Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty arm Strong
Speaker 1: and Getty and he.
Speaker 2: Armstrong and Yetty.
Speaker 3: I think it's useful for all of us to step
Speaker 3: back and ask us, ask ourselves, what has the globalist
Speaker 3: economy gotten the United States of America? And the answer is, fundamentally,
Speaker 3: it's based on two principles. Incurring a huge amount of
Speaker 3: debt to buy things that other countries make for us,
Speaker 3: and to make it a little bit more crystal clear,
Speaker 3: we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things
Speaker 3: those Chinese peasants manufacturer. That is not a recipe for
Speaker 3: economic prosperity. It's not a recipe for low prices, and
Speaker 3: it's not a recipe for good jobs in the United
Speaker 3: States of America.
Speaker 2: Jadie Vance is very, very smart, smart enough to know
Speaker 2: when being full of crap will sell. There's a fair
Speaker 2: amount of what he says that's full of crap. Trade
Speaker 2: imbalances don't really matter with individual countries. It just doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: We're a gigantic market. We're always going to be buy
Speaker 2: more than we sell to these little countries. It's okay
Speaker 2: to have a trade inbalance, but how about the tariff imbalance?
Speaker 4: Though I still somebody explained to me why it's okay
Speaker 4: for Europe to tariff our stuff forty but if we
Speaker 4: come close to terriffic back it's awful right that I'm
Speaker 4: not saying it's not. I just don't understand why that
Speaker 4: is the question.
Speaker 2: Boiled down brilliantly by my partner, mister Armstrong. It helps
Speaker 2: being dumb, well, it helps to get to the core
Speaker 2: of the issue, as opposed to some of the more
Speaker 2: fancy arguments that you're hearing. The Wall Street types will
Speaker 2: make much, much, much, much more money over the next
Speaker 2: two to eight years with the status quo than if
Speaker 2: we change the status quo substantially and rejigger all the
Speaker 2: tariffs and get into a quote unquote trade war, which
Speaker 2: I don't actually think is going to happen, well two
Speaker 2: to eight years.
Speaker 4: As we all know, most of your Wall Street companies
Speaker 4: are worried about this quarter.
Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, I'm thinking about two years. What is best
Speaker 2: for the American worker the American economy in the short,
Speaker 2: medium and long term is often very, very different than
Speaker 2: what's great for Wall Street now. I'm not anti Wall Street.
Speaker 2: I got a who bunch of money invested, trust me.
Speaker 2: I'm counting on someday retiring from this dead end or
Speaker 2: racket anyway. So you've got so many competing interests here
Speaker 2: which often intersect. If you have a four to oh
Speaker 2: one K, you don't want to see the market go
Speaker 2: to hell, catch fire and sing into the ocean, of course. Not.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, a situation in which, for instance,
Speaker 2: are good pals in the European Union have been hitting
Speaker 2: us with thirty nine percent tariffs on the stuff they
Speaker 2: let in they won't in let in lobster and beef
Speaker 2: and a couple other things at all. And now we're
Speaker 2: jacking up our horrific tariff against Europe to twenty percent.
Speaker 2: They're still at thirty nine percent on our goods. In
Speaker 2: what sense is that starting a trade war? It's not.
Speaker 2: It's reshaping the playing field in a way that makes
Speaker 2: Wall Street and American corporations very nervous because they can't plan.
Speaker 2: So they're yelling and saying this is a terrible mistake
Speaker 2: because it will cost them. They are sincere, but they're
Speaker 2: not sincere about all of it. If I would love
Speaker 2: to see the five or so points of view on
Speaker 2: this staunchly in favor of it, somewhat in favor of it,
Speaker 2: kind of neutral, blah blah blah, all fed sodium pentathol
Speaker 2: or a couple good stiff drinks make them honest about
Speaker 2: why they're objecting in the way they're objecting.
Speaker 4: Should I be concerned that Bernie and Elizabeth Warren and
Speaker 4: AOC are silent on this topic because this tends to
Speaker 4: be a lefty thing over the years of wanting to
Speaker 4: get into tariffs. Yeah, well, I mean politically, you know
Speaker 4: your bedfellows. My bedfellows seem to be Bernie Sanders and
Speaker 4: Elizabeth Warren.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, It's funny. Conservatism is evolving, and it's not
Speaker 2: just toward quote unquote populism. I read a great, great
Speaker 2: couple of sentences a while ago. I wish I'd had
Speaker 2: a tattooed on my arm that the reason, one of
Speaker 2: the reasons for the rise of Trump was that working
Speaker 2: America had gotten nothing but condescension and judgment, no doubt
Speaker 2: and dependency from the Democrats, and nothing but false promises
Speaker 2: from conservatives. All those steel workers and car workers and
Speaker 2: you know, washing machine workers and blah blah blah, who
Speaker 2: are placed out of jobs because you can make it
Speaker 2: cheaper in South Africa or Malaysia or wherever they got
Speaker 2: false promises. Now, the rising tide did lift all boats
Speaker 2: some but some boats much much, much more than others.
Speaker 2: So now Trump comes along and says, no, We're going
Speaker 2: to serve the American people, not the giant American corporations.
Speaker 2: How does that contrast, by the way, with the whole
Speaker 2: million ass a billion ass. Trump is half of the
Speaker 2: billion as right.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I was gonna mention The New York Times
Speaker 4: today one of their side headlines around this, and this
Speaker 4: is a giant story, this whole tariff thing.
Speaker 2: Mean, this is enormous importance. You can't exaggerate how important
Speaker 2: this is.
Speaker 4: But one of their analysis pieces, Trump's tariff's our latest
Speaker 4: sign of his second term appetite for risk. He is
Speaker 4: not taking the soft, easy way to glide through four
Speaker 4: years of being president and try to stay popular at all.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is really laying it on the line.
Speaker 4: Another angle of this whole tariff thing and restructuring the
Speaker 4: global economy. I've heard this from a couple of places
Speaker 4: which I've always been bothered by the concept of jobs
Speaker 4: Americans won't do.
Speaker 2: That just rubs me the wrong way.
Speaker 4: For a variety of reasons, including the fact that I've
Speaker 4: done a lot of really, really crappy jobs and I
Speaker 4: never thought it was beneath me to do those jobs.
Speaker 4: I you know, I structured my life in such a
Speaker 4: way that I wouldn't have to keep doing those jobs.
Speaker 2: Those jobs motivated everything I have become.
Speaker 4: But the idea that we're too good for those jobs
Speaker 4: just seems like a recipe. It's just, you know, I'm
Speaker 4: a big fan of the French Revolution. It's got a
Speaker 4: bit of a Louis the sixteenth culture to it. You know,
Speaker 4: we don't have to do certain things, and you just
Speaker 4: keep getting poorer and poorer.
Speaker 2: And how big a fan of the French Revolution are you?
Speaker 2: I mean, if I like descend, am I going to
Speaker 2: get the you know, the old chopper rony whatever it takes? Okay?
Speaker 4: But then this angle that I've heard a number of
Speaker 4: times recently as I've listened to a ton of podcasts
Speaker 4: on this. There's a piece in the Financial Times today
Speaker 4: by this guy, Michael Strain. We should not be wishing
Speaker 4: for American workers to return to the days of sewing
Speaker 4: tennis shoes together in factories. So like if you got
Speaker 4: Nike to come to the United States or Converse came
Speaker 4: back to the United States like they had been, that
Speaker 4: that would be a horror because you'd have Americans sewing
Speaker 4: shoes and factories.
Speaker 2: No, no, Americans should be in cubicles typing into computers
Speaker 2: for that wages. That is what God has ordained. Yes,
Speaker 2: that's that point of view, which I find very odd.
Speaker 4: And if Converse through through the restructuring of the world,
Speaker 4: Converse decides they need to be back in the United States, well,
Speaker 4: they're going to have to pay workers whatever they got
Speaker 4: to pay them to get them to show up, which
Speaker 4: is the way it is with the fast food industry
Speaker 4: and your cubical job and everything else. I just I
Speaker 4: don't understand the horror there. And again getting back to
Speaker 4: the reciprocal terrif idea. As you look at the chart,
Speaker 4: and we'll post an easy link to find at armstrong
Speaker 4: e geddy dot com if you want to look at
Speaker 4: what the other countries around the world are charging us
Speaker 4: in tariffs and what these new discounted reciprocal tariffs are
Speaker 4: going to be on their goods.
Speaker 2: You'll see a that is very reasonable. And b that's
Speaker 2: not the end point. What the end point is gonna be.
Speaker 2: And it might be in like a week or two,
Speaker 2: or it might be in a six months. There might
Speaker 2: be in a year or two years. I don't know.
Speaker 2: This is a a passing through point on the way
Speaker 2: to the post post World War two trade uh norms.
Speaker 2: In my opinion, here's what the Wall Street Journal said.
Speaker 2: Their panties are like in a wad, then bronzed, encased
Speaker 2: in amber, and coated with steel. It's the most wadded
Speaker 2: panties in the history. End Well, it's the what do
Speaker 2: you call It's a wedgie. It's the atomic wedgie. You
Speaker 2: pull a clip over their head. Yes, forbidden by the
Speaker 2: Geneva Convention. President Trump unveiled his new Liberation Day tariffs
Speaker 2: on Wednesday, and they are another large step toward a
Speaker 2: new old era of trade protectionism. Assuming the policy sticks,
Speaker 2: and we hope it doesn't, the effort amounts to an
Speaker 2: attempt to remake the US economy in the world trade
Speaker 2: trading system. All details aren't clear as we write this,
Speaker 2: but mister Trump's tariffs look reciprocal in name only. First,
Speaker 2: he's hitting every nation in the world with a ten
Speaker 2: percent baseline tariff to sell in the US market for
Speaker 2: those he calls bad actors. He's adding up the tariff
Speaker 2: rates on US goods plus an arbitrary estimate of the
Speaker 2: cost of its currency manipulation and non tariff barriers. I
Speaker 2: don't think it's entirely arbitrary. But he then takes the
Speaker 2: total number and applies half that in tariffs on the
Speaker 2: country's exports to the US. So if they charge us
Speaker 2: forty nine percent, we charge them twenty four percent. That
Speaker 2: doesn't seem that insane. Then they go into some of
Speaker 2: the details not worth sharing because we've done it. He're
Speaker 2: the main point new economic Oh, let's consider some of
Speaker 2: the consequences already emerging in this new protectionist stage. And
Speaker 2: again I question whether charging them half of what they
Speaker 2: charge us is quote unquote protectionist. New economic risks and uncertainty.
Speaker 2: The overall economic impact mister Trump's tariff barrage is unknowable,
Speaker 2: not least because we don't know how countries will react.
Speaker 2: Could be widespread retaliation, there won't be. I don't think
Speaker 2: there will be. There will certainly be higher costs for
Speaker 2: American consumers and businesses. Tariffs are taxes, and when you
Speaker 2: tax something, you get less of it. Tariffs are taxes.
Speaker 2: They are one hundred percent taxes. That is correct on imports,
Speaker 2: so we will get fewer imports until the tariff rates
Speaker 2: adjust again, and then we get more exports. Theoretically, car
Speaker 2: prices will rise by thousands of dollars, including those made
Speaker 2: in America. That's correct. Mister Trump is making deliberate decision
Speaker 2: to transfer wealth from consumers to businesses and workers protected
Speaker 2: from competition behind high tariff walls. Over All this, over time,
Speaker 2: this will mean the gradual erosion of US competitiveness. It
Speaker 2: will harm American exports. One long term US trade goals
Speaker 2: to expand markets for American goods and services. Mister Trump's
Speaker 2: unilateral tariffs blow up those arrangements and invite retaliation. In
Speaker 2: what sense are they unilateral? I honestly, and if I'm
Speaker 2: missing something significant, please drop us an email mail bag
Speaker 2: at Armstrong in getty dot com. I would much rather
Speaker 2: be corrected and eat crow than to be bellowing something
Speaker 2: that is wrong on the air, So feel free mail
Speaker 2: bag at Armstrong and getty dot com, or if you'd
Speaker 2: prefer to text four one five, two nine five kftc
Speaker 2: uh he makes the Wall Street Journal makes a couple
Speaker 2: other broad points, and I'll just hit those very quickly
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Speaker 2: Here are the other main points this and some of
Speaker 2: this is persuasive. Like I said before, this is complicated stuff.
Speaker 2: And there are some some harms absolutely that this will
Speaker 2: cause that will be disruptive, at least in the short term.
Speaker 2: A bigger Washington Swamp tariffs impose costs that businesses will
Speaker 2: want to avoid. This. Thus this will be a windfall
Speaker 2: for Beltwait lobbyists as companies can country seek exemptions from
Speaker 2: this or that border tax. Trump says there will be
Speaker 2: no tariff exemption, but watch that promise vanish as politicians,
Speaker 2: including mister Trump, see exemptions as a way to leverage
Speaker 2: campaign contributions from business. Liberation Day is by another yacht
Speaker 2: day for the swamp woof, and it will be the
Speaker 2: end of US economic leadership. The share of global GDP
Speaker 2: has been stable at about twenty five percent for decades,
Speaker 2: even as industries rise and fall. That era is now
Speaker 2: ending as mister Trump adopts a more mercantile vision of
Speaker 2: trade in US self interest. Don't bother you look it
Speaker 2: up if you want. The result is likely to be
Speaker 2: every nation for itself, as countries seek to carve up
Speaker 2: global markets based not on market efficiency but for political advantage.
Speaker 2: In the worst case, the world trading system could evolve
Speaker 2: into a beggar thy neighbor policy as in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 2: And they say this will also be a major opportunity
Speaker 2: for China. You know, I'm going to use that as
Speaker 2: a measuring stick over the years.
Speaker 4: You're right, it's been We have been about a quarter
Speaker 4: of the world's GDP for quite a while. Now, where
Speaker 4: will we be five years from now, ten years from now?
Speaker 4: An interesting way to look at it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to take a break, but there's more
Speaker 2: to be said, and we will say it, and you
Speaker 2: can take your input.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're your input at text line four one KFTC.
Speaker 2: Corey Booker just delivered the longest speech in Senate history
Speaker 2: at twenty five hours and five minutes.
Speaker 5: Check out the other historically long speeches that knocked off
Speaker 5: the top of the list.
Speaker 6: Senator Strom Thurmond in nineteen fifty seven, your dad after
Speaker 6: he found weed in your sock drawer. Your coworker telling
Speaker 6: you about a dream they had last night. Adrian Brody
Speaker 6: accepting the Oscar for Best Actor. Every group of bridesmaids
Speaker 6: whose speech starts with for those of you who don't
Speaker 6: know us, we're Becka's best friends from growing up. The
Speaker 6: person over fifty when you asked them for directions, the
Speaker 6: waiter reciting the specials when you already know you're just
Speaker 6: getting the burger, and Joe Biden saying one sentence, Hey.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a fucking good the list now he holds
Speaker 2: the records are really good. Boy. That Corey Booker, idiotic stunt,
Speaker 2: gotten zero attention, hilarious bride He's made for those who
Speaker 2: don't know we've been best friends since here comes the
Speaker 2: lost story.
Speaker 7: Boy.
Speaker 2: It's not for me, it's for them. It's their day. Sure,
Speaker 2: so I'll just think about something else. Why I tell this?
Speaker 4: So let me run through a couple of things for
Speaker 4: you in our limited time. In this segment, Kanye West
Speaker 4: confirms split from his wife Bianca after his disturbing rants,
Speaker 4: which Joe mentioned the other day if you haven't watched him,
Speaker 4: he did an interview in.
Speaker 2: A full Ku Kus Klan outfit, but black instead of white.
Speaker 2: The Pointy Hood and everything did the interviews through the mask,
Speaker 2: so it was wrong and an interview guy had to
Speaker 2: be thinking, dude, I get it, all right, you're outrageous.
Speaker 2: Take off the mask. So this is audio.
Speaker 4: It sounds terrible anyway. So his wife is taken off.
Speaker 4: He says he's tracking her on her on his app.
Speaker 4: He's tracking her and she ran away. Okay, So there's
Speaker 4: that Another New York Post got her chipped like a dog. Well,
Speaker 4: you know you probably do. Maybe you do this, I
Speaker 4: don't know, but you know, like you share your location
Speaker 4: with youruse absolutely his sons whatever. Yeah, but i'd thought
Speaker 4: she'd have turned dolf. Yeah, New York Post headline. Another
Speaker 4: one dog breaks Guinness World record for a number of
Speaker 4: tennis balls in mouth at once. M I didn't know
Speaker 4: that was a record. The question is does a dog
Speaker 4: know he was breaking a record? His dog has looks
Speaker 4: to be like five tennis balls in his mouth the way.
Speaker 4: That's a good boy, good boy, we've set a world record. Congratulations.
Speaker 4: And I had another one I wanted to get on. Oh,
Speaker 4: this high school baseball player whose name happens to be
Speaker 4: Jack Bauer. If you're old enough to remember the TV
Speaker 4: show twenty four, he wears the number twenty four on
Speaker 4: his jersey because his name is Jack bar. I'm sure
Speaker 4: his parents had to tell him about this because he
Speaker 4: was born after that show was on. But he's a
Speaker 4: high school kid and he throws one hundred and two
Speaker 4: miles an hour. No and uh yeah, and he's like
Speaker 4: everybody's paying attention to him.
Speaker 2: Obviously. He had a game Tuesday.
Speaker 4: His fastball averaged between ninety seven and one oh one
Speaker 4: in the Tuesday game. Now, as a high school player,
Speaker 4: you gotta be thinking, can I just can me just
Speaker 4: do they have a thing where I can just forfeit
Speaker 4: my bat bat so I don't take one in the
Speaker 4: head if he happens to.
Speaker 2: Lose it, I would be at the far back outside
Speaker 2: corner of the batter's box, covering myself up, saying, dude,
Speaker 2: you're either going to throw three strikes or four balls first.
Speaker 2: I'm either going to head to the bench or first base.
Speaker 2: Go ahead.
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna be killed today. One other sport thing,
Speaker 4: you know. So, I was at my son's volleyball game
Speaker 4: last night. Real volleyball where you have howard eight people
Speaker 4: on each side. That is so much more entertaining than
Speaker 4: the two person beach volleyball. I don't care what anybody
Speaker 4: says regular volleyball is really exciting.
Speaker 2: But they're not sexy babes wearing thongs, right, that's the thing.
Speaker 4: They aren't not bigini, So it'll never be an Olympic
Speaker 4: sport that anybody pays the attention to.
Speaker 2: So we need to revisit the Ezra Kleine progressive view
Speaker 2: of life that we touched on yesterday, and we've got
Speaker 2: some great reaction to that via email more of talk,
Speaker 2: including I've meant to throw in. Speaking for myself, there's
Speaker 2: no question this is terrible for me in the short
Speaker 2: term financially speaking. Oh yeah, Oh it's awful. So believe me.
Speaker 2: I'm not touting this because I think it'll help me.
Speaker 1: Armstrong and getty.
Speaker 7: You can see now that we are in a pre
Speaker 7: civil war culture now, But I look at the politics
Speaker 7: of it, of where people are in this country today
Speaker 7: and the division and how they're holding fast and no
Speaker 7: one's going to falter, no one's going to break or.
Speaker 2: A compromise, and it's bad. Hands up, hands up, don't shoot.
Speaker 2: That's Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 4: I'm saying we're in a pre civil war culture.
Speaker 2: So I I hope he's wrong about that. I'll grow
Speaker 2: my beard out. I don't I don't know what to
Speaker 2: do alec.
Speaker 4: But we are quite polarized, and nobody's giving and I
Speaker 4: don't know that I feel like it's improving any But
Speaker 4: I've always been interested in the how, you know, people
Speaker 4: grow up with a lefty view of the world, you
Speaker 4: go up with a conservative view of the world, and
Speaker 4: just they're so different and what causes that and all
Speaker 4: that different sort of thing. But we were talking yesterday
Speaker 4: about this interview I heard with Ezra Kline of The
Speaker 4: New York Times in which he was asked to describe
Speaker 4: the lefty point of view and to summarize it fairly succinctly,
Speaker 4: And it made me scream out loud in my bedroom. Oh,
Speaker 4: you've got to every beginning, because he got into the
Speaker 4: whole Look, life is unfair, and people have different advantages.
Speaker 4: Where you're born, how smart your parents were, how you know,
Speaker 4: blah blah blah, the kind of school you went to
Speaker 4: do So if you're successful, you didn't do that, you
Speaker 4: didn't build that in the famous Obama thing. And so
Speaker 4: the job of the government is to try to you know,
Speaker 4: you can't get perfect outcomes, but the job of the
Speaker 4: government is trying to level that out, right, I thought, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: how so who's going to make those decisions?
Speaker 2: First of all? You, I guess yeah, And gosh, who's
Speaker 2: going to end up really benefiting from the power to
Speaker 2: make those decisions? Golly, I can't even guess.
Speaker 4: And always my thing, nobody ever throws in personal choices,
Speaker 4: decisions you've made.
Speaker 2: Throughout your life for how you ended up where you were.
Speaker 2: It's just you were born in the right town and
Speaker 2: your parents were this or that.
Speaker 4: My parents weren't rich, by the way, But whatever Evan
Speaker 4: Jews have, nobody gives you any credit or discredit for
Speaker 4: life choices.
Speaker 2: Right, And we talked about how, as laid out so
Speaker 2: beautifully by Thomas Sowell in his book A Conflict of Visions,
Speaker 2: you got what he calls the constrained vision of mankind,
Speaker 2: which is essentially more conservative. It relies heavily on the
Speaker 2: belief that human nature is essentially unchanging and that man
Speaker 2: is naturally inherently self interested, regardless of the best intentions.
Speaker 2: And those with a constrained vision prefer these systematic processes
Speaker 2: of the rule of law and the experience of tradition
Speaker 2: compromises essential because they're no ideal solutions, only trade offs.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, the unconstrained or progressive ezraclined point
Speaker 2: of view, it relies heavily on the belief that human
Speaker 2: nature is essentially good. Those with unconstrained visions distrust decentralized
Speaker 2: processes like the free market and are impatient with large
Speaker 2: institutions and systemic processes that constrain human action. They believe
Speaker 2: there is an ideal solution to every problem and that
Speaker 2: compromises never acceptable. Collateral damage is merely the price of
Speaker 2: moving forward on the road to perfection, and the best part.
Speaker 2: Saul often refers to them as the self anointed. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: they believe that man is morally perfectible, and because of this,
Speaker 2: they believe that there exists some people who are further
Speaker 2: along the path of moral development and have overcome self
Speaker 2: interest that's what Asraclined would tell you, and are immune
Speaker 2: to the influence of power and therefore can act as
Speaker 2: surrogate decision makers for the rest of us, which is
Speaker 2: I can't decide whether to vomit or guffaw.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's hilarious that notion. So yeah, I'd buy
Speaker 4: the view that even if I agree one hundred percent
Speaker 4: that successful people didn't earn that. It's just you know, circumstances.
Speaker 4: I don't believe at all that the government could have
Speaker 4: a role in trying to fix that.
Speaker 2: Situation right right now. If somebody is blind or different thing, yeah,
Speaker 2: developmentally disabled, autistic, whatever, that's an entirely different question. So
Speaker 2: we got a couple of interesting reactions via email mail
Speaker 2: bag at Armstrong you getdy dot com. Is the email
Speaker 2: addressed if you ever want to react to anything, keep
Speaker 2: it short if you can. But Dan, who says he
Speaker 2: signs off your backyard, California, get the hell out of
Speaker 2: my backyard, Dan, You'll be shot all right. Wow. Anyway,
Speaker 2: he's had mentioned earlier if you read one of my
Speaker 2: emails in your life, this is the one I want
Speaker 2: you to be aware. Okay, Ezra didn't say it out right,
Speaker 2: but he's addressing your point about people's life decisions. When
Speaker 2: he says life is unfair. Here's the scary, crazy point.
Speaker 2: He's not saying out loud because it would make him
Speaker 2: sound like a lunatic. He does not believe in free will.
Speaker 2: Trust me. My brother and his girlfriend are liberal and
Speaker 2: highly educated, and when having a friendly political debate with me,
Speaker 2: they spat out Ezra's crazy worldview almost word for word.
Speaker 2: And when I brought up your point that everyone makes
Speaker 2: decisions in life greatly affects their outcomes, they defended their
Speaker 2: position with this. There's a crazy, almost Marxist ideology going
Speaker 2: around with progressives right now that we did not make
Speaker 2: our own decisions, it was all predetermined or destined. I've
Speaker 2: never heard this. This is I'm glad this is being
Speaker 2: brought to my attention. I have heard mostly people of
Speaker 2: a progressive bent, saying there is no free will. It's
Speaker 2: an illusion because we are are genetic selves and it's
Speaker 2: all okay, So what am I supposed to do with that? Well,
Speaker 2: well exactly, Yeah, you've bottom lined it for me. So
Speaker 2: I guess my genetics were be young, impulsive and not
Speaker 2: a big fan of rules and make a series of
Speaker 2: bad decisions from which I had learned and then started
Speaker 2: to make much better decisions. But that was all predetermined,
Speaker 2: I guess anyway. Oh ba ba bah. All they straight
Speaker 2: up said to me, I get just got lucky, and
Speaker 2: that every so called decision I made in my life
Speaker 2: was predetermined. If you think about it for a little bit,
Speaker 2: you'll realize how sick and horrible. This ideology is. Imagine,
Speaker 2: they're able to convince more and more people that quote,
Speaker 2: you don't need to feel guilty about your decisions, you
Speaker 2: don't need to try to make good decisions because it
Speaker 2: was always going to happen this way. Then maybe I
Speaker 2: would shut down my business right now, because that's not
Speaker 2: actually a decision. It was always going to be happening.
Speaker 2: It always going to happen.
Speaker 4: I assume many of us have had this free will
Speaker 4: discussion or heard it or whatever. But I mean, like today,
Speaker 4: I'm either going to decide to stick to my diet
Speaker 4: or I'm going to say, screw it, need a bunch
Speaker 4: of donuts. And you're telling me that's predetermined. I'm not okay,
Speaker 4: you have no say if your eyes open. Is this
Speaker 4: sick philosophy spreads more and more amongst young people. I'm
Speaker 4: thirty six, my brother's thirty eight, so we're not even
Speaker 4: the young generation that it's susceptible to this crazy the ideology,
Speaker 4: but it's spreading all right.
Speaker 2: Then we got this from a frequent correspondent.
Speaker 4: Obviously that's fantastic if you're on the Ezra Klein's of things,
Speaker 4: because then that gives you the go ahead to have
Speaker 4: the tremendous government and intervention to try to even things out.
Speaker 4: Because nobody is responsible for their success or their lack
Speaker 4: of success, the redistribution only makes sense.
Speaker 2: And while the Ezra clients of the world are exercising
Speaker 2: the stunning, unimaginable power of making everything equal by manipulating everything,
Speaker 2: they'll also carve off a certain percent for themselves. Happens
Speaker 2: every single Timetris says, I.
Speaker 4: He's a richest person in Venezuela. You Goo Chevez's daughter.
Speaker 4: H imagine that anyway I want.
Speaker 2: Too, so JT and livermore right, say, Ezra's worldview about
Speaker 2: progressives is total horse spit. He really cares about how
Speaker 2: unequal different people's lives are. He should ask himself why
Speaker 2: he doesn't give away all his money and wealth and
Speaker 2: possessions that exceeded eighty three hundred and sixty dollars. The
Speaker 2: median American net worth is one hundred and ninety two
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. The median human net worth is eighty three
Speaker 2: hundred dollars. I say, those bleeding heart liberals need to
Speaker 2: first put their own money where their mouth is. Start
Speaker 2: by example, you're in the upper half of people in
Speaker 2: the world that have more than median value, and so
Speaker 2: you should give all the rest to the un to
Speaker 2: distribute to those who have less than you. It is
Speaker 2: the exact same horse spit virtue signaling that rich liberals
Speaker 2: are always spouting but failing to lead by example respect
Speaker 2: to tax rates. Nothing is keeping Bill Gates or Warren
Speaker 2: Buffett or Nancy pelosire Bernard Sanders from writing a big
Speaker 2: fat check to the US Treasury to cover their proposed
Speaker 2: wealth tax, or a big fat check equal to the
Speaker 2: higher tax rate that they think is fair for somebody
Speaker 2: of their wealth or income. But the next time I
Speaker 2: hear about a wealthy liberal writing an extra check to
Speaker 2: the US Treasury and support of their stated belief that
Speaker 2: the wealthy should pay more in taxes, it will be
Speaker 2: the first time. Yeah, hey, Isra do you fly first class?
Speaker 2: I'm guessing you do.
Speaker 4: Why don't you fly coach and give that money to
Speaker 4: that guy sitting out tried the airport begging for money.
Speaker 2: I mean you didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve it.
Speaker 2: And finally, listening to as their speak, it sounded exactly
Speaker 2: like the Marxists taking equity, talking equity and that equity
Speaker 2: is just the latest iteration of something that's stuck to
Speaker 2: the wall. They don't believe any of what they say.
Speaker 2: It's just the latest method they can think to justify
Speaker 2: their side. I would say that's true, JT. It brings
Speaker 2: us back to a discussion Jack and I always have.
Speaker 2: Are the people we're talking about, the activists who know
Speaker 2: precisely what they're doing, or they're at least driving the train,
Speaker 2: or are they the nice, dopey people who hear that
Speaker 2: moral argument about No, Those people aren't like, don't make
Speaker 2: bad decisions, or their culture doesn't reward learning or whatever.
Speaker 2: They've just been unlucky and they think to be a
Speaker 2: good person. I need to adhere to that point of view.
Speaker 4: I know smart people, really smart people smarter than me.
Speaker 4: People that believe what you just said, actually believe it.
Speaker 2: Uh, proving once again intelligence is not wisdom.
Speaker 4: It's hard for me to wrap my head around. And
Speaker 4: then there's the whole cultural thing of if you believe
Speaker 4: in decisions that will you believe you make decisions that
Speaker 4: they aren't preordained the.
Speaker 2: Way it affects culture.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm raising my kids, you raise your kid
Speaker 4: I'm sure in a certain way, because you've looked at
Speaker 4: the outcome of other families who did certain things, and
Speaker 4: you want your kids to have a better outcome. So
Speaker 4: you know, and I tell my kids all the time,
Speaker 4: people that do this end up with this, People that
Speaker 4: do this end up with this, And so you get
Speaker 4: a better result from society when people are observing these decisions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in a hundred different ways, including much less crime,
Speaker 2: for instance. Yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 4: Is this a new thing? I mean, I know it's
Speaker 4: not entirely new, It's been around since the beginning of philosophy,
Speaker 4: But is this a new thing among the American left
Speaker 4: to talk about these are preordained decisions?
Speaker 2: I think it's a new version of that argument that
Speaker 2: the really interesting thing that nobody ever talks about is
Speaker 2: that if you had that point of view prior to
Speaker 2: DR's presidency, you would die of starvation, right, going back
Speaker 2: to the dawn of effing man. Sorry, folks, I'm adamant
Speaker 2: about this stuff. It's only because the modern welfare state
Speaker 2: that you can indulge yourself in. Think this crap, right,
Speaker 2: it's only eighty years old. You know. The lefties they
Speaker 2: love to talk about like our native peoples, the Native tribes.
Speaker 2: They shared equally. They shared the game that they caught,
Speaker 2: and the fish and the food and the labor they shared.
Speaker 2: And because they were nomads, they didn't particularly accumulate material
Speaker 2: goods either, which is probably good. But anyway, what they
Speaker 2: always leave out is that if you didn't contribute equally,
Speaker 2: you were killed or left to starve.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the idea that you could decide, you know what,
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna drink firewater and sit under this shade
Speaker 4: tree all day long because that's all predetermined.
Speaker 2: I'm just less lucky than you, chief, and they'll share
Speaker 2: equally with you. As hilarious. It's absolutely laughable. The crazy
Speaker 2: ass ideas that people grasp. To quote Thomas Soul again,
Speaker 2: there's some ideas so idiotic only an intellectual could have them.
Speaker 4: I had this same belief when I was poor, by
Speaker 4: the way, I really did.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah. I remember hearing about the progressive income
Speaker 2: tax rates in high school as a kid wearing hand
Speaker 2: me down clothes. I thought, everybody pays ten percent, so
Speaker 2: of course people will make more money, pay more. That's
Speaker 2: what a percentage is. But no, my teacher explained to me, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: no no. The quote unquote wealthy, the rich whatever, they
Speaker 2: pay a much higher percentage, And sitting there in my
Speaker 2: handme down clothes, I thought that's wrong. Well, so that
Speaker 2: ain't going away.
Speaker 4: But yeah, the whole idea of if you're successful, you
Speaker 4: didn't you don't get any credit for that is just
Speaker 4: a good way to destroy society.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow, that's horrifying.
Speaker 4: You can comment on that line four one, five two
Speaker 4: nine five Kftcara, are you terrified?
Speaker 2: Ied? Is it terrifying?
Speaker 4: We've got some uh tariff uh of a way to
Speaker 4: look at the whole thing in just a second. It's
Speaker 4: the no good, horrible terrifule day. More on that to
Speaker 4: come stay with us.
Speaker 2: Plus, one of our favorite clips of twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: has at long last been turned into a most song,
Speaker 2: a remix of some sorts so well we needed. It's
Speaker 2: ridiculous but kind of funny, So stay with us for that.
Speaker 2: Just to follow up to our previous discussion that I
Speaker 2: swear I will shut up about all this and if
Speaker 2: you didn't hear it, grab the podcast Armstrong Getdy on demand.
Speaker 2: We were talking about the progressive worldview and how you
Speaker 2: didn't build that and it's all luck and blah, blah blah,
Speaker 2: the other unholy side of that coin. During the break,
Speaker 2: we were talking about a horrific shooting in a pharmacy
Speaker 2: or a disgruntled guy killed some poor pharmacy worker who's
Speaker 2: just there to make a living job. They probably didn't love,
Speaker 2: as Jack said, and they might hate big farm as
Speaker 2: much as you. Exactly. That guy believed his crappy life
Speaker 2: was not his fault, right, and that he was a
Speaker 2: victim of people and forces that control him. That is
Speaker 2: the other side of that philosophy. You want to know
Speaker 2: why there are school shooters now and there never were before,
Speaker 2: including when every kid had a rifle in his gun
Speaker 2: rack in his pickup truck at school in the country.
Speaker 2: At least, it's because of that change in the culture.
Speaker 2: There might not be a more corrosive and horrifying philosophy
Speaker 2: on earth than You're not responsible for you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it should be considered child abuse to teach your
Speaker 4: kid that failure is not your fault.
Speaker 2: End of rant. Oh, that is troubling anyway.
Speaker 4: So it is the whole tariff thing today. This is
Speaker 4: worth talking about a lot because it's a huge, huge
Speaker 4: deal for the whole planet and how it works out.
Speaker 2: We don't know. Nobody knows.
Speaker 4: Trump has been He's had a theory on this his
Speaker 4: whole life, and we'll see how it turns out.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 4: Here's Howard Lutnik, who's one of Trump's big financial advisors,
Speaker 4: being interviewed about it today.
Speaker 3: If the market here in the US opens at nine
Speaker 3: am and things head south, is there a.
Speaker 2: Red line for you pulling back and saying, Okay, hold on,
Speaker 2: we're going to rethink things. No, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: come on the markets.
Speaker 5: When Donald Trump was the president last time, he put
Speaker 5: on tariffs, and if you go back and look at
Speaker 5: that news, everybody said, oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
Speaker 5: And the stock market, as you heard him say yesterday,
Speaker 5: up eighty eight percent during his presidency. So what you've
Speaker 5: got to realize is sure, there's going to be some
Speaker 5: short term movement, but this is a reordering of global trade.
Speaker 5: It's time for America to manufacture again. And I think
Speaker 5: these changes in the stock market while their initial long term,
Speaker 5: you've got to assume a medium term and employment based,
Speaker 5: you're going to see America thrive. Interest rates are going
Speaker 5: to come down, as we said, and America is going
Speaker 5: to thrive. And that's what Donald Trump is about is
Speaker 5: about employing Americans, building in America and having Americans be
Speaker 5: the winners.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why I started the show with.
Speaker 4: In my opinion, any analysis of this that's going to
Speaker 4: lean on what the stock market did today come on well.
Speaker 2: Especially because the stock market is rife with speculation. It's
Speaker 2: like the NFT craze. Nobody wanted a dumb ap yacht
Speaker 2: society or whatever it was NFT. It was pure speculation,
Speaker 2: and a lot of the stock market is too. Jd Vance.
Speaker 2: I don't think we have time or do we have time? Yeah,
Speaker 2: play fifty seven for us, Michael.
Speaker 3: What I'd ask folks to appreciate here is that we
Speaker 3: are not going to fix things overnight. Joe Biden left us.
Speaker 3: This is not an exaggeration, lawrence. With the largest peacetime
Speaker 3: debt and deficit in the history of the United States
Speaker 3: of America, with sky high interest rates, you don't fix.
Speaker 2: That stuff overnight. We know people are struggling.
Speaker 3: We're fighting as quickly as we can to fix what
Speaker 3: was left to us, but it's not going to happen immediately.
Speaker 3: But we really do believe that if we pursue the
Speaker 3: right deregulation we pursue those energy cost reducing policies. Yes,
Speaker 3: people are going to see it in their pocketbook. They're
Speaker 3: also going to benefit from the fact that foreign countries
Speaker 3: can't take advantage of us anymore. That means their jobs
Speaker 3: are going to be more secure.
Speaker 2: If you're just tuning in, we've made the point a
Speaker 2: couple of times and we'll dive back into it next hour.
Speaker 2: That there hasn't been anything close to free trade going on.
Speaker 2: The free traders are saying this is a trade war
Speaker 2: Trump has started. The other countries around the world have
Speaker 2: to either a greater or lesser extent, been tariffing the
Speaker 2: hell out of American goods for the longest time. And
Speaker 2: you know what, in the wake of World War Two,
Speaker 2: when we stood astride the economy of the globe like
Speaker 2: a colossus, I get that they needed help. We needed
Speaker 2: to sell our stuff to someone. All right, exactly seventy
Speaker 2: years down the line, now it is time for a
Speaker 2: fundamental restructuring global trade. Will it work and how much
Speaker 2: will it hurt? I don't know. I wish I did.
Speaker 2: If I did, I would tell you we're not going
Speaker 2: to find out in the first couple hours. No, there's
Speaker 2: a new book out about the end of the Biden
Speaker 2: presidency by a respected reporter, did an interview today. We
Speaker 2: got some of the highlights on that coming up. Boy
Speaker 2: Barack Obama did not think much of Kamala Harris as
Speaker 2: one of the headlines
Speaker 1: Armstrong and Getty