee.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Armstrong and Getty strong Man. Welcome to a replay of
the Armstrong and Getty Show. We are on vacation, but boy,
do we have some good stuff for you. Yes, indeed
we do. And if you want to catch up on
(00:46):
your ang listening during your travels, remember grabbing podcast Armstrong
and Getty on demand. You ought to subscribe wherever you
like to get podcasts. Now on with the infotainment. Some
breaking news just.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Out of our newsroom here at Fox thirteen. A man
is in the hospital after being shot in the leg overnight.
If the police say he was shot by his dog, seriously,
I don't think that's right. This happened just before four
am at a home on Whitney Avenue in Fraser Wow.
Police say the man was lying in the bed with
(01:19):
a girl with a gun on the bed. Police say
his dog jumped up on the bed, got his paul
stuck in the trigger and ended up hitting the trigger,
shooting the man in the thigh.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Wow accident.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
Yeah, so the dog claims you pretend to throw the
tennis ball, you stick it in the couch cushion one
too many times?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Right, And Dora, I'm supposed to be there in the
bed next to you. And who's this? Huh? You cheating bastard.
When's the last time I went for a walk? Can
you even remember? Pow? Wow wow, bad boy, bad dog.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
The dog ties him to a chair like reservoir dogs.
I'm not putting up with this anymore.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Right, Wait, so Jack Michael, do we have that the
two rappers were talking and gunshots went off? That's a
candidate for clip of the year. So I like the way.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
Clearly this news anchor who's got a bit of a
kent Brockman Will Ferrell vibe.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yes he does.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Apparently was just handed this breaking news not knowing he
was about to do a story about a man who
was shot by a dog at four am. Yeah, so
could happen. It's also possible that he was messing around
with his gun, or she shot him or something. They
don't want to tell anybody what actually happened, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
That's that's at least, although you know, it's not implausible
that if you are living the lifestyle where you're lying
in bed with quote unquote a girl who wrote that story?
Do they need a woman? I would hope. And there's
a gun laying there for some reason, you can't put
it on the nightstand even Yeah, you're living the sort
of lifestyle where your dog shoots. Maybe he or she
(03:06):
likes the gun pointed at them during their romantic times. Oh,
good lord, remember seeing.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
No I remember seeing that in the Sopranos, Remember one
of them. Somebody liked having a gun to their head.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Tawdry? Its way too tawdry. No, a dog just shot someone.
This is time for frank talk. The pets are rising
up as I predicted. Go ahead, Michael, and choices we
got in life, those were your choices.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Somebody got shot. Oh how good?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Hold on the dirty dead? What do I want with
my idea?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Don't shut me?
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Everybody, everybody, everybody that's the sort of guy who's in
bed with a girl and a dog shoots. They have
a much more relaxed, lighthearted view of shootings in the room.
On fire, shootings in the room. I mean, it's not
even an accidental shooting at the range or outdoors or something.
(04:14):
We're in a room with a number of people, A
gun guts off. Somebody's been shot. You good, I've been shot?
You good? You good? Everybody good? Okay, So as I
was saying, why you've different a different lifestyle than I have?
Who shot? Who?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Somebody got shot?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
All right? Anyway, what are your plans today? You guys hungry?
I'm hungry? Yeah? Crazy?
Speaker 5 (04:43):
Can I want to hear that other one, just the
beginning part where the news anchor gets to the because
I just find this funny.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
We want to get you to some breaking news just
out of our newsroom here at Fox thirteen. A man
is in the hospital after being shot in the leg
overnight if his police say he was shot his dog. Seriously,
I don't think that's right. This happened just before four am.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Heah, you don't know.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
The dog Hitney Avenue in the Fraser Wow. Police say
the man was lying in the bed with a girl
with a gun on the bed. Police say his dog
jumped up on the bed, got his paul stuck in
the trigger and ended up hitting the trigger, shooting the
man in the thigh.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Wow. Four in the morning. I ain't eating lambon rice anymore.
Give me some real freaking food. Was it a hunting dog? Oh?
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Boy, so there's actual love and of course some background checks.
We don't know any of those things. Gun loopholes, what
went on there?
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Wow? Wow? Well, and if I was going to make
a serious point about it, that's the very sort of
person the Democratic prosecutors would never enforce gun laws against.
They howl for more gun laws constantly. And then I'm confused.
You know what I walked into that didn't I? Yes,
you know, Perhaps it's best to just move on to
(06:11):
other fair I don't know why I enjoy giving jiv
names to features sets of stories, but I do. Jack,
So you get the choice between golden state of confusion
or how markets really work, I'll go much more sober
(06:32):
just because the lack of jiviness. I'm just curious after
the ridiculousness. Yeah, okay, So story number one why the
US keeps losing to China in the battle over critical
minerals Because everybody knows that the minerals, the rarest the
metals everybody's talking about that go into so much new technology.
(06:52):
He or they who control access to those things controls
the world economy to a large extent, And the obvious
issue with that is that if we continue to be
highly dependent on China to come up with those materials.
We're screwed as an economy the minute they decide to
tweak us or bring us to our knees. So you
(07:13):
have this story of the effort to get a big
giant New America and our allies run graphite mine and
the goal to challenge China's dominance over the world supply
of a critical mineral used in everything from electric vehicles
to submarine hubs. And so this Australia based mining company,
(07:37):
backed by more than one hundred million dollars of US
government financing, maybe a worthy goal. Kind of funny, there
wasn't any discussion of this, but this is what our
giant government does. Opened a mine in Mozambique and built
a graphite processing plant in Louisiana, the first of its
type in the US, and also signed a sales deal
(07:58):
with Tesla, which is historically brought graph height for cars
from China for the batteries specifically. But then things started
to go off the rails. China, which provides more than
ninety percent of the world's battery grade graph height supply,
jacked up its production.
Speaker 5 (08:11):
How many what did the market? How many stories include
China supplies ninety eight percent of this or that way
too many.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
And whether Trump's plans bear fruit or not, and whether
He's allowed to even get the plans going fully is
anybody's guess. But this is the very sort of thing
that he and his advisors are trying to wean us
from this sort of dependence. But anyway, the gist of
the story is so China, which provides more ninety percent
of the world's battery grade graph height supply, jacked up
(08:45):
its production, flooding the market and driving prices so low
that this mine, this company could not mine profitably. Wow.
Last May, the Biden administration delayed new rules that would
have penalized US buyers from buying Chinese graphite for reasons
that I don't recall, probably because they were trying to
get Shijin Ping to do something. In Mozambique, farmers resettled
(09:08):
from the mining company's mind staged protests, shutting down the mining,
and the Louisiana plant, now open for a year, has
yet to make its first commercial sale, and the company's
stock is plunged by around ninety percent since the start
of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
Wow, that's really interesting and once again the difficulties of
a an authoritarian country where one guy can make decisions
in a democracy.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
That's tough. Yeah, and as always, there's a lot more
detail and nuance to it, but we'll leave it here.
I love, love, love, love love the free market in
so many ways. It's lifted billions of people out of poverty,
on lace new medicines across the globe. It has profit
is the reason for charity. It's the reason charity exists.
(09:56):
You have to have more than you need to feed
yourself to to give to charity. Anyway, as we retrench
from the dream of globalization, though, there are going to
be some rainings in of the free market, and it's
going to be stops and starts. It's going to be
really difficult anyway not to get hung up on that,
because you could talk about it for a year and
(10:17):
a half and write five thousand page books on it
and not cover it. I thought this was interesting, how
markets really are. Jack the rise and fall of the
Napa Valley of Cannabis. When Colorado became one of the
first states to legalize a recreational marriage. You wanna and
an enthusiastic county commissioner in Pueblo said he wanted Pueblo
(10:38):
to become the Napa Valley of cannabis. And they talk
a little bit in the Wall Street Journal about the situation.
Big slaughterhouse had closed years earlier, steel mill had been
shedding workers. They're really hurting for jobs and tax revenue,
and a cannabis boom would do that for them. The
streets were going to be paved with gold, recalled one resident.
(10:58):
The elementary schools were going to be the great just
in the country. Then they talk about, you know, the
classic meme, how it started, how it's going. In the
first weeks, the only two shops then licensed in the county,
round rang Up combined one million dollars in sales the
first month, Wow, sending fifty six thousand dollars in taxes
(11:19):
to the county Colorado. Everybody was just thrilled and happy.
Decade and high. Decade later, Pueblo's dreams have gone up
in smoke. A once thriving industry of retailers, growers, and
cannabis oil extractors. There were more than two hundred of
these businesses in twenty seventeen in that county, more than
(11:39):
two hundred. It's collapsed only forty five remain. State records
indicate county tax revenue plunged from more than seven point
one million dollars to four point eight million twenty twenty three,
which is still a pretty significant amount of money. And
you could argue that they're just thinning the herd and
the stronger surviving the way it goes in capitalism. But
here's the problem. In California knows this too. It's been
(12:00):
a huge problem because the rosy rosy promise is made
to Californians in Colorado and is alike. Even after legalization,
illicit growers and sellers thrived, even right in Pueblo. Last year,
they accounted for seventy percent of the US market, according
to research companies. The black market dealers, unlike licensed ones,
(12:20):
face neither Texas nor red tape, so they're more efficient
and they're cheaper, and it's bad for your brain. That's interesting, man.
If you're counting on enough people smoking enough pot to
you know, make your schools great and everything like that,
that's just that's an interesting thing. It is, and it's
(12:40):
probably not a sustainable way to run a society. Nationwide,
only twenty seven percent of legal cannabis businesses are profitable,
which is down two percent just three years ago. Did
not know that. Yeah, investment is dried up, restructurings are rising,
and in Pueblo, sentiment about legal pot is swung the
other way, fueling a backlash against the county's embrace of
(13:03):
the industry. And again, it's kind of complicated and a
lot of nuance to it, but it's just it's not
nearly the dream it was sold to be. So ill
I'm sorry. And the one the one aspect you should
understand it's kind of intuitive is that if it's legal,
enforcing laws against the illegal stuff becomes so complicated because
(13:27):
you know, half of it sixty percent of it, depending
on where you are, is legal. And so what are
the coups supposed to do if they see a bunch
of guys smoking pot?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Right?
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Arm Strong?
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Why listen to arms Strong and Geddy on demand?
Speaker 3 (13:43):
We're not boring. A lot of news is boring and
tedious and depressing. It makes you angry. You don't want
to live your life like that. Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong,
he's Joe Getty. We're Armstrong in Getty. We try to
bring you the truth and help you figure out this crazy.
Speaker 6 (13:56):
Modern world about something about a comedic tone.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
We have a one er. Yes, listen to Armstrong You
Getty on demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
We had a conversation last week that I was very
uncomfortable with, and I felt very guilty about it because
I concealed a truth during the conversation, confession being good
for the soul. I am here to confess it. But
like all good confessions, they work best in a multiple
choice format. And so I'm going to give you multiple choices,
(14:47):
but to up the ante, each of the choices will
get successively more evil. Oh boy, and you have to
choose which one I am actually guilty of. I'm so
uncomfortable right now. A I, Joe Getty have a second
wife across town, with whom I have two children. She
is in a legal alien and I keep her in
(15:08):
line by threatening her with deportation. Well, what's what's okay?
Speaker 5 (15:11):
What's striking about this is you clearly didn't do that,
but you're going up the landing at worse.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
They're going to get worse. Yes, yes, okay, anybody want
to go for a or you want to go on,
you want to roll the dice anybody, Michael, Clearly that's
not true. Okay, all right, b I am now and
have been for thirty years an active member of the
American Communist Party, and have been working to subvert the
Constitution with every ounce of my energy up to and
including acts of violence and sabotage.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
So I think I think you've laid a really good
premise here because you've given two very bad choices obviously
not true.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Whatever something? What are hell did you do that? Right?
Speaker 6 (15:52):
Am I going to want to associate with you after this?
Speaker 3 (15:55):
I don't know, Comrade. Perhaps again from a conversation last
week in which I can seal the truth or possibility, say,
I had never seen Gladiator until this weekend. Oh wow, WHOA,
you saw the movie Gladiator? My secret shame? Gladiator one?
(16:16):
You were noted along with every conversation? Are you not entertained?
Ha ha ha? I assume grow. I assume you went
along with the factors because I watched it with my
son Henry a couple of weeks back before we went
to Gladiator two. He loved it and it reminded me
how much great it was. But I said it might
be in my top three movies of all time, and
I did not at that moment reveal you know, I've
(16:38):
never seen that Moe. Wow, that was good because I
knew the derision that would rain down upon Were you
probably okay twenty years ago?
Speaker 5 (16:46):
Yeah, you were in the middle of raising kids. So no,
of course you didn't see that movie because I am
a house full of babies, including a one year old. Yeah,
I didn't see anything between I don't know whatever years
twenty ten and like a year ago.
Speaker 6 (16:58):
I am impressed, Joe, because you carried on a full
blown conversation about that movie as if you it was
one of your favorites.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Well, you know, I read a lot, so I pick
up clues from the you know, contexts and stuff like that.
But you know, Jack, you make a good point. I
remember roughly when the movie came out. Hey, dude, you
got to see this is great. It's an unbelievable movie,
great guy and villain. It's like two and a half
hours long, and I'm my responss chance or if I'm
gonna have a couple two three hours, I'm gonna spend
(17:28):
it silently staring at a screen when you could hang
out with your wife or doing something. I mean, yeah,
not gonna happen. It was fun. Nobody could do what
Russell Crow did. I don't know what magic he had there,
but can you tell me you like Gladiator movies, Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
And the Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 7 (18:14):
Wall Street suffering it's worst day of the year, the
Dow closing nearly nine hundred points down after the President
refused to rule out that the US could be heading
into a recession.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Uh yeah, a lot of negative headlines about Wall Street yesterday.
I'm always interested in that. In that a lot, a lot,
a lot of Americans aren't in the stock market, and
it's I'd like to know what percentage of the audience
that watches mainstream evening news is in the stock market,
(18:45):
other than.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Are you including four one ks in that m Maybe
maybe not.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
I don't know investments, but certainly the average person watching
the evening news is not into the daily ups and
downs of.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
The stock market. True, they're in the long you know,
the law game.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
And and very little context ever around any of this
stuff anytime. And I'm not just like now just always
there's almost no context. Biggest point drop whatever. Sometimes they
use points because it's more dramatic. Sometimes the percentage whatever,
(19:22):
and they go back and forth, and it's all very
it's it's designed to make it sound as great or
as awful as possible, to make it more exciting. But anyway,
New York christ and known this has been a big
down for the last week and a half or whatever
since the Tarif announcement. No doubt about that. New York
Post headline today, Buckle up NASGA. Dax suffers biggest loss
(19:43):
in three years. Dow falls eight ninety after Trump recession
dodge after Trump didn't absolutely just flat out say.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
No to the recession question.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
It's amazing how much news that made that one answer.
And he knew that, Like I said yesterday, he's aware
of that. He he double down on air Force one.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Essentially, the significance of it is he didn't say we
will do everything we need to to avoid a recession.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
That's why that's significant, right, which gets to what we
were saying last hour. I wish he would give some
sort of speech where he explains what his long game
in is and why I think he can get more
people on board or calmed down.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
I think that is so obviously a great idea. It
is shocking to me. It hasn't happened yet. Drudge hates Trump,
but his headlines economy cracks, stocks lose four trillion dollars. Oh,
that's one of the things about the news reporting.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
I feel like it's for people who don't understand that
that money didn't actually disappear never to come back. It's
the stock is down and yet adds up to four trillion.
But unless you sold yesterday, you didn't actually lose the money,
and it could be back up in two weeks and
nothing happened.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
I mean, well, and you quote unquote lost the money
from if you would have sold it three weeks ago.
So it's all imaginary. It's not even on paper, it's
in the ether.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
So getting to Mark Alprin's newsletter today, who I think
he is a fair arbiter of these sorts of things,
and he gets a lot of He has a lot
of connections in left and right, Republican and Democrat. He
wrote this Monday, when job boning by all Trump economic
advisors could not stop a market selloff or deter business leaders,
(21:20):
economic analysts, analysts, Paul's and Trump supporters from calling, texting,
and emailing me to say the sky is falling, and
it is in their collective view explicitly and unambiguously Trump's fault.
In my career, I don't recall anything quite like Munday
as Whoosh, Team Trump lost the confidence of a bunch
of key actors in one fell swoop. I thought that
(21:42):
was interesting that behind the scenes a lot of people
that normally really really big on Trump recalling Mark Auperton
and saying, what the hell is he doing?
Speaker 3 (21:50):
The business world, the American business world, was absolutely confident
that Trump would slash regulations and make permanent tax cuts
and that would be his main thrust. This whole call
it protectionism, you know, seeking a new global norm for trade,
whatever you want to call it, is surprising to them
(22:11):
and it's led to a great deal of uncertainty. Business
hates uncertainty, right. And then got to get to what
I was talking about yesterday, which I fully fully believe.
I mean, don't feel like the Wall Street journal crowd
has your best interest in mind. They have the best
interest of like what's gonna make the Dow close higher
today for a lot of the crowd who actually does
(22:32):
day trade or certainly this quarter, not what's best for
America long term, and you know, fortunately or unfortunately, I guess,
and Ryan would say, that's the way it's supposed to work.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
You know, they're looking out for themselves. That's what drives
the whole thing. But yeah, I would.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Say, as a guy who reads practically cover to cover
the journal every single day, they have a wide range
of opinions and writers there. Not all of them are
merely chasing quarterly profits.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
But I wanted to get to this and I didn't
know this. So Mark Alpernan has a bunch of links
to a whole bunch of different newspaper articles talking about
the how much damage has been done, whether it's temporary,
long term, blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Than this team.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Trump came in with the theory of the case that
they could rebalance the economy by shifting economic activity back
to the private sector from the public sector. It's part
of the whole doge thing and tariffs together. Trump advisors
have said they think the government is now twenty five
percent of the economy. Mark Alprin said, in reality, it's
(23:36):
way higher, maybe closer to fifty percent. Wow, what fifty
percent of the economy is the government? With Medicare and medicaid.
No one wants to admit it, but to a large extent,
the US economy has really just become the US government
spending in transfers. This is evidenced by the fact that
we've been running huge fiscal deficits during strong economic times.
(23:59):
And the new Terresury Secretary is proposed fixing this by
cutting government spending with musk combined with tariffs to rebounce trade,
to rebuild American manufacturing.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
But to bring it home, he gets into, we live
in a wah blah blah blah blah blah. The top
ten percent. Studies have shown there's a very high correlation
between their propensity to spend with spending being you know,
two thirds of our economies people going out and spending money,
(24:28):
and where the stock prices are. For whatever reason, when
the top ten percent are feeling wealthy, they buy stuff.
But if they're not feeling wealthy, they don't. And this
especially is true now, and this could get us into
a real doom loop of tariffs, negative feelings, stock market
(24:50):
going down, people pulling back, et cetera, et cetera, cutting
the government, which is half the economy. You see, there's
the spiral.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
If doge is laying off people and cutting the government,
and it's fifty percent of the economy that automatically is
going to drop the economy, which makes the rich ten
percent spend less, which drops the economy.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
And it's just that, you see, it's a cycle that
could catch on. Yeah. My My only objection to that
theory or a question I have about it, is that
what doge is doing is nibbling around the edges of
the actual fiscal pie. True. I don't appreciate it because
I like the edges of the pie. Oh fiscal piebius uh.
(25:30):
And it's funny because you have conservatives saying they're they're
they're not attacking entitlements and that's most of the budget
blah blah blah blah blah. But at the same time
it might cause a doom loop. I just I don't
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
Well, nobody ever knows on any of this stuff, as
we've said for years, because if you were the old thing,
if you ask you know, ten economists, you'll get eleven opinions.
Or there's only two people that understand, uh, the global
and they don't agree you know, any of those sayings.
And but you know, if you could predict this stuff, well,
(26:06):
you'd be the richest person on planet Earth, you know, immediately.
So you know, there's a lot of moving pieces and
theory and everything like that. But I do find that
very troubling. Yeah, all of it's troubling.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
I find myself imagining if Trump were to craft the
sort of message you've suggested, explaining exactly what his goals are,
why it's going to be worth enduring a bit of
pain or upheaval for a while, be it two years
or more likely five or ten or fifteen or twenty years,
because that would get the popular support. Doing something difficult
(26:41):
would require, because there's one thing democracies are terrible at.
That's doing what is difficult. Like in your family, you
could say, hey, we are going to severely restrict spending
for this year to get a down payment together to
buy the house, or make the investment or open the
business we've long dreamed of.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
You can do here on the wall of a house
with a pool and say this is why we're doing it.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
Yeah. You know, I've always been a fan of the
like the thermometer thing where you actually track your savings,
because it gives you enthusiasm for it. Judy and I
used to do that when we were young. Anyway, as
a family, you can do that. But democracies are famously
horrible at saying all right, we're all going to endure
some pain for a while, an austerity plan. It happens.
(27:24):
I don't think it's hard to get going. I don't
think we're grown up enough for this. I think we're
too used to easy sailing, smooth saling. But even if
Trump were to do that, though, Wall Street would probably
freak out for a while, and then people would see it,
would check their four one ks and freak out. And
(27:45):
I just I don't know if we have the right
stuff to institute what Trump's talking about before it's a
horrible emergency.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
Well, imagine if Trump or somebody representing Trump came out
and gave a speech says, look, half the economy is
the government. Do you know that half the economy is
the government? And that can't be that's not sustainable. And
our debt is this, and our deficit is this, and
you know our payments are this, and blah blah blah.
And if that wasn't go ahead, sorry there's more.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
No, that's fine, I was gonna say. And if if
that wasn't bad enough. Folks, here's the chunk of the
economy that would collapse and you would starve if China
decides to jump ugly. So A, we got to reign
in the government. B. We've got to wean ourselves from
being China junkies. Their economic heroin is is they're gonna
(28:36):
pull it back on us, and we're gonna be on
our hands and knees, and our economy is gonna be
puking and turning green and pooping on itself. Wow, because
they're gonna pull it out cold turkey. Do you want that?
Do you want that? Huh? Okay, We're gonna restructure the economy.
You would be a disgusting economics teacher. Yeah, but compelling.
M Uh. There's no way this works because we have
(28:59):
an election every two year. Years.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
Were already like a year away from constantly talking about
the mid terms and uh, and and the Democrats are
gonna run on He says, we can't blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
We say you you we can lose with me. Everybody says, yeah,
I want everything for nothing, and and there you go.
So to summarize, we're toomed.
Speaker 5 (29:23):
I'm moving along, aren't you glad you tuned in. Oh boy, Well,
but everybody should me and everyone we should realize that
we're not retiring today. What the stock market does today,
unless you are retiring today. Somebody listening somewhere, if you.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Would have restructured your your investments.
Speaker 5 (29:41):
If somebody somewhere on our seventy stations is listening, is
retiring today or yesterday?
Speaker 3 (29:45):
He retired yesterday. I understand while you're upset.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Sorry, sorry, Jack Armstrong and Joe Armstrong and Getty Show,
(30:10):
The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
So, speaking of generations, I thought this was both amusing
and slightly annoying. But it's an article about how evidently
some demographer social researcher by the name of Mark McCrindle
has become the go to guy for naming generations. Never
heard of this guy, and the just of the article
(30:38):
is that he believes the whole like coming up with
a groovy name for the generation and seeing if it
catches on is kind of dumb.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
Well, I gotta believe that he or whoever was in charge,
they came up with gen X way back in the day.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
I mean, this was the eighties when they started talking
gen X and far cool list generation name by the way,
not just because of my year of birth.
Speaker 5 (31:04):
And then at the meeting where they came up with
jen Y, somebody should have raised their hand and say, hey,
I see like a problem coming down the road we
might want to get ahead of with this whole lettering fing.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
We're running out of letters in the ouphant, what are
we gonna do? Well, you got this silent generation, who
weren't silent at all at the old hodown. And then
you got the Greatest generation, a fine generation, thanks for
winning World War Two.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
But you know, some good somepod.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Then you got the baby Boomers. There are a bunch
of babies that once and now I'm a boomer, the
most selfish generation that had ruined everything. Oh there's that
is fair criticism. Hippies and yeah, damn hippies. And then
then you got Generation X, again by far the coolest name.
They go through a couple more letters, and then they
having a run out of letters, they go with Millennials,
(31:51):
and then then what's the next one? It doesn't matter anyway,
So this guy says, oh, we got to quit screwing around.
We'll just use Greek letters. Okay. So Generation Alpha just
happened a while back, But now it's generation beta. When
did alpha thing? Because I never even heard generation alpha?
I know, I know, but apparently those who talk about
(32:15):
this crap have. But anyway, the point is now it's
generation beta, and of course beta is an insult in
the modern world, right, it means, for instance, a weak
and passive man or something. And so there are parents
evidently who are offended now that their children are being
What can we stop naming generations completely? What is a generation? Even?
(32:41):
I mean Generation X fans for like twenty three years
or something. This is crazy. Well, there's a number of
problems with it that are fairly obvious. But at least
back in the day, you know how much changed between
you know, this decade and that decade, not a ton,
Whereas now, holy crap, if you're growing up in the
(33:03):
smartphone world, it's completely different than the pre smartphone world.
It just is, right, So let's go with more descriptive
names like the smartphonies or or all digital weirdos or
I don't yeah, I'm just spitballing here, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The change has been so massive so quickly you might
(33:25):
have to go like every five and a half years, right,
have a new quote unquote generation if you're cause you know,
mostly I think it's useless. But if I'm a boss,
and you can say, all right, this next person we've
known or we've hired is a beta zoomer, and you
look it up and you see, oh, beta zoomers are
extremely insecure and need to be coddled like little kittens.
(33:49):
On the other hand, they're rebellious and blah blah. It
might be a tool to help you deal with them.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
Right, It seems like giant world changing events would be
better than just picking years like every so many years,
Like I mentioned, smartphones. COVID would be a good marker
if you were, you know, in if you're in grade
school during COVID, you, I know, teachers say those are
different kinds of kids.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
How did jen X get its name? I mean, what
a what a what does that even mean? How about
Watergate and Vietnam made us very cynical? Plus half of
our parents got divorced. I mean it's kind of long,
but yeah, the latch Key generation anyway, Yeah, don't call
them generation Beta. It's hurtful, so so dumb. Did you
(34:37):
know that seventy percent of TikTok's revenue comes from live
streaming gifts. When people are doing live streamy stuff, do
you gifts or gifts gifts like presents. Yes, you can
give people these little things that are called what are
(34:57):
they called their like little tokens that they can redeem
into real money. It's huge into sex live streaming. We
need someone younger than us, Katie. Well, I'm trying to
explain it to you, you old man. I need somebody
who's done it.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Well, yeah, it's you.
Speaker 6 (35:17):
Just go on and they have different dollar amounts, so
you can send from fifty cents up to one thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
I think to tip them digitally exactly. That was at
digital tips.
Speaker 5 (35:29):
Why did this catch on? Is it just easier or
more fun or well as opposed to and mowing them
or sending them a car.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Oh, it's immeasurably easier. You have an account, you click click,
they get a dollar your money, and then they can
show you their blankety blank or whatever. And TikTok allegedly
has filters for this, but they're super easy to get around.
You just use slang terms, including local slang terms. Because
it's global app and so there's an enormous child porn
(35:58):
market on Hiktok, These underage girls from all over the world,
who will you know, perform various acts or show off
or whatever and uh and and TikTok gets a cut
of that.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
Well, first of all, I'll show you whatever part you
want to see for a five spot.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
If there's any demand, give you a ten not to
that's what I'll do. I'll start a bigging war and
that's what I'll make my money. And they please don't.
We'll win out, but I'll be the benefit. It's not temptation,
it's extortion. I'll give you unny. It's a thread the Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
And Getty Show. Yeah, more Jack, more shoe podcasts, and
our hot links.
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Arm Strong and get Ki and no Hee.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Armstrong and Getty strong Man. Welcome to a replay of
the Armstrong and Getty Show. We are on vacation, but boy,
do we have some good stuff for you. Yes, indeed
we do. And if you want to catch up on
(00:46):
your ang listening during your travels, remember grabbing podcast Armstrong
and Getty on demand. You ought to subscribe wherever you
like to get podcasts. Now on with the infotainment. Some
breaking news just.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Out of our newsroom here at Fox thirteen. A man
is in the hospital after being shot in the leg overnight.
If the police say he was shot by his dog, seriously,
I don't think that's right. This happened just before four
am at a home on Whitney Avenue in Fraser Wow.
Police say the man was lying in the bed with
(01:19):
a girl with a gun on the bed. Police say
his dog jumped up on the bed, got his paul
stuck in the trigger and ended up hitting the trigger,
shooting the man in the thigh.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Wow accident.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
Yeah, so the dog claims you pretend to throw the
tennis ball, you stick it in the couch cushion one
too many times?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Right, And Dora, I'm supposed to be there in the
bed next to you. And who's this? Huh? You cheating bastard.
When's the last time I went for a walk? Can
you even remember? Pow? Wow wow, bad boy, bad dog.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
The dog ties him to a chair like reservoir dogs.
I'm not putting up with this anymore.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Right, Wait, so Jack Michael, do we have that the
two rappers were talking and gunshots went off? That's a
candidate for clip of the year. So I like the way.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
Clearly this news anchor who's got a bit of a
kent Brockman Will Ferrell vibe.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yes he does.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Apparently was just handed this breaking news not knowing he
was about to do a story about a man who
was shot by a dog at four am. Yeah, so
could happen. It's also possible that he was messing around
with his gun, or she shot him or something. They
don't want to tell anybody what actually happened, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
That's that's at least, although you know, it's not implausible
that if you are living the lifestyle where you're lying
in bed with quote unquote a girl who wrote that story?
Do they need a woman? I would hope. And there's
a gun laying there for some reason, you can't put
it on the nightstand even Yeah, you're living the sort
of lifestyle where your dog shoots. Maybe he or she
(03:06):
likes the gun pointed at them during their romantic times. Oh,
good lord, remember seeing.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
No I remember seeing that in the Sopranos, Remember one
of them. Somebody liked having a gun to their head.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Tawdry? Its way too tawdry. No, a dog just shot someone.
This is time for frank talk. The pets are rising
up as I predicted. Go ahead, Michael, and choices we
got in life, those were your choices.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Somebody got shot. Oh how good?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Hold on the dirty dead? What do I want with
my idea?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Don't shut me?
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Everybody, everybody, everybody that's the sort of guy who's in
bed with a girl and a dog shoots. They have
a much more relaxed, lighthearted view of shootings in the room.
On fire, shootings in the room. I mean, it's not
even an accidental shooting at the range or outdoors or something.
(04:14):
We're in a room with a number of people, A
gun guts off. Somebody's been shot. You good, I've been shot?
You good? You good? Everybody good? Okay, So as I
was saying, why you've different a different lifestyle than I have?
Who shot? Who?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Somebody got shot?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
All right? Anyway, what are your plans today? You guys hungry?
I'm hungry? Yeah? Crazy?
Speaker 5 (04:43):
Can I want to hear that other one, just the
beginning part where the news anchor gets to the because
I just find this funny.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
We want to get you to some breaking news just
out of our newsroom here at Fox thirteen. A man
is in the hospital after being shot in the leg
overnight if his police say he was shot his dog. Seriously,
I don't think that's right. This happened just before four am.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Heah, you don't know.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
The dog Hitney Avenue in the Fraser Wow. Police say
the man was lying in the bed with a girl
with a gun on the bed. Police say his dog
jumped up on the bed, got his paul stuck in
the trigger and ended up hitting the trigger, shooting the
man in the thigh.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Wow. Four in the morning. I ain't eating lambon rice anymore.
Give me some real freaking food. Was it a hunting dog? Oh?
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Boy, so there's actual love and of course some background checks.
We don't know any of those things. Gun loopholes, what
went on there?
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Wow? Wow? Well, and if I was going to make
a serious point about it, that's the very sort of
person the Democratic prosecutors would never enforce gun laws against.
They howl for more gun laws constantly. And then I'm confused.
You know what I walked into that didn't I? Yes,
you know, Perhaps it's best to just move on to
(06:11):
other fair I don't know why I enjoy giving jiv
names to features sets of stories, but I do. Jack,
So you get the choice between golden state of confusion
or how markets really work, I'll go much more sober
(06:32):
just because the lack of jiviness. I'm just curious after
the ridiculousness. Yeah, okay, So story number one why the
US keeps losing to China in the battle over critical
minerals Because everybody knows that the minerals, the rarest the
metals everybody's talking about that go into so much new technology.
(06:52):
He or they who control access to those things controls
the world economy to a large extent, And the obvious
issue with that is that if we continue to be
highly dependent on China to come up with those materials.
We're screwed as an economy the minute they decide to
tweak us or bring us to our knees. So you
(07:13):
have this story of the effort to get a big
giant New America and our allies run graphite mine and
the goal to challenge China's dominance over the world supply
of a critical mineral used in everything from electric vehicles
to submarine hubs. And so this Australia based mining company,
(07:37):
backed by more than one hundred million dollars of US
government financing, maybe a worthy goal. Kind of funny, there
wasn't any discussion of this, but this is what our
giant government does. Opened a mine in Mozambique and built
a graphite processing plant in Louisiana, the first of its
type in the US, and also signed a sales deal
(07:58):
with Tesla, which is historically brought graph height for cars
from China for the batteries specifically. But then things started
to go off the rails. China, which provides more than
ninety percent of the world's battery grade graph height supply,
jacked up its production.
Speaker 5 (08:11):
How many what did the market? How many stories include
China supplies ninety eight percent of this or that way
too many.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
And whether Trump's plans bear fruit or not, and whether
He's allowed to even get the plans going fully is
anybody's guess. But this is the very sort of thing
that he and his advisors are trying to wean us
from this sort of dependence. But anyway, the gist of
the story is so China, which provides more ninety percent
of the world's battery grade graph height supply, jacked up
(08:45):
its production, flooding the market and driving prices so low
that this mine, this company could not mine profitably. Wow.
Last May, the Biden administration delayed new rules that would
have penalized US buyers from buying Chinese graphite for reasons
that I don't recall, probably because they were trying to
get Shijin Ping to do something. In Mozambique, farmers resettled
(09:08):
from the mining company's mind staged protests, shutting down the mining,
and the Louisiana plant, now open for a year, has
yet to make its first commercial sale, and the company's
stock is plunged by around ninety percent since the start
of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
Wow, that's really interesting and once again the difficulties of
a an authoritarian country where one guy can make decisions
in a democracy.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
That's tough. Yeah, and as always, there's a lot more
detail and nuance to it, but we'll leave it here.
I love, love, love, love love the free market in
so many ways. It's lifted billions of people out of poverty,
on lace new medicines across the globe. It has profit
is the reason for charity. It's the reason charity exists.
(09:56):
You have to have more than you need to feed
yourself to to give to charity. Anyway, as we retrench
from the dream of globalization, though, there are going to
be some rainings in of the free market, and it's
going to be stops and starts. It's going to be
really difficult anyway not to get hung up on that,
because you could talk about it for a year and
(10:17):
a half and write five thousand page books on it
and not cover it. I thought this was interesting, how
markets really are. Jack the rise and fall of the
Napa Valley of Cannabis. When Colorado became one of the
first states to legalize a recreational marriage. You wanna and
an enthusiastic county commissioner in Pueblo said he wanted Pueblo
(10:38):
to become the Napa Valley of cannabis. And they talk
a little bit in the Wall Street Journal about the situation.
Big slaughterhouse had closed years earlier, steel mill had been
shedding workers. They're really hurting for jobs and tax revenue,
and a cannabis boom would do that for them. The
streets were going to be paved with gold, recalled one resident.
(10:58):
The elementary schools were going to be the great just
in the country. Then they talk about, you know, the
classic meme, how it started, how it's going. In the
first weeks, the only two shops then licensed in the county,
round rang Up combined one million dollars in sales the
first month, Wow, sending fifty six thousand dollars in taxes
(11:19):
to the county Colorado. Everybody was just thrilled and happy.
Decade and high. Decade later, Pueblo's dreams have gone up
in smoke. A once thriving industry of retailers, growers, and
cannabis oil extractors. There were more than two hundred of
these businesses in twenty seventeen in that county, more than
(11:39):
two hundred. It's collapsed only forty five remain. State records
indicate county tax revenue plunged from more than seven point
one million dollars to four point eight million twenty twenty three,
which is still a pretty significant amount of money. And
you could argue that they're just thinning the herd and
the stronger surviving the way it goes in capitalism. But
here's the problem. In California knows this too. It's been
(12:00):
a huge problem because the rosy rosy promise is made
to Californians in Colorado and is alike. Even after legalization,
illicit growers and sellers thrived, even right in Pueblo. Last year,
they accounted for seventy percent of the US market, according
to research companies. The black market dealers, unlike licensed ones,
(12:20):
face neither Texas nor red tape, so they're more efficient
and they're cheaper, and it's bad for your brain. That's interesting, man.
If you're counting on enough people smoking enough pot to
you know, make your schools great and everything like that,
that's just that's an interesting thing. It is, and it's
(12:40):
probably not a sustainable way to run a society. Nationwide,
only twenty seven percent of legal cannabis businesses are profitable,
which is down two percent just three years ago. Did
not know that. Yeah, investment is dried up, restructurings are rising,
and in Pueblo, sentiment about legal pot is swung the
other way, fueling a backlash against the county's embrace of
(13:03):
the industry. And again, it's kind of complicated and a
lot of nuance to it, but it's just it's not
nearly the dream it was sold to be. So ill
I'm sorry. And the one the one aspect you should
understand it's kind of intuitive is that if it's legal,
enforcing laws against the illegal stuff becomes so complicated because
(13:27):
you know, half of it sixty percent of it, depending
on where you are, is legal. And so what are
the coups supposed to do if they see a bunch
of guys smoking pot?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Right?
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Arm Strong?
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Why listen to arms Strong and Geddy on demand?
Speaker 3 (13:43):
We're not boring. A lot of news is boring and
tedious and depressing. It makes you angry. You don't want
to live your life like that. Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong,
he's Joe Getty. We're Armstrong in Getty. We try to
bring you the truth and help you figure out this crazy.
Speaker 6 (13:56):
Modern world about something about a comedic tone.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
We have a one er. Yes, listen to Armstrong You
Getty on demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
We had a conversation last week that I was very
uncomfortable with, and I felt very guilty about it because
I concealed a truth during the conversation, confession being good
for the soul. I am here to confess it. But
like all good confessions, they work best in a multiple
choice format. And so I'm going to give you multiple choices,
(14:47):
but to up the ante, each of the choices will
get successively more evil. Oh boy, and you have to
choose which one I am actually guilty of. I'm so
uncomfortable right now. A I, Joe Getty have a second
wife across town, with whom I have two children. She
is in a legal alien and I keep her in
(15:08):
line by threatening her with deportation. Well, what's what's okay?
Speaker 5 (15:11):
What's striking about this is you clearly didn't do that,
but you're going up the landing at worse.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
They're going to get worse. Yes, yes, okay, anybody want
to go for a or you want to go on,
you want to roll the dice anybody, Michael, Clearly that's
not true. Okay, all right, b I am now and
have been for thirty years an active member of the
American Communist Party, and have been working to subvert the
Constitution with every ounce of my energy up to and
including acts of violence and sabotage.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
So I think I think you've laid a really good
premise here because you've given two very bad choices obviously
not true.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Whatever something? What are hell did you do that? Right?
Speaker 6 (15:52):
Am I going to want to associate with you after this?
Speaker 3 (15:55):
I don't know, Comrade. Perhaps again from a conversation last
week in which I can seal the truth or possibility, say,
I had never seen Gladiator until this weekend. Oh wow, WHOA,
you saw the movie Gladiator? My secret shame? Gladiator one?
(16:16):
You were noted along with every conversation? Are you not entertained?
Ha ha ha? I assume grow. I assume you went
along with the factors because I watched it with my
son Henry a couple of weeks back before we went
to Gladiator two. He loved it and it reminded me
how much great it was. But I said it might
be in my top three movies of all time, and
I did not at that moment reveal you know, I've
(16:38):
never seen that Moe. Wow, that was good because I
knew the derision that would rain down upon Were you
probably okay twenty years ago?
Speaker 5 (16:46):
Yeah, you were in the middle of raising kids. So no,
of course you didn't see that movie because I am
a house full of babies, including a one year old. Yeah,
I didn't see anything between I don't know whatever years
twenty ten and like a year ago.
Speaker 6 (16:58):
I am impressed, Joe, because you carried on a full
blown conversation about that movie as if you it was
one of your favorites.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Well, you know, I read a lot, so I pick
up clues from the you know, contexts and stuff like that.
But you know, Jack, you make a good point. I
remember roughly when the movie came out. Hey, dude, you
got to see this is great. It's an unbelievable movie,
great guy and villain. It's like two and a half
hours long, and I'm my responss chance or if I'm
gonna have a couple two three hours, I'm gonna spend
(17:28):
it silently staring at a screen when you could hang
out with your wife or doing something. I mean, yeah,
not gonna happen. It was fun. Nobody could do what
Russell Crow did. I don't know what magic he had there,
but can you tell me you like Gladiator movies, Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
And the Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 7 (18:14):
Wall Street suffering it's worst day of the year, the
Dow closing nearly nine hundred points down after the President
refused to rule out that the US could be heading
into a recession.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Uh yeah, a lot of negative headlines about Wall Street yesterday.
I'm always interested in that. In that a lot, a lot,
a lot of Americans aren't in the stock market, and
it's I'd like to know what percentage of the audience
that watches mainstream evening news is in the stock market,
(18:45):
other than.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Are you including four one ks in that m Maybe
maybe not.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
I don't know investments, but certainly the average person watching
the evening news is not into the daily ups and
downs of.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
The stock market. True, they're in the long you know,
the law game.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
And and very little context ever around any of this
stuff anytime. And I'm not just like now just always
there's almost no context. Biggest point drop whatever. Sometimes they
use points because it's more dramatic. Sometimes the percentage whatever,
(19:22):
and they go back and forth, and it's all very
it's it's designed to make it sound as great or
as awful as possible, to make it more exciting. But anyway,
New York christ and known this has been a big
down for the last week and a half or whatever
since the Tarif announcement. No doubt about that. New York
Post headline today, Buckle up NASGA. Dax suffers biggest loss
(19:43):
in three years. Dow falls eight ninety after Trump recession
dodge after Trump didn't absolutely just flat out say.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
No to the recession question.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
It's amazing how much news that made that one answer.
And he knew that, Like I said yesterday, he's aware
of that. He he double down on air Force one.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Essentially, the significance of it is he didn't say we
will do everything we need to to avoid a recession.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
That's why that's significant, right, which gets to what we
were saying last hour. I wish he would give some
sort of speech where he explains what his long game
in is and why I think he can get more
people on board or calmed down.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
I think that is so obviously a great idea. It
is shocking to me. It hasn't happened yet. Drudge hates Trump,
but his headlines economy cracks, stocks lose four trillion dollars. Oh,
that's one of the things about the news reporting.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
I feel like it's for people who don't understand that
that money didn't actually disappear never to come back. It's
the stock is down and yet adds up to four trillion.
But unless you sold yesterday, you didn't actually lose the money,
and it could be back up in two weeks and
nothing happened.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
I mean, well, and you quote unquote lost the money
from if you would have sold it three weeks ago.
So it's all imaginary. It's not even on paper, it's
in the ether.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
So getting to Mark Alprin's newsletter today, who I think
he is a fair arbiter of these sorts of things,
and he gets a lot of He has a lot
of connections in left and right, Republican and Democrat. He
wrote this Monday, when job boning by all Trump economic
advisors could not stop a market selloff or deter business leaders,
(21:20):
economic analysts, analysts, Paul's and Trump supporters from calling, texting,
and emailing me to say the sky is falling, and
it is in their collective view explicitly and unambiguously Trump's fault.
In my career, I don't recall anything quite like Munday
as Whoosh, Team Trump lost the confidence of a bunch
of key actors in one fell swoop. I thought that
(21:42):
was interesting that behind the scenes a lot of people
that normally really really big on Trump recalling Mark Auperton
and saying, what the hell is he doing?
Speaker 3 (21:50):
The business world, the American business world, was absolutely confident
that Trump would slash regulations and make permanent tax cuts
and that would be his main thrust. This whole call
it protectionism, you know, seeking a new global norm for trade,
whatever you want to call it, is surprising to them
(22:11):
and it's led to a great deal of uncertainty. Business
hates uncertainty, right. And then got to get to what
I was talking about yesterday, which I fully fully believe.
I mean, don't feel like the Wall Street journal crowd
has your best interest in mind. They have the best
interest of like what's gonna make the Dow close higher
today for a lot of the crowd who actually does
(22:32):
day trade or certainly this quarter, not what's best for
America long term, and you know, fortunately or unfortunately, I guess,
and Ryan would say, that's the way it's supposed to work.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
You know, they're looking out for themselves. That's what drives
the whole thing. But yeah, I would.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Say, as a guy who reads practically cover to cover
the journal every single day, they have a wide range
of opinions and writers there. Not all of them are
merely chasing quarterly profits.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
But I wanted to get to this and I didn't
know this. So Mark Alpernan has a bunch of links
to a whole bunch of different newspaper articles talking about
the how much damage has been done, whether it's temporary,
long term, blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Than this team.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Trump came in with the theory of the case that
they could rebalance the economy by shifting economic activity back
to the private sector from the public sector. It's part
of the whole doge thing and tariffs together. Trump advisors
have said they think the government is now twenty five
percent of the economy. Mark Alprin said, in reality, it's
(23:36):
way higher, maybe closer to fifty percent. Wow, what fifty
percent of the economy is the government? With Medicare and medicaid.
No one wants to admit it, but to a large extent,
the US economy has really just become the US government
spending in transfers. This is evidenced by the fact that
we've been running huge fiscal deficits during strong economic times.
(23:59):
And the new Terresury Secretary is proposed fixing this by
cutting government spending with musk combined with tariffs to rebounce trade,
to rebuild American manufacturing.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
But to bring it home, he gets into, we live
in a wah blah blah blah blah blah. The top
ten percent. Studies have shown there's a very high correlation
between their propensity to spend with spending being you know,
two thirds of our economies people going out and spending money,
(24:28):
and where the stock prices are. For whatever reason, when
the top ten percent are feeling wealthy, they buy stuff.
But if they're not feeling wealthy, they don't. And this
especially is true now, and this could get us into
a real doom loop of tariffs, negative feelings, stock market
(24:50):
going down, people pulling back, et cetera, et cetera, cutting
the government, which is half the economy. You see, there's
the spiral.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
If doge is laying off people and cutting the government,
and it's fifty percent of the economy that automatically is
going to drop the economy, which makes the rich ten
percent spend less, which drops the economy.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
And it's just that, you see, it's a cycle that
could catch on. Yeah. My My only objection to that
theory or a question I have about it, is that
what doge is doing is nibbling around the edges of
the actual fiscal pie. True. I don't appreciate it because
I like the edges of the pie. Oh fiscal piebius uh.
(25:30):
And it's funny because you have conservatives saying they're they're
they're not attacking entitlements and that's most of the budget
blah blah blah blah blah. But at the same time
it might cause a doom loop. I just I don't
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
Well, nobody ever knows on any of this stuff, as
we've said for years, because if you were the old thing,
if you ask you know, ten economists, you'll get eleven opinions.
Or there's only two people that understand, uh, the global
and they don't agree you know, any of those sayings.
And but you know, if you could predict this stuff, well,
(26:06):
you'd be the richest person on planet Earth, you know, immediately.
So you know, there's a lot of moving pieces and
theory and everything like that. But I do find that
very troubling. Yeah, all of it's troubling.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
I find myself imagining if Trump were to craft the
sort of message you've suggested, explaining exactly what his goals are,
why it's going to be worth enduring a bit of
pain or upheaval for a while, be it two years
or more likely five or ten or fifteen or twenty years,
because that would get the popular support. Doing something difficult
(26:41):
would require, because there's one thing democracies are terrible at.
That's doing what is difficult. Like in your family, you
could say, hey, we are going to severely restrict spending
for this year to get a down payment together to
buy the house, or make the investment or open the
business we've long dreamed of.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
You can do here on the wall of a house
with a pool and say this is why we're doing it.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
Yeah. You know, I've always been a fan of the
like the thermometer thing where you actually track your savings,
because it gives you enthusiasm for it. Judy and I
used to do that when we were young. Anyway, as
a family, you can do that. But democracies are famously
horrible at saying all right, we're all going to endure
some pain for a while, an austerity plan. It happens.
(27:24):
I don't think it's hard to get going. I don't
think we're grown up enough for this. I think we're
too used to easy sailing, smooth saling. But even if
Trump were to do that, though, Wall Street would probably
freak out for a while, and then people would see it,
would check their four one ks and freak out. And
(27:45):
I just I don't know if we have the right
stuff to institute what Trump's talking about before it's a
horrible emergency.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
Well, imagine if Trump or somebody representing Trump came out
and gave a speech says, look, half the economy is
the government. Do you know that half the economy is
the government? And that can't be that's not sustainable. And
our debt is this, and our deficit is this, and
you know our payments are this, and blah blah blah.
And if that wasn't go ahead, sorry there's more.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
No, that's fine, I was gonna say. And if if
that wasn't bad enough. Folks, here's the chunk of the
economy that would collapse and you would starve if China
decides to jump ugly. So A, we got to reign
in the government. B. We've got to wean ourselves from
being China junkies. Their economic heroin is is they're gonna
(28:36):
pull it back on us, and we're gonna be on
our hands and knees, and our economy is gonna be
puking and turning green and pooping on itself. Wow, because
they're gonna pull it out cold turkey. Do you want that?
Do you want that? Huh? Okay, We're gonna restructure the economy.
You would be a disgusting economics teacher. Yeah, but compelling.
M Uh. There's no way this works because we have
(28:59):
an election every two year. Years.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
Were already like a year away from constantly talking about
the mid terms and uh, and and the Democrats are
gonna run on He says, we can't blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
We say you you we can lose with me. Everybody says, yeah,
I want everything for nothing, and and there you go.
So to summarize, we're toomed.
Speaker 5 (29:23):
I'm moving along, aren't you glad you tuned in. Oh boy, Well,
but everybody should me and everyone we should realize that
we're not retiring today. What the stock market does today,
unless you are retiring today. Somebody listening somewhere, if you.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Would have restructured your your investments.
Speaker 5 (29:41):
If somebody somewhere on our seventy stations is listening, is
retiring today or yesterday?
Speaker 3 (29:45):
He retired yesterday. I understand while you're upset.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Sorry, sorry, Jack Armstrong and Joe Armstrong and Getty Show,
(30:10):
The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
So, speaking of generations, I thought this was both amusing
and slightly annoying. But it's an article about how evidently
some demographer social researcher by the name of Mark McCrindle
has become the go to guy for naming generations. Never
heard of this guy, and the just of the article
(30:38):
is that he believes the whole like coming up with
a groovy name for the generation and seeing if it
catches on is kind of dumb.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
Well, I gotta believe that he or whoever was in charge,
they came up with gen X way back in the day.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
I mean, this was the eighties when they started talking
gen X and far cool list generation name by the way,
not just because of my year of birth.
Speaker 5 (31:04):
And then at the meeting where they came up with
jen Y, somebody should have raised their hand and say, hey,
I see like a problem coming down the road we
might want to get ahead of with this whole lettering fing.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
We're running out of letters in the ouphant, what are
we gonna do? Well, you got this silent generation, who
weren't silent at all at the old hodown. And then
you got the Greatest generation, a fine generation, thanks for
winning World War Two.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
But you know, some good somepod.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Then you got the baby Boomers. There are a bunch
of babies that once and now I'm a boomer, the
most selfish generation that had ruined everything. Oh there's that
is fair criticism. Hippies and yeah, damn hippies. And then
then you got Generation X, again by far the coolest name.
They go through a couple more letters, and then they
having a run out of letters, they go with Millennials,
(31:51):
and then then what's the next one? It doesn't matter anyway,
So this guy says, oh, we got to quit screwing around.
We'll just use Greek letters. Okay. So Generation Alpha just
happened a while back, But now it's generation beta. When
did alpha thing? Because I never even heard generation alpha?
I know, I know, but apparently those who talk about
(32:15):
this crap have. But anyway, the point is now it's
generation beta, and of course beta is an insult in
the modern world, right, it means, for instance, a weak
and passive man or something. And so there are parents
evidently who are offended now that their children are being
What can we stop naming generations completely? What is a generation? Even?
(32:41):
I mean Generation X fans for like twenty three years
or something. This is crazy. Well, there's a number of
problems with it that are fairly obvious. But at least
back in the day, you know how much changed between
you know, this decade and that decade, not a ton,
Whereas now, holy crap, if you're growing up in the
(33:03):
smartphone world, it's completely different than the pre smartphone world.
It just is, right, So let's go with more descriptive
names like the smartphonies or or all digital weirdos or
I don't yeah, I'm just spitballing here, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The change has been so massive so quickly you might
(33:25):
have to go like every five and a half years, right,
have a new quote unquote generation if you're cause you know,
mostly I think it's useless. But if I'm a boss,
and you can say, all right, this next person we've
known or we've hired is a beta zoomer, and you
look it up and you see, oh, beta zoomers are
extremely insecure and need to be coddled like little kittens.
(33:49):
On the other hand, they're rebellious and blah blah. It
might be a tool to help you deal with them.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
Right, It seems like giant world changing events would be
better than just picking years like every so many years,
Like I mentioned, smartphones. COVID would be a good marker
if you were, you know, in if you're in grade
school during COVID, you, I know, teachers say those are
different kinds of kids.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
How did jen X get its name? I mean, what
a what a what does that even mean? How about
Watergate and Vietnam made us very cynical? Plus half of
our parents got divorced. I mean it's kind of long,
but yeah, the latch Key generation anyway, Yeah, don't call
them generation Beta. It's hurtful, so so dumb. Did you
(34:37):
know that seventy percent of TikTok's revenue comes from live
streaming gifts. When people are doing live streamy stuff, do
you gifts or gifts gifts like presents. Yes, you can
give people these little things that are called what are
(34:57):
they called their like little tokens that they can redeem
into real money. It's huge into sex live streaming. We
need someone younger than us, Katie. Well, I'm trying to
explain it to you, you old man. I need somebody
who's done it.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Well, yeah, it's you.
Speaker 6 (35:17):
Just go on and they have different dollar amounts, so
you can send from fifty cents up to one thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
I think to tip them digitally exactly. That was at
digital tips.
Speaker 5 (35:29):
Why did this catch on? Is it just easier or
more fun or well as opposed to and mowing them
or sending them a car.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Oh, it's immeasurably easier. You have an account, you click click,
they get a dollar your money, and then they can
show you their blankety blank or whatever. And TikTok allegedly
has filters for this, but they're super easy to get around.
You just use slang terms, including local slang terms. Because
it's global app and so there's an enormous child porn
(35:58):
market on Hiktok, These underage girls from all over the world,
who will you know, perform various acts or show off
or whatever and uh and and TikTok gets a cut
of that.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
Well, first of all, I'll show you whatever part you
want to see for a five spot.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
If there's any demand, give you a ten not to
that's what I'll do. I'll start a bigging war and
that's what I'll make my money. And they please don't.
We'll win out, but I'll be the benefit. It's not temptation,
it's extortion. I'll give you unny. It's a thread the Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
And Getty Show. Yeah, more Jack, more shoe podcasts, and
our hot links.
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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