Buffett; Google; Latest on Tariffs; Gov Employment; Driverless trucks | Yaron Brook Show

One buffet, the CEO A Books of Halloway uh is built. This is a business with today more than one point one six trillion dollars. It's only it's the only non tech business that is worth over trillion dollars. I guess there's one other one, which is like the Saudi Oa company. But other than that, this is it the only non tech trillion dollar company anyway. One Buffett has every year his annual shareholder meeting, and during that meeting he has

thousands of people show up. I think the eighteen thousand people over the weekend, investors from all over the world, institutional investors, individual investors. CEO off Apple was there and he takes questions and they just do a lengthy ask me anything and questions about anything. He's been doing this for many, many years. He used to do this with Charlie Mange's partner, and Charlie died was last year, I think, at the age of ninety nine. One Buffett is ninety four.

And he answered question followers right and done this every year, and in this time with eighteen thousand people there. Just as this was winding down, he announced that this was actually his last annual shareholder meeting. He was retiring. He was leaving a CEO. He had chosen his replacement, greg Abel, who didn't know that Wan Buffer was going to announce this over the weekend, and and he bets it. He's he's walking away at age ninety four. I wam above

has had just a stunning career, a stunning career. And you know he started in nineteen sixty five. He was running at the time a small hedge fund. And you know, somebody at Berkshire. Berkshire was a small textile business in decline, like most textile businesses, I guess somebody he had bought a small stake in Bookshire and the owner had reneged on a deal and was pitched one Buffet off and

he bought the company. He basically bought the company, and from there he has turned Brookshire Had the Way into what can only be called the conglomerate. It owns multiple businesses in multiple business industries. It owns one hundred percent of these businesses. There's a lot of insurance companies. He purchased the first insurance company nationally Demnity nineteen sixty seven. Today it owns sixty different subsidiary businesses, all kinds of sizes,

all kinds of industries. You know, you probably know the Beg insurance company that it owns his Geico. But they own just a ton of businesses outright, and then these businesses are profitable, so they throw cash right out and then want Buffett uses that cash to make investments, not buying out outright companies, but making investment. He's a big investor in American Express, in Coca Cola. He was a big investor at some point in JP Morgan Chase. I think it was a city bank, one of the one

of the big banks. And then of course more recently we'll get to this invested in Apple and has sold much of his investment in Apple before the decline in Apple stock. Amazingly, Uh, when.

centy millionaires. People who invested in the stock and held it over many years have made a literally a fortune off of the stock. It's closing in on you know, it's eight hundred thousand. One day, it'll be in a million. It never it never has stock splits, although it does have another class of shares with smaller voting rights that you can buy for smaller denomination. They've never they paid

one dividend in nineteen sixty seven. They do not pay dividends, which is interesting in and of itself, And of the last sixty years, the stock has only declined in eleven of the last sixty and I think it outperforms. It performs pretty much any index you look up. It's just done,

you know, phenomenally well. And it it And for a company that's so well diversified, very very very very unusual, one Buffet himself is worth one hundred and fifty billion dollars for many years, for many years, it seems like.

replaces their management makes them better. Now. He buy his companies with great management who is convinced can grow and be successful that are very profitable, but he believes can be become even more profitable, and he holds them and his record is astounding. He likes brand names companies that have proven to be successful over the long term. That's why he's an owner, big owner of American Express in Coca Cola, both of which he's held for over two decades.

By the way, Coca Cola, he bought a big steak in Coca Cola. When do you remember, Well, most of you don't remember because you're too young. But Coca Cola in the eighties changed the formula and with new coke, and then there was a huge backlash. It stocked plummeted, and then it reverted back to the old coke and the old formula. Supposedly, although it changes his formula all the time. I hear well, it went down a lot

when the new coke came out. WM Buffett bought a big chunk of it and made a lot of money even in the early days. American Express is a business that's done phenomenally well. But then those are companies, those investments, other companies where he's bought outright, companies like Seize Candy, which he he bought for twenty five million dollars in nineteen seventy two. Today they generate two billion dollars in profits.

Two billion dollars in profits. He bought net Jets, the private Jet, fractional ownership company and leasing company Forest River, which manufactures with creational vehicles. He owns Dairy Queen, he owns Nebraska Furniture, mort helps It, Brooks Diamonds, Benjamin and more, Brooks Running Shoes. Actually, I think my Running Shoes A Brooks Running Shoes, and Dousell Batteries, and then many, many,

many more companies. The interesting thing is that in finance, you know, if you look at the theory the corporation, if you look at help businesses should be run. I'm actually gonna be talking about this in my course for the Peterson Academy. Conglomates don't make sense. It's impossible for one CEO to be good at managing sixty different businesses in different areas, in different fields. What makes Books and

How the Way run so well? What explains its success is one Buffet's ability to identify great managers and then step back and leave them alone and not try to manage them. He treats it as almost a passive investment. He does all the work of fund, does all the homework affront, and then makes the investment. He's missed some great opportunities. He had an opportunity to invest in Microsoft in the nineties. He had an opportunity to invest in

Amazon in the nineties and he didn't. Microsoft is a little surprising because he's really good friends with Bill Gates. They used to play Bridge online together and then they played in person as well. The only tech stock they ever bought was in twenty sixteen, they bought Apple. At the time, Apple was a huge company, and yet what warm Buffet identified was the customer loyalty, the potential for growth, and the fact that on a you know, they weren't

that expensive when you considered the opportunities for growth. He invested twelve billion dollars in Apple in twenty sixteen for six percent of the company, and that investment has yielded one hundred and fifty billion dollars in capital gains, So he more than ten Exter's investment in Apple, one of the biggest companies in the world at the time. He sold much of the Apple steak before the latest decline

in tech stock that has happened. I mean, much of what one Buffett has done is not what one would suggest to investors to do. He concentrates investments, he buys whole companies, He's diversified he's super diversified, and he's yielded amazing return. If I own books you had Away, I would sell, I would sell the probability that anybody as smart and able and good as I'm sure the guy who's going to replace him, is the probability that somebody could replicate what One Buffet has done. You know, I

just think is too small to justify the investment. I find it hard to believe that given the conglomerate, you know, lots of businesses, different businesses, Nature Bookshire had Away, that it can continue to perform in the market over the long run without One Buffet and Charlie Munger at the Helm. One Buffet always said Charlie Munger was the strategist. He was the guy who executed. You know, I think they

were both pretty brilliant individuals. One of the great things about One Buffet is he was always, you know, a straight shooter. He was optimistic, he was a real believer in America, real believe in American success, and he put his money where his mouth is. When during the financial crisis, when I can't remember which one of the banks was a Chase of City was, maybe it was. Both were

in trouble and the stock price had plummeted. Uh you know one Buffet bought a huge chunk, but buying a huge chunk express confidence in the banks, which ultimately generated I think a kind of others to buy the stock and to stabilize, to stabilize the market. So you know, Buffett has been an amazing force for good. Now. He is sadly not a Leslie capitalist. He is very much a mixed economist, a mixed mixed economy. But he and Charlie.

to the sixties. He drives the same car. He drives a beaten up car. He doesn't he doesn't use his wealth to enjoy material benefits, material values, which I think is unfortunate and sad. I think he's got a certain guilt associated with the wealth. He certainly believes. He's almost like he's read John Walls that his wealth is a

product of luck. I don't have quote in front of me, but he has a whole talk that he gives where he says, you know, I was born in the right century, I was born with the right genes, I was born to the right parents. I did nothing. It's my genes, basically. And you can see that if he doesn't believe that he earned it in a sense of it's him, he doesn't like to spend it because in a sense it's not his. So that's I think sad. I think the guilt part is sad. That not associated with himself is sad.

This is the evil of philosophy. But hey, all of that I put aside and just salute the guy for just an amazing track record as an investor, and an amazing philosophy as an investor, and the ability to stick to it and not to change, and not to go what's sexy and what's hot, and too willing to underperform certain years in order not to deviate from your strategy. So Charlie Manger died last year. Want Buffett retires this year.

To giants of American business, particularly of American finance, they will, I think forever be remembered as some of the greatest investors ever. All right, from that to another success story. But that is being tempered. You know, Google was found in the anti just case, found guilty of being a being a monopolist, even though it exhibits none of the behavior of a monopolist, and the judge admits that. But

any case, we've covered that before. Any case. Now, the Justice Department under Republicans under Donald Trump has has demanded that the company be broken up. And they're in front of a judge now and actually as we speak or or over this period, they are discussing. You know, there's a you have to the testimony before judge and then the judge makes the decision of whether to break the company up or not. Google can still appeal it, but it's a big deal if the judge side decides to

break it up. It's just a it's just a you know, just a horrible hobble example of the use of anti trust. Sadly, it's something that Trumpet administration is completely committed to. They're very opposed to big tech. They are strong believers in an aggressive antitrust regime. Uh, not just with regard to tech,

but with regard to other companies as well. I think Trump views anti trust, like almost everything else, as a means, but as leverage against companies, as leverage against CEOs, as a reason for companies to come and be nice to him. There's a big case right now with Capital One and Discover wanting to merge, and stories are Donald Trump is kind of holding this above Capital One, which I think debanked him at some point, and Trump issuing them, and

he's trying to get a settlement out of them. And part of what he's dangling in front of them is if you give me the settlement, I'll get the Justice Department to approve your merger. So Trump is as bad, if not worse than any other president when it comes to anti trust. The worst part is that he uses it. He uses it to blackmail companies, just like he uses tariffs just like he uses his power more broadly to blackmail people. And uh, this is not me being negative

and Trump, this is me being factual. Just just want to clarify, I mean, check it out. You can see story after story after story. Anyway, last week, the CEO of Alphabet uh Sunda be Chy uh testified, uh that you know, testified to the fact that the breakup of Google's Internet search search uh you know, would devastate the company's business model. It would hamper its ability to invest

in new technology. Uh and uh you know he he he, He said that the proposed remedies are extraordinary and unjustified and and and just wrong. He said that they would leave a company that's worth today one point ninety five trillion dollars with intellectual property that has no value because it will separate its businesses out the advertising from the search engine. It is the combination of what Google has,

which is where the value comes from. You start breaking it up, it's not going to be more valuable as pieces than the original company. The original company is as valuable as it is because of the intergration of these various features. As he said, and I quote him, a combination of all the remedies, makes it unviable to invest in research and development. So, I mean, this is a case that's been closely watched because, as we know, the

governor's trying to break up Facebook. Next up, they're going to try and go after Apple and you know, so they're definitely going up after the big tech companies and

wanting to bake them up. And even though Google lost the case, the hope is that the judge, realizing that it lost the case a pretty frivolous, pretty minor basis, that the judge is ultimately going to turn around and decide not to break them up, just as a judge in the Microsoft case in the nineteen nineties ultimately decided not to break Microsoft up and that saved the company. It's still stagnated for about ten years because it was put under what do you call it, under supervision of

a government bureaucrat for ten years, but it survived. I'm not sure Google can survive the breakup. And it's just such an injustice given how great the company is, everything that is achieved, all the benefits we receive from it, the employees, the shareholders, and anti trust is just theft. It's just outright middle of the day, not even in a dark alley, you know, destruction for the sake of destruction. It's not even theft. So we will see what remedies

the judge ultimately chooses. We will know that, I guess the next couple of months will probably know what is going on, all right, h So a few updates on Trump tariffs. It just gets worse. It just gets some bad to worse the worse, to awful, to hopable to to worse, to really really bad. So you know, so just to give you a few highlights. Over the weekend, the Churchy secretary how Lutnik said that he was ending the minimus the deminimus loophole in tariffs. The dominimus loophole.

Said that in the past, US customers could import eight hundred dollars worth of goods per day free of tariffs and any administrative fees. Right, and there's the first fuel the direct to customer trade, Like what do you call those Chinese? These companies that sell you stuff and will you get it directly? And you get the stuff direct from them and you don't pay any any customs, any tariffs, any transact, any administrative fees like TAMU or even on Amazon.

If there is a Chinese vendor on Amazon and you're buying from them, and it comes directly from China and it's worth less than nine hundred dollars, then you can just buy it. Tamu and Shane these are two of the big Chinese companies that have done very well in

the United States selling US chief stuff with no tariffs. Well, the loophole is being closed, so you know, I think starting immediately, you will have to pay the full tariff and everything that you buy, even if you buy something with ten bucks, you will then some way along the line. It's not clear where the tariff will be charged of you, because usually it's the importer that pays the tariffs. But I guess you are the importer, so you would have

to pay it. I'm not sure how you would pay it, where you would pay it, and the traumatization has not provided much guidance here, so uh, you know this this actually you know, it's not clear how it's going to involve customer and votive, you know, the customs agency. It looks like the shippers ups, FedEx, DHL, those guys will somehow have to collect the tiff from you and pay it to the Customs agency. It means stuff is going to be stuck in customs for longer. It'll be harder

to clear customs uh. And this is going to be just making our lives a little bit harder, in particular, significant tax on Americans, on poor Americans. It's a bigger fraction of their earnings. And it's gonna just make international shipping of anything, anything you want to ship internationally is now going to be a big hassle. You're gonna have to use a broker. They are gonna charge your fee.

You're gonna have to pay the customs tax. You will have to pay it directly, either through the BOCA directly, the broco directly. You might even have to go down to the Customs office or the or the BOCO will have to do it. I mean, this is how a lot of countries function. This is our status countries do it. Status countries who want to penalize their people for buying stuff overseas. This is part of the beauty of free trade.

You can buy from anybody anything you want, pay for the shipping, pay for the product, and that's it, and you're free to go. This is such an intrusion on our economic rights. It's such an intrusion on our choices. It's you know, truly horrific. M hm. So you know again, taosa just the dumbest economic policy possible. And Trump is not letting up. He's not letting up. So this morning it broke that Trump, I guess decided overnight he had

he had a two social tweet on this. You know, let's see if you can find this because I didn't copy paste it, and it's it's worth reading to you because it's, I mean, this guy's nuts and say, you know, I know I'm hurting some of your feelings, but he is. He is nuts. Here it is. So here's Donald Trump this morning. The movie industry in the America is dying a very fast death, dying all capitalized. Other countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw filmmakers and studios

away from the United States. Hollywood and many other areas in the United States are being devastated. While he cares about Hollywood, that bastion of leftists. This is a concerted effort by other nations and therefore a national security threat. I mean, what do you do with that? What do you do with that? It is an addition to everything else,

messaging and propaganda. Therefore, I'm authorizing the Department of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative to immediately begin the process of instituting one hundred percent tariff on any and all movies coming into our country that are produced in foreign lands, which is many, if not most, Hollywood movies. We want movies made in America again, all capital. I mean, this is just ridiculous, infantile. Sorry I'm calling Trump names again,

but it is tariffs on movies. And what is you know, Netflix brings in lots of foreign shows. Are they're gonna have to pay double now the one hundred percent tariff they're gonna pay attacks is my Netflix monthly? If you're gonna go up dramatically or all those fawn shows just gonna disappear from Netflix and I'll be stuck just with

American shows. What about you know, I'm missing Impossible, which is a very successful franchise, American film, very successful franchise, but a lot of the filming and producing is done overseas because part of the sets overseas they use you know, they jump off of real towers and some of those towers and not in America. What about the fact, yeah, the fact that because of the unions in Hollywood, it's very,

very expensive to shooting in Hollywood. So a lot of movies, a lot of movies are shot outside of the United States by American production companies, not because just the incentives that they're provided by foreign countries, but because laby unions in the United States have made it impossible to work in the US. What about the fact that California is really really expensive, makes shooting in California really expensive? I mean, I you know, you could vaguely understand, you could sympathize,

and this would be a lot less economically damaging. If Trump says I want to make American films again, I am going to subsidize. I am going to the government will write a check to every movie that is produced in the United States to compensate them for the high costs of making a movie in America. I mean, that would be awful, horrible, stupid government policy. But this is a thousand times worse and and hugely complex. What counts

is a movie being produced overseas. How many of the minutes have to be shot overseas to be counter produced overseas? It's and what happens if I mean Hollywood makes more money on its blockbusters when it sells those movies outside of the country, Like it might make five at a million in the US and there's seven hundred and fifty million outside of the country. What happens if other countries put on tariffs on American movies? Where do we go from there? Trade war over movies? And note there's a

massive and really incredibly potentially destructive precedent here. Historically we have only tariffed, taxed, We've only taxed physical inputs. But do we now want to get into a tariff war on services? Now? In services, the United States runs a massive subplus. It exports a lot more than it inputs. Indeed, in movies, I've got I've got the numbers here. In movies we export twenty two point six billion of movies and this is movies on television, and we import seven

point two So have a massive subplus in movies. And yet we're still gonna tariff the inputs. How does that make any sense? And now what about other services? And are we now going to incentivize other countries to teariff our services? You know, the US provides way too much of the chip design for computer companies around the world. Maybe Taiwan and Europe should you know tariff our chip design. We do a lot of consulting around the world. We do, I mean we American companies do a lot of financial

work around the world. Maybe we should tear iff that it really is stunning, and it would really is stunning. Here is It's like every day there's a new low. You think it can't get worse than this, It just can't, and then it does. You know, here's another one. And you know, I'm sorry to be devoting so much time to Trump, but this is the news, and Trump is the news, and tariff are the biggest economic issue facing America in decades, since the financial crisis, probably or since

COVID suddenly and then since a financial crisis. Here's Donald Trump on What is It NBC or ms NBC this weekend, again saying, quote, we were losing hundreds of billions of dollars with China, losing losing hundreds of billions of dollars. Now we're essentially not doing business with China, all right, We're not embargo, which is true. Therefore, with saving hundreds of billions of dollars, it's very simple. I don't know, just I'm gonna say it. The level of stupidity here

is mind boggling. It's mind boggling. Uh, this is the this is this is You cannot get dumber than this when it comes to analyzing trade. Right, when an American consumer, when you go to Walmart and you buy a TV made in China, you've lost money. And by not buying the TV, you're now saving money. But you don't have a TV. What's the purpose of money if not to enhance your quality of life by buying things like TVs. Money's not an end in itself. And you are better

off for owning the TV then having the dollars. And we know that because that's the choice you made about how to spend your money. But no, our central planner in chief doesn't want us to buy TVs, or if he does, he wants us to buy more expensive TVs made in I don't know, Korea or Japan, which also gonna be tariff but not quite as much as the ones in China. We've been losing hundreds of billions of dollars with China. Now we're essentially not doing business in China. Therefore,

we're saving hundreds of billions of dollars. It's very simple. There is no way to frame that argument in a even moderately rational, moderately reasonable, moderately makes sense. Whay. You know, as I said, there's just isn't there's just there just isn't. It's it's just you know, it just shows ignorance and stupidity, nothing more than that, there's no there there, There's nothing more. You want to be objective about that statement, the objective

objectivity demands. I want to say, that's like a really, really, really dumb statement. Remember boil this down to you buying a TV from China and then makes sense of that.

H So over the weekend, continuing on tariffs, over the weekend, UH Bessett, who is probably the sanest of Trump's advisors on trade, wrote a not bad in the Wall Street Journal, Uh trying to justify trying to justify the the the tariffs I mean and and he says, quote President Trump intends to usher in the most prosperous decade in American history, but not at the coast, at the cost of the spiritual degradation of the working class. Now again, what does

that mean factually? In reality, what does it mean? But not at the cost of the spiritual degradation of the working class. Who says that kind of stuff, that's aoc, that's Elizabeth Waughan. That's called Marx. That's mao. That's straight out of Carl Marx. The the alienation of the working class, the degradation of the working class. This is the kind of terminology. This is circutat bessett uh M. It's it

truly is I mean, just that use of language. It is stunning, stunning because of the how Marxist it actually is. Now here's the thing. In the op ed he says, you know we're gonna make We're gonna do this. We're gonna usher in this great period. Three things right. First, we're gonna use tariffs to negotiate deals to reduce trade barriers in other countries. But we know this is not indeed happening. When other countries have come to the United States and said, okay, we'll go zero taffs. Will you

go zero taps with us? The answer is be no. There is no deal on the table with anybody that actually reduces tariffs. Because Trump said the floor is ten percent, and ten percent is significantly higher than it used to be. We've got retaliation all over the place, and there's nothing. So this idea that when negotiating it seems at this

point to be completely bogus. Now we'll see, maybe maybe in the next few weeks, we'll get some really cool deals and you'll tell me, oh no. Now, by the way, when Trump first initiated the tariffs, when he first started talking about it, I think there was a real opportunity to cut deals. But that's not what he wants, and he didn't cut any deals. And now, oh, he has alienated and pissed off so many people, so many other countries.

They're not going to be any deals. And partially they're not going to be any deals because here's the second claim, the best it makes about tariffs. Now this isn't Wall Street John over the Weekend. So this is the latest greatest arguments after these arguments are been debunked over and over and over again. So here's the second claim that tarifs are needed for national security because of reshoring and

raising substantial revenue. Now I've gone through the math with you that raising substantial revenue cannot and will not happen. Isn't enough trade to bring in substantial revenue. And if you raise tariffs to China level one forty five, it basically has Trump admitted over the weekend, it's basically like an embargo. There's no trade. Trade goes to zero. If trade goes to zero, how much revenue do you generate from the tariffs? Zero? Zero times any number is zero,

So actually revenue goes down. And a ten percent tariffs if the inputs just stay exactly the same as they used to be, which were very high according to Trump, you get no substantial revenue. And the reality is that on showing doesn't happen. Terraffs did not create on showing. Quite the contrary. Because of tariffs, A lot of the parts that I need to know to assemble this thing that I sell all around the world is everything is

not more expensive. I can go to Mexico where I get that same part it's significantly cheaper, and export from there. And yeah, my American market will suffer a little bit because I'll have some exports to America, but I'm not staying in America. The idea of on showing is going to happen. The idea that if we had, if we take this economy into recession. We're gonna unsure companies is just bogus. And by the way, and here's the most important one. This is the opposite of we're gonna get

great trade agreements. Because if you're gonna get great trade agreements, then that means that companies will continue to build overseas and sell to America, and now tarras are gonna be a lot lower and all. And what we will do is export more to these other countries. But revenue is gonna go down because we've got a trade deal, and unshowing is not gonna happen because we'll continue to import it.

Let's say we got to deal with Vietnam tomorrow, zero terrists both directions, Well, Vietnam might export import most stuff from America, but we'll continue to input from as much as we do now maybe even more. No reshowing happens. So the goal of deal making and the goal of reshoring, and the goal of increased revenue all contradict each other. So if it's needed for national security, then why would you get deals. You want to keep the tarists high.

So all these industries come back to the United States because because because it's national security. Next best. It claims that the tasks can be viewed in oscillation. Rather, they're interlocking parts of a three piece engine, including deregulation and tax cuts. But again there's a problem we've made. There's no tax cuts yet seen anyway. Congress is still bugged down with a budget, and the tax cuts offered in Congress are basically just a continuation of tex cuts that

were achieved in twenty eighteen. There's no new tax cuts. I mean, they were a little bit like a tips and a Social Security but those haven't passed yet because Congress doesn't know where to find the money for those tax cuts. It doesn't know it can't decide what to cut, so very little on tax cuts. Deregulation is piece me a little best. And so we've only got a tariffs, which are tax increased huge And how do they interlocke, how do they work together? How did they reinforce one another?

They just don't. You could do tax cuts and deregulation without tariffs, and just those two would be super good, so much better then if you add tariffs to the mix. That is, tariffs suppress whatever success you could get from deregulation and tax cuts. Of course, cutting taxes without kind of spending is a waste of time. But there they go. Anyway, we now have tariffs and the deals on no materializing. We'll see they promise us a deal this week. We'll

see what it looks like. I wouldn't be super excited about it. And meanwhile, you know, Trump is becoming less or less popular because of this tax cut and as good stud disappearances shelves in about a week or two, and as prices start going up they already are, but they're going to do more of that, and he can't get the tax cuts. Then what happens Then Americans are just paying a lot more on everything, a lot more

taxes and everything else. So I mean, this is about a poorly constructed a strategy as one has ever seen. You know, this is really unique. Now, Trump hass said that he's willing to lower tariffs on China at some point, because he says the levels now are so high that there's just no trade between America and China. True, your fault, nobody else's. So you know, when is he going to say this? Every time he says he's going to cut tarist,

the markets go up. But he says, quote at some point, I'm going to lower them because otherwise you could never do business with them, and they wanted to do business very much. Yeah, so do Americans want to do business with the Chinese. But this is kind of the arbitrariness of everything and the randomness. At some point, I'll do it. You guys in the meantime, small businesses who are waiting to find out what's going to happen, whose lives depend

on this, you can wait. We'll let you know. But in the meantime, I'll decide completely arbitrary, completely to be asked of one guy, one person. And you know, on top of that, he says, in terms of the negotiated deals that they say are coming, he says, we're negotiating with many countries. But at the end of this, I'll set my own deals because I set the deal, they don't set the deal. You keep asking the same question, what will you agree, I'm not gonna you know, it's

basically saying I'm not gonna agree. I'm gonna dictate. It's up to me, it's not up to them. That's a great way to enter negotiation. I'm going to demand things and to hold with them. I mean, this is his words. I was on Destiny's show today. I was on Destiny Show and we talked for I don't know about now and a half and we talked about Trump, and we

basically agree about Trump. And you know, one of the things I said was, you know, Trump makes it easy because you don't have to interpret actions, you don't have to find reasons. You know, he just tells you. He tells you exactly what he believes, he tells exactly what he thinks, he tells you exactly what his intention is. It's just he you know, he's plain spoken and direct, and you just understand right right here it is it's up to me, it's not up to them. Now, imagine

other countries. I mean, this is why Japan supposedly walked away from the negotiations. It's like they don't negotiate with us, and it's not clear what they want from us. It's gonna be interesting. The deals they come up with are gonna be interesting, all right. Finally, as I said yesterday, there will be ways to get around these tariffs. So Chinese exporters, for example, already stepping up efforts efforts to avoid tariffs by shipping their goods via third country to

conceal their true origin. Now they'll still have to pay the ten percent, not one hundred and forty five. Chinese social media platforms are washed with adverts offering place of origin washing, while an inflow of goods from China has raised alarm in neighboring countries of becoming staging posts for trade actually destined for the United States. So you know, go to Vietnam, change the label. Now it's made in Vietnam.

Now you only paid the ten percent tariff. Although we'll see what happens with the reciprocal taffs later on, and you can get away around the thing. That's all true, that's all true. But for those of you who defend tariffs, isn't this kind of stupid that we have to go through all of this? Doesn't again this make the goods more expensive? And why why is any of this necessary? What's the purpose? Why are we doing this? What is the goal? Where are we heading? There was no answer

because this is just pure irrationality, just pure irrationality. Anyway, I'm looking forward to one hundred percent teriff on foreign made movies. I'm gonna get my consumption of farn made TV shows and movies done with as quickly as possible. Watching a show on Apple TV about the first celebrity chef who was also a spy during the Napoleonic era in France. So yeah, get it's in French, So get that viewing done before prices go up one hundred percent.

Why would they go up one hundred percent to save American movie making? Oh and by the way, yeah, we'll wait with that all right, let's see. Yeah, government employment, this is kind of interesting. You know, we've gone through Doge and from everything I've read, like Dog fired people left and right, and hundreds of people, thousands of people

have lost their jobs and have left. Now the numbers aren't going to give you might be just an issue of timing, and maybe if we do this in a month or two or three or four, this will look different. And certainly those employees that I guess are only going to be off payroll at the end of the year but left their jobs now something like that, we'll only be counted at the end of the year. So we'll look at these numbers again at the end of the year.

But right now, as of the Friday's jobs report, it reported that there were two million, three hundred and eighty nine thousand, four hundred employees government employees federal employees at the end of April twenty twenty five. If you look at the end of April twenty twenty four, this is Joe Biden, it was two million, three hundred and eighty

eight thousand, eighthundred. So if you do the math on this, it looks like we have had an additional six hundred employees in the federal government over the last year, when I thought we were cutting thousands and thousands and thousands of them. It's truly astounding and truly astounding where those jobs have gone. I'm curious it would be it would be great to see an accounting of the actual jobs lost. There's actually right now one hundred and ninety three thousand

more federal civilian employees than on Obama. As I told you, government spending is not down on a month to month basis. It's still going up relative to last month and relative to last year. So I'm not sure where these cuts that dog is talking about actually are in terms of employees and in terms of budget. Maybe they'll manifest themselves later in the year. I'll keep track of it. If I was wrong, or if they actually will get significant cuts. I will let you know. But here's a kind of

an interesting story. Right, So Atrominary Station is planning on significant personnel cuts at the CIA, another major US spy units. It wants to downsize the National security agencies. It intends to reduce the CIA workforced by by twelve hundred personnel over several years, and cut thousands more from other parts of the US intelligence community, including the NSA. Okay, this is the priority. Don't touch the security, don't touch Medicare, Medicare.

But okay, let's cut the CIA. Let's catch you NSA. Just as we're declaring that China is a threat to the United States, well, of China's threat to the United States, wouldn't we increase surveillance, wouldn't we increase spying? I mean, the reality is that rush that China has a bigger

hacking program than every other major nation combined. In fact, if you took every single one of the FBI's cyber agents and intelligence analysts and focus them exclusively on China's threat, China has fifty times more hackers, fifty times more hackers than the FBI has in defending US. But we have too many people in our intelligence services. We have to cut them back. This administration's priorities of bamboozling just it's hard to understand it. It's hard to figure out what

they're thinking, why they're doing what they're doing. And they keep talking about national security and cutting national security, talking about national security and then eliminating national security rated jobs. It's just it really is. Bewildering is the word, you know, if if you don't want to come to you know,

more outrageous conclusions about this administration. It's it's maybe maybe they have some grand strategy that I'm not aware of, by which, yeah, I don't know by which what, I don't know how that happens, all right, I'm looking for something, all right. So I just wanted to mention that we're now opening up Alcatraz. So Trump is rebuilding open Alcatraz. For too long, America's been plagued by vicious, violent, repeat criminal offenders, the dregs of society who will never contribute

to anything than other misery and suffering. When we were most serious nation in past times, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals. I think we still do, just not an Alcatraz because it was not an efficient place to do it. I am directing a Bureau of Prisons, together with the Barn of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt Alcatraz, the house America's most ruthless and violent offenders. We will

no longer be held tostage to criminals. Are we being held hostage to criminals? The reopening of Arcatraz will serve as a symbol of law, order and justice. It suddenly will serve as a symbol of something. Reopen Alcatraz make America great again by taking I guess some of the most beautiful and valuable real estate maybe in the world. Right. The views in Alcatraz are amazing. Imagine building condos and Alcatraz.

I don't know if you've ever been to Alcatraz, but it has this amazing view of the Bay, of the Golden Gate Bridge of downtown San Francisco, but the entire bay and the boat both, you know, the number of bridges. It's just stunning. And of course, what you really would want to do there is build luxury condos, which would help lower the cost of living in San Francisco, because you'd increase the availability of housing, and instead we're gonna take this amazing piece of real estate and remake it

into a jail. Yeah, makes no sense. All right. Finally some good news. We are going to have driverless trucks on our highways. We already have it on one US highway. We have an autonomous trucking company Aura. It is now operating along a stretch of Texas Highway between Dallas and Houston. It plans to expand the driverless trucks to ten trucks by the end of this year. Other startups bought Otto and Wabi Wabbi Innovations. They're both saying that they're aiming

to launch driverless trucks later this year. Several other companies have targeted launch dates over the next two years. I mean, this is significant news. Now. I hope that it makes sense to do it that it you know, I fear that it's over a segment of the highway, so they have to unload the truck or switch or driver steps in after they reach a certain point. Whatever the case is. The fact is that this is a step in the right direction. It is going to make our highways a

lot safer. It's going to make the delivery of goods cheaper. It's going to make things, I think generally, things a lot better. And this is the beginning of the driverless revolution, which I think is is very cool and very positive and has the potential to remake, you know, the way Americans you know, are transported, and it has the real potential of saving thousands, tens of thousands of lives on the roads because driver less cause far, far, far safer than, uh,

than these trucks. We already have driverless cause in a bunch of cities in the United States because of Waymo. Tesla is saying that they will launch driver less taxis in Austin, Texas in June. I think there are other companies that are going to launch driverless taxis in other cities around the country. Uh. Trucks is huge because when trucks get into accidents, people die. So if we can make trucks safer, we make out, you know, our lives for all of us significantly safer. Oh right, Uh, that

is the news for May fifth, Monday, May fifth. I didn't talk about dolls and uh and pencils. You know. Now the government is gonna you know, dictate how many dolls and pencils we have or what's acceptable or what's a okay? You can't have too many dolls, like three is like enough? And pencils only five. You don't have to twoun and fifteen pencils, according to Donald Trump. So this is again from his interview over the weekend. I mean, every one of these interviews becomes a classic gem. I

don't know if you saw the interview. I think I talked about this way. He described the Declaration Dependence as a document about love and unity, and he had some other zingers, some other amazing quotes from that interview. So every time they go out and interview Trump on these lengthy interviews get you get a look deeper and deeper into into what into that empty skull? Oh right? And you know, I think that there's some better people around him, not many, but if you trying to somehow move this

in a positive direction. But they're not getting anywhere so far, and I don't see it going out. Yesterday I was optimistic. Today I'm back to my more normal because it's just I just don't see how it turns positive unless he capitulates, which you could. It's quite possible. It just capitulates on all these things and just says, whoops, I always meant to capitulate, So don't worry. Make America great again and everybody wire loving for it, so that is the best

outcome we can expect. And then he will shift his focus to something else. And that's scary because anything he shifts his focus to it can't be good because there's there's no there there. There's there's no good goodness there, there's no good ideas there, there's just nothing. All right, let's see, I'm curious, did you guys see the destiny thing? Is it up already? Matt's asking me a question about it. I didn't think it was up yet, So is the

Destiny thing up? So we didn't. It was interesting, we didn't go deep. There were opportunities for that, and he kept walking away from them. It seemed like he didn't want to argue. He didn't want to challenge me on anything. Every time I said something where I disagreed with him and went into it, he kind of said, uh, okay, and no pushback. Oh, you watched the stream live? Where did its stream live? So how do you how can you see it live? Because it wasn't a YouTube live?

So oh, he said he was tired today. I took a nap directly after. I mean, I think the best thing about it was it introduces me to his audience, and it opens it up for me to contact him when there's something interesting going on in the world and we can and it's worth talking about. So it was live on his YouTube channel, and then he takes it off when he's done, not like me, who leaves it up. And I guess that does, puts the thumbnail and everything

again and then releases it again. Because I noticed that there's no he doesn't have live videos on it, so that that was interesting. Anyway, I was on the show. We mostly we agreed. When we disagreed, he didn't want to push back at all. I'm curious did he say anything afterwards? Did he like it? Did he comment on it? Did he say no, that was stupid? Did he what did he say at the end of the at the

end after I left. But you know, i'd like to you know, even when I say something about rational egoism, he says, yeah, in my personal life, I'm kind of an enlightened you know, enlightened self interest. I believe in that. I'm I'm self interested it was like he wouldn't let me, he wouldn't agree to disagree. So on on Israel Palestinians. We kind of disagreed on some of the stuff, but he wouldn't push back on the stuff. I said, like, I had to go. He said, oh, I disagree with that,

and I had to go, what is it? What do you disagree about? It was very He was very passive in that way. It seemed to seemed it was very strange. So Matt says, he said there were policy things he disagreed with that he could have gone deeper on but

was too tired. Too. Well, that's that's not great. Well, I think that leaves an opening too for me to go back to him on a particular issue, right on a particular issue and policy, and then try to broaden it from that to a more deeper discussion, hopefully when he's not tired. Hopefully when he's not tired. Right, all right, let me remind everybody that this show is sponsored by it's made possible by you, by the listeners and the views of the show. There is no other, you know,

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you have already. I really really appreciate it. We've increased our Patreon numbers nicely over the nest over the last few over the last couple of months, but we're still you know, it would be nice to get more of you guys supporting the show on a monthly basis, on a regular basis, at any level you want, I particularly, you know, it would be really really helpful if those of you can afford to do one hundred to fifty five.

Hundred would do at those levels, but anyway from two to twenty five to fifty all of those are great. So please And for ten dollars you get the podcast like podcast audio only with no advertising. You get a feed from Patreon, and you get the podcast with no advertising. I think that's worth just that, it is worth the ten dollars that you provide on a monthly basis, So please consider doing that. What else did I want to say? Yes, Alex Epstein is a sponsor of the show of all

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all pay for much of the expenses. So go to iinran dot org slash start here if you're a student of objectivism. If you study objectivism seriously, if you're interested in the ideas in a serious way, apply for scholarship at Einman dot og slash dot here. So, yeah, Matt says, I wanted you guys to go deep into the whole idea of Kelly Civilians. I baited him on it. I said, you have to defeat the Palestinians, have to bring them to their knees. And it's like he didn't take the bait.

I kept baiting him on stuff loz if, capitalism, war stuff, you know, what do you call it? Enlightenment reason A baited him on rational egoism, and he just wouldn't take the bait. And I'm not going to force a debate. I'm not going to force disagreement. And then again on economics, I kept pushing, no, that's just not true. In a free market would solve that. And even in his companies are too big. I pushed back, but he didn't want

to get into it. So anyway, view this as an introduction to his audience, not to you for his audience. And he left it or open for me to contact him if I ever wanted to talk about something. So next big issue, next big thing that comes up, or if you guys have something specific you think it would be great if I comment on his show, then let me know and I will go on Destiny again. It's he left me an open invitation to come back again, so we'll do that. We'll do that. All right. We

have basically made our first hour's goal. But we're in the second hour already, so there's another two hundred and fifty dollars to do. So coming over, ask questions, do stickers do the stuff you do to to pay to pay value for value for the show that we're getting, all right, and Patreon, don't forget Patreon. Patreon important. And if you're not a subscriber, subscribe, and anyway you should like the show, like the show before you leave. All right,

all right, let's see, let's see. We've got some questions, not a lot, and the ones that we do have mostly five and ten dollars ones. All right, but Chasbad did fifty dollars, Thank you, Chasbad. The situation with Trump reminds me of an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation. Some aliens kidnapped Captain Picard and replaced him with a doupled ganger who then orders the ship to collide with the star just to see if the Cup would do it. Yeah, and somebody's pulling a real joke on us because I

think the crew would do it. I mean, Trump's Cup will do whatever he says. They don't speak back to him. It's you know, he is pretending he is the dictator of North Korea. Well, the people are not that subseivient and that obedient, but the people who surrounded himself are the North Korean type people. And it's pretty scary stuff.

Pretty scary stuff. Yeah, okay, John, If life and property rights are the standard, is it moral to deny IP protection for life saving procedures so doctors can use them without consent? I think the IP laws for creative techniques should be enforced. Do you agree. Yeah. I mean, you cannot, in the name of protecting life deny somebody their property. That is, you cannot violate somebody's right to property in order to protect somebody else's right to life. Rights don't conflict.

So the person who needs the medical procedure does not have a right to other people's stuff. He does not have a right to receive a treatment in violation of somebody else's property rights. So absolutely, IP is crucial. Now, I'm not an expert on whether the IP should be about technique, so about I don't know. I don't have an opinion about, you know, the specifical here. That's a good question for Adam Ostaff. But the idea of violating

IP because somebody's life is a stake not acceptable. You don't. I mean, there's always somebody starving someway and you could take my money and feed them, and you have no right to my money. Need, as Adam says in the chat, is not a claim you can trade. The fact that you need it does not give you a claim to somebody else's stuff, to somebody else's effort, to somebody else's

brain power, ip hop A Campbell. Do large companies like Walmart and Amazon actually like food stamps, medicaid, housing assistants, and other public programs because it allows them to keep their labor costs lower as taxpayers subsidize the difference. No, absolutely not. The reality is that if there wasn't any food stamps, housing assistance, and public programs, then the cost of everything would be dramatically lower and people could afford

with the same labor costs could afford their living. That is, it's all these programs that the government engages in which drives cost up. And you know you can just selectively choose those. It's housing regulations and the million other things the government does. So it's I mean, and the reality is that what government does, the redistribution of wealth, the regulations, the controls, all all have an effect of lowering a standard of living, which means raising cost and reducing productivity,

so reducing wages and increasing costs. So no, I don't think that Walmart and Amazon like this. Although I don't know what Walmart and Amazon are thinking, but they shouldn't like it. It wouldn't be rational for them to like it. It's not in their self interest. Imagine a world in which we didn't have where we had Lasafia capitalism. People would be so much richer. Amazon would have so much

more business, not less business. Michael, You notice some depressed people shut down and give up, and other depressed people are hyper productive. I think dictators are the second, always working to attain more and more power to evade an unvariable mental state. Yeah, but I don't know if that mental state is depression, right, I think they want to accumulate more and more power because, yes, there's some void that they have that this is trying to fill. I

don't think it's depression necessarily, but it's something. It's something empty inside of them that they're constantly fighting to get on top of and they can't. It doesn't go away because power doesn't give you what they're missing, which is self esteem, And it can't give you self esteem. It gives you pseudo self esteem, which only then encourages you to do more and more and more, which reduces your ability to have self esteem more and more and more.

So Yeah, anyway, that's uh, that is that is psychologically part of what motivates them. I'm sure there are many other things. Some dictators have severe piers of depression, but others don't, you know. I don't know if Trump ever gets depressed. Not that he's a dictator, but he would like to be. But so I don't know if other dictators were depressed. I don't know. I don't know enough about the psychology of dictators. All right, Michael, Every Angentinian

I speak with absolutely loves me. Lay, why doesn't the right get it? Radical freedom agenda will be popular if you have a candidate who acts on principle the populist fascist thug. He is losing strategy. Yeah, but it depends what your goal is. If your goal is power, then I mean Milaya is divesting power. If your goal is inculcating all young kids with Christian values, again, a shrinking government will not facilitate that. If your goal is to win the culture war and to help with the economy,

then Malaya's strategy doesn't really change that. So you assume that the right goal is aid to be popular and be to you know, increase economic success. But it's not clear that those are the goals at all. The goal isn't culcated into America a certain philosophy, a certain point of view, morality, and they believe they can only do that by capturing the is a power, and it's also about power. And it's also by the way, about I hate deficits, I don't like trade deficits, and I want

to balance the trade. I won't balance trade. It's about the fantasies of the people running the Republican Party. So why don't they get it because it's not the it that they're looking for. It's not the it that they're interested in, and they will rationalize that. They say, well, America is not Argentina. You know, we don't face as a bat of a situation. We don't need to be as radical. They'll say, you know, we have a working class, we've all had industry. Argentina is just a dump. Who cares.

I mean, there's lots of things they can say. Argentina and America very different, and they will emphasize those differences to justify not treating them the same. Guys, I have a ton of time today. We could actually go on into the third hour if you ask questions, particularly twenty dollars and above questions, if you ask questions. But I'm gonna be done soon in spite of fact that I

have time. That'd be a shame, John. We're born blank slates conceptually, but physiologically we are partly shaped by ancestral choices like diet, environment, over time. I mean we're basically physiologically, we are, you know, determined by our genes, and those genes are shaped to some extent by diet, by environment. Our genes also shaped by a natural selection. And therefore, yeah, we're all different physically, and that is being determined by

how natural selection is played out among our ancestors. Of course, the most sophisticated human beings are become the less the less. Evolution affects us in a sense, right, So if we have a gene that makes us susceptible to certain disease, we can edit it out and then not pass it on to our children. You know, in the past, what food we eat determined how tall and how strong we were.

But now we can all eat good diets everybody, and therefore that becomes you know, in a truly less if a capitalist world, everybody has enough food everybody can choose, and you know, so food nutrition doesn't become an issue anymore. So a lot of the force that environment plays on us, we shield ourselves from it by you know, living in some places might be too hot for you, I don't know, giving your skin color, you're really white, and every time

you go into the sun you burn easily. Well, we have sunscreen and we have air conditioning, and you know, so we have all these things that shield us on our environment and shield us from even from our jeans, and won'tly gonna get better at that? Liam? Can you post the link to your talk with Destiny this morning,

couldn't find it. Yeah, I don't have it. So you know, at some point he will post it on his channel, and so I always just look at his YouTube channel, and you know, I don't think it's there yet, or maybe it is. I don't know. But supposedly he takes one, he does them live, and he streams them and then he takes it off, he cleans it up, and then he puts it up again. So if you go to this channel, there's no live tab like my channel has life tab. Well, my life shows up. He doesn't have

that right because he doesn't keep the live shows. He republishes them. And maybe that's what I should do. Maybe that's a better strategy. Once the thumbnail is there, republished them. I'll talk to my talk to Christian about that. Maybe that's maybe that's the right strategy. I'm looking to see. I don't see him posting. I don't see him having posted it yet. I mean, do you see do any of you guys see it? Millslap posted it in the chat, But how did how did Millsta post it? Is it

to a private link? I don't know where mills Love got the link from mills Love Whe's mills Love. Oh there it is. Yeah, there it is, chatting with you on book chilling. So it's just a chilling episode. And now in forty eight minutes. Yeah, I'll post it again just in case. Yeah, I mean, uh, I think it was good as a as an intro. But and I guess it's still unlisted, but it still has to the

thousand and six and eighty four views. I didn't notice that the number of followers on Twitter went up a little bit, so some of those people followed me on Twitter. It would be nice if YouTube subscriptions went up a lot once he publishes this, But I have I have no idea. I have no idea if that will happen

or not. That would be nice, all right. James Alex Epstein seems to have really influenced Richard Hannania and Peter til Even though they haven't been thoroughly convinced of objectivism truth, they take it seriously. Now, well that's not exactly accurate. And Peter TiO took objectivism seriously as taking objectivism seriously at least for fifteen sixteen years. That's way before Alex

was introduced to him. I met Peter Tiel in two thousand and nine, I think eight seven, somewhere around that period, maybe maybe ten. Anyway, just after the financial crisis, I met Peter til A beat his house several times. We discussed objectivism several times. I think I told you this story. So Peter two used to have these events at his house, dinner parties in a sense. At his house we'd invite a major intellectual and bring his pet palm off your

friends and have a discussion. And he invited me, and this is a month after they had Milton Friedman, So that was that was a pretty impressive And I had him and a bunch of the PayPal guys, uh and and we went at it for like three hours, and he was very interested. And later on he he contributed to Dineman Institute. And so no, Peter Teel's me taking objectivesm seriously a long time. Richard, Yeah, no question. Alex has had a real impact on Richard Haran and that's good,

but as you said, they haven't taken it completely. And uh yeah, Richard Harnania has become he's certainly very very good on Trump, and he's very very good on a number of issues. We'll see over time if he can stick with it without because he changes. He has moved quite a bit. Kenny, stick to it without an standing objectives of mortality. So I'll give Alex credit for it. Hanania, I think he only gets partial credit for Peter Teel Again, Peter Tell read at La Shrugged in the nineteen eighties

and has been engaged with the Institute. He had a long, three four hour meeting with talts Fani a few years ago, So you know again, So on enough, Clark, It's not like the Republicans won. Both parties lost. Trump won. Well, the Republican Party is Trump's party. Republican Party is Trump. You can't separate them anymore. Maybe you could once, can't separate them anymore, Clark, The Hitler cult eventually broke a part, so will the Trump cult. Failure makes evil movements dissipate.

In our case, it won't take a world war. I think that's right. I think that's right. But this is the challenge. Would what will replace it? Given the state of the culture, a culture willing to engage in a Trump cult, what is going to replace a Trump cult? And are we going to swing way to the left.

Are we going to get some kind of moderate centrist Are we going to swing way to the Christian nationalist right or or is this going to discredit jd Vance and Josh Hawley and the Integralists and the National Conservatives so much that that is finished? Or are we going to be Yeah, you know, this is the question. I agree Trump will be over. Trump is going to fail. And the question is then what and how do we

prevent this from getting worse? And I think the number one way to prevent it from getting worse is to trash Trump and everything he stands for as much as possible, and to link him as much as possible to the National Conservatives and religious conservatives. This is a horrific movement and if the right can come up with something better, great that we should not support any movement of the right that embraces any of these ideas. And but it's it's how it evolves. I don't know, it's going to

be interesting. Would you consider an interview on Don Junior's show? Sure, but he'll never have me on. There's no way he would have me on. I mean he had Alex on, and Alex did a good job of diplomatically in a non confrontational way, really criticize the tariffs and don let him do it. He didn't stop it from doing it. I mean, I think going on a show would I would not be diplomatic, and I would not be I would be a lot more forthright, and it would be

interesting if you would let me on. You know, I don't think he'd take me, given my hostility to Trump and Maga. Why would he? Why would he? Why would he have me on the show. There's no value for him to have me on the show. So I would do it if he invited me. Do you think Trump gave Israel the green light to do COVID operations incide Iran just to uh to to would it bonneed outright, burn it outright? I doubt it. I doubt that Israel asked.

I think they probably didn't ask. They would be afraid that he would say no. Generally, everything I'm reading from Israel suggests that the government is very unhappy with Trump, and and UH worried about Trump's relationship with Israel. Uh And I think they wouldn't ask. They asked about Iran because they had to and they needed US assistance. If they are burning down Iran now, they're doing it without US assistance and I don't think they would ask not

your average algorithm. Could the Great Depression have happened without Smooth Holly tariffs? Did the Federals of alone create the sustained collapse? Yeah, basically it could have happened without Smooth Holly. Wouldn't have been as deep, wouldn't have been as bad. But the reality is that Hoover also raised income taxes, so he did more than just smooth Holly. Hoover generally

was very, very bad. He created a banking crisis, and then the banking crisis got worse because speculation was that FDR would take us off the gold standard, which he did, and then if the odd did a bunch of things that were not helpful to get us out of the Great Depression and in some ways deepened it. So we still would have had it some kind of depression, but a lot less a lot, and it wouldn't have been global to the same extent. One of the things that

Smooth Holly did is it exported the Great Depression. It spreaded around the world. Thoughts on Robert Breedlove I don't like giving thoughts on other people. I mean, he's an anarchist, you know what I think of anarchism. I think he's obsessed with bitcoin. I'm not a huge fan of bitcoin. But he's been right so far. He's made a lot of money. Can't argue with putting your money where your mouth is and making a lot of money at it.

So he has some positive views of iron Ran. He doesn't quite understand Ironran, but he has some positive views of Iran. But his anarchism leads him to be anti Israel and have a hobble phone policy. Yeah, and anarchists I just bad thinkers. They're just not very good thinkers, and it corrupts one's ability to think straight about these kind of about issues. But he's treated me well, and I've been on to show him a few times, and we've talked about Ironman's ethics in particular, and that's all

been good. And he did a reading I guess of the money speech, which is quite good. So, you know, and to say it's Trump's Justice department doesn't give doesn't that give credence to Trump's claim that Biden's Justice department used law fair on him? Are the independent? Well, the Justice departament is supposed to be independent, and the most presidents they have the pretense of independence. Whether it's completely independent or not is debatable, but they at least pretend

or at least make the argument that they're independent. That has been the case, and that certainly was the case with Biden. That Justice Varmer was supposed to be independent. Actually, the Justice Bardment appointed a a what do you call it, an independent whatever to go after Biden's son, And so it was the Justice von Roof any other president that I know of, including Richard Nixon, was considered independent of the presidency in the sense that he could investigate him.

The difference is that Trump doesn't even pretend. Trump just says, these are my lawyers. They'll do what I say. They'll investigate who I want them to, and they won't investigate what I don't want them to. So he takes all the pretense out of it. And plus he's made it a thousand times worse. That is, I think that most Justice departments, even the one under Trump the first time around, the head of the Justice Department tries to be independent.

This is why, if you remember, the first secretary under Trump in twenty seventeen was a former senator who who But it's not just pretending, it's reality. So and Trump fired many of his Justice secretary because they wouldn't do exactly what he told him to do. So it's not pretend, it's you know, it's it's real. There is an element of influence, it has to be he, you know, the

president is their boss. But for the most part, they're independent, and they've investigated their own bosses, and they've investigated things the boss didn't like. And you can go back to Watergate, you can see that. But you can even go to the first Trump administration where he basically told his Justice Department to investigate all the fraud in the election, and they came back and said there was no fraud in

the election, and he got pissed off at them. Now, Bondi would not come back to him and say there's no fault in the election. At most, she would say we're still investigating, but she would invent fraud if she needed to. So right now, the Justice Department is a brain branch of the Trump propaganda machine. It's a branch of the Trump advocacy machine. And that we have never seen in American history. Has never been a Justice apartment that has that has been so unindependent as this one.

When I said, pretend I meant in the past they've tried to be independent and slipped into dependency. This time, they're just all in on whatever Trump wants. They'll do whatever Trump wants, They'll go after wherever he wants. And that's never been the case. Now. Was their law fair against Trump? There was in the state of New York, that one case in particular where they accused him of. I mean, it was something that you wouldn't be tried for. It was emol it was bad business, it was unjust,

and it was even illegal. But it's not something you prosecute somebody not criminally for miss uh miswriting the you know, in your loan applications, misstating the value of your properties. Nobody's ever been prosecuted criminally for that. That was law fair. But the stuff the bite injustice upon will win after Trump. Every single one of those things were justified, and they should have prosecuted him. And the great tragedy is they

didn't have the opportunity to fully prosecute him. Did he withhold classified information and try to hide it, you know, and violate clear, unequivocal violation of the law. Absolutely, there's no question he did. Did he move boxes around not to prevent the FBI from finding them. Yes, he did, so that was prosecutable. Did he incite January sixth? Absolutely? Should there have been an investigation on January sixth? Absolutely so.

The you know, did he try to uh to manipulate the elections in Georgia on that famous phone call and on other occasions where he told him to find additional votes. Absolutely, that should have gone to court in Georgia. So New York is law fair what the Justice Varnma did. Absolutely, they should have gone after him. They should have gone after him sooner. They should have. They should have taken

it to court faster. Now, he did everything to delay, and he was successful, but he should have He should have been prosecuted and found guilty for those and denied the ability to run for president as a consequence. He behaved like a criminal with regard to trying to falsify the elections, trying to steal an election, and encouraging the vice president other people. Yes, I think that was independent.

I think that was independent. They went after him, not because I don't believe they went after him exclusively because he was a Republican. I don't think they believed he would win. I don't think they believed he would run again. I think they went after him because he was president of the United States to violate the law. I mean literally, they asked, I mean the Archives asked for the material that he took home to be sent to the Archives.

And he said, I don't have any more. And they said, no, no, you do, we know you do. And he said no, I don't have any more. And they so they rated his property. Not because somebody in the jested the Thrond, but I decided to go after Trump because somebody in the Archives said, no, I know this material that hasn't been returned to the Archives, that by law, you have to return to the Archives. And then they went to the FBI and said he's holding out on this material.

That's not selectic prosecution, that's necessary prosecution. So no, I think the Justice wanderder Biden was relatively independent. The fact that they went after Biden's son is an example of that. And and so you know, again, as I said, relatively do I think there's influences. Sure, do I think there's there's a lack of one hundred percent independence, sure, But what but what this Trump is doing is a change

in kind. What Trump is doing is zero independence? Do I think for example, I mean, take another example, do I think the Federal Reserve is independent from the from from government? No, I think the Federal Reserve is very influenced by what presidents want, but what the president wants, And but that is not the same as doing exactly

what he wants when he wants. They're influenced. It does an impact on them, but it doesn't mean they yes, sir, which is what Trump wants instilled at the Federals of somebody who will yes, sir him and do exactly what he wants when he wants it. Yeah, I mean, is there is there was there corruption around the Biden laptop. Absolutely, but that's normal corruption. Trump has taken it to a completely new level, a completely new level. And and by the way, again, as I've said in the past, there

are prosecutions that Justice Monument didn't engage in. For example, what about influenced peddling of Jared Kushner who got two billion dollars from the Saudis for his private equity fund in spite of never having any experience in private equity. Why would they give him two billion dollars? You think it had anything to do with him schmoozing with the Saudis for four years. Was there no shady dealings there?

Of course they were. I mean he's no more qualified to want two billion dollars for the Saudist than is Hunter Biden to sit on the board of whatever company in So. I mean, they're all corrupt, and some of us gets through and some of it doesn't. Sadly, I wish they'd go after all of it. But going after Trump, Yeah, that that made complete sense. Is there a tariff on super Chat yet? Do I have to pay it for you? Or do you have to pay it for me? There is a tariff, it's it's a YouTube tariff, so it's

a it's a private tariff. It's a it's a fee for use, so it's not a tax. So it's not a tariff. It's it's a fee for use. No tariffs yet. Maybe if you're since you're in Switzerland and paying Swiss Fanks, maybe we'll have a tariff soon. I don't know that that's a good question. Now, this is the services I'm providing, a service, not a good move. These are the only services that Trump has threatened to tariff. We'll see, maybe super chat next. That'll be interesting. And I think I

will have to pay for it. There's no either. I owe you too will have to pay fo it because there's no way for you to do it as a turch economy. Hey, you're on each week things get worse. Do you have any red lines that will lead you to seek citizenship elsewhere? My mom is starting to want to move. Now, where are you gonna go? H and what what are you gonna What are you gonna do? I mean, I have citizenship in Israel. I don't want

to go to Israel. You know, if I had European citizen wal, I don't want to live in it in Europe. So no, I don't think it's time to leave the United States. And remember that when the United States goes, so will the rest of the world. It's gonna be it's gonna be disaster for everybody. But yeah, I mean, there are lots of red lions that were watching. I'll let you know when I think things are beyond repair, so bad that you got to seek seek living somewhere else,

that'll be pretty bleak. When I say that, Matt would love more content with destiny going deep into rands metaphysics aristomology and ethics to explore the causes of your political differences. Yeah, I agree, but I prodded him and he really didn't want to go there. He really you know, he didn't want to go to will. But yeah, we'll try to do more content with him in the future. So definitely ping him and definitely ping me if you think there's a topic that would be good to debate him that

would bring out some of these issues. Whytt Apple is moving most of the iPhone production out of China? Isn't it possible Trump is doing this to get us untangled from China's influence. If he is, it's the dumbest thing. It's it's it's a stupid I mean, why do we care if we buy T shirts from China? And b he gave Apple an exclusion on the tariff, so in electronics general lease, Apple doesn't have to move production. And you know, for what, what about all the small businesses

Apple will survive, Apple will move business. What about the small and medium sized businesses that are going to go bust? And that he didn't prepare them for it, that he didn't didn't have any kind of period in which you phase it in. If this is the goal. It's a stupid goal. But even if it even if it was a reasonable goal, this is the dumbest way to go about doing it. This is not the way to do it.

This is a way that penalizes your own people, that penalizes small and media side businesses in the United States. It also penalizes the Chinese. It's lose lose, and there's nothing to be gained from this. Apple was moving operations, a lot of it's manufacturing to India anyway, It's been in the process of moving them there for over ten

for about ten years. It's doing so because they're afraid of Chinese tabs like this from the first Trump administration, and then they saw what happened during COVID with supply chains. A lot of companies have diversified their supply chains because of what they sold during COVID. This is how markets work. Let markets work. Markets actually do work. Apple is smart. Apple will figure out that they need to diversify out

of China. They don't need sent for planning with Chief Donald Trump to tell them what they where they should and shouldn't produce stuff. And if American os the world with China, then Apple will suffer the consequences of not planning in advance. But Apple is a smart company and they are planning in events. They don't need Trump to tell them to do it out of fear. But you know, you guys are gonna look for a good excuse anyway. And if that's true. By the way, let's say that's true.

What about the tafts on Canada and Mexico? They're not an enemy? Why would we want to unentangle ourselves from Canada and Mexico? What about the threat of sixty percent tabs on Vietnam, thirty or forty percent tas on India that he threatened On't those the alternatives to China as we entangle? What about tais on the European Union? That is not a that's not We're not at risk with the there's no risk with the European Union of why do we need entangle from them? Exactly? Stop finding excuses

for him, They really, really, really aren't any excuses. Ten percent tariff on everybody is not untangling for China. There's no intelligence report that he has that explains his behavior. Just accept the fact that you've voted for an unhinged, irresponsible and not smart human being who is obsessed with trade deficits and loves tariffs. Are we got one hundred percent tariff on movies made abroad for national security reasons.

Really you buy that? You think that's real. You're gonna justify even that because it's it's not camar Ledge Trump. And if Trump does it, he's playing three D chess. Have you not learned anything over the last ten years. It's astounding to me. Right, I thought that the last three months would wake people up, but just still making excuses for him unbelievable. I mean, if a president has ever showed you how irresponsible and dumb he is, this president has done it, and you won't. You just don't

recognize it. You won't admit it. You'll find excuse after excuse, if excuse because you can't handle the cognitive dissonance stuff. I voted for this guy, or you know, maybe there's a bit of alternative wes. I don't know why people try to come up with reasons for Trump's actions. Yeah, exactly, he just doesn't like trade. His idea is driving all of his actions. Yes, this idea is driving all of his actions, absolutely, And he hasn't liked trade since the

nineteen eighties. He wanted to tell if the hell out of Japan. Back then, Japan wasn't a national security threat to the United States. Apple, What is the point of trying to justify it when it's staring you right in the face. And it's being staring you right in the face for eight nine years. So I get it that you ignoit, ignoted. In the first term. Wasn't that bad, So that's fine, okay, but the last three months. Really

get a grip, people, There's nothing to defend here. This is what he's about, this is what he cares for, this is what he likes, this is what he values. Accept it. You can still say, yeah, but he's still better than come all up, fine, but don't excuse his unbelievable irrationality. Don't excuse his economic ignorance. It's beneath you, no one why. Back in Reagan era, Holly Davidson got heavy tariffs on recycles from Japan. The end result was

that Japanese kept innovating while Holly Davidson stagnated. Tabs everywhere are terrifying to me, Yeah, exactly, way back in the regular area. Yeah, I mean, Reagan unfortunately caved on a bunch of these different things, and Holly Davidson was one of those made in America's an American motorcycle company. And yeah, and the Japanese overtook Holly Davidson and did much better.

And the same thing happened with automobiles. Japanese cause continue, you know, we're better than the American costs, continue to be better than American costs. And instead of saying, okay, I want to really I want to help the American car industry, you could do away with fuel efficiency requirements, do away with the requirement that American companies auto companies

make small cars. I mean, if you truly had comparative advantage in the world right now, if there was free trade, but more than free trade, if they want subsidies and regulations and controls and govern intervention, then the Japanese and Koreans would make small to medium sized cause maybe some SUVs, and American auto companies would not make any of those. They would make pickup trucks, SUVs, maybe minivans. They have a comparative advantage at that. That's it. They wouldn't make

luxury cars. They can't beat the Germans and luxury cause they would stop making electric cars. They're not going to beat the Chinese at electric cars. Of course, one way to make sure that they are not beaten by the Chinese is to not allow Chinese electric cars to be sold in the United States, which we don't, and that way we'll never experience what it's like to buy our fifteen thousand dollars high end luxury electric suv. Was stuck with what Tesla and what GM providers. But who's stand

of living is dropping because of that? Houses caught. Prices should be plummeting right now because of competition from China, and they're not because we're protecting our order industry. Esoteric dichotomy. Shoplifting is a bit rampant here in Seattle and weekly homicide in the news. Stores have lots behind glass makeup work pants. Yeah, I mean, shoplifting has become ridiculous, particularly

on the West Coast. California just changed the law. It used to be the belowest certain threshold, it wasn't a crime to shoplift, and basically that legalized shoplifting and they just had a what do you call it, a statewide vote and Californians voted to eliminate that. It's now a crime to shoplift. I'm hoping that it has an impact in the police will follow through and prosecute shoplifting. I think Seattle is the same thing Seattle is they don't

prosecute shoplifters. So guess what happens, You get shoplifters. So you got to take the rule of law seriously, which means prosecuting criminals. And if we don't, we lose. And that the big thing about the left is, you know, they want to get rid of the police, and they want to get rid of shoplifting laws. And you know, at the end of the day, nobody's going to vote for that unless you live in Seattle, right, most people don't want that. Most people want laws to protect property

and protect life. They want the police. Raphael how Ron, can you shed advice on best practices to manage your team and to how to be more certain and assertive indecisions and in what you say with clients? Sometimes I'll lack confidence. I mean, that's it's a huge topic. But you know, I don't know what best practice is to manage teams. They're much better kind of professional managers out there that would give you better advice than I could. I mean, you have to lead the team. You have

to be assertive, you have to be confident. But part of that as social and confidence has to be listening to the team. But then you have to be able to assign people tasks to their strengths. You have to be able to criticize people. You have to be able to tell people know, which is one of the toughest things to do in management. You have to say no, you have to be a leader, and that's the best way to manage the team. But let but a leader

who lets the team express itself. Let's the team function brings out the best and the team members the best ideas that the you know, the best actions. I don't know if that's helpful. How do you gain more confidence? I don't know. I mean, you'd have to think about why you're not confident. So you just have to be much more suative and see that when you are, good things happen. And if you know the stuff, then just

say it. Stop hedging, stop you know, being soft owned, just gopher it and you know, I don't know, I mean the psychological advice. I don't have any psychological self help tips on how to gain confidence. A lot of it comes from practice, practice confidence. See that it results in good things. See that you actually know the answers,

and that'll give you more confidence. Hunter. I give that full copies of Hazlet to full of Hazlet's Economic and one lesson I assume to full people and got one to read the section on tariffs on the basis that it's only a few pages and would take only a few minutes to read. He changed his position. Twenty five percent convert rate not bad, not bad at all. Hazlet is brilliant. I encourage you to use I Hunt, it's great. Use Haslet's economic in one lesson. If you haven't read it,

read it. Read that chapter on tariffs and you'll see I'm not exaggerating and saying that it's it's like the dumbest policy almost ever. Raphael says, since you have time, how could consciousness be formed? I have time if you'll pay me for the time. But you guys are not paying me for the time. We're in a third hour. We haven't made I'll target for the second hour. So look, I have no idea how consciousness was formed. It's a

product probably of a sophisticated biological structure. I was just reading a book where he claims to understand how evolution formed consciousness. So I read an article about a book. I need to get the book because it sounds really interesting. Ulsa has a biological explanation for free will, which sounds, at least from the little I read, it sounds right. It sounds consistent with objectivism, but I don't know the details of how consciousness was pimed. It must provide us

with a huge survival advantage. Alejandu any thoughts on the field a teck in UK by Iranians. I was going to talk about this, I forgot. Yeah, it's really interesting because you wouldn't think that Iron would want to be doing stuff like this right now, given that they're negotiating with Trump. You know, it really would be interesting to find out. And I don't know what's behind it. Who's behind it? Is this kind of really an official government

of you won kind of thing. They've been promoting terrorism for decades, so this isn't surprising in that sense. The timing is surprising. The timing is surprising given they're trying to present themselves as good guys so that the sanctions are lifted. This would have been devastating for that effort if it had gone through, should be devastating anyway for that effort. So I'm curious to get more information about

what actually happened there. I wonder if this is some splinter group or somebody, Yeah, or more radical elements within the regime they don't want to deal with the United States. Maybe that's it. But yeah, I mean, it's not surprising in the sense that you Wan has been funding and encouraging terrorism for since seventy nine. Soup Cask Destiny isn't a good guy blackmailed his former partners with their explicit content. He shouldn't be sanctioned. I don't know anything about any

of that. You know, I can look into it if you think it's a big deal, and if you think objective information about it can really be achieved. Fendhop about how do I correct the trade deficit I have with you? I demand you buy something from me. I have pictures of my cats that you know I have to buy from that you know you have to buy for me. It's a national security imperative. Yeah, I mean, how do I correct the trade deficit with my grossy store with

the restaurants? God, I mean those chefs need to start doing super chats. It's not right that they don't consume any of my content. They should buy my books. I have one chef who's bought my books one, but I know a lot of chefs that I go to the restaurants regularly and they don't buy my books. It's not right. Proper Destiny has said that he keeps first con conversations less confrontational because he has had trouble getting any guests when he pushed back too much in the past. All right,

that makes sense, so we'll see. Well, well, well we'll keep at it. Uh, Subkaski. Trump is not better than Kamala. She was a status coo politician. Trump is a destructionist in the worst way possible. He destroys Harris Wood preserved. I mean she would have been destructive, but slower in a more normal, regular kind of way. Let me just thank a few people for their stickers. Mary Ellen, thank you, and Tyler, thank you, Ali w thank you, and a

y'all thank you, and who else did a sticker? You two can do a sticker while I'm doing this, or even thank you, because there's only one more question. Mary Allen, thank thank you, and let's see what else do we have we have let's skip forward. I think that I think I got everybody. I think I got everybody, all right, So last question is Matts. But in the meantime, you can just stick us a buck ninety nine, five bucks, ninety nine, whatever you want. What is that? All right?

The intellectuals who should know batter are just sellouts. But many people actually relate to and revere Trump. They share his emotional worldview. I think that's right. I think they share the zero sum mentality. I think they I think he induces in them the fear and anger that is under the surface, and he provides them an outlet for that fear and anger. It's not that they share worldview, because he has no wild view. It's a they share

a certain emotional state, an emotional condition. But he I don't think Trump is afraid and angry in the same sense they are. I think he brings out and he knows he's he knows how to do that, and he does it on purpose. He knows he can manipulate people that way, and he's very successful at her. He is a great manipulator. David, thank you for the sticker. Really appreciated. All right, guys, thank you all the super chadas, thank you all the stickers. Really appreciate it. I will be

back tomorrow with another show, you know. And if I get a lot worse with this cold, I might have to skip a day. But otherwise we're going to try to do a show every day this week and maybe even the weekend because then I start traveling on Monday for two weeks. So thanks guys, and have a great rest of your week. Oh, Cassie came in watched end of season one. Amazing show shows the virtue of rebellion

against brutal oppression. Yes, and I think Ando is the best of the Star Wars anything because it's slow and it really gets into character. It actually develops the characters, it actually has an interesting story. It's and so I'm I'm a fan of Ando season one. I just started the first episode of season two and I'm excited to watch the second season hopefully continues to be focused on character rather than on just action sequences. All right, Thanks Subkeski,

supask Thank you all, and I will see you tomorrow. Bye, everybody.