A&G Replay Monday Hour Four

Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong, Joe, Katty.

Armstrong, and Jetty and He Armstrong and Getty Strong and so Chuck Schumer was on the view.

Yet he's making the rounds because he's got this book out, which I actually heard a little bit about it. I'm glad he wrote it, and it's kind of interesting. He's worried about the rise of anti Semitism in the United States, including in his own party among your college kids.

And he's out talking about it. So that's kind of cool.

Chuck Schumer is an ancient Democratic Senator from New York who has been majority leader in the senat a various times. Now he's the minority leader. He is the king of the Senate on the Democrat side. So he got some blowback last week because he went along with the Republican legislation that kept the government open and the aocs of the world that wing Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, those people

If you're going to get something from me, I'm gonna get something from you.

Always. If only they knew what they wanted. Really, maybe that's a problem. They're so scattered anyway, I didn't mean to talk about that. So he's on the view and he said something that really bothered me.

So we'll start here the Republican Party.

Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait. I don't want that yet. Where we were going to start with, remember Jerry Brown to start here. This goes back to the governor of California few years back. Four term governor. He was the youngest governor of California for two terms. That he was the oldest governor in California for two terms. He did date a young Linda Ronstadt, which is a featheries cap.

Mmm. You can't take that away from aw.

Yeah, but he once said this about the way economics works.

I guess those.

Who have been blessed the most, who have disproportionately extracted by whatever skill, more and more from the national wealth.

They're going to have to share more of that. It's on the idea of paying taxes that those who have.

Disproportionately extracted from the economy more from the national wealth.

From the national wealth.

So success is taking money from the nation. It's not creating jobs and money and products and greater wealth for everyone. No, it's a limited pie. And you took more than your share by building a successful business.

Well, and it's not yours, it's the nations and the steward of that money is the government, which we get to here with Juck Schumer on the view when he said this yesterday.

The Republican Party is a different kettle of fish than it used to be, and that's why we're fighting them so hard. They are controlled by a small group of wealthy, greedy people. And you know what their attitude is. I made my money all by myself. How dare your government take my money from me. I don't want to pay taxes, or I built my company with my bare hands. How dare your government tell me how I should treat my customers, the land and water that I own, or my employees.

They hate governments.

Government's a barrier to people, a barrier to stop them from doing things they want to destroy it.

We are not letting them do it, and we're united.

So again that in there.

These greedy people who make money who want to keep more of their money. Their attitude is, I made my money all by myself. How dare your government take my money from me?

Yeah?

Well summarized, and so that's an interesting philosophical breakdown. I know, I know people personally who believe that and think that way. That you're out there going to work making money, I guess for the government. It runs through the government, and then you get to keep some of it.

But it's the government's.

Money to spend on, you know, good things that make everybody better, happier, or something like it.

And other people will, through the government, take your money from you as much as they decide is proper, and they will let you keep some of it. Perhaps, as the great Thomas Soul said so famously, I have never understood why it is greed to want to keep the money you have earned, but not greed to want to take someone else's mind.

I found that absolutely fascinating. I mean, that is some big time philosophical disagreement on the structure of society.

Yes, and I would love to reduce our politics now and again, maybe we can have one week a year where we have learned, folks of you know, each side's choosing debate in front of the nation, the notion of either a what you earn is yours. Now we the people ask you for a little bit of it to help run the country.

Rhodes Police Army, et cetera, et cetera.

But indeed we have past laws saying the government gets a little bit of it to run itself, versus the folks who say, no, the government gets all of it.

If we decide to take.

All of it, it's not your money at all, it never has been. That goes back and then I would love then in the follow up a part my side would would say, well, then why the hell would anybody bust their ass to build a business if y'all are going to take it all or half of it, which is why socialism doesn't work.

Should have dug up the Barack Obama clip, the famous one that he got beat up for a fair amount.

By anybody on the right. Anyway, you didn't build that.

It's the idea that government has put in place a structure for you to go out and be successful, and so you owe that money to the government because they put all this together for you to be successful. The government is the reason you're successful. That's what Chuck Schumer's saying.

Building a business with five hundred employees, it's like falling off a log thanks to the government.

So we get most of it.

I mean, he used his mocking voice when he said, I made my money all by myself. How dare your government take my money from me? Okay, I'll say the same thing in my regular voe. I made my money all by myself. How dare the freaking government take it from me? There, I said it without the mocking voice, because that's what I actually believe.

I understand how a leech on the public like Chuck Schumer, who like you know, Joe Biden or a thousand other politicians on both sides of the aisle, have made their wealth and their power purely from draining the vital fluids of the American people. How actual production is foreign to them. I'd love to have Mark Wayne Mullen talk to Chuck Schumer about that. Mark Wayne Mullen, who built a He was a plumber, he built a plumbing contracting business in Oklahoma,

That's something I mean that that I find that highly troubling that that attitude even exists out there.

Let alone could win the day.

Well, yeah, the fact that Chuck Schumer promotes it is not that shocking to me. The fact that tens of millions, one hundred and fifty million Americans think the same way.

Now that bothers me.

I made my money all by myself. How dare your government take my money from me.

I don't want to pay taxes.

You don't have to use the cartoonish voice. That's what I actually believe, me and me and lots.

Of people, and I think virtually nobody says I don't want to have to pay taxes. No, I don't want to have to pay excessive taxes that are purely a redistribution of wealth to gain you power, because I know with one hundred percent certainty that's what you do. You make moral arguments and compassionate arguments to get giant gobs of money to enhance your own power and influence.

First of all, if you keep your money. Sometimes people do things that are really good for society, you know, build a rocket company or charity or whatever it is. But what if you just go out and buy expensive houses and cars if you're super wealthy for whatever reason. It's Kensian when the government spreads money around because it's just good spending money. But if an individual spends money, it's not Kensian and not good for the economy. Is fine with me, signed.

Everybody who worked on building that house end or car end or services it or fixes that house or whatever, or its restaurant and has employees. My final note on this topic will be something I've said many times through the years and will continue to if you will allow me. You good people, imagine a charity that can feed, clothes, house, medicate, and educate.

Thousands of children. Thousands of children.

That charity is called a business with employees who get pay and benefits. You have accomplished all those things I described by starting a successful business.

They don't see it that way. On the left, I made my.

Money all by myself. How dare your government take my money from me? I don't want to pay taxes?

True, that is true if this were not being broadcast live. I have a simple two word response that rhymes with duck whom.

The armstrong and getting shadows.

So when you think about these businesses and a one hundred and five percent therapy put on them.

It's untenable for them.

They don't have the cash flow, they don't have the access to capital, and it's basically locking up.

Production in the toy industry.

No toys are currently being produced in China, and they're all reports that major retailers here in the US are starting to actually cancel orders.

So so Christmas is at risk.

That's some economic expert on CNN yesterday on the lead, Christmas is at risk. Toy companies can handle one hundred and forty five percent tariff. At some point the rubber is going to meet the road on this isn't it. I mean we all were relieved, I guess to find out iPhones aren't going to triple in price.

But there is all that other.

Stuff right, you know, part of me he wants to urge that guy to watch how the Grinch stole Christmas Christmas and be reminded that it came. It came, It came without boxes and bushels and bags the rest of it.

Yeah, Christmas, isn't it risk? But he was talking about toy retailers, so I get that.

You know, the ready fire aim nature of the tariffs is I think going to be counterproductive, although I suspect it's just going to lead to better trade deals. But it was pointed out by some learned folks that if you're a giant multinational conglomerate with lobbyists and perhaps a tim cook who can pick up the phone and call Donald Trump, you get a carve out. But all the mom and pop businesses, all the small manufacturers, they don't.

Right, Yeah, it enriches the swamp.

I was just texting with somebody who said they were about to do something, it doesn't matter what, and I said, you're brave, Gail King, brave. I wonder if that will catch on as like, well, you're like Gail King brave there congratulations.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, speaking of economic occurrence and stuff like that, there's a lot of talk of recession because of the tariffs.

And all and how it shakes out. Nobody knows exactly. We're not already be in one of many according to many economists.

Well that's right, And I came across this from the Wall Street Journal, which I thought was kind of a good reminder what is a recession and how when will we know if we are in one? Now, that common rule of thumb is that two consecutive quarters of declining griss product counts as a recession, the.

Last if it's during the Biden administration run, and that doesn't run out.

But the GDP is not the criterion used by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which is the long standing arbiter of US recessions among economists, government officials, policymakers, and news organizations including the Wall Street Journal. The NBR recession dates are determined by its prosaically named quote Business Cycle Dating Committee, a group of eight academic academic economists, some of whom have been members of the committee for decades.

Well, it's pretty employment wishy washy. Oh, it's very wishy washy. Yeah.

The main indicators they watch are on our employment, inflation adjusted personal income, real consumer spending, real manufacturing and trade, industry sales, and industrial production.

Well that's there's a democrat in office. Well, yeah, that's interesting. So it's a little bit of like, that's just your opinion, man. And I always remember a guy I knew ran his own business. He was a very successful ange his own business. And this was years ago, like mid two thousand and five. I can remember and him saying we're in a recession. And we weren't like officially in a recession, and he

And in this case, it ended up being declared. The next quarter.

He had already felt it, But I thought at the time, well, even if it's not for the rest of the United States, if it is for your industry here, that's all that matters to you.

So this is kind of a stupid term.

It's kind of like we always talk about when they give you a national real estate to statistics. What's the point of that more homes were sold last year than this year. Well that's I don't even know if that number is useful to anybody, but it's certainly not useful to your state, county, neighborhood or whatever.

Well, my only argument against that would be that if your policies cause one those policies should be reviewed and criticized. Yeah, so it helps to be able to say, in even a semi concrete way, hey, this isn't working.

It's hurting the economy. Right. But yeah, that makes sense.

But it's not what the media portrays it to be some sort of all encompassing It's not a diagnosis with cancer. It's just okay, things are not growing, economics or what's going on.

If your industry on the entire West Coast is suffering because of something the weather or whatever, you're in a recession every bit as much as if they declared a national recession. Yeah, so, yeah, I'm not sure that term means that much to me anymore. What you said makes sense. And again they changed the definition of it or went with the specific definition of it when it applied to Joe Biden, because by the definition we'd all been using our entire adult lives, we were in a recession, and

Yeah, I know, and I've lived through I can't.

Even tell you how many in my life, ten twelve, I don't know, thirty, I don't even know, which is part of my point. They come and go and we're all fine, and you know, I don't want it to happen. But it's not like the end of the world.

Well right, And there have been upsides, Like I've gotten used to the taste of human flesh. There's been so much cannibal during the recessions.

Yeah, it's his old hat. For me, it's the other white meat. As far as I'm concerned, Armstrong and Getty show to arms Strong and Geddy on demand. We're not boring. A lot of news is boring and tedious and depressing. It makes you angry. You don't want to live your life like that.

Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong, He's Joe Getty. We're Armstrong in Geeddy. We try to bring you the truth and help you figure out this crazy modern world.

I know something about a comedic tone.

We have a one arm Yes.

Listen to Armstrong You Getty on demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty the Armstrong and Getty Show. I thought this is interesting if you're new to the show. Jack and I both have railed long and hard against critical theory and DEI.

It's neo Marxism. We'll explain a little more about that.

It masquerades quite successfully though, as we just want everybody to get a fair shot in America, and a lot of people think DEI actually is just we want more diversity, We want people to be able to apply for jobs and get them. No, everybody wants that DEI is in in cities plot that masquerades as civil rights. Having said that, the headline the Journal America is abandoning DEI. The NFL

I'm not shocked by this. I don't like it.

I don't like the fact that journalism regularly fudges the difference between DEI, which is a specific thing, and diversity, acting like they're the same thing.

They don't know.

I honestly believe the percentage of Americans who understand that that DEI is part of critical theory comes from the Frankfurt school of philosophy. It's a it's a method of taking over institutions. Essentially, you call everybody a racist unless they agree with you. Perhaps you went to a delightful training session where this happened. And obviously, if you're a racist, according to the nice people who are running your DEI department,

That reminds me.

I read a great piece yesterday on how Ibram X Kennedy is one of the great sisters of all time. Now that his run is over, I think, and to shut down his anti racist institute.

He got fifty.

Million dollars I think in.

Donations from companies. Never did anything. No, people are falling all over themselves to give money. I'm not a racist. Don't call me a racist. Don't call me a racist.

And you remember, no matter how you intended what you said, if I say you're a racist, you are a racist. It's a method of capture, of taking over institutions. And he and Robin DiAngelo and that whole ridiculous scam which is still going on.

They knew precisely what they're doing.

But back to my main point, I think a lot of people don't understand it. Yeah, I see even in fairly conservative publications, I still see people talk about DEI as if it's just an honest and open hearted desire to have, you know, like a black kid have the same opportunities in America as a white kid. Again, everybody wants that DEI is not that anyway. Having said that, back to the journal thing, the NFL is a TV show. Never forget that. It's an entertainment product from top to bottom.

I've noticed that, and given the fact.

That most people don't understand what DEI really is and what it is not, including young black men who run, you know, receiving routes and get tackled hard and stay in incredible physical condition and memorize playbooks that would boggle the mind of an MIT physicist, that they don't spend a lot of time acquainting themselves with the subtleties of sociological issues.

Is not shocking.

So I get why Roger Goodell has said, no, we're still up with diversity, up with DEI, We're continuing all our programs. I get why he does that. It annoys me, but I get it. I thought this was more interesting and revealing. This is a piece written by Callum Borcher's what happens when a former NFL player becomes your office coworker, And I've got to admit I haven't thought about this much. Oh and he mentions, did we find the audio, guys from the two thousand and three that was twenty two

Do we have that?

Oh? Okay, if you saw the commercial, you certainly remember it now. Absolutely hilarious. They hired a linebacker to root out inefficiency at their office. It's kind of like Doge, except if you weren't doing your job right, he would level you wearing his football gear.

Anyway, back to the threat of the thing. I thought this was super interesting.

Turns out real NFL retirees who entered the business world learned to make an impact in different ways. Quote Will Rackley, a former offensive lineman for the Jaguars and Ravens. He's a couple of months into a job as a business operations analyst at the staffing firm Atrium.

He said it can be.

A culture shock when stepping into a corporate setting as opposed to the locker room. But manager after manager was telling Callum borchers that they struggle to recruit people who can take and deliver candid feedback, especially these days.

We've all heard stories of.

The snowflakes and the gen Zers and millennials and gen zers especially who if you say, you know that report wasn't quite up to snuff, they will break down.

Oh my god, you're crutching my spirit. I need a spirit day. I need a mental health day.

They have trouble with people that can deliver the candid feedback. Though you smell funny, everybody's talking about it. No, not that sort of candid about job performance.

Specifically a lot of people, particularly given the first thing I was talking about. People who can't take candid feedback are extremely uncomfortable giving it.

You got to stop eating with your mouth open. You're gonna make somebody kill you. Wow.

No, we're talking about business perform ormance again. But former Gridiron pro accustomed to coaches who yell, cuss, and call out mistakes in post game film sessions every week of their careers, is not likely to will to under a little constructive criticism.

That's funny.

My son just said, this is his first real sport. I think he's playing volleyball.

He said.

The coach is yelling at me all the time.

I said, that's what coaches do, yes, good or bad, no matter what's happening.

The coaches yell at you. That's the way it works. This is the candid feedback we're discussing.

And while there are some truth to the cliche that athletes can bring winning mindsets to business, it is actually their ability to handle losing that stands out. According to Bosses and the former NFL players were talking about, are like the vast majority you leave the game, not hall of famers with set for life money. They are often men who are pushed out of the game by injuries or a younger, cheaper draft pick who could play about as well.

Say, which is almost everybody gets in the NFL.

Right, Oh yeah, yeah, vast majority they've dealt with disappointment and regrouped, said an associate director of non traditional talent programs at Verizon Quote. The ability to pick yourself up and get back into the game is really what business is all about, and he's found these guys to be much more resilient. I don't they understand, Wow, that went badly, What can we learn?

I don't doubt that that should be focused on more for all professional athletes. The vast majority of them.

Even if you've reached your dreams, made it to that league, you're gonna make a little money and be there a couple of years, and then you're gonna go back to regular life and you're gonna be twenty five years old, right, And that would be an interesting mindset. I was good enough to play in that league. I worked my ass off ten hours a day, like my whole life. But that's over now and I'm only twenty five, and I

Who was I talking to the other day that had a meeting with their corporate person?

Who would I have been talking to? I don't talk to anyone anyway.

Uh, they met with their corporate CEO for a major corporation and they were having a discussion about AI, and I said, what was the gist of it? And the gist of it was, We're not going to need any of you anymore. Who in this gets rolling? And we've all heard this sort of stuff. If you're paying attention to AI at all, that all kinds of different jobs will go by the wayside. And a lot of the jobs that were the most sure thing in our economy are the ones that are going to be going first.

It might not be that close.

AI models incorrectly answered more than sixty percent of queries about news sources. They have a tendency too, and this has been an ongoing problem with AI.

Make stuff up. AI is like your five year old.

It just makes stuff up, and you have to realize that if your five year old comes in and says, you know, a kid named Jimmy down the street punched me.

Maybe that happened. Maybe there is no Jimmy. They just said that for who knows what reason.

That's the way. That's the way AI is. It just makes stuff up. But sixty percent is that what you said? Yes, hang on a second, let me use my chet cheept jack. That's almost top.

They ran sixteen hundred qureries across eight different generative search tools and came up with that sixty percent number. Surprisingly, premium paid versions of these AI search tools fair to even worse than certain respects Perplexity Pro, which is twenty dollars a month, and groc three that's Elon's Thing, which is forty dollars a month confidently delivered incorrect responses more often than their free counterparts. For some reason, this is

It would just make up a link and they don't see no, and they don't It seemed to be well, I'm unashamed.

They know that they don't know why AI does this, right, and as we've said before, they're not exactly sure if it's fixable. But a I ain't gonna take over the world if they can't figure that out.

I just I don't see.

How that happened, right, right, It could absolutely take over a significant number of professions, sure that are fairly limited in scope. There's a great piece in the journal about how high school and college students especially are using AI to cheat always everywhere, all the time. Not every kid, certainly, but man, they go into all the different ways. They tell the story of a seventeen year old girl in New Jersey. He uses it all the time. She's only

I got a message for this kid, You're only hurting yourself. That is both true and hilarious. Let's see chat GPT did calculations for a science lab. It produced a tricky section of a history term paper, which she rewrote to avoid detection. And again, though she used it in virtually every class, she only got busted once.

Yeah.

The math thing, hm, that's a tough one because you problem not probably, I'm sure this is true. I'm sure you can have AI even show the work, and you could just write down the work.

The whole show your work thing, right.

So, but I was wondering about so if I'm writing a paper, this would save a lot of time. And there's no way you'd ever bust me on this. This is just where we are in the modern world. Hey, Groc, I need a founding father saying something about the importance of borders and it finds me one and I don't have to dig through twelve old timey books and go to the index and read paragraphs. It's just right there. I mean that would be kind of cheating. It's certainly easier than it used to be.

But yes, and there's absolutely a loss to the like the indirect educational process because like it or not, as you're looking for A you'll also learn B and C. It's practically unavoidable.

And how could they stop you from running, you know, having AI read over your paragraph and you know, make it a little better and or just summarize everything very briefly. I mean, my daughter's in law school, for instance, and a big part of it is you read just reams of information, then you outline it, you candense it. You you know, boil the concert or the actual you know, the things that happen in the case down to the concept. Still,

Right exactly.

And one more aspect of this problem, especially with academia, is that the companies that make these tools are not so keen on distributing the tools to identify when somebody is using it to cheat, because students are their big customer base. Well, so they hem and haw about we would like to release that to you.

But it's oh, that's interesting right there. So I'm not trying to be anti intellectual, but people have been saying this since I was a kid, when computers, when calculators first came out. What's the point of me learning this as long as there's a calculator.

Well that's really true now, I mean, every if every Homo sapient in America over the age of five is carrying a computer that can do all of this math work, is there.

A value in learning how to do it by hand? In case you're on a desert island. There's something I don't know.

Yes, there almost certainly is. A neurologist could probably explain it to you that you have a bedrock understanding of what you're doing and it helps you in some way that I as a politics guy, I can't really describe to you if I think you lose something.

But I also think that's the modern world to a large.

If GROC or something is going to write everything, it's going to write your legal briefs, it's going to write up your business proposal. If it's going to write everything, is there a reason to learn to write?

This is well? Wow, wow, that's that's insane.

And I mean not just to be like a successful almost sapien. I mean well, I do mean, I mean to be a financially like to make it in the world. You just need to know how to run groc. Don't you to be better at that?

Uh? Yeah?

You need to write well enough to write what you want and tell the comp Final note John B. King, a chancellor of the State University of New York system former Education secretary, sent at a conference in October, quote, there are probably lots of students K through twelve and higher ed who used chet GPT to do their homework last night without learning anything.

That's scary.

They weren't learning anything in many cases before AI, so that's a problem.

Also, this is discouraging all the way around. I'm checking out of the modern world. I'm telling you starting some sort of weird fundamentalist. You know, society tired of being in a good mood.

Tune in the Armstrong and Getty Show, I guess Strong.

And Getty Show. When you will listen to arms Strong in Geeddy on demand? We're not boring. A lot of news is boring and tedious and depressing.

It makes you angry. You don't want to live your life like that. Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong.

He's Joe Getty. We're Armstrong in Getty.

We try to bring you the truth and help you figure out this crazy modern world.

You know something about a comedic tone. We have a one yes, listen to Armstrong.

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