Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Ketty Armstrong and
Speaker 1: Getty and he Armstrong and Getty. I'm at home, not
Speaker 1: at the studio because I'm sick.
Speaker 2: And I just went and said to Henry, I said,
Speaker 2: we're gonna go to Thunderbolts tonight, the movie. And he
Speaker 2: said we would be like people on Wheatie's Box, which
Speaker 2: is one of the funny lines from one of the trailers.
Speaker 2: But Hansen, how did you go out of your way
Speaker 2: to pick a trailer that didn't have a joke in it,
Speaker 2: since that's the whole thing is it's a comedy.
Speaker 1: Oh and he's not shot gunning snakes. He's yelling at
Speaker 1: the staff over perfectly understandable.
Speaker 2: We will be like people on Wheatie's Box. I wanted
Speaker 2: this thing you said you're gonna do later.
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by this. Yes, the question of cheap Chinese
Speaker 1: crap is not great, and we've given away our manufacturing jobs,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. What the President has been talking
Speaker 1: about versus the fact that we have an incredibly high
Speaker 1: standard of living because of a lot of those things,
Speaker 1: and I will illustrate through statistics, not arguing one side
Speaker 1: or the other. But if we were to sacrifice a
Speaker 1: significant chunk of that standard of living to create a
Speaker 1: few manufacturing jobs, is that a good idea?
Speaker 2: And again, my favorite stat is there are one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty thousand plus manufacturing jobs available right now that
Speaker 2: they can't fill. There is a bit of a that's
Speaker 2: like pretending like that's the magic job that everybody's really
Speaker 2: wanting if only they could get it, which may be way,
Speaker 2: way untrue.
Speaker 1: And I think some of this nostalgia is a little
Speaker 1: twisted as well. You could have a good, well paying
Speaker 1: job right out of high school and realize the American dream,
Speaker 1: which was a nine and fifty square foot house and
Speaker 1: one car maybe one car, and your vacation was down
Speaker 1: at the lake that was a two hour drive. You
Speaker 1: never flew anywhere, right, So I just I would like
Speaker 1: to deal with reality and not slogans and hazy uh
Speaker 1: you know, versions of yesterday.
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Excuse me, let me do I cough button? Yes please?
Speaker 1: Oh boy, bring the cough butt into the theater with
Speaker 1: you tonight. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I might be in the lobby, but I saw a
Speaker 2: stat the other day that I thought was interesting.
Speaker 1: So, I I hate the.
Speaker 2: Point of view that some pundits have around this that, oh,
Speaker 2: we're going to bring back sewing up sneakers, like Americans
Speaker 2: are too good to do those kind of jobs.
Speaker 1: I hate that point of view. Yeah, but if there are.
Speaker 2: Manufacturing jobs available out there that Americans aren't doing now,
Speaker 2: the idea that bringing more is going to fix that
Speaker 2: seems weird. And then you've got the adjusted for inflation
Speaker 2: service what do you call it?
Speaker 1: Service? Extra jobs are.
Speaker 2: Paying more than manufacturing jobs, So it's not like manufacturing
Speaker 2: jobs are some ticket to wealth compared to what we've
Speaker 2: got now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, true. And we didn't even touch on the
Speaker 1: idea of we also need radical welfare reform to beat
Speaker 1: the bushes and get all of those hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of workers who are sitting on their asses out to
Speaker 1: a job. Is it because.
Speaker 2: Politicians have kind of led us to believe that when
Speaker 2: you talk manufacturing jobs, it's all going to be like
Speaker 2: you're a worker at General Motors in the fifties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's at patina around it, that kind of halo
Speaker 1: around it when people talk about it.
Speaker 2: Where the United Auto Workers was able to get you
Speaker 2: unbelievable salaries and benefits, and you retire early and et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera, as opposed to you're going to be so
Speaker 2: Nike's somewhere for very little money, which is more reality.
Speaker 1: I think you're right, Yeah, more more drone jobs, if
Speaker 1: you will. And I don't you know, I don't use
Speaker 1: that in a pejorative way. I've had those jobs, but yeah,
Speaker 1: you're You're pretty replaceable, and the work is not what
Speaker 1: you would call mentally stimulating nor terribly satisfying, but it
Speaker 1: puts food on the table. But again, man, we would
Speaker 1: have to have a whole of society reordering of certain things,
Speaker 1: which I would love to see, but it's it's fairly unlikely.
Speaker 1: More on that topic to come later on the hour.
Speaker 1: But first, it's the Friday tradition. Let's take a fond
Speaker 1: look back at the week that was. It's cow clips
Speaker 1: of the Week, America on st Land or water. I
Speaker 1: need a lot of water.
Speaker 4: Take that your stupid hosers.
Speaker 1: Whips of the week?
Speaker 5: Yutda die yutta die.
Speaker 6: Dougie's here too.
Speaker 3: I could code talk to white guys watching football fixing
Speaker 3: their trucks.
Speaker 1: Thank you, right here, man. Yeah, let's doesn't. But you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to wait a little bit longer.
Speaker 2: That Robert De Niro's twenty nine year old child, Aaron,
Speaker 2: has come out as transgender.
Speaker 1: When the press asked.
Speaker 2: Her for comments, she said, you're talking to they them.
Speaker 1: How did you guys meet? Not talking about this? No,
Speaker 1: President Trump's call to the founder and executive chair of
Speaker 1: Amazon peeved.
Speaker 3: Maybe the children will have two dollars instead of thirty dollars.
Speaker 3: You know, they have ships that are loaded up with stuff,
Speaker 3: much of which said, but much of which we don't need.
Speaker 2: Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan faces multiple charges for
Speaker 2: allegedly obstructing ICE.
Speaker 1: Agents while a state prosecutor and victims of domestic violence
Speaker 1: are sitting in the courtroom.
Speaker 2: It is a sad reflection on the state of our
Speaker 2: media that you obsessively try to shill for this MS
Speaker 2: thirteen terrorists.
Speaker 1: Let's move on.
Speaker 6: Wait a minute, Terry, he did not have to letter
Speaker 6: MS one. It is MS one three and that was
Speaker 6: a photoshop. Hey, they're giving you the big break of
Speaker 6: a lifetime. You know you're doing the interview. I picked
Speaker 6: you because, frankly, I never heard of you. But that's okay.
Speaker 2: This is really stunning news that Mike Waltz, the National
Speaker 2: Security Advisor, pushed.
Speaker 3: Out but now in for the United Nations ambassador.
Speaker 1: I think you can make a good argument that its promotion.
Speaker 1: He likes Mike. President Trump, I know, really likes Mike.
Speaker 1: I read President Trump's move. They aren't the adjetle.
Speaker 2: Pwton thinks that America has taken the bullet train to
Speaker 2: jump down.
Speaker 1: We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but
Speaker 1: we should never forget the lessons.
Speaker 5: Learn it well, behaved as their goodie two shoes brother Canada,
Speaker 5: who by the way, has never hit a girlfriend.
Speaker 1: Just say.
Speaker 2: I love when Trump says to interviewers he's attacking the
Speaker 2: free press.
Speaker 1: I love when he says, that's a stupid.
Speaker 2: Question, because they often are stupid questions.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, yeah. By the way, I've never heard of
Speaker 1: you before. There are some conventions that I think are
Speaker 1: better left intact. But yeah, don't dignify a stupid question
Speaker 1: with a response. Yeah, I love that. So a couple
Speaker 1: of notes from the world to campus. These days, from
Speaker 1: college campuses, Princeton has not really been in the spotlight
Speaker 1: of the campus madness and the controversies and the woke crap.
Speaker 2: Should be amount of money from various places like Dubai.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah yeah. But Chris Ruffo, who's doing fabulous work
Speaker 1: in campus reform, has turned his gaze in that direction
Speaker 1: and he has just come out with a report on
Speaker 1: how the school tried to discourage hiring white men and
Speaker 1: how Princeton faculty were hilariously open about it. Quote, you
Speaker 1: can't shortlist this person. We can't hire a white guy,
Speaker 1: just like that. No weird phrases like of minority experience
Speaker 1: or preference to underrepresented racial groups. Just flat out we
Speaker 1: can't hire a white guy, a man.
Speaker 2: You got to twist yourself into knots to have that
Speaker 2: makes sense.
Speaker 1: Quoting Nelly Bowles, quoting Chris Rufo. Anotherrofessor told Rufo that
Speaker 1: administrators tore down portraits of former faculty chairs because they
Speaker 1: were white. Quote it's just a bunch of white faces.
Speaker 1: So they removed all the photographs and no one objected.
Speaker 1: That's that is just something. Where do you.
Speaker 2: Think that will lead that out and out obvious, perfectly
Speaker 2: comfortable with it, racism.
Speaker 1: Where do you think that will lead? No, we will
Speaker 1: do racism and we will do it in the right
Speaker 1: way for the right reasons, but the rest of you
Speaker 1: must refrain from it. Yah. Well, these people seriously, they
Speaker 1: have no connection with reality. And meanwhile, at Harvard Law School,
Speaker 1: the most prestigious law journal in law schools may DEI
Speaker 1: the first priority. That's a quote of its article selection
Speaker 1: process for editors. That's number one over Comperence in sight
Speaker 1: significance to American society. DEI is the first prioritary. How
Speaker 1: well written it was. Over four years worth of documents
Speaker 1: show that submissions were routinely rejected because of their author's race.
Speaker 1: The negative feedback on one submission reads quote. Lastly, this
Speaker 1: author is not from an underrepresentative background. He is from
Speaker 1: a non T fourteen school, but his resume includes many
Speaker 1: articles in top tier journals. Blah blah blah. Wow, you
Speaker 1: can't publish him because he's white. That is unbelievable.
Speaker 2: How can you possibly, Like I said, you've got to
Speaker 2: twist yourself in the knots to make this worldview make sense.
Speaker 1: I feel like that. I guess you're just so.
Speaker 2: Into the whole oppress or appressed thing you feel like
Speaker 2: you're gonna balance it out somehow, but not go too far.
Speaker 1: You'll never go too far to where it'll be, Hey,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? Racism? It's an academic theory
Speaker 1: that's fueled by a religious energy, a religious devotion, and
Speaker 1: so you just you become a zealot. And if anything
Speaker 1: around here, we're underestimating how screwed up our colleges in
Speaker 1: the university and the awful effect that they've they've had already.
Speaker 1: Apparently those are two amazing stories.
Speaker 2: So you're not gonna try to put out the best
Speaker 2: articles about law you can come up with at your
Speaker 2: prestigious university.
Speaker 1: You're more.
Speaker 2: Into the idea of who wrote it based on skin color.
Speaker 1: That's insane. Again, it is quote the first priority of
Speaker 1: article selection. Yeah, I'm picturing a house or a building
Speaker 1: that's got to mold in the walls in a lot
Speaker 1: of it because it's been let go for a very
Speaker 1: long time. And I think our colleges and universities are
Speaker 1: I mean, they're near the point where you can't clean
Speaker 1: it all out. It would take far too long. It's
Speaker 1: just that we're much better off tearing it down in
Speaker 1: store ard. And again the problem being what does that
Speaker 1: even mean? I just the infection is so awful. I
Speaker 1: guess all we can do is our best, but it's
Speaker 1: really disappointing that we the greatest country on earth let
Speaker 1: this go as far down the road to crazy Villa
Speaker 1: as we did. But here we are got to do
Speaker 1: something about it.
Speaker 2: So we've got an update on that guy who plunged
Speaker 2: to the field at the Pittsburgh Pirates game, and then
Speaker 2: another person that plunged to their death.
Speaker 1: Did you hear this story? And a bunch of other
Speaker 1: stuff on the way Stay here the terrifying moment a
Speaker 1: man fell from his seat at Pittsburgh's PNC Park, landing
Speaker 1: on the field.
Speaker 6: When you look at it like in slow mo, he
Speaker 6: just looked like he was like like jolting up because
Speaker 6: it was a huge play.
Speaker 2: Pittsburgh Public Safety says the incident is being treated as
Speaker 2: accidental and the man remains in the hospital in critical condition. Wow,
Speaker 2: so wasn't on purpose, although and you feel like perhaps
Speaker 2: it was on purpose.
Speaker 1: Some people have looked at the video, Katie.
Speaker 2: It looked intentional. I've got something that will back that
Speaker 2: up in a second.
Speaker 1: But let me go on the record as saying that
Speaker 1: assertion is ridiculous and in fact free. It's it's based
Speaker 1: on nothing but sort of irresponsible speculation, which I condemn. Well,
Speaker 1: it might be fact free, but I don't think it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It's not ridiculous if somebody who had kill themselves that way,
Speaker 1: is it? Yes, you think it's ridiculous. I'm gonna hurl
Speaker 1: myself twenty feet to an outfield. Yes, I am ridiculing
Speaker 1: it right now, which is the definition of ridiculous. It
Speaker 1: is being ridiculed in my verbiage. If it turns out
Speaker 1: that you and Katie are correct, I will sit and
Speaker 1: be ridiculed and deserve it. Hands Here, Hanson says, you've
Speaker 1: never seen the Pirates play. They're bad.
Speaker 2: So I've got this story which might fit in with it.
Speaker 2: Here's an experienced, well known skydiver. It's in Great Britain,
Speaker 2: but doesn't make any difference. A thirty two year old
Speaker 2: hottie who had, like some had some attention in the
Speaker 2: world of sky diving, probably partially because she was hot
Speaker 2: in the way that world works, apparently killed herself the
Speaker 2: other day. She had done eleven jumps over the weekend,
Speaker 2: and then on the next jump she just didn't pull
Speaker 2: the shoot and crashed straight into the ground. And they've
Speaker 2: determined it was not being treated as suspicious in any way.
Speaker 1: They think she just decided to end it all. That's astonishing, right,
Speaker 1: So she did eleven jumps trying to decide whether to
Speaker 1: do it or think about how it would feel, or.
Speaker 2: Or this is what I really enjoy. I think I'll
Speaker 2: do it a few more times. But I want to kill.
Speaker 1: Myself doing something I love.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so some people commit suicide and not the
Speaker 2: most normal. So you think it's impossible that the guy
Speaker 2: at the Pirates game dove onto the field.
Speaker 1: That is putting words in my mouth do not bes
Speaker 1: a bs or I see what you did there? No,
Speaker 1: I said it was ridiculous, not impossible. How about this
Speaker 1: caveat that?
Speaker 2: As we all know, if you commit suicide, we know
Speaker 2: from watching late night TV dramas, if you commit suicide,
Speaker 2: your family doesn't, you know, necessarily get your insurance payoff.
Speaker 1: You're at a baseball game and you fall.
Speaker 2: Over the stands, and your family gets the money, and
Speaker 2: you know you're a decent guy that everybody misses, not
Speaker 2: a somebody who abandoned their family and killed themselves.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, generally it's just a couple of years after you
Speaker 1: sign the policy. But no, I just find the idea
Speaker 1: of hurling yourself twenty feet onto an outfield to be
Speaker 1: such a ludicrous attempt. I just I don't believe it, Okay,
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, he had like half a dozen
Speaker 1: better choices on the way too, and well not from
Speaker 1: the stadium. He's in the hospital. But how come there's
Speaker 1: no reporting on how much he drank?
Speaker 2: Because that's got to play a role, doesn't I have
Speaker 2: never almost fallen over a railing or out of my
Speaker 2: seat at a game.
Speaker 1: Ever, not at a game. Certainly you've dealt with stumbling
Speaker 1: drunks before, though, Well yeah, but I.
Speaker 2: Mean completely sober. Have you ever almost fallen over a railing?
Speaker 1: Just? Oh is this by completely sober? Has that been?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna trying to.
Speaker 2: Figure out how come nobody's talked about how much he
Speaker 2: was drinking, because I think there's got to be a
Speaker 2: part of the story.
Speaker 1: Well a hundred percent, yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 2: I mean the idea.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're at a baseball stadium, you decided
Speaker 1: to offer yourself go up to the top deck and
Speaker 1: throw yourself into the parking lot if that's physically possible
Speaker 1: or something like that. You don't go down to twenty
Speaker 1: feet above the outfield which is grass and dirt and
Speaker 1: hurled yourself onto the dirt. Just not buying it.
Speaker 2: No, okay, okay, well that's skydiver. She none not been investigating,
Speaker 2: so oh yeah, she clearly killed herself.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well, sometimes the authorities aren't forthcoming. So what
Speaker 1: about the cheap Chinese crap versus hey, we have abundance
Speaker 1: a great standard of living argument. We'll present both sides
Speaker 1: next to Crown, Armstrong and Getty. One of the speaks
Speaker 1: to President of China. Well we all have it.
Speaker 3: We look right now, and I told you before they're
Speaker 3: having tremendous difficulty because their factories that are not doing business.
Speaker 3: They made a trillion dollars when good by a trillion
Speaker 3: dollars even a trillion one good Biden selling us much
Speaker 3: of a leader. I mean, you know, somebody said, oh,
Speaker 3: the shelves are they're going to be open. Well, maybe
Speaker 3: the children will have two dollars instead of thirty dollars,
Speaker 3: you know, and maybe the two dolls will cost a
Speaker 3: couple of bucks more than they would do.
Speaker 2: Really but hmm, yeah, And the question is was he
Speaker 2: talking about on the shelves or under the tree, because
Speaker 2: if you're saying your kids get too many presents already,
Speaker 2: that's not cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he did make a resference reference to the shelves there,
Speaker 1: but it's not clear. Rich Lowry, the National Review, who
Speaker 1: will quote in a minute a little more, said dun
Speaker 1: Trump must be the first president in history to say
Speaker 1: that his policies will deprive American children of toys the president.
Speaker 1: Let the President elaborate for just another second.
Speaker 3: They have ships that are loaded up with stuff, much
Speaker 3: of which not all of it, but much of which
Speaker 3: we don't need, and we have to make a fair deal.
Speaker 3: We've been ripped off by every country in the world,
Speaker 3: but China, I would say, is to leading the leading one,
Speaker 3: the leading candidate for the chief ripper offer. There has
Speaker 3: never been There has never been a country that's been
Speaker 3: ripped off more than the United States of America.
Speaker 2: The key to this negotiation, and many negotiations, but the
Speaker 2: key to the whole thing might be Trump has got
Speaker 2: to convince she and everybody else is coming along for
Speaker 2: the ride, that he's willing to take this thing clear
Speaker 2: to the end, no matter what I mean. That's really
Speaker 2: the only way it will work is if she's convinced, well,
Speaker 2: this freaking lunatic. No matter what happens, no matter what
Speaker 2: happens to his polls, no matter what the stock market does,
Speaker 2: no matter what his party says, He's going.
Speaker 1: To continue this. Yeah. So, on the topic of thirty
Speaker 1: dollars instead of two in whatever context, Trump Mianute Rich
Speaker 1: of the National Review, who I like personally, and also
Speaker 1: he's a terrific writer, and he has a very armstrong
Speaker 1: and gettyish approach to Trump. When Trump's right, he says
Speaker 1: Trump's completely right, and when he thinks Trump's wrong, he
Speaker 1: says Trump is wrong. And his article is tongue in
Speaker 1: cheek entitled we need cheap stuff and lots of it,
Speaker 1: But his article is actually really really interesting. He starts
Speaker 1: it with the potential empty store shelves, that the president
Speaker 1: played much of it. We don't need the child to
Speaker 1: have two dollars instead of thirty, et cetera. At that moment,
Speaker 1: Trump surely made history. He must be the first president
Speaker 1: in the history. He says, policies will deprive American children
Speaker 1: of toys, the American Girl, Disney Princess Cinderella doll Maybe
Speaker 1: collateral damage in a trade war to reduce our strategic
Speaker 1: dependence on China. But then he gets down to the
Speaker 1: more serious and interesting stuff. I thought what Trump was
Speaker 1: ultimately dismissing is abundance, which is one of the marvels
Speaker 1: of our system. Fewer choices at a greater cost, whether
Speaker 1: of dolls or other goods, simply means a lower standard
Speaker 1: of living. And yeah, there are counter arguments to this.
Speaker 1: In fact, we got a great email from Ryan who said,
Speaker 1: you know, Trump is right. My wife and I have
Speaker 1: four kids, and our kids do get way too many toys.
Speaker 1: So much of our house is flooded with crapp equality
Speaker 1: toys from China. But my parents and my wife's crap,
Speaker 1: it's crap, it's crap, and my wife's parents buy for them.
Speaker 1: I'd love for there to be some significance to getting something.
Speaker 1: Too much expectation and entitlement for something new immediately being
Speaker 1: done with too quickly. He goes into some detail, But
Speaker 1: my wife and I often wish it were easier to
Speaker 1: find quality, more expensive products that would last longer and
Speaker 1: be more satisfying for a longer time, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as I've been saying for years, I wish they
Speaker 2: would substitute or add into when you're talking about people
Speaker 2: accepting fewer choices at higher prices, if it means higher quality,
Speaker 2: I'm fine with that. If there are gonna be fewer
Speaker 2: choices on the shelf at a higher price because it's
Speaker 2: higher quality, I think that'd be.
Speaker 1: Better for everybody in every way. But are you going
Speaker 1: to engineer the free economy so that's the only choice. No,
Speaker 1: I mean that's your preference, and good for you.
Speaker 2: But we had that when more things were manufactured here.
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure why, because we didn't have any
Speaker 1: other choice, But why was the quality high? Why were
Speaker 1: we when we were manufacturing stuff?
Speaker 2: Why were we not just cranking out the cheapest crap
Speaker 2: you could crank out?
Speaker 1: America commihu make a toaster that.
Speaker 2: The handle, the little plastic, flimsy handle is gonna break
Speaker 2: off in two months, but it's really cheap.
Speaker 1: Why didn't we do that before? No, you're making an
Speaker 1: excellent point. The culture has changed absolutely toward more consumerist,
Speaker 1: immediate gratification, feel the endorphin rush of getting something new
Speaker 1: than chuck it two weeks later. Society. It's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: And Ryan goes on to say it may be more
Speaker 1: of an American consumerist mindset problem and less of a
Speaker 1: China chamming jamming, cheap crap down our throat problem. Right then,
Speaker 1: he says, I could go on and on about this,
Speaker 1: but I won't because you're not my wife and you
Speaker 1: don't have to listen to anyway. I love the note, Ryan,
Speaker 1: thanks to so much for writing it. But getting back
Speaker 1: to rich Lowry, here's the part that I found most compelling.
Speaker 1: He says Trump is dismissing abundance, which is one of
Speaker 1: the marvels of our system. The Human Progress Project at
Speaker 1: the Cato Institute calculates the time price of various goods.
Speaker 1: That's how long you have to work to buy them,
Speaker 1: typical salary, that sort of thing, and specifically Cato has
Speaker 1: been doing it from twenty I'm sorry the year twenty
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty four. The time price of toys dropped
Speaker 1: by more than eighty eight percent over the period. In
Speaker 1: other words, the work that it took to afford to
Speaker 1: buy one toy a quarter century ago would buy almost
Speaker 1: nine toys today. This is important not because we want
Speaker 1: children to have nine times as many toys as they
Speaker 1: did in two thousand, although as Ryan and other parents
Speaker 1: would tell you it kind of did happen. But the
Speaker 1: important part is the reduced time devoted to buying a
Speaker 1: toy can be used to buy something else. Clothes, sports equipment,
Speaker 1: art supplies, work less, invest save what have you. Same
Speaker 1: dynamic holds across the board. Mark Perry of the American
Speaker 1: Enterprise Institute looked at the time price of eleven basic
Speaker 1: household goods from nineteen the nineineteen fifties to twenty thirteen. Now,
Speaker 1: this is eleven basic household appliances. They don't list them,
Speaker 1: but it's it's minor and major appliances, from a washing
Speaker 1: machine and a fridge to an iron and a a
Speaker 1: box fan.
Speaker 2: I'll only say it one more time, as I've already
Speaker 2: crossed the line into being a pain in the ass,
Speaker 2: But I.
Speaker 1: Feel like quality's got to be thrown in there. Toys.
Speaker 2: Sure, they've gotten so much cheaper, but you know, the
Speaker 2: metal Tonka truck that I still have from when I
Speaker 2: was a little kid, versus the just crap that falls
Speaker 2: apart immediately that your kids get.
Speaker 1: Now, it's not just less expensive. Yeah, I would say,
Speaker 1: at least in some categories as Alio, but washer dryer
Speaker 1: that you're about to get into huge difference dryer.
Speaker 2: At the rental I'm in, they bought new washer and
Speaker 2: dryer when I moved in. I've been here, what going
Speaker 2: on a year. The washing machine crapped out yesterday. Because
Speaker 2: that's the way washing machines are in the modern world.
Speaker 2: Not the ones my parents got that you could have
Speaker 2: for thirty years before you had a repairman come look.
Speaker 1: At them, right, and or the repairman would just change
Speaker 1: out a belt which you could do yourself essentially and
Speaker 1: to be up and run and as good as ever.
Speaker 1: But so in a lot of categories. Yeah, the one
Speaker 1: flaw of this, and I should probably do the numbers first,
Speaker 1: but is that it does not measure satisfaction across time
Speaker 1: for the product. A washer is not a washer is
Speaker 1: not a washer. And if you're talking about you know,
Speaker 1: the sort of you know it'll be found by a
Speaker 1: future civilization still washing clothes appliances sometimes in the past,
Speaker 1: although I did see a comparison that some of that's
Speaker 1: the rosy glow of history. You remember it better than
Speaker 1: it was really, but some of us anyway, But this
Speaker 1: is interesting, even given that they looked at the time
Speaker 1: price of eleven basic household goods appliances from nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen. Typically, factory worker in nineteen fifty nine would
Speaker 1: have to work from January first to the middle of
Speaker 1: June to earn enough income to purchase those eleven appliances
Speaker 1: half the year. A worker in nineteen seventy three would
Speaker 1: have had to have worked from the first of the
Speaker 1: year until the second week of April, and today's factory
Speaker 1: worker would only have to work until the end of
Speaker 1: January to earn enough income for those eleven appliances. Now
Speaker 1: I see your point, Jack, but that the modern person
Speaker 1: is working this a little more but one sixth of
Speaker 1: the time that it took to buy those things in
Speaker 1: the fifties. And you can't tell me they last six
Speaker 1: times as long on average, or or have six times
Speaker 1: the features or six times the quality in general. BOYD.
Speaker 2: So I might disagree with that on some stuff. I
Speaker 2: keep using toasters, but I know the answer in some
Speaker 2: of these because I remember we had the same toaster
Speaker 2: my whole life when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: You can't do that now, at least not with the toasters.
Speaker 2: I get a target, so it could last six times
Speaker 2: as long twelve years instead of two I absolutely think
Speaker 2: that could happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's in that example. Yeah, I haven't owned
Speaker 1: a toaster. I don't think in twenty five years. It's
Speaker 1: kind of outing. It's kind of funny. I'm at home
Speaker 1: because I'm sick. I don't feel very good.
Speaker 2: During the commercial break, I smelt burning toast, which is
Speaker 2: one of the things you're supposed to watch out for.
Speaker 2: I go out in the kitchen, there's toast burning. It says,
Speaker 2: that's the problem with working from home. It might actually
Speaker 2: be burning Christmas. Yeah, that's like the sign of a
Speaker 2: massive stroke.
Speaker 1: Anyway, my son was actually burned. Or alternatively, someone has
Speaker 1: left the toast in too long, right, It's one of
Speaker 1: those two things. Yeah, so make sure you check so anyway.
Speaker 1: Rich Lowry's point is that you have to work a
Speaker 1: fraction of the time to have the same lifestyle as
Speaker 1: back in the day, with all the caveats Jack has
Speaker 1: has lashed us with repeatedly. Uh, this is the process
Speaker 1: of a society getting richer. Trump spoke of what we
Speaker 1: really need. At at the end of the day, we
Speaker 1: don't need anything except food and shelter. That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: we should be content to settle for less rather than more.
Speaker 1: The United States, for instance, he writes, has a higher
Speaker 1: standard of living than Greece. According to CIA figures, US
Speaker 1: had seventy four thousand dollars per capital blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: Grease had thirty six nine per capita. That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that people that are dying in the streets of Greece,
Speaker 1: they just have less and lower quality stuff. Until now
Speaker 1: everyone would have agreed that that is a bad thing
Speaker 1: and should avoid taking any steps back down the ladder
Speaker 1: of prosperity. And then is you know, he goes into
Speaker 1: dolls for a minute, Well, grocery stores and the bins
Speaker 1: in the produce section, all the choices we have, the freshness,
Speaker 1: and you look at apples. Oh, there are too many
Speaker 1: varieties to choose from or considered dolls. Among the major
Speaker 1: brands that are Barbie, American Girl, Lol, Sprize Brats, Cabbage
Speaker 1: Patch Kids, Drafts, dolls look like Horse and Rainbow High
Speaker 1: all with a Disney variety of dolls and all sorts
Speaker 1: of prices. We don't need a central authority telling us
Speaker 1: which dollars are more necessary than others. The market does that.
Speaker 1: All of this is off brand for President Trump, associated
Speaker 1: with business success and consumersaccess. It's more natural for him
Speaker 1: to be boosterish than to talk people into attempting accepting scarcity.
Speaker 1: The sooner he can get out of the position of
Speaker 1: explaining away might be imminent shortages and higher prices, the better. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the whole quality thing might just be almost
Speaker 2: entirely cultural. And maybe the Chinese figured it out before
Speaker 2: we figured it out in America, and we might have
Speaker 2: figured it out earlier because quality was so big. I
Speaker 2: remember Joe and I are old, but when we are kids,
Speaker 2: everything was advertised as quality, not price. It was just quality, quality, quality,
Speaker 2: for everything you're gonna buy. Somebody figured out that now
Speaker 2: people don't give a crap about the quality.
Speaker 1: They don't care if it's going to last a month
Speaker 1: as long as it's cheap. And I love arguing about
Speaker 1: ideas and what comparisons are valid and invalid, and how
Speaker 1: a statistic might be misleading. I've enjoyed the conversation, but
Speaker 1: it occurs to me as you get down to the
Speaker 1: end of this conversation that in terms of policy, the
Speaker 1: idea that what Trump is doing will yield American made
Speaker 1: washing machines built by Americans with great jobs and Americans
Speaker 1: will buy those significantly more expensive washing machines that last longer.
Speaker 1: It's all a pipe dream.
Speaker 2: What can happen, even in this random case if it did,
Speaker 2: which I don't think it would. You can't have central
Speaker 2: planning doesn't work. It's been tried a gazillion times.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, the minute you try something like this, one
Speaker 1: hundred things change and you're so far behind you'll never
Speaker 1: catch up trying centrally plan. On the other hand, are
Speaker 1: there strategic industries, products, etc. That we cannot, for the
Speaker 1: love of George Washington be dependent on our greatest adversaries
Speaker 1: to supply us one hundred percent? Yes, oh my god.
Speaker 1: The fact that our ain't it.
Speaker 2: No pharmaceuticals, yes, computer chips, yes, variety of other things.
Speaker 1: We'll finish strong next.
Speaker 2: Strong. An overturned truck covered a Texas highway and eight
Speaker 2: million dimes, sparking a wild frenzy of drivers picking up
Speaker 2: like three dimes and saying, this is actually hard.
Speaker 1: Let's just go no kidding, right, how many dimes? Eight million?
Speaker 1: Is that? Okay? Joe's what do we got coming up?
Speaker 1: Oh right? A major breaking plunging out of the stands
Speaker 1: into the outfield.
Speaker 2: Update Okay, I wanted to get this on one more
Speaker 2: time because it's so stupid. Here's a Democratic house member.
Speaker 4: First, they came for the Latinos outside of the home depots,
Speaker 4: and I didn't say anything about it because I'm not
Speaker 4: a Latino at the home depot.
Speaker 2: I feel like that pause was him thinking it sounded
Speaker 2: better when I said it to myself.
Speaker 1: This kind of sounds hmm. Oh no, I take it
Speaker 1: the opposite way I thought he thought it. He was thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm riffing here. I'm rapping, I'm rhyming this.
Speaker 1: I'm like Jesse Jackson over here. There will be a
Speaker 1: statue to me because of this. Yeah, that was what's
Speaker 1: what's his crank? What's his crank's name, John Johnson of Georgia. Yeah, beautiful.
Speaker 1: So so we.
Speaker 2: Argued violently over whether this guy tried to kill himself
Speaker 2: by falling out of the stands on the baseball field.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, this guy, who all of his friends and
Speaker 1: former coaches are saying is a hell of a nice fella.
Speaker 1: He was sitting out there when Andrew McCutcheon hit a
Speaker 1: two run double to put the Pirates ahead four to three.
Speaker 1: Video appears to show Mark Woods. That's the gent's name,
Speaker 1: springing up, toppling over the railing and somersaulting through the
Speaker 1: air before crashing onto the warning track below. Pittsburgh newspaper
Speaker 1: reported that winnesses because they asked everybody around him what
Speaker 1: was going on, described that twenty year old mister Markwood
Speaker 1: was growing exciting, excited that the pirates were rallying quote,
Speaker 1: and had taken off his shirt and poured beer on
Speaker 1: himself before mccutcheons at bat. Yes, this is the detail
Speaker 1: I needed. Yes, so not only was he drinking, he
Speaker 1: was drunk enough that he was taking off his shirt
Speaker 1: and pouring beer all over his head because the pirates
Speaker 1: were rallying in a freaking April game.
Speaker 2: Huh yeah, so alcohol may have been involved.
Speaker 1: Yeah you think loud? That is funny. Hey kids, it's
Speaker 1: that time again with Armstrong and Getty. It might be
Speaker 1: a nice guy, but he's the.
Speaker 2: Kind of guy that pours takes off his shirt and
Speaker 2: pours beer on.
Speaker 1: His head when his team makes a comeback. So let's
Speaker 1: think this through. When you dry off this stickiness, the
Speaker 1: smell come on. Now, here's your host for final thoughts,
Speaker 1: Joe Getty. Let's get a final thought from everybody on
Speaker 1: the crew, Michael Angelo let us off. Final thought.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, if I was going to end my
Speaker 3: life at a baseball stadium, I'd make sure I had
Speaker 3: a giant foam finger on each hand and then dive
Speaker 3: off to make sure viral video.
Speaker 1: You know, that's dark and stupid. Moving along Green nurse
Speaker 1: teemed and use woman As a final thought.
Speaker 2: Katie, I don't now I don't because now I have
Speaker 2: the visual of Michaelangelo doing that, and everything that I
Speaker 2: was just going to say left my brain.
Speaker 1: So there we go. Oh boy, yeah, way to go,
Speaker 1: Michael Hi Jack. Final thought for us.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to a new Marvel movie tonight at
Speaker 2: the theater, Thunderbolts, which looks great and funny to me,
Speaker 2: but the National review says it's anti American, anti Trump,
Speaker 2: and very depressing.
Speaker 1: So I have that forward too. We'll see. I'll give
Speaker 1: you a review on Monday. That sounds like a great
Speaker 1: Friday night. Right. You can be really misled by trailers? Yeah, yeah, gosh.
Speaker 1: My final thought economies. Markets are complicated. Let them be
Speaker 1: as free as humanly possible. Central planning is terrible. It
Speaker 1: never works.
Speaker 2: Armstrong and Getty wrap pick up another grueling four hour workday.
Speaker 1: And look, your baseball team's gonna play a lot of games.
Speaker 1: All right, drink the beer, stay in your seats, stay shure,
Speaker 1: but to get home safely, stay shirt. Nobody wants to
Speaker 1: see her nipples, sir. Wow, so good Armstrong Egeddy dot com.
Speaker 1: Would you have a lot of great reasons the hot lane
Speaker 1: Katie's corner, get some swag, drop us a note. He's
Speaker 1: gonna have to change his name and move. I mean
Speaker 1: if he's okay, I mean he has serious head injuries. Wow.
Speaker 1: But we'll see you on Monday.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there'll be many updates on a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of different major stories. See you then, God bless America.
Speaker 1: Armstrong and Getty is an unpredictable East. What a powerful metaphor.
Speaker 1: I was wondering, you know what you felt about that?
Speaker 1: Whatever you say that in child, listen Blue Kalay.
Speaker 4: We're a look.
Speaker 1: It's one final message.
Speaker 5: Aron is well behaved? Is there goodie two shoes brother Canada,
Speaker 5: who by the way, has never had a girlfriend. Just
Speaker 5: saying a great Friday, you mother, Armstrong and Gaddy