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Speaker 3: Welcome to podcast two hundred and forty seven for July seventeen,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four. When I framed this podcast at the
Speaker 3: end of last week, there was no way of knowing
Speaker 3: the political temperature chains waiting in the wings, and I
Speaker 3: state the obvious. Just prior to recording. On Wednesday morning,
Speaker 3: I was listening to the most recent opinions on what
Speaker 3: took place in Butler, Pennsylvania a few days ago. As expected,
Speaker 3: there are many and varied opinions. In the second interview,
Speaker 3: George Friedman offers his thoughts and the connection of the
Speaker 3: attempted assassination of Donald Trump to what he wrote in
Speaker 3: the book The Storm Before the Calm. But first, in
Speaker 3: a Jordan Williams, co founder of the Taxpayers Union, a
Speaker 3: discussion which I based on the suggestion that Christopher Luxon
Speaker 3: should consult with the Estonians read their tax system the
Speaker 3: best in the world. I might add while they were
Speaker 3: both attending the NATO conference in Washington, but Jordan and
Speaker 3: I covered much more regarding the palace state of New Zealand,
Speaker 3: and I think you'll find it very good listening. Now,
Speaker 3: I think you'll find in both the interviews there is
Speaker 3: as much comment as is needed in one podcast. So
Speaker 3: I'm going to add nothing new apart from at the
Speaker 3: back end of this podcast, i'll read you the opinion
Speaker 3: of one retired senator on what took place in Butler.
Speaker 3: But first, in just a moment, Jordan Williams, there are
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Speaker 2: Layton Smith.
Speaker 3: I'm looking at a headline that arrived in my inbox
Speaker 3: a few days ago, and I'll read it to you
Speaker 3: in just a second. Before that, I want to quote
Speaker 3: you something from the back of a book. In twenty thirteen,
Speaker 3: a couple of political troublemakers called David Farr and Jordan
Speaker 3: Williams created what they called the New Zealand Taxpayers Union.
Speaker 3: The country had never had anything quite like it. Taking
Speaker 3: a cue from similar advocacy groups abroad, the new group
Speaker 3: set itself against unaccountable government spending, physical, wasteful and unnecessary
Speaker 3: tax Now. I don't know that there would be anybody
Speaker 3: listening to this podcast who would disagree with any of
Speaker 3: those things and not be right behind this group. They
Speaker 3: have since been joined in their quest by two hundred
Speaker 3: thousand Kiwi well Wishes, along with an absolute pig of
Speaker 3: a mascot called Porky the WTATA, and they have just
Speaker 3: recently celebrated their tenth birthday. They published this book, The
Speaker 3: Mission the Taxpayers Union at ten were the Ford by
Speaker 3: Sir Bill English and edited by David Cohen. It was
Speaker 3: the Taxpayers Union that issued the email that I'm talking about,
Speaker 3: and the headline was something that I grasped instantly, p M.
Speaker 3: Luxon needs to talk tax with Estonian Prime Minister And
Speaker 3: it begins like this Taxpayers Union is calling on the
Speaker 3: Prime Minister, Christopher Luxen to discuss tax policy with Estonia,
Speaker 3: which has ranked number one on the tax Foundation International
Speaker 3: Tax Competitiveness Decks for ten years in a row. Estonia
Speaker 3: World leader. Estonia's world leading tax policy has led to
Speaker 3: significant economic growth, far outpacing New Zealand's. It caused me
Speaker 3: to pick up the phone and ring somebody with whom
Speaker 3: i'm familiar, co founder of the Taxpayers Union, Jordan Williams.
Speaker 3: And you said yes, and I'm grateful that you didn't
Speaker 3: thank you. Laden. It was very subdued. You've had a
Speaker 3: busy day, I gather having a big, long day, long
Speaker 3: staff meeting.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, Well, we sort of every every quarter we
Speaker 4: get together the staff and plan out what's on the
Speaker 4: priority list over the next few months. The nature of
Speaker 4: the organization as it's difficult to plan out much more
Speaker 4: than six months or even a year because you're so
Speaker 4: dependent on the agenda of the day. You know, there's
Speaker 4: some things that we can set the agender on. I'd
Speaker 4: hold up three Waters as being a good example. No
Speaker 4: one was willing to talk about that. No one was
Speaker 4: willing to take on this scary thing called co governance,
Speaker 4: although you couldn't really use that word three years ago
Speaker 4: when we launched that campaign. But on most things, actually
Speaker 4: the agenda is set by the government of the day
Speaker 4: and our job is to make sure whatever debate it
Speaker 4: is that the taxpayer point of view is injected into.
Speaker 3: It good Sticking with Estonia at the moment, Estonia has
Speaker 3: the best tax code in the OECD. It ranks first
Speaker 3: overall and second behind Latvia and Neighbor. I called them
Speaker 3: the three communist kids who grew up anyway, Whilst New
Speaker 3: Zealand ranks highly overall, our corporate tax ranking is where
Speaker 3: in relation to Estonia's.
Speaker 4: Well in terms of the complexity of the tax system,
Speaker 4: and the same that the tax foundations INDIEX Historically since
Speaker 4: the early nineties, we haven't gone too badly. The point
Speaker 4: is that we quickly marching backwards, and that particular media
Speaker 4: release was slightly tongue in cheek focusing at Christopher Luxan
Speaker 4: because the National Party have seemed to adopt it, this
Speaker 4: drift that continued under the last government of going backwards. So,
Speaker 4: for example, the reason Estonia's tax system is really held
Speaker 4: up as a model, there's a couple of things. Firstly,
Speaker 4: they don't tax company profits until they're actually distributed, which
Speaker 4: incentivizes reinvestment back in the good things in terms of
Speaker 4: capital and promoting labor productivity, and that if only we
Speaker 4: could do that here. But the other thing that they
Speaker 4: have is all the rates of twenty percent, which is
Speaker 4: what New Zealand used to strive for of having our
Speaker 4: company rate roughly aligned with our top marginal personal tax rate,
Speaker 4: our trust rate, et cetera.
Speaker 2: You know, labor stuff that up.
Speaker 4: With a thirty nine percent top marginal tax rate, and
Speaker 4: then that's come along and instead of abolishing that, they
Speaker 4: have held on to Labour's money grab on or tax
Speaker 4: rate on trusts. I think that for many farmers across
Speaker 4: New Zealand, it's come into law. Labour kept us. Sorry,
Speaker 4: the new national government kept it. It won't be until
Speaker 4: the end of this tax here there's a nasty surprise
Speaker 4: coming for a heck of a lot of farmers that,
Speaker 4: for quite legitimate reasons hold their businesses or farms and trust. Now,
Speaker 4: for the big end of town, they will reorganize, they
Speaker 4: will shift over to company structures and pay only twenty
Speaker 4: eight percent tax. Meanwhile, for the smaller end of town
Speaker 4: this is going to be very expensive.
Speaker 2: Indeed, But I use it as an example.
Speaker 4: Because it just shows that the government has sort of
Speaker 4: reverted it is not taking a leadership in terms of
Speaker 4: making changes to our tax system that promote economic growth,
Speaker 4: efficiency and attract the sort of investment that you know
Speaker 4: Estonia or the other examples Ireland set out to achieve.
Speaker 4: Now I look at the test like this, and it's
Speaker 4: a good test between whether a Minister of Finance is
Speaker 4: a minister of finance first or a politician first. So
Speaker 4: a lot of politicians and it's and it's quite a
Speaker 4: popular set of ideas. The idea of something like tax
Speaker 4: free thresholds or lowering the marginal rates at the bottom end.
Speaker 4: Now that's good, and you know, the tax payer, you know,
Speaker 4: we'll take tax relief pretty much any day, you know,
Speaker 4: that's our job. However, it is always the marginal rate,
Speaker 4: Like any sort of economic thing, it's it's the incentives
Speaker 4: at the margins that incentivize the person to work that
Speaker 4: but extra hard to take that extra over time, to
Speaker 4: make the investment to improve their business or make it
Speaker 4: more productive. And tax free thresholds, invariably over the long term,
Speaker 4: increase what you're paying at the margins. And I use
Speaker 4: it as an example because the National Party's are tax
Speaker 4: relief that frankly only went a little way of even
Speaker 4: compensating for the fiscal drag, the increase in tax that
Speaker 4: we pay because of inflation. We earn no more, but
Speaker 4: we get pushed into higher marginal tax brackets. It only
Speaker 4: went partially way to compensate for that. And the way
Speaker 4: it was structured is it doesn't really increase the incentives
Speaker 4: to work or be more productive. And then i'd point
Speaker 4: to you the National Party playing the politics as opposed
Speaker 4: to the good economics and putting New Zealand on a
Speaker 4: more productive path. And you know, we saw that mister
Speaker 4: Luxon was seeing the Estonian Prime Minister. He might learn
Speaker 4: a thing or two from the approach the Estonians take.
Speaker 3: I suppose you didn't. You didn't find out whether we
Speaker 3: did or not.
Speaker 4: I haven't run into Christphal lux did an event with
Speaker 4: our donors earlier this year. We haven't had them back yet.
Speaker 3: Okay, break that down for me in very simple language,
Speaker 3: if you would, so that we can all understand it.
Speaker 3: When you talk about when you talk about the margins,
Speaker 3: when you talk about incentives, give me an example that
Speaker 3: or build an example for me that will explain to
Speaker 3: all of us exactly how you would have it work.
Speaker 4: Ideally, so the New Zealand used to strive for this.
Speaker 4: It shouldn't matter how you structure your affairs, whether you
Speaker 4: earn the income personally as a payu uner or whether
Speaker 4: you own a business and a company structure or whether
Speaker 4: you own it in a trust, that tech should at
Speaker 4: least be roughly the same to avoid business decisions or
Speaker 4: structural decisions being driven by tax incentives, that's what you're
Speaker 4: trying to strip out. So these stoneans just make everything
Speaker 4: twenty They even go as fast for capital gains at
Speaker 4: twenty percent. And there's a very mixed economic literature whether
Speaker 4: you should tax capital gains differently. But the point is
Speaker 4: is that you wouldn't have that incentive that is happening
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 2: For example in New.
Speaker 4: Zealand, where you've got a big difference between twenty eight
Speaker 4: percent and thirty nine percent tax rate dependent on if
Speaker 4: you'll farm, for example, is owned in a company structure
Speaker 4: or in a trust.
Speaker 3: How big is that difference, Well.
Speaker 4: In that case it's eleven percent twenty eight percent versus
Speaker 4: thirty nine percent on the dollar. These are not small amounts. Now,
Speaker 4: you could argue that you know, there's still a difference
Speaker 4: between the old trust rate of thirty three percent and
Speaker 4: twenty eight. Now that marginal you might you know, you
Speaker 4: might affect decision making, but certainly, eleven percent, eleven cents
Speaker 4: in the dollar is a heck of a big incentive
Speaker 4: to change your affairs. Now, for many farmers, they won't
Speaker 4: miss you know that, they won't have business advisors and
Speaker 4: management accountants of tax accountants.
Speaker 2: Up the wazoo.
Speaker 4: They're probably going to be caught by this when it's
Speaker 4: too late to change. Whereas I can tell you the
Speaker 4: beginning of town. Of course, they are restructuring their affairs
Speaker 4: for it because they see it coming down the line.
Speaker 3: They see it from the thirty second floor exactly all right.
Speaker 3: Just with regard to something else, but associated the money
Speaker 3: that's available in this country for business, for working, for development,
Speaker 3: for advancing is in very short supply. It has been
Speaker 3: said by others that we need we need to get
Speaker 3: foreign money into the country and it doesn't matter where
Speaker 3: it comes from. Do you subscribe to that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, the the thing is is we are
Speaker 4: the most, according to the OECD, the most restrictive in
Speaker 4: terms of being able to get foreign direct investment in
Speaker 4: New Zealand. Now, I appreciate that you will have listeners
Speaker 4: that don't like the idea of having businesses owned from overseas.
Speaker 4: You know, the other end of that spectrum would be Ireland,
Speaker 4: where enormous amounts of capital have flown in. And a
Speaker 4: big reason for that is that they took the very
Speaker 4: conscious decision in the nineteen seventies that we no longer
Speaker 4: want to be the poor man in Europe anymore. I
Speaker 4: mean it's the prior to Jacinder Ardurn resigning, I re
Speaker 4: called doing a similar sort of planning day with the
Speaker 4: board and staff in December.
Speaker 2: What was that December twenty twenty two.
Speaker 4: And the assumption we were working on is that, you know,
Speaker 4: the Ardourn government is toast, we were likely to get
Speaker 4: a change of government in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: What is the role of the taxpas union?
Speaker 4: And we were actually calling it a Project Horizons or
Speaker 4: Project Ireland because one thing that New Zealand seems to
Speaker 4: have fallen into the trap of is not only are
Speaker 4: we getting progressively poorer and in this sort of economic drift,
Speaker 4: is we seem to have not we seem to be
Speaker 4: accepting it a big I think I may have told sorry,
Speaker 4: I may have told you this story before, but it
Speaker 4: was particularly influential on.
Speaker 2: Me.
Speaker 4: And I tell the story about in Ruth Richardson's Batch
Speaker 4: and Warnakah. There is the Garrick Tremaine cartoon from when
Speaker 4: she was sacked by Bulger and ruth A.
Speaker 2: She's in a space.
Speaker 4: Costumer and you know, a spacesuit on the moon and
Speaker 4: the speech bubble coming out is inflation under two percent.
Speaker 4: I think she inherited it about six or seven government
Speaker 4: books in the black which he inherited. The bailout wasn't public,
Speaker 4: but she inherited the bailout of the old old ben
Speaker 4: zed economic growth five percent. My job here is done.
Speaker 2: Beat me up, Scotty. Now. It really stood out to
Speaker 2: me because.
Speaker 4: I cannot remember the last time he had a politician
Speaker 4: even talk about aiming for the goal of growth at
Speaker 4: five percent. You know, that's what Ireland and Estonia are
Speaker 4: achieving on average, whereas we are more sort of two
Speaker 4: to three percent and even worse right now, where we've
Speaker 4: got a tiny bit of growth, but we are getting
Speaker 4: on a per capita basis, on a per person basis,
Speaker 4: we are not only getting poorer on that measure, we're
Speaker 4: in the longer recession since records began. When you look
Speaker 4: at GDP per capita or or per person. So we
Speaker 4: saw the role of you know, a group like the
Speaker 4: Taxpayer's Union to actually promote that conversation of what, you know,
Speaker 4: the little country that could, what could New Zealand be?
Speaker 4: And we see symptoms of that every day. You know,
Speaker 4: the the drugs that until recently we weren't able to
Speaker 4: we didn't have the money to.
Speaker 2: How could we still don't have the money to do it.
Speaker 4: But the services and drugs that are available in Australia
Speaker 4: because they produce on a per per hour work or
Speaker 4: per capita.
Speaker 2: They produce a third more.
Speaker 4: It's not having those options for what government services you
Speaker 4: can have, what households can afford.
Speaker 2: That's what you.
Speaker 4: Know when you're in a fiscal fiscal drift for basically
Speaker 4: a generation, when you haven't when your labor productivity hasn't.
Speaker 2: Moved a decade. It these are the flow on effects.
Speaker 4: So the role of the taxpayers units is to focus
Speaker 4: on how do we promote the political conversation, So it's
Speaker 4: not just about how you slice the pie, but actually
Speaker 4: getting ruthlessly focused in the electorate, focused on how do
Speaker 4: we grow it and how do we make not just
Speaker 4: an asiell and catch.
Speaker 2: Up with Australia.
Speaker 4: At least John Key used to talk about that but
Speaker 4: we don't even hear that anymore coming from the beehive,
Speaker 4: but actually setting our sites higher. And i'd hold up
Speaker 4: Estonia or Sorry, or Ireland in particular. You know, Ireland's
Speaker 4: the only country in Europe that its population now is
Speaker 4: still less than it was at the beginning of the
Speaker 4: eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: It's the only.
Speaker 4: Basically its history was Its history was exporting people and
Speaker 4: being poor. In the nineteen seventies, they took a very
Speaker 4: anxious decision that we're not going to be poor anymore,
Speaker 4: and they made public and continue to make public policy
Speaker 4: choices to get off that track. And I'd argue, have
Speaker 4: they are on the very opposite end of us in
Speaker 4: terms of foreign direct investment. They've made themselves very attractive
Speaker 4: and they've also reaped the rewards.
Speaker 3: There's a couple of things I'd mentioned, And see how
Speaker 3: you feel if it had been Bulgerho had been sacked
Speaker 3: and by Ruth Richardson in the positions that they were
Speaker 3: both in. But let's say he was sacked and she
Speaker 3: was and she remained in business. Do you think the
Speaker 3: world would be a better place for New Zealand.
Speaker 4: Well, New Zealand profited for a long time off the
Speaker 4: hard work that was done by a generation of politicians
Speaker 4: in the mid eighties to about the mid nineties, and
Speaker 4: then we've really drifted. I mean, this is the common
Speaker 4: theme of the economic experts you have on your show
Speaker 4: late and you know we've we look at that and
Speaker 4: it's what made that budget, you know, so disappointing that
Speaker 4: you know, I sweet, I've had a lot of kickback
Speaker 4: from our people how rough we were.
Speaker 2: On the maze.
Speaker 4: Budget, because of course we all know that Grant Robinson
Speaker 4: in the last government put us on a terrible, terrible path.
Speaker 4: I sweated bricks to get rid of the last government.
Speaker 4: You know when when Ardurn resigned and Chris Hipkins took over.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you, those plans absolutely went out the
Speaker 4: window when the polls tightened and it wasn't clear you know,
Speaker 4: what the election result may be. I sweated bricks to
Speaker 4: get rid of them, but I didn't do it to
Speaker 4: have a national lead or a Tory coalition government which
Speaker 4: is spending more than Grant Robinson, including as a percentage
Speaker 4: of GDP, is pushing back us getting the books back
Speaker 4: into black and instead of you know, sacking those twenty
Speaker 4: thousand extra public servants is actually I think the last
Speaker 4: count it's only two hundred and fifty. They talk about
Speaker 4: all these sackings, but then the new ones they're coming
Speaker 4: in the latest Public Service Report Public Service Commission reporters
Speaker 4: that only two hundred and fifty have actually met, have
Speaker 4: actually gone. What their own effect doing is locking in
Speaker 4: that sort of post COVID bonanza of government spending.
Speaker 2: Oh and that's the other thing.
Speaker 4: Is the pathway back to surplus under Nichola Willis's first
Speaker 4: budget relies on the exact same mischief of fiscal drag,
Speaker 4: of not changing tax thresholds with inflation that she spent
Speaker 4: all her years in opposition complaining about, and rightfully so
Speaker 4: about Grant Robertson. And yet that instead of rationalize in spending,
Speaker 4: that is what the government is relying on to get
Speaker 4: us back into surplus.
Speaker 3: All right, let me back up a bit. You mentioned
Speaker 3: capital gains a couple of times. That's one blessing we
Speaker 3: do have that we don't have capital gains. Every time
Speaker 3: it comes up for discussions, it's shot dead. Do you
Speaker 3: think there is grounds for capital gains?
Speaker 4: I think reason our minds can differ on it. The
Speaker 4: proposal that was put in front of us by the
Speaker 4: Tax Working Group in Sir Michael Cullen would have been
Speaker 4: one of the most aggreatable, actually not one of the most.
Speaker 2: We could not find an example in.
Speaker 4: The world as aggressive as that one for a couple
Speaker 4: of reasons. The first is that unlike I mean, it
Speaker 4: was a minisatively very complex because it had everything came
Speaker 4: in from day one. It wasn't like the Australians where
Speaker 4: it was it came in as assets were sold and purchased.
Speaker 2: That's the first. The second is that it would be among.
Speaker 4: The highest in the world because poy income or if
Speaker 4: you know, you go and turn up for work and
Speaker 4: get wages as much lower risk than putting capital on
Speaker 4: the line and investing in say a business, and almost
Speaker 4: all of the world have a much lower rate for
Speaker 4: capital gains for that reason because you're risk adjusting it,
Speaker 4: whereas Michael Cullen's proposal had it at the at your
Speaker 4: marginal rate. So it was it was, it was very high.
Speaker 4: I was also not reven neutral.
Speaker 2: It was done.
Speaker 4: Clearly as a tax grab rather than attach a tax switch.
Speaker 4: And it also tax inflation. If you simply your return
Speaker 4: on the on the asset was no higher than the
Speaker 4: inflation rate. The politicians still came along and grabbed you.
Speaker 4: So it was an unfair tax in that regard to
Speaker 4: that wasn't the model I would hold up, but it
Speaker 4: was the model that was in front of us when
Speaker 4: we had that capital gains fight some years ago. In
Speaker 4: terms of we survey our supporters pretty regularly, and you know,
Speaker 4: I can tell you that you know, as I say,
Speaker 4: reasonable minds can differ on this. I remember my former
Speaker 4: Chia Barry Saunders, is relatively relaxed about the capital gains
Speaker 4: tax in principle. But the problem that we didn't have
Speaker 4: to have that argument because of the one that was
Speaker 4: in front of us was so bad. Just step back
Speaker 4: though in a New Zealand context. The problem, the economic
Speaker 4: problem that you and I have talked about around our
Speaker 4: productivity issue, it's the story of the economic history of
Speaker 4: New Zealand in my lifetime, is low productivity, under capitalization
Speaker 4: of our businesses, poor productivity per labor, are per for
Speaker 4: our work, too much money going into housing.
Speaker 2: How could the solution to that issue be to tax.
Speaker 4: Capital and capital investment or the gains from capital investment
Speaker 4: except for the family home that would drive And yet
Speaker 4: somehow that is the economic solution. It would actually make
Speaker 4: worse the very problem that New Zealand has, which is,
Speaker 4: as I say that under capital investment. And that's why
Speaker 4: the tax Payers Union, you know, we're promoting different tax
Speaker 4: changes to encourage more of what we want, which is
Speaker 4: more money going into good investments.
Speaker 2: And what good are?
Speaker 3: What are good investments?
Speaker 4: Oh give an example, So the one if there was
Speaker 4: one thing we could have from a wish list in
Speaker 4: next year's budget, it's the best tax idea you've you've
Speaker 4: never heard of, which is the full expensing of capital items.
Speaker 4: So right now, if you're a business and you go
Speaker 4: and buy a big piece of capital kit, you have
Speaker 4: to look up the depreciation rates with that ird set
Speaker 4: and you can expense that investment over many years to come.
Speaker 4: Something that Donald Trump did and Russie Sink did when he.
Speaker 2: Was chancellor is.
Speaker 4: Allow the full expensing of any capital items and have
Speaker 4: a time limit on it. So if we did that,
Speaker 4: for example, in the next year as part of next
Speaker 4: year's budget, it would bring forward capital investment because you'd
Speaker 4: want to get the tax right off, and it wouldn't
Speaker 4: actually push back the date to getting back into surplus.
Speaker 4: Now the Americans made it permanent. But by having that
Speaker 4: expiry date, as I say, it brings full with capital
Speaker 4: and investment, which is great in a in a recessionary environment.
Speaker 4: And two it actually achieves what you want, which is
Speaker 4: businesses investing in the sort of capital kit to long
Speaker 4: term increase your labor productivity. And we'd hold that up
Speaker 4: as a something that a good sort of not necessarily
Speaker 4: politically sexy idea, but economically very wise.
Speaker 3: All right, A couple of things. Welfare is enormous in
Speaker 3: this country. Is there is there a need to curtail
Speaker 3: welfare and specifically welfare expectations.
Speaker 2: Were the elephant in the room.
Speaker 4: In New Zealand's public finance is that the superannuation simply
Speaker 4: becomes unaffordable over the long term. You know, forget the
Speaker 4: super fund. It's a drop in the ocean compared to
Speaker 4: the enormous growth in New Zealand Super over the next
Speaker 4: twenty years. And that is actually probably long term. My
Speaker 4: greatest concern is that the unwillingness, by at least what
Speaker 4: we've seen, it could be wrong. But you know, we
Speaker 4: six months into this, more than six months into this
Speaker 4: government now, is that simply kicking the can down the
Speaker 4: road is the sort of thing we did in the seventies,
Speaker 4: and we all know how the eighties turned out.
Speaker 3: Talking of capital gains, my philosophy is, you don't allow
Speaker 3: the government to you prevent the government from introducing any
Speaker 3: new taxes except in what might be considered exceptional circumstances.
Speaker 3: And I'll use GST as the prime example. GST was
Speaker 3: introduced to ten percent. We all know this. Then it
Speaker 3: went up to twelve and a half percent, and it's
Speaker 3: now fifteen percent. One day I expected to go even higher,
Speaker 3: but the deal was that it wouldn't go up, it
Speaker 3: would stay where it was, and then there was a
Speaker 3: trade off for that. Now, if you introduced a capital
Speaker 3: gains tax at whatever level, sooner or later, that'll change
Speaker 3: and you'll get pursued for it, et cetera. So is
Speaker 3: there based on that, and I'm accepting that I'm right
Speaker 3: on this occasion, is there a problem with the what
Speaker 3: I shall momentarily call the collective intelligence of the country
Speaker 3: in that the education system fails dismally to teach kids
Speaker 3: the importance of matters of finance and and and and
Speaker 3: and economics. If every if every kid got some form
Speaker 3: of economics, that taught them how effort work. Putting in
Speaker 3: that extra extra hour in your job, if you if
Speaker 3: you're getting paid by there or what, or even if
Speaker 3: you're not, is going to lead to you being better
Speaker 3: off in the long run.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's even it's even simpler than that.
Speaker 4: As you get older, you you start to appreciate, you
Speaker 4: know that this radical idea that you you spend your
Speaker 4: money better than town Hall and better than those people
Speaker 4: in Wellington.
Speaker 2: You know that's a big You know, the.
Speaker 4: Reason dontrial the Taxpayers Union is you know, to convince
Speaker 4: people a little bit earlier, remind them why are we
Speaker 4: in the media every day on exposing government waste? You
Speaker 4: know it is because you know that the government is
Speaker 4: very poor at doing a lot of stuff. I mean,
Speaker 4: I'm I'm not a sort of you know, I don't
Speaker 4: believe in no government. I'm not an anarchist or anything,
Speaker 4: but I do think that there are some things that
Speaker 4: only the government can do. And you know, I take
Speaker 4: a view that the government should focus on doing those
Speaker 4: things well rather than doing so much and frankly so poorly.
Speaker 3: Go back to a studium, go back to Ireland, and
Speaker 3: any other example you want to include doesn't matter. Is
Speaker 3: it a case that we in New Zealand have not
Speaker 3: yet sunk to the depths where we're so desperate that
Speaker 3: we would we would alter the things that need to
Speaker 3: be altered now, and you do it under more extreme circumstances.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what had to happen.
Speaker 4: It had to get so bad in the eighties before,
Speaker 4: you know, we had to take because there was simply
Speaker 4: no option but to take quite radical measures, you know,
Speaker 4: because the you know, it couldn't continue. It was as
Speaker 4: simple as that. It wasn't out out of choice. I'd
Speaker 4: hold up local government as an example of a very
Speaker 4: clear area where things are going wrong. You know, you've
Speaker 4: got councilors that we've just done our annual rates dashboard
Speaker 4: looking at the rates increases of every council across the country,
Speaker 4: you know, and and for many rate payers. You know,
Speaker 4: you're talking about a doubling of rates over only four
Speaker 4: or five years, you know, on on on current numbers.
Speaker 2: This is simply unsustainable.
Speaker 4: And I understand that the counselors argued, oh, well, we
Speaker 4: need money for the three waters and for the capital
Speaker 4: and investment, and you guys you want infrastructure. Well, you know,
Speaker 4: the politicians say that, but as soon as you strip
Speaker 4: away where the money is actually going. At least the
Speaker 4: story of over the last ten and a half years
Speaker 4: since the Taxpayers Union was founded is that every year
Speaker 4: that's what they say, and you come back a year
Speaker 4: later and a greater and greater proportion of the budget
Speaker 4: is being spent on operational expenses, not on the capital
Speaker 4: items that the infrastructure that we were promised. Very clearly
Speaker 4: there does need to be a real rethink in New
Speaker 4: Zealand about don't think it's the role. I think it's
Speaker 4: the governance and the tools of governance. Now we're moving
Speaker 4: towards a Franklin undemocratic, co governed direction.
Speaker 2: And unfortunately there's another.
Speaker 4: Area where I'd argue that the government talked a very
Speaker 4: good talk through the election, but is at least in
Speaker 4: some areas really failing to deliver. And you know, with
Speaker 4: the role of the Taxpayser Union is to snuff that out.
Speaker 4: But also there is a heck of a lot of
Speaker 4: councils that aren't just dysfunctional, they're actually unable to do
Speaker 4: their jobs and governor and I'd hold up an example
Speaker 4: where many counselors ask for information from the officials or
Speaker 4: chief executives, any chief executives look them back and say, look,
Speaker 4: I'm I'm sorry, counselor, but that's an operational that's an
Speaker 4: operational matter, and you're not entitled to that information. Well
Speaker 4: i'm sorry, but you know, if you're on a board,
Speaker 4: on the board of a company, you know where you've
Speaker 4: got statutory rights of information, you just laugh at that.
Speaker 2: You're damn well entitled to it.
Speaker 4: Astonishingly, local counselors don't have statutory rights to information. I
Speaker 4: think it's just always been any expectation and implied. But
Speaker 4: officials are now that sort of seem determined to run
Speaker 4: the show simply refuse to provide it. Well, it's all
Speaker 4: very well for the Taxpayers Union to jump up and
Speaker 4: down every day about government's piddling away money.
Speaker 2: Sorry, your council's piddling away money.
Speaker 4: You can't expect them to be well governed if you're
Speaker 4: not giving councilors or elected officials the tools to be
Speaker 4: able to second guests, review or keep the keep the
Speaker 4: heat on, however you want to describe it. The chief
Speaker 4: executive and executives.
Speaker 3: It wouldn't be intentional by any chance, would it.
Speaker 4: Well, I think it's a I actually think that it's
Speaker 4: a big reason why councils or councilors are starting to
Speaker 4: pull out of local government New Zealand is that it
Speaker 4: used to be a club of sort of of of
Speaker 4: represent the council the councils in terms of the council laws,
Speaker 4: whereas it's much like so much across the West, their
Speaker 4: institutions as it sort of been consumed by the blob.
Speaker 4: In this case, the blob is very much the professional
Speaker 4: managerial class, the bureaucrats and officials that are actually quite
Speaker 4: arrogant and look down their nose at democracy. I mean,
Speaker 4: look at the way that even at the moment with
Speaker 4: the government's fast track legislation, and we've been doing a
Speaker 4: bit of work around this because we're pretty frustrated that
Speaker 4: the government's fast track regime includes special consultative rights sort
Speaker 4: of John Key style approach to co governance and.
Speaker 2: In racial privilege.
Speaker 4: But there there's this huge drive to take it away
Speaker 4: from democrats, take the decisions away from democratically elected politicians
Speaker 4: that I'd argue are accountable, because we must put these
Speaker 4: decisions in the hands of experts. That's that I'm becoming
Speaker 4: just more and more uncomfortable that that's actually code for
Speaker 4: we know better. Another one of our campaigns.
Speaker 3: Just before you leave that what you're talking about is
Speaker 3: the administrative state.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well the next example is going to go onto
Speaker 2: with Aukin transport.
Speaker 3: That well, I was about to beat you into it,
Speaker 3: but you take it.
Speaker 4: Everyone knowsorts Well, I mean it's it's it's all very
Speaker 4: well to call your local counselor and go bananas, but
Speaker 4: you know, it's it's its own serfdom. I think that
Speaker 4: you know, we've sort of got the I understand that
Speaker 4: you want some stuff taken.
Speaker 2: Out of day to day politics.
Speaker 4: You know that a few people would argue that, you know,
Speaker 4: our reserve bank model was copied by pretty much you
Speaker 4: know the rest of the Western world. But you know,
Speaker 4: for stuff like public services like UK and transport, of
Speaker 4: course you wanted to at some degree of political electoral accountability.
Speaker 4: And here at the Taxpayers Union, in fact, we changed
Speaker 4: our mission to bring that used to be lower taxes,
Speaker 4: this waste more transparency. We replaced that last limb with
Speaker 4: more accountability, because transparency is not enough if you can't
Speaker 4: hold to account the decision makers, and whether that's undemocratic
Speaker 4: co governance or these arrangements where you get frankly, and
Speaker 4: we had a former staffer that was out of Auckland
Speaker 4: Transport and I remember interviewing him and here's a bit
Speaker 4: of a lefty and I asked him, you know why,
Speaker 4: why do you want to come work for us? He said,
Speaker 4: because I've seen the inside of the beast. They think
Speaker 4: that the public served them, not the other way around.
Speaker 4: And I want to hold these people to account.
Speaker 3: How old was he.
Speaker 4: Maybe about probably coming up thirty now he got Fortunately,
Speaker 4: he got pinched by the Mayor of Auckland is now
Speaker 4: his deputy chief of staff.
Speaker 2: Well, one of the.
Speaker 4: Challenges of running the taxpayers union is your staff are
Speaker 4: constantly constantly being pinched. But that's right, that's part out
Speaker 4: of the role of think tanks is to be a
Speaker 4: incubator of talent.
Speaker 3: Well, the fact that he was in his twenties at
Speaker 3: the time is encouraging. At least he at least he
Speaker 3: could recognize what the what the issue was. But in
Speaker 3: the meantime, of course, that that same organization just rolls
Speaker 3: on regardless. Give me your thoughts then on the dispersal
Speaker 3: of information to the public, And by that I really
Speaker 3: mean the media.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that.
Speaker 4: I remember putting in our early business documents, business planning documents,
Speaker 4: that the greatest threatened challenge to the Taxpayers Union was that,
Speaker 4: unlike all her equivalents around the world, we don't have
Speaker 4: a single mainstream you need to be the exception latent but.
Speaker 2: Conservative news service.
Speaker 4: We don't even equivalent to the Australian, the National Post,
Speaker 4: even the Spectator in Britain actually or the Telegraph, but
Speaker 4: even the Spectator and Britain actually break stories. We've got
Speaker 4: good conservative talk radio, but the newsroom is certainly isn't
Speaker 4: sort of isn't a sort of center right newsroom. But
Speaker 4: having said that, you know, the Hero would be the best.
Speaker 4: But this isn't me saying it. The opinion polling and
Speaker 4: you ask New Zealanders and they consider the hero down
Speaker 4: the middle. In every other mainstream publication on the left
Speaker 4: or far left, New Zealand is an outlier the air.
Speaker 4: It's what made this decision a few weeks ago, the
Speaker 4: announcement from the government that can have an effect introducing
Speaker 4: a tax and pale out the legacy media companies, which
Speaker 4: is again a terribly short term decision by the government
Speaker 4: and frankly probably isn't going to work, but also makes
Speaker 4: the sort of it harder to see a sort of
Speaker 4: new generation media come through as we're seeing around the
Speaker 4: Western world.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, you know, the Taxpaars.
Speaker 4: Union New Zealander is now the largest per capita in
Speaker 4: the English speaking world, and i'd put to you the
Speaker 4: reason for that. When we ask our supporters, you know,
Speaker 4: why do you subscribe and what do you like about
Speaker 4: the Taxpars Union, they say, I feel like I get
Speaker 4: the real news or what's really going on from you.
Speaker 2: We've sort of it in a way filled that space.
Speaker 4: But you know, it is a real worry that and
Speaker 4: I think it partly drives that horrible polarization and distrust
Speaker 4: of of institutions and things, because you know, our media
Speaker 4: environment no longer reflects the population it's supposed to serve,
Speaker 4: and I just don't see that being sustainable in the
Speaker 4: long term.
Speaker 3: Just finally, the government is too big. We have too many,
Speaker 3: too many politicians, too many departments. Even even if there
Speaker 3: are ministers who are who are handling the governents of
Speaker 3: you know, three or four or even five different different sectors.
Speaker 3: How would you how would you approach reducing the size
Speaker 3: of the Parliament, and.
Speaker 2: You know my view, I'm certainly no fan of MMP.
Speaker 4: And actually it was the lack of any sort of
Speaker 4: or the lack of any willingness of for example, Business
Speaker 4: New Zealand or any or even the National Party at
Speaker 4: all to shift the dial or advocate in that referendum
Speaker 4: in twenty eleven. That sort of is a what was
Speaker 4: I about twenty five? That sort of really alarmed me that,
Speaker 4: you know, if we're not going to turn up to
Speaker 4: these fights or you know, advocate for a conservative, center
Speaker 4: right or common sense position, well you can't complain if
Speaker 4: you're continually losing to the left because they.
Speaker 2: Are turning up.
Speaker 4: You know, there's hundreds of groups out there that are
Speaker 4: complaining that the government isn't spending enough on albino snails
Speaker 4: or whatever particular pet causes. You know, I mean something
Speaker 4: that's that will motivated me to set out the Taxpayers
Speaker 4: Union and subsequently, you know, co found the Free Speech Union,
Speaker 4: for which you were a huge part of getting that
Speaker 4: off the ground back back when you were on radio.
Speaker 4: You know that the purpose of these groups is to
Speaker 4: actually turn up and wave the flag you need. We've
Speaker 4: we certainly did that on on Three Waters and a
Speaker 4: few other issues. But you also need the politicians down
Speaker 4: the road to be willing to show a little bit
Speaker 4: of leadership to you know, our our job and what
Speaker 4: gets up up in the morning is to you know,
Speaker 4: wave the flag of fiscal prudence.
Speaker 2: You know, we haven't gotten in a wall to government debt.
Speaker 4: You know, it's ticking over ninety thousand dollars per household
Speaker 4: and that's just central government.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: Add on another I think it's about twenty twenty two,
Speaker 4: twenty five grand if you're in Auckland that a successive
Speaker 4: mayors and Auckland have now borrowed for every letterbox that
Speaker 4: you pass as you drive home tonight.
Speaker 2: You know, these are at what point do these numbers
Speaker 2: start to get scary?
Speaker 4: And it's our job to be the canary in the
Speaker 4: coal mine, ensure that you know that that that that
Speaker 4: is part of the political consciousness these things uh and
Speaker 4: ultimately build you know, build movements or build parades for change,
Speaker 4: as we did for Three Waters, for the politicians to
Speaker 4: come and lead them. You know, we knew we were
Speaker 4: winning that by the time that you know, the new
Speaker 4: mayor of Auckland and Chris Luxon, who had been pretty
Speaker 4: pretty reluctant to say anything about co governance at all.
Speaker 4: Once once they were sort of handing glove on on
Speaker 4: our position, we can sort of move on and you know,
Speaker 4: get into the next.
Speaker 3: Namely one person in well not one, but any as
Speaker 3: many as you can in government, in leadership who are
Speaker 3: conviction politicians.
Speaker 2: Oh, I think that.
Speaker 4: I mean David Seymour was a he's out of the
Speaker 4: think tank world. I mean, they're all there for the
Speaker 4: right reasons, like don't get me wrong. For me, the
Speaker 4: litmus test is actually, you know, this government is not
Speaker 4: going to be a big reforming government. But I'm not
Speaker 4: breaking any state secrets because I've told Chris Bishop this
Speaker 4: many times.
Speaker 2: If Chris Bishop achieves the sort of.
Speaker 4: Relaxation of planning laws or rips off the band aid,
Speaker 4: that is an effect. Well it's not a band aid,
Speaker 4: it's a handcuff on our economic.
Speaker 2: Unleashing of them and actually.
Speaker 4: Delivers planning reform or planning framework based on property rights.
Speaker 4: I think that will be the equivalent to taking away
Speaker 4: import licenses during the eighties. I would just absolutely unleash
Speaker 4: the ability to get stuff done in New Zealand. But
Speaker 4: also shift capital. One of the one of the huge
Speaker 4: problems with therma is it's just the bias of the
Speaker 4: status quo, no matter how bad that is.
Speaker 2: If they achieve it now, it's a real worry.
Speaker 4: That, you know, and you know, it literally cost us
Speaker 4: millions to get a replacement for three waters, you know,
Speaker 4: ready and drafted and ready to go. Unfortunately, no one's
Speaker 4: done that with the r A and they're trying to
Speaker 4: put that into place right now. They're talking about it
Speaker 4: taking a year to get through parliament. That really worries
Speaker 4: me because the more it's in parliament, the more complex
Speaker 4: it's going to end up. You're going to eat something
Speaker 4: that that's not just simple principles. And I don't know
Speaker 4: what the what the result could be, but it's going
Speaker 4: to be a heck of a lot harder to get that
Speaker 4: through in a year's time than it would be if
Speaker 4: they were going to get you know, putting it through
Speaker 4: right now. On the other hand, if Chris Bishop does it,
Speaker 4: he will rightly go down in history as as you know,
Speaker 4: one of the great ministers of the state that unleashed
Speaker 4: the New Zealand economy.
Speaker 3: And I could say that you say, if he does it,
Speaker 3: he can't do it on his own, no.
Speaker 4: Of course, but he's got the he's got you know
Speaker 4: that it's Simon Court an act from what I understand
Speaker 4: a particular senior official and Chris Bishop the real driving
Speaker 4: forces behind it. And it's really the extent to which
Speaker 4: how much political capital the NATS are willing to spend
Speaker 4: on it, because I don't think we're going to if
Speaker 4: that budget is indicative of the fiscal strategy. I don't
Speaker 4: think we're going to see miracles on the on the
Speaker 4: tag side, or the or the efficiency or size of
Speaker 4: the state side of things.
Speaker 2: We're not.
Speaker 4: You know, there is a lot of good work being
Speaker 4: done in education, and I'll take that as red and
Speaker 4: boy boyd does that need to be done because he
Speaker 4: can't have a first world economy if you haven't got
Speaker 4: first first world educated population.
Speaker 2: But then it.
Speaker 4: All roads lead back to the RIMA because what this
Speaker 4: is now the second government national government that has promised
Speaker 4: ARIMA a reform at every or a new at every election,
Speaker 4: have gone into well, if they don't deliver this time around,
Speaker 4: it's not very credible as it and.
Speaker 3: The danger is that there will be more people fleeing
Speaker 3: the country as time goes on and things worsen, And
Speaker 3: if you want an example of things worsening, I'll give
Speaker 3: it to you in the final breath from this podcast.
Speaker 3: I heard the exchange rates this morning, as I do
Speaker 3: most mornings. When I came to New Zealand some decades ago,
Speaker 3: there was five cents difference between the Australian dollar and
Speaker 3: the New Zealand dollar. It really didn't matter. It wasn't
Speaker 3: that great for the first time for as long as
Speaker 3: I can remember. In fact, I can't remember the last
Speaker 3: time it was under ninety cents. It was eighty nine cents.
Speaker 3: Now it may have been lower, but this is the
Speaker 3: first time for quite some time. Against the British pound,
Speaker 3: it's been forty eight, which was down from about fifty two.
Speaker 3: I can't recall, not that long ago, but it's hung
Speaker 3: around forty eight today it was forty seven, and there
Speaker 3: are other examples that are the same. You can't survive
Speaker 3: on the international front if you're dealing with that sort
Speaker 3: of exchange rate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just come back to that.
Speaker 4: You know, I set up the tax Pass Union because
Speaker 4: I didn't want New Zealand to continue to drift and
Speaker 4: be poor. I've now got two kids, and I don't
Speaker 4: want to look at them and feel guilty bringing them
Speaker 4: up an awkwund You know that am I setting them
Speaker 4: up in a place where your economic opportunities aren't like Australia.
Speaker 4: And because of this awful direction and race relations, we're
Speaker 4: going who your ancestors are determines what what rights you have?
Speaker 4: You know, I mean that is not a recipe for
Speaker 4: long term prosperity. And you know that's what gets me
Speaker 4: up every day and to do this job, because you
Speaker 4: know that's what we're you know, that's what we're taking on.
Speaker 3: I know he gets up early because I texted him
Speaker 3: the other morning over this interview and I said to him,
Speaker 3: I know it's early, but when you.
Speaker 4: Get it, when you.
Speaker 3: Wake up, give me a call if you would, if
Speaker 3: you ran straight away and said, I'm at the office,
Speaker 3: what are you talking about? Listen. Appreciate the time. I
Speaker 3: appreciate more than the time. I appreciate the input.
Speaker 2: Thank you, cheers, lady.
Speaker 3: Back in February of twenty twenty, there were two events
Speaker 3: that coincided in the one week, in fact, on the
Speaker 3: one day. The first was the release of a book
Speaker 3: called The Storm Before the Calm by George Friedman from
Speaker 3: Geopolitical Futures. The second was the breaking news of COVID
Speaker 3: nineteen and the medium mania that resulted. Cancelation was the
Speaker 3: main result as far as the book is concerned. Cancelation
Speaker 3: of numerous interviews for the book on television and at
Speaker 3: least two major speeches that George was supposed to give
Speaker 3: that week. It all disappeared. Now, when you release a
Speaker 3: book and you've got the sort of coverage that was
Speaker 3: listed and all of a sudden the rugs pulled from
Speaker 3: under you, then you get a pretty good feeling that
Speaker 3: the book sales aren't going to be what they should
Speaker 3: be because book sales depend on a great launch, and
Speaker 3: so that was never really rectified. Unfortunately, my understanding is
Speaker 3: that the book is a steady seller, but now any
Speaker 3: of the best seller ever since that took place. So
Speaker 3: I can't say it's with pleasure because the circumstances under
Speaker 3: which we're talking to George. But he's back on the podcast,
Speaker 3: and I'm appreciative, thank you. How are you?
Speaker 5: I'm extremely well, especially as you reminded me of that book.
Speaker 3: Well, the book is the cause that I wanted to
Speaker 3: speak with you. The attempt at assassination was was the
Speaker 3: hook for doing exactly that? Your take on what took
Speaker 3: place on that day, what is it?
Speaker 5: Well, it's very hard to understand. One mystery is why
Speaker 5: the building next to the to say wasn't cleared. The
Speaker 5: answers it's been given is that we did clear it,
Speaker 5: but somehow he got back up. So what you see
Speaker 5: is a lot of inevitable accidents. So when you're a
Speaker 5: Secret Service guy, you're going to be doing this a lot,
Speaker 5: and you will make mistakes. And it's different from everybody
Speaker 5: else because they think the mistakes are deliberate or planned
Speaker 5: by someone else.
Speaker 2: So on.
Speaker 5: So what I think really happened was that they took
Speaker 5: the hor of well, they didn't cover the area as
Speaker 5: well as they should have, and this happens.
Speaker 2: That's a conspiracy. It's very hard to believe.
Speaker 3: I'll be quote you Eric Prince, Well, I'm not quoting
Speaker 3: him directly. This is from an article headed Malice or
Speaker 3: Massive Incompetence. Former Navy seal and Blackwater founder Eric Prince
Speaker 3: gave a detailed assessment of yesterday's Secret Service to debarcle
Speaker 3: in the wake of a failed assassination attempt on former
Speaker 3: President Trump, hopefully quote hopefully. After the tragedy yesterday in Butler, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 3: we can all recognize that unaccountable, bloated bureaucracies continue to
Speaker 3: fail us as Americans. Donald Trump is alive today solely
Speaker 3: due to a bad wind estimate by an evil would
Speaker 3: be assassin. As the graphics show, the full value wind
Speaker 3: of just five miles per hour was enough to dis
Speaker 3: the unconfirmed but likely light fifty five grain bullet two
Speaker 3: inches from Djt's intended forehead to his ear. One more
Speaker 3: little paragraph Trump was not to say. By US Secret
Speaker 3: Service brilliants, the fact that the US Secret Service allowed
Speaker 3: a rifle armed shooter within one hundred and fifty yards
Speaker 3: to a pre planned event is either malice or massive incompetence. Clearly,
Speaker 3: there was adequate, uncontrolled dead space for a shooter to
Speaker 3: move into position and take multiple aim shots. Watching the newsreel,
Speaker 3: one can hear how proximate the shooter is by the
Speaker 3: very short time lapse between the crack of arriving bullet
Speaker 3: to the boom of the muzzle blast. I'll leave it there,
Speaker 3: And is there anything you'd say about that?
Speaker 2: Well, a general thing.
Speaker 5: I know your service guys, they're far more likely to
Speaker 5: be voting for Trump and far more likely to be
Speaker 5: arresting anybody who wanted to hurt him than the Secret
Speaker 5: Service people that I know in general. Okay, you can
Speaker 5: have conspiracies all you want. You can explain any event
Speaker 5: easily by you know, some malicious force. Okay, Well, one
Speaker 5: of the things you have to do is understand you
Speaker 5: know that everybody's talking about the Secret Service.
Speaker 2: These guys are Trump guys.
Speaker 5: These guys really hated the Democrats, so and this this
Speaker 5: was a special group that didn't have any of them
Speaker 5: in there, which I doubt there was. These are not
Speaker 5: the people that it kills somebody. Plus the fact that
Speaker 5: there's superiors at all toast.
Speaker 3: There's one other aspect of the Secret Service that I
Speaker 3: do want to raise with you, because I'm interested obviously
Speaker 3: in your in your opinion. But there has been some
Speaker 3: considerable criticism from from even from House members about the
Speaker 3: makeup of the squad that was looking after Trump, and
Speaker 3: they were referring one or two of them at least
Speaker 3: was referring to the women. I saw I think two
Speaker 3: women who were part of that squad. They were much
Speaker 3: shorter than the men they were, and they're being criticized
Speaker 3: for having them in that particular squad, that they were
Speaker 3: uncapable or incapable of providing the sort of cover that
Speaker 3: was necessary in a case like that. Now, I don't
Speaker 3: know whether you hang on. I don't know whether you've
Speaker 3: seen them or not. But they were fairly I would say, squat,
Speaker 3: little overweight, and they were one in particular, was what
Speaker 3: you would say was very short compared to her fellows.
Speaker 5: I assure you that if one of those men tried
Speaker 5: to take to those women, they'd break in their half.
Speaker 5: These women are very tough and capable. And the people
Speaker 5: who are saying this are not security experts. They are
Speaker 5: coming out of the woodwork trying to get a little attention.
Speaker 5: But you know why do they have women there? Well,
Speaker 5: because very frequently part of the party that they're protecting
Speaker 5: are women. The women have to be accompanied into a restroom.
Speaker 5: Men can't do that. So you see that they have
Speaker 5: a short woman there. First, she's an expert shot. Second,
Speaker 5: she knows more lines of ways of breaking my back
Speaker 5: than anybody else would. Third, you can't have a mix
Speaker 5: something like this with the wives present without women. So
Speaker 5: I mean, this is the kind of stupidity I'll be
Speaker 5: very frank, I regard it as stupid. They're saying why
Speaker 5: they're women there? Well, because they were in the party.
Speaker 3: No, it it wasn't why were they women, It was
Speaker 3: the size of them.
Speaker 2: It was we.
Speaker 5: Oh well, I can assure you, having once I had
Speaker 5: my head handed to me by one of these women
Speaker 5: who were short years ago, they've been there for many years,
Speaker 5: that they're very qualified at what they do.
Speaker 2: They need to if they come close to a person,
Speaker 2: you don't need height.
Speaker 5: I won't tell you the part of their body that
Speaker 5: those women are going to hit. Did you take them down?
Speaker 5: Because I wouldn't be in forever. But these are women
Speaker 5: who are trained in taking men down, and if they're
Speaker 5: not far away, they're expert chats. But you would not
Speaker 5: want to engage these women in combat, okay.
Speaker 3: A further quote from Jonathan Turley, the law professors from
Speaker 3: George Washington, in a column that he's written the assassination
Speaker 3: attempt to form a President Trump left the nation stunned.
Speaker 3: But the most shocking aspect was that it was not
Speaker 3: nearly as surprising as it should have been. And this
Speaker 3: was the first comment that I saw that f I
Speaker 3: can reverse it, that agreed with what I thought. I
Speaker 3: wasn't surprised at it happened. I'm i'mly surprised that it
Speaker 3: hasn't happened sooner. Four months, politicians, the press, and pundits
Speaker 3: have escalated reckless retric in this campaign on both sides.
Speaker 3: That includes claims that Trump was set to kill democracy,
Speaker 3: unleash death squads, and make homosexuals and reporters disappear. The
Speaker 3: claim about the homosexuals and reporters disappearing came from Whoopi
Speaker 3: Goldberg on the television show that she's on every day.
Speaker 3: What I'm really targeting here is the media, which I
Speaker 3: think has a great deal to account for in the
Speaker 3: circumstances that exist today, the mainstream media in particular.
Speaker 5: Well to me, the most irresponsible thing in her it
Speaker 5: was that statement that none of us are surprised at
Speaker 5: the killing. I certainly was surprised most people I knew
Speaker 5: who were the president who wasn't so immediately, Bartle, He's
Speaker 5: hit the ground. We are holding something to someone. This
Speaker 5: is a serious problem that Americans have, which is without evidence,
Speaker 5: they claim something happened on purpose. We are still investigating
Speaker 5: the Kennedy killing for who did it? On purpose, as
Speaker 5: you're saying that a hostile It was a very hostile event.
Speaker 5: It was a very hostile attack on both sides. But
Speaker 5: we've had lots of those. American politics is not a
Speaker 5: pleasant place to be to infer from that that we
Speaker 5: shouldn't be surprised or the killing. I think that's pretty responsible.
Speaker 3: Okay, I disagree. It's just it's just that it's something
Speaker 3: that has been made. It's a part of the fact
Speaker 3: that's been mentioned from time to time, the atmosphere of
Speaker 3: hatred that exists and has for years now, something that
Speaker 3: would give cause to an attempted assault.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm sitting in the middle of Texas right now,
Speaker 5: which is gun country, and there are many feelings on
Speaker 5: both sides. What and the fact of the matter is
Speaker 5: that we are not nearly as divided as people over
Speaker 5: Cason and elsewhere. I think that we don't care nearly
Speaker 5: as much about politics. So one of the things that
Speaker 5: people who are involved in politics think that the citizens
Speaker 5: are sitting here just living and exciting about what's going
Speaker 5: on out there, and to a great extent, a lot
Speaker 5: of people are just shrugging their shoulders and not hearing.
Speaker 5: So the impact you think they have is by the
Speaker 5: analysts or whatever on themselves. Here in Texas, it's not
Speaker 5: a subject of conversation much. There's some feeling, but there's
Speaker 5: certainly nothing to lead to the killings that are happening.
Speaker 5: I think this was a young boy who, for so
Speaker 5: various reasons, felt he had to do it.
Speaker 2: Some people are like that. But for an American to say.
Speaker 5: That this is the evil that has grown the country, well, yes,
Speaker 5: Washington perhaps are the places not I.
Speaker 3: Want to move. I want to move to the book
Speaker 3: The Storm Before the Calm, because this has I think
Speaker 3: an intricate attachment to the scenario. And I want to
Speaker 3: quote you from a review from Australia for the book,
Speaker 3: Colin Chapman, who wrote, it's almost thirty years since the
Speaker 3: Supreme Soviet voted to the USSR out of existence. The
Speaker 3: United States was the only global superpower for the last
Speaker 3: decade of the twentieth century. Since the turn of the
Speaker 3: twenty first century, rightly or wrongly, the US has arguably
Speaker 3: been a nation in decline. Seventy percent of Americans polled
Speaker 3: by Politigo believe that under Donald Trump, the United States
Speaker 3: has gone on the wrong track. An earlier Pew survey
Speaker 3: was more specific, citing concerns over burseoning national debt, a
Speaker 3: widening gap between rich and poor, and a workforce threatened
Speaker 3: by automation. George Friedman will have none of it. He
Speaker 3: has rejected the notion of American decline for well over
Speaker 3: a decade. He dismissed as nonsense the view widely held
Speaker 3: by some prominent Australian academics that China would replace the
Speaker 3: US as the world's largest economy. Freedman has been proved right.
Speaker 3: The GDP of the People's Republic currently hovers around five percent.
Speaker 3: But this fascinating book is not about big power rivalry,
Speaker 3: nor a reassertion of American power, military or otherwise. Rather,
Speaker 3: Friedman cosiently argues that the US is transiting through the
Speaker 3: latest of a series of waves of cycles that have
Speaker 3: permeated American history since white men first came ashore and
Speaker 3: founded what was then a British colony. Friedman argues there
Speaker 3: are or have been two cycles, one institutional, the other economic,
Speaker 3: roughly every eighty years. It happens that for the first
Speaker 3: time these cycles are coinciding to create a bumpy ride
Speaker 3: for America before the emergence of a new dawn in
Speaker 3: a decade or so. Is that a fair assumption of
Speaker 3: your thoughts?
Speaker 5: Well, yes, and so far this year we're going through that.
Speaker 5: The shooting was part of it. Part of it is
Speaker 5: an economy that is moving back and forth. Part of
Speaker 5: it is the excitement there is in a supreme court
Speaker 5: over the whether or not phish can be taxed in otherwise,
Speaker 5: everything is up for debate.
Speaker 2: Everything is angry. Okay.
Speaker 5: Now you go back to the nineteen fifties when you
Speaker 5: know you had both sorts of crises from the Vietnam
Speaker 5: War and otherwise.
Speaker 2: Okay, we recover from them. In these.
Speaker 5: Periods we do two things. We cleanse ourselves of the
Speaker 5: issues that have been ripping us apart. We put them
Speaker 5: on the table, and we holler at each other, blame
Speaker 5: each other for everything. Then we come out of it
Speaker 5: into a stable thing. This is true since the founding
Speaker 5: of the United States. It's about a fifty year cycle,
Speaker 5: and every fifty years we go to a position of
Speaker 5: mutual rage followed by a refounding of the country.
Speaker 3: Now you predicted that that would be the cycle would
Speaker 3: finish with the twenty eight election, right, How can you
Speaker 3: put an event like an election as the point of
Speaker 3: the end of the crisis.
Speaker 5: It's not the election per se. It is all the
Speaker 5: issues that come to bear in an election. So, for example,
Speaker 5: when Reagan was elected, all the crises in nineteen seventies
Speaker 5: came to bear, and that process we came to some
Speaker 5: sort of understanding of what was going on. So it's
Speaker 5: not the election exactly the president, who generally doesn't matter
Speaker 5: very much, but it's much more the question of how
Speaker 5: we approach the election, how we fight with each other
Speaker 5: over the election, and how we save the situation. So
Speaker 5: we're having an election now in the United States. It
Speaker 5: is bitter, it is angry, it is seemingly catastrophic, and
Speaker 5: out of this we will come to a new stable
Speaker 5: pointer for the next fifty years.
Speaker 3: So something that you've been saying for a long time,
Speaker 3: and that is the president doesn't have as much power
Speaker 3: as people think they have. And yet there is a
Speaker 3: concentration at the moment of concern about the assuming of
Speaker 3: power out of the White House and the oval office
Speaker 3: over Well, I wouldn't put a time on it, but
Speaker 3: certainly the last ten years.
Speaker 5: Well, the presidency is a weak institution. It can't do
Speaker 5: anything unless Congress approves of it or not anything with
Speaker 5: most things. It has a Supreme Court that's enormously power
Speaker 5: powerful and determines a great deal of.
Speaker 2: What can be done.
Speaker 5: And then it has fifty state governors, and each of
Speaker 5: these state governors has significant powers of their own, which
Speaker 5: the president doesn't have.
Speaker 2: Any right to.
Speaker 5: Heck, so if you understand the way the United States
Speaker 5: is built, it was built by the founders because they
Speaker 5: did not trust people to govern fairly, so they created
Speaker 5: a system that was designed to block all of these actions.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean that we don't believe that the.
Speaker 5: President is ultraally responsible for everything that happens. It just
Speaker 5: means that it's something that people feel better thinking of that,
Speaker 5: and then no one's quite involved, and very frankly, it's
Speaker 5: just not true. So people talk about the United States
Speaker 5: as if it were a monarchy. We're going to have
Speaker 5: Trump as president, and then Trump will face the rest
Speaker 5: of his term in place that we've all seen this happen,
Speaker 5: all seen greatly promising presidents reshrival, but we don't remember it.
Speaker 5: We don't really understand what it is. Even people in
Speaker 5: the United States who believe that if you let Trump,
Speaker 5: wonderful things will happen Chreck Biden, don't understand that every
Speaker 5: president president is really a disappointment to people.
Speaker 3: What's your thought then, on the growth over a period
Speaker 3: of time of the authoritarian states it's known, and all
Speaker 3: the different departments that existed didn't exist before. And the well,
Speaker 3: let me use as an example. It's probably not a
Speaker 3: good one at the moment. But the appointment of Jack
Speaker 3: Smith illicitly to pursue to pursue a particular goal that
Speaker 3: was set for him by that authoritarian state.
Speaker 5: Well, I don't know anything about it's being set for
Speaker 5: him or what have you. His persecution is a collapsing.
Speaker 5: I mean, what we see happening is a whole bunch
Speaker 5: of things that they say they planned not working out.
Speaker 2: So if this was if this was.
Speaker 5: A plan put forward, this was the gang that goes
Speaker 5: shoes straight. Most of the charges against Trump are evaporating.
Speaker 5: And so what it does is you look at it
Speaker 5: and you see how the system breaks things apart and
Speaker 5: frees them up. And the emergence of Trump is a
Speaker 5: likely winner perhaps and no prosecution really so the way
Speaker 5: he had there, we are for all the prosecution that
Speaker 5: Jake did against him, He's Trump is doing well tonight.
Speaker 3: Well, I certainly can't disagree with that, but I've already
Speaker 3: got I think one more question on this, and that
Speaker 3: is the you mentioned the Supreme courtin it's power, and
Speaker 3: that's the way that it should be. But if you've
Speaker 3: got a loaded Supreme Court, which could be on the
Speaker 3: make if there was another Biden administration, it's the makeup
Speaker 3: that really decides what the outcome is going to be.
Speaker 3: So if you've if you've got some genuine constitutionally based
Speaker 3: justices operating the way that they were supposed to operate
Speaker 3: in the first place, as set up as opposed to progressives,
Speaker 3: then you're going to get the right result. But if
Speaker 3: you have an overloading of progressives, then it could be
Speaker 3: something completely different.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, we've wrote to collapse, I suppose. But
Speaker 5: the truth is that the Supreme Court is selected by
Speaker 5: the President and elected by the House, where everythent is.
Speaker 5: So these guys don't suddenly appear in these conspiracies. That
Speaker 5: is a conspiracy to really go through the rest of
Speaker 5: the place. And if you see the people who are
Speaker 5: on that community right now, it's hardly one that was
Speaker 5: positive toward Biden so on and so forth. So yeah,
Speaker 5: if you could load it completely. But what the Founders did,
Speaker 5: he made it impossible to do that. He made it
Speaker 5: impossible by making the entire system have to approve of him,
Speaker 5: and they don't approve of him. There six or seven others,
Speaker 5: and so the power is distributed. So the only thing
Speaker 5: you can do in political life is to create a
Speaker 5: system that has elements stopping it. And also by complicating
Speaker 5: the entire process. So as to blonde, who are they
Speaker 5: afraid of of? Well, six of them are conservatives, three
Speaker 5: of them are liberals, and the Supreme Court is never
Speaker 5: able to get anywhere.
Speaker 2: They're fighting with each other.
Speaker 3: And so how would you summarize your approach at the moment, Well, my.
Speaker 5: Approach is the American approach. The States was created by
Speaker 5: the Founders for not to work, so that there was
Speaker 5: no such thing as tyranny with one person coming out
Speaker 5: and control continually and so on. So we have our
Speaker 5: three branches, we have our sovereign states, and the problem
Speaker 5: with the system is it can't get anything done because
Speaker 5: trying to get things done are very difficult. So the
Speaker 5: kind of thing you would expect in a country with
Speaker 5: the prime minister it was in charge simply getting things
Speaker 5: done don't work that way in the United States. It's
Speaker 5: a really tough job. Biden has been torn apart by it,
Speaker 5: and he tore the self aside by it. It's just
Speaker 5: the way it works.
Speaker 3: So finally, then the storm before the calm, the book
Speaker 3: that we have been discussing, how would you say you
Speaker 3: feel about your position on that you've taken in this
Speaker 3: book in the current climate.
Speaker 5: Well, I said that at that time a next few years,
Speaker 5: we're going to be terrifically unstable and pretty terrifically unstable
Speaker 5: in the United States, but no more unstable that it's
Speaker 5: been at these points of cycle before. What we were
Speaker 5: to see after this in five years is a dramatic
Speaker 5: turnaround as we had in the past, where the country
Speaker 5: booms and develops and then in due course collapses again
Speaker 5: and goes around. So we were built to fail and
Speaker 5: all of the conspiracies against the nation fail. The fact
Speaker 5: that is just too complicated to get fire. You working
Speaker 5: on a new book, I am. It's a book about
Speaker 5: of the moon and the function that the moon will
Speaker 5: serve in foreign policy in the coming years. In this
Speaker 5: Longe book, it's tiresome.
Speaker 3: In this current cycle.
Speaker 5: Though, that'll be. The US is currently putting these on
Speaker 5: the moon. It within two years we're going to have
Speaker 5: colonies on the Moon. So when the United States wants
Speaker 5: to do something, it does it well. And the United
Speaker 5: States are going to dominate the Moon, which means the
Speaker 5: shoot looks down the throat of everybody else.
Speaker 3: So once again, thank you, appreciate your time, and we
Speaker 3: will converse at some stage while we're both still on
Speaker 3: the planet. While we're both still on the planet.
Speaker 2: I'll be here. I'm too mean to go.
Speaker 3: I thought you might go to the moon. George, Thanks
Speaker 3: so much.
Speaker 2: Take care. Bye, Layton Smith.
Speaker 3: Now to the mail room for podcasts number two hundred
Speaker 3: and forty seven. Missus producer has returned. She's been back
Speaker 3: for three nights and still be covering later.
Speaker 6: So lovely to be home. I'm sorry I have brought
Speaker 6: with me a fearsome cold, but what do you expect
Speaker 6: when you travel twenty four hours on a couple of planes.
Speaker 6: But it was a wonderful holiday with my daughters. But
Speaker 6: it is wonderful to be home.
Speaker 3: I just got an email by the way from and
Speaker 3: it's wonderful to have you back home. By that, thank you.
Speaker 3: I just got an email just a short while ago
Speaker 3: from somebody who is well known in business circles who
Speaker 3: sought my advice on New Orleans and followed it again.
Speaker 3: I'm going to get a full report tomorrow because he
Speaker 3: got caught by the hurricane when he was in Houston,
Speaker 3: had to layover. I guess that wouldn't have been fun.
Speaker 3: So why why did you warm up? Because you've gotten
Speaker 3: a bit chilled?
Speaker 6: I will so, Jin says. When James Bovard started a
Speaker 6: recent survey showing that thirty percent of young adults supported
Speaker 6: mandatory government surveillance inside their homes, I wondered what in
Speaker 6: the world could possess them to so freely surrender their
Speaker 6: personal free Then James himself answered my question. This is
Speaker 6: the result of a young adult population who is quote
Speaker 6: unfamiliar with life living free from government control, having only
Speaker 6: lived through COVID. In other words, they learned from COVID
Speaker 6: that their freedom's are government driven, not God given. They
Speaker 6: remember COVID vividly, but they forget Nazi Germany. Kids from
Speaker 6: a young age have been taught how to protest, but
Speaker 6: not taught the right things to protest against. They are
Speaker 6: taught to fight for their freedoms but not taught what
Speaker 6: true freedom is. They are taught skills but not knowledge.
Speaker 6: I recall a recent interview Jordan Peterson conducted with Britain's
Speaker 6: strictest headmistress, Katherine Berbelsingh. She founded London's Michaela community school,
Speaker 6: which received Britain's highest Progress eight score, outperforming even the
Speaker 6: most expensive private schools in the UK. She said, should
Speaker 6: we teach them knowledge or we teach them skills? How
Speaker 6: to think is a skill and it can only be
Speaker 6: done within a particular domain. I don't know how to
Speaker 6: think about cars. If you, for instance, if you put
Speaker 6: a car in front of me and said create a
Speaker 6: different kind of car, I wouldn't know what to do
Speaker 6: because I don't know what to think about cars. But
Speaker 6: if you tell me to turn education on its head,
Speaker 6: I've done exactly that. I've been very radical. I've thought
Speaker 6: outside the box and I've done things very differently. Why
Speaker 6: Because I know education inside out. The only way you
Speaker 6: can think in a creative manner, or think outside the
Speaker 6: box and have independent thoughts about anything is to know
Speaker 6: it really well. So that means children at school level
Speaker 6: need to be taught loads of knowledge. And that was
Speaker 6: Catherine Berbelsingh's commentary. In Your podcast one seven two, Professor
Speaker 6: Elizabeth Rater said the same thing. She said, we teach
Speaker 6: knowledge to children, we don't teach children. In podcast one
Speaker 6: nine nine, Patrick Gale said that students need to have
Speaker 6: knowledge in order for them to think. Dr Michael Johnson
Speaker 6: said that students don't know what they need to know,
Speaker 6: so the teachers need to tell them what they need
Speaker 6: to know. So it all comes back down to education.
Speaker 6: Climate change is not an existential threat, but clueless children are.
Speaker 3: Oh, I like that. I can think of one or
Speaker 3: two or ten and now thoroughly enjoyed this episode. Later
Speaker 3: and this was over James Bouvard, and I think I
Speaker 3: read this last week, but there was there was something
Speaker 3: or did I I can't recall either I read it
Speaker 3: last week thinking there was something else to come back
Speaker 3: to so I would or I didn't read it last week.
Speaker 3: So I'm now tackling it for the first time. I've
Speaker 3: got to do better, must do better, must try harder.
Speaker 3: Thoroughly enjoyed this episode. Later in great banter and insight
Speaker 3: between the two of you, just one glaring omission a
Speaker 3: president candidate not mentioned even once, one who the mainstream
Speaker 3: media have elected to ignore, much to my surprise, you,
Speaker 3: who I do not consider to be mainstream, and the
Speaker 3: slightest have ignored to my knowledge so far. Rfk jor
Speaker 3: Robert Kennedy is most certainly in this presidential running, and
Speaker 3: running as an independent should not preclude him from the
Speaker 3: debate nor from the media's consideration. He did that he
Speaker 3: is a threat to the hegemonic status quo in America,
Speaker 3: all the more reason to be tuning in. CNN did
Speaker 3: not allow him to be on the debate for so
Speaker 3: he answered all of the questions on a stream of Twitter,
Speaker 3: much more eloquent than the other two. Also, I might add,
Speaker 3: the state that Biden is in makes you wonder who
Speaker 3: is actually running the show. It's certainly not him. I'm
Speaker 3: not going to explain anymore. But I read letters and
Speaker 3: I can't remember whether they were on air or off here,
Speaker 3: so to speak. Sometimes but there was something missing from here,
Speaker 3: and I think it might be in another one. So
Speaker 3: I could be getting confused. We'll wait and see what's
Speaker 3: in the in the pile.
Speaker 6: Ladon George says. Recent government roading announcements include the option
Speaker 6: of funding significant projects through tolls. Recent Successful examples include
Speaker 6: the Papamoa to Pangurea bypass, Takatimu Drive in Tawonga, and
Speaker 6: the State Highway one tunnel, diverting heavy traffic away from
Speaker 6: Ariwa to provide a direct route through to Puhoi and
Speaker 6: the North All three have delivered savings in travel time
Speaker 6: and running costs. Similarly, the Auckland Harbor Bridge was also
Speaker 6: paid for through tolls and revolutionized State Highway one travel
Speaker 6: and the development of the north shore. Another successful project
Speaker 6: in the Bay of Plenty is the large scale flood
Speaker 6: protection works carried out on the lower reaches of the
Speaker 6: Kaituna River. Through redirecting parts of the river and the
Speaker 6: construction of substantial stock banks. The protection of of surrounding
Speaker 6: farmland from perennial flooding allowed highly fertile land to reach
Speaker 6: its productive potential. Those works were funded through targeted rating
Speaker 6: of the landowners, who were rewarded with the certainty of
Speaker 6: flood protection and resulting increased productivity. The value of these
Speaker 6: projects is beyond question. Effective flood protection works on the
Speaker 6: Esque and Wiroer rivers may have made a substantial difference
Speaker 6: to the devastating outcome now faced by residents and producers
Speaker 6: on those fertile river flats. Increased targeted rating costs would
Speaker 6: no doubt have been welcomed rather than the enormous cost
Speaker 6: and heartache resulting from insufficient flood mitigation measures in an
Speaker 6: area prone to flash flooding. And that's from George.
Speaker 3: George very Well said thank you. Going back to the
Speaker 3: Robert Kennedy one, somewhere, I think I worked it out.
Speaker 3: Somewhere there's another one talking about Kent, Robert Kennedy not
Speaker 3: not being well, being denied protection by the Secret Service.
Speaker 3: Biden himself said no. The White House Oval Office said no,
Speaker 3: bugger off. What was I going to do it now?
Speaker 3: From Bryce in brisnoy Land, except he's not. I'm currently
Speaker 3: in the South. My lad is currently at Space Camp
Speaker 3: at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville in Alabama.
Speaker 3: We've been here since July four and were at the
Speaker 3: downtown Nashville fireworks, et cetera. I've been staying in Huntsville
Speaker 3: and Nashville. I'm off to Jack Daniel's distillery today, one
Speaker 3: of his left and the and the Opry tonight. There
Speaker 3: seem to be two main views here. Trump will win
Speaker 3: and why is it. These two are the best that
Speaker 3: we can put forward. No one I've spoken with, including
Speaker 3: other space Camp parents from all over the States, believes
Speaker 3: that Biden will win, and there is a palpable dismay
Speaker 3: that he is actually running. Cheers images attacked. Thank you,
Speaker 3: I've got the images. I've got another one somewhere to
Speaker 3: do with that, but not with me today. And one
Speaker 3: more um now this comes from Australia, ed As I
Speaker 3: will refer to you as may I writes a very
Speaker 3: simple letter subject awful, Guy Hatchett saying last week we
Speaker 3: want the COVID nineteen pandemic to never happen again. As
Speaker 3: a lifelong applied scientist, I deleted the podcast straight away.
Speaker 3: Has there ever been a vaccine or medical treatment anywhere
Speaker 3: without unintended consequences and occasionally serious side effects. Now at
Speaker 3: that point I almost screwed it up myself. I'm thinking
Speaker 3: missing out on a bit of information, a lot of
Speaker 3: it maybe on the mRNA vaccines or so called vaccines,
Speaker 3: and what's taken place, what's been revealed in a number
Speaker 3: of instances in different parts of the world, North America, Europe,
Speaker 3: is that the company's developing these so called vaccines hid
Speaker 3: lots and lots of information, lied about lots of things.
Speaker 3: And that's the point that everyone's upset about. In particular,
Speaker 3: is that they were given and forced in many many
Speaker 3: cases to take the shots, and they were unproven and
Speaker 3: in some cases shown to have a considerable downside, and
Speaker 3: it was a matter of pot luck who got it
Speaker 3: and who didn't the downside. I mean, I just think
Speaker 3: you've rushed into this judgment too much. And I say
Speaker 3: that with the greatest respect. Because he concludes, thanks for
Speaker 3: the great podcast anyway, and thanks for your letter, missus producer.
Speaker 3: I'm going to release you now. Thank you. You may
Speaker 3: take to the void.
Speaker 6: Yes, I'll go and rest my voice.
Speaker 3: I think you're better anyway, as long as I can
Speaker 3: understand you take care.
Speaker 2: Most of the time. Anyway, rags later.
Speaker 3: Now, if you don't have enough to assimilate with regard
Speaker 3: to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the sorts of
Speaker 3: Ron Paul, the retired American senator are worthy for a
Speaker 3: number of reasons, and they'll reveal themselves. I just want
Speaker 3: to point out that he makes reference here to a
Speaker 3: couple of things that I said in the discussion with George,
Speaker 3: But I only found this well a day later, actually
Speaker 3: just before we went to air, So this was published
Speaker 3: on the sixteenth of July. Why we'll never know what
Speaker 3: really happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, just days after the attempted
Speaker 3: assassination of former President Donald Trump. Theories are flying from
Speaker 3: all directions. Many who ridiculed the conspiracy theories of conservatives
Speaker 3: are now suggesting the whole event was a set up
Speaker 3: at to boost Trump and the polls ahead of the election.
Speaker 3: Others suggested was the Deep State or even foreign actors
Speaker 3: who organized it. Former US Navy seal and founder of
Speaker 3: Blackwater Eric Prince claims that the fact that the Secret
Speaker 3: Service allowed a rifle armed shooter within one hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty yards to a pre planned event is either malice
Speaker 3: or massive incompetence. That's a direct quote. He went on
Speaker 3: to observe that again quote, unaccountable, bloated bureaucracies continued to
Speaker 3: fail us as Americans, adding that un serious and unworthy
Speaker 3: people in positions of authority got us to this near disaster.
Speaker 3: Merit and execution must be the only deciding factors in
Speaker 3: hiring and leadership, not the social engineering priority of the day.
Speaker 3: Video has emerged that for at least two minutes, law
Speaker 3: enforcement knew someone with a gun was on the roof
Speaker 3: aiming at the former president, and no one communicated the
Speaker 3: need to pull Trump from the stage. You can clearly
Speaker 3: hear the crowd warning law enforcement that someone was on
Speaker 3: the roof, yet he was unhindered until the first shots
Speaker 3: rang out. Considering this fact, Erik Prince has a point.
Speaker 3: If this is like any previous governmental foul ups, we
Speaker 3: can expect hearings, investigations, and commissions that will actually serve
Speaker 3: to hide the official errors or even malicious intent by
Speaker 3: some in the government. That's what government does, no matter
Speaker 3: who is in office, protect itself from actual scrutiny and
Speaker 3: resist being exposed as incompetence or worse. But what if
Speaker 3: there was a genuine investigation that actually revealed the truth
Speaker 3: about what happened at the Trump rally over the weekend?
Speaker 3: Could we rely on the mainstream media to even report it.
Speaker 3: This is the same media that, after Trump was clearly
Speaker 3: shot on live television, reported Trump escorted away after loud
Speaker 3: noises at PA rally The Washington Post. But I just say,
Speaker 3: don't ever believe anything that comes from the Washington post
Speaker 3: until it is confirmed by about ten sources. And secondly,
Speaker 3: Secret Service rushes Trump off stage after he falls at
Speaker 3: rally CNN. This is the same mainstream media that's been
Speaker 3: comparing Donald Trump to Hitler for years and now pretends
Speaker 3: to be shocked that their vile retoric ended up in violence.
Speaker 3: There is a good reason why the mainstream media is
Speaker 3: regarded by the American public with record levels of contempt.
Speaker 3: The current Director of the Secret Service has been interviewed
Speaker 3: expressing her dedication to diversity in hiring agents. What of
Speaker 3: her dedication to deigals led to an agency that is
Speaker 3: more diverse es but fails at its core mission. Can
Speaker 3: we rely on the media to inform us of this
Speaker 3: or will they, as usual, disblame it all on the
Speaker 3: Second Amendment, that is, the right to bear arms. What
Speaker 3: if the problem with the Secret Service is that it
Speaker 3: was moved into the bloated, incompetent, and menacing Department of
Speaker 3: Homeland Security, the creation of which I strongly opposed when
Speaker 3: I was in Congress. We shouldn't count on hearing the
Speaker 3: truth about the attempted assassination from the mainstream media. No wonder,
Speaker 3: the elites remain determined to censor social media sites like Twitter,
Speaker 3: slash x, and TikTok. We live in an empire of lies,
Speaker 3: propped up by the mainstream media, and seeking the truth
Speaker 3: in this empire of lies is the greatest challenge for
Speaker 3: us in the moral bankruptcy in which we live. I
Speaker 3: applaud that the editorial piece from Ron Paul and there
Speaker 3: we have podcast number two hundred and forty seven. Like
Speaker 3: to correspond with us. Love to hear from you, particularly
Speaker 3: with regard to some of the comments that were made
Speaker 3: today in the interviews. Whatever you think, love to see it.
Speaker 3: So latent at news Talks AB dot co dot nz
Speaker 3: or Carolyn with a wy Carolyn at Newstalks AB dot
Speaker 3: co dot nz. The two forty eight is up next
Speaker 3: in the meantime. As always, thank you for listening and
Speaker 3: we shall talk soon.
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