113 Just Two Good Old Boys

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Howdy Ben, how are you today?
I'm doing all right, gene,getting a little bit of rain,
the temperature dropped.
It was 80 degrees last nightand then we're in the 60s now
and we're at 60 and dropping.
Yeah, I'm at 57.
Well, you're further west thanI am, you're also further west,

(00:25):
but yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, soyeah, I uh I don't see rain
spring weather in texas rightyeah exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, I like spring weather in texas, I don't mind
the rain and I like all thegreen grass for a change.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
My thing is it's just , it's like sybil right it just
doesn't know what it's doing.
It changes quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
So yeah, we're gonna be in the 40s by tomorrow.
So the weather in texas.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Uh has a mental disorder exactly, so I know we
got nothing happened this weekand I don't know what we're
going to talk about, or do I?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
know, well, I'm thinking we should re-watch
battlestar galactica.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah, yeah yeah, you sent me.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Uh, uh edward, uh, james, almost just nonsense post
any nonsense interview with himand, uh, he talks about how he
talks about linking battle startto go like to totally separate
and different franchise yeahyeah, blade runner, which that

(01:38):
makes sense how?
well, you have to watch thewhole video, ben, not skim for
15 seconds like the millennialthat you are, but the short
version is he took the job as adama.
He took that gig because in hismind it aligned with Blade

(02:01):
Runner, which is just okay.
It aligned with Blade Runner,which is just okay, and he
essentially goes on to say howBlade Runner is actually, or
certainly can be seen as acontinuation of the end of
Battlestar Galactica.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
But?
But here's why that's moronic.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Go ahead.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Blade Runner was developed far before the reboot
to Battlestar Galactica, mm-hmm.
So how is that connected at all?

Speaker 2 (02:42):
well, it's like connected for him because of the
warning that is essentiallygiven by the right, this is the
main.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Can all happen again.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yes, yeah, well, not just that, but just the idea
that you know, the whole seriespoint was that humanity built
slave machines that revoltedMm-hmm.
And in Blade Runner, humanitybuilds slave machines that

(03:15):
revolt.
Yes, there you go.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Okay, but I think he's reading too much into and
he was in both of them.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
He was in the reboot, sure yeah, well, he's talking
about the ones he was in.
So the other thing that'sinteresting that I didn't know
about is that he actuallybrought a lot of ideas to both
shows.
So, uh, he is one of thoseactors that doesn't just show up

(03:54):
and walk out of his trailer, dohis gig and goes back in.
Apparently he likes to workwith the writers, okay, so, for

(04:15):
example, the whole Japanese orChinese, the whole Asian
aesthetic in Blade Runner, theeating, the sushi and the
intermingling of the languagesin Los Angeles, that was all his
.
So he came up with that andthen Ridley Scott thought it was
a great idea and then ended upputting it in the movie, and

(04:38):
then he did similar stuff withBattlestar Galactica.
So he's, you know, I mean, itcould be good, it could also be
equally bad, but whichever wayit is, he is one of those actors
that really, if he's into it,he really is into it and he
wants to make the story and theperformances and everything else

(05:01):
as good as possible.
And part of that is, uh, youknow, letting the writers know
what his character, how heenvisions it, and so on.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
I get it.
I get it, but.
I still think it's moronic tolink two totally separate and
distinct stories.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Hey, what have I said about actors in general?
They're totally moronic and yeah, they're crazy people.
They're people who both havethe skills and the desire to
pretend to be somebody else, asadults rather than just children
.
Yeah, they're not normal.
There's something off aboutthat.
And well, we're not normaleither.

(05:42):
There, gene, fine.
Fine, I mean, I'm not justtalking about iq, I'm talking
about other parameters, but uh,there are.
There are abnormalities aboutpeople that want to get into
acting and there's no way thatthey should have been raised to
the status, both financially,and people treating them like

(06:03):
they know better, because all ittakes is to watch a few
interviews with any random actorand you see that, oh well, gee,
I guess the characters thisperson plays are smart.
The actor isn't.
It doesn't take long.
One of my favorite quotes aboutactors was actually from the

(06:28):
movie Rosencrantz andGilderstein are dead, mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
And in that movie, richard Dreyfuss plays the head
of the traveling performerswhich, by the way, for those who
don't know, it's a spinoff fromHamlet.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
A lot of people wouldn't know who Rose and Kranz
and Gildan.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Stern are.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Right.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
So, um, now you made me forget the damn quote, but
the essence of the quote is likewe're actors, we're not normal
people, you know.
But that was something betterthan that.
Uh, so I'll do a quick googleto see if I can get the exact
wording, but it's the idea thatanyway so you would already

(07:24):
watch battle star.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
Huh, yeah, I mean, it's been I I.
The last time I watched it, itwas when it first came out.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah, same here.
I might've seen an episode ortwo here and there.
Uh, just his stuff pops up inthe YouTube, but, um, I
certainly haven't watched itfrom the start, since it was
originally there.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
So while you're Googling that, I've got
something else for you to Googleand look at, and we're going to
give a little tech tip here.
I don't normally do this, but Ibacked a Kickstarter, Uh-oh
yeah, and other people havegotten theirs and I'm seeing
rave reviews on it, and Ihaven't gotten mine yet, so I'm

(08:11):
waiting on it.
I've been in that positionbefore.
Look up the JetKVM, okay.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
So our favorite Controlling computer remotely,
okay's a little.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
It's a little kvm device.
Yeah, it's, it's open source,got lots of things, but uh, dave
from dave's garage has ravedabout it everything else so and
it's pretty inexpensive.
So it'll be really helpful tome because right now on my
workbench that's to my, to myright over here, that's

(08:49):
completely incredibly messy.
I've got a old nook sitting onthere and the reason why it's
sitting there is because I'vebeen having certain issues with
it and it's my wirelesscontroller.
So it's over here so I can havea keyboard and mouse plugged
into it when I want it.
Normally it would just be inthe networking closet with the

(09:11):
router and everything else.
But until I can figure out whymy wireless on this thing keeps
dropping out, which it'll bewired in there anyway.
But having like a littlededicated KVM that I can even
power cycle if I want, I can doeverything I need to do there.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Most people stopped using KVMs because it's so easy
to do RDP.
What's the point of this thing?

Speaker 1 (09:36):
Right.
But if you are losing networkconnection to something, if your
network connection to a deviceis dropping off, you can't RDP
to it.
Now can you?
If your network connection isdropping off is dropping off,
you can't RDP to it Now, can you?

Speaker 2 (09:46):
If your network connection is dropping off, the
device is kind of useless to you, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Oh my God, Gene, it's out-of-band management.
Trust me it's useful, assomeone who has worked as a
network admin and done lots ofprojects, out-of-band management
is always useful.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Well you can have out-of-band management is always
useful.
Well, you can have out-of-bandmanagement, but I mean, I don't
understand.
Explain the device to me.
It looks tiny, it looks like itdoesn't have enough cable
connections in it.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
You literally have a HDMI in and you have a USB
connection for keyboard andmouse.
So it basically takes thekeyboard and mouse and puts it
on a different computer rightwithout using RDP.
So if the service stops, ifyou're doing pre-boot work, if

(10:37):
you're doing lots of things, oneof these per computer then you
wouldn't use, you wouldn't haveone on every computer in your
house.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
it's for certain things I don't want to have a
monitoring keyboard.
I'm sorry you need one percomputer yes, the way this is
set up.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
But if you look at a lot of other, like if you look
at actual data center style kvmsuh, that are remotely
manageable and everything else,um, they're extremely expensive.
It's not a kvm is my problem.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
It is a kvm.
Uh, it's not what I used tocall a kvm 25 you're thinking of
a kvm switch so that you couldhave two towers under your desk
and switch keyboard and mouseback and forth.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah .

Speaker 2 (11:27):
So this is really a remote login thing for your
computer.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
It's a remote KVM, yes, but it gives you more than
that.
They have a little expansionport on there with the RJ11 that
literally allows you to plug in.
They have two data boards thatthey've already designed for
power control.
One does full ATX power control, so you can literally power
cycle and do whatever you needto do remotely.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah that's been available again for 25 years
since I used to do this stuff Todo remote power cycle.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yes, sir, this is not new, I get that.
But it's teeny, it's cheap andit's effective for a home user.
That's my point.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
I see.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
Okay, anyway.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
But it is a remote login, just so people understand
what it is if they're not inyour job today.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
Anyway, they've met their goal, they're funded.
They're sending them out.
Right now they have somepost-funding options where you
can still go get one and it'slike $60.
So there you go.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Well, that's good.
That's way better than myexperience of not getting there.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Yeah, they're actually keeping their promises.
It seems like, well, you don'thave yours.
You said not personally, butother people have gotten theirs
first.
That who?

Speaker 2 (12:50):
cares, I was late to the game on this thing okay, so
it's your fault got it, becausemy story with that was, uh, the
coolest cooler, which you maynot have heard of, which was the
biggest kickstarter ever whenit happened, I think it was
seven million units or something.
Clearly, the company was notprepared for it.
They thought they were going tomake like a hundred thousand

(13:12):
and um it's, uh, they took inthe seven million.
They quickly formed a companyand then proceeded to keep
tweaking the design for aboutnine months, started production
after nine months and ran out ofmoney about 12 months after the

(13:38):
Kickstarter.
And they'd manufactured about athird of the units, if that,
maybe a quarter, somewherebetween a quarter and a third of
the units.
Quarter, somewhere between aquarter and a third of the units
.
And so they, uh, they said lookthis, this, we've made mistakes
.
None of us are business people.
We're just three guys with anidea.
Uh, so here's what we're goingto do.
We're going to keepmanufacturing these things and
then we're going to put them onamazon and then sell them, and

(14:01):
then, from the profit we getfrom selling them on Amazon,
we'll be able to manufacturemore of these for the
Kickstarter, and so we're,essentially, for everyone that
gets bought on Amazon, there'llbe one that gets shipped to a
Kickstarter person.
It wasn't ideal, but it seemedlike, okay, at least they're

(14:23):
trying and maybe at least I'mgoing to get my damn cooler.
These were $499, incidentally.
Um, this was a cooler with abattery pack and a blender and
that's to make margaritas.
And um, which I think actuallyexists these days but didn't
back.
Then, they, they, they had thefirst one and as they started

(14:47):
selling them on amazon uh,amazon.
One of the things amazonreserves the right to do when
you, when you do a salesdirectly with them, is they
control the price point.
So, very quickly, like withinabout a month and a half, amazon
dropped the price from $4.99 to$99 because they realized

(15:11):
that's the real price thatpeople would actually buy these
things at.
Well, you can imagine what thatdid it.
It basically didn't leave anyprofit in there for them to keep
making ones for the people thatgave them the Kickstarter
initially.
And, long story short, thecompany lasted about another

(15:35):
nine months or so before theydeclared bankruptcy, and they
did manufacture something liketwo-thirds no, it was more than
that.
I think it was aboutthree-quarters of the coolers
that the uh, the uh those of usthat backed them originally for
the seven million got.
But I was in that group thatdidn't get a cooler at all and

(16:00):
part of me was like, well, Icould have bought one for 299 on
amazon, but but then I wouldhave paid the original $499 plus
another $300.
So it's like an $800 cooler thatis selling for $299.
That felt like a double screw.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
It was.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
And instead I just lost $500, basically, but
according to the thing that yousign every time you give money
to Kickstarter, there was nolike Kickstarter wasn't going to
reimburse you, like it was atotal pass.
So it was like, look, thecompany should either give you

(16:37):
your money back or give you theproduct, but we're not involved
and, of course, the company wentout of business.
As a result of that.
Kickstarter completely revisedtheir requirements for allowing
companies to do Kickstarters,meaning they have to have a
business plan, they have to havea whole bunch more stuff after
that event than they did priorto.

(16:59):
But the net of it is I justlost $500 on that.
Cooler Never got a cooler.
It sort of didn't need oneCause.
Back then I was like boating alot.
That was on the on the wateralmost every other day.
I was having a lot of drinks Iwas drinking back then.
So like none of it is relevantanymore, but it's still.

(17:19):
It's one of those cautionarytales about throwing money into
a Kickstarter.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah, I got you, but they seem to be doing all right.
And again, 69 bucks is a littlebit different and they have
they've actually.
So their goal was 50 grand andthey're at 4.6 million.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
So yeah, they got funded.
I see a mini.
A mini, god damn it talk uh.
So I see usb ethernet, mini dvi, or what is that mini hdmi and
then what's the fourth one?

Speaker 1 (17:59):
uh, it's an rj11 uh port, but that's for plugging
into well, first of all, there'slots of things that, but the
reason to use the RJ 11 is a lotof UPSs use RJ 11 for external
control and KVM connections, butall their daughter boards can
plug in through that as well.

(18:19):
So that's the.
That's the expansion port, ifyou would.
Hmm, yeah, so like.
I said, they've got the ATXpower, which I think is really
cool because you can literallythrow that daughterboard in a
case and, you know, have fullpanel control.

(18:42):
They've got a DC powerconnection.
So if you have a mini PC orsomething like I'm using that
has, you know, DC power comingin with a barrel connector,
they've got that so that you canliterally cut the power, turn
it on, turn it off.
And they've even got serialconsole cables.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
So if I was still, running my Cisco Switch.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
I would have a serial console cable.
Go ahead.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
Isn't this thing powered by the USB?
It is, so when you cut power tothe device, aren't you cutting
the power to itself as well?

Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yes, and they recognize that and they offer
solutions to have a basicallycoming out of USB-C, a y cable
that splits off power and datait feels like I would have
preferred something physicallybigger, but with all that built
in, instead of dongling off theback yeah, I I somewhat agree,

(19:39):
but I didn't make the designchoices and I think think that's
reasonable.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Do you want to do a Kickstarter and make a better
version of this?

Speaker 1 (19:48):
No.
No, I'm willing to sacrifice alittle bit and not have to do
all the work?

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Okay, but you get paid for the work.
Maybe, maybe.
Well, let's see how big theirKickstarter is.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
I just said 4 point, some odd million.
Uh, you don't think that'sworth it.
I don't think I would get thatyou'd take half of it.
No, are you in no way.
Why?
Because the manufacturing costs, programming, the support and
everything else, well they arepaying 25% more for

(20:29):
manufacturing now due to thetariffs.
Yeah, so they might go out ofbusiness.
We should talk about tariffs.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Sure, but you had a quote you wanted to talk about.
I was waiting for you to readoff your quote while I was
talking about that.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
Oh, the Richard Dreyfuss.
I started looking at this thinginstead of the Richard Dreyfuss
thing because you know squirrel.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
All right, well, anyway.
So Trump kept his promises andput baseline and reciprocal
tariffs, which everyone seems tobe ignoring.
That the baseline andreciprocal tariffs are separate
items here.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
What are your thoughts?

(21:19):
Are you freaking out about yourstock portfolios right now?

Speaker 2 (21:23):
No, oh, why not?
Neither is anybody that's under35.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
Because, Dude, I'm over 35 and I'm not.
What's a?

Speaker 2 (21:34):
401k.
I don't give a shit aboutstocks, I care about money.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
Yeah, but I mean I'm over 35 and I'm, you know, I've
got a, a decent size I am likeone percent of your, your peer
group, so no I.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
This was predictable.
Everybody should have knownstocks are going to go down.
All my stocks are down rightnow, but all my stocks are also
for hold, not for quick flip.
So the people that are losingtheir mind, they're only people
that have short-term holds andall of those are down.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
The truth of the matter is we need a recession.
We were always going to haveone, based off of Trump's
economic and governmentalpolicies.
If Doge succeeds in cutting atrillion dollars from government
spending, then, uh, I hate totell you this, but that would by

(22:36):
itself because governmentspending is counted in gdp put
us into a recession, a technicalrecession.
We have inflated the money,money supply so much it is not
even funny people talking aboutthe trillions of dollars wiped
out.
Well, guess what?
That's trillions of dollarstaken out of the money supply.
Why is it deflationary?

(22:58):
Because that money is no longerexists, it is gone, it was on
paper, it was inflated valuethat these companies really

(23:21):
probably shouldn't have, and andby destroying that value,
you're destroying money supplyat the same time.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
Okay, now a lot of people will just say that
Republicans are stupid, becauseTrump has just put in a 25% tax
hike on all Americans, includingpoor people, and you're trying
to pass it off as some kind of agood thing.

(23:52):
And even look at conservativeslike Thomas Sowell, who say that
all tariffs are bad, includingthese tariffs.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
And I'm right there in a lot of ways.
But I look at Argentina.
I'm right there in a lot ofways, but I look at Argentina,
argentina and Milley just cameout and has approached the Trump
administration because Trumphas said these are reciprocal
and so on.
So what's Milley's attitude?
We're going to become the firstcountry to work with you, trump

(24:26):
, to have mutual free trade, notrade restrictions, no tariffs
either direction.
That's the libertarian dream,that's the ideal right there,
and we're already seeing it.
We're already seeing the UK.
We're already seeing Mexico andCanada back off on their
tariffs.
Talk about lowering theirtariffs against US goods.
I don't think this is apermanent situation.
Tariffs against us goods Idon't think this is a permanent

(24:48):
situation.
But what I'll say is, on acountry like china that debases
its currency tariffs, us goodsgoing into china highly, this is
just leveling the playing field.
And you know what he's not evendoing a hundred percent.
He's not making them perfectlyreciprocal.
He's literally making it half.
So, whatever your trade uh, youknow your tariffs or trade

(25:14):
barriers are what they add up toin our trade deficit we're
going to make it half, so thatgives him room to ramp it up if
he gets in a, quite frankly, apissing contest, like he's about
to with Xi.
Well, he did, because Chinajust announced today they're
reaching tariffs by 34%.
Yeah, well okay.
He's got a long way to move andI guarantee you China needs our

(25:40):
market more than we need theirgoods.
That's backwards, Absolutelythe other way around.
What do you mean?
We need Chinese goods way morethan we need their goods.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
Absolutely the other way around.
What do you mean?
We need Chinese goods way morethan they need American goods.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
No, they need our market more than we need their
goods.
Is what I said.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Okay, well, that's fair, but we need their goods a
lot more than we need them as amarket.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
Yes, absolutely, goods a lot more than we need
their them as a market?
Oh yes, absolutely, but that'snot necessarily relevant,
because really the lever trumpcontrols is whether or not china
can even do anything here buthere, here's the it's.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
It's a bi-directional lever.
This is what people forget whatI've said for a long time that
if china wants to ruin the useconomy, it's super easy for
them to do at any point in time,and all they have to do is stop
shipping goods to the us andthe us literally goes out of
business.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yep, you can't buy anything in the us that isn't
made in china and this isanother reason why it is good to
go ahead and do this now,because this starts weaning us
off that chinese teat and whattrump is doing is the
equivalence of the russiansanctions, except these are

(26:56):
sanctions on the us uh, Iwouldn't call it that.
I think it's disingenuous.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
But okay, no, I I think it's absolutely the case,
because what?
What sanctions from the us andrussia did is wean russia off of
american and european goodsyeah, in that sense.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
But what I would say is the sanctions make it illegal
for you to do stuff.
This just makes it moreexpensive for you to do stuff.
So it's it's, it's.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
It is different in that sense, and that's my point
yeah, yeah, but the net resultis going to be that you're
losing a source of goods.
That's okay.
I'm not arguing whether it'sokay or not and, frankly, for
most of this conversation, I'mbeing Del's advocate today.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
I'm very much agreeing with you.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
However, yeah, you know, one of us has to represent
the other viewpoint here, soI'm going to do that.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
Yeah, did you watch the Nick Freitas episode on
young men, by the way.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
I watched the one on daughters.
I didn't see the one on youngmen.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
You need to watch it, it's pretty good.
Did you see the one on ondaughters?
I didn't see the one, youngI'll.
You need to watch it.
It's pretty good.
But uh, anyway, my daughters uh, it was a short one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah we said.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
You know, I've I've had a lot of comments from
people saying that uh, I'm uhtreating my daughters like
princesses and it's not good forthem.
They're not good and it's anargument I would make.
In fact, I may have commentedin one of his videos uh, that
that you know, raising yourdaughter to be a princess is
setting the wrong expectationsand she's gonna end up failing

(28:35):
in life.
And then he says, yeah, Iabsolutely treat my daughters
like princesses, just like youknow people have from a thousand
years.
I expect to use my daughters ingetting arranged marriages to
result in expanding my empire.

(28:55):
And it goes down the path ofthe traditional princes, like
what do you do with them?
You marry them off to othercountries' princes For a land
deal.
Yeah, exactly, so it was prettyfunny.
I butchered it obviously, butif you like him, you probably

(29:16):
have seen that little clip.
Anyway, that was a short.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Well, just getting back to tariffs, it's his last
term in office too.
He said he's not gonna runagain.
Yeah, he, fritas, is uhstepping down, which I?
I'm interested to see wherehe's gonna go and what the plan
is.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
Youtube uh talk show okay, make more money than
working that job.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah, well, anyway, regardless, back to tariffs
People talking about the islandthat Trump imposed tariffs on
and no one lives there.
It's just penguins.
Why is he doing that?
And it's like, well,technically, because he hates
penguins.
It's obvious.
No, it's an Australianterritory.

(30:03):
Because he ate penguins, it'sobvious.
No, it's in Australianterritory and there are goods
and services that list that asthe point of origination, even
though no one lives there.
So you know he's closingloopholes.
He's being fairly thorough onthis, like the amount of
derangement on the left.

(30:24):
So I just watched Peter Zahan'sSignalgate video and if you
haven't seen it you need to gowatch it.
You need to go watch themeltdown this man has.
I don't need to watch that.
Just so many things wrong,uh-huh, uh-huh.
It's very terrifying.
It is really terrifying towatch people just lose it for no

(30:50):
reason.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Yeah, it's not at all surprising.
I think it'll be interesting tosee how deep into derangement
he goes, but he clearly hadstarted pivoting that in that
video that you sent a few weeksago.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
Well, I'm telling you right now, if you go watch this
latest one on Signalgate, he isliterally losing his mind over
it.
Really, yes, how could they usethis third-party app?
You can't use third-party appsfor this first of all, to use
everything is a third-party app.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
I don't think you know what that fucking doesn't
know what it means.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
Yeah and then second of all, um, you know what it
comes down to is it came, it waspre-installed on their phone
yeah, and he's like oh well, thedod was warning about russian
circumventing uh signals, uhsecurity protections and this,

(31:58):
that and the other.
And first of all, no, I callit's still bullshit.
But second of all, okay, well,I'm sure they have circumvented
a lot of DOD systems.
Are you telling me DOD has thebest coding practices ever in
the world and you know nothing'sever been hacked there?

(32:18):
Oh wait, that's not true.
So it was installed on thegovernment phone.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
It was pre-set up like the the nothing burger this
is exactly like the terror hasan ownership in this.
Okay, this is ridiculous to notthink of signal as a it is a
government app.
It is literally a governmentapp yeah, now do dude.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
what I would say is, for instance, the Onion Router.
That was an In-Q-Tel thing too.
Yeah Is it still useful.
Yes, you know, but the realthing here is know your audience
and know what is reasonable andnot.

(33:02):
Could the CIA or NSA get intomy phone and get into my signal?
Probably, but why wouldn't theyjust hack the keyboard instead
To see what I'm sending?

Speaker 2 (33:14):
Well, yeah, if you have an.
Apple device of course it coulderase itself.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
Signal is not the weak spot on your phone, right,
and that's not the point ofintrusion that any attacker is
going to go after.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
The problem with Signal we already discussed and
I thought we kind of beat thattopic to death, which was that
where the blame lies is in theconfiguration.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
For the group chat.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
yes, yeah, for the group chat.
Is that signal?

Speaker 1 (33:48):
default to allow anyone to add.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
I don't think there's anything.
Well, I shouldn't say nefarious.
There was clearly somethingnefarious with adding a reporter
, but it wasn't from the app.
It was nefarious from one ofthe people that got added to the
list.
My theory on this which I can'tprove, but it's a logical
theory is that on that groupmeeting, some lower staffer was

(34:17):
added who shouldn't have beenadded, or maybe should have been
added, but either way they'rean anti-Trumper, or maybe should
have been added, but either waythey're an anti-Trumper.
And what they did is they addedthe reporter and then dropped
off themselves very quickly, andso it looked like oh, it was
only the people on that callthat should have been on it,

(34:37):
plus this reporter.
Where did he come from and howdid he sneak in?
Well, he can't sneak in.
The reporter is tech illiterate, first of all.
Secondly, uh, he had to havebeen added and I I am gonna bet
that none of the people thatwere on that call that were
trump appointees added thereporter themselves.

(34:58):
However, somebody may haveadded one of their staffers and
that staffer likely is who addedthat person in.
It could be even worse thatsome of these people didn't
actually go on this callthemselves.
They told one of their staffersyou know, make sure that I'm on

(35:20):
that call and then the stafferadded their signal to the call
and also did it.
So I'm going to blame a staffer.
I don't know whose staffer itis, but to me that's the Occam's
razor.
That's the most likely scenariois that a staffer of one of
these people hates Trump's andthought that this is a way to

(35:42):
get him is by adding a reporterto the call.

Speaker 1 (35:47):
Well, regardless, I'm not too worried about it.
I think it's interesting towatch the left make, quite
frankly, absolutely ridiculousarguments, uh, both against the

(36:09):
tariffs and against um, excuseme, against, uh, the signal gate
stuff, like I just see thevideo compilation of past
Democrat presidents, all wantingtariffs yes, and everyone
talking about it.
Yes, this is not a Republicanor Libertarian issue.

(36:34):
This is very much a Democratictalking point that's been around
for forever.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
I think it's the context of how it's been brought
up, because if, instead of justsaying I'm going to impose
tariffs, I think, if that wasalways prefaced with, it's
unfair how other countriestariff us and we're going to
push back if they don't lowertheir tariffs, something that
effectively places a blame onothers and then a response on us

(37:08):
, because the way trump's beentalking and like I get what he's
saying and why he's doing it.
Um, I'm not generally forterrorists, but there's two
elements here that most peopleseem to be oblivious to.
One is the us has had over 2000 tariffs in place for the
last five presidents.
The second is that mostcountries have tariffs, and

(37:32):
generally more than even the ushas.
So really what we're talkingabout is an equalization of
tariffs and not so much animposition of tariffs.
But the way that trump useslike his language actually falls
right into the democrat talkingpoints right now, which is
trump is trying to kill theeconomy with putting in

(37:55):
arbitrary tariffs.
Like what he says doesn't helphis case because he doesn't
address it as an equalization oftariffs or a we need to lower
tariffs across the whole world,and the way we do that is by
threatening to raise our ownwell, you know, all I can say is

(38:18):
every time ford wants to sell acar to europe, um, there's a
tariff, so they also have plentyof factories in europe too.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
Almost nobody buys a car built in the us because it's
too big for european roads well, fair enough, fair enough, fair
enough, but one of the things Iwhat I'm saying is tariffs are
good at incentivizing companiesto move manufacturing.
That is true.
I think the long-term game here, though, is to lower trade

(38:51):
barriers and get more countriesto come alongside us, like
argentina, like that that, Itruly believe, is trump's goal.
So we'll see.
Um, did you see what happenedin colorado yesterday?
Uh, I don't know what happened.
Uh, colorado house democratsjust passed a bill saying

(39:16):
misgendering is a discriminatoryact and includes language to
allow cps to take uh childrenaway from parents who misgender,
and uh pushes all schools topromote.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
There'll be a lot of property for sale in colorado
probably well, that and the gunban, dude.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
Yeah, yeah, you can't own a semi-automatic in
Colorado.
What's wrong with you, wait?

Speaker 2 (39:42):
wait, isn't that where your buddy lives?

Speaker 1 (39:45):
One of them, yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
No, I mean Zahan.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I actually have some familyfriends and, ironically, one of
the family friends that livesoutside of, uh, colorado springs
is a very, very big gun guy.
Like I don't know how many gunshe owns, but it's, it is a

(40:11):
probably a four-digit number.
Like he's one of those.
Like ruguger comes out with anew 10, 22 anniversary, 50th,
whatever edition.
He's like oh, I'll take two.
Wow, cause he collects.
That's what he does, hecollects.
But anyway, colorado isobviously very, very broken,

(40:37):
yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah it's.
I don't.
I remember back from like the80s and 90s that it wasn't so
much Colorado, it was just likea few cities in Colorado, like
Boulder, where it's superliberal.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
Yeah, Boulder is very , very liberal.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
But the state in and of itself wasn't.
It still had very much a sortof a cowboy mentality.
Kind of out west mentality, butit sure feels like the entirety
of Colorado is basically likeBoulder used to be.
Okay, I think we just giveColorado to California and be

(41:21):
done with it.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
Give Colorado to California.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
Only if they decide to secede.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
Well, we, no, no, no.
I'm saying we should build thewall between the United States
and California and then alsoaround Colorado.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
At this point, Well, I think what you do is you just
I would rather see us just nukeDenver and Boulder, and then I
think we'd be alright Nuke.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
Denver and Boulder.
Well, you know, we may get ourwish if the US starts getting
into the war in Ukraine, becausemost of Colorado is very much
on the first strike map.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Yeah, absolutely, with everything that's there Now
one of the things I will say isdid you see what Gavin Newsom
decided to do?

Speaker 2 (42:19):
No, in response to the tariffs.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
I don't watch.
Gavin Newsom decided to do noIn response to the tariffs.
I don't watch Gavin Newsom.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
Gavin Newsom has decided to instruct the state of
California to work on its owntrade deals With foreign
countries.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
Yes, Okay, which is interesting and I don't
necessarily oppose it.
Yeah, you know Texas.
We have uh texas department oftrade.
Um now, its primaryresponsibilities at this point
in time are economic developmentand getting you know uh

(42:53):
countries and uh places to comeand invest here in Texas, and
lowering our local tax barriersand so on.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
What would that do for California?
I'm trying to envision how thiscould be a good thing for
California at all.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
Well, I don't see it as being effective at all.
I see Gavin Newsom as virtuesignaling.
What I will say is setting upthis sort of capability is a
first step to seekingindependence in my mind this and

(43:32):
setting up your own banks andso on and gold repositories like
.
Yeah, you know, texas has.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
Uh, yeah, it's interesting because we could
potentially lose the entire westcoast, which again I wouldn't
be too opposed to uh, you knowwhat I?

Speaker 1 (43:52):
read through give give, create the state of
Jefferson, split off that partof Washington, oregon and so on.
And California.
Break California up and give.
Keep the eastern portions ofCalifornia and everything else.
Give it all to Canada andMexico.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
Let it go.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
Bye.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
Yeah, the problem is it wouldn't actually be Canada
and Mexico, it would be China,with a beat on the ground just
west of the Nevada.
But yeah, in general I'm moreinclined to let people that have
zero interest in being a partof this country to just not be a

(44:44):
part of this country, like Iwould never have a civil war
over it I agree, yeah, yeah, butI would also believe in a very
strong defense, meaning youbuild that wall just as tall
around California as you doaround Mexico.

(45:05):
Yeah, and none of this.
Coming into the United Statesto go shopping bullshit.
You want to get a visa, you go.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
You follow the same process everybody else does yeah
, well, regardless, uh it's, welive in interesting times, my
friend.
Yeah, we do definitely.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
I've lived in a few interesting times.
I lived in the Y2K, that was avery interesting time.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
I did too.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
Yeah, but you were like five years old but it was
Actually I would have been 14.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Thank you, Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
Oh, 14.
So you just graduated highschool?
Okay, but it was a veryinteresting time, for sure.
Um, and then, of course, the80s consultants got to make a
lot of money over a lot of bsdude, it was so good I I any
deal that I came in to sell Ilike how you don't argue that it

(46:14):
wasn't bullshit, but you knowit was a great time.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
It was a great time I will say there was some
legitimate stuff, like there waswhatever, but this fear that,
like the, the idea that theconsequence was we don't know
what's gonna happen we've got apretty good idea what's gonna
happen turn off and never comeback again forever, because just
all those systems were built incobalt, and cobalt only let

(46:43):
numbers go up to 2000 uh-huh.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
Well, actually it was a two-digit year, but it was a
good time.
Yeah, exactly, it was, uh,definitely good.
Yeah, back back then I rememberI used to ride my motorcycle to
client meetings, grow up infull leathers and it's a down
talk, but in the meeting we'dget a contract signed and I'd

(47:13):
hop on my bike and then goriding for the rest of the day.
That was a good time.
Okay, yeah, there's.
There's probably about 10 hoursof work per week that I was
doing back then and making sixfigures.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
This is.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
This is why people hate consultants Gene yeah, well
, it's more difficult to do thatright now and, of course, six
figures ain't worth shit anymorewell, I wouldn't say it's not
not worth it, it is definitelyworth less than it was.
Yeah, like making 120 130k backthen is like making $280,000

(48:02):
right now.
Yeah, so it's really gone up alot Like the inflation is crazy
high.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
Well then you should be pretty happy about some of
the deflationary stuff that'sgoing on then.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's good.
I think what's interesting tome is bitcoin hasn't done a
goddamn thing.
It's been sitting in 80 forlike since trump got elected and
still in the same place now,whereas everything else is
either going up or down.
Gold's going up, stocks aregoing down, which usually is a

(48:42):
predictor of massive horribleevents coming up so why do I
don't know about that, but whydo you think?

Speaker 1 (48:50):
uh, bitcoin is sitting there.
Actually, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
I have no idea, dude.
I've thought about it.
I'm like that is so bizarreBecause Bitcoin is the least
volatile it's ever been rightnow, which, again, I don't have
an explanation for.
I'm usually pretty good atcoming up with explanations for
stuff that at least are rationalsounding, but I don't know, I
can't even guess and do andguess my like I would.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
I would really need to open it up and not just look
at the price, but look at thevolume of trading and everything
else, get a good idea.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
Yeah, yeah, it's um.
You know, I I've often remindedpeople that when you see a
shift in the price of something,it doesn't necessarily mean
that thing is going up or down.
It is the relationship betweenthe US dollar and that thing,
and that's why, when the priceof gold goes up, it's not that

(49:51):
gold's getting more expensivebecause there's less of it
around.
It is that inflation on the usdollar is making a difference
between what the price of goldis in us dollars, and so you
know, a rise in gold typicallysignifies an increase in

(50:14):
inflation.
Now, if Trump does thedeflationary stuff or a run to a
secure asset, so volatility canalso cause that too.
They're one and the same,because it implies the
insecurity of keeping your moneyin US dollars.
Okay, so if Trump doessomething deflationary, we

(50:44):
should see the price of goldgoing down.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
Not necessarily.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
We'll see if that happens.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
So one of the things I would say is not necessarily
the price of gold is somewhatinelastic, because you have a
lot of people who purchase andhold physical gold, because
that's what they do, rightthey're not A very small number
of people.
Okay, I disagree.

(51:15):
Also, banks typically holdreserves of that's the single
biggest number.
Yeah, that is the biggestnumber, but I don't think you're
going to see JPMorgan Chasedivesting of their silver assets
and things like that.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
They've done it before.
When was the last time theydropped hardly?
Anything well, they did happenin the 90s, when the silver
market started crashing yeah,90s, so we're talking.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
How many years ago uh yeah, you were like 30 years
ago, but maybe they're due butthat has not been, even like
during the 2008 crisis andeverything else.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
all all they did was add yeah, but gold is
interesting because it's notjust a tangible thing that you
hold for value, it's not justjewelry.
The single biggest consumer ofgold is actually the electronics
industry.
So it is something that isutilized in manufacturing, sure,

(52:23):
but that's not what peopletypically buy.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
What do you mean?
Like?
People aren't buying just goldore, right?
Anything that makes it intolike an ingot or anything that a
consumer would purchase is notever going to be used in an
industry.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
By a number of things .
One of which is demand in theelectronics industry.
Sure, and if that demand drops,let's say we go to some kind of
a new non-silicon-basedelectronics and gold is no
longer needed, because it'sactually using light instead of
electrons, it's using photons.

(53:03):
Then all of a sudden, with adrop in demand, the price of
gold should go down.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
Gold is a conductor.
That's non you know.
It's an inert conductor, sothere will always be a need for
a good non-oxidizing conductor.
That's what I that's what Imean by inert.
Yeah, it doesn't react oroxidize.
Yes, yeah so it's uh, likesilver oxidizes, silver is not

(53:35):
inert.
Silver is not inert.
Copper is not inert.
This is the reason why we usegold in gold plating and gold in
connections and connectorswhere we don't want that to
change and degrade over time.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what tariffs
ultimately do, because I'vealways thought when Trump talked
about tariffs, the main pointof tariffs is political action.
It's a tool in the politicaltoolkit and any kind of change

(54:17):
that it causes to the financialsystem is just a side effect.
There are people that have theopposite viewpoint, that tariffs
are predominantly a financialtool and that any changes in
political alignment they causeare the secondary function.
So I think for Trump I could bewrong, but I think for Trump

(54:40):
they are predominantly apolitical tool to effect change
and the economic effects are theside effect.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
Okay, what do you think he's using this as a
political tool to accomplish?

Speaker 2 (54:59):
Well, two things.
One is to bring manufacturingback to the United States.
I think that's a big goal hehas, and to do that, it can't be
done in competition with laborthat gets $5 per hour.
It has to be.
You know, if manufacturing isgoing to happen in the US, we're

(55:20):
probably looking at a $60minimum wage for manufacturing
jobs.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
Yeah, we have to raise the cost of everything
else to allow that the optionsto bring back manufacturing are
to impose tariffs, so companies.
It is cheaper for them to meetour current regulatory burden,

(55:46):
both with minimum wage issues aswell as environmental and
everything else, or remove thoseregulations, and I would say
most libertarians would sayabolish the minimum wage,
abolish this.
You know have a laissez-fairecapitalistic market, but the
reality is to actually get tothat sort of market would be

(56:08):
harder and would be harder onaverage people well, there's two
things.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
One is that, uh, and I agree with you, but one of
them is that something mostpeople don't consider is that
for there to be a laissez-fairemarket, it has to be equalized,
meaning you can't have a commandeconomy on one side and a
laissez-faire market on theother side, because the command
economy will always win in thatsituation.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
I think the history has shown otherwise?

Speaker 2 (56:42):
No, it hasn't.
You can only deal withcountries.
You can only allow alaissez-faire market to other
laissez-faire markets, otherlaissez-faire markets.
You cannot allow that type ofrelationship where you literally
have zero tariffs, zero limitson trade.

(57:05):
You allow anything to a countrythat effectively, is
subsidizing the products inorder to bankrupt you, and
that's what Trump is trying togo against.
He's trying to push backagainst, sure and that's where
tariffs can come in.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
And, yeah, you know, push that back.
Uh, you know and help, but thatdoesn't really change the fact
that a laissez-faire economy isalways going to be a better
option than a command economy?

Speaker 2 (57:41):
Yeah, absolutely it is for the people in that
country.
But what I'm saying is, if youhave a country that doesn't have
that, you have a country likeChina that has a command economy
, where decisions about itsoutput and pricing is actually
made politically rather thanthrough the market.
They can impose pricing thatwill result in what happened in

(58:10):
the United States for the mostpart, which is an inability to
compete freely against a controleconomy like that.
The US didn't just say we wantto get rid of all our
manufacturing because they'restinky.
The US manufacturing died aslow death because it couldn't
compete.

(58:30):
And it couldn't compete notbecause China was able to
manufacture manufacturing in theUS, but because China was able
to provide pricing for productsthat the US could not compete
with, regardless of quality.

(58:52):
Like the shittiest qualityAmerican products still could
not be made for as cheap as theycould be made in China, or even
higher quality products made inChina.
Now, the best US manufacturingwas always a higher quality than
Chinese, but the price wasmultiples of the cost of Chinese
.
And I know this.

(59:12):
Even fairly recently, with thewallet that my buddy
manufactured, designed and thenmade, you know, for the
Kickstarter, the fulfillment ofall of those wallets was done in
China and you know he had foundthe best of the Chinese

(59:33):
manufacturers for this kind ofproduct, which is just
essentially jewelry quality.
But it was still nowhere nearwhat he was able to achieve in
the US.
But the cost to manufacture inthe US was about two and a half
times higher than like the best.
Chinese quality was still twoand a half times cheaper than

(59:56):
fairly average US quality.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
Yeah.
So you know, part of this is,yeah, a command economy can and
will invest and cause.
You know, this is exactly wherethe tariffs come into play as a
defense mechanism andeverything else play as a

(01:00:23):
defense mechanism and everythingelse.
But what I will say is, whenyou look at the command
economies of the ussr and thefairly laissez-faire economies
of the us.
Uh, during the cold war periodum russia couldn't feed itself,
so command economies while theycan make those?

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Yeah, but that's a different issue.
Hold on, hold on, hold on, allright.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
While the command economies can make those
decisions and say okay we'regoing to put they're going to
cost them Exactly.
And oftentimes the leaders arestupid and make the wrong
decision and cost their peopledearly.
Cost their people dearly.
The unseen hand of the marketis far more, you know, more

(01:01:03):
accurate and active than thecommand economy.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
But I'm not talking about the quality of life of
people in the command economy.
I'm saying that for people in alottery.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Fair economy, the command economy, can have an
impact.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Yeah, but that's where the command economy can
have an impact.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
Yeah, that's where this is important that we do
have the tools available and usethem to take care of our people
?
Yes, and.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
Yeah, so my only point here is that what's sad is
what we've let happen withChinese manufacturing.
I remember as a kid thinkingthat American goods, like made
in the USA, actually meantsomething, and it meant it was

(01:01:56):
the highest quality possible.
Made in Japan was cheaper andworse quality than american, and
made in china was completeanother total crap.
Like it was throwaway stuff youyou could.
You could have, like yourslippers made in china, but you
would never have your televisionmade in China.

(01:02:16):
You would absolutely have thatmade in Japan, and the
television sets made in Americawere probably the first to go.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
And, to be clear, trump has been talking about
this being an issue.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
literally in the 80s, he would have been saying the
same things about Japan as he issaying about China now, mm-hmm
he would have been saying thesame things about japan as he is
saying about china now.
Yeah, and it makes sense,because trump builds buildings
in the united states, althoughhe builds them in other
countries too.
But, uh, having a healthyeconomy in the us is beneficial
to trump, and always has been,and we have opted to go for

(01:02:58):
cheaper goods, regardless of howthey're made, by slave labor,
and instead, um, as a result ofthat, rather, we've given away
our own ability to compete onany of these things.
Like you could still buy anamerican-made tv when I was a
kid, it was an rca and it wasclearly already starting to seem

(01:03:21):
like it was worse than thejapanese, the sony ones, but at
least it was an option wherethat fell off.
Like there literally was no wayby the 90s to buy american
television, american computersused to be made like Apple used
to be made in the US.
Radioshack made computers, ibmmade computers these are all

(01:03:45):
US-made computers Untilcompanies like IBM started
getting deals with companieslike Novo to make their
equipment.
And then eventually, Novo justbought the brand name from IBM
and said look, we've been makingthem for you, We'll just pay
you to buy the name.
We'll keep making them becausethey've always been our

(01:04:06):
computers.
You're just selling them.
And that has happened in everyindustry.
I miss my ThinkPads.
Yeah, they were definitely.
I had two of them, I think,over the years and they were
always much.
I've.
I had two of them, I think overthe years.
Oh, they were always muchbetter than dells?

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
yeah, they, they were just a beast rock solid.
Uh, just very, very goodconstruction and yeah yeah, and
and a lot of.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
and the companies that were American companies
moved their manufacturing intothird world countries.
Like hard drives, disk drivesused to be manufactured in the
United States and then slowly,over time, they started getting
factories built in thePhilippines, in Indonesia and in
Asia where the labor market wassuper cheap.

(01:04:57):
And you know, in asia, wherethe labor market was super cheap
and uh, the, the cost ofbuilding the factory itself was
way cheaper than building thesame factory in the united
states.
so there were there were itemswhere foreign manufacturers
basically replaced americanmanufacturers and there were
also areas where Americanmanufacturers just simply

(01:05:19):
stopped employing Americanpeople and shifted to factories
overseas.
And both of those thingshappened, and it didn't happen
overnight, but over the courseof my lifetime I saw it
happening continuously everyyear.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
Well, and you know, we've seen German Petrochem
factories move to Louisianabecause of the sanctions against
.
Russia, they can't get theinputs for this.
Yeah, there is definitely timeswhen outsourcing and economic
shifts make sense.
I will have to say cheapergoods for cheaper goods sake

(01:05:58):
isn't always a good thing,especially when you're debasing
and removing jobs from your owneconomy.
And the answer is often oh well, you know, you can just get a
different job.
You can do this, that and theother.
Well, maybe Learn to code.
I think is the phrase you'relooking for?
Maybe Learn to code, I think, isthe phrase you're looking for.

(01:06:20):
Well, but the point is maybe,and you know what does it matter
if you can or can't, why isthat an ideal that we should
espouse for?
You know, a pure race at thebottom isn't necessarily a good

(01:06:42):
thing, and I'll just say I'm notfor government regulation.
I would love it if again allcountries were on the same
playing field and not debasingtheir currency and so on.
But you know, it's reallystupid when I hear a libertarian
or someone argue well, weshouldn't do tariffs and this

(01:07:06):
and the other.
Okay, but they are.
But they're doing lots ofthings here that are hurting us.
That's not fair.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
The question to ask that libertarian that's just
going to argue, say tariffs arebad, which is basically the
libertarian position.
Sure it's okay, okay, okay, I'mnot going to disagree with you.
Let's agree, all tariffs arebad.
So we, knowing that all tariffsare bad and china has 1028
tariffs currently in the unitedstates, do you think we should?
We should attack china?

(01:07:35):
What?
What is the method ofaddressing this in getting rid
of those tariffs that China has?
Do we do it militarily?
Do we do it politically, or dowe do it through pressure, by
first threatening and theneventually, if need be, imposing
reciprocal tariffs?
Because I'd be curious to seewhat the libertarian answer to

(01:07:56):
that is.
Yeah, did we lose you, ben?
Your device reboot.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
No, I muted to cough and forgot to unmute.
Oh, so sorry, no again.
The way these tariffs are setup is there's a baseline tariff
and there's a reciprocal tariff.
There's a reciprocal tariff andthe reciprocal tariff can

(01:08:31):
change and uh you know, move upand down as countries decide to
fight us or do whatever they'regoing to do.
So I, I think it's going to bevery interesting to see who
blinks first, trump or china,with the the tariffs, because,
as china's raising them, I Ithink it's going to be announced
shortly that the Chinesetariffs are going to go even
higher.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
Yeah, well, I mean they went 34% higher today.
Mm-hmm, that just happened.
So you're saying they're goingto keep rising?
Yeah, because I think China'sgoing to respond and we're going
to respond, and we're going togo back and forth, but this is a
game that China can play longerthan the US, because the amount
of products that are importedinto China from the US are

(01:09:14):
limited to luxury goods.

Speaker 1 (01:09:18):
China doesn't get.
That's not true.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
Well, for the most part.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
There's energy resources that China imports.
China imports a ton of food.
There's several things.

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
They're getting most of that from Australia and
surrounding areas.
It's not mostly coming from theUS as a percentage of imports.
This is the reason we have atariff war in the first place.
It's because China just doesnot buy many American products.
Mm-hmm is the reason we have atariff war in the first place.
It's because China just doesnot buy many American products.
If they bought a bunch ofAmerican products, there would

(01:09:53):
be no reason for Trump to imposetariffs.
But we've had an imbalance intrade with China for decades and
at first it was hard to have atrade imbalance simply because
chinese goods were so damn cheapthat like one american car
covered thousands of importsfrom china.

(01:10:15):
But at this point it's like Isaid it's hard to find something
in the us that isn'tmanufactured with chinese parts
or completely in China.
And I'll tell you, a wholegroup of people that are going
to be out of business as aresult of this are small Amazon
sellers who really just have aproduct that is made in China

(01:10:39):
and then just delivered toAmazon.
Amazon, you know, kind of likemy uh, uh, my unsuccessful foray
into doing that with the solarplant.

Speaker 1 (01:10:53):
The solar plan shows I just looked it up the us main
and we do about 500 and some oddbillion dollars of trade with
china?
Um the?
U main exports includeagricultural products, so food,
corn, etc.
Along with machinery vehiclesand aircrafts as the top, and

(01:11:14):
then other key exports are alsominerals for fuel, aka coal,
shipments oils, distillateproducts and so on.
So yeah, we actually do send abit to China.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
We do, but as a percentage of their both total
imports and the economy, it is amuch smaller percentage than
what the US gets from China.

Speaker 1 (01:11:58):
Yes, yes, anyway, I I think, I think that we can,
especially with our if australiawill play game uh play ball
with us and uh work together.

Speaker 2 (01:12:03):
Australia's got high tariffs on American goods.

Speaker 1 (01:12:06):
Yes, yeah, yeah, but.
I'm talking about against China.

Speaker 2 (01:12:09):
I know, but they have no reason to play ball.
If anything, we may end uppushing China closer to other
countries with this.
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
But we'll see.

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
We will see.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
I've been wrong before.

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
Yeah, so the US?
What place is China?

Speaker 1 (01:12:36):
in the US imports.
Do you think In imports?
Yeah, I would say they'reprobably number two or three.

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
They are number three , mexico's number one, canada's
number two, canada's number twoor three.
They are number three, mexico's, number one Canada's number two
, which is why, also, I think,most people don't know this and
they only think China's the big,but we have the imbalance with
Canada and the imbalance withMexico.
Oh yeah, it's a but.
Here's the interesting thingyou know, china is the third

(01:13:07):
largest importer of goods intothe US.
Uh, as far as goods exportedfrom the US, where do you think
China is?

Speaker 1 (01:13:18):
Uh, significantly lower.
Yeah, probably not in the topten.

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):
Yeah, no, I think they're seventh, okay, seventh,
but they're barely more thanJapan.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
And a country that's way bigger, and our imports from
Japan are about a third of ourimports from China, and I think
that's mostly cars, so it's a.
In fact, japan is almostequivalent to what we import
from Vietnam.

Speaker 1 (01:13:45):
In fact, japan is almost equivalent to what we
import from Vietnam.
Well look, I think we have tomake a break with China, I think
we have to get off of the.
And realistically, here's thedeal China being number three is
extremely dangerous to me, andCanada and Mexico being number

(01:14:07):
one and number two is less so.
And the reason why is because Aeven as liberal as the Canadian
government can get we are morealigned.
As much of a failed narco stateas Mexico is, we are more
aligned.
So we are more aligned.
And not only that, we have theabsolute capability of just

(01:14:29):
saying shut up your hours now.
Yeah, exactly, and neithercould do anything about it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:35):
It's fairly small.
Of all the countries that weboth import and export from,
canada is the closest toequivalent.
They still import less thanthey export, but it's pretty
darn close.
Mexico exports double theamount that it imports and China
imports about a quarter of whatthey export to us.

(01:14:57):
So the Canadian is more like90%.
So their imports are at 90% oftheir exports.
But then you look at Europeancountries like Germany, who's
the largest of the Europeanimporters into the US.

(01:15:18):
So things that they export tous is about double of how much
they consume American goods.
They import about one half ofwhat they export to the US.
That's a big imbalance.

Speaker 1 (01:15:31):
And let me just say that I'm okay with everybody
sending their goods over hereand us not sending goods out as
long as we have and this issomething that's, I think, a
little disingenuous in the tradenumbers.
We don't count American labor inthat, and American labor is

(01:15:53):
pretty significant on projectsall around the world.
For instance, the company Iwork for, we are one of the
principals on the new airport inRiyadh and I'm telling you
right now, without Western help,that airport I don't think

(01:16:16):
could be built and have thecapabilities and do the things
that they're wanting to do.
I don't think they could do itwithout the West.
I don't think they could do itwithout the west.
I don't think they could do itwithout the united states.
Quite frankly, um, we have alot of very talented and very
educated engineers and peopledon't.
And I didn't really understandthe americans competitive

(01:16:39):
advantage around the world andwhy america does go and win and
why you would pay such anexpensive American salary.
Surely you have engineers inyour country.
The work ethic, the attitude,the ingenuity.
We are different, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
Absolutely.
That's I.
I've always said back when Iused to run international teams
for a BT is that, uh, I will getdouble the amount of work out
of America compared to any othercountry.

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):
I don't care who it is Germans, japanese, anybody
else Yet the Japanese andTaiwanese say oh no, you
Americans are lazy, you don't no?
No, no, we work moreefficiently.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
Well, but it's beyond that.
Like in most countries, theyhave way more holidays.
Americans have 10, 10 holidaysa year.
Americans also get the leastamount of time off in vacation,
and a lot of people like when Iworked, I didn't take any time
off at all for four years andthen, um, I think you get a

(01:17:47):
divorce?
Yeah Well, not because of that.
I mean, my wife went onvacation, I just didn't go on
vacation.
Uh, because I've alwaysconsidered like right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:58):
But I'm not going to leave a project that needs to
get finished.
Yeah, but you, you have toconnect some dots there, but
it's okay.
Look, Americans' productivityper hour of work is higher than
anywhere else in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:18:20):
And to everyone who's sitting there.

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
That doesn't exist in other countries?

Speaker 1 (01:18:24):
Right, but everyone should be sitting there going.
You mean that dumbass next tome is outworking Europeans?

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
Yeah, more than likely.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
That's been my experience ininternational business for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:18:39):
So, regardless, my point is, if we would include
the US S trade of labor andthings, not just hard goods, I
think we would see a verydifferent picture than we do now
.

Speaker 2 (01:18:51):
But yeah, and I'm kind of surprised countries like
China haven't brought that up,because that that could be an
argument to counterweight thewhole imbalance of trade issue.
Like, yeah, maybe we make morestuff, but look at all the money
we're spending with hiring inconsultants, yeah, and

(01:19:13):
architects and everybody else.
There are areas where the USclearly dominates.
You talk about the defensebusiness, the military sales, oh
, equipment yeah.
I mean there's a few countriesthere like Belgium and South
Africa, but really the US is thebig gorilla.
We make more of the ammunitionand equipment that kills more

(01:19:38):
people than any other country inthe history of the world.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
Well, and quite frankly, the only competition we
have at all is in small arms,anything.
Well and, quite frankly, theonly competition we have at all
is in small arms, mm-hmm, yep,anything beyond well, quite
frankly, a fighter, but eventhat we could talk about being.

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
The only reason countries buy equipment that's
not US manufactured is becausethey can't.
Yes, the only reason countriesbuy equipment that's not US
manufactured is because theycan't.
If Russia could buy Americanmilitary gear, they would in a
heartbeat.

Speaker 1 (01:20:12):
Probably, I think a lot of Russian generals would be
very sad to give up the AKMplatform?

Speaker 2 (01:20:21):
Sure, from well.
Kalashnikov may be one of thoseexceptions, but still an
american, or better yet, anisraeli made kalashnikov is
better than the russian one.
Um, that's my take on it anyway.
But I I just from a, you know,loyalty standpoint or a national
pride, sure, but from aempirical data, it's hard to

(01:20:44):
argue with american manufacturedarms quality well, and I mean
it just works better.

Speaker 1 (01:20:50):
And you know, when you look at, like, the f-22, um,
when you look at china's sixthgen fighter, yeah, and russia's,
you know, uh, they're stillplaying catch up to the f-22 in
a lot of ways, yeah theeuropeans do not like sob, you
know.
Uh, like saw everyone wastalking about how the the sob I

(01:21:14):
forget which number in the 90swas going to be the fighter of
the future and everything, andit totally did not go anywhere
no, um, because they buildeverything with committees in
Europe.
Yeah, yeah.
But you know, when you look ateven Boeing versus Airbus in
that fight, dude, there's justnot much of a comparison here.

Speaker 2 (01:21:41):
Airbus would have been out of business decades ago
if it wasn't subsidized.
Yes, and that's what I meanabout.
Like the unfair competition isit's europe isn't quite a
command economy, but there areaspects of it.
Absolutely.
There are national projectswhich they will pay for to keep

(01:22:01):
alive, regardless of whetherthey're making money or not and
thisbus is a perfect example ofthat.

Speaker 1 (01:22:06):
And when you look at the effing dude, when you look
at the difference in even andI'm a big critic of the
Ford-class aircraft carriersright, I think we should have
made some minor updates to theNimitz and moved on but when you

(01:22:27):
look at the Ford-class aircraftcarriers and then you look and
even the problems they've had,and you compare that to the UK's
new Queen Elizabeth or whateverit was or whatever the name of
that aircraft, because it'schanged a couple times when you
look at the differences, thatholy crap, like that thing may

(01:22:47):
never actually functionally sail.
Okay, so just to be clear, andit's a non-nuke which was
shocking to me.

Speaker 2 (01:22:59):
Well, there are cruise ships that are making way
more advances than aircraftcarrier construction.
Yes, they don't.
Ships that are making way moreadvances than aircraft carrier
construction.
Yes, they don't use nukes oncruise ships, but in terms of
size and capacity, holy shit,those things have changed a lot
in the last 30 years.
Aircraft carriers just got alittle bigger.

Speaker 1 (01:23:22):
There's lots of things like the magnetic cable.

Speaker 2 (01:23:26):
There's lots of things like the magnetic cable
break versus steam and thelaunch assist, which fail, which
is one of the big failurepoints that everyone's bitching
about, is the fact that theyshould have kept it the way that
it used to work, because themagnetic works way worse.

Speaker 1 (01:23:43):
Well, they're working out the kinks.
We'll see.
But anyway, point is is chinacan't really build an aircraft
carrier yet, like they've builtone of their own home design,
and we'll see how it goes?

Speaker 2 (01:23:56):
uh, I think the bigger thing I would say is that
china can't design shit at all.
Everything they have, includingtheir space and sea, is based
on designs from other countries.
And why is that?
It's a mentality.
So I've got a, a guy that Iknow that's in china right now
and he's an american guy andhe's been living there for about

(01:24:18):
four years and so he is.
We've talked about this kind ofstuff.
Like you know chinese mentality.
He, he runs a company out thereand he said a big part of it is
that they are not taught to dothis in school, the chinese
school, and part of the reasonhe wants to come back as his

(01:24:41):
kids are aging is to put hiskids in american school rather
than Chinese school, evenChinese private school.
Because they said in China thefocus is always on getting the
right answer.
They don't teach skills thatinvolve or lead to rather

(01:25:04):
innovation, critical thinkingyeah, they don't teach critical
thinking.
They don't teach other skillsthat are necessary to innovate.
They teach memorization.
That's the main focus.
They want you to just memorizethings so you can recite them at
will.
Well, what does that lead to?

(01:25:24):
Well, that leads to somebodythat can memorize a tech manual
and follow the instructionsevery day and never change
anything and not really see anyway to improve the process.

(01:25:45):
Japanese had the same culturefor industry, which led to the
domination of japanese productsall throughout the 80s and 90s,
because japanese productsincluded post-deming, a
continuous improvement cycle,and so they were advancing much

(01:26:09):
further.
You look at a Honda from 1979,and you look at a Honda from
1989, and you couldn't even tellthat it was the same
manufacturer.
They're completely differentvehicles, whereas you look at an
Oldsmobile from 79, and youlook at an Oldsmobile from 89,
and look at an Oldsmobile from89 and you go, man, they used to
build cars better.

Speaker 1 (01:26:32):
I don't know why anyone would look back at the
vehicles of the 70s Because Ihad a 79 Oldsmobile.

Speaker 2 (01:26:37):
That's why I'm using that as an example.

Speaker 1 (01:26:39):
All I can say is I have 215,000 miles on my truck
and I could not have done thatwith a vehicle, any vehicle from
the 1970s.

Speaker 2 (01:26:52):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I would totally agreewith that.
A hundred thousand miles waskind of a death penalty for
vehicles back then.

Speaker 1 (01:26:59):
Like 80,000, 50,000 for the seventies.

Speaker 2 (01:27:02):
Yeah, like well, no, I drove mine to like, I think,
85,000.
You had a lot of problems, butokay, I had a lot of absolutely
yeah.
Yeah, not to say withoutproblems just just by the time
you hit 100 000 miles thevehicle was not worth fixing, is
my point.
Yeah, before then it was stillworth fixing because you could

(01:27:22):
still drive it.
Now, the the the best americanvehicle that I had in terms of
needing the least amount ofservice was a saturn I put on, I
put on 120 000 you say that?
well, because it's true, but on120 000 miles on the saturn with

(01:27:43):
zero, zero replacements ofanything other than brake pads,
nothing else.
No other parts in that vehicleneeded to get replaced.
Well, okay, spark plugs.
Once I did one spark plugreplacement in a hundred, over a
hundred thousand miles and Ireplaced the brake pads probably
five times.
Yeah, but no actual major partsever got replaced in that

(01:28:08):
vehicle and I sold it and itstill ran fine.
It's, I mean, as far as americancars, that was a very big
innovation.
Now, as far as european carsand other manufacturers,
japanese cars, um, I had minimalproblems with those, but I

(01:28:28):
expected minimal problems withthose.
Or I got rid of them earlyenough.
Like german cars, you don'twant to keep too long because
they're great when they're new,but typically they will break
after their warranty and thoserepairs start getting expensive.
Yeah, but then you havelegendary cars like the toyota.
Um, what's the model?

(01:28:50):
We don't have it here the umhylux, hylux, yeah, yeah, the
closest we have is the umforerunner, right, that's the
closest relative of the hylux,the, the small truck, yeah, not
the tundra, but not the tundraright.
Yeah, the other one, not theTundra right, the smaller one,
but that thing is legendary andit is used by every terrorist

(01:29:13):
organization on the planet.

Speaker 1 (01:29:13):
For that reason, Yep, I would love to have one.

Speaker 2 (01:29:18):
Well, you can import one.
You can import them into the US, you just can't buy them here.

Speaker 1 (01:29:23):
I don't think you can import them.

Speaker 2 (01:29:25):
Mm-hmm, I had a buddy that had one.

Speaker 1 (01:29:28):
Find me a way to import a Hilux.
Oh, dude, I'll do that rightnow where we're talking, Because
you know what.

Speaker 2 (01:29:34):
You get them from Australia, you just import them
from Australia.

Speaker 1 (01:29:38):
But what's the cost of importing?
It'll be about $100,000.
See, yeah, no, this is a$15,000 vehicle outside the US
it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (01:29:47):
You didn't specify a cost, I just said it's totally
doable.
I didn't say it was cheap, butyou removed the incentive to
Jesus Christ.
But it'll last you 500,000miles.

Speaker 1 (01:29:59):
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
No, still not what I'm lookingfor here, bud.
Well, you're a cheap ass.
I am not a cheap ass, I'm justnot going to spend X amount of
money yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:30:14):
I found an article that talks about it.
I'll send you an article thattalks about importing one if you
really want to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:30:21):
Well, it depends on the cost.

Speaker 2 (01:30:24):
The article starts with owning a Toyota Hilux is an
expensive matter in the US.

Speaker 1 (01:30:31):
Uh, yeah, uh-huh, yeah, um so.

Speaker 2 (01:30:34):
That's nice.
The latest version.

Speaker 1 (01:30:35):
What do you think of this?
Uh, work from home.
Uh, bs that.
Uh, your favorite rep is all inon my favorite rep, anna
Paulina Luna.
Oh, what about it?
I'm not familiar with it.
So she's wanting, uh, femalecongresswomen who have recently

(01:30:55):
had a baby to be able to vote byproxy or remotely um, I don't
know, I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:31:07):
It's hard to say, because if it was a different
job I would say no, but honestlyI don't think it makes any
difference, because they're,they're gonna, regardless of
where they're sitting.
They're gonna vote based onwhat their party tells them
anyway I, I disagree.

Speaker 1 (01:31:26):
I think it's bullshit .
I think I would 100 say youknow what, if you can't be
bothered to come in to the housewhen you have a you know very
few obligations, you are alreadysuch a fucking elitist.

Speaker 2 (01:31:50):
Funny, but is there any reason for congress, for the
house, let's specifically sayfor the house members, to
physically be in the house?
Because here's what I wouldprefer.
I prefer none of them go towashington.
They all sit in their officesin their districts where they're
elected, and be available everyweek, at least for a day a week
, to constituents, and all theirvotes are done over the

(01:32:14):
internet.
Like I don't see a reason forthem to ever physically go to
washington for any of them well.

Speaker 1 (01:32:24):
So first of all, we would have to totally.
It's unconstitutional right now.
Um, there is no voting by aproxy in the house.

Speaker 2 (01:32:34):
It's not a proxy, it's a direct vote hold on.
Hold on hold on.

Speaker 1 (01:32:37):
Hold on there.
You cannot vote remotely, youhave to vote from the house.
Floor is a physical locationthing, just like a session I
think that could be changed.
It would have required aconstitutional amendment.
I don't think it would.
I think it would what becausethe floor of the house, there's
a lot of protection.
So, for instance, the speechand debate clause only only

(01:33:00):
allows for a congress man orwoman to say whatever the hell
that they want to say, withoutany recrimination on the House
floor.

Speaker 2 (01:33:07):
I want to get rid of that rule.
So getting rid of that andgoing remote makes sense.

Speaker 1 (01:33:13):
Okay, I think it's an important thing.
Okay, I think it's important.

Speaker 2 (01:33:23):
I don't think that our politicians should have any
kind of rights that citizensdon't, including extraditural
free speech, Like if they wantto have that right for all of us
, that's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:33:35):
I think everybody should have it.
The day show should have thatright.
I'm a free speech absolutist,so please continue.
I'm good with this.

Speaker 2 (01:33:43):
Well, that's what I'm saying.
That's not a rationale for themto have to be in there.

Speaker 1 (01:33:48):
It is because I think it's a pretty important thing
for them to do what they need todo accurately and having that
debate be an honest't have aplace to congregate Exactly.
I would love that On my side ofthis argument, because there

(01:34:19):
are some things in the way, gene, and we have to do things right
.
Yeah, because principles matter.

Speaker 2 (01:34:28):
I mean, okay, those are throwaway words, that they
literally mean nothing.
What are you getting at, jesusChrist?
We have to do things right.
That sounds like a politician.
What do you mean by right?
What things?
What are you doing In the dayof current technology, where
companies that are a good chunksimilar to the size of the US

(01:34:53):
government are run over Zoommeetings?
What the hell requires theseguys to be there in person?
Well, first of all, do wereally want Zoom or Microsoft?

Speaker 1 (01:35:10):
to be the connection of choice.
Gee Ben.
What are we recording this onIn the time of AI right?
Well, we're not importantenough but if you don't think
that China, who controls Zoom,couldn't create an AI avatar of
congressperson here or there andchange their vote, well, that's

(01:35:30):
the congress critter's problem,isn't it?

Speaker 2 (01:35:34):
I don't know man.
I'm reading the Constitution.
I don't see anything that saysin person.
The phrase in person is not inthe constitution.

Speaker 1 (01:35:47):
Therefore I think you should read article one again.
Uh, it's why, because they'rethe quorum rules and everything
else.

Speaker 2 (01:36:02):
Yeah, quorum doesn't have to be in person.
Oh, oh Jesus.
Warm is the number of people onthe zoom call.

Speaker 1 (01:36:12):
Jesus Christ, oh, okay, well, we'll see.
Man, all I can say is all thecompanies I know of are trying
to push back, to go back in theoffice.

Speaker 2 (01:36:24):
So for a different reason.
They're trying to push back forthe office because people are
working two jobs and then notdoing either one full time.
Are you, are you?
Congress already doesn't work afull time job there?
If you look at the schedule ofcongressional, oh, it's insane
it's less than, way less thanhalf a year.

Speaker 1 (01:36:47):
It's like four days this month yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:36:53):
So I think from a practical standpoint, more good
would be served by havingCongress never be in Washington
but be conducted virtually, andhaving those representatives be
living in the districts thatthey represent and not in a
centralized location forlobbyists to pay them off for a

(01:37:19):
variety of things.
That's the problem.
Washington DC becomes a cityand a culture of its own that
disregards the place that thesepeople are actually elected from
.
Uh, when I, when I, a Congresscritter gets elected in their
state, let's say Ohio, and theygo to Washington DC and then

(01:37:41):
they spend 20 years or 30 or 40or 50, like Biden, in DC.
What exactly are theyrepresenting?
The sure as sure sell, not thepeople who elected them.

Speaker 1 (01:37:57):
Yeah, so hey, like I said, I'm for decentralizing it,
but I just think there are somethings that we've got to
overcome first.
I'm all for moving the agenciesout into the field.

(01:38:17):
Like you know, department ofthe Interior, go to the middle
of nowhere, colorado.

Speaker 2 (01:38:23):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:38:23):
I can go with that.

Speaker 2 (01:38:29):
Yeah, I don't know.
I've read through Section 6,and I think all of it could
still be done remotely.
So what else we got going on?
What did we miss?
Did Trump do any moreinteresting executive orders?

(01:38:52):
I know he had Kid Rock in thehouse.
He did.

Speaker 1 (01:38:57):
Kid Rock dressed like Evel Knievel so I haven't
finished listening to thisweek's uh unrelenting but I did
finish last week's last night,and that's why I sent you the
redhead photo, by the way, ohyeah, because y'all were talking

(01:39:18):
about that last week.
And uh, I tend to agree withyou on too bad on Grok Not quite
there, missing some keyattributes.
Otherwise, pleasantly surprised.

Speaker 2 (01:39:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the faces look good.
I think Grok has gotten better,like all the other ones, but
it's still not the lead imagegeneration product out there.
I think the stuff thatDarren's's doing with the um
paid subscription to gpt looksvery, very good.

(01:39:51):
Like they fixed a lot of stuffwith their images, like text for
one, being able to have textcome out normal just simply by
saying and put a uh, trump suckst-shirt on that person and
it'll just do it and then looknice.
So yeah, um I.

(01:40:13):
I think that it much like awhole generation of people grew
up without the internet and thenthe next generation had
internet from birth.
Uh, I think we're in that samekind of paradigm shift with ai
where we including you this timeare old enough to to have

(01:40:36):
remembered a time before ai well, for the record, I am old
enough to remember a time beforeinternet, sure you were three
years old, I know, but uh, forai, you're certainly old enough
to remember that and and peoplethat, like your kids, probably
will not remember a time beforeai if they do, it will be a one

(01:40:57):
or two memories.
it won't like for their entirelives will be with an ai.
Whether it's uh doing cutesywork right now, like generating
cartoons on the fly, or whetherit's a more of a star trek
version of ai that just takescare of all kinds of tasks for
people, I think it'll be hardit's.

(01:41:19):
There's a scene in the videogame Cyberpunk where the main
character needs to use a phoneto contact somebody and it's an
old school payphone phone andshe doesn't know what to do with
it.
Like she can dial the numberbecause she sees a keypad, but

(01:41:43):
the idea of holding that thingup to your ear and pointing at
your mouth, just that's not howphones work in the future, so
that it doesn't.
She doesn't know what to do.
And I think a similar thing willhappen here, where things like
uh, like I haven't touched alight switch myself in probably

(01:42:03):
I don't know 10 years.
Why, because I do everythingthrough voice, why it's better,
how Then I don't have to touchlight switches.
I just tell my computer what toturn on.
If you don't like homeautomation, that's fine.

(01:42:24):
Not everybody likes it, but thepoint is there will be people
that throw up thinking thatthat's how you control lights is
by talking to them.
Computer do this or whateveryou know.
Like the idea that there's aphysical button.

Speaker 1 (01:42:40):
You're just too into TNG because you know computer
lights dim half.
You know.
Here's the thing If I could dohome automation at the level I
wanted, to do it locally withouthaving to send my information
to Amazon.

Speaker 2 (01:43:00):
I would Sure but like my, even my air fryer is
sending its information to china.
Why the fuck is your air fryeron your network is it because
it's a networkable device?
It's a network of things, okaynot everything that can be,
networked should be networked no, because it needs to tell my

(01:43:25):
phone that the food's ready.

Speaker 1 (01:43:28):
That can be done over Bluetooth.

Speaker 2 (01:43:31):
You know, Bluetooth doesn't reach that far.
Anyway, I could be away fromthe house, the thing I don't
like is that Amazon can now opento my garage that I need to get
rid of.

Speaker 1 (01:43:41):
Yeah, speaking of Amazon.
Yeah, so they put a bid in tobuy TikTok.
Yeah, speaking of Amazon.
Yeah, so they put a bid in tobuy TikTok.

Speaker 2 (01:43:50):
Yeah, I think they need TikTok because Twitch is
dying.
Why is Twitch dying?
Because it sucks.
It went from something wherevideo games went to play and

(01:44:11):
watch others play games tobasically nothing more than a
advertising vehicle for onlyfans.
That's all twitches, though thevast majority of channels are
chicks that have only fans thatare just there to get guys to go
to their only fans yeah, well,um speaking of, I had I, I oh

(01:44:34):
amaranth yeah, I never knew whothat was really never, and then
I heard you talking describingand I'm like, okay, I gotta go
look this up.

Speaker 1 (01:44:43):
yeah she, she's a cute girl.
Very, this is yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:44:51):
It's, yeah, and the video you watched, I assume, is
when she got her house invasionvideo.

Speaker 1 (01:44:59):
No, I haven't watched any videos.

Speaker 2 (01:45:00):
What did you watch?

Speaker 1 (01:45:01):
I didn't watch anything.

Speaker 2 (01:45:02):
Well, how do you know who she is then?
Because I googled and looked atthe pictures.
Oh you googled, so you wantedto look at her OnlyFans.

Speaker 1 (01:45:10):
No, I did not Thank you.
I have never.
I will say this I have neverbeen on a.

Speaker 2 (01:45:17):
I have never I've never paid for any porn sites.
This podcast has an OnlyFans.
What are you talking about?
Okay, well, I.
Okay.
Well, I've never been for twoyears now.
Good god you did not.
But where do you think I getthe money for?

Speaker 1 (01:45:33):
this show from sure.
Oh, I can totally see you doingsome stupid shit like that um,
I, I did uh pay to promote uhthe tweet about last week's
episode.
Oh, you got it to work what doyou mean?

Speaker 2 (01:45:48):
I, I couldn't do it.
They wouldn't take my money, my, they kept not wanting,
refusing my credit card to do apromoted tweet oh no, I I did a
promoted tweet um first one I'veever done cool probably the
only one I'll ever do we'll.

Speaker 1 (01:46:00):
We'll see.

Speaker 2 (01:46:00):
We got to see our numbers over the next little bit
, numbers will definitely go up,I'm sure of that yeah, so um
quite a bit of engagement on itthe I'll send you some
screenshots, okay, uh, but ityou know, I basically I said
I'll spend 50 bucks to promotethis and put it out there.

Speaker 1 (01:46:18):
And yep, I'll tell you this much it's definitely my
most seen and engaged withtweet ever.

Speaker 2 (01:46:25):
So yep, yep, makes sense, yeah, yeah, I think a
hundred bucks, they said, wasthe sort of like.
Don't do any less than that.
It's not worth it.
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:46:35):
I did 50 just to see.
And you know, hey, I, I am allthe.
There's a threshold of where Iwill say, yeah, I'm willing to
just throw this money away evenif it doesn't work, or whatever.
50 bucks, yes, I will do 100bucks.

Speaker 2 (01:46:55):
Yeah, I know, I know it's your genetics.
What can we say?
Scotch Irish?
Yeah, scotch Irish geneticscombined with a Jewish mentality
?
There you go.
Okay, let's insult everybody,shall we?
Yeah, scotch irish geneticscombined with a jewish mentality
?
There you go.
Okay, let's insult everybody,shall we?

Speaker 1 (01:47:11):
yeah, the irish are kind of known to be cheapskates
too the irish are cheapskatesnow they've always been
cheapskates so, yeah, this tweetand it's not done running and I
so far I've only spent 33 outof 50.

Speaker 2 (01:47:31):
It shows you how much has been scooped out.

Speaker 1 (01:47:34):
Okay, yep and it's got a day left to run.
Day and 10 hours and I've got 7000 impressions.
Holy shit, that is good.
That's way better than normal.
Yeah, so you know that's holyshit, that is good, that's way
better than normal.
Yeah, so you know that's.
This was a fun experiment.

(01:47:57):
Um, 30 bucks or 35 bucks for 7000 is a good ratio.
33 for 7 000, 33 the magicnumber, yeah, ding, ding, ding.
So next time, um, I willprobably be uh, much more
verbose and actually try to makeit something marketing wise.

Speaker 2 (01:48:08):
But I was doing this fairly fast and anyway but I've
been seeing a lot of music ads,so have you seen those?

Speaker 1 (01:48:16):
No, no, must be targeting me then.
I think it's funny, though,when you look at the gender
breakdown.

Speaker 2 (01:48:22):
Yeah, on your analytics.

Speaker 1 (01:48:23):
It's all men, yeah, and we had quite a few people
actually click the link and gothrough, so that's good too yeah
.
So it's 73.8% male.

Speaker 2 (01:48:37):
Well, that's.
That's a lot less male than myYouTube channel.

Speaker 1 (01:48:42):
What do you think?
The plurality, the highestplurality age is, group-wise,
demographic-wise, 50.
50 and above.
What do you think the next oneis?

Speaker 2 (01:48:55):
Probably probably like 20, late 20s 20 to 29.

Speaker 1 (01:49:05):
Yep.
Oh yeah it Yep.
Oh yeah it's, it's interesting,so yeah, my demos man.
Yep, but uh, yeah, let's see ifthat reflected at all on our
downloads.
Yeah, we'll definitely have towait and see how that's going to
pan out over time, um, but uh,hopefully maybe we'll get some

(01:49:27):
new listeners, so that'd be nice.

Speaker 2 (01:49:30):
Yeah, because that's always the big issue.
It's like until you get to acertain size, it's really hard
to grow.
So you know which episode didyou do, by the way?

Speaker 1 (01:49:42):
Last episode.

Speaker 2 (01:49:44):
Last episode.
Yeah, that's funny why it sayslower than normal rate of
downloads.

Speaker 1 (01:49:51):
Uh, 112 was the episode.

Speaker 2 (01:49:55):
Yeah yeah, yeah, it's , that is ironic yeah, so we'll
see.

Speaker 1 (01:50:02):
We'll see how it turns out.
I'm not expecting it uh over inanything but over time, so
we'll see how it turns out.

Speaker 2 (01:50:06):
I'm not expecting it uh over anything but over time,
so we'll see yeah, yeah, I meanif, if it lands a few people
that have actually hit thesubscribe button, then obviously
it's uh well worth it yep, allright, man.

Speaker 1 (01:50:19):
Anything else we want to talk about before we have a?

Speaker 2 (01:50:21):
thing of timcast in here.
What, what do you mean?

Speaker 1 (01:50:30):
I don't know.
You sent me a link to Timcast.
No, it's not a link to Timcast,it's a link to a funny AI post
that you should look at what'sthis Maga link you sent me.
Hold on, I'm looking at whatyou just sent me.
Where did you get that graph?
I haven't seen that one.
Again it's just MAGA, elondancing around like an idiot and

(01:50:57):
then Baron looking very sullen,and it's Elon as MAGA and Baron
as MAGA with stock portfoliosand as someone with a stock
portfolio.
I went and looked.
Now, I invest veryconservatively, yeah, so I
wasn't down very much at allbecause of the way I invest my

(01:51:20):
stocks.
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:51:23):
I am a lot more down due to Tesla than I am to
anything else right now.

Speaker 1 (01:51:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:51:31):
Because Tesla is right now at not quite half, but
it's like 59% of where it wasearlier, before Elon started
getting into politics.
Well, buy the dip.
I have Before Elon startedgetting into politics.
Well, buy the dip I have, butthere's a point at which you run

(01:51:56):
out of money to buy the dip, mystock, that is probably your
Russian funds still not comingback there.
No, I'm waiting for those to getunfrozen Yep Still unavailable.
Uh, hopefully that'll happenafter the uh, the wrap up of the
war and everything if it willwrap up, man, I don't know um

(01:52:19):
Zelinsky pissing all over theEuropeans now like what the hell
?

Speaker 1 (01:52:26):
like he, he just has no this is Pissing all over the
Europeans now Like what the hell?
Like he just has no.
This is the entire thing whereyou just have no.

Speaker 2 (01:52:34):
You okay, yep.

Speaker 1 (01:52:39):
You joking on something.

Speaker 2 (01:52:41):
God damn it.
I hit the wrong mute button,fuck, okay.
Yeah, I hit the mute button forthe other computer.
I forgot I'm on this computer,sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:52:51):
Did that mean to cough loudly?
It sounded like you were dying.

Speaker 2 (01:52:57):
No, what happened is I was taking a drink of iced tea
when you said that and Istarted laughing.
While I was drinking, I got you.
You know what that does.

Speaker 1 (01:53:06):
Yeah, yeah, but anyway, I just don't get it.
He has no self-awareness ofwhat his position in the world
is, or his life Like he's not.

Speaker 2 (01:53:15):
Oh, he thinks he's the main character in a video
game.

Speaker 1 (01:53:20):
He doesn't realize, he's an NPC, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:53:23):
Yeah, it's actually referred to as main character
syndrome.
Okay, it's when people startthinking the world revolves
around them rather than theircharacter in the world.
By the way, I sent you an 07this morning and your response

(01:53:45):
was question mark.
Who the hell doesn't know what?
An 07 this morning and yourresponse was question mark.
Who the hell doesn't?

Speaker 1 (01:53:52):
know what an 07 is.

Speaker 2 (01:53:55):
What you mean by 07?

Speaker 1 (01:53:56):
Yeah, 07 is universally recognized as a uh,
a formal greeting, a puttingyour, your hand to your uh side
of your head in a salute muchlike a military salute.
I'm shocked you don't know that.

Speaker 2 (01:54:16):
That's cool.

Speaker 1 (01:54:16):
The American education system has failed you
Because I like I okay, Okay, Idon't get it, but okay.

Speaker 2 (01:54:25):
Fine, well, anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:54:32):
All right.
We got anything else, or we'regoing to wrap her up.
No, I think we're good man.
We've covered a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:54:40):
Remember, guys, thanks for those that currently
support us.
If you want to do that, linksin the episode.
And if you can't do financialsupport, remember you can always
tell somebody else to listen tothe podcast Now, whether they
sub or not.
Different question, but themore people tell others that
this podcast exists, the betterit is for us.

Speaker 1 (01:55:04):
Indeed, let's spread the word.

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