Inflation; Ukraine; RFK; Plastic Straws; CFPB; Downsizing; Were the 50s better? | Yaron Brook ShowNew

We're back to that, see if PB just a general downsizing, so doge again. And the question, which I guess has got the internet a flobby is uh with the fifties better? With the fifties better? Uh? You know?

all right, go figure. All right, So yes, I remind you to use the super chat so that you two can dictate the topics that I talk about and dictate how long the show is and all of that's good stuff. So ask me questions about stuff you want me to talk about. You can ask me questions about anything, all right, let's uh, let's jump in. I thought i'd share this graph with you from John Cochran's a Grumpy Economist a blog.

John Cochran one of my favorite economists out there. Not outstainding economists, but but really good and good and always interesting. And this is a graph that I think is just worth contemplating, even if it, you know, past doesn't indicate, you know, an analogies don't indicate that what happened in the past will happen in the future. But it's kind

of interesting. So here's two episodes of inflation, right, Two episodes of inflation in American history, one the nineteen seventy two to nineteen eighty one inflation and the second one the twenty nineteen to twenty twenty five inflation. This is price is going up. This this is the CPI, this is you know, the way conventionally people measure talk about inflation.

And what you can see here, interestingly, is that inflation rose at pretty much kind of the same steepness, the same in both episodes, in nineteen seventy two and in the in or was it twenty twenty two? Red is the twenty twenty two, blue is the seventy two, and you can see that it declines at a very similar rate in both cases, stabilizing above the long term previous rate.

And in nineteen seventy two or around nineteen seventy eight, inflation then took off and reached new highs significantly higher than the previous time. And we're at a point right now where we're waiting to see we repeating the nineteen seventies, or is this going to be something completely different. It is interesting how closely these two graphs parallel. Of course, they're both adjusted downwards. I mean, the twenty nineteen to

twenty twenty five is lower. Everything is lower. The starting interest rate was lower, if you will, and the starting inflation was lower, and the spike, but the spike the same. You know, same kind of spike, same kind of decline, same kind of flatness. Sense, and given the inflation but from yesterday, which suggests inflation is not coming down, it's actually going up a little bit. Prices are going up. Maybe inflation does not be defeated. You know what? What else? Right?

So yeah, just the interesting there's no again, it doesn't have to follow this path. It very much depends on what the Fed and Trump federal government Congress do. I think a lot of the as I talked about yesterday, a lot of this is people waiting to see is those real in the sense of actual cutting of it spending? What is Congress going to pass in terms of a budget, Like there's this big bill that's supposed to come for a vote in the next few weeks that will both

cut taxes and dictate spending. Is the death is going to go down? Is this it's going to go up. Is the future trajectory of US debt to dramatically increase as it is right now, or is it going to be slowly declining. I think there's a lot of pausing to wait to see. There's us a big difference between the seventies and now in the nineteen seventies, debt to GDP, US government debt to GDP was about twenty five percent. Right now, right now debt to GDP is about one

hundred and twenty percent. So we're in dramatically worse shape than we were in the nineteen seventies. So it will be interesting to see how inflation evolves from from this point.

From this point on. Interestingly, there was the Journal had a It was the Journal's editors, you know, they write editorials every day, and they had an interesting editorial when it was it today, the small no yesterday yesterday, where they didn't quite come out and say it the way I say it, but they basically argued that Trump doesn't understand economics and he doesn't know what he's doing, which

was refreshing here people on the right the wars. The Journal editorial board is clearly right right of center, and they're basically calling the president and trump onomics ignorant. In particular, you know, they criticized Trump's call for easier money just as consumer prices keep arising. They asked the question, I'm just going to read from this, does President Trump understand money? Not money as in cash, but the supply of money, the price of money as managed by interest rates, and

the impact on inflation. The answer would appear to be no. After mister Trump called for lower interest rates on Wednesday. The same day the Liberal Marketer put it increase in inflation for the third straight month. So yes, even the Wall Street Journal editorial Board, which is pretty consistently pro Trump,

recognizes how ignorant he is of economics. They they're also very very critical of tariffs for all the reasons we've talked about, including the fact that while taros don't cause inflation, they suddenly mean higher prices on the goods that are

affected by the taffs. So there are some people still among Republicans, not many, very few, but there are some Republicans out there who are still independent enough, honest enough, knowledgeable enough, I don't know how you want to call it, two to actually call it, and to actually recognize the you know, the the fact that Trump is ignorant of economics, really ignorant of economics. Good to know. Anyway, Inflation something we need to be watching. Problematic could be rising again,

probably fed. It is probably not going to lower interest rates anytime soon, and a lot of it is going to depend on what Congress does and what Doge does if Dose gets serious or if it continues to what is it dabble in cost cutting? I mean, I'm all for what Dodge is doing in the sense of cutting as much as it is, but it's not serious. If you really want to take on the deficit and the debt, it's like a I don't know, phase phase one, Phase point five, phase point two, I don't know. It's a

pre taking. Seriously, the amount of debt the United States has and where we are all right. We talked yesterday about the fact that basically the Trumpet administration, Donald Trump himself and his defensive could have basically basically handed Ukraine to Russia. They have completely They're going into negotiations at the Munical Conference. This is a Munich Defense Conference of European powers. They're going into that conference to negotiate with

the Russians. Basically haven't given the Russians much of what they want. They're basically guaranteed or they said they don't expect Ukraine to be a member of NATO. Ever, they basically said they don't expect the borders to go back to twenty fourteen. They basically said that they've basically taken all their negotiating chips away. They're basically starting the negotiation giving into the Russians on a bunch of different things. Now, maybe that is what you get at the end of

the negotiation, but they're not even bothering to wait. They're giving that to the Russians, starting the whole negotiation from a position of extreme weakness, you know. And then today, God, today Trump did this press conference about Ukraine, and it's just, I mean, who is this guy. I mean, I know who he is. I've been talking about it for eight years, but it still astounds me that he is president of the United States. It just it just shocks the hell

out of me. Okay, So he says, you know, he basically implied during the press conference that this is a war. It's kind of Ukraine's fault. I mean, he says, He's asked at some point, do you view Ukraine as an equal member of this peace process because in the negotiating and he goes, uh, we talking about Ukraine, Rightine, this is a war on Ukraine's sebretory. He's not sure they should be part of the peace process. He says, it's an interesting question. I think they have to make peace.

That was not a good war to go into, Like Ukraine went into this war. Do you guys remember what happened? Do you remember that Russia is just invaded, So now we blame Ukraine for it. That's a great negotiating position to go in against the Russians. And then he kind of implies, well, look, you know, Russia really fought for this land in Ukraine. They lost a lot of soldiers on this land. I mean, you can't deny the land from them, given how many soldiers they sacrificed for it.

They should just keep it because they fore fought and they died on it. The guys, the guys, the guys an incompetent buffoon. I know, I keep calling him the names, which is not helpful. I mean, this is such a betrayal, such a stamping in the back of not just Ukraine but our allies in Europe, and an embrace, a complete and utter embrace of Putin. As I told you before

the election, Trump is in Putin's pocket. Whatever it is the Putin has on him, or whatever it is that Trump finds appealing in Putin, Trump is in Putin's pocket. Trump does what Putin wants him to do. He will not stand up to Putin. He will not challenge Putin. This is Putin's world. It's not America first. This is Russia first. I mean the ignorance of the war, the

ignorance of American interests. Yeah, the just complete capitulation of Russia and the complete sidelining of Ukraine in a negotiation between the tribute between Ukraine and Russia. This is not America's job to negotiate here. I mean, imagine a Trump kind of deal with Ramas and sidelined the Israelis. Tell with you, it's none of your business. I'll make a deal with Ramas for you. This is embolding, not just

the Putin, it's embolding the hi. Uh And I don't know the everybody expected because Rubio was tough against Russia and pro Ukraine and what was that the emissary that that uh, you know, Kellogg, this shoal presidential envoy is tough on Russia and pro Ukraine. Yesterday, by the way, I said, the Kalig was not participating in the Munich conference and his name was now listed in all the public reports about it. He is going to Europe. He

will be at the Munich Security Conference. He's going to visit NATO and EU and he'll even go I think he's going to visit Ukraine. But I mean Trump has basically sold them all out. Trump is not only proving himself over and over and over again ignorant of economics, of basic, basic, simple principles of economics, and he's proved that for the last eight years, and he's proving it

that he hasn't learned anything since then. But he's also ignorant and you know, incompetent when it comes to phone policy, and which not does suffice me. I called it right, and I said, this is what he would do to Ukraine. And you could tell that from his behavior towards North Korea in his first term, which was an abomination, an abomination, and he is repeating it now. But this time notwith

the incompetent, you know, pathetic meaningless North Korea. This time he is doing it with somebody who has real standing in the world and a strong military force and somebody you could have an impact on the world, which is

putin it. Yeah. One of the things that you know, the United States seems to have already agreed about is that there will be some kind of peacekeeping force in Ukraine after this deal with Russia is a stip related but according to the Defense Secretary, the peacekeeping force will be a non NATO but European mission and will not

be covered under Article five. In other words, the peacekeeping force will be there, and if Russia attacks, that will not involve the United States, that will not require the United States to participate under Article five. So basically, the United States is washing its hands of Ukraine, basically leaving it to the Europeans and the Russians. In other words, it's it is we know what the Europeans can and cannot do. It is basically, handy Ukraine over to Russia.

Handy Ukraine over to Russia. All right, So no yours troops and no NATO troops. Whatever troops they are, they will be European and non not under the flag of NATO. I mean literally, this is making Russia the most the winner and the powerhouse. It's in Bolden's China, Iran, North Korea, we will pay the consequence of this. Here's a prediction. Iran making a prediction. We will pay the consequence of this betrayal for decades, for decades, and it could have

gone the other way easily. Russia is in bad, bad, bad shape. Its economy is on the is in horrible shape. It's MILLI totally not being successful in what it's tried to do. Ukrainian forces are now occupying a chunk of Russian land. This could go the other way so quickly, and yet it's better, easier to just surrender. I keep trying to find good news. We'll get to, you know, a couple of items of good news. There's a few

items of good news on the bad news front. On the bad news front, RFK, I think the most horrible appointment, the most horrible person ever to be head of the HHS. And that's saying a lot was approved by Senate fifty eight, not even clothes. Republicans, everybody think except McConnell voted for him. McConnell seems to be the only Republican with even a semblance of a spine to stand up to Donald Trump. RFK has been confirmed he will be in charge. Republicans

caved completely. Even Republicans who typically take a more independent position like colleins Mkowski on this one, they just folded. They gave Trump what he wanted. The Republican Party has become a monolith. It's become as I predicted, as I've told you for eight years, it's just Trumpism. It's just Trump. There's no opposition in that sense. Trump can do anything

he wants. The Republican Party will support him. There's a little bit of opposition in the House where some Republicans are demanding actual spending cuts, which neither Trump nor the rest of the Republicans in the House want. But so there's some back and forth, there's some opposition, there's some debate in the House. But in the Senate it's over. There's just nothing. There's there's nobody, there's nothing that are questioning,

that are challenging it. I mean, there are a number of senators who you would think, for example, would be freaking up over the Ukraine. Tom Cotton, for example, who could be strong voices opposing Trump on the Ukraine issue. I haven't heard anything from Tom Cotton. Complete silence, complete silence, even some of Trump's allies. I mean, Cotton is an ally, but but there's a bunch of senators who are very pro Ukraine Antio Russia. Silence, not a word out of them.

They basically all caved RFK is a good sign that they've caved. One thing that so a couple of news articles mentioning is that the healthcare industry insurance in just the pharma, doctors, doctors, hospitals. None of them came out, None of them came out with it came up basically in strong opposition RFK. There's no lobbying. It's a very powerful lobby when they want to be very powerful. No

lobbying against RFK by the medical profession. And I think this says a huge amount about what is actually going on here. Right. They're afraid, They were afraid. They you know, they realize that what is happening in Washington is you've got they better behaved like good swamp animals. They don't want to piss RFK off. They don't want to piss

Trump off. They know how much power AFK is going to have over them, and they can see the kind of monolithic, mindless way in which the Senate is voting for Trump and pointees, and they've just basically backed off. They've backed off. They all oppose him. They all know what a disaster for them for their industry he could be. But they're hoping to limit the fallout if Kennedy goes

through with his plans. You know, he's going to come after all of them, and they want to be able to They don't want to be singled out as oh, you know Kennedy thinking you're all going to go after these guys first, because they they lobbied against me. They're just playing it soon for safe. And it's also you know, an indication of how authoritarian they think, I think this administration is, and how fascistical authoritarian the power that Washington now has and has had for a long time over

their industry, over every industry. They have to be very careful because otherwise the alligators in the swamp will will will come after them. So yep, Republicans in Congress, I think the evaluation was, I'm not open to we swade right now. They're gonna vote for Trump no matter how much we lobby. They're gonna Trump is a Trump is

the force. No point in trying to stand up to it. All. Right, here's a positive story, kind of right, I mean, uh, Trump uh signed an executive order basically uh saying uh, you know, reversing a federal ban on plastic straws and basically reversing that and and particularly stating the so called evil of paper straws. I mean, I'm glad somebody is defending the plastic straw that we needed that, right, I mean,

this is what the executive order actually said. This is the level at which the swamp now and under under Biden and now we're Trump. It gets into the details of our daily lives through executive order, now through regulatory action, just executive voter quote. Plastic straws are often replaced by paper straws, which are non functional use chemicals that may carry risks to human health. Expensive to produce them plastic straws and often force users to use multiple straws. Oh

my god. Additionally, paper straws sometimes come individually wrapped in plastic, undermine the environmental argument for their use. So it's great to see a principal defense of plastic straws. Finally, so the Free Pass has a little article with a little bit of the history of this attack on plastic straws, which is nutty right, environmental nuttiness. It started the attack on plastic stars. I didn't know this. It turns out it start in twenty eleven when a Vermont Vermont ninety

year old. This is from the free Pass. Milo Cress came up with an obituary number for how many plastic straws Americans used daily. He figured it out, he says, by calling up straw manufacturers. He calculates that Americans use five hundred million straws a day. It turns out that's a number completely pulled from the air. Nobody can verify that number. It's a big number, and as a big number,

that's good. He started scaring people. I mean, the five hundred million straws a day number has been cited by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and pretty much everybody else. And over the last fourteen years, this issue of plastic straws and plastic more broadly has become the biggest environmental issue anybody talks about. States and cities have banned the use of plastic straws. You can't get them here in Puerto Rico. Basically, plastic has been banned.

Most plastic stuff has been banned. I notice in hotels when I travel in a lot of states, they don't have the plastic laundry bag anymore. It's some kind of other material, you know, they're blanning, they're banning a plastic cutlery, plastic cups, and uh yeah, so there are you know, there are many, many, many, many many states have gone along and banned this, and then of course Biden assigned the executive voter of banning it at the federal level.

At the federal level. Now it turns out that you know, this is all just made up plastic straws. They know the five hundred million number is fake. I don't know anybody knows how many, what the real number is, but the five hundred million is fake. And of course the environmental damage, the so called the environmental damage, the damage to human health. You've got a plastic spoon and you

had quantity of plastic. It's all. It's all, you know, BS, Plastics are not the massive threat those those bags taking in the grocery store. I'm not going to destroy planet Earth. We're not all going to die from plastic poisoning. There just is no basis for any of those claims. And indeed the replacements are often worse than for the so called environment. Whatever the environment is. It's not even anti industrial industrialism, because the replacement often require more industrialism than

than the plastic. It's anti convenience, anti human comfort, it's anti human really convenience. Think about the plastic bags. Single use plastic bags. They you know, they required that you replace those with thick top bags, and they would lead to less waste. But now you've got these thick tout bags that are being thrown out the thick instead of

really really thin plastic. It turns out that the top bags have to use an organic cotton twenty thousand times to offset the impact from actually producing the bag the bag, you'd have to use the top bag twenty thousand times. Sorry, you'd have to use the top bag twenty thousand times to offset the so called the environmental impact of producing the bag. The top bag is probably has a bigger

environmental impact. Again, I'm putting all this in quotes because I don't know, I don't think there is such a thing. Whose environment? What environment? What impact? What are you actually impacting? Who's suffering? I mean, the real suffering is this toutbag. I love the plastic bags. They're so figging convenient. What is the point of all this? And of course the reality is that air pollution is way down, water pollution

is way down. We live in some of the healthiest, cleanest environment probably the healthiest cleanest environment human beings have ever lived in. And we're obsessing of our plastic straws and plastic bags. And if you actually look at who pollutes again, depending on you know, plastic, let's say, plastic pollution the United States isn't significant on the global scale.

It's mostly China, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Thailand, port places in Asia that are discarding lots of plastics. So the whole thing, like most of the environmentalist stuff, is just blown out of proportion, scare the hell out of people, cause them to change their behavior, all in the name of being anti human. I think that's what it is. Not even anti industrial, it's anti human, anti human,

anti convenience, anti pleasure, anti yeah, anti man. All right, thank you Arue Ice for giving us some of the stats on on these What did I just do? Sorry one second, how do I get that back? I'm not sure? All right? So be it that is plastic Okay? See, I mean maybe one of the best things DOGE and the government is doing right now, is it really, really, really really is limiting the CFPB now Ideally CPB would be shut down. For that, you would need legislation. It's

part of Dot Frank. CPP is one of the I've told you this over and over again over the years, nastiest organizations in Washington, d C. The economic benefit of just getting rid of it would be tremendous. What Trump is basically doing is he is, you know, keeping it because he can't get rid of it. He can't shrink their budget because their budget comes from the Fed. It doesn't come from Congress or the Executive. It comes from the Federal Reserve. Basically, what he's doing is incapacitating them.

He's not allowing them to actually do anything, which is terrific, right, it's it's raveling or unraveling, sorry, unraveling. It's basically being placed on on limbo. The previous executive, the guy who ran CFPB is fired. The guy running CFPB right now is the head of the Budget Office and a super conservative Trumpist, and it's basically going to make the CFPB impotent. This is the problem though, that is what happened in his first term, or a lot of that happened in

the first book. And then biting cream about and reinvigorated the ce if PB, So I really would like to find to see if they can find a way actually pass legislation to get rid of this monstrosity, actually do away with it, because if a Democrat ever wins in the future. Now, what is the CFPB do? It advocates for consumers visa v. Finance and it is an evil institution that is basically trying to eviscerate the capacity of financial institutions to provide you with services and negotiate with you.

It has placed itself between you as a customer and the financial industry in trying to force the financial industry to live up to Elizabeth Warren standards. And it does so without legislation. It does so with the ship power of a regulatory agency that has been given almost unlimited power by Dot Frank and almost unlimited budget by the fact that Congress is not involved in budgeting for it.

The the FED is the Supreme Court has had a number of opportunities to get rid of the CFPB, to rule it unconstitutional, and sadly, really I think, really really sadly, uh, they they failed. They they you know, did not actually they did not actually do it. So it's still around. It's going to be around until they get rid of it. Dog is going in there and we'll see what Doge

does with it. But but it's going to be I think, I think we can trust and this is a good thing from the Trump administration that it's going to be, uh, you know, fairly fairly impotent. It's not going to be able to do anything while Trump is president. All right. Update on the attempts of Trump to get governed employees to design as you know, a judge had blocked that had blocked the whole buyout of government employees. Well, a federal judge has lifted the temporary restraining order on the

Trumpet do the station's federal employee defoe resignation plan. US District Court judge had previously paused the administrations for busic deadline for employees to accept the buyout after and then in the current order, you know, it is the program is not closed. About seventy five thousand workers have accepted the offer. So seventy five thousand workers, unless another court steps in and versus this, are going to leave their position.

They're guaranteed salaries until the end of September, at which point they will no longer be governing the employees. So this is a reduction of staff in the government by seventy five thousand people. I'm all for that. That's great. I wish it was one point five million, not seventy five thousand, or seven hundred and fifty thousand, not seventy five thousand. But it's something. It's something, right, and so the government employment does look like it's gonna shrink. Now again,

we'll see. It is going to be interesting at the end of Trump's term to look at the government employment. Is it has a trunk or hasn't it? Overall, they promised a big shrink. I'm curious in four years where they we'll have it. They say we're spending. I mean, here, I'm willing to bet money the government spending will be higher in four years than it is today, that nothing will be in absolute terms cut that his government will spend more money in four years when Trump leaves office.

Hopefully then it spends when Trump came into office. Okay, so we will we will see, all right, let's see okay, uh oh, wait, a few small items of of just general interest and stuff we've talked about in the past. So this is just filling you in. Have you ever been Ben and Jerry uh, the left wing social social advocacy ice cream maker. I have not eaten a Ben and jerry Is ice cream and since the late night

because I'm so opposed to the philosophical advocacy. Anyway, Unilever, who which, who bought Ben and Jerry's and what forty years ago, thirty years ago, has decided to sell it. It's a hassle. Ben and Jerry is a hassle. It's a handful because of their social activism and and the boycotts and all of that. So Ben and Jerry's. Unilever is spinning off Ben and Jerry but it's and it's picked Amsterdam as a place where they will be listed.

So Amsterdam they're gonna They're gonna list on the on the Amsterdam stock Market, not London, not New York, Amsterdam, which is kind of interesting and strange and weird. But anyway, Ben and Jerry no longer part of Unilever, even more reason to continue to boycott them, unless, of course, they changed their political social policies. Do you remember yesterday, I think it was yesterday we talked about Elon Musk's bid for open Ai. He put a bid in a ninety

seven point four billion dollars to buy open Ai. Well, today his lawyer said that he would withdraw the offer if he would withdraw the offer and not try to buy open Ai Chatgypt. In other words, if the nonprofit entity dropped its plan of spinning off open Ai as a for profit business. So if opens a nonprofit arm drops its planning to become a for profit entity, Trump will not Trump Trump Ellen. It's all the same thing, right, Elon will not try to buy it. Just that's an

update from yesterday. Again, I think Elon's bid is more to disrupt than anything else. One most story before we get to the fifties. Better, remember we talked about the fact that there was going to be a new stock exchange going to be listed in Texas. It's what was going to be called the Texas Stock Exchange. Well, they

filed for registration last month. They'd raised one hundred and eighty one million dollars in order to do that, and they're planning to launch the stock exchange in twenty twenty six. And well, in a sign of the competitive nature of stock exchanges, I guess, although I'm not exactly sure, the advantage's disadvantages here. But anyway, the New York Stock Exchange

is low launching a branch in Texas. President of the NYC Group said in a statement that quote, Texas is a market leader in fostering a pro business at atmosphere, and therefore NYC is opening a branch in Texas to provide competition to the Texas Stock Exchange. Competition has not gone away. Still out there still exists, people are still competing.

I well, one more thing I'll just say, uh, and that is about Gaza quickly, and that is that Hamas is now indicating that it would release the hostages on schedule on Saturday. Probably that supposedly they have gotten guarantees from Israel that Israel would abide by the ceasefire agreement. I know everybody will you will give Trump credit for this, but I think that's silly. I think Hamas doesn't want the wa to restart. They know the consequences of that.

They're going to play their hand to the fullest. They want to postpone. They want to basically do everything they can to re establish themselves in Gaza, which they are doing. The longer the better. They're only going to release three hostages. They're not going to release the seventy two which Trump demanded, or the nine I think nine or seventeen or whatever the Israel demanded. They're just they're going to go back

to the regular schedule. So a lot of this is huffing and puffing and making a lot of noises, but we're back on the regular schedule. We're back to the point where what is phase two of this is fire going to look like? What is Israel going to do and what does Trump actually wants versus the huffing and puffing in public and the pressure on Israel. Where does Trump land up in the end with all of this?

So we'll just wait and see again. I thought resuming the war was the right thing to do, but at the same time I also recognized that three hostages will be freed, their families will be happy. That's all good, right,

This isn't you know? This is Hamas just living up to the so called agreement that they had and they forced Israel to come to the negotiating table and commit commit themselves to the kind of level of aid and the number of tents and all this stuff that Israel had committed to, and according to Ramas was not fulfilling, and now I think Israel's convinced them they are fulfilling it, or that will do it. To view this as a

weakness of Ramas, I think would be a mistake. This whole deal, the whole negotiation, the whole structure is a symbol of the weakness of Israel and in the US and the actual strength of Ramas, the fact that they can grab the West by the balls. Basically. Okay, so there is this post put out there, and I'll show you the picture that the post, this post depicts. You know, the picture is kind of cool. Let me see where is this? Think's there? There we go. There's the picture.

A wholesome family in the nineteen fifties getting ready for dinner to be served, the kids smiling and happy, the father relaxed and smiling, the mother watching over all of this and making sure it's all functioning correctly and smoothly, smiling away. And James Lucas, you know, is here saying he's got six hundred and fifty one thousand followers, six hundred and fifty two thousand followers, saying, you know, life

in the fifties was amazing. It was amazing. This is a genuinely happy looking family, you know, and they had a life that I guess we can't even imagine how good their life. Their life, their life was much better than anything that we have today. You know. Groceries were really really cheap, you know, and you could you could pay for all of it on one salary because the housewif stayed home. Teenagers in the nineteen fifties were well dressed,

they weren't having sex, they weren't taking drugs. You know. Nineteen fifties America, you know, was cleaner, homeless, people cared about their environment, they took care of the buildings they lived in. Manhattan was more beautiful and much nicer and cleaner. There was actually public libraries, beautiful buildings, big buildings. It's just everything was better from around nineteen hundred to the nineteen fifties, sixties, early sixties, right, life was so much better.

And this is such a ridiculous, bizarre and indeed fairly stupid claim. You could stop by the fact that for this family in nineteen fifties, they didn't go anywhere by plane. There were no airline flights. They didn't travel to Europe to see the sites They didn't travel to the other coast to visit places in America. Maybe they drove if they could, but you know the car that they drove, they had one car, not more than one car. It was probably us, you know, was probably would break down

on a long cart trip. It would rust out. At ninety thousand miles. It was almost very unusual for Cause in that era to last kind of the two three hundred thousand miles that Cause today have. They had no long distance calls. If they called lost distance, it cost them a fortune. Maybe the groceries were cheaper. Long distance

calls were unbelievably high. If the father was a traveling salesman, he might not talk to his wife his kids for days and days and days, potentially weeks because of the cost involved them might not see them for very long. The summers were hot, sweaty, and brutal. There was no way conditioning, and they actually lived in a small house

houses in the nineteen fifties. Average house of a new house in nineteen fifty was nine hundred and eighty three square feet nine hundred and eighty three square feet for a family of four. Just to give you an example of the difference two years ago twenty twenty three, the average new home size was two thousand, two hundred and thirty So basically homes homes back then were you know, less than half the size of homes today, half the

size on homes today. One of the reasons housing is so expensive today is becau because we went from nine hundred and eighty three square feet to twenty two hundred square feet and to significantly more bedrooms. You know, it used to be that two bedrooms are less. Was where I don't know, twenty percent of Americans lived. Now it's nine percent. Four bedrooms are more. Is today about fifty

percent four bedrooms or more. Four bedrooms are more. We have fewer kids, but many, many more bedrooms and three bedroom homes which used to be like sixty five percent as in the seventies and now forty three percent. So two bedroom homes down, three bedroom homes down, four bedroom homes way up from just over twenty percent to forty eight percent. So yeah, a big difference in in size

of homes, life expectancy significantly. Knowing in nineteen fifties and nineteen fifties are on sixty nine today closer to over eighty. And the reality is that today. If you don't smoke, if you don't drink a huge amount, right, I mean really abuse the drinking. If you don't use drugs, and this is a big one, if you're not obese, your

life expectancy in the United States is over ninety. I mean, nobody was a beast in the fifties, or very few people were beast in the fifties, and the elect expertency sixty nine. But if you are not obese, don't take drugs, don't commit suicide, don't overly drink, don't smoke, your life expectancy is into the nineties. Do you know that for Americans? American women, if you make it to the age of sixty five, over fifty percent of women who make it to the age of sixty five are going to live

into their nineties, into their nineties. So yeah, there was a greater sense of freedom. But I'm not even convinced completely of that, right, I mean, going back to those teenagers, there was no sense of sexual free. There were no contraceptions, which made sex super scary. Values definitely, you know, were traditional and and and and very conservative. I don't know if that's a good thing. Well, I know it's not

a good thing. People were repressed. And even when it comes to freedom, certainly, you know, the interest that you got from the bank was determined by the government. The price of a ticket on an airplane that when you flew anyway, it was determined by the government. The shipping costs of freight across the country, if you moved homes was determined by the government. There were so many things that were determined by the government. So, yeah, there was

a there was no freedom. You know. One of the measures of that freedom is interesting. We've talked about this in the past. We'll talk about it again in one of the shows soon is mobility. Americans were much much more mobile in the fifties. Americans up the people who used to move the most in the world. We moved all the time within the same city, out of the city, between states, all over the place. Move, move, move, move, move.

Today we barely move. That sense of freedom, that sense of mobility is gone, which is sad, really really really sad and disruptive. So, you know, we're not going to the best jobs. The most productive were stuck. You know. Generally, here's an interesting stat I can't feel what it was

people who've never left their hometown. People who've never lived outside of their hometown voted for Trump by a margin of twenty six percent, So Trump's you know, people who have moved very rarely voted for Trump in overwhelming numbers. So the frustration, the fear, the hate, the angst that led people to vote for Trump, and explain much of the Trump phenomena have a lot to do with immobility, stagnation, personal stagnation, stagnation that I think is too largely is

self inflicted. But yeah, we didn't have It's true, we didn't have environmentalism. Government was a lot smaller, you know, we didn't have their part of education. We didn't have the EPA, we didn't have most of the regulatory agencies didn't exist. So certainly there were areas in which things were better, But no iPhones. Do you know that back then women had a really really hard time finding a job.

There was not a secretary, a teacher, women could not open their own checking account, and fifty percent of them were married by the age of twenty four. Makes sense, if they can't find work and they can't even have a checking account, you need to latch yourself to a husband, to a man that's not a good thing. These things are not good. We built more in the nineteen fifties. We were ambitious from you know, from a civil engineering perspective. There's a lot of things that were better in the

nineteen fifties, but this is not one of them. Put the women in their place, and you know, living in a home, the life that we actually lived on a day to day basis, there's no reason to believe was better in any kind of significant way. By the way, the reason you know, housing was booming in the nineteen fifties because people were moving a lot all over the place, and because supply was not constrained, prices didn't go up like crazy. People didn't expect to make money on their home.

Making money on your home is a new phenomena, and indeed not a phenomena that exists everywhere in the United States. If you live in large areas in the Midwest, your home value does not go up. You don't buy your home expecting to sell it for a higher price. That is a phenomena only of places that restrict supply. Anyway, this nostalgia the nineteen fifties is sad and uh really pathetic, and you know, I think that it's instead of saying,

here are the things that made that were better back then? Freedom, size of government, know, enviromentalism, no bad, bad ideas weren't as bad. What the conservatives would like us to focus on is I don't know, family, place of women. Women were put in their place, and it was there was there wasn't a lot of secks going on, and I don't know. People were better behaved and the quality of our life today is so much better in so many dimensions. So let's fix the things that need fixing, like shrinking

government dramatically. That will do it, That will do it, and having a better ideas. That's always the case. We need better ideas today, just like we needed better ideas in the nineteen fifties. So stop being nostalgic. And you know, to be nostalgic for the nineteen fifties, you would have to be pretty old today. I mean, baby boomers can be nostalgic to the nineteen fifties. But these are not baby boomers. These are people who don't live through the

nineteen fifties. All right, let's see, um, all right, let us take your question. That is the news for February thirteenth, and we will now move to your super chet questions. You can still ask more questions. There's plenty of time today. We're not under any real constraints, so feel fee to come in with questions with stickers to support the show. And yeah, let's see uh move there there all right.

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William says, was there toothpaste and floss in nineteen fifties? I don't know. I don't It was definitely toothpaste. I don't know if there was flaws. I don't know if there was flaws. Generally, I think two de ka was much bigger of a deal. I don't know. I ate more sugar in the nineteen sixties than I do today, but I'm not sure. Children today probably eat more sugar than I did in the nineteen sixties. They probably eat generally more than I did. But remember, life expectancy much

higher today than it was back then. Even with the drugs, they alcohol, the obesity and everything else, it's still much higher at birth. Never mind, if you avoid the really bad behavior, then you're likely to live into your nineties, all right. Reminder to support the show Patreon dot com, Patreon dot com, just look up you on book show. Become a Patreon supporters, a monthly support. It's incredibly valuable to me because it's consistent, it's predictable. You know, this

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So please consider supporting the show. Patreon's a great way to do it. Pay thousand another way where you can become a monthly supporter. And of course, if you're here live and we have one hundred and fifty people on YouTube and two hundred and eighty four on Twitter, you can come over to YouTube. If you're on Twitter, you can use YouTube feature the superchat or sticker to support the show. Super Chat allows you to ask a question. A sticker is just support without a question either way.

It's great. We have targets. A target for a two hour show is five hundred dollars. It's basically two fifty an hour. We achieved our first hours goal. We're up to two sixty two now, so we now have a two hundred and thirty eight dollars to go for the second hour. Hopefully, hopefully that is something you will, you will do, will support, you will embrace. All Right, um, let's see let's start with uh, let's see the no fifty dollars. So let's start with James. James is Trump's success.

Proof objectivism is dead as a cultural force. So no, I mean that's ridiculous. With Biden's success, proof of objectivisms is dead as a cultural force? I rand opposed Reagan was Reagan's success, proof of objectivism is dead as a cultural force. No, it just means we're still a minority. We're still a small minority, and we've got a lot of work to do. It doesn't mean we're dead. It

means we're not dominant. But if if what's her name, Kamala had won this election with that, I mean proof, I mean what constitutes proof that we are cultural force, given that neither one of the political candidates was a political candidate's objectivism objectivists supported wholeheartedly. So No, I don't think Trump's win says anything about the cultural force that is objectivism. Uh, it's way too early. There's a huge

amount of work to do. It's going to be a r before we are a real significant cultural force to be reckoned with where we are actually impacting election that is in augh, you know, that's still in the future. We are not they yet. We're just not they yet, and that shouldn't surprise you. Nobody's ever said that we were there or even close to being there. It's decades away. And that doesn't mean we're dead. It means we're growing.

We're just growing slowly as we'd expect. Andrew, it's hard to read Johann Nobook's progress and not be in awe of how life before a few generations ago was hell compared to now. A Hobbesian view of life was understandable before reason and freedom revolutionized the world. Yes, and absolutely, I mean one of the one of the great tragedies right now is the level of ignorance people have of what life was before capitalism, what life was before the

Industrial Revolution, what life was before the eighteenth century. And people have no concept, no clue, really no clue, And even if they theoretically know, it's hard for them to actually comcrotize it in their own life. What it means to live in two dollars a day or less in real terms today? How would you live in two dollars a day or less, even if you're homeless, how would you live in two dollars a day or less? It's

just unimaginable. So that stand of living that qualitive life, never showering or almost never having a bath or showering, eating very little, very simple and very little, and being hungry, working basically, you know, whenever there's light outside, not being able to read, not having a toilet or toilet paper. I mean, you could go on and on and on. It's just stunning. And people have no concept, no idea. They just take everything that exists today. Everything that exists

today is taken for granted. This is this is the way it's always been, This is natural to human beings. It just all shows up out of nowhere. It just it just is. How could it be otherwise? One of the One of the most important things we can do, I think is tell people about how life used to be before capitalism, what it meant, Barbara, Thank you, Ron. Your shows directed to your viewers intelligence are refreshing, even if the news sucks. I am feeling despair at the

proposed make of a Munich agreement of nineteen thirty eight. Yeah, I know, I mean, I think despair is the right thing. It's I don't think and I don't think. I think this is true even of my audience. I don't think people realize how big of a betrayal this is, and how evil an enemy, how evil a thug Putin is, and how popular he is, that is, how many of the elites in Russia support him, or if anything, think

he's too moderate. So the kind of culture, the kind of world, the kind of people were emboldening with this act is pretty pretty nuts. I got your email, by the way, Baba, and I'll actually be spending some time in Lisbon in August, so if you're around, maybe we can grab some coffee. Truth shall set you free? What do you think of flat tat that rand Paul proposed. He also wanted to eliminate property taxes yeah, I mean, I'm all for a flat tax. I haven't seen this

specific proposal by Rand Paul. I'm more in favor of a sales tax and the repealing of the amendment that authorizes the income tax. I think a sales tax is better economically and easier to put in place and creates fewer distortive incentives, but relative in comparison to the existing tax code today, a flat tax that's simple that everybody can basically pay on a postcard, like what's his name Steve Forbes proposed decades ago. No deductions, no exemptions, no nothing.

You made so much money, you pay a certain percentage and that's it. Yeah, I'm incredibly pro that. I think doing a property taxes is, by the way, under flat tax. I would also hope that that flat tax would apply really to everything, so it would apply to all the taxes would either go to zero or be at the flat tax rate, but that will also include tariffs would

be zeroed out and everything else. And then in terms of eliminating property taxes, yeah, I mean, I think that's great, but property tax is a taxes levied by states primarily to funded education, so you know, states would have to agree to that, and they would have to find alternative waste to fund education as long as the education is funded by the government. Now I don't believe education should be funded by the government, but the reality is that

it is funded by the government today. So what do you do, How do you replace that funding, what do you replace the property tax with? Or do you just cut spending? And of course that's true of all these tax cuts. Much much more important than taxes is spending, much much more important than taxes than cutting taxes, is cutting spending. And that's what needs to be done, That's what needs to happen. Silvanos, The very presence of the

sixties counter culture revolution speaks that orofessors of the fifties were. Yes, and how intellectually corrupt the fifties were. That the professors of the fifties created the hippies of the sixties. That is, the professor of the fifties were Marxists, real Marxists. And the rebellion of the sixties was a rebellion against communism, against Marxism. That it was not in a sense radical or subject activist enough. This is the rise of the

new left. You know, the old left was anti reason in the name of reason, and he was anti capitalist, and the new Left said, we need abandoned reason completely, and we need to abandon capitalism, but we also need to abandon communism in the name of egalitarianism and in the name of complete and out of subjectivism. And that's the hippies. You can see that an I RAN's talks articles on the New Left versus the Old Left the antiduster evolution. So the old left, the fifties left, was

pro industrialization. The new Left of the nineteen sixties was anti industrialization, anti every element of capitalism, including industry, in the name of hugging trees in the name of the so called environment. So much much worse intellectually, ideologically, And it's the fifties that set us up for that, all right, Wes. Wes just came in with a sticker for fifty dollars. As I said, you two can now come in and support the show with the stick of Mary Ellen has

done it. Thank you, Mary Ellen. And let's see who else. I'm just going through the list of people to see who else did stickers. No, not there, not there. I think that I think that's it. We've were sort of stickers today. You know, you can come in with Mary Aleen. I think did another sticker. She did too. Yes, there's Marie a Leene again. Two stickers from Mary Ellen. But you guys should come in with the stickers. You don't

have to ask a question. Oh Savannas started us out with a with a stick a way way way in the beginning, so he was he was indeed the first. So please consider doing a sticker. You can do a buck ninety nine to ninety nine, any amount just to show the support for the show. There you go, y'all just did two buck fifty. Robert just did a buck

ninety nine. We could do you know, one hundred buck of ninety nine's there's one hundred ninety nine dollars, which would get us past our goal for the second hour. So important though, again thanks to West for the fifty dollars that really really helped and moved us forward to where we need to be. And there's Linn doing twenty dollars and odf doing five, and yeah, we're chipping away nicely at our goals, all right, Chawsbot. One of the reasons I would like to live longer is so that

I know what happens in the future. Yes, I agree completely. It's basically my primary reason for wanted to live longer is I'm just curious how this all works out. And of course that's really wanting to live forever, because whatever, whenever we reach the point of you know where I'm about to die, there's going to be a future then I want to know what happens then. So but yes, I'm just curious. It's like if I die, it's like you stop reading in the middle of a novel. That's

not fun, that's not good. You want to keep going. All right, we're on a roll here with stickers. We got Lynn for twenty and our DF and Silvanos and super Cask and Colleen and Paul all coming in anywhere from ninety nine cents to twenty the whole range in between, so you two can can participate. All right, let us

continue with the super check questions. We're still about ninety seven dollars short, so there's still five twenty dollar questions would be phenomenal right now, and we've got again we got plenty of time, no rush, so you can ask as many questions as you want today. I'll stick around and answer them, all right, Roberts says, what do you think of the phrase taxation is theft? I think it's inexact that invites confusion regarding the impropriety of various taxes.

I don't particularly like it. I know what it's attributed to, and at the end of the day, a taxation is theft in a sense, but it doesn't distinguish between the fact that usually theft is something defined in the law, what constitutes theft, what doesn't constitute thefts defined in the law, and taxes are legal, So it's not theft in the sense of, you know, legally theft. It's and it's not even theft generally, it's something people don't like. A majority

of people, overwhelming majority of people don't like theft. They're anti theft, they fight against theft, and yet the majority of people are for taxes. So when you say taxation is theft and you just throw it out there like that, it's it's mostly just confusing for people. It doesn't convey anything interesting unless you're willing to actually explain. But then by starting the explanation with something like taxation is theft, a lot of people are just gonna shut their minds off.

You're some oh yeah, it's the crazy libertarian type instead of explaining what exactly is going on and in what sense it is the same in what sense taxation is theft. So I don't think it's a helpful statement. And when people throw out there, I kind of agree, but not really. At the same time, John says, I'm waiting for Trump to proclaim that he has achieved peace in our time.

I think his argument is he would have achieved peace in his time if everybody would have recognized that he actually won the twenty twenty elections, right, they wouldn't be an a war in Ukraine, there would not be a war in Israel. There really would know be he wars

anywhere in the world. So we missed out on peace in our time by by not recognizing the fact that he won in twenty twenty, and now he has to do all this work which he doesn't like, and sell out all of our allies in order to achieve peace in our time. But yeah, I would not be surprised if you got that phrase him to say that phrase. That's, of course the phrase that Chamberlain said after they signed the Munich Agreement, which basically capitulated to Hitler and embolden

Hitler thought World War two. Soon after, Andrew says I said that every that even many objectivists avoid explicit selfishness. Capitalism is too often justified based on social utility. The sense of selfishness is too radical, even among defenders of freedom. If so, what's the cause, Well, it's a radical position. It goes up against everything people believe in the culture. It goes up against everything we were race to believe, It goes up against everything your audience believes. And to

advocate for it requires explaining. And it's not easy to explain what you mean by it, and why is it so unpopular? And why of noll of the philosophers engaged with it? Why have no other philosophers advocated for it. It's a lot of work, so I and everything. Every time you say egoism, selfishness, self interest, you have to spend an hour explaining what you mean, because you cannot rely on the every people in the culture having any

understanding of what it is that you mean. So I think those are the reasons why people are hesitant or avoided or you know, a little reluctant to do it. And then of course there is you know, we're all still struggling with the remnants of altruism in our own minds. Truth shalls that you free. Problem is our taxes is being used for things we don't need. Plus our dollar is taxic st eight times over, which is why Dolly,

in my opinion, is losing value your thoughts. No, I don't think either of that has anything to do with it. Even if all the taxes were used for things that people needed, they would still be wrong. It would still be a moral to take from some and give to others, even if the people who are receiving get something they actually need. So the morality the legitimacy of taxes doesn't come from whether they provide something that somebody needs or not.

They come from whether they're using force and coersion, whether they are being taken by force, whether they are or not. And of course, whether the government is exceeding its responsibility to protect individual rights or not. It shouldn't be doing anything other than protecting individual rights. And then you say our dollars tax six st eight times. I don't see the six d eight times. The dollar is taxed two to three times. I'm struggling to see where it's tax

more than three times. Your tax on your income, you're taxing on capital gains, and you're tax on a sales tax. That's three times. But I don't see how that's connected to the dollar losing value. And indeed, it depends how you mean by the dollar losing value. It's it's definitely losing value and it's purchasing power. But that doesn't have anything to do with taxes. That has everything to do with the supply of money and the printing of money

and the distribution of money. And then if it's not losing money against other currencies, it is losing money against gold. But again that has to do with the supply money, not with taxation. Not with taxation that taxes. You're taxing the money. There was taxes income, and was taxes capital gains, so it's a third tax. I don't see how it's an eight or nine tax. Gift taxes same thing. Your gift tax is not also taxes a debt tax. Those

taxes are applied to different dollars. Your property taxes again applied to money you spent on the property. There was tax once's income, so it's a second time you taxed. So any given dollar is not taxed more than three times your state taxes and federal taxes. But remember that for most people, unless you live in a very high state tax environment, you get to deduct your state taxes from your federal taxes, so you're not paying double. Now

in California you do. Okay, So in california's four times. Still not eight or nine, Still not six or eight. But the real loss of value has to do with worth inflating the multicupply William Ram's essay. The pop pedlars is relevant at all to the talk about USA D and feign aid in general, no real question. You're on fire today, yeah, I mean, but the pop pedals is

relevant to everything. The pope pedlars is relative relevant to USA D. It's relevant to you know why some pole pedlers are not arguing against RFK and some are for RFK. It's relevant to every action of government today. That is, it's relevant to every aspect of the mixed economy. Once you have a mixed economy. The pop pedlars are everywhere, uh,

inside the United States. Outside the United States, even people who typically are just productive human beings and don't have anything to do with Washington become put pole pedlars because that's the only way they can defend themselves against the onslaught from a mixed economy, from mixed economy government. So yeah, poor Pedlar's as relevant as ever, more so than ever. And thank you about me being on fire today. I'm always a fire, always apollows us as life is the

standard of value and flourishing and flourishing. Would it not be in our best interest to get together to fund businesses which specialize in life enhancing and life extending research and development? Yes, yeah, absolutely, But that's exactly what venture capitalists do. That's exactly that. Plenty of businesses like that out there. You can find a variety of different ways to support them, by buying their products, by investing in them,

by you know, seeding, providing seed capital. Lots of different ways in which you can support this industry that is extending and more importantly improving human life. Yeah. I mean whether we should is the people right here. I mean that depends on how much money you have, what are you spending it on? Do you know anybody in the field, How much level of expertise do you need to have in order to make it a proper investment in it?

That is a more complexed question, but yeah, people should be investing in it, and people indeed are investing in it. Apollo Zeus West is best. Thank you, Apollo Zombie. Gallant said in a new interview that Israel had the opportunity to fully eliminate thousands of Chrismaala members with the walkie talkies in October twenty twenty three. BB said no. Week yes,

BB said no, repeatedly. I mean, they had the ability for years, and he waited and waited and waited, and finally, I think with finally they decided they were going to take on Grisabella fully and completely. But it was late. They could have eliminated Grisbela as a threat as early as October twenty twenty three. They knew where Nozuela was. They could have killed Zuela. Everything they did they could

have done ten months earlier. Now it's good that they did what they did, but earlier it would have been better. Saved more lives, prevented people from having to leave their homes, lots of stuff. I haven't missed any questions as far as I know. There's just a long list of them. I'll get to all of them in the order they were asked, But to remember, I always answer questions of twenty dollars or more first, and only then questions of

twenty dollars less. So if you're if you're in a hurry and you need to have your answer question answered quickly, then make it a twenty dollars question. Andrew Ran in Virtue of Selfishness states the questioning her use of selfishness

implied cowardness cowardice. Was she too harsh? I do think people are afraid of it, though I don't know if I would morally judge them for that per se well, I mean calling them cowards is a mal judgment to some extent, but it's it, you know, So I don't think you would hostly judge them because it takes time. They have to develop the the the courage, and they have to understand what she means. They have to understand the concept, They have to understand what it fully means

before they're going to use it. So I agree that I would not judge them too harshly morally for a while. At some point you should, but everything in the objectivism, it takes time, all right. Cook California is doubling down on plastic bag bands I'm not surprised California's nuts about these things. Environmentalism is out of control in California, and yeah, it's not good. By the way, so is Puerto Rico. Plastic back situation in Puerto Rico is very very bad,

very very bad. Plastic anything in Puerto Rico very bad. Austin, what would you say about claims the Big Ag and food is colonized in Puerto Rico and the global food supply also toxic chemicals and preservatives. I have no idea what that even means. What does it mean to colonize Puerto Rico? I mean, I wish Big AG was here,

we'd have better food. I mean, part of the problem with Puerto Rico is we import most of our food and because of the Jones Act, it's very compassome in inefficient, and our food supply is not great, and we don't have a lot of local food because Big AG is not here. So I don't know what it means to colonize. I mean, Big Eggs should go everywhere in the world and produce massive quantities of food. If you don't like the food the Big Egg produces, don't buy it. It's

very simple. There are plenty of options. That plenty of alternatives here in all of the world. I lost to say, you couldn't feed all the people in the world without big AG. It has lowered the cost of food to such a degree that people can eat, and now we have the problem of obesity. But that's a problem on self control, it's not a problem of BIGAG. And if it's a problem in demand, if we switch the demand to different types of food, BIGAG would follow. BIGAG would

produce the kind of food that we would want. I'm not worried about toxic texic chemicals and preservatives. There's very little evidence in any of the literature that the kind of chemicals used to grow food and the kind of preservatives used in our agriculture have much or anything to do with our health. They don't seem to be affecting our health in a significant negative way, and there's plenty

of research being done. Indeed, the phenomena of organic versus a non organic very very questionable about whether there's an advantage to eating organic, whether the nutrient new the organic is more nutrient rich than not. I'm skeptical about all of that. All of that, I mean, I think this seems to be research about what do you call it? Processed food? That you shouldn't eat processed food. It loses much of its nutritional value, and it adds a bunch

of things that your body probably doesn't need. It might do harm, not clear, but other than that, all right, thank you, Austin Andrew. One of Trump's motives, in addition to attention power lost, is cynicism. He's obsessed with others getting over on him. He's a conspiracy manga. He fights against fraud, not for positive agenda. Yeah, I don't know that that's cynicism, but he's definitely constantly it's all derived from his low self esteem and is a lack of confidence.

Is that he always thinks that somebody is pulling something over him, the Canadians are stealing our stuff, and that leads him to constantly be on the defensive and constantly you try to explain his losses with crazy with crazy ideas, Nrik, Is there a point in the world condition that shrugging makes sense? Sure? I mean I think first that point is going to vary for all of us very on, you know, to the extent to which the world is

impacting us, the extent to which we feel constrained. It depends on our age and where we are in life, and which country were in, and what industry and what our profession is, and it depends on a lot of things. But in terms of the world, cerleinly with free speech goes some form of struggling is appropriate. Hasn't gone yet Austin. Why is healthcare so expensive? How do you know for

sure that a free market would make it affordable and universal? Well, I don't know what universal means, and I don't care about universal. Is food, universal, iPhones? Universal is homes? Universal? I mean universal is not the standard by which I go by. Now affordable because I know because I understand how markets work, I know how industries work, I know how uses and businesses work, and I know that in a free market. In a free market, quality goes up

and prices go down. At least prices go down per unit of quality. You see that in every market out there. The only things where prices go up and quality goes down are things where the government is involved ed, education, healthcare, housing, to some extent, anything that is affected by zoning. So there's nothing about healthcare that makes it unique, that makes it different. Yep, So I understand the laws of economics. I understand the laws of markets. It's like understanding the

law of physics. How do you know that things? You know the next time you drop the apple, it's going to fall. How do you know how fast it will fall on Mars? Maybe on Mars it'll fall. Different because I know the laws of gravity, and I can extrapolate to Mars. I know the laws of business and economics that can extrapolate from every other place. The markets work, to healthcare. It's not different. Esoteric echotomy, Hey you're on. Is there a happy medium between the fifties nostalgia and

the progress of today? Would like to see a synthesis best of both worlds. I don't see the point. Like the best of the nineteen fifties was a small government. That's about it. I mean, there's nothing interesting. I mean I'm a big, big, big, big, big promoter of progress, big promoter progress. So you know, it's it's generally from a material perspective, everything is better today. The movies were

better in the fifties. The ideas that the universities that were being taught were not quite as destructive as they are today, but they were destructive. So no I want to I don't want to synthesis. I want better than the fifties and better than today. I want better. I want better in every dimension. And you know, if you were black in the fifties, it wasn't good. If you're a woman in the fifties, it wasn't good. If you

were gay in the fifties, it wasn't good. If you were entrepreneur in the fifties, not as good as today, particularly if you were engineering oriented. But Americans were more mobile, more entrepreneurial. They and again, the government intervened less in important ways. There were no environmental regulations. But there's also less being produced, a lot less, a lot less being produced, and of lower quality. So I want abundance of stuff and of freedom. And that's not the best of both worlds.

That's better than everything in terms of treating women or gays or blacks. I don't want to synthesis with the fifties. I want to get rid of the fifties. Austin follows up the healthcare Yes, can you explain how were details and real world facts on how free markets would make sure everyone could afford healthcare? So first, I can't make sure that everyone could afford anything. I don't care about everyone. I don't think the goal is to have a system

where everybody can afford everything. You know, as I like to say, the wife beating drunk probably won't be able to afford healthcare. And I don't care. The standards should be can everybody who is working and being productive can afford healthcare? Absolutely? I can show all of that, and I have. You know, I've done this many many times. But if you search just recently, I've done shows on health care. So I did, what would a free market

healthcare look like? And you know, health insurance, catastrophic health insurance, which is all the insurance you really need, costs less than a cell phone bill. Most poor people have cell phones, almost all of them. Do they pay a cell phone bill? They can pay for insurance, you know. And I go through how everything gets cheap in a free market. I go, you know, I've given an example in the past of lasik surgery keeps getting cheaper all the time, veterinary medicine

keeps getting cheap and better all the time. Anything where you don't have the regulatory state and the whole third party ridiculous insurance schemes that we have today you get better and cheaper, and I've done it. I'm not gonna do it now. That's a three hour show, but I've done those shows. Just look, you're on healthcare or you know, and you'll find them. I've explained all that, so I didn't realize you wanted me to explain in detail right then and there for five bucks in three minutes, how

it all works. But it's all explainable, it's all doable. Usin says, why does food so expensive at the supermarket? Solutions? Food is not expensive at to supermarket. Food is cheap to supermarket. Americans spend a smaller percentage of their income on food today than they probably ever have. I mean unless you unless you shop at Whole Foods. It's not expensive on a per hour basis, per hour of work basis, it's not expensive. Now to the expense, it's more expensive

than it should be. Just check out groceries per hour worked in America. Let's see if we can do that on the fly. Grow because that's how you should measure it. How many hours do I have to work to get the groceries that I need in order to feed my family?

paying that much for groceries. Now, inflation has driven up recently grossy prices up, but on a per hour worked, grocery prices are now back to where they were before COVID, So you've made up in salary what you lost to inflation. So Ian says, human progress shows are dropping from thirty hours to four hours. So in nineteen nineteen you had to work thirty hours to pay for groceries. Today average American has to work four hours to pay for groceries. That's the kind of that's what I mean by it's

not that expensive. The solution if you want to make it cheaper easy and get rid of the environmental regulations. Get rid of the FDA, get rid of land use regulations, get rid of tariffs. A lot of the food you buy in the supermarket is flown in from all kinds of countries. That's true. That if you want blueberries, blueberry twelve months a year, if you want kiwis twelve months a year, some months, they're gonna cost a lot of

money because they're being imported from another country. In the nineteen fifties, you couldn't get blueberries twelve months a year. You couldn't get kiwis twelve months year. That's another way in which a standard living quality of life is much much better today than it was back then. Right, So no, I mean, get rid of the USDA. That's right. We

have so much abundance in the supermarket. Just think about all the food that you have out of season in the food in the supermarket, and how good that is that you can have all that food twelve months a year. Even if you live in you know, god forsaken cold place like Michigan, you can still get all that wonderful food in the supermarket. That's amazing. But that costs money. It costs money to get it to you. So those

are going to be slightly more expensive. I don't know if this next question a serious Austin, do I believe in ghosts? I mean do you? Does anybody? No? I don't believe in ghosts one hundred percent. Don't believe in ghosts. Ben, Hey, Ron, I live in New York City, but my French wife and I are moving to Paris in a few months. You have traveled Europe. Where do you think I should go? First? Florence? Oh? Wow, Well, first you're going to go to Paris, So enjoy Paris.

There's lots to do in Paris. I mean, certainly, Florence is amazing, beautiful, stunning, in lots of great art. So yes, go to Florence. Amsterdam is great, London is great, but Florence is a good first destination. Yes, but there's so much to see in Europe. You know, every few weeks you should go for a weekends somewhere there is uh Copenhagen is amazing, uh you know, south of Spain, Southern Spain, Northern Spain, Sbastian there's some phenomenal restaurants. Of course, the

central Vieia is beautiful. But for for art, Florence. After you've done all the museums in Paris, Florence. Yeah, and airplane tickets up, you know, super cheap if you willing to pay fly coach Apolosles. Could you summarize the core tenants of Western civilization and the inevitable results for the lives of those who live in such an environment? Thanks? Really, there's a question in five minutes, three minutes, two minutes. Sure.

The core tenants of Western civilization as I see them, our reason is our basic means of knowledge and survival. Reason is the only source of knowledge. Individualism, the sanctity of the individual, and liberty capitalism. In other words, so reason, individualism, capitalism, those are the Those are the core tenants of Western civilization. And the inevitable result is freedom and capitalism and a great, great, great society and wealth and you know, endless prosperity. Jennifer.

I knew this would get to Jennifer. I mean it was partially targeted at Jennifer and the rest of the Michigan's. Michigan is, who are on the chat? Why do you keep insulting Michigan? Makes me feel bad? Kidding? We have beautiful snow here now, I mean it's because I have there's a disproportionate number of people from Michigan listening to the show, and yeah, why not. I mean I could have said not Dakota, but like nobody would have responded,

nobody would have cared. But I say Michigan, and like, like ten people in the chat like, whoa, he just insulted us, Stay, what's he doing? So it's more fun that way. That is the point, and the fact that it elicited a twenty dollars super chat question from you just increases the fund right, Thank you, Jennifer. All Right, Apoloss was Aristotle influenced by at all by Greek mythology. I don't know what that means. Sure he read it, I mean he lived in a world filled with it.

But I don't know of direct influence with something philosophically that he said is something that he took for the mythology or inspired he was inspired by the mythology. I just don't know the extent to which that was the case, or if that was the case, we certainly was immersed in it. Lynn. People who complain about capitalism and use their handheld computers to do so usually get an earful from me. Good for you, Good for you, and you

should keep doing that. Give people earfuls. Asoteric dichotomy. Is it immorl to be or once to be a housewife or maybe not immral but I grew up with mom at home. Later she got a degree in six figure job. Is this subpar?

housewife or would like to have a career. I would like to do both, and our modern world allows them to have choices, options, and to do more than one thing, which is not true in the nineteen fifties. It was almost impossible to find a good job in the nineteen fifties if you were a woman. Peter Ruthling, thank you for interviewing Robert Zuberin. I'm amazed by how good he is at what he does, and how sound his ideas

are even without objectivism. Yeah, it is amazing. There are people like that in particularly in particular fields, that are very very good even without. I mean, civilization couldn't have come to where it is today. People had to have objectivism to be good. They can be good, particularly what they do, even without objectivism, and that's how we got to where we are today. What did I start to think about Greek mythology? I have no idea. I do not know, Megan, regarding our FK Junior. I'm trying to

start a gene therapy business. Help. Yeah, good luck. Don't use MR and A. Whatever you do, don't call it MR and A. Maybe call it something different. If you're using MR and A, don't admit it. Ever. Let's hope he is not taking too seriously. Let's hope they don't he doesn't do a massive power grab. I don't know. I don't know what to hope. It's so pathetic and so it's so sad. Austin thoughts on the book Why Women Have Better Sex under Socialism? I don't have thoughts

on the book. I haven't read it, but it's it's just on a title. I can tell it's a stupid book and untrue, completely untrue. So I think I read a review of it. It's just a it's a completely ridiculous premise, and the way the author approaches that, if I remember right, is completely bad. And yeah, I haven't read it. I don't plan to read it. I never wore read it. It's it sounds stupid as the Terrech economy.

Twenty dollars questions are hard. Five dollars is one hundred and fifty characters versus twenty for twenty five, I can ask you six hundred characters of wisdom with five dollar questions. Favorite class in university? Thank you, Ron, Well, that's fine, but I was just saying, if you want them answered quickly, they have to be twenty favorite class in university. I don't remember. I don't know something in finance, probably yeah, I don't. I don't remember. I can't remember stuff like that.

Life at university was a long time ago, and now I don't dwell in that past. Neo, what's the consequence to the West If Putin wins, well, I think more, and you know, gradually the West becomes more like Putin, which I think is what's happening already that is more thalitarian, more conservative in the negative sense, more religious, more palitarian.

So I think Putin's influence will grow. Right wing political parties in Europe will grow in influence and become more and more like Putin because they will view him as a victor. I think they already do. The United States

will become more like Putin's Russia. And that means Western civilization disappears, slowly, fades away and is replaced by a you know, regressive what do you call it, reactiontionary ideology that is anti the three anchors pillars tenants of Western civilization, reason, individualism and capitalism as a teric dichotomy to make a twenty dollars show today, I like your payment model of twenty dollars. Getting a priority and more time given per

dollar amount feels fair trade. Thank you, Thank you. As a turch echontomy, you really appreciate the support Austin. Aren't zoning and building codes important? No, the zoning in particular, but so building codes very very They make housing expensive, They make the supply of housing in short supply. They restrict ability to experiment in terms of city layouts and city design, and neighborhood design and neighborhood layouts. They've caused a huge housing dage and crisis in the United States.

But it's not just housing, it's it's UH the inability to build mixed use and UH and and skyscrapers and a lot of other things. So zoning is one of and Oh and they have reduced mobility. They've reduced the ability for Americans to travel UH or move from from state to state, which has far reaching consequences to entrepreneurship, to business formation, to a lot of other things. UH.

Building codes UH are significant and reducing innovation in building. UH. You know, there should be UH codes developed by builders, by insurance companies, by banks who fund the building. The state has no business in zoning and telling you what you can and cannot build and where you can build it or not. So uh you know, but a lot of Frank Lloyd Wrights buildings would have never lived up to the exist building codes, although structurally they're completely sound.

Austin should InCAR serrated people. Incarcerated people get free food in medical well, I mean yes, they're going to get free food in medical out top point. I don't think spend a huge amount of money trying to cure you know, you know, awful diseases. But they should while they're in jail, while they're separated, they should at least be fed and given basic medical care. And if they have money, by the way, if they have money, then they should be billed for all of that, they should have to pay

for it. They don't have money, they get what the state provides. If they do have money, they should be built for it. Andrew, do you actively think people should care what you spend super chat money on? Your understanding about it, But it's like left us complaining that a company profits too much if it's excessive. No, I mean, I don't think people should care what I spend the money on, because what they're paying for is the value they're receiving. And if they're not receiving a value, don't pay.

And if you are receiving a value, you probably should pay. How I spend it, what I spend it on is irrelevant, but it is important for people to understand that you're paying for my time. What I spend it on is irrelevant, but my time that is the show. The show requires time, prep, technology, and actually doing the show significant hours every day, and that the show just wouldn't exist if not for you paying for my time, I would do something else I

have to. So I think that relationship between the show's existence and the money. It is a listener supported show. Without the supportive listeners, it doesn't exist. How I spend it on rent restaurants close certainly, not close obviously, But you know, is none of anybody's business. You're paying for the value you get from the show. You're paying for the product of my mind, the show for my time.

All right? Soupcast supercask has the final question. I think, unless somebody jumps in with one in thirty seconds, can you give a rundown of US history in thirty seconds? Rundown of human history? Declaration of Independence? War of Independence America wins has it creates a constitution which is the

best in the world, establishing freedom and capitalism. That constitution is eroded by slavery fight a civil war now to eradicate slavery in the North before the civil war, and then post civil war, massive industrialization, economic growth, and expansion to the West, becoming the most powerful militarily and economically country in human history by the break of World War One. For some reason, participates in World War One for a

little bit more reasons. Participations in World War Two is the deciding fact in both, but it's progressively less free throughout that period, and post World War two thrives economically, but progressively slowly, is growing slower and less free progressively from the Great Depression. On something like that. I don't know if that's helpful. Probably not. Marilene, thank you for the sticker. Let's see. Did I miss anybody else's sticker thanking people? I thought there was Mary Mary. I remember

I didn't Thank Mary Mary. Thank you Mary Mary. Thank you. Guys really appreciate it. Will I will be back tomorrow, same time, same place again, a three hour show, no rush tomorrow. We will get into I'm hoping we have time to get into the post constitutional the view of post constitutionalism, and I'm sure there'll be have with the topic to talk about. So I will see you all tomorrow, same time, same place. Thanks to all the super chatters, Thanks to all of the viewers. Don't forget I like

the show. Before you leave. If you're not a subscriber, please subscribe. We're heading to forty thousand and and Yeah, I'd like to show share the show. Do all the things that you're supposed to do on YouTube by everybody, and Twitter and everywhere else.