When when Doge starts pulling these strings, there's a certain group of people who emerge like prairie dogs boop, the little heads pop up to complain. Those are the deep state operatives. Now maybe there'll be some exceptions, but I think you're going to find out the entire architecture of the bad guys, because they're the ones who are going to start fighting this the hardest. As Elon Musk said on X, he said, one lesson I remember from the papal days, the PayPal days, He said, do you know
who complained the loudest, the fraudsters. There would be a media over the top indignation from the fraudsters. Normal people will say, quote, I think there's something wrong, but fraudsters will come hot out the gate with fake outrage. Huh, fraudster, fake outrage. We're looking at a rapid growth of bulugurkey. We're looking at a rapid growth of the fortunities you know a few that We're looking at a rapid growth of clipdocacy as well.
Huh.
That feels like a coming out of the gate hot with fake outrage.
Elon Musk, you didn't create us, aid, the United States Congress did. For the American people, and sounds like Elon Musk did not create USAID, he doesn't have the power to destroy it, And who's gonna stop him? We are, We're gonna stop him.
Elon Musk, you may have illegally seized power over the financial payment systems of the United States Department of Treasury, but you don't control the money of the American people.
The United States Congress does that under Article one of the Constitution.
So it looks like Scott Adams was right that in fact, all of the deep state actors are showing themselves. Jamie are asking immediately sprints to a microphone, what are you doing with USAI D What do you what do you you think you run our budget here, that's my job, Oh Congress. Congress who doesn't seem to care about ever balancing a budget, doesn't seem to care about ever declared hiring war or even having a vote on it or
a debate on it. They're totally happy. They're thrilled, in fact, to give away their powers to the executive branch twenty four to seven. But not when Donald Trump's in charge. No, no, no, not when Elon Musk has dozed breathing down their neck,
and that's where we're at. That's what's happening USAID, if not the head of the snake is a one of the hydras, one of the major hydras, and in my opinion, what it represents is the funding mechanism for the neoliberal world order, which they have talked about at nauseum over the past couple of years, ever since Russia decided to invade Ukraine, which I might add was a direct response to USAID's operations inside of Ukraine in twenty fourteen and prior and after, but you get the idea. Anyways, I
think that this is a truly revelatory moment. I think that this is really really important for people to be paying attention to who it's the most outraged. People don't know this, but AOC was actually plucked out of obscurity and backed by a conduit or a subsidiary of USAID to get her into Congress in the first place. So,
needless to say, she loves USAID. So does Chuck Schumer, So does Hillary Clinton, so does Victoria Newland, so does Chuck Schumer, all of them, all of the normal actors that you would expect to love USAID do and that's why you should be opposed to it. And also he lied there he said that this was created by Congress. Well kind of, it was created by Congress in the sense that they then instructed the president to create something
to handle foreign aid. But what happened was in nineteen sixty one JFK created via executive order the actual parameters for USAID, which means that Donald Trump, via executive order can modify that dramatically, if not rescinded entirely, which is what I would hope he would do, as opposed to funneling it off under the State Department, in which case Marco Rubio is that in charge of it. So not a perfect solution, but it is a step in the
right direction. Today I have on Jeremy Kaufman, the Legend, the Psycho from New Hampshire, the Free State Project. He's great. We go into some of this, we go really deep on it, but we talk just about Trump's first two weeks and what we're thinking about everything, where it's headed, if what we should be supporting, criticizing, et cetera, et cetera. It's a good conversation. I hope you guys enjoy it. If you can believe it. The legends over at My
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When did you first learn that President Trump intends to increase tariffs if Canada retaliates and how has that changed your strategy.
I think Canadians understand that we need to respond to this. We need to respond in a way that is appropriate, that is measured, but force full, that meets the moment. We're certainly not looking to escalate, but we will stand up for Canada, for Canadians, for Canadian jobs.
I'm joined today by Jeremy Kaufman. He is the Free State vigilante himself. Yeah, so there's I haven't had you on in a bit, and the news cycle has been blistering. We are in a full fledged trade war with the world at this point, as best I can tell, Canada and Mexico being the latest too, as well as the Panama Canal. Obviously, Trump won, Trump won the White House. We've got everything under the sun and more. What are your thoughts? First off, I mean, just on the state of the world.
Everything is no I can't tell. So actually this is I wanted to talk to you about this, and it's annoying to come on and like not and be like I don't know the answer, like that's such a boring answer. But they they screeched so much about Trump twenty sixteen to twenty twenty, when from my perspective, he did very little right and so I wasn't sure what to expect. Is Trump going to do real stuff? So there's all
this screeching. Some of it's clearly real, like I never would have thought he ended he was going to end USA, Like that's amazing. But I can't tell yet how much is is real. There's a ton of screeching, which is encouraging, but you know, some of this was gonna happen no matter what, and and so I can't tell, you know, like that some of the radical stuff that that Trump and Vivek and Elon were talking about, is it gonna
happen or not. I want to I want to kind of wait and see if it's going to happen for real. But the early signs are encouraging.
Yeah, I think I think it is happening. I mean that you have h there's an announcement that the FBI is going to be protesting today. The FBI agents will be protesting.
I think without the Patriot Front masks is uh.
They'll actually be protesting as themselves today. But I think with anticipation of Cash Mattel's confirmation hearings UH set for tomorrow. Uh, I think you know, the U. S A I D stuff is major. I think getting rid of all of the de I stuff from the federal Departments is made. I think that obviously, even though it's not it's not the you know, the perfect fix, but it's something. The ceasefire in Gaza has been major.
Uh.
And then I think Trump is very seriously engaged with conversations with Putin to try to end the Ukraine War. Basically, what I'm saying is, Jeremy, I think that Trump has done almost everything good and bad that he has promised in the first ten days of his second term. I mean, like, whatever he can do, the executive order, he has done. It's remarked totally.
He's totally exceeding you know, twenty sixteen to twenty twenty. But you got to remember, Clint, I'm a libertarian. That means I'm never happy, right, so I've never I'm same here, Okay, okay, and i I'm not. I guess if you have anything, it makes for entertaining conversations. So I'll play guy against Trump I want, but I want to be clear. I think Trump's done more already than I expected, exceeding what he did in the first four years. Like there's a lot to like, but to me, you know, there are
fundamental things like Okay, Trump, Trump fixed shower heads. The fundamental problem here is we haven't we have a law that says the government gets to control how many gallons per minute you know, flow through your shower. It's great that he's being clever and rewriting, you know, an executive order, but like this fundamentally isn't the way that that that government should work, right, Like, we are still going with nine eighty to ninety percent of the federal budget is entitlements,
you know, defense funding, et cetera. Right, Like, it's great to end the DEI it's great to end some of the terrible enforcement of these agencies. Is the budget going to actually get balanced? Are we going to actually rein in some of these programs? You know? Y Like you gotta remember, like and again, this isn't me. I don't think I didn't. I don't think Trump was ever going
to do this stuff. I want to be clear, Like I want a government that's a tenth the size that it is, right, I want a government that's a smaller than a temphesize that it is. You know, So, so you know I think that that these It's great that Trump won. I voted for Trump, I endorsed him heavily. I am encouraged by what's happening, but like, will how many how many like fundamental things are going to ultimately
end up fixed here? And and that's still a question, Like already again, I want to be clear, it's encouraging, but it's important, I think, to remember that ultimately we want these fundamental things to actually be fixed, right, you know, like it's like the I R. S is white man now instead of.
Progress. No, I agree, I agree that that's definitely not what I'm looking for. I mean, I think that the reality basically what I'm saying is And yes, I am a you know, perennially discontented, as all libertarians are. However, I'm just I'm just contrasting this to our prior experiences, and it's it's so I mean, it's just it's unbelievable.
I've genuinely I've never seen anything like it. I've never had a first two weeks of a presidency that made me feel as if there was any hope, you know, and and well well well Trump, well Trump has done a bunch of things that I don't like. He has just done a lot and like really done it. And I think that's what that's what is most you know, inspiring to me is that there's just it gives me
a chance. The reason I vote, I broke down and I ended up voting for Trump is because proxy wars with nuclear powers, thirty seven trillion dollars in debt, and it's like, you need dramatic action. You need someone to intercede on behalf of the American people, on behalf of the of the world and say, all right, I'm going to negotiate peace here, and I'm going to get our
budget in order. It seems as if he has a plan for that, whether or not it actually works out, whether or not, like and also he's doing everything he can do via executive order. A lot of this if like you're talking about like real fixes, real fixes, is going to require legislation for much of this, and will he be able to get that passed. I'm doubtful.
So well, I think a lot of it's a better team in terms of in terms of the better stuff that's happening, in terms of reigning and spending and all of this stuff. I think that's a better team around him.
He always I was, even twenty sixteen to twenty twenty, you know, a kind of scary guy to sit against, sit across the negotiation table with you're like Trump representing the country is That's actually something I would have always rated him very highly on in the sense, not in the sense of everything he necessarily did, be in the sense that this is a guy who he's representing, you know, my people. Would I be intimidated to sit the cous with this person and have to deal with them like
I wouldn't want to deal with them. And there's a sense that you want that, right, you want an asshole, sure, But it's these kinds of you know what, it's these kinds of situation. And another big point here I will say, like you know, I'm I'm against all the spending. I don't want I don't want the welfare spending, the entitlement spending,
all this stuff. But there is a sense also in which a dollar that is you know, going to you know, Section eight housing actually is preferable to a dollar that's going to USAID, which is like literally, you know, trying to achieve the worst things in the world, like the opposite of the direction that I want the world to go in. And here this is tax money that's being spent to push not just my country but the world the opposite of the direction that I want, you know,
the world to be going in. So there's a sense in which like that is the worst, like of all the dollars to get cut from the government, this is among the best, the best types of dollars to be getting, you know, to be getting cut.
I agree. I mean it's it's basically like, I don't know, taking dollars away from the war machine or the irs or all of the above. I mean, USAID is very bad for those that aren't familiar like USAAD. First off, it was created under JFK, and it was basically a I guess kind of like a blanket funding system to try and encompass what the CIA wanted to be doing and the State Department wanted to be doing. So there
wasn't overlaps that would kind of streamline the funding. But I think the thing that people don't talk about what it really enabled was for the government to do things that it can't do constitutionally. That like you you send off funds to NGOs which all of a sudden are not under the purview of you know, governmental oversight or
or actual uh legal rules. And I think that's that's Basically what they did through the COVID censorship era too is like, oh well, we're the federal government, we can't censor you. We'll just pressure big tech to do it. And that's kind of what they do with the NGOs through us A D. If if it is true, I mean, for as of now, just to you know, slow a role here, as of now, the plan is to roll us A I D into the State Department, which then has Marco Rubio running it. That isn't you know, the
dramatic improvement I want. I wanted to bolish obviously, but.
And then and this is where you have to you have Ultimately it's gonna and it's so unfortunate. I know, this is like an anathema to the modern era. But like we're gonna have to wait and see, right, it's gonna take It's gonna take Bunster years to see which of this stuff you know, you know, actually actually happen. I mean, because to do what needs to be done, you know, it is it is a substantial task, you know, I want to be clear, it's like a it's a
it's a like you know, borderline impossible task. This is another this is another part of the picture. I think it is so important to remember, Like I'm not a Zuckerberg defender. I'll make it, but I'll make an analogy here I maybe am compared to some people. It's like, when you're the CEO, you don't have the ability to like unilaterally make ten thousand people march or in this case, two million or three million people bureaucrats working for the
federal government. Like, if if ninety percent of your workforce, you know, wants to subvert you, you you can't really like, okay, workforce, like do that. Like it takes it. It takes a long time to get that workforce to turn and reority. You're gonna have to spend months firing people, making examples of people like it's not you know, like so and you can see from the posts on our fed news on Reddit and all the and the posts that are making on the social media, like there is a real
entrenched force here that it's going to oppose things. And so, you know, how does that how does that play out? Because the orders won't be enough. The orders are moved one. The orders are step one, You've now got nine steps behind that to actually make sure that this stuff gets you know seen through that that people aren't subverting you, that the wrong people are leaving, that you know, the right people are getting put into place, you know, and so on and so forth.
Well this is this is actually why I'm so hopeful is because what you just described was like, well, you have to have a team, you have to have backup that's going to implement what you want, which Trump did not have at all. Term one, A lot of people were very hesitant or skeptical of DOGE, Like the Department of Governmental Efficiency, This sounds like this, you know, performative toothless nothing burger. Sure, Elon and Vivek are going to be involved, and I like those guys, but you know
it's not gonna have teeth. Look what happened over the past forty eight hours was massive. I mean, what what Elon was doing was he was just quote tweeting all of the most scandalous stories from USA, AI D. What I think, what I think we saw is the teeth of DOGE that he's just going to run a negative PR campaign against any department that he finds that is, you know, spending in an insane fashion, and then he's going to use that as the fuel to get action
to actually see cuts and see reforms. And I think it's going to work. I mean so far as you as you've said many times, this is TBD. It's you know, we'll see.
Yeah, well I could tell you, but goes to the very serious effort. I I don't think I can get in any trouble for talking about this. I was pretty far in the application process I talked to this. I don't want to name all the names, but I was pretty I made it pretty far. I'm assuming I didn't get this one, but I went through like they had me. They you know, they contacted me and spontaneously gave me like thirty six hours to prepare a detailed presentation on
a randomly assigned government department. Uh, you know. And they were looking for people who, you know, who could deliver very serious, high quality knowledge and recommendations like this. It's it's and I think this was part of the problem with Trump. He's a good negotiator, he's a good marketer, you know. He he's not really like a details kind of person, I don't think. And and to to dismantle
like this, it takes. It takes some serious, serious effort and serious detail oriented knowledge that is I think actually much more of the engineering mindset. And this is where you know, Muskie is going to put in a bunch of like a bunch of like autistic dudes who are going to obsess over this stuff, and like it's massive, there's so much there. I mean, I have a bit.
I have a bit of this myself. I've spent some of my time, you know, And so I think they put I think that this is the kind of they're putting some real people there who are going to really understand these things and try to make real changes at least. That's yeah, that's up.
Yeah, But I mean my point is it's not just tinkering. You know, Like first off, Elon's been very public with all right, we need to cut four billion a day like that that'll be enough to balance the budget. And he's like, as of this weekend, we are on track
for that. That's his claim. You know, this this is all TVD, But like, I think he understands that to a certain extent, his reputation is tied to these achievements too, because we are kind of voting for Trump and Elon and Vivek and RFK and Tulsi and Cash and All of these people kind of all have their reputations tied up into this, and I think that if any of them don't perform as they're all being tasked with certain subcategories of responsibilities underneath Trump, well then they're going to
be held to account, which Vivek has already bailed on Doge it seems, but the rest of them are still kind of in their slots. I just think it's very it's a very interesting. Really it's a revolutionary way of going about governance in America. I go, I've never seen it. I've never seen and also I've never seen a president on the campaign trail, you know, negotiate across the aisle, get agreements and then actually do what they agreed to. I mean, he didn't have to put Rfk Junior into HHS.
He didn't have to put Tulsi Gabbert as d and I. He didn't have to free ross albrig He didn't have to you know, like that, all of these things. Like the point I really want to get across. This is his second term. He doesn't have another presidency. He could have just stiffed all of us. He could have he could have got in there and said all right, John Bolton, get back in here, Marco RUBI will get back in here. And that's it. Like I'm giving you no no progress whatsoever.
But he followed through on all of it. I'm just curious. Why do you think he did.
So i'mmirring on Trump is that he he is not He's not very ideological, he doesn't have very many he doesn't have much of a sort of sincere political philosophy. To the extent that he does. It is you know, it's it's one I first I should be the best right you personally, and then but then therefore also everything associated with me is the best of my country, you know, my companies and so on and so forth, and then like it's a very much you know who has helped
me and and who has been against me? And so he is someone who I think you stands by people who have stood by him. He's very sort of your loyalty oriented. And so these are people who who were loyal to him, right, these are people worked with him. And I think it is I think he's someone who who isn't going to betray that. I do think your thing,
for exactle, like the pardoning of Ross is substantially. It's kind of an older form of politics, right, this is the way the politics used to work in the you know, one hundred years ago. It's like okay, okay, faction like if you deliver your votes like it's a it's a patronage, you know, kind of an agreement. But I think that's his style. He's a salesman, he's a deal maker, you know, and he but he wants to honor the deals that he makes. I do think he wants to do that.
And so that's it's as simple as sepp.
Yeah, but it's it just it shocked me. You know, if this was his first presidency he had re election, I could understand, you know, him him definitely falling through this.
As a why so like again, and I'm not trying to hear. I feel like I'm like partially roll planning a pessimist here because I'm actually more of an optimist by disposition. But you know, one way this stuff could kind of go off the rails is your Musk is going to keep pushing for this stuff. I suspect Musk Trump is willing to be unpopular. So I don't mean to say he's not willing to unpopular things, but it's
a different kind of sense. And like you know, Musk I think would be much more bullheaded about, you know, cutting things, I think than Trump. If some of this stuff is starts to upset the right people, starts to generate bad optics, starts to upset people who are Trump's friends, right, you know again, because Trump is like this a factional allegiance based guy, you know, And so that would be I think where this stuff could also you could could
kind of go off the roads. And I also think it's got to be at least a bit of a problem for Trump, Like Elon's gotta gotta walk a tightrope here where he's continually like you're the president, yes, mister president, like you know, because Trump's Trump's ego is going to get hurt by Musk being you know, more famous and more successful. You know, like like if too much of the credit is going to Musk and and Doze, you know, that's also gonna that This is where Trump turns on
his enemy on his friends. Rather, it is where his friends, uh you know, start to start to outshine him a.
Little too much shine there, Elon. Yeah, No, I completely agree with you on that. In fact, we already know that because about I don't know, four or six weeks ago, right after the election, when Elon was very much much in the mix, you started to hear the Democrats repeating, repeatedly calling him, you know, president Musk and and like it's called it's obvious that they're trying to strike at at Trump's ego and get him to shelve him because he doesn't want to be challenged.
It's not a bad strategy, but I mean, I don't know if it'll work because it's coming from them, But otherwise I think it's like, not a bad strategy.
Oh no, it's It's what I would advise. I'd be like, yeah, just keep hammering that Trump is in the president, just say president Elon president, Like it'll it'll absolutely put a wedge between them here. I I what I really want to get into with you is the the trade war stuff. Like I think it's very it's very interesting. I've been thinking about this a lot for weeks now months, And here's here's my thesis as to what what I think they may be trying to do. And this is not advocacy,
this is just my analysis. I think that there's a chance that they are genuinely accepting a multipolar order, that they are most interested in hemispheric domination that they want to go back to, just like we're going to dominate the western hemisphere and we're not going to have anything to do with the Middle East and you know Asia.
And I think that because you're so much in debt that like if I was if I if I actually had a president that was interested in solving our fiscal crisis, I'd be like, Okay, how how do we how do we actually migrate away? And also I'm a protectionist and a nationalist, right, so my thought process would be, We're going to tear if everyone into oblivion. We're going to force them off the US dollar so that we I mean,
short term, it will strengthen the US dollar. But I think that then you bring industry home, you create tear tariff barrier that make domestic production, you know, more cost effective and more competitive. Eventually you migrate away to some sort of like I don't I don't want to say asset back currency, but something something that gets us away from the US dollar and puts a limit on the government.
Like like I'm just trying to think of like intermediate to long term what would these guys be attempting to do? Because I know a lot of people portray Trump's trade war bomb bast as just that this is like ego battles. Trudeau talk shit, you know, shine bomb in Mexico, she talks shit. We're just gonna hammer these people. I'm just this is all ego stuff. This seems to have a more concerted plan attached to it. I'm just curious. Am I giving him too much credit? What do you think him specifically?
Again, I would say probably. I mean it's possible that that's a plan that some people have Trump specifically, I mean, I think, first of all, I think he does genuinely, dispositionally kind of engage in a sort of market antelistic, you know, kind of thinking he sees trade with somewhat in a in a somewhat zero sum way. And we could circle back to if there is anything to that view versus the pure full you know, sort of pretty margot libertarian view. But I think that's part of it.
I think he loves this stuff. I think I think he is why he wants to be present. I think he loves the idea of like of having of negotiating with people and like playing bricksmanship games, and like being
and bringing a hammer. And I think I think a big part of phim is like and he's quite possibly correct, is that you can simply get stuff from other countries by doing this, you know, like we we do have the upper hand and a lot of these negotiations and like the there was a trade war with Mexico lasted about I looked up today the shortest war in world history, and there's a Britain want to war in forty minutes once it killed five hundred people and want to war
in forty minutes. So this this war went on a little bit longer, uh than that. I didn't.
I didn't hear the notice the Mexico trade war is over.
It's over, okay, though, I think, am I wrong? Made? And maybe update me?
Update me? I haven't.
I thought I thought that like Mexico agreed to put ten thousand troops along the border, and they would. I don't. I could be wrong. I could I could be wrong. There's a sense in which like like you have, Trump can like you know, demand this and and and get this, you know, and get these kinds of kind you know, he likes doing this kind of negotiating. Uh. And and so I would attribute it to at least like to
at least somebody. Oh oh, and also the prior thinking that I laid out, like there are plenty of of of Trump supporting factions that want tariffs that that also get you know, into like Somemby's delivering to a constituency that supported him, you know during his you know, during
his his his run for president. So you know, I would think I would think some of it is that although that theory, look, I I would be interested in learning more about Like I hadn't heard that theory that you gave me about the decollarization, and.
It's not I guess it's I guess it's a theory, but it's just mine. I'm just I'm literally I'm just thinking through logically, like what is the if I had a longer term goal of trying to migrate away create a little bit more uh independence as as opposed to interdependence with the entire global economy. Well, let's let's actually let's just get.
Thinking what's the thinking that Like my perspective is that it's it's it's mostly good if other countries use the so long as we're not you know, subservient to them in some way or you know, are losing some point of autonomy, like basically like not that inflation is good, but when we inflate our currency, there were taxing them, right, like they're effectively subsidizing spy holding dollars. Is my perspective on.
I completely agree. I mean the whole reason.
What's the idea behind? Uh, you know, why would why would? Why would? Why would they want to do this?
Yeah? Well, I think that from Trump's perspective and his his kind of orbits perspective, they want industry because they are very concerned about being reliant on other economies all over the world in case of war, in case of you know, trade wars, whatever that they want to have
more industry domestically, like physical production industry. And I think that as long as you're the reserve currency, it's very challenging to do that because you're going to have the most purchasing power from the US dollars as they're printed and borrowed because you have first access via cantalon effects.
So it's like it's very challenging for the labor market to compete because you are you are the home base and therefore that is the that is the trade off is that essentially the rest of the world, you know, gets to sell to us, but then we also lose out on our industry. I think that's that's the trade off that they're trying to reverse. Do you disagree with their assessment on that?
Uh, you know, I'm not I'm not certain. I'm not certain about that. I would I would think that there
is a a mild sense in which that's true. Uh my sort and I might be you know, doing some some spherical cow economics here, is that that the that you're you're mostly going to get, you know, a roughly equivalent balance of of trade, that that that this would not be the reason that you know, us that sort of your domestic steel is you know, not competitive with with with steel from uh you know, with steal from China or from other places.
So you think it's not competitive just strictly because I think.
I think like strictly speaking, I think at the margin, this is true. So I think at the margin it's a it would help, you know, at the margin domestic and you know, some of these domestic industries would you know, would probably get But but I don't I don't. I don't think that's the like explanatory factor.
Okay, Well, what what is the just regulatory and taxation?
Uh? And I mean you know, I don't, I don't. I don't know, uh, specifically what the breakdown. So if we're talking about like so like steel specifically, like why is why why is the US not competitive?
Well, well, I mean just considered consider our entire industrial base. It's like we have hemorrhaged that for fifty years. I think that is true. So why this is? This is not an a partic This is not an individual industry. This is a broad based phenomenon. When it's broad based, I assume it's currency related. I mean that's my analysis. But I'm just curious what you think.
Okay. So I mean that the default, the default economic answer right here would be that that labor that it was, it was either labor flowed to higher valued uses you know in the US, or there were you know, reasons that the same thing you know could be you know, could be produced, could be produced for in you know, in foreign places for cheaper, which I would assume is like I would assume labor is the is the primary cost here, like the raw cost of commodities on the market,
Like I assume the market is like fairly efficient, Like maybe there's some economies where you're closer to the right. You don't know, but I would assume. So I would assume, and again I would assume labor for capital, equipment and so on is a relatively efficient market. So you're not seeing these these big market So I would assume it's that labor is cheaper. But that's that's part of part of being a rich country is that labor here is
more valuable. So simply and this is this is this is why uh, of course why immigrants want to come here, right like, so even lower less skilled labor is worth much more, you know, in the United States. So this means that it's frequently efficient for us to let people in other countries, like you know, like at least again, and you can you can try to find sort of problems with this sort of spherical type of analysis, you know, which I mean is like this is the very theoretical
and like you know, perfect efficient whatever. But I think it's still like I think this is directionally correct. You know that that it doesn't that for the like I think the best argument for any kind of anything in the direction of merchantilism or like sort of non totally
free trade. Is these arguments about externalities that you know, if if it could theoretically I could see it theoretically being bad for my nation to have like no ability to produce its own weapons right in a way that like you know, like they I can, and I could see theoretical reasons that it might not be good for my nation to not be able to produce any of
its own like I can. I can. I can potentially see some of these where where that's a sort of market failure in sort of in sort of typical libertarian. I'm not saying I'm convinced by that, but I can like see the argument. I don't see. I don't. I don't really I think the I don't think I think to the extent that manufacturing is not in the US. I don't think you're bringing it back with uh, well you could. Look, you said, a high enough tariff, of
course you could bring it back. But I don't think that makes Americans better off to do that.
Well, I think short term it doesn't. I think long term it might. Like the here's here's my concern, and this is this is you know, unpopular thought processing amongst libertarian audiences. But you and I both don't seem to care about saying things that upset libertarians. We do it all the time. I am. I am concerned about, you know, opportunities for young people in this country, and I think that, like there has been, there's there's a lot there's a
lot of downsides to being the reserve currency. Like there's a lot of upsides, like you get to have a debt that's explosive, you get to print and borrow into oblivion, you get to basically conquer the world for a time. But the downside is that, like ultimately you end up having housing be too expensive for the younger generation, and then they end up kind of rudderless and and and left a drift, and then you end up in World War three and that's how you kind of reset everything.
And that's what I felt like we were on the brink of, which is ultimately why I voted for Trump. But anyways, I am concerned about because of global globalization. I mean, do you feel that there's enough opportunity for young people? You're you're a father, you've got a lot
of kids. Do you think that there's enough opportunity. Well, your kids are very special because they're home school and probably awesome, but like, broadly speaking, I am concerned about the amount of opportunities for young people in America, like domestic labor, and I think that libertarians oftentimes are I mean not just dismissive, but like they genuinely are abrasive if you even bring up, like why do you care
about American labor? We just fucking open the borders and you let immigrants work whoever's cheapest, that's all that matters. I think it is a problem that we have to concern ourselves with. I do.
Yeah. Well, look, there's a version of libertarianism that I'm not, although I have some appreciation for. That's like you're very much your number go up, maximalism, Like it's not it's it's it's very close like sort of neoliberalism. I mean, to me, libertarianism a system of property rights and agreement that lets people build all kinds of different things so you can value whatever you want under libertarianism. And if you want to value your various things or want a
society structure a certain way, like libertarianism allows you. It's a system that actually allows for diversity and competition. You're sort of at the societal level, and so I don't I never see I often don't see libertarianism as like taking these strong stances on some of these issues that
other people seem to see say that it does. I am absolutely concerned about that a kind of thing, you know, to the extent that I have concerns about a class of people beyond you know, my immediate concerns, and and you know, and and of course the free staters here in New Hampshire is certainly one of my circles of concerns. But I I care about I care about these things. It's it's a direction, it's the thing I care about
in society quite a bit. I'm skeptical of the specific claim that this is is highly coupled to America as a reserve you know, currency, uh specifically, but I think it would be really interesting to talk like I find that area of just like really interesting. You know, what is causing these that whole, that whole you know, the whole Chipotle, you know, debate and and and what kind of job should be available to these kinds of people.
I think a lot of it is there's who who's the guy has that elite theory is that like church in like this idea that like uh like basically and
this is it explains all the woke stuff too. But from the other side, like there's all of these people who sort of have these aspirations to sort of be you know, elites in society, you know, and there aren't enough you know, positions, right, like the complaints about and I'm not saying this is an unfair complaint, but like the complaint about the Chipotle things, like these people are supposed to have a higher position in society, right, It's yeah,
all right, you know, you're making money, you have a place to live, you're not desperate. But like this is they're supposed to The complaint is they're supposed to have more, not that it's like an objectively terrible life. Right. The complaint is that there was supposed to be something that was you know, that there was something that was supposed to be more and and you know, I don't know this like bringing men you like, what is bringing what
is bringing men? You action in to the United States back? Like who are these people? Is this is this? Is this the one hundred This is like we're talking about like jobs, for the average American, but below average American, Like who is the class a person that you know, I'll just.
Give you my answer, you know, my my concern is the kind of the middle you know, not the exceptional, not the h one B guy, but the middle of the you know, ninety five to one hundred and five IQ guy that may may go to high school or may graduate high school, but may make his associate's degree. Like in the past, there was a period in American history where you could be that guy and have a family. It's very tough to be that guy and have a
family these days. Like it's just very challenging because of inflation, because of the printing press. And you're right, I mean, as reserve currency, theoretically we don't have to be such profligate spenders and inflate and make our lifestyle so much more expensive year after year, but we have. And now what And I think that's that's my concern, is that those guys, the middle guy is kind of left out.
Yeah, I mean, I this is why I think that part of this has to hinge a little bit on, like that they feel that there's a feeling that there was like a higher position in society, because my impression is that you can as one of these people like get get a job and any number of you know, in any number of trades, any number of things where you can be making enough money to afford a house and have a family, even a single urner family, you know. I think this is possible, and a lot of places
in America, you know, for people to do this. And I'm not trying to defend the status quo because I agree that inflation has been a problem, and I agree that there have been, you know, a lot of problems. I think that this is I think that and I think that there are directionally like there's a problem here, like but I think that it's kind kind of like this whole thing about.
Like let's think it's.
A desire to go back to like a different set of values and a different sort of structure of society. And in that time, it's like, oh, there also happen to be manufacturing jobs. Like it's a form of cargo cultism. Is it would be a way put it, like like you're this isn't the thing, Like it's not the manufacturing job specifically, and to say like we we we need to bring those back and teriffs will be I think
that's I'm not. I'm not. I'm not saying it's out of out of like there's something that might be coming from that's like a correct feeling. And I think that it's tariffs and MANUF and then we'll bring back manufacturing jobs. I don't think. I don't think. I don't. I think it's I think it's incorrect, and I think.
You think it's you think it's the wrong answer. Yeah, look, I'm not saying that like, oh, we have to bring back auto manufacturing. I think many of these jobs, if not most, are going to be totally replaced by AI and automation. I mean many of them already have been. So like, this is this is a problem that is only going to get worse. I think that in some sense it is performative. It is it is demonstrating concern for these people because everyone has basically shit on them
and not listen to their concerns. And Trump is like the first guy that goes, yeah, I hear you, here's the answer, and maybe it isn't the answer. So I'm not and i'm not I'm not claiming that it is. I when when I opened up with my kind of thesis as to what I think they may be doing. I was just trying to give a guess as to what the game plan might be long term. Yeah, but I don't know. I mean that they It could just be all dick measuring contests and ego battles and nothing.
There's nothing more behind it. I don't know.
Never never underestimate how many substantial things in world history happened, because there's just it's either a dick message contest or a fight over a girl.
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is not insurance. Learn more at join crowdhealth dot com. That join crowdhealth dot com code lockdown. Yeah, people are like, no, the you know, World War was to establish Central Bank and World War two was to do this and that. It's like, maybe it's just because there are a bunch of asshole powerful guys who think that they're better than everybody and then they you know, they one of them took off their glove and slapped the other in the face at what egg or whatever?
Yeah, this is my this is my actual theory of world history.
Well, no, then I would I would like to to get kind of your thesis as too. So if if the AI and automation pathway is probable, and I think it is, I think it's I think it's assured. Honestly, what what is your answer for kind of because I'm not I'm not, I'm one hundred percent not a UBI libertarian. I think that's an atrocity. What do you think? What do you think is going to fill the void? And I know this is kind of like asking you to guess what comes after the horse and buggy and it's like,
who the fuck knows? But do you have any any like optimism as to can we actually replace all those jobs?
It's, Oh, it's gonna be it's it's gonna be very interesting. Uh there. I mean, I I do think that jobs performed by humans like will be some of the last things to go. Like there are things that we want, you know, people to do, and even in a world that's like very wealthy, I think it will remain like a status symbol for humans to do them. So uh uh, not like endorsing that life for that outcome, but I
think it's like a likely a likely aucomymy. So we're so we're talking about the scenario here, and like AI you know, really does work, not just for knowledge work, but also we're able to it's able to manifest itself in the real world. So we're able to construct robots, you know, so you can have intelligent humanoid robots. Uh, I mean the sort of there's an idea here that like this would be basically a massive return to capital, right, so so you know that labor effectively becomes very very
cheap in this world. And so if you're spherical cow economicating here, right, you've got uh capital, capital can all of a sudden get way more stuff, right, so physical stuff gets cheaper. Things in the real world get you know, get get way, you know, get way cheaper. It would be, it would make our lives a lot different. Uh, it would have It would probably cause an incredible amount of political turmoil. You know what, how will humans derive? You know, I think this idea that will ever be sort of
post labor, I think is is kind of fake. So I don't think that will necessarily like this isn't gonna necessarily happen, of course, Like there's lots of outcomes where AI just becomes a force multiplier like other kinds of technology, you know, and uh and so simply becomes like, look, we have we have just as many people, you know, doing the similar jobs, but you know a lot of them are just leveraging AI, you know, to more of a degree. So uh, it's it's it's it's unpredictable. It
certainly could trigger another communist revolution. Uh.
I mean, so this is this is why I get fresh traded with libertarians that do dismiss, you know, domestic employment concerns and they just go like, you know whatever, you know, like figure it the fuck out. It's like all right, yeah, but well if you don't, then people oftentimes will you know, burn everything down. And like communist revolutions do happen from time to time, and guess what, that's not very good for property rights libertarians. So you
might want to concern yourself with that. And that's kind of where I'm at is. I am very nervous about particularly young men in this country. And I've talked about this a few times, like, because there was this movement to really lay at the you know, at their feet, all of the ills of civilization. It's particularly straight white man. It was like, you fucking son of a bit, you your fucking great grandfather did X, Y Z, and therefore
you are beyond redemption. And it was just such an evil way of treating people, like no, no more or less evil than how you would treat black people in the early nineteen hundreds or eighteen hundreds. It was like it was atrocious what they were doing young white men. And then on top of that, you have this inflationary wave that that makes it so that you can't outpace
the success of your father. Very it's very rare these days because like all you had to do was buy a house in nineteen eighty and you were a millionaire by the two thousands, and like that's just not an option for a lot of young people. And I can I can sense in you that you're like You're like you, you don't want to give that much credence to the fact that, like, the younger generations have it harder than the.
Housing one's real, the housing one's real. I've been meaning to I actually have a like half started, do you know I do these like effort threads on X sometimes And yes, I have one that I've been working on. It because I'm in trouble because I want to understand, because like I think that it's just so easy to fall into these narratives and sometimes they're true and sometimes
they're not. And I think, I think one of the things I notice all the time in politics is you get these like clouds of beliefs that it's like clearly like people just join a tribe and then they adopt all these adjacent, you know, beliefs. And I've always been like a bit heterodox, try to like look at things, you know, independently rather than just be you know, the cloud guy.
And so I am up, you're more than a brother.
And I'm sure I get it wrong sometimes like I'm not. But no, housing is more expensive like this one's. This one's real, like this one's real, dude.
Housing is insanely more expensive, and.
At the margin, does immigration help with it?
It does not know, But libertarians usually just tell people to shove it up their ass. If you bring that up, they go, oh, there's no fucking evidence that housing is yes, bullshit, more this more demand.
A huge part of it is that we don't allow more building to happen, though, like we have to really like knowledge that this is this is you know that this is a huge part.
I was a developer. I know, I know better than the libertarians a bitch about regulations. Regulations are a nightmare in real estate development.
And I will say this is another part of it. When I was doing that. Someone actually only taught me this in the last couple of weeks. There is a decent argument that some portion of the increased housing costs is that people simply expect more house and expect more housing. Like if you look at a graph of construction costs per square foot, like if you b they've certainly grown beyond like what we would expect, but construction costs per square foot haven't grown nearly as much as square feet
of houses. So houses have actually gotten way bigger now, you know, than they used to be. And so it's possible. One of the things that's interesting is like humans don't actually tend to work that like humans will work less up to a point. If if humans who have like a lot of humans, will just continue to work and
spend more money on status symbols. They'll buy fancier cars, they'll buy bigger houses because they see themselves as in these maybe not incorrectly as in these your status competition games with their peers and society you know around them, And so I think, like there is a and again
this relates to what is this housing thing actually about? Like, right, people don't want to go back to the nineteen fifties house, you know, with a sick like, so they want to go back to the nineteen fifties in terms of where they were in society, but they don't want to actually go back to the way I don't think that people lived in the nineteen fifties, Like if you look at what a starter home looked like in early nineteen hundreds of America, Like, again, I don't think these are the
houses that people are actually asking for, you know, for the most part.
Yeah, well, I mean the housing is much better today. Like well, grant that there's arguments as to quality, which some people say that the older stuff was made a little bit better, don't. I don't have a firm opinion on that. I think a lot of it's just preferences, like what do you want to invest your money and do you want to have the new tech gadgets or
do you want to have the best masonry. And some people, you know, a lot of people there's differences in preferences, but you know, as a lifelong you know, real estate investor and spectator of the market, I know for a fact that like the cost of production of real estate has gone up a lot. And now, granted the past four years was a huge part of that because the lockdowns and that was catastrophic.
But even we got all these we've got all these men who need better jobs to me, building, construction, contracting, like these are pretty decent. These are very respectable professions you're building.
Completely completely agree, But.
Why can't Why can't a bunch of these people up? We built a bunch of houses. There's more houses for everybody. They're gonna start having kids again, Like, why can't we get this gallop?
The answer is labor costs. They don't they because you can do it with illegal immigration. They are Okay, okay, that's I mean, that's the answer. You you walk onto any job site in America in construction, you're going to see probably half the guys early okay, and.
Here look and look, I'm very sympathetic to this is one like I'm not, uh, you know, the kind of libertarian that's like, you know, illegals or heroes like we're in competition. You know, that's a it's a kind of there is a sense in which that's unfair. They're not contributing, you know, to society, and you know, and so on. I do still encourage libertarians to illegally move to New Hampshire, but you have to put all of you have to donate all the money you don't pay taxes to help create. Uh,
I love it. Uh So, Yeah, no, I think I think that one. I think that was that one's totally fair and and your libertarianism should not entail this form of what I would consider far leftism, which is where you think, like a stranger in China has the same you know, you have the same ethical obligation to them, and and and so on, as as your neighbors and your countrymen. Right, I think I think this is totally ridiculous.
And there's nothing in the in the philosophy that should suggest that we have to believe.
Yeah, no, you, you and I tend to tend to agree on these things more than uh. I guess this is what makes us, you know, right right leaning libertarians is the concentric circles, uh, you know, philosophy of the world. But I think it's just like it's just obviously logical and rational that you ought to concern yourself more with your neighbor's issues than you know, the war in Ukraine. Like, it's obvious to me that like what matters most to the survival of my family and my friends and my
network is the local environment more than the foreign. But for whatever reason, some libertarians, I guess the left ones, they don't see it that way. They see anyone starving anywhere on Earth is just as important as my own child starving. It's like, yeah, that's that's fucking crazy. But anyways, that's my thought process on it. But do you have any any deep dive threads that you're working on it? So you said that you're trying to work on the housing.
Is that I want any one on housing? Yeah? I want to. I want to. I want to well because I want to get to the bottom. Like again, like I'm and this is where maybe I probably broadly in that sort of right You're definitely I'm in the right wing cluster. But where I do break probably the most off. And it's like an exumit like like the sort of directionally spherical count market arguments or are often like that. I agree, they can sometimes be missing a piece, but
it doesn't make them wrong, you know. And uh, and I think that often that it's hard. It's hard to think correctly about economics. It's not it's not intuitive, okay, And and and I think, like, but it doesn't make it wrong, right, like the things you know, and we can't we actually can't just like as much as I like your vibe checks and so on, we can't just get our way through everything like the times where we step back and think about things that really.
Yeah, I think the reason, the reason I'm so interested in in you know, thinking these things through is that you know, we are we are in the position of being the reserve currency of the world, and the global economy rests on our decision making like it does. And does that mean that you know, we have to sacrifice ourselves to keep them alive. No, that's not what I'm saying.
But like, it's super important that you get this right, like this, this wind down of US dollar as deserve currency, which will I think will is inevitable, not to say that it's imminent, but it is inevitable at some point, Like do you want to do you want to be Uh, in front of that, do you want to be a victim of it? Do you want to just have it happen as a consequence of debts that get untenable and
then you have either a hyperinflation or a default outright? Like, I think that there's real reason to be thinking these things through like thoughtfully, because less you end up in a world war or something you know, catastrophic. Do you do you have any concerns about that? Or do you not spend any of your time on it?
Uh? I'm I'm not. I'm not too much of a doomer. I'm like, I'm I'm like a things will you know, maybe get a little things will things will maybe get a little bit better. They won't change much, but they still they still could you know, things things change. The thing is when things change suddenly, it's it's often very unpredictable that it was gonna happen. You know, it looks predictable in hindsight, but it often wasn't here when you're and so you know, I don't I'm not someone who
believes that history is over. So I think we will still see, like you know, big changes and and big shake ups. I think that I think the AI stuff is by far, you know, going to be the most interesting thing.
Is this is a perfect perfect way to end it then, because you know you, people that aren't super familiar with you may not know that you're uh, you know, big tech background. What what is your expectation as to like what do you have any opinion as to the threshold by which it maximize? Mises like, do you think that this has the potential to actually replace artists and movie production and you know, just just obliterate all human endeavors.
It sounds as if you don't think so, but I'm is it possible?
Uh? Yeah? Like yes? And now uh, I think I think, I think things are going to change tremendously. I think that the idea that like, I think it's fairly likely that humans will still end up being in the loop for you for a long time. That I think things I think things will plateau, like I and probably already kind of are plateauing on this a little bit more
than people. I think my understanding of it, I attempted to kind of go through uh and get a better understanding of how it all worked from a technical perspective. I mean, this stuff is new, Like I went I did get a college degree computer science back in the David this they there's much different then. I'm old now, but I did try to go through. I read some of the old papers and and and tried to get up to speed. And I think like the core thing is it's effectively you can almost reduce it down to
it's it. There's a shockingly simple well not simple, you can reduce it. The insight, it's two things. It's like how much compute power are you throwing at at your the ll M that you're creating? And then what's the size? What's the body of work you know that you're that you're training it on. And part of why it's slowing down is like they've got it all, Like you know, this is these they've got, They've they've these agents have already been trained on like most of the Internet and
like all available texts that they can find. This is also why they're so good at I don't know if you've used them for this, Like they're shockingly good at understanding like laws and all this political stuff, like they are they understand an incredible amount and that's because they were able to suck down a bunch of bodies of text, uh you know, uh, you know about all of this. So I think it will plateau a little bit because
I don't think there's a ton more out there. And but what it can already do is so impressive that it's going to take that simply fine tuning it and and and the time it's going to take to propagate into all of these corners of our society and all of these areas of our society. I mean, my kids talk to a computer and like normal human language. It's like mind like, this was mind boggling that this would be, you know, possible five years ago. And yeah, yeah, I
mean it is remarkable. I will also say the same time, how normal it feels, right like, because I I use this stuff all the time, and it feels like it's already like it's like it worked its way into my head. And I'm like, oh, I had the AI. Like it's like a brain, you know, it becomes a part of your It becomes a part of you like a tool. Right, We're good at integrating tools. This is part of what's sort of special about being human. It just feels normal
now that this that I exist. But it's going to keep eating into all these various sectors of the economy, and it's going to go for a lot of things. We're gonna have to see how it plays out. I mean the optimist case is it becomes a tool that everyone can use and uh, you know, it allows people to force multiply and gets rid of things that that people didn't you know, have to do. So that would be that. Yeah, and we kind of talked about the
downside before. So but this is it's gonna be the biggest thing to change the world, I think, uh in the coming you know, decade or two.
Well, I totally agree. I mean, I think this is why I'm I'm concerning myself more with the plight of the the you know, the midwind American where like like, what are we going to do about these people? And you know, I care about them, like I know a lot of them. It's like I want I want to make sure that everybody is able to to contribute to society and have Yeah.
Well, so okay, that's not I don't have much from Atomrapher because I think that's a really good question because it gets back to like these sort of more fundamental philosophical questions. People are getting less religious, you know, what does it mean to lead a good life? You know,
what's the purpose of being here at all? You know, sound like you know, college like start or whatever, but like, hey, these are these are the these are kinds of the questions that uh, like it comes back to because you know, like, are we saying because I'm not saying that you're saying this,
but like, could it be an implication? Would it really be an implication that if if we could invent a technology that's simply like like made work you know, much less necessary, that we should say no just so we can continue to to what you know, what are these people and you know, and what would they say if
you ask them? Who's you know, these people whose jobs you're you're you know, you're you're you're trying you know, you're trying to protect so like and I think I think that like people won't also not that I trust, you know, like Sam Altman of all people, but you know this idea that like, even if there's massive returns to capital, like I don't think like billionaires are going to start like eating people for sport or like you know, hosting like hungered game. Like, Like I think that I'm
optimistic about the future. I think like it can we can be it can be a little bit like nerve wracking, but like generally, like the Internet was great, like the internal combustion engine was great, like technical technological innovation, like they've generally it's very very rare that we've regretted them, and I understand that this is like an one that should make us nervous and like rightfully, so I'm not trying to paint too like a two rose of a picture,
but like I think we should have baseline optimism that this will like ultimately make things better because it's really powerful tool. It's a cool tool for anyone who's used that. And so rather than being fearful, like I think we should, generally, it's better to like, you know, approach up from a place of of of of optimism, not like reckless confidence, but from a place of like.
Yeah, yeah no. And I I I mean, ultimately, I think I am optimistic. It's just that in the in the interim, I'm like, oh, it's gonna get rocky. But anyways, Jeremy, go ahead and tell people where they can follow you.
I'm approaching two thousand followers on x X dot COM's last Jeremy Coffin followers.
Yeah you said two thousand you passed.
Yeah, I think I'm technically racing you to beat reason, although you're gonna crush me. So, but I could use charity followers, please if you follow Clint, I need charity follows. Okay, I've gotta be I've gotta beat him. Uh. And then I'm very active in the New Hampshire Libertarian movement. Libertarians are winning uh in New Hampshire. So you know, if you think Trump's not going far enough, you know, New Hampshire might be the place the place for you.
Uh.
So come on out to Portfast this summer or any of the Free State Project events. It's we're taking over the government here in New Hampshire. We're gonna we're gonna drive them in the bathtub.
So I'm about to hop on the Tom Wood Show. You want me to ask Tom if you if you could join us?
Uh, I don't If he if he wants me on, I'm happy to come on. I feel like he normally does. Uh you know, one on ones. But yeah, I'm a I'm around.
Okay, let me let me ask him. I'll get back to you in like one minute, right.
All right, welcome to Liberty Lockdown.
Let's kind of your block hole, you liberty in come, but yeah, it's on hole. It's where did it come from?
And where did he