I Will Bang This Gong Until My Banging Days Are Done - podcast episode cover

I Will Bang This Gong Until My Banging Days Are Done

May 07, 202536 min
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Episode description

Hour 1 of A&G features...

  • The India/Pakistan conflict & the Real ID deadline
  • Katie Green's Headlines!
  • Tariffs on Canada & spying on Greenland
  • Mailbag! 

Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

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

Speaker 2

Arm Why from the studio say signor a dimly lit room deep with them the bowels of the Armstrong and Getty Communications Compound.

Speaker 3

We've made it to Wednesday. Thank god. Today we're under the tutelage of our general manager. It's a Sepcom classic.

Speaker 4

Jack, those wacky next door neighbors, India and Pakistan.

Speaker 3

That's our general manager. That's right.

Speaker 4

And why Indian Pakistan, Well, they're never ending simmering conflict has grown a good deal hotter in the.

Speaker 3

Last couple of weeks.

Speaker 4

And indeed, India bombed a bunch of sites in Pakistan in response to a terrorist attack that the Indians believe, with good reason was at least at least there was sympathy in the Pakistani government to the terrorists who perpetrated the attack. What are they fighting about, Oh, gosh, religion, mostly religion and power.

Speaker 3

It's not a cricket thing, No, not in this case cricket.

Speaker 4

There's some fourteen year old cricket phenom who's just set the world a cricket on fire, really Indian fella. He had thirty battings in his last inning and in a quarter of the tea time.

Speaker 5

There are enough Indian people in the town I live in that every Saturday afternoon they have an all day cricket match at the park and they wear all the white and everything, and there's a crowd and everything. And I've watched that for a long time, trying to figure out even the slightest what they're doing.

Speaker 3

But I can't, can't grasp it.

Speaker 4

I get to the guy hurling the ball doesn't want the guy with the whacker to whack it, and the whacking guy wants to whack it.

Speaker 3

But once he whacks it, I don't know what happens. Then, well, right, but.

Speaker 4

See he's whacking it because the guy hurling it is trying to knock down his sticks. And evidently the guy with the whacker is really fond of those sticks and really resents it when the hurler whacks his sticks, and so he's trying to protect his sticks. And when he does whack the ball away from the hurler, he runs back and forth.

Speaker 3

Like he's completely confused. And I think that scores points.

Speaker 5

And we all work in a kitchen and a fancy restaurant right afterwards. So that's why we're dressing this with exactly.

Speaker 3

And it's very hot.

Speaker 4

Yeah, so we're in all the way I'm told actually, and this will be my final thought on cricket, having you know, should have stopped.

Speaker 3

Probably one thought earlier.

Speaker 4

Is I had not realized there is a new, souped up, twenty first century version of cricket that so compresses the all day affair where you break for tea and lunch and crumpets and what have you, into much a much more conventional professional sports, you know framework, and that's gotten very, very popular.

Speaker 3

I'm told I would.

Speaker 5

Fly to Kashmir and try to broke her a piece between India and Pakistan, but I can no longer fly for the first time in my life because I do not have a real id. It turns out, though I've got all the stats in front of me, I'm not alone in the people across America who've decided, yeah, I'll get he around to it when I get around to it or something. So, uh, that's kind of funny. Got a bunch of information on that for you. That's the

problem with phony deadlines. It's like if people catch on to that meeting that starts at seven actually kind of starts when everybody gets there, well, then people trickle in at seven point thirty doomed.

Speaker 3

Doomed.

Speaker 4

I've known a couple of leaders in my life who sting that second hand hits that time that's appointed they start, and that takes at once right before everybody gets the idea right, and it's a service to everyone, but it's not popular.

Speaker 5

So like the first six times you delayed the real ID thing in my life, people like me, you just sent the message, Yeah, you're not serious, you don't mean it. And then I saw one report today on.

Speaker 3

News Nation.

Speaker 5

They were at any your East coast airports and they said, we don't have the details, but they have a special line for people that don't have the real i D. But you will get extra scrutiny, but you will probably fly. And they're not telling us the story. So it makes it sound to me like they're saying, you have to have the real I D, but if you get there without one, they'll still let you fly.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Speaker 5

Now you've just sent the message to the me of the world that okay, so I don't even really have to do it anyway, all right.

Speaker 4

So if your name is Osama Ben Hitler, and you went through the gymnastics of getting the real ID, which were so minor and insignificant, I don't even remember doing it. There's not a lot too, then then by God you can fly. But if you didn't, we can't have a

repeat of nine to eleven twenty four years later. So you will sit in this line and we'll give you extra scrutiny, right, but your steel still fly, Yes, eventually after being cussed out by an hourly employee wearing a blue uniform, right, belittled by somebody who and it's honest work. And there are very fine folks are in the TSA. Don't fault them for this. But I'm not sure you need to be lecturing me.

Speaker 5

Right, Yeah, I've been thinking about this a lot, This lesson about how to live your life that I've learned from the TSA. Remind me to talk about that, Michael, What I've learned from the TSA. Okay, I've talked about this before, but I've really nailed it down in my head since then.

Speaker 4

Oh, wisdom can come from anywhere. Clearly, I'm fascinated by this faith.

Speaker 5

The other thing that I can't do now that I don't have a real idea, is I can't go into a federal biding now. I was planning to visit the Department of Interior because I had a few things I wanted to tell them, But I can't get in there anymore. I no longer can go into a federal building without a reality.

Speaker 3

You'll just have to pick at them.

Speaker 4

Chu's back and forth outside with your placards decrying the treatment of buffalo or mountains.

Speaker 5

Or change from they do there. It's really changed my summer plans. So I got to look into that we should start the show officially before we get into more than news the day. I'm Jack Armstrong, He's Joe Getty.

Speaker 3

I think.

Speaker 4

These are a cough button. There is a button.

Speaker 5

These are my final days, o buttons, These are my last days. It is Wednesday, May the seventh, or twenty twenty five. We are armstrung in getting and we approve of this program.

Speaker 4

All right, Let's begin then officially according to FCC rules and regulations.

Speaker 3

Here we go. We will. I mean, this is going to be so good, and it starts at mark.

Speaker 6

Americans have been scrambling to motor vehicle departments to get the ID that meets extra security standards, facing long lines frustration before the federal deadline goes into effect Wednesday morning.

Speaker 4

All right, because of the Vietnam War, I mean Watergate. I mean, oh, that's right, nine to eleven. Not to minimize the horror of that day for many folks, but come on.

Speaker 5

I actually read a pretty good breakdown of all the delays and how this all occurred in terms of something last night while I was laying in bed coughing.

Speaker 3

It's really pretty interesting, and really.

Speaker 5

It just points out the way things work in the world of government. I mean, you know, take that that we've been working on for twenty years and really something pretty minor, and turn that into you're gonna redo the entire air traffic control system that you've been putting off for decades.

Speaker 3

How long will that take? I'll be long well, I'll be dead by this weekend.

Speaker 5

But like other people who are younger, you'll be long dead before they actually rehab this system. I mean, based on the way the relafe, the real idea doesn't even require anything.

Speaker 4

Right, right, And I wish I were more adept at describing the two different approaches, but I probably don't need to very accurately because people know what I'm talking about when I say there is an incrementalist The bureaucracy is our priority approach to government and government reform. You know, call it the swamp if you want the permanent bureaucracy whatever the turf protecting and budget protecting class in DC.

And then there are the disruptors, be the Doji types from the World Attack or Donald J. For all of his sins, he doesn't mind disrupting things. And to the extent that we let the disruptors do their thing, I think we win. And to the extent that we go with the same old incrementalist bureaucracy.

Speaker 3

First types, you get a result like this.

Speaker 4

I can't wait to hear you describing the steps the history of it, because it's unintentionally hilarious.

Speaker 5

So Katie's back. We got our headlines. What's that radio show you're listening to? Armstrong and Getty?

Speaker 3

Oh? Is that the one with the guy with the death rattle? Yeah?

Speaker 5

Oh, I love that show. Is aren't that many radio shows where the guy has a death rattle? Like I knew, you know, you don't get that every day. So we've got Katie's headlines on the way and more news of the day. I hope you can stay here. One thing about being under the weather. It makes me feel more comfortable watching NBA action and man, there were some great NBA games last night. Holy Cow's been fantastic playoffs.

Speaker 3

Super Oh.

Speaker 4

Got a lot of great news to come, discussions ranging from the very very practical to the philosophical and high minded.

Speaker 5

The bidens are in between. The bidens are on the View today. Joe and Jill are on the View today.

Speaker 4

Oh my well, we got to get plenty of audio from that. He did an interview with the BBC the other day and I read some of the transcript of it, and it was incoherent, both syntactically, meaning his choice of words and how he's strong ideas together and the ideas themselves.

Speaker 5

But she was still she must still be running that train. There must be evil, man, there must not evil and nuts because anybody who had any sense would say, no, no more interviews. You're done with interviews for the rest of your life. It will only make your life.

Speaker 4

Worse and further tarnish your legacy, such as it is. Yeah, anyway, much to come, but first let's figure out who's reporting what. It's the lead story with Katie Green. Katie, great to have you back. What's happening?

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Starting with ABC.

Speaker 7

Military says at least twenty six dead in Pakistan in overnight India attacks.

Speaker 5

Yeah, this is either one of the many skirmishes they've had since nineteen forty seven or whatever, or you know, it's a nuclear holocaust, one of the two.

Speaker 3

From CNN.

Speaker 7

Air traffic controller says Newark Airport Systems outage was the most dangerous situation in years.

Speaker 3

I have no doubt.

Speaker 4

Well, want to talk more about this, as we did somewhat yesterday, and as we have a little bit to the nature of those who seek to actually fix problems versus bureaucrats who pretend to seek that well to our benefit.

Speaker 3

Maybe the fact that it happened in.

Speaker 5

The backyard of the major media, they're paying way more attention to it than if the same thing it had happened at LAX.

Speaker 4

Yeah.

Speaker 7

From the Wall Street Journal, Supreme Court lets Trump's ban on transgender military.

Speaker 3

Service take effect. The illegitimate Trump Court please.

Speaker 4

Yeah, it's going to wind its way through the lower course. But between now and then, they say, all right, you want to keep the I don't know if I'm here or she's out of the military for a little while ago ahead interesting, you.

Speaker 7

Guys touched on this, but this was just sprawled across the top of USA. Today, real idea requirement officially takes effect.

Speaker 5

Yeah, I will get into the hony. How many people have actually done this in some states? The compliance is so incredibly low it's amazing.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 7

From the New York Times, China agreed to US tariff talks but is likely to play hardball.

Speaker 3

I'm sure they are, as are we.

Speaker 4

We have got huge, you know, practically intractable problems between us. It's gonna be a hell of a slog in the best circumstance.

Speaker 5

Secretary Bess said today, we just want fair trade, not to decouple, which is a pretty big statement. Oh, since I think we're heading toward the coupling from.

Speaker 4

The Washgic decoupling perhaps, but not dolls and pencils, right, how many pencils?

Speaker 3

From the Washington Post.

Speaker 7

Another Navy jet falls into the sea, marking fourth major mishap in months.

Speaker 3

I didn't know that. Where did that happen?

Speaker 7

A Navy fighter jet failed to land on an aircraft carrier and it went into the Red Sea yesterday.

Speaker 3

Wow.

Speaker 4

Okay, well that's a little different and just tumbling off, you know, at rest doing good though, just like the captain of the boat, get insurance money if the plane falls off.

Speaker 3

What's going on?

Speaker 7

From NBC, Saint Peter's Square fills with excitement ahead of the conclave.

Speaker 4

You whatever floats your boat. Jack's into the NBA playoffs.

Speaker 3

I'm not. Some people are into the conclave. It's fun the Pope playoffs if you will.

Speaker 4

Oh, later on, I want to get into the Vatican's financial woes, which are extreme and I mean they make like the federal budget deficit. Look, okay, time really, time to sell Peter's bones. Ohh he's renting them out.

Speaker 3

Oh please don't strike me down for that joke. Jack. It was Jack's fault. God, he jack led me into sin.

Speaker 7

From the New York Post, pet raccoon with meth pipe in his mouth found in driver's seat during traffic stop that led to drug bust.

Speaker 5

Well that's quite a headline there, so driving metht up raccoon.

Speaker 4

Turn your back on a methed up raccoon. Man, it was Ohio, damn, Ohio. Ohio is a meme among kids for some reason. It's like the state you make fun of My kids are always Ohio.

Speaker 5

I don't know where it came from, but here you got a met up driving raccoon.

Speaker 3

So here you that's not gonna help.

Speaker 7

No, And finally from the Babylon be Bill Belichick's girlfriend leaves him.

Speaker 3

For Lou Holtz. What an older.

Speaker 4

Yeah, wow, wow wow, So Florida man's got to be wiping his brown thinking poo. Little focus on Ohio for a couple of minutes. This is good.

Speaker 3

So here you go. Here's some of your compliance rates. New Jersey. We'll start with the lowest.

Speaker 5

New has the lowest compliance rate as of today on the Real Idea at seventeen percent. Seventeen percent of people got the Real Idea on time.

Speaker 3

In New Jersey, you.

Speaker 4

Can't get one out of five, so you can obviously that is that is a state, by the way, in which many many folks saw the planes hit the World Trade Center across the river, or lost people at Canter Fitzgerald or or what have you. Since this is arguably a post nine to eleven Thingam a jigger? You can't get one in five?

Speaker 3

Yeah, it's and obviously the enforcing it.

Speaker 5

You can't, I mean, because how many people who live in New Jersey fly for work? Tens of thousands, sure, And so you're not just gonna say no, you can't work. You didn't get it on time? What this stupid id for nine to eleven that does nothing? You're not gonna let me fly. I got work to do. I mean, it's just ridiculous that you would. You couldn't force that. You just couldn't. There are other states doing better. But

let's so let's go to the next rung up. Uh, who else is in the bottom quintile zero to twenty percent?

Speaker 3

That's just twenty to forty percent. So it's kind of interesting.

Speaker 5

It looks to me at first glance, most of your blue states have low compliance. Most of your red states have high compliance. They're at damn near one hundred percent in Nebraska, Wyoming, Georgia, like Kansas, New Mexico, Texas, states like that are very high in compliance. You get to California, it drops way down. Oregon, Washington, places like that, it drops way down. I don't know if that Illinois, I don't know if there's any you know, rhyme or reason to that.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I could hazard guesses that would tend to back up my worldview. But I am curious to know why that might be.

Speaker 5

Yeah, but I I don't know if it makes me feel better. That's kind of feeling like as one of the least responsible adults in America. But me and the other seven eighty three percent of New Jerseyans are in the same boat.

Speaker 4

You ought to consider a move to the Garden State. Hoevulcan's beautiful this time of year.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 5

So, I don't know what those of us without a real ID will do. I guess we're gonna get the body cavity search. We want to get on a plane.

Speaker 3

Good.

Speaker 4

So for all the big stories of the day coming up in a moment or two, so.

Speaker 1

Much to talk about.

Speaker 8

Let's talk about the auto industry. This is an industry that is probably the most interconnected between the US and Canada. GM Ford and Stilantis, the big three US automakers nine plants in Canada alone. These are final assembly plants and parts plants. You have parts and vehicles crossing between the US and Canada up to seven to nine times before that vehicle is fully assembled.

Speaker 5

That's something we learned from this whole pair of thing who knew. It's hard for me to imagine that that is efficient. Obviously it is, or they wouldn't be doing it, But it's just it's amazing that the most efficient way to do it is to have, you know, chunks of or the whole car pass back and forth nine times across the border.

Speaker 4

I read an account the life story of a particular component of transmissions that was like the classic eye pencil in a way. If you've never read that, I'd recommend

it highly. Just google it, you'll find it. But they were talking about how, you know, this little widget is then fitted into that wadget, it crosses the border, and then the motherboard is over there, so you just ship it back and forth across the border to get the mother board put on blah blah blah, And it does indeed across the border a half dozen times or so, that particular part of a car.

Speaker 5

The point of that story being, how do you work out a tariff system with that going on?

Speaker 3

That makes any sense?

Speaker 4

You can straighten out trade deals that no longer make any sense in the twenty first century, but no, you cannot have a functioning twenty first century on me with that sort of tariff, especially with your most important trading partners. It's clearly a fantasy that you could ever make that work.

Speaker 5

We got to play more of those clips of Trump with the Canadian Prime Minister. That was something when you had sitting there. He said, Olle, you look at the line on the map. It's a straight line. Somebody drew it with a ruler. I mean you just like I'm a builder, I'm an artist. It's just so beautiful. The whole thing together, it just would look so much better.

Speaker 4

Yeah, and Carney, the new Canadian PM man, he is the master of the poker face and diplomacy. Because it was I'd heard some of the audio yesterday during the show and had one impression. Then I saw the videos and longer versions of the conversation. Oh, it's uncomfortable to watch. But anyway, more on that to come. Speaking of the auto parts and crossing the border and that sort of thing, I came across this the other day and found it really interesting. The F thirty five is our most advanced

fighter jet. It is known as the most expensive weapon in the history of the world.

Speaker 3

It's worth I.

Speaker 5

Don't know how many billions of dollars each that Unfortunately, China has replicated almost perfectly by stealing all our technology.

Speaker 3

They're among the most capable thieves ever. Oh.

Speaker 4

With the cost of more than two trillion dollars over the program's life cycle, the F thirty five has already been dubbed the world's most expensive weapon. But the part that I wanted to bring up is to make one. It is reliant for more than eighty parts on a little known company based in a quiet Danish suburb. This company happens to be the supplier of certain widgets that

the plane needs, in fact eighty different ones. But overall, the jet fighter made by Lockheed Martin, good American company made in America, has more than nineteen hundred suppliers of parts from more than a dozen countries that provide everything from tiny chipboards to.

Speaker 5

The ejector seat man. That is the free market. You could never do that with central planning and pull it off.

Speaker 4

Oh no, no, the most well, the central planning part of it has caused it to be wildly over budget and delayed, and the rest of it. Honestly, but the most American of American weapons that when they roar over ahead, you think that's the sound of freedom.

Speaker 1

Man.

Speaker 4

They're assembled from parts from dozens of different countries that cross many borders many times.

Speaker 5

Yeah, anyway, it's just posturing me. It's a sound of some hoofy rebel losing his head.

Speaker 3

That's what I hear.

Speaker 4

Well, and most of the rest of the world you hear that sound. You're about to have a very long day moving along. There's some headlines worth considering today. The first one was the first thing I saw this morning when I woke up an hour and forty five minutes before my alarm with my brain switched on, unable to turn it off. I want to talk later on about what I was thinking about, not now.

Speaker 3

Now here's your headline.

Speaker 4

US orders intelligence agencies to step up spying on Greenland.

Speaker 3

Ah.

Speaker 4

The effort underscores the seriousness of Trump's intend to acquire the island from Denmark.

Speaker 3

So we're gonna spy on fifty five thousand rock scrubbers. What are we gonna learn?

Speaker 4

They're fine foot rock scrubbers. That's is that some sort of new racist term that you've read on the internet, young man, I'll not have it. So apparently I'm woke, right or something or something. Several high ranking officials under the DNI. Tull Z Gabbard issued a collection emphasis message to intelligence agency heads last week. That's kind of the official term that that, you know, the agencies that have surveillance, satellites,

communication intercept spies on the ground. That's telling them, look, this is a priority. You need to be aware of this and get ready to do some stuff. But they were directed to learn more about Greenland's independence movement and attitudes on American resource extraction on the island.

Speaker 3

Now.

Speaker 4

Interestingly, James Hewett, national Security Council spokesman, said the White House doesn't comment on intelligence matters, but added, quote, the President's been very clear that the US is concerned about the security of Greenland and the Arctic.

Speaker 3

Which is a very good and positive and.

Speaker 4

Productive way to put it, because we are quite appropriately.

Speaker 3

How we or what we do to enhance.

Speaker 4

The security of Greenland and the Arctic and thereby the United States. As you know, it's worth discussing. But then Tulsey yourself said, quote, the Wall Street journals should beat they broke the story. The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed of aiding deep state actors who seek to undermine the president by politicizing and leaking classified information.

Speaker 3

They are breaking the lawn, undermining our.

Speaker 4

Nation's security and democracy, to which I'm sure the Wall Street Journal said, your people leaked to us. Dude, stop yelling at us. Danish embassy declined to comment, but are rolling their eyes violently.

Speaker 3

I'm sure. Total change in topic.

Speaker 4

Love this story, man, I will bang this gong until I am My banging days are done. The headline, also from the Wall Street Journal. The high school juniors with seventy thousand dollars a year job offers companies with shortages of skilled workers are looking to shop class to recruit future hires. One kid quoted like, I'm an athlete, getting all this attention from all these pro teams.

Speaker 3

Isn't that something? What kind of doing?

Speaker 7

What?

Speaker 3

Well? This kid? They Elijah.

Speaker 4

He won't graduate from high school until next year, but he's got a job offer for just under seventy grand a year.

Speaker 3

He's seventeen years old.

Speaker 4

He's taking welding classes at a Catholic high school in Philadelphia that works closely with companies looking for workers in the skilled trades. They're recruiting them straight out of high school.

Speaker 5

That's so much better a path than some nonsense degree taking on two hundred thousand dollars in debt, delaying four years of entering the workplace for a job that isn't going to be as good at paying.

Speaker 3

As that one or as secure. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4

One of the most successful people I know was a mechanic who rose to the head of the mechanics who rose to I understand how this technical thing works. I'll bet I could open a business doing it, and he did. And he knows nothing of social degrees and women's studies and the rest of it. It's also hell a nice guy. But yeah, I'm so happy with this. I'm going to

send this to my kids, honestly, anyway. So, and he's just one example of a number of employers in plumbing, electrical work, welding, and other fields that are teaming up with high schools helping kids earn work full time, earning money as well as academic credit credit. And the employers say that the skilled trades are becoming more tech infused and they anticipate doing even more recruitment at an early age because they need workers who are comfortable programming and

running computer diagnostics and doing some of the more traditional stuff. Anyway, I thought that was a cool story, good for that plucky young man. Another complete change of topic. EV sales streak grinds to a sudden halt.

Speaker 3

Drunk, yes, let me guess yanking the subsidies.

Speaker 4

Oh yeah, oh yeah, among other things. And I have more information on this. I'm weighing how much time we got to spend on it right now. The politics exchanged completely in the EV thing.

Speaker 3

We mentioned yesterday that the.

Speaker 4

California wild eyed we're gonna have nothing but EV's by the year twenty thirty four program that Biden's EPA said, yeah, yeah, good idea and a bunch of other states adopted now was overwhelmingly kicked out by the House of Representatives, including twenty three or something. There's a couple of dozen Democratic votes. And so that whole thing is over. And sales of evs in the US fell by about five percent last month.

Speaker 3

That is the first decline. Oh I'm sorry.

Speaker 4

Monthly EV sales in the US have only declined three times in individual months since twenty twenty one. They have grown every single month except for three in the last four years. And they dropped significantly last month.

Speaker 5

In people don't want them. People just don't want them. Well, some people want them, not very many. No, no, and people want them should feel free to get them. They're very cheap right now.

Speaker 4

You can buy a used Tesla mudde less a couple of dozen thousand miles for in the twenties and thirty grand.

Speaker 3

I mean they're practically new.

Speaker 4

Declines were across most brands, from Kida Hyundai to Ford Tesla, which accounted for nearly half of EV sales in the US. The bidenministration never mentioned.

Speaker 3

The whole thing is so screwed up.

Speaker 5

So Tesla has been the only dent ever made even a little bit and electric cars, and it got ignored by the White House all those years because they're.

Speaker 3

Not part of the United Auto Workers thing.

Speaker 4

They weren't getting money from or given money through their union goons to the White House.

Speaker 3

That's right anyway.

Speaker 4

Tesla reported that sales dropped nearly thirteen percent. Sales of Rivian's two main models declined by half.

Speaker 5

Yeah, yeah, I don't know. That's a tough one. It's a lot like solar.

Speaker 4

There's a big controversy going on in cal Unicornia right now with solar because it used to be heavily subsidized and then so many people did it. It interfered with the mobbed up utilities and their profits and the grid and the rest of it. And so now the same people who like threaten you at gunpoint to get solar in California are now telling you, yeah, you're thieving from poor people, and you're like what, And so they're imposed surch charges and taking away all the incentives and stuff

like that. It was all government bribes, right, Well, I drove seven pounds of Nazi steel to work today, but most people who bought teslas and stuff like that did it because you got these giant rebates. You know, you got seventy if you're under a certain income or whatever, you got seventy five hundred dollars knocked off. And then you got all this electric brakes and all these different things. And when those go away, people aren't near as interested.

Speaker 5

And then when you know, the whole Hitler salute from Elon and everything, so then that took the blew them off the rows of that part of it, and so that crowd doesn't want the cars right right. And finally, well, we've got a lot of like foreign policy stories I want to get to, but I wanted to touch on this at least briefly, how bad is China's economy? The

data needed to answer that question is vanishing. Beijing is stopped publishing hundreds of statistics, making it harder to know what's going on in the country, and one need not have a PhD in comparative politics from Harvard to know what's going on there. They're not publishing any other statistics anymore.

Speaker 3

Gee, I wonder why.

Speaker 5

And they've always lied anyway. I remember hearing the things Tank people take. You either have to have or double whatever they claim. I mean, if it's something they claim is good, to cut it in half. If it's something bad, you need to double it. That that's how much they lie about them anyway. So now they're not even putting the stats out at all.

Speaker 4

I'm sorry. I've just got to scratch where I'm itching. And for years and years and years I would read like China sickopants like Thomas Friedman commenting on the consistent five to eight percent growth when everybody knew those figures were a lie anyway.

Speaker 5

Who worships authoritarianism? Who who does?

Speaker 3

Yeah?

Speaker 4

Land sales, foreign investment, unemployment indicators have gone dark in recent years. Data on cremations, business confidence index. All of it has gone dark, and in most cases Chinese authorities have not given any reason for ending or withholding the data.

Speaker 3

Duh, I wonder why?

Speaker 5

So we got stuff on the Diddy trial, we got stuff on the real ID which is out today.

Speaker 3

Joe's got mail bag coming up. All on the way. Stay here.

Speaker 5

We keep joking about. Now we've got the real ID. So nine to eleven can happen a quarter century ago. It actually goes further than back than that. The start of this was the Oklahoma City bombing. That's why we started the real ID program. That's thirty years ago. More on that in hour two. It's a ridiculous example of how screwed up government is.

Speaker 4

Hey, mister slow and steady wins their race right thirty thirty years Oh God help us.

Speaker 3

Here's your freedom loving quote of the day. Love is sent along by Joseph, who lives not far from You're ready Orange.

Speaker 4

It's actually a verse from the Bible from Thessalonians, Second Thessalonians, Chapter three. If you must know, verse eleven twelve, we hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy. They are busy bodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat. The Bible wouldn't mind here in the King James version of that. That's obviously a modern translation, but.

Speaker 3

Which I will not listen to.

Speaker 4

We command and urge in the name of the Lord to settle down and earn the food you eat.

Speaker 5

Yeah, the sit around and talk about other people has always been a human nature thing.

Speaker 4

Huh yeah, yeah, it has. Indeed, more on that to come. Mailbag drop us now, won't you? Mail bag at Armstrong and Giddy dot com. Here's note from Jack in beautiful Wellington, Kansas talking to here at the radio ranch.

Speaker 2

Jack.

Speaker 4

Please stay strong, take it easy, and whatever you do, don't die until sometime between nine thirty Thursday or Friday, between eleven forty five pm and midnight. Those are the squares I got stuck with in the bedding pool, the.

Speaker 5

Number of people applying for the job from with me, you know, impending death. And then of course white smoke will come out when you've chosen a co host after I die, exactly.

Speaker 4

Yeah, And there's a lot of bribery going on, not enough though, keep those checks coming well, Love this from loyal listener Robert. All Right, what in the hell am I supposed to do with a warehouse.

Speaker 3

Full of these? And it's Huesday.

Speaker 4

I obviously to create an image of a doll made out of pencils all but as I was so counting on each household buying a couple dozen at least, I still have my job at the Department of Education.

Speaker 3

Gotta go call coming in from a boss.

Speaker 5

That is unfortunate timing that pencil dolls were going to be so hot this year.

Speaker 3

Oh that's funny.

Speaker 4

Now a feature that will continue on if I remember to do it. I'd like to call five Days of Cliff. Cliff has written as a fairly long multipart email. I am going to take on one part per day because all of it it wants is way too much. Five Days of Cliff, Five days of Actually it's four now that I look at my highlighting. Four days of Cliff. Jack talked about an article you guys discussed on having the perfect day several days ago. Nowhere on the list was bacon, so it had to be a deep fake article.

No one except possibly someone without taste Buds, would exclude bacon from the list of the requirements for a perfect day. Sometime with close family members and friends would be okay too, but not over six hours in not without bacon. Ah, that's day one of cliff fantastic freaking Correspondent Pallas says, sorry, I don't recall the specifics, but you're talking about how people in charge of things often have no special expertise.

Speaker 3

Had to do Trump and Doge.

Speaker 4

I think some people who are successful and get things done are not necessarily the world's foremost authorities.

Speaker 3

And what they're doing, they're no doubt knowledgeable.

Speaker 4

But the most important quality is that they are committed, confident, and forceful, and they are not afraid to fail.

Speaker 3

I think that's true of Trump.

Speaker 4

Those of us those qualities to promote something that turns out to be good or lauded, even perhaps more than is warranted.

Speaker 3

Blah blah blah.

Speaker 4

Anyway, it's the survival of the fittest in the world of ideas.

Speaker 3

He says, I thought that was interesting. More email to come.

Speaker 5

We're out of time, Yeah, the real I d stuff a couple of new wars to get excited about, a bunch of stuff on the way.

Speaker 3

So hope you can stay, stay here

Speaker 8

Armstrong and Getty

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