Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Speaker 2: Armstrong and Gatty, and he Armstrong and Getty Strong and.
Speaker 3: Came across a fantastic think piece by a fellow by
Speaker 3: the name of Tom Klingenstein about de EI in the
Speaker 3: United States Military.
Speaker 2: And I've heard various folks, including.
Speaker 3: Some of serv talk about how it's hurt readiness, and
Speaker 3: I believed it, but I've never heard it fleshed out
Speaker 3: this well. And I wish we had hours and hours,
Speaker 3: because I'd love to read the whole thing and discuss
Speaker 3: it with you. But his point that is quite eloquently made,
Speaker 3: and we'll post it at Armstrong and Giddy under hot Links,
Speaker 3: is that.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: He writes, the military is often perceived by well meaning
Speaker 3: Americans as the last holdout in the progressive march through
Speaker 3: the institutions. In reality, however, it was among the first
Speaker 3: American institutions to formally embrace the radical logic of group quotas.
Speaker 3: And he talks about the difference between civilian society and
Speaker 3: mill military society in its values, in its training, in
Speaker 3: its social norms, and why they're so important, and how
Speaker 3: DEI is utterly incompatible with the cultural norms that have
Speaker 3: underpinned every military in the history of time, discipline, sacrificing
Speaker 3: oneself to the unit, everyone being the same, your only identity,
Speaker 3: as I'm a member of this unit. It's very, very
Speaker 3: well written, and it's made me all the more dedicated
Speaker 3: to stamping out this radical ideology wherever it happens. I
Speaker 3: was encouraged to see a guest editorial in New York
Speaker 3: and The New York Times pointed out by fabulous frequent correspondent,
Speaker 3: Paolo DEI is not working on college campuses.
Speaker 2: We need a new approach.
Speaker 3: It's by a couple of academics from Stanford Law and
Speaker 3: Stanford University, and they write it in a way that
Speaker 3: is they are lefties approaching lefties. So it's fairly gentle
Speaker 3: about how the DEI.
Speaker 2: Programs that exist on campuses.
Speaker 3: Are not quite what they purport to be and don't
Speaker 3: really achieve what they've said they should achieve, pointing out
Speaker 3: the rampant anti Semitism on all of these enlightened campuses.
Speaker 2: And again it's it's very well written and I'd love
Speaker 2: to go into more detail on it, and anti Asian bias,
Speaker 2: which we'll get to in a second.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, And we could certainly get into the
Speaker 3: report that just came out from Columbia University about how
Speaker 3: miserable a failure Dei has been in rooting out anti
Speaker 3: Semitism there, and he gets into the I'm sorry, these
Speaker 3: two academics get into the rigidity of these programs and
Speaker 3: how and again, this is not a revelation to us
Speaker 3: at all. They don't seem to actually be about diversity,
Speaker 3: equity and inclusion, whatever those things mean. They seem to
Speaker 3: be rigidly enforcing a particular point of view, and they
Speaker 3: seem to just want to see the power at the universities. Well,
Speaker 3: welcome to enlightenment, my friend. But what was interesting was,
Speaker 3: and this is what Paolo, the service Polo provided, which
Speaker 3: I appreciate very much, he says, more interesting than the
Speaker 3: article are the generally pretty solidly left New York Times
Speaker 3: reader's comments.
Speaker 2: If you view the reader's picks.
Speaker 3: Meaning the comments on the story that got the most
Speaker 3: thumbs up and that sort of thing, you'll see that
Speaker 3: they are all critical of Dei, and they run from
Speaker 3: as a white males perfectly fine, can be even helpful
Speaker 3: to ask me to examine my values and beliefs for
Speaker 3: racism and sexism. But it's not fine to assign me
Speaker 3: the category of a pressor based solely on my race
Speaker 3: or gender.
Speaker 2: Blah blah blah. How about this one?
Speaker 3: As a black immigrant from Africa, the idea that groups
Speaker 3: are inherently oppressed based on skin color is shocking to me.
Speaker 3: All races and genders have issues because we're all human beings.
Speaker 3: I've received far more discrimination in Africa on the basis
Speaker 3: of my tribe than I have from any white person.
Speaker 2: And he goes down that line for a while.
Speaker 3: As a staunch liberal and white minority, ally, the only
Speaker 3: thing that's ever made me consider voting a Republican is
Speaker 3: having to write diversity statements for a university job. It's
Speaker 3: a blatant tool of discrimination and everyone knows it.
Speaker 2: Wow. A couple one more quick one.
Speaker 3: As a professor at a university, I agree for students
Speaker 3: to succeed in the university.
Speaker 2: They must feel that they belong.
Speaker 3: For a minority student from a public school and a
Speaker 3: class full of white kids, it's tough to feel like
Speaker 3: you belongs. Uh this guy does he finally get to
Speaker 3: the point. Oh, It's that socializing with peers, involvement in
Speaker 3: student groups, for participating with a broad array of people
Speaker 3: is what breaks down those barriers. Not being set into
Speaker 3: camps and set against each other. That's the opposite of
Speaker 3: what works. So, as I've said many times, this is
Speaker 3: not the beginning of the end of this neo Marxist garbage.
Speaker 2: It's the end of the beginning.
Speaker 3: People are starting to realize, Wow, this isn't about diversity
Speaker 3: or equity, which is communism or inclusion at all. They
Speaker 3: just want to take control of things by cowing us
Speaker 3: into silence, by calling us racists.
Speaker 2: On the racial breakdown at colleges. Maybe you saw this headline.
Speaker 2: I saw the initial headline over the weekend after Supreme
Speaker 2: Court ruling against affirmative action. Black acceptance to MIT drops
Speaker 2: ten percentage points, and they presented it only that way.
Speaker 2: I think it was The New York Times had it,
Speaker 2: and obviously it's supposed to be a horror that happened.
Speaker 2: Rich Lowry actually wrote in The New York Post yesterday
Speaker 2: digging into it a little more. A spike in Asian
Speaker 2: Americans who were admitted to MIT, who you can only
Speaker 2: assume were not getting in even though they deserved it
Speaker 2: before because of affirmative actions. So the whole numbers on that.
Speaker 2: So MIT is the first top level college to release
Speaker 2: their numbers on this. We're gonna be hearing more about
Speaker 2: these in the fall, I assume from Harvard, Yale, whoever else.
Speaker 2: But MIT released its first post affirmative action admissions number
Speaker 2: for the incoming class since the Supreme Court ruled the
Speaker 2: affirmative action in these universities is wrong, and the percentage
Speaker 2: of Asian American students increased from forty to forty seven
Speaker 2: percent the first year are the first opportunity to have,
Speaker 2: you know, merit based admissions. Black students dropped from fifteen
Speaker 2: to five, Hispanic students from sixteen to eleven. White stayed
Speaker 2: roughly the same, and as rich lowry rites. Either the
Speaker 2: MIT admissions office has been somehow infiltrated by racists who
Speaker 2: want to exclude as many Black and Hispanic students as
Speaker 2: possible while boosting Asian Americans for some reason, or they
Speaker 2: were working to keep out meritorious Asian American applicants all
Speaker 2: these years, people that deserved to be in the school
Speaker 2: and weren't allowed in because they weren't the right race.
Speaker 2: What could be more racist than that?
Speaker 3: Well, and to take a step back to I think
Speaker 3: the greater and more important issue is now that we
Speaker 3: haven't papered over the difference is in achievement by shoving
Speaker 3: kids in who probably can't make it at MIT, because
Speaker 3: there's a huge incidence of that the kids who are
Speaker 3: elevated beyond their level of achievement and stuck into these colleges,
Speaker 3: they fail at unbelievable levels.
Speaker 2: You're not going to read that in the mainstream media,
Speaker 2: but it's true.
Speaker 3: Instead of papering over the question of okay, why is
Speaker 3: a disproportionately small percentage of black students able to qualify
Speaker 3: for MIT start before.
Speaker 2: They're even in school. Let's talk about kindergarten.
Speaker 3: Let's look at first grade through eighth grade. Let's talk
Speaker 3: about middle school and high school and the rest of it.
Speaker 3: Let's address causes as opposed to these affirmative action at
Speaker 3: the end programs that enable a people who are profiting
Speaker 3: from this, the teachers' unions and don't want to solve
Speaker 3: the problems, and b society that's uncomfortable talking about it.
Speaker 3: Why do black kids underachieve? If you don't paper over
Speaker 3: the process at the end. You're forced to reckon with
Speaker 3: the problem at the beginning. And that's why I like
Speaker 3: these problems as somebody who's not trying to take over
Speaker 3: universities through my DEI critical thinking or I'm not critical thinking,
Speaker 3: critical theory, neo Marxism.
Speaker 2: I actually care about little black kids. So a Doke
Speaker 2: researcher is expecting similar results in other Ivy League schools.
Speaker 2: This fall a big increase for Asian American students, white
Speaker 2: students staying about flat, and then a substantial drop in
Speaker 2: Black and Hispanic admissions. Rich Lowry points out here it's
Speaker 2: the same experience California had when the state passed the
Speaker 2: anti Affirmative Action proposition in two thousand and nine, I
Speaker 2: mean two nine. Back in ninety six, Asian Americans went
Speaker 2: from thirty seven percent of freshmen at UC Berkeley to
Speaker 2: forty three percent. White students dropped ten points. So you
Speaker 2: can't claim it's white supremacy or white power structure or
Speaker 2: something like that. The number of white kids getting into
Speaker 2: Berkeley dropped from thirty percent to twenty percent. And this
Speaker 2: is my favorite part of it. There isn't some giant
Speaker 2: factory somewhere that's manufacturing generic Asian Americans either, who all
Speaker 2: have the same backgrounds and attitudes. The category of Asian
Speaker 2: American includes people from countries that hate each other and
Speaker 2: always have people from countries that have little to do
Speaker 2: with one on one another. For instance, China, India, the
Speaker 2: Philippines whatever, They got nothing to do with each other.
Speaker 2: In some cases hate each other and always have hated
Speaker 2: each other. They've killed each other by the hundreds of
Speaker 2: thousands in brutal ways. It's not like some monolithic group
Speaker 2: like you claim white people are, who are trying to
Speaker 2: take over something.
Speaker 3: Well, and you've got to drop your preconceptions too about
Speaker 3: elite universities and such. I tell you what, here at
Speaker 3: Joe's second tier university, you're gonna learn a hell of
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 2: You're gonna drink some beer and get laid. It's gonna
Speaker 2: be great at the superachiever universities will be for superachievers.
Speaker 2: And that's fine.
Speaker 3: And I remind you of the fact that generally speaking,
Speaker 3: A students work for B students at companies owned by
Speaker 3: C students.
Speaker 2: As the old saying goes, Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that,
Speaker 2: because Rich Lowry did end with as for students who
Speaker 2: would have been admitted under the old racialized system. It's
Speaker 2: not like they'll have no future. If they end up
Speaker 2: at a good state school somewhere, you'll be absolutely perfectly fine.
Speaker 2: If that good enter off, probably yeah, very good chance
Speaker 2: you will be better off. But the idea that your
Speaker 2: life is ruined or something like that's insane. It took
Speaker 2: us a long time to get here. These affirmative action
Speaker 2: programs exist in large measure to prevent us from considering
Speaker 2: the uncomfortable and difficult questions of black underachievement. I believe
Speaker 2: that to my bone. That's really interesting.
Speaker 1: The Armstrong and Getty Show or John or Joe.
Speaker 2: Podcasts and our hot links The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 2: Oh here's how money actually works.
Speaker 3: Seven dollars beautiful, Are you about to say something? Okay,
Speaker 3: so we're gonna do the one on one class first
Speaker 3: and then two to one class. If this first part
Speaker 3: is too obvious for some of you, Congratulations on understanding
Speaker 3: the basics of economics, which is a fairly rare thing
Speaker 3: in today's world, which is highly discouraging. But first of all,
Speaker 3: they're talking about who's this writer. I like to give
Speaker 3: credit because this is really well written. Matthew Henessy in
Speaker 3: the Wall Street Journal is talking about the fellows in Oasis,
Speaker 3: the British rock band which is getting back together.
Speaker 2: Wonder Wall. He gets back, he gets.
Speaker 3: Into some of the backstory, the Gallagher brothers who can't
Speaker 3: stand each other and can't get along, but they're the
Speaker 3: indispensable members of the band Oasis. Last month, the Boys
Speaker 3: Buried the Hatchet announced series twenty twenty five concerts.
Speaker 2: Delirious.
Speaker 3: Fans were young and relatively poor during the band's heyday
Speaker 3: are now older and relatively rich. They have the willingness
Speaker 3: and ability to pay to see Oasis and concert. Economically speaking,
Speaker 3: that's called demand, but demand is only one side of
Speaker 3: the economic story.
Speaker 2: Morning Glory for the moment.
Speaker 3: At least, the Oasis reunion is limited to a handful
Speaker 3: of shows, and the Wembley Stadium is large.
Speaker 2: It's not infinitely so.
Speaker 3: And there's no guarantee the brothers will remain on speaking
Speaker 3: terms beyond next summer. Fans understand that this may be
Speaker 3: their last chance to see the battling Gallagher lads together
Speaker 3: on stage.
Speaker 2: Supply is limited now.
Speaker 3: Introductory economics tell us that when supply is tight and
Speaker 3: demand is high, prices rise to an equilibrium, which is
Speaker 3: exactly what happened. Then he talks about dynamic pricing and
Speaker 3: how the tickets are significantly more expensive than they seem
Speaker 3: to be when initially announced. Some accuse the greedy brothers
Speaker 3: of ripping off their loyal fans. Many more aimed their
Speaker 3: Furia ticket Master, the American ticket Sales BMTH, owned by
Speaker 3: Live Nation Entertainment.
Speaker 2: The fur revealed terrible. Probably not going to argue me
Speaker 2: out of my anger aticket ticket Master in general, but
Speaker 2: go on.
Speaker 3: The fees, the fees that creep up onto your bill
Speaker 3: at the end. That's a different topic and an interesting.
Speaker 2: You're electronic sending me of the ticket cost forty dollars what?
Speaker 3: Yeah, anyway, putting that aside, because this is just a
Speaker 3: question of the price of the tickets. The Furer revealed
Speaker 3: a terrible ignorance, even among the highly educated, of what prices.
Speaker 2: Are and how they work.
Speaker 3: I would argue to the journalists that know these are
Speaker 3: people posing is being outraged, they're not actually outraged. Like
Speaker 3: the very Prime Minister of Britain, kir Starmer, told the
Speaker 3: House Commons that he found it depressing to hear of
Speaker 3: the oasis price hikes. He promised a commission to investigate
Speaker 3: what he called extortionate price resellers whatever. Culture Secretary Lisa
Speaker 3: Nandy told the Bebe that quote, vastly inflated prices would
Speaker 3: exclude ordinary fans.
Speaker 2: They have a culture secretary, Yeah, why do you need
Speaker 2: that secretary of culture? And there should be some sort
Speaker 2: of government intervention in that some things are more expensive
Speaker 2: than others.
Speaker 3: What, yeah, bollocks in economic terms, a concert ticket And
Speaker 3: this is the really important part. This is the econ
Speaker 3: one to one stuff that if you don't understand it,
Speaker 3: you don't get anything about economic A concert ticket is
Speaker 3: no different from a book, a bottle of wine, or
Speaker 3: a house. It has no inherent value, only the price
Speaker 3: a buyer is willing to pay, and a seller.
Speaker 2: Is to accept.
Speaker 3: The market clearing price of anything is where demand to
Speaker 3: meet supply. The correct and fair price is whatever the
Speaker 3: market will bear. No buyer has a right to a
Speaker 3: low price, just as no seller has.
Speaker 2: A right to a high price.
Speaker 3: Then they point out the obvious oasis could be nice
Speaker 3: guys and sellar tickets for five bucks, but.
Speaker 2: Scalpers would snatch them all up and resell them for
Speaker 2: much much more.
Speaker 3: What good would it do for Oasis, for the ordinary
Speaker 3: fan or anybody to allow third party resellers to capture
Speaker 3: all that value.
Speaker 2: Well that's what Yeah, that's what people don't understand about sports,
Speaker 2: guitar players, whatever, actors and actresses. Somebody's going to get
Speaker 2: that money because there's a demand for it. So if
Speaker 2: it's not George Clooney or Shoheyo Tani or the Gallagher brothers,
Speaker 2: then the company that puts on the show or the game,
Speaker 2: or the network or whatever, they get the money. But
Speaker 2: somebody is getting the money. It's just the way it works, right.
Speaker 3: A couple more quick tidbits of music industry guru explained
Speaker 3: that the acts hide behind Ticketmaster.
Speaker 2: They want them to take the flack for all this stuff.
Speaker 2: Oh that's pretty good. That's probably true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not good for your image, but Ticketmaster takes
Speaker 3: all the flack. And he also writes, here's the dirty
Speaker 3: little secret. Ticketmaster does nothing that the band does not
Speaker 3: agree to. So anyway, I thought that was a good
Speaker 3: little instructional on if there's demand and little supply, the
Speaker 3: prices are going to go up, and it should and
Speaker 3: you know what's.
Speaker 2: Gonna happen The gallery.
Speaker 3: Good boys are going to put down their fists and
Speaker 3: open up their calendars and say, you know, I'm a
Speaker 3: going to play half a dozen more shows, are you?
Speaker 3: And supply will increase in the prices will I was
Speaker 3: drunk in the backseat of an suv that could go.
Speaker 3: I have one thousand, five hundred stories that start that way,
Speaker 3: but in this particular one enter my seat.
Speaker 2: I was drunk in the back of the suv on
Speaker 2: the way to an Oasis concert Charlotte, North Carolina in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five when we heard on the radio that
Speaker 2: they had canceled the concert because the two brothers had
Speaker 2: gotten a fistfight backstage. So I still have not seen them.
Speaker 3: Wow, Wow, Yeah, that legend not overblown. No, that reminds
Speaker 3: me when they were like in their sixties, the Davis brothers.
Speaker 3: It looks like Davies but has pronounced Davis of the Kinks.
Speaker 3: Actually we're continuing to come to blows and scream at
Speaker 3: each other backstage in their sixties trying to tour.
Speaker 2: Wow, get some counseling for us or something. Let it go.
Speaker 1: Armstrong, the Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 3: Today is a major day in my life. To tell
Speaker 3: I think many people have been through this. I I'm
Speaker 3: wearing a shirt that fits for the first time in
Speaker 3: quite some time. I caved and gave in, just to help,
Speaker 3: went ahead and got a bigger size.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, because the size I had been wearing for
Speaker 2: two years had stopped.
Speaker 3: Fitting, and I was pretending that I was going to
Speaker 3: get back into that shirt.
Speaker 2: There's no point in buying new shirts. This shirt fit before. Fine,
Speaker 2: it'll fit again. I just need to get a little discipline.
Speaker 2: But the discipline was not coming, and I was tired
Speaker 2: of being squeezed to death, and so I just bought
Speaker 2: a bigger shirt. And it is so comfortable. So I
Speaker 2: just gave up or acknowledged reality. It depends on how
Speaker 2: you want to look at it.
Speaker 3: A temporary measure, an emergency measure, if you will.
Speaker 2: Is it a temporary measure? Is it? Or is it?
Speaker 2: Or is it on the road to even bigger shirts.
Speaker 2: That's what we'll have to wait. That's what we'll have
Speaker 2: to wait and see. So how bad was the previous size?
Speaker 3: I mean, could you were the buttons like that between
Speaker 3: the buttons gap? Bang's so bad you can see flesh? Yes,
Speaker 3: oh boy, yes, definitely not good.
Speaker 2: I or an undershirt son, no flesh will be seen.
Speaker 2: But yes, yes, that was happening.
Speaker 3: And and and I know for a fact that that
Speaker 3: was not the case when I when I when I
Speaker 3: bought the shirt. So something changed and that something is
Speaker 3: well the number on the scale.
Speaker 2: And uh, I just I just I just so it's
Speaker 2: a big day. It's a big day. I just admitted.
Speaker 2: You know what, you're a different size than you were
Speaker 2: for the past two years. You just are. There's more
Speaker 2: of you to love. Okay, yeah, well, and again, the.
Speaker 3: Days of discipline are coming any minute now or not.
Speaker 2: Okay, I hope they are. But they're trying to be positive.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to provide a little leadership here.
Speaker 3: I don't feel like Jim Harbaugh going to the Los
Speaker 3: Angeles Chargers. What a terrible idea. We need to change
Speaker 3: the culture here. You're not buying into my system, right.
Speaker 2: But I I thought the discipline was coming all of
Speaker 2: those days of wearing my shirt with the things split
Speaker 2: open in the middle, thinking, you know, this is embarrassing,
Speaker 2: but that's part of what's going to motivate you to
Speaker 2: not eat you know, crap today.
Speaker 3: But it wasn't working. In the reason the buttons were
Speaker 3: gonna pop off and put somebody's eye out. Oh boy,
Speaker 3: nobody wants that.
Speaker 2: So anyway, it's just somewhat relaxing to have just giving up.
Speaker 2: We still accept you, thank you, thank you. Wow. There
Speaker 2: you go. Michael, that's nice.
Speaker 3: That's a kind of a Michael's art director of DEI,
Speaker 3: and he's making sure.
Speaker 2: Jack feels inclusioned.
Speaker 3: Lizzo is my hero and fat acceptable is my cause.
Speaker 3: So there you are, enjoy your infarction. It's fairly common,
Speaker 3: isn't it. I've never had this, but it's fairly common.
Speaker 3: It isn't to have a group of clothes that you
Speaker 3: want to be in or were once in here, and
Speaker 3: then another group of clothes that you were currently wearing.
Speaker 2: Oh I got half a closet full.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, of like mostly two different weights are all
Speaker 3: the shades in between.
Speaker 2: That's difficult to say. I will just.
Speaker 3: I describe it as this realistic and unrealistic. Do you
Speaker 3: have some clothes that like you'll never wear but you
Speaker 3: still hang on to And then there's there's like the
Speaker 3: lawless border region, the gray area. It might be it
Speaker 3: might conceivably be on me someday, but it's unluckly do
Speaker 3: I have clothes.
Speaker 2: What that I've you said unrealistic.
Speaker 3: So I just wondered to like, if you have some clothes,
Speaker 3: you think, yeah, that could happen, but it's not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. In particular, T shirts. I got a
Speaker 2: lot of T shirts, A lot of great T shirts,
Speaker 2: cool T shirts, a concert, fun places I've been, that
Speaker 2: sort of thing, and a lot of them.
Speaker 3: If I were to put them on now, well, they
Speaker 3: look like an undergarment stretched across me.
Speaker 2: I was just thinking, luckily, so far, I still wear
Speaker 2: the same size socks. When I need to go up
Speaker 2: in the sock size it when I have to really
Speaker 2: take a look at myself, my feet, if really gained weight.
Speaker 2: Ah boy, as I heard a woman say not too
Speaker 2: long ago, and I thought it was hilarious. Said I
Speaker 2: got this morning and put on my pens and thought, well,
Speaker 2: looks like we outgrew these. We're getting bigger, aren't we.
Speaker 2: Oh that happens.
Speaker 3: Speaking of economics, moving along, Argentina's new president, this Mela
Speaker 3: Fella Javier Milai, who were big fans of man, is
Speaker 3: he up against it? So interesting? He is trying to
Speaker 3: get a junkie to go straight and Argentina is not
Speaker 3: addicted to heroin and fentanyl and opioids or whatever. They're
Speaker 3: addicted to socialism. And it's so interesting. I've been reading
Speaker 3: about what he's trying to accomplish and how painful it's
Speaker 3: going to be to get there.
Speaker 2: And all of the four horses who are fighting him
Speaker 2: tooth and nail.
Speaker 3: And when you have a socialist system, for more than
Speaker 3: like a cup of coffee, everybody depends on government large
Speaker 3: s for their you know, for their living, for their comfort,
Speaker 3: for their luxuries, whether legitimately through the system or and.
Speaker 2: This is inevitable. It happens every time socialism rampant corruption.
Speaker 3: And so the forces aligned against this guy trying to
Speaker 3: solve Argentina's problems are probably insurmountable.
Speaker 2: But the similarity to the drug to a drug.
Speaker 3: Addiction is so I mean, it's such a great metaphor
Speaker 3: because it obviously has to happen. I mean, they're in
Speaker 3: a disastrous state. But everybody is so dependent now on socialism,
Speaker 3: nobody can see any way out of the.
Speaker 2: Situation, which is, you know why those of us.
Speaker 3: Who are you know, practically fanatical opponents of socialism and
Speaker 3: communism are so adamant about the way we make step
Speaker 3: after step after step toward that in the US, because
Speaker 3: we recognize, yeah, going from five you know, oxy cotone
Speaker 3: or what's the strong one, oxy counting, I can't remember.
Speaker 3: It's all about those synthetics now that are gonna make
Speaker 3: fentanyl look like the good old days, according to some
Speaker 3: medical experts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you can imagine that.
Speaker 3: But yeah, if you go from Goblin five oxy count
Speaker 3: in a day to seven, you know, Okay, that's just
Speaker 3: two pills. But man, you're making it harder and harder
Speaker 3: and harder.
Speaker 2: To ever get straight. Yeah. Once you're getting something for free,
Speaker 2: even if it kind of didn't make sense to get
Speaker 2: it for free in the first place, how you ever
Speaker 2: going to take it away from someone? Oh, I know free.
Speaker 2: I'm using my finger quotes and italics in bold. There's
Speaker 2: no such thing as free. I hate that word. It
Speaker 2: ought to be banned from the English language. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: there are.
Speaker 3: Hundreds of examples in our system, our welfare programs that
Speaker 3: on Tuesday, I've imagined it that you need it or
Speaker 3: want it, or anybody would do it for you.
Speaker 2: On Wednesday, they grant it.
Speaker 3: By Thursday, you're militantly against it ever going away because
Speaker 3: you're you're saying that would cause me pain and financial difficulty.
Speaker 2: And the rest. And it's sincere that's true. It will
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 3: And you know my final thought on this screed because
Speaker 3: I can't help myself. The people who pass these programs
Speaker 3: are one hundred percent cognizant of these facts. They're not
Speaker 3: accidentally getting you hooked on them. You're dependent on them.
Speaker 3: Final note, And I thought this was so interesting. Everybody's
Speaker 3: heard the stock markets are the various indices are setting records.
Speaker 2: Right, you're S and P your Dow Jones. I know,
Speaker 2: I just looked at my four oh one K the
Speaker 2: other day.
Speaker 1: What.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've resisted the temptation because I'm afraid it's going
Speaker 3: to go kurb Bluey, particularly after reading this. Sorry, and
Speaker 3: this is not just doom saying. I found this so interesting.
Speaker 3: There are eleven sectors that the is this The SNP
Speaker 3: looks at eleven different sectors from where's the list industrials, financials,
Speaker 3: consumer staples, real estate, healthcare, utilities, materials, and tech. Ten
Speaker 3: of those eleven indices are flattered down. Only tech is up.
Speaker 3: Only tech yipes has dragged the S and P up.
Speaker 2: That's a good perspective, right, there. Yeah, I was shocked,
Speaker 2: shocked by that.
Speaker 3: Let me get to the ten other sectors are trading
Speaker 3: an average of fifteen percent below their all time highs,
Speaker 3: and none has set a new record in January. The
Speaker 3: equal weight to S and P five hundred, which gives
Speaker 3: the same status smallest and largest companies in the index,
Speaker 3: is down point three percent this year.
Speaker 2: The market's rally two years ago is much wider.
Speaker 3: Seven other sectors, industrials, financials, consumer stables joined tech to
Speaker 3: trade at new highs in the two weeks that was
Speaker 3: January twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: And that fits with what I'm feeling, or what Americans
Speaker 2: seem to be feeling. I mean, when I keep hearing
Speaker 2: about these records in the stock mart, I keep thinking, Man,
Speaker 2: it doesn't feel like that, all right. Well, that's because
Speaker 2: it's just the tech sector. It's it's kind of like
Speaker 2: our old story of if Bill Gates, Bill Gates walks
Speaker 2: into a bar, the average networth in the bar is
Speaker 2: now forty billion dollars. Well, that doesn't that doesn't tell
Speaker 2: you anything, right, right?
Speaker 3: Final note they give it For example, if SEC is
Speaker 3: set not SEX six, if six of the biggest tech
Speaker 3: stocks were to pull back to their two hundred day
Speaker 3: moving averages, which is the measure they have for.
Speaker 2: To see longer term price trends.
Speaker 3: It eliminates the updown, updown, updown, and you see the
Speaker 3: greater trend. So anyway, if the six biggest tech stocks
Speaker 3: were to pull back to their two hundred day moving average,
Speaker 3: it would knock about five percent off the S and
Speaker 3: P five hundred. A five percent drop would be a
Speaker 3: cataclysmic issue.
Speaker 2: Sure, oh yeah, I'd get your attention.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is not to say, well, it's a little precarious.
Speaker 3: I mean, text in good shape. People need technology, chips
Speaker 3: and the rest of it. But it does give you
Speaker 3: a different perspective.
Speaker 2: By the way, the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said yesterday,
Speaker 2: I think most Americans know that prices are not likely
Speaker 2: to fall. About the whole inflation thing, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Do you watch the news much. That's not what they
Speaker 2: tell them on the news, or that's not the way.
Speaker 2: Our Vice president doesn't seem to get that.
Speaker 3: Yep, our talking heads don't know that inflation is down.
Speaker 2: Finally, prices are easing.
Speaker 3: Inflation is down, you chuckleheads, you inchits yous.
Speaker 1: Thee Armstrong and Getty sharp.
Speaker 3: I have not packed off of my crackpot theory that
Speaker 3: because of the pandemic, then the post pandemic high people
Speaker 3: around the bounce back spending, revenge spending, there were a bunch.
Speaker 2: Of terms for it.
Speaker 3: I just think the feeling of and maybe there's a
Speaker 3: technical term for this in the world of psychology, but
Speaker 3: I think the vacation money feeling has persisted among American
Speaker 3: consumers in a way that it never has before. The
Speaker 3: way you spend money on vacation and buy stuff and
Speaker 3: eat out and order the top shelf licker or whatever
Speaker 3: your example is, you spend money on vacation differently. We
Speaker 3: all make jokes about it. I just think that's like
Speaker 3: stayed in our bloodstream.
Speaker 2: Could be that, or some sort of life's too short thing,
Speaker 2: which is a dumb way to look at finances. Is
Speaker 2: that last several decades of your life is going to
Speaker 2: really be really unpleasant if you don't have any money.
Speaker 3: But yeah, you only live once, and you shouldn't be
Speaker 3: aiating dog food signed the eighty five year old you.
Speaker 2: Based on my experience, Well, I guess dog food's cheaper
Speaker 2: than regular food, but it ain't cheap. What's a dog
Speaker 2: food I buy not the stuff worth eat. Right, speaking
Speaker 2: of eating, got this text. This is from something I
Speaker 2: talked about earlier in the program. Jack listening to the
Speaker 2: first hour, and my heart dropped when you said that
Speaker 2: you gave in. I thought you were going to say
Speaker 2: that you had a drink. Thank God, that's not the case.
Speaker 2: Glad to hear that you just ended up buying a
Speaker 2: shirt that fit. Yes, because a major one way to
Speaker 2: put it, major moments in my life today where I'm
Speaker 2: wearing a shirt that fits for the first time in
Speaker 2: a while, as I had become about ten pounds lighter
Speaker 2: than I had been for a while, and I got
Speaker 2: all new dress shirts to wear with my suits, and
Speaker 2: that worked for about a year and a half or so.
Speaker 2: But I have a reclaimed those lost LB's and those
Speaker 2: shirts were no longer fitting, and not only were they uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: but I had this spread on my shirt where like
Speaker 2: the buttons are gonna pop off, or where that's not
Speaker 2: a good look and I should be no visible belly.
Speaker 2: I went with that for a while, thinking, well, I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna get new shirts, I'm just gonna lose the
Speaker 2: weight again or these shirts fed again. But I finally
Speaker 2: decided the other day. It's been long enough. Clearly, clearly,
Speaker 2: you're not going to do that. How about you buy
Speaker 2: some shirts that fit. So I bought a larger sized
Speaker 2: shirt and that's what I'm wearing today, and it looks
Speaker 2: much better, it's much more comfortable, and I just gave up.
Speaker 2: So I've given up. What a beautiful example of spin,
Speaker 2: something that is completely accurate. But it is clearly spin.
Speaker 2: I bought a shirt that fits. It's true.
Speaker 3: The other side of that coin is I've gained so
Speaker 3: much weight. I was forced into buying new clothing, and.
Speaker 2: I don't believe me.
Speaker 3: I'm not coming from a place of judgment. I'm just
Speaker 3: pointing out the rhetorical you know art there.
Speaker 2: And I have a whole bunch of not inexpensive dress
Speaker 2: shirts that I really shouldn't wear unless I want to
Speaker 2: be mocked as I walk away. Well, what size are
Speaker 2: you in right now? Treshirt wise? This is your new size?
Speaker 2: This is a large. I was wearing mediums, which a
Speaker 2: medium is my size if I'm one eighty five, because
Speaker 2: I'm I'm just that well, and size inflation, a medium
Speaker 2: wouldn't have fit me in nineteen ninety. But everything's gotten
Speaker 2: so much bigger. A large is like an extra large now.
Speaker 3: Right, I just did and the media is like the
Speaker 3: number the sixteen or fifteen and a half.
Speaker 2: I don't know that the next size. I don't know that.
Speaker 2: I don't know if my neck has changed much, but
Speaker 2: the uh, the circumference of my move area is certainly different.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, all right? Anyway, was I gonna say baa
Speaker 2: no idea? I was actually looking at jeans or shirts
Speaker 2: or something the other day online and they said, we
Speaker 2: don't do size inflation. This is our actual sizes. And
Speaker 2: they gave the inches and I was like, okay, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have to recalibrate here. So if I want something
Speaker 2: that fits in your shirts, I'm gonna have to get
Speaker 2: an extra large as opposed to like a medium or large.
Speaker 2: That's interesting that they're fighting that battle. I know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's nearly hilarious when you go and ladies you
Speaker 3: deal with this times five, but you go, I don't know,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna buy some golf shorts or whatever, and you
Speaker 3: know that brand.
Speaker 2: Oh I like that pair of that pair is good.
Speaker 2: That pair is good.
Speaker 3: And the thirty four is looser than this thirty six,
Speaker 3: and the thirty five is way tighter than this thirty
Speaker 3: it's and it's just you just have to try it
Speaker 3: because there's so much size inflation.
Speaker 4: True, Katie Joe Getty just named the exact reason as
Speaker 4: to why I hate shopping.
Speaker 2: Because the sizes are all over the place.
Speaker 4: Every brand with I mean, pants, shirts, all of it.
Speaker 4: I have so many different sizes in my closet it
Speaker 4: doesn't even make sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they all fit me.
Speaker 4: Then they all range from a small to an extra
Speaker 4: large because nobody can make up their mind on this side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why I tend to stick with a brand
Speaker 2: once I get the size, just because I don't want
Speaker 2: to do that anymore. But I wonder, I'm kind of
Speaker 2: interested myself. Will I ever be back in those shirts again?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I was pretending that I would be
Speaker 2: there for a while, but I may have just decided.
Speaker 2: You know, it ain't gonna happen, and I don't care
Speaker 2: enough to make it happen. It is not enough of
Speaker 2: a priority. So whatever, not right now? Give it time?
Speaker 2: You think, sure, Yeah, I think realistically, if you're going
Speaker 2: to be a betting man, no, I think for most people.
Speaker 3: Well, right, But that's that's not the way I run
Speaker 3: my life. I mean, if there's a one in five chance,
Speaker 3: I mean, like according to Las Vegas, but it's important
Speaker 3: to me, I'll.
Speaker 2: Make it happen. Well, I don't think it's important to me.
Speaker 2: So you're telling me to let a change right now? Right,
Speaker 2: I think you'll be back. You have it, you have it.
Speaker 2: I think it's on your plate right now. Pun not intended.
Speaker 2: I think it's gonna be a health scare though, like
Speaker 2: what I had to do. I'm not. I'm not health
Speaker 2: scare heavy. I'm just not as skinny as I want
Speaker 2: it or not. No, I'm not. I know I'm not.
Speaker 2: So that's well.
Speaker 3: I remember the other day you were trying to pay
Speaker 3: a toll at the Bay Bridge and you couldn't get
Speaker 3: your head out the window.
Speaker 2: I I you know you most guys, when they are women,
Speaker 2: when they get divorced, they go all crazy skinny. I
Speaker 2: decide to go the other way. You know what, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna dare you to date me? That's what I did see.
Speaker 2: See huh you want some of this? There's plenty more
Speaker 2: of me to love, That's what I keep saying. My
Speaker 2: buddy Dave the Cyclist just to text it.
Speaker 3: If you ever buy Italian cycling clothes, you will feel
Speaker 3: morbidly obese. I wear three X sizes in Italian stuff
Speaker 3: compared to large in US.
Speaker 2: Why the three X is a little tight? Wow, now
Speaker 2: that's reality. That would be good for all of us,
Speaker 2: just for like one day, all the stores in America
Speaker 2: go back to the sizes as they were in like
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five. Go shopping today, everybody, and see if
Speaker 2: you feel the same way about yourself.
Speaker 1: Armstrong and getty
Speaker 3: Yahm