Speaker 1: Not live.
Speaker 2: It's from Studio C Armstrong in Getty and.
Speaker 1: We're off for a couple of weeks. We're taking a break.
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Speaker 1: to Armstrong in Getty on demand or one more thing.
Speaker 2: We think you'll enjoy it. Certain it's essentially a buzzer
Speaker 2: that they're employing.
Speaker 3: This is especially important at American Airlines because it's the
Speaker 3: biggest airline in the US. They have nine different boarding groups,
Speaker 3: which makes it sort of especially confusing for folks. The
Speaker 3: problem is people who are jumping the line. It's known
Speaker 3: as gate lice. That is there called gate lines, and
Speaker 3: that is the term that the airline uses in some cases.
Speaker 3: It's primarily something that bloggers have come up with, people
Speaker 3: who hang around the front of the human eye. It
Speaker 3: is kind of yes, I don't want to be allowed
Speaker 3: to either. But the big thing here is that if
Speaker 3: you scan your boarding pass that American is trying this
Speaker 3: new technology on, it'll sound an alarm and make it
Speaker 3: so that you go to the back of the line
Speaker 3: and they can come back in when.
Speaker 2: Your group is called.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is you're already through security, you're you're up
Speaker 1: there at your plane and they say it's time to board,
Speaker 1: but you're group three and you try to get up
Speaker 1: there with group one and they call you gate lice,
Speaker 1: and Jake Tapper ridiculously says, sort of dehumanizing whatever, Jake
Speaker 1: who worries about crap like that, that's just whatever, Okay,
Speaker 1: I just call you jerks or a holes.
Speaker 2: It's the same thing. Get in when your group is.
Speaker 1: If you want a better group, buy your tickets earlier
Speaker 1: or pay more or whatever. The way it works on
Speaker 1: gate lices, I'm referred to them as airport apes chairs.
Speaker 1: It's it's bored annoyed employees who deal with the public
Speaker 1: all day long. Came up with a semi amusing nickname
Speaker 1: to help, you know, cut into the drudgery of their
Speaker 1: day a little bit.
Speaker 2: Jake, It'll be okay, right, you know, it's the people.
Speaker 1: There's you know, the amount of jyvness in media has
Speaker 1: has changed a little bit.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, back in the day, you were utter dignified
Speaker 1: and besuited and and and you know, obviously very clean
Speaker 1: language and stuff like that like that, but it's besuited.
Speaker 2: It's it's fine.
Speaker 1: But like a Jake Tapper, what is it in him
Speaker 1: that makes him think, Well, because of the nature of
Speaker 1: my job and the people looking in the dignity of
Speaker 1: the profession, I need to say, well, that's somewhat just
Speaker 1: do humanizing.
Speaker 2: Who's worried about that? Seriously?
Speaker 1: Anyway, back to the lousy, lousy gait, who's worried about
Speaker 1: this is another question? With Thanksgiving coming up, That's why
Speaker 1: we're talking about all the travel. Hey, let me let
Speaker 1: me just make a say a word in support of
Speaker 1: the American Airlines. We who are in group two don't
Speaker 1: wish to rub elbows with you Group three paupers, all right, know.
Speaker 2: Your place Group three, four and five? All right?
Speaker 1: And I've said, oh boy, comfort plus doesn't refer to plus.
Speaker 2: You stay back in your group.
Speaker 1: So I'm flying on Tuesday now, lok Port. But the
Speaker 1: point is we're going to Grandma and Grandpa's for Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: and going to have turkey. Well, maybe you think that
Speaker 1: is a horror or notes essay opinion piece in the
Speaker 1: New York Times today what a lame duck president could
Speaker 1: do for lame turkeys.
Speaker 2: Good start.
Speaker 1: We've wondered about the presidential partning of the turkey for years.
Speaker 2: Boy, how's Biden going to pull that off? All right?
Speaker 1: Anyway, he writes somewhat at the National Turkey Federation once
Speaker 1: had an idea, let's send a live turkey to Harry
Speaker 1: Truman for a presidential holiday feast. They thought, we'll promote
Speaker 1: the turkey. Yeah, but was he stunt? We'll send a
Speaker 1: live turkey to President Truman. Previously, some individual turkey producers
Speaker 1: had sent their products to the president to promote them,
Speaker 1: but the greater resources at the National Turkey Federation meant
Speaker 1: that the story could be promoted more effectively.
Speaker 2: The turkey that was sent to Truman was killed and eaten.
Speaker 1: Uda, Go Harry, give him hell, Harry, huh make America
Speaker 1: great again? Back when presidents would get a life turkey
Speaker 1: and just say cool and kill it and need it
Speaker 1: barbaric and then turkeys were subsequently sent to President Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Speaker 1: who also killed and ate them. But in nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: in one of us A last official acts before his assassination,
Speaker 1: all right, god it would have been days before he
Speaker 1: got his head blown apart.
Speaker 2: Right ooh.
Speaker 1: November sixty three, President John F. Kennedy, when face to
Speaker 1: face with his live turkey, disregarded the sign hung around
Speaker 1: the bird's neck that read good eating. Mister President, How
Speaker 1: different is the country now than then? That they would
Speaker 1: send a live turkey that was gonna get killed and eating,
Speaker 1: and they put signor his neck, you know, happy eating?
Speaker 2: There more realistic people, Yes, we were.
Speaker 1: Now you have essays in the New York Times decrying
Speaker 1: the horror that people eat turkeys at all.
Speaker 2: Anyway, John F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy, and face to face with a live turkey, disregarded
Speaker 1: the sign hung around his neck and said, let's keep
Speaker 1: him going. Kennedy didn't say anything about pardoning the turkey.
Speaker 1: If you excuse me, I'm gonna go stuffing intown. Right.
Speaker 1: He didn't say anything about pardoning the turkey, but the
Speaker 1: media referred to his act as a pardon or reprieve.
Speaker 2: President George H. W.
Speaker 1: Bush was the first to pretend that a turkey was
Speaker 1: receiving an official part.
Speaker 2: And we've been doing it for the last forty years.
Speaker 2: Where the president comes out and.
Speaker 1: Bestows it really is pretty gruesome if you think about it,
Speaker 1: cause it's I don't mean gruesome from a Turkey standpoint,
Speaker 1: but just the idea of a pardon of something being
Speaker 1: put to death. There are people on death throw. There
Speaker 1: is a big one this week where they appeal to
Speaker 1: the governors or the president to try not to be
Speaker 1: executed as a human being, and the governor or president
Speaker 1: makes a decision whether or not to do that to
Speaker 1: kind of enjoy they don't get the partner right to
Speaker 1: kind of joke about that activity. I officially pardon you Turkey,
Speaker 1: not that other guy earlier in the week, which they
Speaker 1: probably didn't deserve a pardon.
Speaker 2: But you're not wrong.
Speaker 1: But to me, the pardoning the Turkey shows weakness. This
Speaker 1: is why Putin invaded Ukraine, because we're not even tough
Speaker 1: enough to execute our guilty. Turkey is guilty of delicious.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 1: This is where the essay in the New York Times
Speaker 1: turns really stupid. We pardon people for crimes they have committed.
Speaker 1: Modern law has long abandoned the view that animals can
Speaker 1: commit crimes. That makes it impossible to take seriously the
Speaker 1: idea that turkeys need to be pardoned no matter what
Speaker 1: they have done. But the annual is it just me?
Speaker 1: Or are you waiting for a punchline too? This can't
Speaker 1: possibly be serious. Yeah me, I'm waiting for it. But
Speaker 1: the annual presidential pardon is doubly absurd because no one
Speaker 1: has ever claimed the turkeys said to the president have
Speaker 1: done anything wrong, not even in the sense that your
Speaker 1: cat does something wrong when she punishes you for going
Speaker 1: on vacation by using your bed as her litter box. Now,
Speaker 1: this is very dry humor, very very dry. How to
Speaker 1: avoid dry turkey breasts at the table coming up next?
Speaker 2: Stay with us?
Speaker 1: And then it goes into how about these turkey producers
Speaker 1: have received millions of dollars as a subsidy for something
Speaker 1: or other after sending the turkeys to It's.
Speaker 2: Just it's all connonvoluted. I guess I'm supposed to be
Speaker 2: upset about this in some way.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, let me pencil that in in my list
Speaker 1: of things to be worried about.
Speaker 2: Right after I don't even know.
Speaker 1: And then it gets into the good reasons some people
Speaker 1: choose not to eat turkeys. Turkeys eaten by Americans today
Speaker 1: are nothing like wild turkeys eaten by the early European settlers.
Speaker 1: And how turkeys are not treated well, and there are
Speaker 1: other things you could eat. Remember our old newsman Marshall
Speaker 1: used to go to a tofur tofu turkey thing. That's
Speaker 1: some toe turkey tofurky. That's some vegetarian friend of is
Speaker 1: put together. I don't doubt that the turkeys are not
Speaker 1: treated in the best way.
Speaker 2: It doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 1: Okay, I've penciled in concern about this right below. The
Speaker 1: laces in my golf shoes get dirty and I have
Speaker 1: to take them out to launder them. Well, I'll read
Speaker 1: you the last paragraph of this serious thing. If we
Speaker 1: insist on sticking with the idea of pardoning someone for Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: it's the heads of the giant corporations profiting from the
Speaker 1: industrial production of turkeys who are in need of a pardon.
Speaker 1: But to deserve it, they would first have to show
Speaker 1: remorse for what they have done. Okay, well, you're fun
Speaker 1: at a party. How hilarious is that they're bothered by
Speaker 1: the pardoning of the turkeys fun at a gathering? I
Speaker 1: was reading this piece. It's actually a decent piece about
Speaker 1: how more and more people seem to be a semi sober.
Speaker 1: They're like drinking more mindfully or less frequently, as the
Speaker 1: medical establishment has said, you know, even one glass of wine,
Speaker 1: it's not good for you. Alcohol is just not good
Speaker 1: for you. And people are being more mindful. And this
Speaker 1: woman is talking about you know, I've actually enjoyed it
Speaker 1: more and blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: And I was thinking of the person who's just a
Speaker 2: drag at a party, like, if that guy shows up,
Speaker 2: I'm leaving. Sorry, Grandma.
Speaker 1: I know you've only got a week to live, but
Speaker 1: I'm not hanging out with that idiot.
Speaker 2: Sorry. Wow, if you're an.
Speaker 1: Introvert, a little nip or two, that's how I get
Speaker 1: through it.
Speaker 2: So is the Is it like sweeping the nation that
Speaker 2: being concerned about drinking or is it just a no?
Speaker 1: I think it's absolutely on the increase. Young people are
Speaker 1: drinking less than all the generations before them, partly because
Speaker 1: they're giving themselves psychosist with the pot. Not universally. But
Speaker 1: I think attitudes on alcohol evolving.
Speaker 2: No doubt. Interesting.
Speaker 1: Well, it is after what a couple decades, certainly a
Speaker 1: decade of being told oh wow, by if you aren't
Speaker 1: drinking red wine, you're being awful to your children because
Speaker 1: it's gonna make your heart so much healthier than they
Speaker 1: decided what a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2: Ah, we were wrong about all that. Sorry, sorry, we're
Speaker 2: not gonna not gonna hurt you the red wine, but
Speaker 2: any alcohol is bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that was yet another reason why I ignore
Speaker 1: most studies about any sort of.
Speaker 2: Hell thing anything. They changed their mind so many times
Speaker 2: in my life.
Speaker 1: How do you not roll your eyes at any study
Speaker 1: about this food or diet or drink or whatever based
Speaker 1: on wait and see, wait a long time and see.
Speaker 1: Speaking of which fruit loops are going to be the
Speaker 1: center of the great controversy of next year, the humble
Speaker 1: fruit loop, No damn fruit anywhere near him, by the way,
Speaker 1: as RFK Junior is really hammering on processed foods and
Speaker 1: artificial die and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Got some details on that.
Speaker 1: Plus the armstrung and getty Court of Justice, we'll swing
Speaker 1: into action and rejudge. Juicy smolet hey Anson CBS has
Speaker 1: an interview with the first transgender congresswoman. Uh be kind
Speaker 1: of interested to hear what she's talking about. If they
Speaker 1: get into that whole bathroom. Her fluffel that you can't
Speaker 1: become a woman by taking hormones and getting surgeries. That's
Speaker 1: a medical impossibility. Well, she's got long hair and female
Speaker 1: clothes on. I'm looking at her up there. I've not
Speaker 1: personally looked under her skirt. Again, you can do anything
Speaker 1: you want under the skirt. It does not change the
Speaker 1: sex of the person involved. How recently did she transition?
Speaker 2: Do we know this? Uh?
Speaker 1: No, she didn't like run as a dude and is
Speaker 1: now a chick or anything like that, right, isn't that reason?
Speaker 2: Well? No, if she was ever a dude, she's not
Speaker 2: a chick.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I think you're missing the point.
Speaker 1: I think I get your the journalist writing about their
Speaker 1: little kid playing with chat GPT, and I wonder if
Speaker 1: this is going to be the future of parenting for
Speaker 1: some people. Just watched my five year old son chat
Speaker 1: with chat GPT advanced voice mode for over forty five minutes.
Speaker 1: It started with a question about how cars were made.
Speaker 1: It explained it in a way that he could understand.
Speaker 1: He started peppering it with questions, and he told it
Speaker 1: about his teacher and that he was learning to count.
Speaker 1: Chat GPT started quizzing him on counting and egging on
Speaker 1: and making it into a game. He was laughing and
Speaker 1: having a blast and obviously never lost patience with him.
Speaker 1: I think this is going to be revolutionary, the essentially free,
Speaker 1: infinitely patient, super genius teacher slash parent that calibrates itself
Speaker 1: perfectly to your kids learning style and pace. I'm excited
Speaker 1: about the future. The slash parent part bothered me.
Speaker 2: I don't know what to thing about that.
Speaker 1: It's an interactive book, like a really really good interactive book.
Speaker 1: If you look at it that way, it's not as
Speaker 1: dis disturbing. If you look at it as a substitute
Speaker 1: for a human that makes us all weird, then it
Speaker 1: bothers me. If it's a substitute for all a human relationship,
Speaker 1: that's the feeling it takes on. Yet, if there's no
Speaker 1: human involved, that weirds me out. But if you look
Speaker 1: at it as an interactive book, then it's fine. Teacher
Speaker 1: student is a human relationship. I'm just sure trying to
Speaker 1: figure out where exactly I stand on this. I'm not
Speaker 1: exactly sure where I was. That's why I brought it.
Speaker 1: I thought this might be cool, this might be awful,
Speaker 1: this might be the end of society. It might be
Speaker 1: great for kids. I have no idea which well, if
Speaker 1: the kid who likes to count, grows up, puts this
Speaker 1: thing's voice in a sex doll, and marries it. And
Speaker 1: then then it's disturbing if it's just an interactive learning tool,
Speaker 1: for instance. Yeah, yeah, you know, I've got this. You know,
Speaker 1: I love being alive, and I'm having a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: even on my bad days.
Speaker 2: But I kind of I picture like my last day
Speaker 2: on Earth, looking around and thinking, good luck, y'all you kidding, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, no country for old men, man, Yeah, good luck.
Speaker 1: Although I'd sure like to see how some of this
Speaker 1: plays out, just purely out of curiosity.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think that a lot.
Speaker 1: I hope I live long enough to see how this
Speaker 1: turns out or that turns out, or this turns out,
Speaker 1: no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: Huh. Okay, we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: I think you'll have I think as many kids will
Speaker 1: have this interactive book. That's fantastic. There might be more.
Speaker 1: See that was a five year old. There might be
Speaker 1: more twenty five year olds that have a GPT girlfriend
Speaker 1: rather than a real relationship.
Speaker 2: And uh and then that, yeah, the other end of it.
Speaker 1: Maybe then there'll be no more humans except in the
Speaker 1: Third world, and they'll overrun the Western world. That's just
Speaker 1: the way things go. Yah.
Speaker 2: Do you want to hear a really disturbing note on
Speaker 2: that topic? Who doesn't?
Speaker 1: And this is uh? And this I think is undeniable
Speaker 1: as I look at the Internet and all given well,
Speaker 1: assuming that there are evil people and will always be
Speaker 1: evil people, the more effective and advanced modes of communication get,
Speaker 1: the more effective evildoers are and indoctrinating people into evil.
Speaker 1: Now you would the obvious counter to that as well,
Speaker 1: what about good people helping people understand what is good?
Speaker 2: Yeah? True?
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just that we the reasonable insane if I'm
Speaker 1: and sane or insane and sane, And also saying denunciation
Speaker 1: is so important, Jack, we both agree on that that
Speaker 1: we let the educational complex become radical and radicalize the students,
Speaker 1: and the internet's a big part of that. I just
Speaker 1: I think the more advanced communication gets, the more the
Speaker 1: evil doers will use those advances to indoctrinate, like.
Speaker 2: That little kid who likes to count.
Speaker 1: I mean, when he's in high school and and he's
Speaker 1: now he's into physics. Actually, will the teachers are involved
Speaker 1: programming that stuff? Slip them a little intersectionality and a
Speaker 1: little you know, Johnny, do you ever feel like a girl.
Speaker 1: You know, I just Trump had thirty seven felonies. Let's
Speaker 1: count to thirty seven, that sort of thing. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it goes back to my hole. The tree of knowledge
Speaker 1: is technology, no truth, the Internet or AI or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know the fruit of the tree of knowledge,
Speaker 1: I should say from the from Genesis, the Carmaker, the
Speaker 1: Biblical book.
Speaker 2: I'm done now, I think, do you have so much
Speaker 2: to squeeze in this hour and the whole show? Hoping
Speaker 2: stay tuned. But we ran this clip once and.
Speaker 1: Got so much reactions, so many requests to hear it again,
Speaker 1: we thought, all right, why not. Jared Bernstein is the
Speaker 1: voice you're going to hear responding to question. He is
Speaker 1: the chairman of the of the President's Economic Advisory Council.
Speaker 1: He is the Chief Economic Advisor to the President of
Speaker 1: the United States, Joseph R.
Speaker 2: Biden, d Delaware.
Speaker 1: And it's amazing, Michael, like you said, they print the dollars,
Speaker 1: so why does the government even.
Speaker 2: Borrow well.
Speaker 4: The so the I mean again, some of this stuff
Speaker 4: gets some of the language that the some of the
Speaker 4: language and concepts are just confusing. I mean, the government
Speaker 4: definitely prints money and it definitely lends that money, which
Speaker 4: is why the government definitely prints money, and then it
Speaker 4: lends that money by selling bonds.
Speaker 2: Is that what they do?
Speaker 4: They they Yeah, they they sell bonds. Yeah, they sell bonds, right,
Speaker 4: since they sell bonds and people buy the bonds and
Speaker 4: lend them the money.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So a lot of times, a lot of times, at
Speaker 4: least to my year with MMT, the language and the
Speaker 4: concepts can be unnecessarily confusing, But there is no question
Speaker 4: that the government prints money and then it uses that
Speaker 4: money to So yeah, I guess I'm just I don't
Speaker 4: I can't really talk it, don't. I don't get it.
Speaker 4: I don't know what they're talking about, like, because it's like,
Speaker 4: the government clearly prints money, it does it all the time,
Speaker 4: and it clearly borrows. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this
Speaker 4: debt and deafist conversation. So I don't think there's anything
Speaker 4: confusing there.
Speaker 1: And what's this position again, he's the chairman of the
Speaker 1: Council of Economic Advisors.
Speaker 2: Does anybody have any questions?
Speaker 1: So when we first played that, and when I first
Speaker 1: heard the first part of it, I thought, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is a guy.
Speaker 2: That's just so in the weeds and so knowledgeable. He's
Speaker 2: trying to figure out how to.
Speaker 1: Dumb it down is to coarse, but you know, just
Speaker 1: to present it in a way that a layman can
Speaker 1: understand it. But then it becomes completely clear when he
Speaker 1: starts saying.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 1: I don't know that's a good That he actually doesn't know?
Speaker 1: That was just bizarre. He makes reference to MMT, which,
Speaker 1: if you're not familiar with it, it's a modern monetary theory.
Speaker 1: It is a fringe left AOC theory that governments can
Speaker 1: go into as much debt as they want to just
Speaker 1: keep spending and spending because you can always grow the
Speaker 1: economy faster than your interest payments, and that gets everybody employed.
Speaker 1: It's super popular with green new dealers. But man, it
Speaker 1: is a fringe way of looking at But how is
Speaker 1: that going? An economic advisor of any kind who answers
Speaker 1: a question like that. The only answer I can come
Speaker 1: up with, and I'm not sure it's a great one,
Speaker 1: but is that he didn't want to say, plainly, we
Speaker 1: spend more than we take and borrow the balance because
Speaker 1: that's how we buy votes. We're just we're just spending
Speaker 1: money to stay in power and we'll have.
Speaker 2: To pay it back eventually.
Speaker 1: But as long as it doesn't happen on our watch,
Speaker 1: as long as the disaster, the foreclosure doesn't happen on
Speaker 1: our watch, we don't care. I don't know if you're
Speaker 1: right or if you're giving him too much credit. It's
Speaker 1: possible that he just had the right politics and so
Speaker 1: they put him in that position and he's actually not
Speaker 1: good at his job, like he's a major donor or
Speaker 1: something I don't know, or tied to the right people.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, that was that was crazy. It is.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. That's the second time I heard it, and
Speaker 1: it's just as amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, are an expert in this? That's your answer? Where
Speaker 2: are the adults? All right?
Speaker 1: I gotta move on. I don't say about that. I
Speaker 1: got I want to tease this because I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: to it later.
Speaker 2: Elections matter, folks, Elections matter. This is the most election
Speaker 2: of our lifetime. This is the most election of our lifetime.
Speaker 2: You can't argue with that. She knows me, literally, you can't.
Speaker 2: She might be the future president.
Speaker 1: Don't you threaten me like that. I'm gonna get to
Speaker 1: this later. I heard I heard this on NPR, so
Speaker 1: I had to look up the details. I just heard
Speaker 1: the t's on NPR. I didn't hear them do the story.
Speaker 1: What's the cash value of being white? A nobel economist
Speaker 1: has come up with.
Speaker 2: It, and you're gonna find it annoying.
Speaker 1: I'm already annoyed. Boy, that's great. It gets too because
Speaker 1: we talked about this the other day. It's similar to
Speaker 1: the I remember the name of the term, the tax,
Speaker 1: the uh the passion passion tax, which I also heard
Speaker 1: about on NPR, which I've never heard of before, but
Speaker 1: I looked it up, and it's a thing. It's the
Speaker 1: idea that the Marxists or people who don't believe in
Speaker 1: capitalism or whatever, believe that if you like your job,
Speaker 1: you're paying a passion tax and you don't even know
Speaker 1: because you're probably working for less than you would work
Speaker 1: for if you didn't like your job.
Speaker 2: Right, that's the passion tax.
Speaker 1: The difference between we're going a job you hate where
Speaker 1: they'd have to pay you more and working a job
Speaker 1: you love where you probably put in more hours and
Speaker 1: are willing.
Speaker 2: To take less pay. That's the passion tax.
Speaker 1: And you are being stolen from by your employer through
Speaker 1: the passion tax and you don't even know it. Oh No,
Speaker 1: somehow taking liking a job and turning it into a
Speaker 1: negative right really quite an amazing feat. The thing about
Speaker 1: that philosophy, and it I think it's more popular than mine,
Speaker 1: is that it assumes life just happens to you, that
Speaker 1: you're a you're of always a victim, that just life
Speaker 1: drains on you like well rain not one of my
Speaker 1: better metaphors, and there's nothing you can do about it
Speaker 1: except to enact millions and millions and millions of rules
Speaker 1: to prevent anything bad from ever happening. Whereas our philosophy,
Speaker 1: I'm sure sure you share mine is is that no, no, no,
Speaker 1: take hold of your life and live it. Accept the
Speaker 1: bad hops except that some people are bastards and they're
Speaker 1: gonna cheat it and the rest of it. But you
Speaker 1: are the captain of your ship. Life doesn't happen to you.
Speaker 1: You happen a life, Go get it. There'll be set backs,
Speaker 1: there'll be you'll be screwed. We've been screwed. Uh, but
Speaker 1: just you know, leave that behind you and figure out. Ah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna move on, Satdur. But why is our next
Speaker 1: guy comes along trying to screw me like that, he's
Speaker 1: gonna f what.
Speaker 2: Do they say, f A f O? Yes, exactly it.
Speaker 2: It's of course in philosophy, fart around and find out right?
Speaker 1: Come on, isn't that a much more exciting way to
Speaker 1: live your life than? Oh?
Speaker 2: I really like what I do, So I think I'm
Speaker 2: being cheated. My passion so pathetic.
Speaker 1: Well, there's that aspect of it, and then there's just
Speaker 1: that's factually true. Yeah, I mean if you if if
Speaker 1: my job was gonna be digging holes all day long
Speaker 1: instead of this, you'd have to.
Speaker 2: Pay me a hell of a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean a lot a lot before I quit
Speaker 1: this job and start digging holes for a living.
Speaker 2: Boy, and with my back, you're not gonna like my productivity.
Speaker 2: But so I'm better off with that.
Speaker 1: Then I'm paying the passion tax because I like this job,
Speaker 1: so I do it for less. But then NPR would
Speaker 1: have a featurette on how you're getting the abuse bonus
Speaker 1: and that you are the victim of the abuse bonus, because.
Speaker 2: The whole point is to portray everybody as a victim. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, you got to really work hard when you
Speaker 1: start going with the passion tax, and what I again
Speaker 1: google it. There's a lot of writing about it, a
Speaker 1: lot of people talking about it. That Reddit thread of
Speaker 1: anti work. I'm sure it comes up on that regularly.
Speaker 1: This this this world where you're being screwed and every
Speaker 1: which way, including if you like your job is weird,
Speaker 1: and if.
Speaker 2: You like your job kind of but don't like it
Speaker 2: a ton and you're getting paid more than you what
Speaker 2: if you love it? But let's you're getting the neutrality kneecap.
Speaker 2: That's how it works. You're just always a victim no
Speaker 2: matter what happens, and so you've got to give them.
Speaker 1: Power to fix it for you. It's the meh man handling.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of meh about my job.
Speaker 2: But oh you're the victim of the man handling. That
Speaker 2: is hilarious. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: Hope you're not paying the passion tax by liking your job, right,
Speaker 1: and you go in on the weekend and work more
Speaker 1: because you know you'd actually do this in your free time.
Speaker 2: You like your job so much. That's the passion tax,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, the number of people who
Speaker 1: see life the way you do, my friends and we do,
Speaker 1: is way, way, way, way, way more than you would think,
Speaker 1: given media and education and entertainment, which are the three
Speaker 1: headed monster of passivism and progressivism, You're right your way
Speaker 1: of look the world is right, be proud of it,
Speaker 1: be an advocate for it at strongly.
Speaker 2: It was funny.
Speaker 1: I was taking in some lefty media just to figure
Speaker 1: out what arguments I'm going up against today, and I
Speaker 1: heard back to back NPR portraying the college anti Israel
Speaker 1: protests as a groundswell of the true feeling of millions
Speaker 1: of Americans. I got pulling on that. That would show
Speaker 1: that's not true. Oh, it's utterly false. It's fiction. The
Speaker 1: Armstrong and Getty Show, Yeah, your show, podcasts, and our
Speaker 1: hot Lakes. So, speaking of money changing hands, a couple
Speaker 1: of really interesting economic notes for you. First of all,
Speaker 1: two main reasons inflation is still high. One rents and
Speaker 1: two hospital costs. Hospital prices jump seven point seven percent
Speaker 1: last month from a year ago, the highest increase in
Speaker 1: any months since October of twenty ten, according to the
Speaker 1: Labor Department. They go into a bunch of different persons
Speaker 1: that are significantly more expensive than they were a year ago.
Speaker 1: And then, like anything any topic discussing the US healthcare system,
Speaker 1: they're like three or four sub conversations. You have to
Speaker 1: bring enlightenment to the topic. Our healthcare system could not
Speaker 1: be any.
Speaker 2: More screwed up than it is.
Speaker 1: I don't think, of course, having said that, they'll reach
Speaker 1: new heights of being screwed up between artificial and fictional
Speaker 1: government compensation rates for Medicare and Medicaid, hospital monopolies in
Speaker 1: a lot of cities, a lot of regions, and then
Speaker 1: the way insurance companies work, which I've never understood and
Speaker 1: I understand less now. Like I was in the emergency
Speaker 1: room when we could go today for my motorcycle wreck a.
Speaker 1: I got a bill for two thousand dollars and it's
Speaker 1: set on there. The insurance company hasn't I forget the
Speaker 1: word they use, but hasn't looked at all of this yet.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: You're threatening me with collections if I don't pay by
Speaker 1: this date. When's the insurance company take it? What do
Speaker 1: they cover? What do they not cover? Are they just
Speaker 1: doing that thing where they hope you'll pay for it
Speaker 1: before they cover it? Do I have to hire a
Speaker 1: lawyer to figure out what is actually supposed to be
Speaker 1: covered or not?
Speaker 2: What are you supposed to do.
Speaker 1: Right, and keep in mind, if you have insurance, you
Speaker 1: are paying artificially inflated rates to pay for the government
Speaker 1: composition folks and people without insurance at all. And then
Speaker 1: everybody kept asking me why I didn't take an ambulance
Speaker 1: as opposed to limping into a guy's uber and bleeding
Speaker 1: all over his seat in his poor Toyota Camry, which
Speaker 1: it was nice of him to do, because the last
Speaker 1: time I took an ambulance an eighth of a mile
Speaker 1: for my gallbladder, it cost me three thousand dollars cash
Speaker 1: because that's not covered by insurance.
Speaker 2: Three thousand dollars. Wow, I don't know what this would
Speaker 2: have been. It was a lot further away.
Speaker 1: That's so I'll never take an ambulance again unless I
Speaker 1: think I'm gonna die. You can take a private jet
Speaker 1: from your house to the hospital for about that. So
Speaker 1: they do mention that health insurers are paying for soaring
Speaker 1: wages for workers and other nurses rather than other workers.
Speaker 1: Hiring and openings in healthcare remain strong even as unemployment
Speaker 1: in other industries is slowed down.
Speaker 2: I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 1: Also this we mentioned earlier that The New York Times
Speaker 1: had an article about inflation, and the number one comment,
Speaker 1: which was liked by eleven and forty out of the
Speaker 1: eleven hundred and eighty people who didn't commented, was that
Speaker 1: The New York Times really needs to get off it's
Speaker 1: button do some journalism about how companies are gouging us
Speaker 1: and how there are artificially raising prices. Well, the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal has a great piece on the title is
Speaker 1: why is inflation so stubborn? Ask your local small business?
Speaker 1: The number of small business businesses in America that are
Speaker 1: contemplating raising prices is the highest they have ever observed.
Speaker 1: And they go into a bonje of small businesses whose
Speaker 1: costs from corrugated paper, from a box business, to all
Speaker 1: sorts of people are talking about labor costs, a bunch
Speaker 1: of different inputs. Here's a roofer who hasn't raised prices
Speaker 1: in a decade and now is going to have to
Speaker 1: raise them twenty percent just their costs are killing them.
Speaker 1: Aluminum used for curtain tracks now costs a buck thirty
Speaker 1: one a foot. That's up about twenty percent from a
Speaker 1: year ago.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 1: They just have a bunch of different examples of it.
Speaker 1: And then this I thought, on a semi similar topic,
Speaker 1: Jack and I have relationships with a couple of fairly
Speaker 1: large companies and a couple of little LLCs that are,
Speaker 1: you know, have roughly the revenue of your local baseball
Speaker 1: card shop. But so the idea that we're some sort
Speaker 1: of corporate titans is just not true. I look like
Speaker 1: you don't, frankly, but I thought this is great. Phil Graham,
Speaker 1: the old Senator, and Mike Solon, whose name I don't recognize,
Speaker 1: but they wrote this piece for the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: about how Biden and company are going to hammer hard
Speaker 1: the idea of we've got to raise taxes on corporations.
Speaker 1: And they quote a bunch of different speeches where they've
Speaker 1: said that sort of thing. Obama was big on it too,
Speaker 1: and how during the Trump tax cuts, the permanent part
Speaker 1: there were some temporary stuff, some permanent part was it
Speaker 1: was a corporate tax rates, which get a lot less
Speaker 1: attention than individual income tax rates because only because and
Speaker 1: I quote, Americans don't understand that corporations don't pay taxes.
Speaker 2: What wa wait?
Speaker 1: What It's one of the main campaign names of the
Speaker 1: Democrats that corporations have to pay higher taxes.
Speaker 2: You're trying to tell me they don't pay taxes. All.
Speaker 1: A corporate entity is a pass through legal structure, a
Speaker 1: piece of paper in some Delaware filing cabinet, as Mitt
Speaker 1: Romney tried to tell people, corporations are people, and he
Speaker 1: was mocked.
Speaker 2: Of course, proper people, my friend, And that was endlessly mocked.
Speaker 1: So when the corporate tax rate increases, corporations try to
Speaker 1: pass the cost on to consumers. To the degree that
Speaker 1: the entire cost of the tax increase can't be passed
Speaker 1: on to consumers, those costs are.
Speaker 2: Born by employees and investors.
Speaker 1: Most economic studies can see that fifty or concluded that
Speaker 1: fifty to seventy percent of a corporate tax increase not
Speaker 1: passed on in higher prices is born by workers, while
Speaker 1: thirty to fifty percent is born by investors. If you consume,
Speaker 1: and we all do, you pay the corporate tax. If
Speaker 1: you consume and your work for a corporation, you pay
Speaker 1: the corporate tax twice. If you consume work and invest
Speaker 1: your retirement funds in stocks.
Speaker 2: All good point.
Speaker 1: The corporate tax hits you three times. Wow, I've never
Speaker 1: thought about that third one. Yeah, here's where it really
Speaker 1: hits home. Democrats call up the image of the greedy
Speaker 1: robber Baron as a personification of big corporations. But when
Speaker 1: you pull back the curtain, it isn't the Wizard or
Speaker 1: Robber Baron you see, but yourself as consumer, worker, and pensioner.
Speaker 1: Many Americans don't pay individual income taxes, but all Americans
Speaker 1: pay corporate taxes. In fact, a recent Treasury study confirmed
Speaker 1: that about ninety three million families, about forty nine percent
Speaker 1: of all American families, pay more in corporate taxes than
Speaker 1: they do in individual income taxes. And they go into
Speaker 1: a little detail on how that's true. But here's the
Speaker 1: part I wanted to hit. That's not hard to believe
Speaker 1: given the fact that half the country pays no federal
Speaker 1: income taxes. So the stockhack market certainly has never looked
Speaker 1: at it that way, and that's very interesting. The stock
Speaker 1: market surged in twenty seventeen in anticipation of the tax cuts,
Speaker 1: and in twenty eighteen twenty nineteen in response to them.
Speaker 1: Who owns American corporations? According to Tax tax Notes, which
Speaker 1: is a nonprofit, nonpartisan blah blah blah, seventy two percent
Speaker 1: of all domestically held stocks are owned by pension plans.
Speaker 1: Four oh one k's individual retirement accounts and charitable organizations
Speaker 1: are held by life insurance companies to fund anuities and
Speaker 1: death benefits.
Speaker 2: What's that percentage?
Speaker 1: Wow, of all domestically healthstocks are retirement funds essentially. So
Speaker 1: when the Democrats draw this cartoon of the fat cat
Speaker 1: who's going to be taxed?
Speaker 2: That's you man, look in the mirror.
Speaker 1: And as I mentioned a week or so ago, this
Speaker 1: is an underreported story. The Trump tax cuts of twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen expire in twenty five. So whoever gets elected, you
Speaker 1: know what day one is actually going to be. Day
Speaker 1: one is going to be the battle begins over renewing
Speaker 1: or not or how.
Speaker 2: Much the Trump tax cut package.
Speaker 1: And that is going to be the biggest political story
Speaker 1: of the year after the election, no doubt about it,
Speaker 1: and the good old fashioned demagoguing of it. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, we're rich benefited the most. Well, the quote
Speaker 1: unquote rich pay the vast majority of income taxes, so
Speaker 1: it would be hard to design the system where they didn't.
Speaker 2: But anyway,