Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Speaker 2: Arm Strong and Jettie and Hey Armstrong and Jetty.
Speaker 3: American shoppers are looking forward to Cyber Monday after shattering
Speaker 3: records on Black Friday. Adobe says consumers spent eleven point
Speaker 3: eight billion dollars online on Friday. That's up more than
Speaker 3: nine percent from last year. More than fifty five percent
Speaker 3: of those sales came through mobile devices.
Speaker 4: Okay, so let's jump into some of that stuff. We
Speaker 4: have long mocked Black Friday and Cyber Monday as completely
Speaker 4: made up things. Black Friday, going way way back, was
Speaker 4: that's when businesses finally went into the black for the
Speaker 4: first time for the year and it was never true,
Speaker 4: and then built sales around it. Now, the idea of
Speaker 4: contriving a day to try to boost commerce is not new.
Speaker 4: See everything, Halloween, Christmas, not the Jesus' Birthday part, but
Speaker 4: the Present's part. Just to everything, it's just to contrived,
Speaker 4: you know, Mother's Day, Father's Day, they're all just they
Speaker 4: try to convince us to spend money on a particular day.
Speaker 2: Well, and even if.
Speaker 5: There was a legitimate creation, like I think Mother's Day
Speaker 5: and Father's Day were efforts by nice people to pay
Speaker 5: tribute to family ties.
Speaker 2: But you know, two minutes later, it's like, hey.
Speaker 4: Wait a minute, we could sell ties today, but so
Speaker 4: Black Friday that there. So they often try to slice
Speaker 4: it in such a way to come up with a
Speaker 4: record to get people exciting, which is fine, And that
Speaker 4: one it was online sales through mobile devices were up
Speaker 4: more than they have been in the past. Okay, as
Speaker 4: often happens, for whatever reason, people do most of their
Speaker 4: spending the first week in November, I mean, the first
Speaker 4: week of December, or the last week of December, or
Speaker 4: on Black Friday, or they decide whatever it just and
Speaker 4: then it evens out throughout the spending season because most
Speaker 4: people are gonna spend x amount, Right, whether you spend
Speaker 4: it the day after Thanksgiving or two days before Christmas,
Speaker 4: you're gonna spend roughly the same amount. So you gotta
Speaker 4: wait till the total numbers come in to decide whether
Speaker 4: or not it's been a good season in terms of retail.
Speaker 4: And you're looking at consumer confidence and trying to figure
Speaker 4: out the economy and all that sort of stuff. You
Speaker 4: can't figure out from three days after after Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2: But so, what was the origin of cyber Monday?
Speaker 5: Joe, Well, Gladys, perhaps we can cast our minds back
Speaker 5: to the early two thousands.
Speaker 2: George W. Bush was the president, the War on Terror
Speaker 2: was raging.
Speaker 5: Good times anyway, everybody had crappy Internet connections at home,
Speaker 5: and so retailers in those early days of this century.
Speaker 5: Notice that you know our sales spike a little bit
Speaker 5: the Monday after Thanksgiving. It's probably because people are using
Speaker 5: their office internet connection to shop. And indeed, the term
Speaker 5: cyber Monday was coined in two thousand and five by
Speaker 5: the National Retail Federation. The reality of everybody having a
Speaker 5: super slow internet at home and good at work was
Speaker 5: over within weeks of the coining of that term, and
Speaker 5: it has been stupid ever since because people can shop
Speaker 5: wherever they want, whenever they want with their little supercomputer
Speaker 5: aka cell phone.
Speaker 4: Right, you can be sitting at your kids high school
Speaker 4: basketball game in the stands and shop just as easily.
Speaker 2: On your phone as you can at work or at home.
Speaker 5: So I like the term mobile device as opposed to
Speaker 5: what an immobile device? Am I using a mainframe in
Speaker 5: the scenario, or what a computer console like NASA back
Speaker 5: in the day. Now even my laptop is like an
Speaker 5: inch bigger than my iPads.
Speaker 2: I see cyber Monday is completely phony and silly.
Speaker 5: But if people offer sales on today because they think
Speaker 5: they have your attention, I suggest you take them up.
Speaker 2: On the offer.
Speaker 4: So I see Hassett, that's which which advisor is he
Speaker 4: to Donald Trump?
Speaker 2: Anyway?
Speaker 4: On the economy, he's on Fox right now saying that
Speaker 4: the Black Friday spending was up under Trump, so the
Speaker 4: economy is good. That would defy the numbers we had
Speaker 4: right before we went on vacation. That people in terms
Speaker 4: of right track, wrong track, and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 4: We're setting records constantly, people thinking we're on the wrong
Speaker 4: track and that their own personal financial situation is bad currently.
Speaker 2: But we'll see.
Speaker 4: We'll see how the spending is throughout the whole holiday season.
Speaker 4: Like I said, you gotta wait till the end to
Speaker 4: get an idea whether it was up or down. I'm
Speaker 4: not optimistic. Is expensive out there. As I just traveled
Speaker 4: across the country, I was constantly shocked when we would
Speaker 4: stop to eat order gas was the only thing because
Speaker 4: I live in California.
Speaker 2: Once you get out of California. The shocking news.
Speaker 4: Is oh my god, this this is what other people
Speaker 4: pay for gads. Yeah, but in terms of everything else,
Speaker 4: it's just oh my god. And I always say to
Speaker 4: the checkout person at the grocery store wherever, I'm a
Speaker 4: holy cow, it's eighty five dollars.
Speaker 2: And they say, I know, isn't it amazing?
Speaker 4: For these years, that's thirty times a day. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: until we get used to that. I don't know what's
Speaker 4: going to happen.
Speaker 2: I do have a question about one news story.
Speaker 5: Let me just say this very quickly, having talked to
Speaker 5: several people from several different financial strata, there's much more
Speaker 5: caution in the air than extravagance.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not even close.
Speaker 5: So I would be shocked to hear that the holiday
Speaker 5: numbers turned out to be especially great.
Speaker 2: It would be it would be shocking.
Speaker 4: It would run against all the polling of how people
Speaker 4: feel about their current financial situations, right if it tends
Speaker 4: to be a like, a really big number.
Speaker 2: So we'll wait and see.
Speaker 4: There is one new story that happened while we were
Speaker 4: on vacation that I don't understand.
Speaker 2: I doubt Joe paid any attention to it, so I
Speaker 2: can't ask.
Speaker 4: Him, but I'll bring it up right after we tell
Speaker 4: you about this, which is really exciting. I am going
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Speaker 2: Big fan of Omaha Steaks.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 4: I don't like to pay attention to a lot of
Speaker 4: political stories when we're on the air, let alone when
Speaker 4: we're on vacation. So that's not exactly something I was
Speaker 4: digging into. But why did Marjorie Taylor Green resign? That
Speaker 4: was surprising to me.
Speaker 2: Least blind bad built, buts body that was a surprise
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, here's my assumption in k Well, first of all,
Speaker 4: do you know anything about it?
Speaker 2: I don't, No, I don't know anything.
Speaker 5: Although a number of folks who who I no one love,
Speaker 5: who are politically aware, were as mystified as you and
Speaker 5: I were, and we're all speculating and wondering.
Speaker 2: Nobody had a great theory.
Speaker 4: My main speculation would be, Oh, that reminds me of
Speaker 4: some audio we need to get. My main speculation would be,
Speaker 4: now that she's not aligned with Trump, and she's gonna
Speaker 4: get a lot of you know, a hate from the
Speaker 4: Trump crowd or whatever, she's like, I don't need this.
Speaker 4: And she'd been offered various very lucrative positions on boards
Speaker 4: or whatnot that you get to do if you're a
Speaker 4: high profile personality in politics. But I can make so
Speaker 4: much more money, My life will be so much easier.
Speaker 4: I'll be under the radar, nobody will know no or
Speaker 4: care who I am. I'm gonna go do that. That'd
Speaker 4: be my guest.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she's a bit of a whackadoodle, but I don't
Speaker 5: think she was born for politics exactly. The theory in
Speaker 5: the mainstream political analyst world is that she was gonna
Speaker 5: either resign or well or leave office early and run
Speaker 5: for governor of Georgia. And Trump and company had polls
Speaker 5: that said she would just get shealacked, she would get embarrassed, humiliated,
Speaker 5: and they shared that with her, and she got crazy
Speaker 5: but hurt about it and said, that's it.
Speaker 2: I'm taking my.
Speaker 5: Toys and going home. I don't know if I buy
Speaker 5: that she's an odd duck.
Speaker 4: But my main point remains that most of these people,
Speaker 4: when they're you know, a run out of office and
Speaker 4: embarrassed or worth, they go off to a job that
Speaker 4: pays way better and their life is much easier.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah, agreed. Hey, just asn't a side Michael,
Speaker 5: play that clip you just played before just seconds.
Speaker 2: Ago, police blind, bad built bush body.
Speaker 5: That's Texas's own Jasmine Crockett, who is a crock herself
Speaker 5: and a con woman and a liar and a fraud.
Speaker 2: I had forgotten.
Speaker 5: I was reminded recently that she invented this whole giant
Speaker 5: Jesse Smolette thing where she got into she became a
Speaker 5: lawyer because she was a victim of a hate crime.
Speaker 5: Then it turns out it was completely fictional. Oh really,
Speaker 5: she's changed your story since Yeah, she's one.
Speaker 2: Of those people.
Speaker 5: Just oh, she is such a fraud and every says
Speaker 5: that's right, Margie with the last word there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: She is a great example of the modern social media
Speaker 5: driven instagrammer who dabbles as a congress person.
Speaker 4: So Donald Trump told the leader of Venezuela, you got
Speaker 4: to get out now with your family.
Speaker 2: Are you're gonna be killed?
Speaker 4: And didn't he said now, didn't put a time limit
Speaker 4: on it. And now he got even more troops and
Speaker 4: more boats close to the coast there. So what's going
Speaker 4: to happen there?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: We ought to take a look at that at some point.
Speaker 4: That whole story, that's spicy. I'd say peace negotiations between
Speaker 4: Russia and Ukraine. Russia bombed to the hell out of
Speaker 4: Ukraine last night. To me, that's a here's what you
Speaker 4: can do with your peace dick negotiations that you know,
Speaker 4: middle finger to that, right. I don't know how else
Speaker 4: you read that. I definitely have to talk about being
Speaker 4: at the airport and sitting on planes on the tarmac
Speaker 4: for an hour, each plane sitting there for an hour.
Speaker 4: We need to do something about flying. It's a mess.
Speaker 4: It's they're punishing us, they're being mean to us. They're
Speaker 4: holding us hostage, is what they're doing. I was having
Speaker 4: my little fantasy of calling a police and saying I'm
Speaker 4: being held hostage against my will.
Speaker 2: Because I am I am being.
Speaker 4: Held hostage against my will for an hour. An hour
Speaker 4: is a long time to sit on the tarmac. Well,
Speaker 4: you got no case legally speaking. But you could go
Speaker 4: on the internet and get a hell of a GoFundMe
Speaker 4: going right, and then testified before Congress.
Speaker 2: Right right?
Speaker 5: A brand come off on Instagram or something. I don't know,
Speaker 5: run for office all that anyway, Sell t shirts no
Speaker 5: shipping today at the Armstrong and Getty superstore. No shipping costs.
Speaker 5: By the way, not no shipping. We're not just gonna
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Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty big sea. No shipping would not be a
Speaker 2: great incentive. One day only, no shipping. You buy this shirt,
Speaker 2: you'll never get it.
Speaker 4: We just keep it solp somebody else, no shipping, sell
Speaker 4: it again, all right, stay here.
Speaker 3: Strong.
Speaker 6: Doctors are warning people to moderate their food intake and
Speaker 6: the weeks to avoid so called holiday hearts syndrome, which
Speaker 6: is an irregular heart rhythm caused by poor nutrition, and
Speaker 6: it's especially bad for Americans around the holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas,
Speaker 6: New Year's President Day, Eastern Mother's Day, Father's Day, the
Speaker 6: fourth of July, Arbor Day, Labor Day, and Tuesday through Sunday.
Speaker 4: That's a decent point right there. We got a lot
Speaker 4: of various eating holidays that we enjoy, reasons to overeat,
Speaker 4: get together, et cetera. I had a conversation with my
Speaker 4: family when we are out at one place about portions,
Speaker 4: all wondering why they bring you three times as much
Speaker 4: food as you need to eat or even want to eat,
Speaker 4: and is.
Speaker 2: That necessary to keep customers?
Speaker 4: Does that really work on some sort of cycle logical
Speaker 4: level that I don't get. Would I ever if you
Speaker 4: brought me the appropriate amount of food? But I think, well,
Speaker 4: I'm not eating here again, the portions aren't humanious.
Speaker 2: Would I actually think that?
Speaker 5: I don't think I would, But I'm sure there's somebody
Speaker 5: in the restaurant industry who knows the answer to that question.
Speaker 5: I have a feeling that you know, if I'm going
Speaker 5: to prepare you a hamburger or normal sized hamburger and
Speaker 5: normal sized serving of fries that costs me x, I
Speaker 5: can add a like a third bigger burger and half
Speaker 5: again more fries for practically nothing, because so much of
Speaker 5: it is overhead and labor, not materials, and so you
Speaker 5: create the perception of value by you know, instead of
Speaker 5: for you know, nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 2: You get a reasonable portion, you get.
Speaker 5: An unreasonable portion, and it's fine me as the restaurant
Speaker 5: rit It's almost.
Speaker 4: Got to be subconscious though, because there's no way the
Speaker 4: ship sailed decades ago on the am I getting value
Speaker 4: for my money at the restaurant, I think because everybody.
Speaker 2: Feels like you can't weigh more than you can eat. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I don't know the common man, Jack, not intellectual giants
Speaker 5: like yourself, but the common man.
Speaker 4: I don't believe there are very many people that think, wow,
Speaker 4: this burger the size of my head and five pounds
Speaker 4: of French fries is not an off. But I do
Speaker 4: think you're probably right. The cost for giving you that
Speaker 4: large amount is almost nothing, especially like my names. We
Speaker 4: were all joking about these pancakes. We went to this
Speaker 4: pancake place and these pancakes that were like the size
Speaker 4: of a manimal cover, and there were two of them, Like.
Speaker 2: Who's that for the whole table? They were like an
Speaker 2: eight of us.
Speaker 4: We could have all eaten some of her pancakes, but
Speaker 4: that cost literally two cents.
Speaker 2: Right exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 5: To my point, Hey, the greatest haack I've come into
Speaker 5: is you, as the waitress, bring the food immediately, say
Speaker 5: can I get it to go container right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And then then you cut it in a half,
Speaker 2: load it up.
Speaker 4: And then we got into the discussion of what percentage
Speaker 4: of food you take home from a restaurant ever gets eaten?
Speaker 2: All right, fairly low?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, we all do it because we feel better
Speaker 4: about it. I'll take this home, That's what I'll do,
Speaker 4: and then forget it or or take it back to It's.
Speaker 2: Better than jamming it down your gullets. Yeah, you just
Speaker 2: gotta leave it there. That's the whole thing.
Speaker 4: We're all designed to not waste the food, and it's
Speaker 4: hard to just leave it sitting there.
Speaker 2: You know I paid for it. Well, am I just
Speaker 2: gonna leave all that food sitting there?
Speaker 4: But I don't need to eat it, And.
Speaker 5: Your caveman anthropological soul says I might not eat for
Speaker 5: another week if the herd.
Speaker 2: Grows in the other direction. Huh, so I gotta eat? Well?
Speaker 2: They eating's good? Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think that would benefit everybody if our portions were smaller.
Speaker 4: But I don't know what percentage of people would be
Speaker 4: on board with that. Bring me like that excize hamburger
Speaker 4: that I make at home, but at home, I don't
Speaker 4: make a hamburger that this figure around this tall.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5: There's also the reality that young people, particularly young men,
Speaker 5: will hammer down a gigantic hamburger, for instance, and a
Speaker 5: gigantic servant serving a fries, so they might respond to,
Speaker 5: you know, giant portions.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I like a lot sure, there's
Speaker 2: research on us. I think about this a lot if
Speaker 2: I won the lottery.
Speaker 4: There's lots of different businesses I would try, just because
Speaker 4: I have questions about lots of these different things.
Speaker 2: Try meaning like try to get one up and going
Speaker 2: yeah and see if it would work.
Speaker 4: And one of them would be we're gonna serve you
Speaker 4: like normal portions of what people should eat, and it'll
Speaker 4: be a little less expensive, but we won't bring you
Speaker 4: eight pounds of fries just so you can throw them
Speaker 4: away or we throw them away or whatever.
Speaker 2: See if that works.
Speaker 5: You live in an area that has like sun city
Speaker 5: type developments around it, or a lot of retirees or
Speaker 5: what have you, You see that on the lighter side
Speaker 5: is a section of the menu.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, that's right.
Speaker 4: That's what I need to look at all the time,
Speaker 4: and I always forget to because at the moment when
Speaker 4: I'm ordering, I think I need a five pound chicken
Speaker 4: fried steak, right.
Speaker 5: Because your inner grizzly bear is still alive and well,
Speaker 5: but you're an old.
Speaker 4: Guy, come on, and that's why I'm I gained three
Speaker 4: and a quarter pounds over the holiday season one week, again,
Speaker 4: three and a quarter pounds. If I could keep this
Speaker 4: up the rest of the month, I'll I'll be a
Speaker 4: look pretty large again.
Speaker 5: I was up three point six pounds a day or two.
Speaker 5: I think that's good enough. I mean, all you have
Speaker 5: to do is put that peg up there. And if
Speaker 5: I lost the couple of pounds deliberately and a couple
Speaker 5: of days after that, I'm still the winner.
Speaker 4: I know you've got some financial stuff, economy stuff for us.
Speaker 2: I think that's good.
Speaker 5: Trilemma, Jack, have you heard about the trilemma?
Speaker 4: I think that's gonna be something that a lot of
Speaker 4: people are looking at during this month because there are
Speaker 4: some pretty negative economic numbers that came out right before Thanksgiving.
Speaker 4: When we were on the air, People's attitudes are sour
Speaker 4: about their personal financial situation, about the country's financial situation,
Speaker 4: and whether or not that shows itself to be true
Speaker 4: during this big shopping season is going to be a
Speaker 4: big news.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I would agree. I agree with what
Speaker 2: you said earlier that I think people are leaning more
Speaker 2: toward a little scared, like this is all gonna blow
Speaker 2: up soon ish as opposed to optimistic.
Speaker 5: I'll tell you who should be scared, whoever gets elected
Speaker 5: president next I will explain.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, well, Gavin Newsom, all right, oh please, So
Speaker 4: stay tuned for that if you missed a segment at
Speaker 4: the podcast Armstrong and Getty on demand Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 2: I'm watching the ratings.
Speaker 1: People are consuming less news right now because they can't
Speaker 1: handle it. But what matters at this point is that
Speaker 1: we're losing the ability to talk to each other, losing civility,
Speaker 1: we're losing respect, and the public is looking this insane.
Speaker 2: To hell with all of it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear you yelling at each other.
Speaker 2: Interesting. That sounded like Frank once it was.
Speaker 5: Indeed, Frank LUN's talking about why people don't watch the
Speaker 5: news as much as.
Speaker 2: They used to.
Speaker 5: Although the youngsters are getting their news quote unquote on TikTok,
Speaker 5: which means they're getting Chinese propaganda and little else.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Interesting, and that's something we both were contemplating during the
Speaker 5: time off and coming back. How much of the so
Speaker 5: called news is actually just unimportant age baiting a lot
Speaker 5: of it and intentional controversy making for the clicks and
Speaker 5: for the fundraising and for.
Speaker 4: A very small percentage of society who's paying attention to it.
Speaker 5: Well, that's the thing I mean in talk radio, there
Speaker 5: are a lot of people who make a hell of
Speaker 5: a lot of money in the podcast world through doing that.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of money to be made. We just
Speaker 5: prefer not to. I think it's bad for your soul
Speaker 5: or on that to confer not to make money. That's
Speaker 5: an interesting No, I think you missed my point. Ah,
Speaker 5: So I read about the trying break at the trim alone.
Speaker 2: I just want to tell Michael because I know he's
Speaker 2: keeping track.
Speaker 4: Also, Yeah, we're now it's six straight weeks of no
Speaker 4: soap in the men's bathroom in the main stall.
Speaker 2: Michael, I don't know if you're keeping track.
Speaker 5: I will bring soap in six You got to scratch
Speaker 5: a hashmark in the wall like it's a prison.
Speaker 4: I feel like the main I'm talking the big stall
Speaker 4: where people do their main business.
Speaker 2: Right, that's it.
Speaker 4: You gotta have soap there. There's been no soap for
Speaker 4: at least a month and a half. It seems like
Speaker 4: a long time.
Speaker 2: This is not dignified. I'm bringing soap in bar up soap.
Speaker 5: Well, okay, so here's a question. I can tell you
Speaker 5: it's absolute certainty. There was no soap in there, like
Speaker 5: the last week of September. Was it refilled at any
Speaker 5: point between then and now?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. It's okay, all right, So there
Speaker 2: you go months anyway? That awful?
Speaker 5: What does the building management do? Exactly? Let's just start here.
Speaker 2: What do you see as your jobs? Boy? So the trilemma,
Speaker 2: here's what it is.
Speaker 5: And I got this from a story that was called
Speaker 5: is America headed for a debt crisis? Look abroad for answers,
Speaker 5: and they highlight the pathetic and floundering British and French
Speaker 5: are valued allies since w W two days and they're
Speaker 5: talking about the obvious situation where they have mounting debt problems.
Speaker 5: But here's your trilemma. If you have too much debt.
Speaker 5: The bond market hates it. What do we care, you
Speaker 5: say to yourself, Well, that's how the US finances so
Speaker 5: much of it's spending right now is we borrow money,
Speaker 5: we sell bonds. And because it's the most safe bet
Speaker 5: on the planet that the United States of America will
Speaker 5: pay its debts, it's an extremely popular investment. The problem is,
Speaker 5: as that great confidence in our debt service gets shakier,
Speaker 5: the eels rise, the rates rise, the amount of interest
Speaker 5: we must pay rises. So it matters from a budgetary
Speaker 5: and tax point of view whether the bond market thinks, oh,
Speaker 5: it's perfectly safe, or whether they're starting to think.
Speaker 2: Man, they're running up a lot of debt.
Speaker 5: And then the second leg of the trilemma is the
Speaker 5: is the budget itself. I mean, you can't just spend
Speaker 5: yourself into oblivion, so you have to be willing to
Speaker 5: make cuts at some point or raised taxes. The third
Speaker 5: leg of the trilemma is the voters. And again they
Speaker 5: highlight voters in Britain, especially well France too, who have
Speaker 5: said essentially no, no.
Speaker 2: No, no, no.
Speaker 5: No no, we want enormous welfare services and low taxes,
Speaker 5: which is absolutely idiotically unsustainable.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Elon spoke to that a little bit during the break.
Speaker 4: He was on some podcasts talking about AI and robots
Speaker 4: and stuff, but he was asked about the whole doge
Speaker 4: thing and everything like that, and he said, basically, I'm
Speaker 4: out of the whole trying to fix the country game.
Speaker 4: He said, it can't be done, at least not in
Speaker 4: our current political climate. People just don't want to deal
Speaker 4: with reality. And he's a hand percent right. I can
Speaker 4: see how he waited into that and thought, Wow, people
Speaker 4: are just going to pretend this isn't a problem, or
Speaker 4: that you can get out of this situation without cutting
Speaker 4: programs right things wishing.
Speaker 5: Or magic beans or something like that. And I'm sorry
Speaker 5: I misstated the second leg of the trilemma, that is
Speaker 5: the economy. If you raise taxes to a confiscatory rate
Speaker 5: too high, you get a crush economic growth. As California,
Speaker 5: the high tax is the most hostile environment to businesses.
Speaker 5: Year after year after year, businesses are fleeing. If it
Speaker 5: weren't for AI, Gavin Newsom would be in stocks getting
Speaker 5: pelted with rotten tomatoes right now anyway. So you've got
Speaker 5: the pressure of the bond market, the economy and the voter,
Speaker 5: and the voter is in to a large degree the.
Speaker 4: Key legacy, and the voter is the most the only
Speaker 4: part you can really hope to have any effect on
Speaker 4: the other two with.
Speaker 5: Right, then we get bailed out, the United States get built,
Speaker 5: gets bailed out because people need dollars around the world
Speaker 5: to trade with. That is the the great trade currency
Speaker 5: of the world. That's not sustainable forever for a variety
Speaker 5: of reasons that I won't get into because it's long
Speaker 5: and it's boring and I only half understand it.
Speaker 4: But our.
Speaker 5: The dollar status is that must have global asset is declining.
Speaker 5: All right, Here's why I said the most frightened person
Speaker 5: in the world ought to be the next president of
Speaker 5: the United States. According to the re re rejiggered numbers,
Speaker 5: the Social Security Trust Fund will be broke in twenty
Speaker 5: thirty three. You remember when that year seemed really, really distant. Well,
Speaker 5: the guy or Gallo wins in twenty twenty eight is
Speaker 5: going to be in office, you know, barring some extraordinary
Speaker 5: turn of events, until until twenty thirty two. And if
Speaker 5: the trust me if Social Security is going broke in
Speaker 5: twenty thirty three, that discussion is going to dominate that term.
Speaker 5: And so between Congress and that poor son of a
Speaker 5: gun or daughter of a gun who's going to be president,
Speaker 5: they are going to have to make the utterly gut
Speaker 5: wrenching decisions to save social security or benefits are going
Speaker 5: to be cut across the board. And man, you want
Speaker 5: to talk about a political blood path and a reckoning
Speaker 5: with reality if we still have it in us, that's
Speaker 5: gonna be it.
Speaker 2: Hmm, I'll be fun to watch. Oh boy, Elon is right.
Speaker 4: The current political climate, that's a problem that they got
Speaker 4: in France in Britain is people just don't want to
Speaker 4: deal with reality. They It's amazing. I just I can't
Speaker 4: believe that the majority of people can't be convinced. Look,
Speaker 4: this is unsustainable and we got to do things different.
Speaker 4: All right, who's on board. Let's roll up our sleeves
Speaker 4: and get no, we're going to keep demanding a dollar
Speaker 4: seventy worth of government for the price of a dollar.
Speaker 5: Okay, it's worth repeating the founding pop as. The last
Speaker 5: thing they wanted was a democracy. They wanted a democratic republic, obviously,
Speaker 5: and that's you can use the term democracy accurately enough
Speaker 5: to describe that. But they knew a a lot of
Speaker 5: common people are too dumb or unwise to understand that
Speaker 5: the person telling them no, we can have low taxes
Speaker 5: and high spending forever is a liar and a panderer
Speaker 5: and is just telling you that because they want to
Speaker 5: have power to figure out where all that money flows,
Speaker 5: and a lot of people just don't get that. They
Speaker 5: also understood that mobs tend to get in moods and
Speaker 5: then do really really stupid stuff. But yeah, I think
Speaker 5: it's all gonna come down in the next term, next
Speaker 5: presidential term. So, speaking of criminals, not the kind under
Speaker 5: the Capitol.
Speaker 2: Dome, Oh I got.
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Speaker 4: I got my home broken into one time in my life,
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Speaker 4: We got yet another word of the Year from a
Speaker 4: different organization. Oxford University Press has named They're Worthy to
Speaker 4: Year for twenty twenty five. I don't know if it's
Speaker 4: a word of a year. Pretty good word.
Speaker 2: Though, rage bait.
Speaker 4: Rage Bait's pretty good words kind of fits with what
Speaker 4: we were just talking about.
Speaker 5: Perfect lead into the article I came across on vacation
Speaker 5: I unwisely opened.
Speaker 2: I was intrigued.
Speaker 5: I was hooked by the click baity headline, and it
Speaker 5: pissed me off in the midst of.
Speaker 4: The holiday cheer. I will explain in moments, and you
Speaker 4: believe it was rage bait.
Speaker 5: And partly and also partly just a great distillation of
Speaker 5: what's wrong with social media in the Internet.
Speaker 2: It's the perfect example.
Speaker 4: So just to define rage bait, would it be like
Speaker 4: if you if you got a headline that you know,
Speaker 4: transboy dominates girls, track and field, they just know, Oh,
Speaker 4: you're gonna hate the reading about this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's sure. That's an example.
Speaker 5: Yeah, or anything including the word the name Trump for
Speaker 5: years and years and years in lefty media, Trump's latest outrage,
Speaker 5: that sort of thing.
Speaker 4: Wait, will you see this? You thought it was bad before? Yeah,
Speaker 4: rage bait? Okay, what Joe mentioned. Oh and a congress
Speaker 4: person over the break gave quite a speech about how
Speaker 4: they all get rich. It was fantastic. I look forward
Speaker 4: to getting to in hour three, I hope you can
Speaker 4: stick around. As I was getting my coffee, I was
Speaker 4: reminded that the long tradition of my brother's giving me
Speaker 4: crap for putting cream in my coffee continued while I
Speaker 4: was around everybody for the holiday, as my brother if
Speaker 4: he could pass the cream, and he said, do you
Speaker 4: need some high heels with that? Also, yes, that sort
Speaker 4: of thing appropriate. Everybody looks down on me for putting
Speaker 4: cream in my coffee.
Speaker 2: Oh well, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 5: Interestingly, my youngest, my daughter, she needs to put cream
Speaker 5: in her coffee as a woman when she uses the
Speaker 5: Kurrig machine, but not my espresso machine.
Speaker 4: Oh really, because yeah, I put in there because otherwise
Speaker 4: just eats a hole in my stomach.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which, you know you don't want a hole in
Speaker 2: your stuff. So there.
Speaker 5: I was in a lovely mood, surrounded by family over
Speaker 5: the holiday week. My all three of our kids, both
Speaker 5: of my siblings, my dad, my brother's family were all
Speaker 5: in town for Thanksgiving week, partly because, as I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 5: my dad's eighty fifth birthday was Thanksgiving Day, and we
Speaker 5: celebrated lavishly and also played eighteen holes of golf at
Speaker 5: age eighty five, My brother and my dad and I played.
Speaker 2: It was absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, he's obviously not the player that he
Speaker 5: used to be in all and gets annoyed about it.
Speaker 5: Evidently that continues till the end of your life. Golf
Speaker 5: is really annoying.
Speaker 2: But it was eighty five. You're like, how could I
Speaker 2: hit that shot? Oh?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah exactly. I'm like, Dad, this is incredible. It
Speaker 5: is a blessing. He's like, I just keep shoving it
Speaker 5: to the right. What the hell's going on here? Am
Speaker 5: I wind up wrong?
Speaker 2: Who cares? That's hilarious?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: I know it's something, isn't it so? Anyway?
Speaker 5: But here there, I wasn't just such a lovely frame
Speaker 5: of mind, ignoring the news more or less.
Speaker 2: And I so come to I don't know why, to
Speaker 2: the temptation.
Speaker 5: I think it was Satan himself who said, take a
Speaker 5: look at.
Speaker 2: The New York Post. Why don't you see what they're
Speaker 2: ragan about? Why didn't you see if there's something that
Speaker 2: you want to click on?
Speaker 5: Here?
Speaker 2: Boy? And so I opened the New York Post app
Speaker 2: for some reason.
Speaker 5: There's this article Aaron Andrews fires back at sports personalities
Speaker 5: after holiday comments backlash.
Speaker 2: And I violated a sacred rule.
Speaker 5: Any journalism about internet arguments is not journalism.
Speaker 2: It's crap.
Speaker 4: I wish everybody I wish the president would give an
Speaker 4: Oval office address about this. Any news story built around
Speaker 4: a couple of comments on social media, those people should
Speaker 4: be drummed out of journalism.
Speaker 5: Right, But it was the spirit of it that pissed
Speaker 5: me off so much so. Aaron Andrews, the longtime female reporter,
Speaker 5: sideline reporter et cetera.
Speaker 2: Does very good job.
Speaker 5: She was doing a podcast that I'm not familiar with.
Speaker 5: She was the guest and they were talking to her
Speaker 5: about her career and they asked her, and this isn't
Speaker 5: made clear at the beginning of the article, I think
Speaker 5: to draw you into the rage bait, they asked her
Speaker 5: for young girls or or young women who are thinking
Speaker 5: to get thinking about getting into your line of work,
Speaker 5: what are some of the things they don't know about it?
Speaker 2: Some of the downsides? And one of the things she said.
Speaker 5: Was, well, you miss a lot of holidays that you'd
Speaker 5: like to be home with your family, but you're on
Speaker 5: the road and you're doing your job.
Speaker 2: Okay, simple as that. Well you got this.
Speaker 5: Jenna Lane, who's a reporter covering the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Speaker 5: for ESPN, ways in saying saw Aaron Andrews remarks about
Speaker 5: the challenges in this business above starting at a low
Speaker 5: age and not having holidays. I appreciate what she's trying
Speaker 5: to say, but let's consider the folks working two to
Speaker 5: three jobs in retail, in warehouses, and in the service
Speaker 5: industry right now, just trying to make ends meet. They're
Speaker 5: not getting time with their families either. Oh my god,
Speaker 5: your life would be a dream for them. I mean,
Speaker 5: let's keep this in perspective. Let's have some perspective.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 5: And then you got hack loser Trey Wingo, former NFL
Speaker 5: host back in the nineties at ESPN. That's literally what
Speaker 5: they pay you for, he posted on X because You've
Speaker 5: got to be angry, including a headline about her remarks.
Speaker 5: Aaron said it herself once, they pay you for the
Speaker 5: traveling sacrifices, because doing the games is the fun part.
Speaker 5: And these people just what bothers me the most about
Speaker 5: it is how obvious it is that they're just saying,
Speaker 5: look at me, look at me, I'm morally superior to
Speaker 5: Aaron Andrews. What about the poor working people? I got
Speaker 5: a question for you, halfwits. If Aaron Andrews was in
Speaker 5: a car wreck and broke her leg in two places
Speaker 5: and the pain was horrible. Can she say the pain
Speaker 5: is horrible? Or would you say, how about a little perspective?
Speaker 4: Are Yeah, how about a single mom who has to
Speaker 4: work the night jift to Denny's.
Speaker 2: She knows what pain is.
Speaker 5: If her like broken two places, she'd be having pain
Speaker 5: and she's gotta go work at denny.
Speaker 2: So want's to have a little perspective, Jennal? Or what's
Speaker 2: your erin?
Speaker 5: Oh my god, you people are perth pathetic. Boy, God,
Speaker 5: your need to be morally superior to somebody is so
Speaker 5: bad you actually go with a criticism that bad. She's
Speaker 5: telling little girls, Look, you're gonna be away a lot.
Speaker 5: You've got to travel, You're gonna miss your family.
Speaker 2: Oh about a little perspective.
Speaker 5: Oh god, that just pissed me off, and I thought,
Speaker 5: what are you doing? Look you get the internet, you idiot,
Speaker 5: Go deal with the people in your life who are
Speaker 5: actually there, which reminded me of one of my you know,
Speaker 5: my vows that I have to renew every now and again.
Speaker 5: I hate the expression touch grass because it's gotten such
Speaker 5: it's such a cliche. But make your life your life.
Speaker 5: The people you actually see and talk to and deal
Speaker 5: with interact with, do business with, play sports with, not
Speaker 5: everybody online, that's not your life.
Speaker 4: I saw somebody write eloquently about this sort of news
Speaker 4: story where they grab two comments, often not even you know,
Speaker 4: well known people like in your case, just random comment
Speaker 4: ers on social media, and they build a story around
Speaker 4: it that needs to be outlawed. And I'm a free
Speaker 4: speech guy that needs to be outlawed. But too many
Speaker 4: people fall forward. And sometimes I'll click on a story
Speaker 4: and then I'll get halfway through it and think, wait
Speaker 4: a second, is the only thing to this story is
Speaker 4: Jim and Omaha said something mean on Twitter about this thing.
Speaker 2: That's it. That's the whole story that ed in Miami
Speaker 2: had said, fright right, God, that's the worst journalism out there.
Speaker 2: We need to do better.
Speaker 5: As a completology Controls waded in and said sarcastic things.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: The Internet did not like this person's version of the
Speaker 4: national anthem, and they'll pick two random cults from people
Speaker 4: and build a story around it. We got to stop
Speaker 4: doing that. It's the consumer that drives it. Though you
Speaker 4: read it, they know how much time you spent on
Speaker 4: the article. They got the algorithm.
Speaker 5: Uh so to two final points about this. Number one,
Speaker 5: I'm a little surprised that Aaron Andrews dignified that jackass
Speaker 5: a couple of comments with responses, but she also took
Speaker 5: aim at NFL News aggregator Dove Climan, who I've never
Speaker 5: heard of in my life, whose headline was Andrews.
Speaker 2: Under heavy fire for her holiday's remarks under heavy from
Speaker 2: losers online? Who cares? Oh, my lord is to break
Speaker 2: out of this?
Speaker 5: I don't know if there is no I was just
Speaker 5: gonna say, can you get a shot or something that
Speaker 5: it's well, it's like the we GOVI is in the
Speaker 5: other weight loss drugs where you look at food and
Speaker 5: thinking nah, I don't need that. I need a shot,
Speaker 5: where I see a headline like that and think, eh,
Speaker 5: that's stupid. Just pass it.
Speaker 4: HM. One way too if you're under heavy fire would
Speaker 4: be to ignore the heavy fire from random losers. If
Speaker 4: you missed a seconment of the podcast ARM showing a
Speaker 4: yety on demand good stuff planned for hour three, be there,
Speaker 4: strong and