Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong, Joe Getty.
Speaker 2: Armstrong, and Jettie and he Armstrong and Eddy.
Speaker 1: To give Notre Dame the laid in the final seconds
Speaker 1: forty one yard attempts snapping older God the.
Speaker 2: Texas That was Notre Dame beating Penn State last night
Speaker 2: in college football playoffs. So that means noted is the
Speaker 2: who's Notre Dame play? Now? Somebody?
Speaker 1: Oh, the winner of the State versus Central game?
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: I've not been following that closely. But they're in the
Speaker 1: national championship game now, aren't they.
Speaker 2: You got Ohio State versus Texas one of your Texas
Speaker 2: schools this weekend. Don't look to us for sports, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I didn't bring it up anyway.
Speaker 1: So coming up this hour, there are people who online
Speaker 1: and otherwise our targeting insurance companies in California for abuse
Speaker 1: over dropping a bunch of homeowners. That is the wrong target, friends,
Speaker 1: the wrong target of your animosity. It is government policy,
Speaker 1: which we will explain. Also some of the more ridiculous
Speaker 1: and hilarious examples of Facebook's fact checking while they were
Speaker 1: in that field.
Speaker 2: Of course you've probably heard that.
Speaker 1: Recently, Mark Zuckerberg has announced they're not in that business
Speaker 1: anymore because he cares about free speech, all right. I
Speaker 1: think he may actually, but they are browbeaten out of
Speaker 1: doing that and hired a bunch of lofty, lefty jackasses
Speaker 1: through their quote unquote fact checking. But anyways, that is
Speaker 1: to come, so we occasionally do. I'd like to do
Speaker 1: more of them, but by Gully we work a lot
Speaker 1: very tired Armstrong and Getty extra Large podcasts where we
Speaker 1: do a long form interview, and again I would like
Speaker 1: to do more of those. But we did one with
Speaker 1: the Ian Bremmer, the founder and CEO of Your Asia Group,
Speaker 1: which does analysis of risks for corporations and governments around
Speaker 1: the world, and every year they put out their global
Speaker 1: risk list, the top ten risks and then a couple
Speaker 1: of super bonus ones, and we went through a good
Speaker 1: bit of that list. Now, if you would like to
Speaker 1: hear the entire interview, it's available as Armstrong, Getty extra Large,
Speaker 1: and Hanson just to save you the trouble, also included
Speaker 1: it in the subscription Armstrong and Getty on Demand, so
Speaker 1: you'll get it automatically. Downloaded anyway, So why don't we
Speaker 1: Michael will go with ninety two covers a fair amount
Speaker 1: of ground, and part of the reason I asked the
Speaker 1: question in the way I did is a couple of
Speaker 1: the risks that Ian and his folks cite have to
Speaker 1: do with uncertainty about Trump and the way he's going
Speaker 1: to serve as president, and sometimes the threats or promises
Speaker 1: he's been made.
Speaker 2: So we'll just go from there.
Speaker 1: Not only am I one of the great prognosticators of
Speaker 1: our time or any other Ian, I'm also willing to
Speaker 1: offer my services to go abroad and explain Trump's negotiating style, because.
Speaker 2: I see on your list of risks several.
Speaker 1: Of them are related to Trump's governing style, whether the
Speaker 1: checks and balances of the American system will hold, whether
Speaker 1: our alliances will hold. And you know, I look back
Speaker 1: to his first term and he has said some outrageous
Speaker 1: things about NATO that bothered me. I don't particularly appreciate
Speaker 1: his negotiating style, but the threats to like disband NATO
Speaker 1: or let anybody attack him or whatever, I found wildly inappropriate.
Speaker 1: But the net result was a stronger, more responsible NATO
Speaker 1: in terms of self funding.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and when he said that Mexico was going to
Speaker 3: build a wall and pay for it, they paid for
Speaker 3: absolutely nothing on the border. But they did strengthen their
Speaker 3: own border security in the south, which led to far
Speaker 3: fewer illegal immigrants going through Mexico into the United States
Speaker 3: under the Trump administration.
Speaker 4: Couldn't agree with you more.
Speaker 1: That clip is supposed to be four minutes and thirty
Speaker 1: five seconds long.
Speaker 2: That's disappointing. It went by quickly. Yeah, yeah, okay, the
Speaker 2: like to whisper in her ears and tell us what they.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're talking about China a little bit next clip.
Speaker 1: You know, anybody who predicts the imminent downfall of the
Speaker 1: Chinese Communist Party as a fool, but they do have
Speaker 1: unbelievable headwinds, including demographics. How bearish are you on China
Speaker 1: and xesiin Ping in the medium for long term?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean in a sense.
Speaker 3: The fact that Xijian Ping reached out to India, had
Speaker 3: a two hour plus summit, and and pulled back Chinese
Speaker 3: troops from their contested border shows that China knows they've
Speaker 3: got big headwinds and they don't want a big crisis
Speaker 3: with India.
Speaker 4: They reached out to Japan and asked for a summit.
Speaker 3: Usually it's the other way around, and they offered to
Speaker 3: start buying Japanese seafood with just a few months ago
Speaker 3: they said, you can't sell here because it's all radioactive
Speaker 3: because of Fukushaba.
Speaker 4: I've seen them do a lot of this around the
Speaker 4: world now.
Speaker 3: Some of this is because they're worried about Trump and
Speaker 3: the uncertainty coming from the US that they don't think
Speaker 3: they can manage. But some of it is a recognition
Speaker 3: that they're in a bad position, and so frankly, it
Speaker 3: behooves them.
Speaker 4: To stabilize these relations.
Speaker 3: And that comes from a deep concern that you just
Speaker 3: asked about.
Speaker 4: Do I think they're about to fall? No, But I
Speaker 4: mean they're demographics.
Speaker 3: They're at what one point four billion people right now,
Speaker 3: and expectations for twenty one hundred, when you know you
Speaker 3: and I are going to be pretty pretty geezerly is
Speaker 3: that they're going to be down to five hundred million to.
Speaker 4: Seven hundred and fifty million.
Speaker 3: So I mean a significant I mean the biggest contraction
Speaker 3: of a population that you would ever see in an
Speaker 3: economy outside of like war or famine. So it's peacetime
Speaker 3: in China, and they're just saying, we just don't want
Speaker 3: to have any kids, and there's nothing the Chinese government
Speaker 3: can do about it. This is not a five year
Speaker 3: a ten year problem. Their retirement age for men is
Speaker 3: fifty five. They can extend that for five or ten years.
Speaker 3: They're not very urbanized. They can move more people into cities,
Speaker 3: they can make agriculture more efficient, they can lean into AI.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of things they can do that can
Speaker 3: give them a ten year buffer, but they don't have
Speaker 3: a generational solution here.
Speaker 4: So long term, I think they're in very big trouble.
Speaker 2: Which is good news.
Speaker 1: It is if they're you know, global dominating, expansionist lusts
Speaker 1: are abated for a while, it's good for everybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I did ask Ian about AI because that was
Speaker 2: one of his risks a couple of years ago. And
Speaker 2: I asked him, you know, are they further ahead then
Speaker 2: you thought they would be, or further behind? And he
Speaker 2: said further ahead, which I thought was interesting. And we
Speaker 2: mentioned the Consumer Electronics Show unveiled the most recent that's
Speaker 2: going on right now in Las Vegas, unveiled the most recent. Uh,
Speaker 2: what term doo want I use? Because I don't want
Speaker 2: to prejudice the conversation. Lifelike companion robots. Companion robots, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and they tend to be women because of the way
Speaker 2: guys brains work, I guess.
Speaker 1: Extremely attractive female forms.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that look a lot like human beings, like like
Speaker 2: a really hot, like twenty five year old, is what
Speaker 2: this robot looks like. And I mentioned when I went
Speaker 2: to the Sphere in Las Vegas. This is a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago. I didn't see the most recent version. Now,
Speaker 2: they had a robot, like a human robot out there
Speaker 2: talking to people, and it just stood there and talked
Speaker 2: to people and had conversations with everybody. Where are you from?
Speaker 2: And the person would say, I'm from Minnesota, Oh, Minnesota,
Speaker 2: how do you like it there? It's awful cold? Which
Speaker 2: part of Minnesota? And they'd say say, oh, that it's
Speaker 2: not as bad there as it is up involvement. I mean,
Speaker 2: they'd have conversations and it was disturbing Henry. It weirded
Speaker 2: Henry my son out so much that he didn't he said,
Speaker 2: when we go back to the Sphere to the Eagles concert,
Speaker 2: we got to go around that. He said, I can't
Speaker 2: handle it. It keeps me up at night. It bothered him
Speaker 2: so much, the robot thingy. But anyway, that's a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago. The technology of it holding a conversation
Speaker 2: now it's you know, exponentially better. And they put it
Speaker 2: into this hot chick body that they've got on display
Speaker 2: at the cees down in alv Now. I don't, I
Speaker 2: honestly don't know where we're going as a species with this.
Speaker 2: Don't you think, I mean, honestly, God, not not far
Speaker 2: fetched sci fi anything. Don't you think, honest to God,
Speaker 2: we're just a couple of years away from a significant
Speaker 2: enough portion of the in cell population having one of
Speaker 2: these for a girlfriend. Yes, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: I would like it not to be true, but it's
Speaker 1: heading in that direction in a big hurry.
Speaker 2: I would say, combine on a conversation I had the
Speaker 2: other day, you know, get the podcast earlier. I won't
Speaker 2: tell the whole story, but a bunch of people telling
Speaker 2: a friend of mine. These were guys telling a friend
Speaker 2: of mine that they are really into the chat GPT
Speaker 2: girlfriend experience of just having somebody to talk to when
Speaker 2: they get home from work, and how you know, pleasing
Speaker 2: their voices, And they had the nice conversations they have
Speaker 2: and everything like that, they talk about their day and
Speaker 2: so I mean, if you're getting that from just a
Speaker 2: voice coming out of the computer, you combine it with
Speaker 2: this body and its ability to actually have sex with you.
Speaker 2: I don't know what percentage, Well, you tell me what
Speaker 2: percentage of guys do you think are susceptible to be
Speaker 2: in a relationship with a robot? Do you think it's
Speaker 2: a good tenth of one or more like twenty percent?
Speaker 1: Honestly, if I had to guess, it'd be somewhere between
Speaker 1: those two figures. I don't know because I haven't fully
Speaker 1: experienced the thing, and I did not grow up with
Speaker 1: the experience of never having a girlfriend.
Speaker 2: Right, I'm concerned it could easily be double digits. Ten
Speaker 2: percent of dudes have robots girl friends within five years?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree. Wow, And it's on both ends
Speaker 1: of the scale. Not only you know, guys who lack
Speaker 1: the gumption or the social skills or are getting candy
Speaker 1: that fills their belly instead of the meal that is
Speaker 1: an actual human relationship. And also you know, angry radical women,
Speaker 1: young women. We've received more emails than I could count
Speaker 1: from guys saying dudes I agree with you on all
Speaker 1: of this stuff, but I try to date women and
Speaker 1: they're nuts and they're angry, and if you even express
Speaker 1: political moderation, they want nothing to do with you, a
Speaker 1: notion that is so foreign to both of our life
Speaker 1: experience way back in the day, the hazy days of
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties, you know.
Speaker 2: However, handsOn post a link to that New York Post
Speaker 2: article so people can see these pictures, and I'll tweet
Speaker 2: it out just so you can see what the current
Speaker 2: AI robots look like. And yeah, older gentlemen, lonely gentleman,
Speaker 2: your wife left you. It's you know, you're too busy
Speaker 2: and broke to find to get to have a real relationship.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: I can see this having an appeal for a lot
Speaker 2: of people.
Speaker 1: And widows widowers, Oh, I could see that, you know.
Speaker 1: And in some cases I would think, you know, I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, that's okay, but it's just so sad
Speaker 1: because it's not a real human relationship. But I don't
Speaker 1: want to go too far down the world it is,
Speaker 1: because it's inunbelievably depressing, is it.
Speaker 2: Are we jumping to a conclusion we shouldn't jump to that.
Speaker 2: It's said does it fulfill all.
Speaker 3: You don't think it'll become socially acceptable at some point
Speaker 3: where somebody comes up and says, this is my girlfriend
Speaker 3: and it's a robot, and you're forced to interact with
Speaker 3: the robot.
Speaker 2: I ain't doing that, no, sir, going there. I ain't
Speaker 2: talking to your robot unless it was just like to
Speaker 2: check to see how you know far along AI technology
Speaker 2: is and how good it is it talking to me?
Speaker 2: But I ain't sitting there having a conversation with your
Speaker 2: hot robot girlfriend.
Speaker 1: Not calling a man in a dress a woman, not
Speaker 1: calling a robot a human, Thank you very much. What
Speaker 1: bothered your son is? And I just became aware of
Speaker 1: this term the uncanny valley and going back to Rod Serling,
Speaker 1: they knew this or even before that, the silent movies
Speaker 1: of the nineteen twenties and thirties. The uncanny valley. It's
Speaker 1: the unsettling feeling you experienced when you encounter something that looks.
Speaker 2: Very human but not quite.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. I'll have to read up on that. Because
Speaker 2: he has it a lot. I mean, he gets he
Speaker 2: gets so freaked out by in these things.
Speaker 1: Huh yeah, we're more free, doubt by something that's almost
Speaker 1: human then something that's clearly not.
Speaker 2: Wow, you're right, Michael, when it crosses the line that
Speaker 2: there's social pressure to treat the dude at the Christmas
Speaker 2: party with his robot girlfriend like he's got a relationship.
Speaker 2: Oh we've been you've got together for three years. Oh
Speaker 2: that's fantastic. Glad things are working up.
Speaker 1: I'll be fishing with human beings. Good luck, y'all.
Speaker 2: Stay here.
Speaker 1: Thorney's announcing the arrest of twenty looters and we asked
Speaker 1: the LAPD about it.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's huge, it's huge.
Speaker 5: So as you can say, do you have devastations from
Speaker 5: blocks and blocks and then you have a million dollar
Speaker 5: homes all intact, rows and rows of them, and there's
Speaker 5: really no way to police this area effectively right.
Speaker 2: Now, Why are the penalties not just so high for
Speaker 2: looting that you would never want to do it? Is
Speaker 2: there a reason?
Speaker 1: I guess a lack of agreement among the political class
Speaker 1: that that's appropriate looting? It back a man, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would like it to be draconian. So one of the
Speaker 1: hell you like, troubling to the conscience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, pushes the uh pushes the you know,
Speaker 2: rights against extreme punishment, like clear up to the edge
Speaker 2: to make people stop. I mean, that's horrific. We got
Speaker 2: some more stuff coming up about the whole insurance situation,
Speaker 2: insurance companies dropping homeowners' policies right before the fire, if
Speaker 2: you have anything ever happened, and how that whole thing works,
Speaker 2: and now it's a policy decision in California and really
Speaker 2: needs to be understood. New York Times went big on
Speaker 2: that story today. Is it's interesting for everybody. But the
Speaker 2: other headline that's getting a fair amount of attention is
Speaker 2: the whole Trump sentencing thing in the Stormy Daniel's hush
Speaker 2: money trial. Like every word and phrase I use is yeah,
Speaker 2: dripping with spin or needs explanation. The main goal of
Speaker 2: the judge and the people pushing this whole thing was
Speaker 2: to be able to say, as I see the headline
Speaker 2: on CNN, it will be the first former felon to
Speaker 2: enter the White House as president. That was the goal, right,
Speaker 2: That's what they wanted to do. There is no penalty
Speaker 2: involved with this. It's a dischargement or whatever they call it,
Speaker 2: So no jail time, no fines, no nothing, there's just
Speaker 2: no penalty whatsoever. But he has officially got thirty four
Speaker 2: felonies so that people can say that, and I guess
Speaker 2: that makes them feel better other than the legal fee's spent.
Speaker 1: It has all the significance of a world's greatest dad mug.
Speaker 2: Which I've still got one of those sitting right by
Speaker 2: my coffee maker. May I see it every day?
Speaker 1: Right, But it's please, it's silly, yeah, and will be
Speaker 1: just absolutely batted out of the park on appeal.
Speaker 2: As I predicted before. It's wild that that continued now.
Speaker 2: So it went to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court could have gotten involved, but for whatever reason they didn't.
Speaker 2: Five to four decision by the Ultramga out of control
Speaker 2: needs to be shut down extremists. Supreme Court, my poor
Speaker 2: decision to light Kavana. You will reap the whirlwind. You
Speaker 2: won't know what hit you.
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer. One of the worst things he ever said.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So anyway, so that's that. If you see that headline,
Speaker 2: it's nothing that nobody will ever remember it. No, it's
Speaker 2: of no significance to anybody, including Trump. Correct.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing how much is made out of that,
Speaker 1: but you know, all things Trump.
Speaker 2: Of course, one more thing I wanted to mention with
Speaker 2: Shane what I don't have time to say it. Okay,
Speaker 2: everybody should be aware of the realities of why the
Speaker 2: insurance companies have bailed on California.
Speaker 1: Absolutely so, and any anger directed at the insurance companies
Speaker 1: is misplaced. I'm telling you, and I'm no slacky for
Speaker 1: insurance companies. There's one state in the Union that has
Speaker 1: a particular policy, and it's California.
Speaker 2: No, I feel like I've been screwed by many an
Speaker 2: insurance company. I don't want to stand up with them,
Speaker 2: but we should all know the facts on this, so
Speaker 2: we'll stay tuned. Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 6: ABC's David muirr Is being mocked for using clothespins to
Speaker 6: cinch his jacket more tightly around his chest while.
Speaker 2: Reporting from the scene.
Speaker 6: He was also overheard asking a crew member, does this
Speaker 6: burning city make me look fat? Let's only hope that
Speaker 6: the sock he puts in his crotch his flame retardants.
Speaker 2: Does this burning city make me look fat?
Speaker 1: Gutfeld, bring it it at a boy, Greg oh Man.
Speaker 2: That's good stuff.
Speaker 1: I can't kick David Muir enough, but he's not the
Speaker 1: topic of the segment. Just thought it was worth pointing
Speaker 1: out that we're no great fans of the big insurance companies.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're practices. We've all been there. You pay
Speaker 1: you in for years and years and years, than you've
Speaker 1: finally have a claim, they say, yeah, we're dropping you,
Speaker 1: or here's your check, get out.
Speaker 2: Or it doesn't count in this circumstance because the wind
Speaker 2: came from the north, so we don't cover roofs and
Speaker 2: when it comes from the north or something right, there
Speaker 2: are various hygiens that we could criticize them for, but
Speaker 2: part of the reason they've become more or less customer
Speaker 2: friendly is because of their mounting losses. Now, I thought
Speaker 2: this was a very good and balanced opening from the
Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal editorial board. They point out the politicians
Speaker 2: are blaming each other for the losses in the horrific
Speaker 2: Los Angeles area wildfires, and the truth is mother nature
Speaker 2: can be merciless. We need to.
Speaker 1: Sort out the stories about water shortages and what happened
Speaker 1: with the higher hydrants. But they point out it's not
Speaker 1: too soon to note that California's politicians have fueled a
Speaker 1: five alarm insurance market crisis that will hurt homeowners and
Speaker 1: taxpayers across the state once the fires have died out,
Speaker 1: and I would point out across the country too, for
Speaker 1: reasons I'll explain the second A five alarm crisis.
Speaker 2: Are they aware that they use a fire related metaphor
Speaker 2: for the story? I think they probably are.
Speaker 1: And they go into the heavy rain for a couple
Speaker 1: of years than the drought free year, which means heavy
Speaker 1: but dry vegetation, and the storms with the incredible winds,
Speaker 1: and that is absolutely a factor in what's happening. But
Speaker 1: there's a fair amount of anger being directed toward insurance
Speaker 1: companies for dropping quite a number of the homeowners whose
Speaker 1: homes just burnt down several weeks a few to several
Speaker 1: weeks ago, having warned the state that they were going
Speaker 1: to do that. Insurers had I'm jumping back now to
Speaker 1: the and that's driven a lot of people to the
Speaker 1: undercapitalized state insure of last resort, which is called fair
Speaker 1: of course, because everything has to have a sunny sounding acronym.
Speaker 1: But insurers had already scrapped hundreds of thousands of policies
Speaker 1: and limited coverage and wildfire prone areas. We know, that's
Speaker 1: why I don't have my cabin in the woods anymore.
Speaker 1: A Democrats, that's blame climate change, which has become an
Speaker 1: all purposes excuse for any disaster early failure. But the
Speaker 1: real insurance problem is that state regulators have barred insurers
Speaker 1: from charging premiums that fully reflect risks and costs.
Speaker 2: California is the only state.
Speaker 1: That hair to four has not allowed insurers to incorporate
Speaker 1: the cost of reinsurance in premiums. Until this year, it
Speaker 1: also prohibited insurance. I could explain what reinsurance is. It's
Speaker 1: insurance for insurance companies in case of a cataclysmic loss.
Speaker 1: Part of their loss is taken on by these and
Speaker 1: these reinsurance companies anyway.
Speaker 2: But here's the main point.
Speaker 1: Until this year, California had also prohibited insurers from adjusting
Speaker 1: premiums by using the standard industry practice of catastrophe modeling
Speaker 1: to predict the property's future risk. Insurers could only assess
Speaker 1: premiums based on historical losses, no matter what has happened
Speaker 1: to constructions an inflation in the interim. You can't say, hey,
Speaker 1: look the price of a two by four is eighty
Speaker 1: percent more than it used to be, and that's that's
Speaker 1: a for instance, I don't have that in front of me.
Speaker 1: You cannot say that in only one state in the Union, California,
Speaker 1: as an insurance company.
Speaker 2: And so as a result, it's crazy. You don't have
Speaker 2: to basically insane too, you have to be a genius
Speaker 2: being counter to understand that everything is so much more expensive.
Speaker 2: So when did this happen? When did they make that
Speaker 2: rule in California? Because obviously with inflation, the timing is
Speaker 2: particularly bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't remember when that passed. Honestly, I could
Speaker 1: probably find out how much.
Speaker 2: More expensive it is it is it to put a
Speaker 2: new roof on a house now versus twenty eighteen. Oh
Speaker 2: my god.
Speaker 1: Well, and can you imagine in any setting, in a
Speaker 1: business setting, you know, sir, I think we ought to
Speaker 1: add on to the plant. Historically the square footage it
Speaker 1: will cost two hundred dollars. There's a square foot all right,
Speaker 1: let's do it. Ignoring the fact that it's now three
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars a square foot. You'd be fired immediately. Hey, honey,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of upgrading to a new F one fifty.
Speaker 1: Historically they cost forty three thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: That would be an insane thing to do. It's like
Speaker 2: me going to the closet and grabbing the medium shirt.
Speaker 2: What do you think historically that would have fit? Yeah, oh,
Speaker 2: that one hit a little close to home. So getting
Speaker 2: back to the journal.
Speaker 1: As the result, insurers are paying out a dollar nine
Speaker 1: in expenses and claims for every dollar they collect in premiums.
Speaker 1: This is financially unsustainable, which is many of why many
Speaker 1: have paired coverage in areas with high fire risk and
Speaker 1: expensive homes. State Farm dropped nearly seventy percent of policy
Speaker 1: holders in one Pacific Palisades neighborhood. And just to get
Speaker 1: to give you an idea of how well Gavin Newsom
Speaker 1: is running California, that fair government sponsored insure of last
Speaker 1: resort thing is for people who can't.
Speaker 2: Get homeowner's insurance.
Speaker 1: Its exposure has ballooned to four hundred and fifty eight
Speaker 1: billion dollars as of last September, from a much lower
Speaker 1: figure with six billion dollars exposure in Pacific Palisades alone,
Speaker 1: six billion dollars. It has seven hundred million dollars on
Speaker 1: hand to pay claims. They have six billion dollars in exposure.
Speaker 1: They have seven hundred million dollars to pay claims. That's
Speaker 1: because state regulators have required Fair to cover higher priced
Speaker 1: homes while rejecting its proposals for rate increases to account
Speaker 1: for rising risks for liabilities. Because the pandering politicians, including
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom have found these these ways to have completely
Speaker 1: unrealistic regulations.
Speaker 2: So they can say, and we kept.
Speaker 1: Your insurance premiums lower, where they insurance companies want to
Speaker 1: raise your rates. The insurance companies are all saying, yeah, goodbye,
Speaker 1: We're out of this crazy fifty in the nation in
Speaker 1: terms of business friendliness state.
Speaker 2: I think the latest number is the overall cost for
Speaker 2: the fires in LA. They expect to be ten billion dollars,
Speaker 2: most expensive, worst tragedy in LA history. I'm sure that
Speaker 2: number is going to go up. Well, be interesting to
Speaker 2: see how this pans out. But yeah, the point of
Speaker 2: this segment was you can't blame the insurance companies. You
Speaker 2: really can't.
Speaker 1: Right, you don't have to love them, but you can't
Speaker 1: blame them for dropping people in California. By the way,
Speaker 1: speaking of Gavy, the California Globe reporting that having listened
Speaker 1: to an interview he did with NPR where he was
Speaker 1: explaining how we're carefully taking care of the forests. He
Speaker 1: talked about how many acres had been cleared and tended
Speaker 1: and all. He exaggerated the actual number by six hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety percent.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, he's a congenital liar. Kevin Newsom, we were
Speaker 2: on the question earlier of how do you run out
Speaker 2: of water when you're next to an ocean? Why can't
Speaker 2: you use salt water as a system, and they do
Speaker 2: in San Francisco to a great extent. We got a
Speaker 2: long text from somebody in the know when San Francisco
Speaker 2: about the way they do it. The system has been
Speaker 2: in place for years. It's a proven system. It can
Speaker 2: be done. It's kind of expensive and you got to
Speaker 2: you know, you got to put in the infrastructure. But
Speaker 2: in the Bay Area they've been doing it for a
Speaker 2: long time. So that's a reasonable question. Is to hey,
Speaker 2: specific palicides right by an ocean, why would we ever
Speaker 2: run out of water?
Speaker 1: Avowed Marxist Karen Bass. The mayor of la has preferred
Speaker 1: to spend the money on bums and junkies and illegal immigrants.
Speaker 1: So there's no money for, for instance, the fire department,
Speaker 1: which has had its budget cut by almost eighteen million dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: coming up much more amusing and believia it is some
Speaker 1: particularly egregious examples of Facebook's fat checks. Well, they were
Speaker 1: in that business prior to the recent announcement.
Speaker 2: Hoping State tute you say it's funnier than insurance liability talk.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'll be the judge of that. Stay tuned.
Speaker 2: Just to straighten this out, Notre Dames beat Penn State,
Speaker 2: they will play the winner of Ohio State Texas for
Speaker 2: the college football Final. That's Ohio State's the eight of
Speaker 2: versus a five, and that was a seven versus a six.
Speaker 2: So good job and picking who are the four best
Speaker 2: teams to be in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: I guess bell in Ohio State beat down the number one.
Speaker 1: But part of it depends on which players decide to play. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's that whole thing.
Speaker 2: Some teams half the players don't play in the bowl
Speaker 2: game because they don't want to get hurt before they
Speaker 2: go into the NFL. I don't know how they're going
Speaker 2: to make this work, but not my problem. They're not.
Speaker 1: I would do the same thing. Sorry, good old Alma Mater.
Speaker 1: I'm here playing football for one reason, to get a
Speaker 1: gig playing on Sundays.
Speaker 2: I don't think you have Tiger Pride or whatever team
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 1: No, No, I don't. I'm getting a paycheck anyway, coming
Speaker 1: up next hour. I keep promising it. We haven't gotten
Speaker 1: in to it. Absolutely fabulous think piece on why Democrat
Speaker 1: run cities go sideways. It's really thought provoked. And we'll
Speaker 1: get to it an hour.
Speaker 2: Four.
Speaker 1: That's right, we do four hours. They've got us chained
Speaker 1: up in here, they won't let us out, and nice
Speaker 1: we do four. I know we signed a new contract,
Speaker 1: but was that in the contract? Yeah, well over mine
Speaker 1: dead bunny. Well it happened anyway. If you don't get it,
Speaker 1: grab it later via podcast subscribed to Armstrong you get
Speaker 1: on demand. It's a trust me when I say it's
Speaker 1: really interesting. Mark Zuckerbridge just announced the other day that
Speaker 1: he's rediscovered his love of free speech and Facebook is
Speaker 1: going to get out of the fact checking business. A
Speaker 1: number of learned commentators have commented on this, including ourselves,
Speaker 1: good folks at the good folks at Breitbart, compiling a
Speaker 1: list of six absolutely despicable acts of censorship that Mark
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg and Facebook foisted upon the world. Run through those
Speaker 1: really quickly, then we'll get to the funny stuff. Number one,
Speaker 1: hiding the story on Hunter Biden's laptop from hell.
Speaker 2: Obbs, that's one of the worst journalistic things ever.
Speaker 1: All right, I'll though all those current and former intelligence
Speaker 1: officials ought to be shouted out on the street for
Speaker 1: lying like they did two creating the leftist fact checker
Speaker 1: industry in the first place, Meta infamously deployed third party
Speaker 1: fact checkers to both Facebook and Instagram, putting users content
Speaker 1: visibility in the hands of people who flagg post based
Speaker 1: on their opinions rather than any facts. The vast majority
Speaker 1: of these fact checkers displayed extreme lefty bias, lying Zuckerberg's
Speaker 1: platforms to diminish the reach of stories often based on
Speaker 1: astenine or completely incorrect fact checks, including many many things
Speaker 1: that turned out to be very true. They dropped Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's engagement by forty five percent in twenty eighteen because
Speaker 1: he was a Russian stooge.
Speaker 2: Wozy there algorithms. Wow, that's unbelievable at that time sitting
Speaker 2: president of the United States.
Speaker 1: After January sixth was which was admittedly an awful day,
Speaker 1: they banned President Trump completely, and their self righteous screen
Speaker 1: on why they did it is a little long.
Speaker 2: We don't have time.
Speaker 1: We believe the public has the right to the broadest
Speaker 1: possible access to political speech, even controversial speech. But we
Speaker 1: believe the risks of allowing the president to continue to
Speaker 1: use our service during this period are simply too great.
Speaker 1: I believe in Trump until February twenty three.
Speaker 2: That's it. I have statements like that. I believe in blue,
Speaker 2: but we're going to do red. Okay.
Speaker 1: They unpersoned regular people for misinformation. Shortly after banning Trump,
Speaker 1: Facebook turns its focus on to his followers, regular Facebook users.
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg's company vowed to ban anyone caught spreading content deemed misinformation,
Speaker 1: despite the social media giant and its army of opinionated
Speaker 1: leftist facts checkers struggling with the definition of that word.
Speaker 1: And then they killed the reach of political content just
Speaker 1: in the name of something or other because politics is
Speaker 1: too scary or controversial or something, and so they just
Speaker 1: quashed it in general, although again there was favoritism moving
Speaker 1: along SWI. The good folks at the Free Beacon pointed
Speaker 1: out that they were corrected several times by Zuckerberg's fact
Speaker 1: checkers as checkers. In one case, the ex meta leader
Speaker 1: FactCheck dot Org said, we falsely accused Joe Biden of
Speaker 1: having issues with a teleprompter. That was the quote because
Speaker 1: a White House press official said the octagenarians incoherent nonsense
Speaker 1: was intentional, so the fact that he had issues with
Speaker 1: the teleprompter was.
Speaker 2: Labeled as untrue. That was probably one of those repeat
Speaker 2: the lines or something like that.
Speaker 1: In another case, Alan Duke, who was the head of
Speaker 1: one of the fact checking organizations, a former CNN producer
Speaker 1: who's donated thousands of dollars to Democrats exclusively called our
Speaker 1: reporting on the Biden administration plans to fund crack pipes
Speaker 1: partially false because the administration backpedaled after we published our piece.
Speaker 1: At best, many of these fact checks offered an alternative opinion.
Speaker 1: At worst, they facilitated the spread of disinformation my government
Speaker 1: officials and aided their efforts to discredit and silence the
Speaker 1: handful of news outlets actually interested in holding them accountable.
Speaker 1: They will not be missed, and we hope they enjoy
Speaker 1: learning to code.
Speaker 2: So you said earlier you think Mark Zuckerberg might be
Speaker 2: an actual free speech warrior. So you think that maybe
Speaker 2: he just was just a business decision. The federal government
Speaker 2: was making noises that they were going to make life
Speaker 2: hard for him if he did this, So he did that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there is so little precedent on how modern
Speaker 1: tech ought to be regulated. They're very, very sensitive to
Speaker 1: the you know, a bunch of old senators and congressmen
Speaker 1: waiting into it and doing the wrong thing and screwing
Speaker 1: their business. So yeah, just as he's cow tewing to
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and nakedly seeking you know, friendly policy and
Speaker 1: friendly ness from Donald Jay right now, he did the
Speaker 1: same with the Biden administration.
Speaker 2: It just wasn't publicized.
Speaker 1: Every time somebody goes to have lunch with Trump, the
Speaker 1: mainstream media acts like it's a big deal and that
Speaker 1: they're licking his boots. These guys did the same thing
Speaker 1: with the Biden administration. You just didn't hear about it.
Speaker 2: Anyway. I wanted to get to this.
Speaker 1: Seth Dylon and the geniuses at the Babylon b with
Speaker 1: in honor of Facebook ending is fact checking partnerships. Here
Speaker 1: are the funniest fact checks of Babylon b jokes. Number one,
Speaker 1: the headline was CNN purchase purchases industrial sized washing machine
Speaker 1: to spin news before publication, and it was actually fact
Speaker 1: checked by Snopes and Facebook, who threatened us with suppression
Speaker 1: and demonetization for sharing false information a classic.
Speaker 2: You can't actually wash news, and there would not be
Speaker 2: a washing machine big enough to do it.
Speaker 1: A page you administer recently posted the link CNN purchases
Speaker 1: industrial sized washing machines blah blah blah that contains info
Speaker 1: disputed by Snopes dot com and independent facher. Repeat offenders
Speaker 1: will see their distribution reduced and their ability to monetize
Speaker 1: and advertise removed. While you outlawed satire, second fact check
Speaker 1: by Facebook on the Babylon B the headline Acassio Cortes
Speaker 1: appears on the price is Right guesses everything is free.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Thank you to the brave fact checkers that Snopes for
Speaker 1: calling us out on this one. Otherwise people might have
Speaker 1: been fooled. The fact check was false. Number three Ninth
Speaker 1: Circuit Court overturns death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That's a
Speaker 1: great shot at the ninth USA Today, Another one of
Speaker 1: Facebook's fact checking partners helpfully pointed out that this was satire,
Speaker 1: fact checking the satirical claim that the Ninth Circuit Court
Speaker 1: of Appeals overturned Ginsburg's death. Wait a second, now, on
Speaker 1: the AOC one, you could at least make the argument
Speaker 1: that some really dumb people might believe. That is somebody
Speaker 1: gonna believe a court overturned to death.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: It's it's almost as if the thea the parody the
Speaker 1: fact check is itself a parody or the fact check
Speaker 1: ID we're through the looking glass airpeople. Let's see, here's
Speaker 1: another headline that was helpfully fact checked with moonwater announcement.
Speaker 1: Remember when they discovered there's probably ice on the moon water,
Speaker 1: therefore water With moonwater announcement, Trump proposes space Navy. Another
Speaker 1: fact check from USA Today. Guys, you can also tell
Speaker 1: it satire because if you look really closely, you'll see
Speaker 1: there's a picture of an aircraft carrier on the moon,
Speaker 1: and there is in this story, uh, the fact check
Speaker 1: a headline on the babel of me Trump, I have
Speaker 1: done more for Christianity than Jesus. In our defense, we
Speaker 1: wrote this before he actually said something uncomfortably close to
Speaker 1: gonna say.
Speaker 2: If I saw that, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion
Speaker 2: that that was satire.
Speaker 1: Other example, Pope Francis says COVID vaccine will now we
Speaker 1: required to answer heaven.
Speaker 2: They were fact checked by Reuters.
Speaker 1: Oh and finally, California considering tax on breathing. Snopes found
Speaker 1: this false, but we're pretty sure it's true.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's a good one. AOC guesses everything's free. That's hilarious.
Speaker 2: If you miss an hour, get the podcast Armstrong and
Speaker 2: Getty on demand.
Speaker 4: Subscribe Armstrong and Getty