6-18-24 - *FULL SHOW* Brian Wesbury; Deb Flora for Congress; Dominion's PR Problem

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
In the summer like now, andI guess it's not technically summer, but
feels like summer. I'm not wearinga jacket, so I just have this
stuff in my pockets, and it'skind of I don't really like having stuff
in my pockets when I don't haveto, So I got my car keys
here. You can't hear my walletif I shake it. Look, I'm
shaking my wallet right now and it'shardly making any noise at all, Isn't
it weird? So I'm right now, I'm taking those out of my pockets

(00:21):
and I put them on the desk. Did you need to know that?
No, but I thought it wouldbe a fabulous way to start our day
together with wasting about forty seconds ofyour time, because that's what I pride
myself on. Now today we havean unusual show in the sense that I've
got even more topics than usual.Most of them are not political. We
will do a little bit of politics, but not all that much, and

(00:45):
just a lot of stuff, someof it fun, some of it not
so much fun, but stuff weneed to know about. I also want
to let you know, and thisis really a fun thing for me.
Is that at some point during today'sshow, I am going to give away
a pair of tickets to see TheRolling Stones two days from now, this
Thursday evening at Empower Field at MileHigh where the Broncos play. Right.

(01:11):
So the way it's gonna work is, at some point in this hour,
I'm gonna give you a keyword.I'm not telling you what it is right
now, but at some point inthis hour, I'm gonna tell you what
the keyword is. At some pointin another hour, I will say the
keyword. At some point, maybeeven just in conversation. I might not

(01:32):
come out and say, all right, it's time, here's the word.
I might just say it in passing. And at that point we will take
a Texter number that I will tellyou also later, and that person will
win a pair of tickets. Soyou want to keep it here for the
duration if you want to win ticketsto The Rolling Stones on Thursday night,
And if you're thinking to yourself,ross Man, that is a transparent way

(01:57):
to try to keep people listening tothe show when they might otherwise have something
that they need to go do,and they might need to change stations for
a while, and you're just tryingto keep them listening, and my response
to that would be, dude,that's my job, all right. So
let's keep going. Like I said, a lot of stuff today, and

(02:21):
a lot of it local actually andnational and international. But let's start with
this one. This is from Denverrightdot com Tattered Cover. Tattered Cover is
I would say Colorado's most famous bookstore. I could be wrong, but I
think it's I think it's the state'smost famous bookstore, and it's certainly Denver's
most famous bookstore. They've got multiplelocations around the place and been famous for

(02:46):
a long time. I've done alot of events there. I hosted Jack
Carr there two or three times,and Scottie Husing Major Husting for his book
Echo and Ramadi, and it's just, you know, it's a wonderful place.
It was. It's been through coupleof different owners. The last set
of owners included one of the guyswho was running for mayor of Denver at

(03:07):
some point. Anyway, they've hada lot of financial trouble. As you
know, bookselling ain't easy, andespecially because bookstores typically sell books for the
price that's printed on the book,right, the price that's printed usually on
the back cover. But could besomewhere else, could be on the inside,
on the dust flat, on theinside. But whatever the list price
is of the book, that's normallythe price in the bookstore. But you're

(03:30):
competing with online booksellers like Amazon andBarnes and Noble on their website at least,
where books are sold cheaper and usuallymailed chipped to you for free,
and it's kind of hard to compete. So there's a lot of upside to
having the bookstore right you go in, you flip through the pages of the
book, you decide whether it looksinteresting or not. But again, and

(03:53):
you get it right away, andthat's a plus. But is it enough
of a plus for people to say, I'm willing to pay five dollars more
for the book. Some people,yes, some people know. But it
used to be that you didn't evenhave a choice, so you just went
and bought the book. So there'sbeen a lot of financial pressure on booksellers
and Tattered Cover filed for bankruptcy,and what we learned last night is that

(04:18):
Barnes and Noble is buying Tattered Cover, And as denver I put it,
marking the end of Tattered Cover's fiftythree year run as an independent business one
point eight three million dollars, andthey have about three point four million dollars

(04:39):
in debt. And so I haven'treally studied how they're gonna how they're gonna
deal with the dead, if ifBarnes and Noble is going to honor the
dead or all this or all thisstuff, but tat, But Barnes and
Noble says they are going to continueto operate the stores under the Tattered Cover

(04:59):
in name, and they will keepalmost all of the employees. So there
you go. Well, we'll see, we'll see how it all plays out.
But that's what's going on right now. Kwame Spearman, by the way,
as the guy I was I wasthinking of who just ran for office

(05:19):
and became CEO when anyway, andran for ran for mayor and then ran
for Denver school Board and YadA,YadA, YadA. Anyway, Tattered Cover
no longer an independent company. Letme let me stick with a Denver story
here. And as long as longas I'm wasting your time this morning,
I'm gonna tell you that I'm actuallygonna sit down now. I was standing

(05:40):
for that first part, but nowI'm sitting. Do you care well,
you probably saw me anyway if youwere looking through the window. So we
spent some time last year talking aboutthis thing in Denver public schools called the
discipline matrix, the discipline matrix,which sounds like something people would pay extra
for, But what the discipline matrixreally is is basically a spreadsheet that says

(06:02):
in the left hand column it givesa list of potential bad actions by students
or really anybody else who was ona school campus. But it's mostly about
students, and then on the andthen going across. So the columns represent

(06:24):
different things that can or cannot bedone as far as discipline for the student.
For example, one column might becall law enforcement. So we talked
last year about how there were thingsin the new discipline matrix knew at the
time where somebody could steal or damagefive thousand dollars worth of school property or

(06:50):
people other people's property at the school, and the discipline Matrix said the police
will not be called. And Ithink a lot of people recognize that that
is freaking insane and that the lunaticsare running the asylum. Now. I
don't have details here yet and I'mtrying to get them, but there was

(07:14):
a piece over at chalkbet dot orgnew discipline guidelines to be rolled out by
Denver Public Schools this fall, andone of the things that was interesting is
in the article there's a link toa presentation given by district officials to the
school board late last week. Andwhen I go to the link, it
doesn't work, and I don't know. It looks to me like the presentation

(07:39):
document has been removed by the schoolboard so that we can't see it.
I'm guessing. I'm guessing now thisis going to have, according to chalkbeat,
greater differentiation between offenses and provide realworld examples. For example, extortion
slash sextortion, an offense for whicha student could be suspended. As student

(08:00):
A willingly or unknowingly shares a nudephoto with student B. Student btail student
A, they must pay them athousand dollars to keep it off Instagram.
Now, again, I don't havea lot of details here, so I'm
gonna not spend a lot of timeon that. There's just one part of
this that I really wanted to focuson. So the new matrix is gonna
have seven levels of behavioral offenses insteadof six, bringing a firearm to school

(08:22):
is now a level seven offense,the most serious, and makes a student
of any age elible eligible for expulsionin other categories. Younger students face lesser
consequences. Now here's my favorite partof this story. Not really favorite,
but you'll understand. Homicide aka murderand attempted homicide we're also added as level

(08:45):
seven offenses. And then this person, speaking on behalf of the school board
said that decision was quote met withmixed emotions, but reflects the reality of
urban schools. This person said,quote those are behaviors that happen in schools.
So when we talked about this,we said, let's call the thing

(09:07):
the thing. In other words,your Denver school board has decided, with
much hesitation and mixed emotions to saythat in school attempted murder is kind of
bad. Give away a pair oftickets to see The Rolling Stones this Thursday,

(09:28):
So that would be forty eight plusmaybe ten, maybe fifty eight hours
from now. I'm not sure whattime the show starts, but somewhere around
fifty eight or sixty hours from now. So the winner will get a pair
of tickets to The Rolling Stones thisThursday. At Empower field at mile high.
Now here's how we're going to playthis game. At some point during

(09:48):
the show today, I and onlyI this is this is key. If
anybody else does it, it doesn'tcount. I will say the key word.
And when I say the keyword,and I will tell you what it
is in a moment. When Iand only I say the keyword at some
point during the show, you needto be Texter number ten at five six

(10:15):
six nine zero writing rolling Stones inyour text. And if you are the
tenth Texter to write rolling Stones inyour text after I say the keyword later
in the show, then my producerwill get in touch with you and get
the rest of your information so wecan get you those tickets. The keyword

(10:37):
will be satisfaction. The next timeyou hear me and only me. If
anybody else says that, it doesn'tcount. The next time you hear me
say that word during this show,you want to be Texter number ten at
five six six nine zero with rollingStones in your text, and you will

(11:01):
win a pair of tickets to seethe Rolling Stones. All right, let's
do a couple other stories that areone slightly political, one's not political at
all. So every once in awhile, somebody famous does something. They
don't even have to be famous,but somebody does something in view of lots
of people effectively, and they dosomething in a way that's tricky, that's

(11:28):
not legit, and somehow think they'regoing to get away with it. That's
what always comes to mind when Ihear stories like the one I'm gonna share
with you right now, right Howexactly is it possible that these people think
we're going to get away with it? Now? I have never watched the

(11:48):
Tony Awards, don't care about theTony Awards, could barely tell you what
they are. But let me justshare a little bit of this with you.
So I guess the Tony Awards happeneda couple of days ago. Alicia
Keys was there and she was singing. And Alicia Keys has a musical called
Hell's Kitchen. And here's how thiswent. So Alicia Keys is on stage

(12:16):
at the Tony's singing, and thenshe walks out and goes down the steps
of the stage. And now I'mlooking at an Associated Press article. Here
goes down the steps of the stageinto the orchestra seat section, turns to
go down, you know, theaisle goes out the side of the auditorium

(12:41):
and is next on the marble stepsof wherever the the David Coch Theater at
Lincoln Center, goes down the stepsand is joined on the steps by jay
Z, another huge rap star,hip hop star, and they're singing together,

(13:07):
and the place goes crazy. Nowthat she and jay Z are outside
singing the audience and the media.Of course, they are still inside the
auditorium. And now it appears thatthe outside thing was actually pre taped,
and Alicia Keys wore for the pretaping the same clothes that she wore while,

(13:28):
you know, at the actual awardsceremony while she was singing. They
pre taped this duet thing with jayZ, who wasn't actually there, and
did it as if it were live. And again, I don't care about
the Tony's, I don't care aboutAlicia Keys, I don't care about jay
Z. I don't care about anyof that. But what I always find

(13:50):
fascinating is how, especially when it'sfamous, people do something that is gonna
get a lot of attention and fakeit and think they're going to get away
with it. How exactly do theythink they're going to get away with it,
as the AP says of a vision. A version of the two finishing

(14:11):
the song was beamed to the TVaudience and a video screen inside the venue,
but no photos have surfaced surfaced ofthe two performers live. They made
it up again. I don't care. I just wonder, like, do
you really think do you all reallythink that we are that dumb? Because

(14:31):
I promise you we're not that dumb? All right. One other, very
very quick story. So this isthe last thing we did in the United
States right now as we head intothe twenty twenty four presidential election. We've
all heard about diminion dominion voting systemsand machines, and there are all these
claims, especially from the trumpy right, that the dominion voting machines did stuff
that they shouldn't have done and changedvotes and didn't count right and all these

(14:54):
things, and none of that wasever proved. But here's the story from
San Juan, Puerto Rican where theyused something like eight hundred dominion voting machines
and what they found was hundreds ofdiscrepancies following primary elections there, and dominion
voting machines says that some software thatthey used to export the vote totals didn't

(15:18):
work right, and so it spitout wrong vote totals. Now they had
paper backups, I think for everything, and they went and did the counts
and nobody's contesting the results of theelections. But the last thing we need
right now is a big screw upby a major provider of voting machines.
You can just imagine how this storywill play out as we get into the

(15:41):
twenty twenty four elections. We'll beright back on koa koa, all right,
it's time to talk with Kurt Camberof Centennial Capital Partners. And Kurt,
you always like to look at whatI think are unconventional indicators. You
mentioned to me today the Walmart recessionsignal. Can you explain. Yeah,

(16:04):
you know, when things are goingreally well, the wealthy people tend to
continue to buy luxury goods, sothat would be the S and P Global
Luxury Index. But when things startto slide, those starts start to come
down, and the discount retailers likea Walmart, of Target some of the

(16:26):
other ones tend to go up becausethe shift of spending drops down into those
those assets. If you put thatin conjunction with tight with a wider credit
spreads and right now they're pretty tight, and they're actually it will bit tighter,
which means there's very few defaults.But there's the fault increase and the

(16:47):
wealthy begin to shot more at thediscount retailers. That's a pretty reliable signal
that a procession is coming. Rightnow, we are seeing the global luxury
and decline a bit but not alot, and we are seeing the Walmart
recession signal sort of improving others.Those discount stocks are improving, but nothing

(17:10):
dramatic yet. But Curtit spread stayingare still really tight, which means defaults
are really low. So right nowit just looks like a bump. But
if you want a leading indicator thatcould lead into whenever recession may be coming,
that's a nice combination of signals.Love it. This is fascinating stuff.
And folks, if you're working withKurt Cambier, you take him on
as you're a financial planner. Theseare the kinds of conversations you're going to

(17:32):
have with him in addition to youknow, much bigger picture, long term
stuff about your own financial needs andrisk tolerance and insurance and kids college funds
and all this. This is allpart of financial planning. If you don't
have a good financial planner, oryou have a financial planner and you and
you think you're not getting enough attention, sit down with Curt and see if
it makes sense to work together.Kcambier dot com. Kcimb Ier dot com

(17:56):
or my phone, Kurt, youbet directly. I'm three zero three two
seven one one zero sixty seven.Give me a call. We'd love to
help. Thanks, man, appreciateit. Talk to you tomorrow. Yeah.
It discussions in the show. Shenot to be construed a specific recommendations
or investment advice. Consult with aprofessional before investing. Securities offers through Cambrige
Investment Research Inc. Member f SIPCadvisory services through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc.

(18:17):
Centennial Capital and Cambridge are not affiliated. Ruskimonski is not a client.
I'm very pleased to be joined,So just keep listening. At some point
during the show, that word thechannon just played the name of a rolling
Stone song will be I will saythe word, and then the tenth text
will win the pair of tickets.I'm very pleased to have my friend Deborah
Flora join me in studio again,and deb is running for Congress, seeking

(18:41):
the Republican nomination in the fourth congressionaldistrict, where there are a lot of
candidates, including one other with veryfemale with very high name ID. Before
we get to any of that stuff, I wanted to thank you publicly for
showing up on Sunday at the proIsrael pro us rally. You and your
husband were there holding American and Israeliflags, you saying both national anthems,

(19:07):
and you're running for office and that'snot even in your district, and you
showed up, and I just wantedto thank you publicly for being there.
You're not Jewish, No, whywas that important to you? Well,
first of all, it's important todo the right thing. And Ross,
it was great to be there withyou. Rich Social help organize it.
He's endorsed me. I've stood withIsrael for years. This is not about

(19:29):
running for office or not running foroffice. It's about the fact that it
is the right, the moral thingto do. It is also about the
fact that I've seen the unedited Hamasbodycam footage and we have to understand clearly
what we are standing for. Itwas beautiful to be with a pro Israel,
pro America, pro freedom, prodemocracy. Although we're republic I do

(19:49):
know that, but it was proshared values and this country was founded on
Judeo Christian values and we need tounderstand that is not the norm around the
world world. And what Israel isdoing in fighting against Humas who is called
in its charter for the extermination ofevery Jewish person, that is horrid.

(20:11):
That is something that we can neverstand for as a free people. And
by the way, where it doescorrelate with this race is that I've called
Lauren Bobert out in this She's saidthat she is pro Israel. But the
reality she has voted not just oncebut twice against funding for our key ally
in the Middle East since the Octoberseventh atrocities. There is no perfect bill,

(20:33):
and she finds a reason to say, well, there was some humanitarian
aid. You know, Israel isalready providing humanitary aid to those areas of
Gaza that has retaken. But thereality is our key ally asked for support.
This last vote was the last opportunityto support them in what they need.
They weren't asking for money, theyweren't asking for troops. Israel was

(20:55):
asking for our to support them witharms. And the Republican Jewish Coalition even
said and called Lauren Bobert out byname and said, anyone who voted against
this final opportunity to provide aid inthis war against Hamas, this war against
barbarism, cannot call themselves pro Israel. And I'm proud to say that I'm
pro Israel. You know, Americannational security comes first with our border.

(21:18):
But what is happening in this fightis one hundred percent in the interest of
America's national security as well as justdoing the right thing. The only freely
elected country in the Middle East whois fighting a war against the barbarism of
Hamas. And if we do notbelieve it's going to come here, if
it is not one there, thenwe are naive. But more than anything

(21:41):
wrong, it's just the right thingto do. No matter what, I
always want to do my best asa flawed human, mean to be on
the right side of history, theright side of standing for what is just
and what is good. Play Devil'sAdvocates, slightly yeah and share with you
a tweet that I got. Iposted some videos on Twitter of the rally

(22:03):
and the pathetically small group of protests. The Israeli unwashed protesters. But one
person, one person tweeted at methat Israel's problems are not America's problems.
So let me pose this to youas a serious question, because I don't

(22:25):
think it's a ridiculous question. Ina situation where we have something like thirty
five trillion dollars in debt and outof control government spending that's bankrupting our children,
why should America spend money to supportany country anywhere else, especially if
we are not bound to do soby treaty. Great question. Really,

(22:47):
government has one job to protect therights and the safety of its citizens.
That's it. So national security isa job of the US government. First
of all. When it comes tospending, I am a fiscal conservative.
There are so many is to cutthe waste and the pork. And when
you've got omnibus spending bills that Republicanstuff with as much pork as Democrats do,

(23:07):
I'm running as a Republican. Butlet's be honest about that. Or
where an infrastructure bill, let's say, actually is really pushing EV mandates and
a Green New Deal energy and whoknows who's getting kickbacks from that? That
is the inappropriate use of funds whenit comes to national security. In order
for me is our border. Wehave to secure that. And I do

(23:27):
believe that the outward facing a roleof our military can be used at the
border because there are people coming andthat's the way it is supposed to be
faced. But the reason why whatis going on in Israel is a threat
to the United States of America iswe cannot have a myopic view and not
understand that Iran, who is alsobacked by China, who's waging a proxy

(23:52):
war through Hamas, that is athreat to the United States of America.
They have said over and over againthat after Israel, America is the great
Satan if we don't understand after nineto eleven that we are facing and fighting
in ideology, and it's a horrificone that is where that war is being
fought, and far better for Americans. And by the way, I have

(24:12):
a son who's nineteen years old,my husband and I do it's far better
for us to support Israel and they'reamazing military and they're amazing prowess to fight
that war there than to just suddenlyabandon them. And by the way,
one of the only things stopping Iranis that their sense that America has the
back of Israel. If we abandonIsrael, Iran will be embolden. You

(24:36):
better believe that war is coming toour soil, and they've already. Last
week, by the way, theJoint Terrorist Task Force between the FBI and
Homeland Security, they apprehended eight suspectedterrorists that are here on our soil.
This is the fight of our day, Benjamin Nennaw who said it, well,
it is between civilization and barbarism.We'd better stand on the side of

(24:57):
civilization. You know what reminds mejust the wording that you used there is
just a little tangent. But thefirst time I ever talked with Michael Morrell,
who ran CIA for a while.And I know a lot of people
do not like Michael Morrel for whathappened later when he was talking about Hunter
Biden's laptop, But way way beforeall that stuff, the first time I

(25:18):
talked to him was when he wrotehis book, and it's about radical Islam
and Islamo fascism, and it's calledthe Great War of our time, and
that's I was reminded of that bythe way you talked about it too.
Well, when we look at nineto eleven, it was the responsor was
probably not appropriate because until that pointin time it always been this traditional war

(25:41):
between two countries. You know,we could see the demarcations, we could
see the governmental differences, and theproblem with military history is we're always fighting
the last war, not the warwordfighting. Now we are now finding an
ideological war between Western civilization ideals whichIsrael shares based on Judeo Christian principles of
individual liberty and freely elected leaders,and the horrors we've seen of the terrorism

(26:07):
of Hamas Iran and others who arenot for those values, and America being
the standard bearer for that, weare their primary target. All right,
let's get into a couple other thingsand just give me slightly shorter answers just
in the interested time, and letme just let me just say one thing
to listeners. So, at requestof many, many people, I decided
to do a voter guide. Iwasn't going to spend my time on it

(26:30):
because it takes me hours and hours, but a lot of people asked for
a voter guide for the primary election, so I did one. I did
not even attempt to cover every primaryelection in the state. I covered the
ones that I think are important andthe ones that some close friends of mine
thought were important. And if yougo to Rossciminsky dot com near the top
of the page, slightly towards theright, you will see the link for
the voter guide. And in thisrace, in CD four, I endorsed

(26:52):
Deborah Flora. Now, I wouldjust want to make one thing clear,
or a couple things clear, veryquickly, because I don't want to take
time away from de who's the guesthere. There are a couple other people
in this race who I like,Like it wouldn't break my heart if Jerry
Sonnenberg were a member of Congress.Yeah. I like Mike Lynch too.
But look, listeners, know thatin the past I supported Lauren Bobert two

(27:18):
elections ago. It was neutral inthe last election because I just thought she
wasn't really doing the job. Andby the time we got to hear I
just felt like, even though Ilike her personally, I felt like she
had demonstrated to me that she couldnot grow into the job. She was
not maturing into the job. Shewas spending too much time being famous,
and I want someone who is goingto do the job. I also want

(27:41):
someone even though it's a very Republicanleaning district, like every district in Colorado,
it's becoming less Republican or more Democratleaning. And I want someone who
can win in the suburbs. AndI don't think Lauren can do it.
And I don't think Lauren has earnedit, and she left the district that
she was in because she knew shecouldn't win. And so, after a

(28:03):
lot of thought and looking at allthese candidates, in my opinion, Debra
Flora is the best candidate. Idon't often endorse in Republican primaries, but
I want you to know I didhere. And so with all that said,
Debra, you know, there's thisone very famous candidate, and then
there's a lot of people who justaren't her who might end up splitting the
vote. And we could see Icould imagine either her or you, probably

(28:27):
not any of the others, winningwith some number that starts with a three,
right, Can you see that scenario? Yes? And first of all,
Ross, thank you so much foryour endorsement. That means the world
because I respect the fact that youyou know, you stand on the Constitution
to support people's rights to live freeand government's limited job. So the scenario

(28:48):
is very true. And one ofthe reasons why the Gazette endorse me,
for instance, is to signal toeverybody, and I'm talking to listeners right
now who have not voted, youcan be the one that makes the difference.
As a historically low turnout right nowacross the country. That means your
vote counts. The Gazette endorse me. They had endorsed Lauren Bobert before they
endorse me in this race because it'stime for a new, fresh leadership in

(29:12):
DC that will build a coalition toactually get something done. You know,
Lauren is a you know she grandstands. Now there's a place for that.
You can rally people and if that'syour flavor, go for it. It's
not getting the work done of thepeople in DC. Even when she was
first elected and we had two yearswhere we had the presidency, the Senate

(29:34):
and the House of Representatives, reallyit was squandered. There was nibbling around
the edges, there was grand standing, there was social media clickbait, there
was all of that, but thework of the people did not happen.
That's why I appreciate your endorsement.The endorsement of the Gazette, the endorsement
of the Douglas County Sheriff, andmany others. Because the reality is I

(29:56):
will go. I will build aconservative coalition. I am about as third
does they come in this race.I really believe that if your benchmark is
a constitution, which is what Istand on, i am the most conservative
candidate in this race. But whatwill be the difference is I will build
a coalition to actually do the workof the people, actually secure aborder,
actually pulls spending back, release ourenergy sector, drive down inflation, make

(30:19):
sure we begin to bring in andrain in the out of control spending.
So let me just jump in herejust to see the interested time. So
let's say there are voters in CDfour right now who haven't voted yet.
Yes, and maybe they haven't beenpaying a ton of attention. And most
people, in fact don't pay toProbably listeners to this show pay more attention
than the average person does. Butso let's say, and I think there

(30:42):
are a lot of these people whoare thinking of themselves. I am not
voting for Lauren Bobert, right.I don't know these other people very well.
I've heard some of their names,a little bit. I want you
to give me because you went throughleadership program in the Rockies, right,
so you you know that you needto be able to give a message in
a very short time period, right, So I want you to take I

(31:03):
was going to say thirty seconds,but I like prime numbers, so I'll
round up to thirty one instead ofrounding you down to thirty nine. I
want you to give me in thirtyone seconds. The argument that you would
make to someone who is definitely notvoting for Lauren why they should pick you
from among the others. Absolutely,well, here we go in thirty one
seconds. The reality is I amthe conservative who can win and keep this

(31:29):
seat in the Republican column. Ifthat's important to you. The reality is
that's the seventy three percent suburban districtforty nine percent unaffiliated. My focus is
also on growing the party because therealities were down to twenty four percent Republicans,
not because our principles aren't correct,but because we have too many bomb
throwers in our party that are notbringing people together. I will do the

(31:49):
real work of the people. Iwill make sure that we keep this seat,
which is one of the last beachheadsin Colorado of conservative limited government principles,
keep it in the Republican calm.That's why I've been endorsed by the
Gazette, the sheriffs of Douglas County, and also Elbert, many mayors and
city council members. And the otherreason why is because I have thought authentically

(32:12):
next to my neighbors in CD four. They know that, and I can
begin to restore and rehabilitate the party, build a down ballot support system so
we can achieve balance in the Domein Denver as well. So that's why
I'm assive for people's vote. Goto Deborah Flora dot com, Folks,
Deborah Flora. That's D B.O. R A. H. Flora

(32:32):
flr dot com. This is alllinked on my blog at Roskiminsky dot com.
And again I'm not shy about sayingI have endorsed Deborah in this race.
There are a couple other people inthis race who I like, but
I think Deborah Flora is the bestcandidate. And I hope that if you
live in CD four and you haven'tvoted yet, I hope you will vote
for her in the primary. Forthe reasons I explain to my voter guide

(32:55):
and the reasons. Deborah explained justthen, thanks for coming in. It's
good to see you again. Great, thank you, and I do want
to real quickly invite everyone. We'rehaving a border security and public safety forum
tomorrow evening five pm. Loan TreeHub is with the Douglas County Sheriff,
Darren Weekley, who endorsed me,as well as John Fabricatory, is a
CD six candidate for Congress. Buthe's also a retired ICE director. So

(33:21):
we're going to be talking about thereal solutions to the number one issue that
are facing people in our state.Okay, time and location again, Lone
Tree Hub, five pm tomorrow eveningWednesday. We're gonna talk about border security,
public safety. Would love to seeyou there. Go on my Facebook
page. Also you see the detailsdevil Flora for Colorado. Thanks, Debra,
appreciate it all right. I'm gonnado a couple other things here.

(33:43):
So this is actually a political story, but not Congress related story that I
wanted to share with you. DonaldTrump has changed an immense number of political
dynamics in this country, and maybesome for the better and some for the
worse. But just as a studentof politics, I think all of it
is kind of interesting. And oneof the interesting things that is going on

(34:06):
right now is that Donald Trump seemsto be gaining support among younger voters.
He's gaining support among younger voters,including by the way, among young black
men, which is interesting. Andolder voters who tend to vote Democrat seem

(34:30):
to be slightly drifting toward Republican.I'm sorry, older voters who tend to
vote Republican are drifting toward Democrat rightnow. And if you look at a
chart over the last I'm looking ata chart for the last fifty years in
terms of voters age sixty or older, the share who voted Democrat versus the

(34:53):
share who voted Republican most of thetime. Most of the time, the
older voters lean and modestly Republican,But in the past couple of years,
according to a New York Times Sienapoll, they're leading Democrat. And Axios
has a headline Biden's Senior Momentum,which is a kind of funny play on

(35:16):
Biden's repeated senior moments that he keepshappening, like Obama leading him off the
stage couple days ago. Why he'scourting older voters, and what they say
here is Biden appears to be makingserious inroads with America's oldest voters and could
become the first Democrat to win oldervoters in over twenty years. If the

(35:40):
current polling pans out, November's electionbetween two historically old candidates would upheld long
held assumptions about how Americans vote.In the interesting time, I think I'm
not going to read a lot more, but I will just mention two quick
things. The most recent New YorkTimes poll shows Biden up nine point points

(36:00):
among voters among likely voters aged sixtyfive or older, and the Quinnipiac pole
last month had Biden up twelve pointson Trump among voters sixty five and older.
So it's very interesting for two reasons. First of all, there's never
been there. There's never been atime where Democrat led a Republican by anything

(36:23):
close to twelve points ninety two.Maybe you get kind of close to that,
but when you're talking about older votersleaning towards a Democrat like that,
it is rare. The other thingto keep in mind is older voters have
a high propensity to vote. Iwill say a keyword, and when I

(36:45):
say that, word. The tenthtexter at five six six nine zero who
texts in the words rolling Stones willwin a pair of tickets to see the
Rolling Stones on Thursday night at inpower Field at mile High. It only
counts if I say the keyword,and so, in order not to violate
that and to remind you of thekeyword without breaking my own rule, dragon,

(37:07):
what is the keyword satisfaction? Sowhen you hear me and only me
say that word during this show,be texter number ten and five six six
nine zero with the words rolling Stones. I can't get no, and you
will win a pair of tickets tosee the Rolling Stones. Through the try.
You did try, You did try. All right, let's do something
completely different, and I mean completelydifferent. I got a really interesting email

(37:30):
recently about a photo exhibit called theCircle of Light photo Project that is described
as a collection of photographs taken bypeople who used to be blind and whose
sight was restored through cornea transplant surgery. And I just find that concept so

(37:53):
fabulous. And joining us to talkabout it is one of these photographers from
writing here in Colorado, Dana Henderson. She's from Elizabeth and well, Dana,
welcome to Koa, it's good tohave you. Hi, thank you
so much for having me. I'mso glad to And just tell us a
little bit about your story. Youknow, were you were you blind from

(38:16):
birth? Did you become blind someother way? And then how are you
not blind? Now? Sure?I was not blind from birth. I
actually had no trouble with my visionin the beginning, and in my early
twenties I suddenly couldn't see the bigE on the charts and it was a

(38:37):
big change and needed according a transplantin the near future. It was pretty
sudden for our family. Wow.So how fast was that transition to seeing
more or less perfectly to basically notseeing at all? It was? It
was, It was pretty suddenly Ihad I didn't have glass is growing up

(39:01):
like a year a month. Itwas kind of a year, about a
year. And did they ever determinethe cause? I have what's called carataconas,
which is when your cornea changes shape, and we tried some other routes
and it just it wasn't working.And I actually have corn and transplants in

(39:22):
both of my eyes at this point. Wow. And I think one of
your eyes maybe you needed it donetwice or something I did. Yeah,
I had it for a very longsixteen years. It was a long transplant
and just sometimes the body rejects anddifferent things like that. And so I
do have any were one. Idon't know when your kid was born,

(39:45):
but or if you have more thanone, but I know at least you
have a daughter. Must have musthave been at some point wondering am I
going to get to literally watch mydaughter grow up? Correct? Yeah,
for sure it. You know,having transplant has just been life changing.
I can see crisper the colors,you know, my cornea just was giving

(40:10):
out and it was very gray.And it's just been impactful for our family
and folks. If you're interested inseeing any of the photographs from folks who
at some point in their lives wereblind and are not anymore, the Circle
of Light photo project is currently ondisplay at the Rocky Mountain Lions I Institute.

(40:32):
We just have about a minute anda half year data. But just
tell me a little bit about whatphotography means to you now that you can
see again. Oh yes, theotoleographyis just it's a great outlet. It's
grown our families wanting to just strengthengoing on adventures and being together and just

(41:00):
capturing that and those memories. There'sjust so much beautiful nature out there and
being able to truly see it andexperience it with those that you love,
like it's just a gift. TheRocky Mountain Lions, I think has just
been wonderful for our family. Myhusband is also a recipient. And actually

(41:21):
that that reminds me because we talkabout, you know, the surgery and
whatever, but it's it's actually acornea transplant, right, So the cornea
had to come from a donor.Correct, Yes, yes, yeah,
yeah, it's the And that's kindof what the Circle of Light Photo Project
does that it educates the community justabout what this gift of being a donor

(41:44):
does to the recipients and to theirlife. Folks, all this stuff is
linked on my blog. If youat Rosciminsky dot com today and just scroll
down to the guests section, you'llsee the links for the Circle of Life
Photo Project and for Rocky Mountain LionsEye inst And I just thought this is
a wonderful story to share some ofthe how medicine surgery can make benefits in

(42:09):
people's lives that go beyond just ohI'm healthy now like I You know,
Dana could literally watch your daughter growup and take beautiful pictures and teach.
I'm a teacher. I can teachmy students. Yeah, it's just fantastic.
I'm very happy for you, Dana, and I'm grateful for your time
today. Thank you so much fordoing this interview. I really appreciate it.

(42:32):
Anytime, anytime. All right,folks, we're gonna take a quick
break. We'll be right back onKOA. Don't forget coming up sometime over
the rest of the show. You'regonna hear me say the keyword, which
is satisfaction. Right, but itonly counts when I say it, not
when anyone else says it. Andwhen I say it, be the tenth
Texter at five six six nine zerowith the words rolling Stones, and you

(42:55):
will win a pair of tickets tosee The Stones this Thursday at empower Field
at Mile High. I keep ithere on Kowa. I want to tell
you about a cool thing I didat my new old house yesterday. So
whoever owned it before just didn't givea rats behind about much of anything.
You will admit though, with yournew home. You are satisfied with your
new home. I think I willbe satisfied with my new home once it's

(43:19):
kind of finished. But right now, it's right now, it's a wreck.
There's no interior walls. The outsideis ugly. You can see where
rain has come through the you know, the the eves near a near a
gutter. It's a mess. Butbut I'm I'm very, very financially driven
as a homeowner, right, youdo take satisfaction in the work that you

(43:40):
put into your home. Oh,indeed, highly satisfying, highly satisfying.
And we're doing a lot of thework ourselves, and that is actually a
thing I wanted to mention to you. So we got a nine zone sprinkler
system that's around the property, andwe turn them all on and we realize

(44:00):
that two of the zones aren't working. Anyway, if you've ever done anything
with sprinkler systems around your house,you know, normally you have these valve
boxes in the ground, right,So you got a main line that goes
to these valve boxes, and thenthere are individual valves for each sprinkler zone
and those get turned on by thesprinkler controller. And so you know,
one zone goes for the sprinklers inthe northwest corner of your lot, and

(44:23):
then another zone for the southwest corner. You're a lot that kind of thing,
right, And each valve is ina box. If you've got a
somewhat larger lot with multiple zones,you might have more than one valve box.
And this piece of property that webought has that situation with multiple valve
boxes. But nobody apparently who livedthere has cared, so there's nine zones.

(44:45):
Christen accidentally found one of the inground boxes with three valves and it
was covered under three inches of dirtand mulch. It's crazy, and there's
only three valves in it, right, and we know we've got nine.
So I had these guys come outfrom fifty two to eighty locates and work

(45:08):
with me on finding other stuff.But the problem is, I think there's
broken wires and this stuff is overlappingwith other utility lines. And we were
able to find one more valve box, but we still need to find a
little bit find some more. ButI will tell you when you're like digging

(45:34):
literally digging in the dirt, andyou and you hit this piece of plastic
and you uncover it and you're like, all right, there's the thing I'm
looking for. You know, thatreally brings some satisfaction when you are are
working like that, working with yourhands and and you find this thing,
and of course using the electronic signalsthat the dude from fifty two eighty Locates

(45:59):
was helping with. And by theway, fifty to eighty Lowcates did not
ask me to mention them on theshow, and they're not giving me anything
to mention them on the show,and they didn't know I'm going to mention
them on the show. I justI like their work, and I do
think the whole thing is pretty fascinatingactually. So anyway, that was much
of my day yesterday, was workingdigging in the dirt, trying to find

(46:21):
this stuff and getting that satisfaction fromfinding, you know, from it's like
an archaeological dig. I mean,my wife was digging, got through like
three inches of dirt in the frontyard and found old concrete garden edging.
Right, So these days, likeif you're putting in a garden, you
might put in that tin or whateverit is, the metal that you put

(46:42):
around that kind of separates one sectionof the garden from the other. She
found some old concrete edging yesterday orday before yesterday, and it is probably
from the seventies and it's buried underthree inches of dirt and mulch, and
she found like some golf balls andit's just it's crazy. It's like archaeology
at our house. Anyway, allright, we're gonna hit a break here,
and when we come back, we'regonna be joined by a guy who

(47:06):
I think is one of the besteconomists in America, Brian Westbury. He
and I have been friends a longtime, but he hasn't been on the
show in a while. And we'regonna talk about a couple of things.
One, I know a lot abouteconomics, but there's a particular question that
comes up a lot from listeners thatI really don't know enough about to give
a good answer, and that isthis question of d dollarization. Is the

(47:27):
world going to stop using dollars theway they use them? Now we're gonna
talk about that. We're also goingto talk about inflation. I have a
listener who Lean's left, who whenwe talk about inflation, frequently asks me,
well, Ross, isn't inflation reallycaused by corporate greed? And we're
gonna have Brian answer that question.Two, I know the answer to that
question, but we're gonna have Briananswered as well. It's gonna be a

(47:50):
fun, somewhat nerdy economic conversation rightafter this on KOA. My old friend,
and I do mean old Brian Westbury. He is chief economist at First
Trust Advisors First Trust Portfolios, andone of the things I like to say
about Brian seriously, So, thereare a lot of economists out there who
work as professors, and I likea lot of them, and a lot

(48:15):
of them are very smart, anda lot of them get things right,
you know. But when there arepeople who are prognosticating about the economy specifically,
like you know, are we goingto have a recession or not?
What's the stock market or bond marketgoing to do? You know, folks
like that can make any kind ofprediction they want with no repercussions. They
don't really win anything if they getit right. They certainly don't lose anything
if they get it wrong. Meanwhile, Brian is in charge of doing economics

(48:38):
for First Trust that has how muchmoney under management now, Brian about two
hundred and thirty billion dollars, right, So Brian really has you know,
and Brian has his own money inthese funds and in first trust investments,
in addition to having the responsibility,the fiduciary and ethical responsibility to his clients

(48:59):
to try to get it right.So Brian is an economist where it actually
matters to him and to his peopleif he gets it right. And he's
been named by the Wall Street Journalas one of the most accurate economists in
America. And I just love talkingto the guy too. So with that
super long introduction, welcome back tothe show. Brian. It's good to
have you, Ross. It's alwaysgreat to be with you. And yeah,

(49:21):
we've known each other for a longlong time, going all the way
back to Chicago, and so it'salways a pleasure to be with you.
So you know that I'm pretty goodat economics, Brian, and I can
answer a lot of economics questions formy listeners. But there's an area that
I really I feel like I'm notstrong on, and listeners ask me about
a lot, and that is thedollar is the world reserve currency, and

(49:45):
the question of potential d dollarization.And I think I sent you a link
to this article. The most recentthing in all this about Saudi Arabia,
letting an agreement expire that has dollarsas the only as the only currency for
settling transactions in oil with Saudi Arabia. So that's no longer true. So

(50:06):
well, just let's start with themacro, the big, biggest macro.
What is a reserve currency and whathas been the dollars global role there?
And then we'll talk about potential changes. Yeah, you know, so a
lot of this hits the kind ofit hits the wires, if you will,

(50:29):
or people's nerves, because we remember, I mean, I don't think
anybody remembers it, you know,to the day or anything, but that
the British pound used to be theworld's reserve currency and then they just failed.
The sixties, seventies, eighties werea disaster and they finally lost their

(50:51):
reserve currency status and a lot ofpeople think, you know, that was
kind of the end of Britain.I think if we look at Britain,
we have to realize that it wasn'tthe end and so and and so.
To come back to what is areserve the world's reserve currency, It is
the the currency that people I don'twant to sound like Kamala Harris here,

(51:17):
the people around the world choose todo business in and and that's the key.
You can't force the reserve currency statusof your currency on anyone. What
what you what what makes a reservecurrency that important is that people choose to

(51:38):
do business in it because they trustit, because they trust the accounting of
the country that issues that currency.Uh, because they trust that that currency
will hold value over time and thatthey can use it anywhere in the world.

(51:59):
And so that's what makes a reservecurrency. And then I'll just add
real quick, and I'm probably gettinga little bit ahead of you here,
but the United States is not strongas a country because we're the world's reserve
currency. We're the world's reserve currencybecause we have strength, and I mean

(52:23):
the constitution, the rule of law, a good accounting system, and the
value of our currency. It's notas good as let's say, bitcoing in
our gold, but it's better thanmost currencies in the world. What are
the benefits and costs of any toa nation for having the world's reserve currency.

(52:50):
Yeah, so really there's only benefits, and that is that we can
issue debt or you know, ifyou think of a hundred dollars bills,
it's like issuing a bond with nointerest, so we call it seniorage in
other words, In other words,we can print all these hundred dollars bills.

(53:12):
Drug dealers everywhere use them, forexample, but so do people doing
legal things around the world, andas long as they hold them outside of
the country, we've now in asense have their resources at our disposal with
without having to pay interest. Soit's it's called seniorage that and that's a

(53:36):
benefit. The other thing is ourdebt, even though yes we have a
lot of it, and people getworried about that, but people will buy
it because they trust that we willpay it back. We're not going to
default on that debt, and soit just it makes the finances of our
country a lot easier. Now Iwould take this opportunity just to say that,

(54:00):
hey, Hong Kong was one ofthe most vibrant economies in the world
for decades, and it wasn't theworld's reserve currency. It did not have
the world's reserve currency. So youdon't have to have or be the world's
reserve currency to be strong. Youdon't have to And so that's one of

(54:21):
the reasons I kind of encourage peoplenot to worry about this too much.
But that's just one thing I thinkpeople should remember. So it sounds to
me a little bit like you're beginningto make excuses for the United States if
we lose the world's reserve currency status. And I guess what I would say

(54:44):
is, or what I would askis and maybe we can talk about this
new currency group the bricks, right, and the fact that Saudi Arabia just
did this thing. Do you thinkthere's a perception in the aggregate going around
the world that maybe because of ourterrible political leadership over the last many years
or for some other reason, thatmaybe the US isn't that strong anymore,

(55:09):
and maybe we will lose the reservecurrency because we are perceived as not so
great anymore, and that could bea significant problem. Yeah. So,
so, just to be clear,you are your observation isn't wrong in the

(55:29):
sense that i'm but but I wouldargue I'm not making excuses. I don't
think we're going to lose our reservecurrency status. I don't, not in
my lifetime and not in my kids'lifetimes. And the reason I would argue
that is that no, we're not. We have made mistakes, our government

(55:52):
is bigger than it has ever been. In fact, it's about the size
of the UK's the United Kingdom beforethey lost their reserve currency status. We
have inflation, we have lots ofdebt that interest costs are bigger than our
defense budget. You know, allof these things are happening, no doubt.

(56:13):
I could sit here and rip offa hundred things that are that we're
making mistakes with this country, andwe're undermining living standards and potentially leading us
to lose the reserve currency status.So having said that, I could also
list one hundred things that are reallyunbelievable, and that is there's no other

(56:37):
country in the world that has anApple and a Google and a Tesla and
Anvidia, and we are still leadingthe world by miles in terms of technology
and the growth of technology in theworld. And so you put all that
together, Yeah, we're making mistakeson the government side, but at the

(56:59):
same time, because of the constitutionand free markets and patents and all of
this legal system that we have,we still have the greatest technology in the
world and we're and we're we're we'repushing the world forward in that way.
So put all that together, andit's kind of a mashpit for for America.
I don't think it's enough to losereserve currency, but I get that

(57:22):
people are worried about it. Thesecond thing I would say is that if
you want to become the world's reservecurrency status, you have to be free.
Saudi Arabia, Russia, China,Brazil, South America or South Africa.

(57:42):
These countries are not free. Theseare I don't trust their accounting.
I don't I don't trust their theirtheir currencies. I don't trust their laws,
their constitutions. I don't trust anyof that, and neither does the
who cares what I believe the financialmarkets done, because if they were already

(58:04):
strong enough. When I use theword strong, it's not just economics,
it's institutions as well. If theywere that strong, they would already be
the world's reserve currency. There's onlytwo countries right now that I think could
become the world's reserve currency, Numberone Switzerland, all right, Why because

(58:25):
they manage their monetary policy and theireconomy extremely well. Their trustwororthy, they
have the rule of law. They'rea democracy. But they're too small.
It's too small of the country.They can't put out the trillions of dollars
that the world demands, the trithe trillions of dollars worth of the currency

(58:49):
the world demands. The second oneis India. It's the most populous country
in the world, its populous countryin the world. It's democracy, it
has the rule of law, andas a result, it could grow into
the world's reserve currency. But theyare a long way, a long way

(59:10):
from that. One of the otherthings you have to be is wealthy,
and they're just not there yet.And so those are the only two that
I see that could do it.One's too small, one's hot growing up,
and no, okay, last quick, give me a quick answer on
this, and then I want tomove to some other things within this concept

(59:30):
of what we're talking about regarding theUS being the center of things and people
trusting our currency and so on.What do you make of the fact that
bitcoin recently traded seventy thousand, it'saround sixty five thousand right now, and
that gold has made new highs,it's backed off a little bit. Silver's
up a lot. I mean alot of things that people normally buy when

(59:52):
they don't trust currencies are up alot. And of course currency is unlike,
for example, the price of IBMac currency is are always compared to
something else. The dollar is strongcompared to what. Right, IBM is
either strong or it's not. Butthe dollar is strong compared to what.
And these other things are kind oftelling us like whoever these people are who

(01:00:14):
are buying these things, they don'ttrust the US dollar. They also don't
trust anything else. Yeah, andI think there's two reasons to not trust
the dollar. Number one, yeah, yeah, maybe we default on our
debt or something like that. Likeyou could argue it's a credit issue,
it's a world reserve currency issue.It doesn't owning the dollar. You can't

(01:00:38):
use it to buy stuff or something, all right, that's one. Number
two is just inflation. And wehave inflation. We printed too many dollars
and that's why gold has soared fromI mean back in two thousand it was
four hundred bucks an ounce. Nowit's twenty four hundred or twenty three,

(01:00:59):
twenty two or whatever. We're closeto that and so and by the way,
if you made me king, likeI actually like making fun of this,
if you made me dictator of monetarypolicy, I would move the bitcoin
or gold. I would certainly notkeep the FED the way that it is

(01:01:20):
today with all these abundant reserves flyingaround. But people are you know,
if you look at the way theFed has changed the way it manages monetary
policy, it did it in twothousand and eight. It has flooded the
system with deposits and new money likewe've never seen before in history. The

(01:01:42):
amount of cash that they have pushedinto the system, it worries me,
clearly. It worries people other thanme because they're buying gold and bitcoin,
and so if we were to trandand by the way, if we were
on a bitcoin standard, now youknow, we know they've lost and you
get into millions of discussions about this, but you could only have twenty one

(01:02:04):
million of them. You couldn't havedone quantitative easing, and that would be
a better world. That would havebeen a better world. I don't think
we should have ever done quantitative easing. And that's what has people worried.
So it's not necessarily just losing reservecurrency status. It's the fact that we're
abusing money and that's what leads eventuallyto the inflation, to the erosion the

(01:02:30):
value of a currency. They cancause it to lose its reserve currencies.
Okay, so let's switch gears,and we only have a few minutes left.
And this next question I actually knowthe answer to, but the listener
I'm going to ask on behalf ofprobably doesn't believe me. So I'm going
to ask you. I have alistener who is fond of texting me and
clearly comes from the center left orthe left, and believes that inflation,

(01:02:55):
the inflation that we've had in theUnited States of America isn't so much inflation
as it is corporate greed. Sowhat is the argument to prove to someone
who is biased to dislike companies tobegin with? And by the way,
I do think companies are profits seekingand that's fine, But what is the
argument? How do you prove tosomeone that the price increases, the inflation

(01:03:19):
that we've seen is not caused bycorporate greed. Yeah, well, number
one, you have to you haveto understand economics and basically Freedman, Milton
Freedman, and it's it's it's prettysimple. The only way a dollar can
become worth less is if you printtoo many dollars corporations is like, great,

(01:03:47):
let's use the word greed I don'tthink it's as bad as everybody wants
to make the word. But they'realways greedy. They Why if you produce
something, who doesn't want to sellit for the highest amount of dollars that
they can get for it? Everybodydoes. And and so you know why

(01:04:11):
didn't we have inflation during Obama orBush or Trump? But only under why
So so all of a sudden,corporations became greedy, like all of a
sudden, Like no, they they'realways greedy. The thing is, they
couldn't raise prices when the Fed wasn'tflooding the system with new money, and

(01:04:35):
now they can. And and here'sthe point. I would argue that your
your pizza does not cost more,your pop tarts don't cost more. That
What is true is your dollar buysless. And the reason your dollar buys
less is because they printed to manyof them. If we if we traded

(01:04:58):
corn for everything, and it costsyou one bushel of corn to get a
new tire for your car, andthen all of a sudden, we have
a record crop of corn, andguess what Now it costs a bushel in
a quarter to buy a tire foryour car. Because we didn't have a
record crop of tires. So thepoint I'm getting to is the reason the

(01:05:20):
dollar has lost value versus goods hasnothing to do with greed, unless you
want to call it government greed becausethey printed money so they could spend more.
Okay, very quick, I've onlygot about a minute here as a
follow up on this, and I'llplay Devil's advocate for a second. But
it is true that corporate profits wentup a lot through this. So do

(01:05:45):
so are you still saying, evenas you, as somebody watches all this,
knows that corporate profits are up alot, you're still going to say
that corporate greed has nothing to dowith the price heights that we've seen.
Yeah, I'm absolutely gonna to saythat corporate profits are They're driven by a
whole bunch of different things. Oneof them was the fact that we held

(01:06:06):
interest rates extremely low zero for nineyears out of the last fifteen. So
guess what corporation's interest expenses were?Nothing. The same time, you know,
every new AI chip that you know, I don't even think you can
call them chips anymore. These aremassive things that Nvidia produces. They they

(01:06:28):
make higher profit margins on and andyou could argue that they should cut those
profit margins, but people are willingto pay it. And the reason is
the return from investing in one ofthose is higher. So so you know,
this is the interesting thing about thegovernment's actions during COVID is supposedly they

(01:06:49):
were designed to help inequality. Fixinequality because COVID affected you know, certain
groups more than other groups, Sowe're going to fix that. Well,
what they did is they inflated thevalue of assets, whether it be stocks,
or income to corporations, or thevalue of a house. So if

(01:07:09):
you own assets, yeah, yourprofits are going to go up, your
net worth is going to go up. If you don't own assets, inflation
undermines the value of your undermines yourliving standards, indeed, and so it
hurts the poor people most. Inflationhurts poor people way more than it hurts
rich people. Yeah, absolutely,because rich people have assets and inflation drives

(01:07:35):
up the value of those assets.Now, one thing I would remind people
is really, your house may maylook like it may it may look like
it's worth more, but don't forgetthe dollars lost its value. So you
can sell your house make a profitlike on paper, but you can't buy
any more cars because cars cost morenow too. Brian Westburray is the chief

(01:07:56):
economist at First Trust Portfolios FT Portfolios. This is linked on my blog.
Brian and his team write brilliant economicanalysis pretty much every day, or at
least every workday, and it's mostof this stuff is half a page long
in plain English. Anybody can understandit. It's absolutely free and you will
learn a lot. So go tomy blog at Rosskaminski dot com and find

(01:08:18):
the link there, or go toFT portfolios dot com and navigate your way
through to Brian's blog and sign upfor the daily emails that he and his
team do. It's so good totalk to you again. It's been too
long. I look forward to seeingyou when you're when you're back in Denver.
Absolutely ross, great to be withyou, Thanks Brian. Great.
All right, we'll take a quickbreak. We'll be right here back on

(01:08:40):
KOA. And remember, folks thatuh people didn't follow the rules on the
Rolling Stones ticket giveaway, so we'regonna reset it and do it again.
You want a chance to win apair of Rolling Stones tickets for Thursday night
at empower Field at Mile High.We're gonna have a chance to do that.
Did you want to add anything realquick? You're giving people a second
chance because a lot of people justdidn't follow the rules, and I do

(01:09:01):
want to give the tickets away,So super awesome of you. Yeah,
well, it does give me somesatisfaction to do that. Now, let's
move on to something else. Wehave, specifically in Colorado, a democratic
governor, and generally in the UnitedStates, democratic politicians who are out of
their minds with climate alarmism and thatclimate change, which they used to call

(01:09:28):
global warming, is going to killus all, and that we need to
electrify everything, no matter how muchit costs, no matter how inefficient,
and even though we don't have thecapability to generate all the electricity that would
be needed if they got their way, and so on, And the problem
with all this is that it's incrediblyexpensive to consumers. Now, in Colorado

(01:09:50):
and in many other states, there'ssomething called a Public Utilities Commission, and
the Public Utilities Commission is the organizationthat regulates these utilities. And the reason
they have their own special regulators isthat the utilities are government created monopolies.
You can't create your own power companyand go try to sell electricity in Denver.

(01:10:13):
Right, it's a monopoly. Andpart of the reason it's a monopoly
is that in order to deliver theelectricity, you've got to run wires.
So far, we have not figuredout and probably never will figure out a
way to deliver significant amounts of electricitywithout wires. And so in order to
deliver that, you need to putthem on poles, or you need to
put them underground or whatever, andthese things that just really make it impractical

(01:10:36):
to have in most situations to havemore than one supplier. So these are
government created monopolies. And in orderto prevent them from extracting monopoly prices and
monopoly profits from consumers who are captive, you have these public utilities commissions and
it is their job to protect theconsumers, and they sometimes do an okage

(01:11:00):
job. But boy am I disappointedwith the Public Utilities Commission in Colorado right
now? This is from Colorado.Sun Excel Energy received the green light from
state regulators for one four hundred andforty million dollars plan to curb greenhouse gas
emissions from its natural gas system.YadA, YadA, YadA. The call
the goal of the so called cleanheat plan is to move more homes and

(01:11:23):
businesses to electricity from using natural gas, cutting greenhouse emissions twenty two percent by
twenty thirty. Excel Energy projects afourteen percent decline in its gas sales from
twenty twenty four to twenty twenty eight. The plan will raise electricity rates one
point one percent. And listen tothis, now, raise natural gas rates

(01:11:43):
by seven percent over the next fouryears. But so they're saying, how
about this for weird economics. They'resaying that reduced demand will make them raise
prices somehow. This is nuts.Now, the puc may think they're following
some kind of Colorado law or whatever, but this is insanity. This is

(01:12:04):
absolute insanity. Remember, yeah,you're gonna electrify these buildings, but those
building the electricity from those buildings needsto come from somewhere. If you're gonna
have a power plant, do it. It's probably gonna be natural gas anyway.
And I realize that might have slightlylower emissions than having the buildings having
their own furnaces and so on,But at what cost. Well, just

(01:12:26):
this, they're claiming four hundred andforty million. You know that's not gonna
be enough. Your natural gas billas if life isn't expensive enough already,
is gonna go up seven percent,and these regulators allowed them to do it.
Axio says, Colorado regulators push ExcelEnergy away from natural gas. Folks,
this is a disaster for Colorado consumers. We've got to get our heads

(01:12:49):
out of our you know what whenit comes to this whole climate change thing
and realize we're gonna be fine,all right. You cannot. You cannot
power a state on wind, solarand unicorn farts. And that's what the
left wants those things because they're basicallyall the same. You need natural gas,

(01:13:13):
you need nuclear And by the way, if you're gonna electrify buildings and
all this stuff and you need toget electricity to them, you're gonna need
to spend billions on more electricity generationand on the infrastructure to get the electricity
from wherever it's generated to wherever itneeds to be. This is just the
beginning, Well, this is themiddle because it's been going on for a

(01:13:33):
while of the incredible burden that isbeing created on people who live here in
Colorado, at least those who haveExcel Energy as their utility provider. Thanks
to the crazy leftists running this state. We take great, great pride in
wasting your time, but only onpurpose. Correct. Do you want to

(01:13:55):
add anything else? You don't haveto. I mean, we've really wasted
a bunch of their time already.Do we want to no, hammered,
No, let's keep going. Okay, okay. So I just talked to
Oh, I know what I wantto talk about here for a minute.
This has been in the news acouple of times, now National news,
and then you've heard Chad Bell We'retalking about it as well. So Joe
Biden has announced that he's going toimplement some kind of executive order. And

(01:14:19):
I'm not looking at the news article, but this is going to be from
memory, having ready yesterday an executiveorder that would grant some kind of path
to a green card, which isalso known as permanent residency, which is
the step you have to take beforethen being able to get citizenship for illegal

(01:14:41):
aliens who have been in the UnitedStates for at least ten years married to
an American. Now, I havetwo things to say about this. One
is how I feel, and oneis the law. And you will recall
from conversation that we have had aboutother things like abortion, and bump stocks

(01:15:05):
and so on. I strive alwaysto make my determinations about what public policy
should be and what government action shouldbe based on the rule of law and
the constitution. First it has toget through that filter, and only after

(01:15:26):
that whether I like or don't likethe outcome. In other words, I
will not support government action that hasan outcome that I like if I think
it's unconstitutional. Okay, So,if we're talking about illegal aliens who have
been here more than a decade,that means they came in not only before

(01:15:46):
Biden was president, but before Trumpwas president. They've been here a long
time. Presumably they haven't committed anykind of serious crime, or they would
have been caught and deported already.And they've been married to an American.
Now. I don't know if theexecutive order says they had to have been
married to an American for the wholeten years, but let's just say that
for now. In any case,somebody are married to an American, haven't

(01:16:12):
committed a crime, probably working Andthere's a very complicated thing, because I
can hear some of you yelling atyour radio, Yeah, they're gonna marry
an American just to try to getresidency and citizen citizenship. And yet there's
definitely gonna be some of that.That's why if they're going to go down
this road, and I'll get tothe legality and where I really am on
it in a second, But Iwould say, not only would you have

(01:16:34):
to have if if I were goingto propose something like this, I would
say, you would have to havebeen here for X number of years and
married to an American for why numberof years. They don't have to be
the same, but you have toYou would have to have been married to
an American for a long time,and that would mean that it's it's most

(01:16:57):
likely. It's not impossible that itcould still be a fraudulent man marriage.
But if you've been married for along time and you're living together, okay,
and you're living together, this iskey, So it's most likely not
a sham marriage. I really havea lot of sympathy for that person,

(01:17:18):
I really do, and I canimagine supporting some kind of public policy that
would allow somebody like that to getpermanent residency and eventually after a long time
citizenship. And I'm borderline on it. I'm really borderline on it. I
gotta say because the obvious negative thereis you're setting a precedent where somebody who

(01:17:45):
came into the country illegally can becomea citizen, and I don't like that.
So I'm not even sure I wouldgo along with the policy. I'm
just saying if I were, thereare some things that I would look to
have in place, because if someone'sbeen here a long time and married to
an American and working in their acontributing member of society and not committing crimes,
it's not high on my list ofthings to do to force them out

(01:18:09):
of the country. Okay, I'llsay that here's the problem, and this
is why I'm like iffy on thepolicy as it is. But even if
I liked it more, you haveto oppose Joe Biden doing it, because
I'm pretty confident that the president doesn'thave this authority. Just like remember when

(01:18:31):
Barack Obama did Dhaka, which saidthat illegal aliens who were brought here as
kids can stay. It doesn't putthem on necessarily a path to permanent residency
and citizenship, but it says theycan stay and they can work and that
kind of thing. Now it's beenruled unconstitutional by a federal judge, but

(01:18:56):
a lower judge, a district judge. Now, President Trump tried to make
some changes to it. The SupremeCourt, in a wrong ruling, threw
out those changes, but didn't saythat they were throwing out Trump's proposed changes
because they were unconstitutional or illegal,but rather that the proper process for making

(01:19:17):
changes wasn't followed because people were relyingon DACA. Now, I was emailing
with Andy McCarthy about this just thismorning, and he made a great point,
and he said, part of thereason that Justice Chief Justice Robert's majority
opinion in the case that overturned DonaldTrump's efforts to curtail DACA, part of

(01:19:43):
the reason that the Chief Justice waswrong is that in the DACA rule itself,
it says that this could be overturnedat any time, and nobody should
rely on it because it could beoverturned at any time because they know it's

(01:20:06):
illegal. And it says specifically,you should not rely on this. And
yet the Chief Justice is ruling citeswhat's called and this is a common term
in law reliance, and what thatmeans is people see the law. People

(01:20:26):
are the rule. It's not alaw. People see the rule or the
executive order, and they act onit, and often depending on what it
is they're doing. Often, evenif government does something they're not supposed to
do, but people relied on it, courts will at least temporarily allow those
decisions to stay in place because therewas a good faith reliance. Like I

(01:20:51):
really thought the government did this.I didn't realize it was going to be
overturned later, and I changed mylife based on that. Right. I
relied on it, and Roberts madehis ruling based on that. But the
problem is the rule itself says,don't rely on it. So a federal

(01:21:12):
judge again recently ruled that DACA isillegal. Barack Obama created DACA when he
couldn't get legislation through Congress. Doyou remember when he said, I have
a pen and I have a phone. Remember, and he basically threatened,

(01:21:32):
if Congress doesn't do what I want, I will just do it with an
executive order. But the thing isthat's tyranny. Presidents must never ever be
allowed to do things that only Congresscan do, because if the president can

(01:21:53):
suddenly do things that are the properprovince of the legislature, he's no longer
a president. He's a king,and we had a revolution to get rid
of kings, and now Joe Bidenwants to go offer this thing, this

(01:22:13):
benefit to a certain subset of illegalaliens. And again I get that it's
a sympathetic subset of illegal aliens,maybe not quite as sympathetic as illegal aliens
who were brought here when they wereone or two or three or seven years
old and they had no choice andthey were brought as kids. That's probably
the most sympathetic group. But itdoesn't matter how sympathetic they are. This

(01:22:36):
is illegal. And you can decidewhether or not you like the idea of
giving illegal aliens who've been here fora long time married to Americans. If
you like the idea of giving thema path to legal residency and citizenship,
and if you like the idea,lobby your member of Congress to pass a

(01:22:58):
law. This must not be allowedto happen without the passage of a law,
and that is generally the right answer. There are way too many executive
orders. George W. Bush didsome and then it ramped up massively under
Obama and President and every president sinceObama, including Obama, has been governing

(01:23:18):
by executive order and they are turningthemselves into kings. And part of the
problem is these dillweeds in Congress whoare not protecting their own turf. You
would think that a member of Congress, a member of the House, or
a member of the Senate, whenthey see a president stealing the power of
Congress, would jump up and downand wave their arms and say, you

(01:23:40):
can't do that. Hey over here, that's my job, you can't do
that. But what happens is thatmembers of Congress who are the same party
as the president almost never stand upfor their own power, and Congress is
closely divided, and then you justhave Republicans bitching when moaning when when Barack

(01:24:01):
Obama does it, or when JoeBiden does it, and you only have
Democrats complaining when Donald Trump does it. And then it just seems partisan rather
than a principled thing. And reallyit is partisan, because if it weren't
partisan, Democrats would complain about itwhen Democrats did it, and Republicans would
complain about it when Republicans didn't.But there's two things that happened. One,

(01:24:25):
these people don't care about their oathsof office at all. They don't
care about protecting and defending the Constitution. They only care about their team winning
an election. And it does matter. A team winning an election does matter
if you're a part of that team. But it's not the most important thing,
but they act like it is.And the other thing. And this
isn't talked about nearly as much.And boy am I on a rant here,
But members of Congress often like itbecause they don't want the responsibility.

(01:24:54):
They don't want to have to explainwhy they did a thing. They don't
want to have to explain why theyeither voted for or voted against. Let's
say Dhaka, Let's say let's putaside the whole marriage to an American thing.
That's a very borderline case. MostAmericans support at least a path to
legal status and probably a path tocitizenship for the so called dreamers. We're

(01:25:20):
not kids now, but were broughthere when they were kids, mostly single
digit ages, dragged here by theirparents, brought here illegally. They remain
illegal aliens. Huge numbers of themhave gone to high school here, Lots
of them have gone to college here. Actually, there was a thing passed

(01:25:41):
in the state legislature in Colorado someyears ago that even some conservative Republican friends
of mine supported to allow those peopleillegal aliens who got here when they were
very young, to go to statecolleges and universities in Colorado and pay in
state tuition, even though they're illegalaliens. And you might argue that are
not colorad and since they're not herelegally. But so these are very sympathetic

(01:26:04):
people. They've been here much ormost or almost all of their lives.
They go to school here, theyget jobs here, and most Americans would
support giving them a way to behere legally and give them citizenship eventually.
I support that. I absolutely supportit. And if that were to come

(01:26:25):
up as a bill in Congress asa law to be passed, hell,
yes, I'm lobbying. I mean, look, the devil's in the details,
and maybe they could put something init that I think is so terrible
that I'd say, this provision isso bad that it blows up the whole
thing. You got to take thatout and otherwise, right, but without
that kind of thing, I wouldabsolutely support it. But you cannot allow

(01:26:46):
a president to do it. It'snot legal, and it turns him into
a king. And as I havesaid over and over, and this is
something that's coming up a lot lately. If you will allow the usurpation of
power to achieve an outcome you're happywith, how the hell are you gonna
complain when the next guy or thesame guy usurps power to do something different

(01:27:13):
with an outcome you're not happy with. No good, Absolutely no good.
So Joe Biden, this is what'sgonna happen here. Joe Biden is proposing
this thing and it'll be immediately challengedin court and a judge will block it.
And Elias Fox News right now,Biden marks DACA anniversary with new executive

(01:27:38):
actions. So Biden's going to proposethis thing. It'll be challenged in court,
a judge will block it in court, and then Biden will say,
look, Hispanics, I tried tohelp, and these Trump judges are blocking
you because Trump people hate Mexicans.That's exactly where this is going to go,

(01:28:00):
right, I promise you that's whereit's gonna go. And it's easy
to promise because we've seen this moviebefore. It won't work. I think
it won't work for two reasons.Number One, a lot of people have
seen Joe Biden do this kind ofthing before, like he promised the student
loan thing, and then Supreme Courtsaid, now now he's going back and
breaking the law again and trying todo it in different ways, and Hispanics

(01:28:23):
aren't fooled either. I don't knowhow stupid the Democrats have to be to
believe that Hispanics who vote in Americameaning they're citizens. How stupid do you
have to be to think that HispanicAmerican citizens welcome and open border and are
glad about illegal aliens and his floodof illegal aliens. No, there's a

(01:28:44):
reason that while Trump is still obviouslywell behind in Hispanic voters compared to Biden,
he's doing so much better than anyRepublican in recent memory, and maybe
any Republican ever. You'd at leasthave to go back to George W.
Bush to find a Republican new didkind of well among among Hispanics. Anyway,
keep an eye on this. It'sit's a very very cynical political scam,

(01:29:09):
and and he should be ashamed ofhimself. Mandy, I almost brought
you a muffin that Kristen made thatis low carb, gluten free and incredibly
delicious. But it has a bunchof fruit in it and that's why I
didn't bring it. Nope, AndI thought about it for a minute and

(01:29:30):
then I realized, No, ithas banana and blueberry and passion fruit.
And do people do you folks knowthis about Mandy? Everybody knows this.
Yeah, everybody knows it is delicious. I'm sure it is if you eat
that sort of thing. I mean, I'm sure it's absolutely fantastic. That's
your jam. As the kids say, yeah, that's a good talking about

(01:29:53):
Joe Biden. Yeah, you knowwhat's gonna happen though, Ross. What
we're really waiting for is when heis laying the ammer down about how this
is somehow all the Republicans faults becausethey hate Mexicans. He's gonna bust out
with it. You know what,Jose, you know who's on your side.
He's gonna he's gonna say something likeJose or something along those lines.
Yeah, it'll be charming. It'llbe charming instead of you know what it

(01:30:16):
is, which is ridiculous. Thewhole point you just made about their their
shocked that Hispanics would be against anopen border. Uh huh. But that's
because they view people by their identityonly as a monolithic thing, and you
in this group all think the sameway. It's ridiculous. Well that's how
democrats have They've always gotten away withit. Yeah, right, nobody's ever.

(01:30:38):
It's it's kind of interesting that likea billionaire white dude from Manhattan with
a gold toilet is the one who'sappealing to the working class Mexican and to
young black men. Right, he'saspirational though, And you know what I
mean, think about it like this. Back when we were young, back
when in the in the late seventiesand eighties, Yeah, being successful was
good. Sure, you wanted tohave that. It was an aspirational thing.

(01:31:02):
Now you're supposed to be ashamed ifyou're successful. You're supposed to be
embarrassed. If you have been successfuland accumulated anything, it's now something you're
supposed to be ashamed of because itindicates that you're an oppressor. I didn't
need to start your show off withthis. I got sleep last night,
I think, and I didn't getsleep last night. But I think you're

(01:31:25):
right. And this is probably atopic for another day. And I know
the plural of anecdote is not data. I have a sneaking suspicion that today's
people who are around the age ofmy younger kid and Q. I think
they may end up being a littlebit more conservative and libertarian than people even

(01:31:45):
just five to ten years older thanthem, Like the twenty five year olds
are unbelievably woke. Yep, Ihave a feeling, like, you know,
my kid's sixteen. I won't sayhow old Q is because I don't
know if you say that in public. Fifteen, Okay, I think kids
that age might be wising up tosome of the do you have an opinion,

(01:32:05):
is wising up to it but rejectingit? Yeah, wholeheartedly. I've
got a gap of twenty four andtwenty one, and there's a clear difference
between the two of them. Theyounger one is less woke, woke,
less woke, really the younger one. Okay, yeah, the younger one,
yeah, yeah, all right,now, so maybe there's something you
want to stay for the first partof my show. We can continue this
conversation. I can. I dohave plans. I'm really sorry. We

(01:32:30):
are going to do a thing prettysoon where Mandy and I. Mandy and
I are going to do a wholehour together at some point pretty later this
month. Right, We'll start outwith the Ross and Mandy Show, and
then the next one will be theMandy and ROSSI yeah, we're gonna have
a lot of fun with that.And are we ready to promote the other
thing that we're doing in the evening? No, not yet, not until
we know the time. Once weknow the time and all the details to

(01:32:51):
properly tomorrow, I'm okay, giveme, give me seventeen seconds on what
you got coming up. Very excitedto have the guy who actually, now
you're not a country music fan,but Randy Travis, after having a stroke,
was left unable to sing. Henow has a new song out that
uses artificial intelligence and the voice ofa guy named James Duprey to recreate Randy
Travis's voice, and it is stunninglygood. I've got James Duprey on the

(01:33:14):
show today we talk about I knowthat fantastic, even even as someone who
doesn't love country music. It's justa cool story, cool story. Everybody,
stick around for the fabulous Mandy Connell. I'll talk to you tomorrow.