Part Of The Problem - The Epstein Trainwreck Continues

Episode Date: December 25, 2025

Dave Smith brings you the latest in politics! On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave and Robbie "The Fire" Bernstein talk about the fumbling of the release of the Epstein files, break down the economic logic of deflation, and more.Order Lauren Smith’s book here: https://a.co/d/67djjBpSupport Our Sponsors:Sheath - https://sheathunderwear.com use promo code PROBLEM20Ridge - https://ridge.com/potp10Rugiet - Get 15% off your first order by going to http://rugiet.com/DAVE and using code DAVEMars Men - https://mengotomars.com/ Use code "PROBLEM" at checkoutPart Of The Problem is available for early pre-release at https://partoftheproblem.com as well as an exclusive episode on Thursday!PORCH TOUR DATES HERE:https://robbernsteincomedy.com/eventsFind Run Your Mouth here:YouTube - http://youtube.com/@RunYourMouthiTunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/run-your-mouth-podcast/id1211469807Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/4ka50RAKTxFTxbtyPP8AHmFollow the show on social media:X:http://x.com/ComicDaveSmithhttp://x.com/RobbieTheFireInstagram:http://instagram.com/theproblemdavesmithhttp://instagram.com/robbiethefire#libertarianSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

what's up what's up everybody merry christmas welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem i'm dave smith he is robbie the fire burnstein and dare i say uh i think the two of us together might have more christmas spirit than any other two jews in america so there you go this is this is where you turn in on christmas eve hope everybody's doing well rob got any big jewish plans for Christmas Eve. Being left alone. It's good time. I like a nice quiet day. Got to finish up my editing on a porching

episode two. All the fans out there, if you haven't checked out yet, which is all of you. There are 160,000 people that watched the last episode. And only about 400 made them more over. So there's still a big opportunity for conversions here, Dave Smith. And in the spirit of Christmas, when you're bored and sick of

family, and you're sitting around, you ate all the cookies, they're still waiting on Santa to show up with their gifts. You go to Robbie the Fire. I mean, you type that word into YouTube and watch Porching episode one. There you go. You got, if you got some time, that's what you do. Go watch a watch a log burn for.

You know, it's going to get boring at some point. That is a good point. That is a good point. In fact, I am planning on building a fire right after the show. Right after the show, I'm going to build a fire and I'm going to have a whiskey. That's a nice time. Any Christmas cookies planned? Oh, there's a bunch.

There's a bunch up there already. I got my mother-in-law came over with like three tins. a Christmas cookies. They're making a, what's it called, a prime rib upstairs right now, which I'm looking forward to. But there is something about the, I was telling this to Natalie before we started, there is something about the one p.m. cocktail on Christmas Eve that just like, you know, a lot of life, a lot of being an adult is just finding a way to be a degenerate without it seeming to icky you know does that make sense like you just do it in a way where it's like no no no that's totally respectable it's christmas eve your family's over you're having a drink at one

that's not like if i just did that on a regular day you'd be like that's crazy i'd feel too bad about myself i can't do it like when i i don't so i grew up in brooklyn right so when i was a kid i know a lot of people grew up in suburbs it was a little different than this but the thing we used to do was sit was hang out on stoops it was like the park or it's on stoops is where we'd just random someone's stoop and you'd get a 40 at the store at and you'd sit at you know you're 16 years old or whatever and you sit down there and you and your boys drink a 40 on the stoop and bullshit and now look rob if you saw me just drinking a 40 on a stoop like today you'd be like dude that's insane dave like you're 42 and that's somewhat successful

and people know who you are you can't just be drinking a goddamn 40 right but if i was in a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up drinking a whiskey in my living room you're like all right well that's but it's the same thing you know what i'm saying like it's the same but you just have to find a way to do it where you look like a respectable member of society so anyway i enjoy the excuse that uh that's my christmas fair i enjoy the excuse to go to my father-in-law go he should probably pour a couple of cocktails now i agree a hundred percent and uh i don't have country club access but there's one or two times i have been at a country club and it doesn't matter what hour of the day it is it feels like you've earned drinking and uh a fucking country

i've made it i'm in the one percent and i can drink it noon if i want to yeah it feels totally earned. It feels totally justified. Every once in a while, we get upgraded to a first class ticket. It doesn't matter how poor you are and how little you did to earn the fact that you got a free upgrade. You feel like you're in first class and how you get a right to drink. So I know what you're talking about 100%. Well, the first class is the, that's an interesting one because the drinks are free in first class, whereas like they charge you if you're, if you're in coach. And so there is a feeling of when you're in first class, you're like, I mean, I'd be like I'm giving away money to not drink now at this point you're like oh you didn't even

get you back all the time that they dicked me over because they've dicked me over so many times so yeah I will eat all the free gummy bears cookies and whatever amount of beverages you will serve yeah we're we might be flirting with a sunk cost fallacy or something there but it does it checks out to me that it's like well dude if I spent over the years if I've spent a thousand dollars on drinks back there I'm going to not take the free ones when I'm up here it's an insult to coach Dave or first class, Dave, to not drink in first class. On the same note, though, I think anyone that actually eats the full meal on a plane is a psychopath.

I mean, I've done it, but it's only been in a situation where I just like mistimed things out and I'm starving on this goddamn plane right now. I'm always furious if I actually am hungry enough that I want that meal. I don't think I've ever eaten the full meal because there's always something there that's just off. You kind of pick it what you can, but it's just eating, not that it's great and it's overpriced or whatever, but eating at an airport is, oh, it's a thousand times better than eating whatever the microwavable meal that they're going to fucking serve you. But Rob, I don't understand why they're still trying to do hot food on planes. Just bail on that whole thing. There's no such

thing as a good microwaved meal. None of it's good. So just like, I don't know, just have like bags of chips and shit. Anyway, okay. Let's move on to some stuff. Obviously, it is Christmas Eve. We are nearing the end of the year. I always, you know, we'll do a big New Year's show at some point soon.

But, you know, it's just one of those things. And 25 has been quite a year. You know, obviously 24 was a wild one. This was another really wild one. So just thinking about a lot. lot of these things. But I guess there's not that much news going on at the moment, which I'm kind of thankful for because most of it isn't good. So that's okay. By the way, anyone, if you want to put any questions into the chat, we'll answer as many as we can during the show. I guess the

big thing going on right now is this, the mess that is the release of these Epstein files. And, you know, as I've said many times over the last few months, and I really stand by this. I don't know that I've ever seen a political scandal mishandled this badly. Like the whole thing, it's really just amazing. You know, I said when I was on Megan Kelly's show, I said something along those lines. And then I said, I think they've handled this worse than the Biden administration hands. handled his senility. And people were giving me a little bit of shit for that.

I got some pushback for that, which I understand what people are saying. But like, I'm not saying like, and look, you could make an argument here because the Jeffrey Epstein thing is really, really bad. Like, okay, you could make an argument. It's a worse scandal that the president of the United States of America, the sitting president is senile and everybody's covering that up.

And I understand you could make that argument. Although it is debatable. Jeffrey Epstein is really, really bad. But that being said, I wasn't, I think what people heard rather than what I said is, I wasn't saying the scandal is worse. I'm saying the handling of the scandal is worse. This is at least, look, saying there's nothing wrong with Joe Biden and he's sharp as attack behind closed doors, that's not great, but it's not the worst thing you could say about

it from a propaganda point of view, if you're just trying to get past this. But for Donald Trump to campaign on, we're going to expose the Epstein thing, then have the ceremony where you give the influencers the Epstein files, then those files turn out to not be the Epstein files and we're just things in the public domain already. Then you turn around and say there's no such thing as the files. Then you turn around and say there are the files, but they're a democratic hoax. Then you turn around and say it'll destroy our entire political system if we release them. Then you turn around and vote, sign it into law and they're really, and now we're just with all this demand from the public for accountability.

and information here. Now what we finally get is just this weird, heavily redacted, seems to be in some cases, Rob, where you can undo the redaction, which is really, really wild. And then just tons of documents, a whole bunch of them clearly fraudulent, made up things that are not explained. There's just been zero effort. I mean, like, for the inability of this administration to kind of like at least have a press conference and explain. explain what the hell is going on here. Make it some type of like coherent narrative. I don't know.

I've just never seen anything like this. Rob, down to. How crazy is this, Rob? I saw Trump the other day. Trash and Thomas Massey again. Thor pushing for the Epstein files to be released. It's like he hasn't even updated his software in his own web of lies. Like, wait, you're still.

mad at Thomas Massey for co-sponsoring the bill that you signed into law? You signed it into law. You didn't veto it. So what are you? Like, don't you have to drop that beef now? It just makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. So I don't know. I'm just,

I guess my biggest takeaway by this whole thing still is that I'm just, I'm flabbergasted by the sheer incompetence of the whole thing. All right, guys. Let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today. show, which is Sheath Underwear, legendary Sheath underwear. I love this company. They've been a longtime sponsor on the show. And I always love when there's a product that I can absolutely stand behind that's on the show. And Sheath is that. The most comfortable pair of boxer briefs you will ever own. The only underwear I ever wear, I'm in a pair of them right now. I'm in a pair of

them every time I talk to you. It's all I wear. Sheathunderware.com. That's where you got to go. support the company that has been a longtime sponsor of this podcast, and while you're at it, get yourself a pair of the most comfortable boxer briefs you will ever own at sheathunderware.com and use the promo code problem. That'll get you 20% off your order. One more time, that's sheathunderware.com promo code problem for 20% off. All right, let's get back into the show. So you're almost commenting, if I'm understanding you correctly, that as an observer of Donald Trump,

and his administration, they're so incompetent. They're not even putting forward a good lie of what the storyline is for us to debunk. And so you're almost a little bit lost on how to approach it because... Yeah, what am I supposed to do here? This is too obvious. You don't even need me. Because they haven't even, they're not even pushing a propaganda story. They're just slowly leaking accurate information that keeps all eyeballs on the story and wanted to actually be solved.

Yeah, it's like, I just don't even understand. stand what like they the thing is they're so caught with their pants down and so they just don't they couldn't even come up with a lie you mean it's it's like you can't believe the trump confidence on this one that he's actually putting out real information and just smiling through it with the same talking point of democratic hoax and this is thomas massey's fault that we're looking at it while the entire internet is yelling what the hell is all this yeah yeah and i and you know look it'll obviously be um you know you got to like With all these things, you got to, especially when there's these huge dumps, you kind of got to wait for, like, people to go through all of it.

I mean, you could be one of those people yourself if you want to, but it's a lot of work. But you got to kind of wait for a lot of people to go through this and figure out which documents are what and what smoking gun, if any, there is. I mean, so far, the stuff that I've seen was like one, there was the one accusation against Donald Trump, which did seem pretty damning. and there certainly were a lot of pictures that involved Bill Clinton and stuff like that. But we're still kind of like, I don't know, I guess it's just, it's very clear at this point that the administration has no desire, you know, to get to the bottom of any of this, expose any of it. There clearly have a strong desire to cover this up as much as possible.

And I just don't see how that's, it's possible to reconcile. all of that without it just being obvious what they're doing. I agree with you that it's a total mess and we got to kind of wait to see where things land. Some of the very interesting takeaways to me is firstly Thomas Massey really did win the day on this one of getting all this information out and then pushing back on all the information that was redacted because the law that they signed included that redactions could not be made just to protect people. And then the Justice Department pulled some.

absolutely bad shit spin on that, which was that previous law is that they have the right to redact. None of it made any sense. Then the internet comes along and they figure out how to undo a lot of the redactions. Now, here's what makes it so messy. Firstly, you've got that letter going from Epstein to the guy who was raping all the gymnasts. And then turns out that looks like it's fraudulent. Yeah, well, that was, didn't come from like, it was like in 2018 or something? Yeah, it came.

It came three days like after he had died. and they're not sure if it's his handwriting and there's some holes in that story but some of the things that you know really muddy the waters is for one you got a lot of random pictures of individuals who are out with Epstein but some of the people they're with like they got one with

Bill Gates but the lady's face is redacted just based off body types not to be a creep that doesn't look like a child that looks like a 30 year old woman and so like that's a little bit I'm not saying Bill Gates didn't do anything wrong I'm just saying putting out a redacted photo implying that there was something

worse going on with what's clearly an adult women doesn't really help. Then you've got crazy stories like Donald Trump raped and then killed a 14-year-old from the limit, but it's like these are not... The girl ended up dead. No one's saying Donald Trump killed her, but the girl ended up dead. They ruled it as suicide.

It looks kind of shady. But evidently, there was an accusation that him and Jeffrey Epstein like assault are. Right, but these are just like random stories by individuals. I think the most interesting juice in what's come out, far is that there's a pattern in the redacted information of hiding co-conspirators. Top amongst them would probably be the lawyers and accountants that have been running Epstein's

estate since he passed. There's also that FBI document where they were at one point looking into 10 co-conspirators, apparently including Wexner, and that got dropped. I've long said, if you wanted to crack this cake, it's open, there's a lot of leads, the pilots, all the staff, all of these people, the other people that were given immunity in the first deal, there's a lot of people to talk to. And by the way, there was also the J.P. Morgan case, which they had to pay out to victims because they were like looking past all of their internal fraud regulations and processing Epstein money. There's so much stuff that if you wanted to actually figure out what was going on here, you could investigate. And so to me, this is kind of step one in terms of that, you know, I guess this information is becoming available and more of the public. is acknowledging like what the hell is this thing yeah yeah well i think the fact that the

FBI um the FBI document where they were talking about the co-conspirators and the and just the files in general i mean at the very least i think you could go like oh look man i mean dude like what we already knew but isn't it kind of oh cash patel and dan bonjino and pam buddy they all came and lied right to our faces dude and said oh no it's clear he wasn't sex trafficking to anybody that's not a thing like that it's like oh this is the fbi i seem to think it might be um and i got to you know i don't know did you see this rub because this was interesting to me did you see dan bongino uh basically they said he's trump said he's going back to his television show or whatever exactly that means um this is interesting to me because that as we had speculated about

a couple weeks ago on the show i was saying i'm sure dan bongino will be handsomely rewarded for his loyalty to the regime but in like you know you got to go work for the board of a weapons company or something like that the idea he's going to come back to podcasting i just this i mean i'd be very curious to see how it does or what his numbers are if he were going to come back how can anyone watch dan bonjino's show again how could that like i just don't possibly understand how anybody could ever go the whole as i as i directly confronted chris quomo about uh when we debated Like, look, the whole in this world, and I mean this world, broadly speaking, whether you're talking podcasts or cable news or network news or, you know, newspapers or whatever, the whole currency you

trade in is the truth, or at least the currency you trade in is honesty, that like you have to be able to trust that the person isn't just lying to you, you know, and like, how could you ever trust Dan Bongino again? I just don't understand. I don't like, I don't know how you could ever, like, sit and have a conversation with cash betel or dan bungee or any of these people i would speculate i would speculate one of two things option one is he gets the premier basically fox news or fox radio contract that pays him to basically be a mouthpiece for the regime and he's being paid handsomely and he's still working at a role option two is he tells all and uh goes hey i was there and uh it was against my conscience and that's why i finally left and here's the worst thing

that I saw, and this is why I left. It's just really, it's really tough for him to pull off option too, because he lied. You know, it's like, if you want to say, you know, this was against my conscience, and so I left, the only way to do that and to, you know, keep your support from the base is if you were actually a conscientious objector, you know what I mean, which is like, no, they asked me to go lie to the American people about this and I said, sorry, sir, I resign, you know, which is in the United States of America, you do have a right to do that. You can resign. That is your option. And he didn't do that. He went and lied to all of us. And then months later, after the issue was forced, then you leave

and then you come. I just think it's going to be very tough for him to pull that off. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Marsmen. Fellas, if If you're anything like me, you have felt getting older. I'm 42 now, and you do notice as you get a little bit older, that you don't quite have the energy and the recovery and some of the other qualities that you had when you were younger. Now, a lot of this can be because of lower testosterone levels. But now we have Mars Men, which supports healthy T-levels, energy, and stamina. It's got eight naturally clinically diagnosed ingredients.

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The website is men go to mars.com. And if you use the promo code problem for a limited time, our listeners get 60% off for life and three free gifts. But again, this is for a limited time, and only when you go to men go to mars.com and use the promo code problem. Again, that's men go to mars.com, promo code problem for 60% off for life and three free gifts. All right, let's get back into the show. I didn't know now what I knew then. And we were still in the administration, and I was trying to trust the plan. And so when I was told this information about Epstein, I decided to go with it.

but now that I know what I know now, I absolutely cannot endorse or stand by them. Yeah, yeah, maybe. We'll see. I think that's going to be a tough one. That's going to be a tough one to pull off. Here, let's read. We got a couple questions here. I'll read one here.

Also, curious, Dave's thoughts on instituting mandatory psych exams before you buy a gun. But if the government fails more than, say, 0.5% of people, the law is void. Seems the best I can come up with to protect the Second Amendment, but also prevent antisocial psychos who shoot up schools from getting guns. Yeah, I don't like it. Sorry. Now, look, the whole problem, well, there's several problems, right? But the problem with, you know, saying you have to have a psych eval in order to buy a gun is like, okay, well,

Number one, people, you know, oftentimes with a lot of these cases, like I remember in the in the Sandy Hook shooting for sure, and then there's been, I'm sure, several others where, like in the Sandy Hook shooting, it was like the mother's guns, that the kid, like everyone knew he was a troubled kid who had been messed up for a while, but he took his mother's gun. So how the hell are you going to stop that? So I'm still get access to somebody else's guns or something like that. Number two, you know, a psych eval is not a goddamn, it's not like a fair trial. It's not like you get to go there and present your defense and then a jury of your peer.

You're talking about the opinion of one person, one person who, you know, you could say they're a professional. But by the way, you know why so many goddamn kids transitioned over the last, you know, 10 years. It's because of a psych about or they got a psychologist to say, yes, I think that's a girl trapped in a boy's body because they got swept up in the goddamn pseudoscience of the day. And the same way that doctors were telling healthy kids to get the COVID vaccine. Like, you know, the end. So you're just kind of like creating like what does it meet? What does a psych eval mean that you know, like the people I think that convincing. a six-year-old to socially transition as horrific child abuse. But the whole goddamn, all of the institutions, I mean, now they've changed, but all of the institutions for most of the last 15 years said I was an abusive, you know, person for believing that.

Number two, it becomes a very easy way for the state to take away guns from people by calling that group. You know, it just becomes, instead of calling them terrorists or narco-terrorists or whatever you call them crazy and now you can disarm a whole group of people. The other thing about this dynamic is that first of all, a lot of people own guns. There's like 400 million guns in this country or something like that. And a lot of people have guns for protection to protect themselves, protect their house. And a lot of those people might have some psychological issues unrelated to the gun, nothing like they're going to go kill anyone. And maybe they want to go get help. But

Now you've put a huge disincentive for anyone who values being a gun owner to go see a shrink. Because if you are diagnosed with something, you might lose your Second Amendment rights. So, no, I don't, I just don't really think, you know, I don't think there's any way that you can put these barriers for gun ownership that are going to be anything less than a nightmare. But that's my guess. Rob, should crazy people be encouraged to have guns? I liked your analysis I do wonder though if maybe if they put you on psychiatric meds I like their kicker though

I thought that was an intelligent kicker of if they fail more than 0.5% because I do wonder what the total number of sociopaths are on a population basis and so I guess if you went that number and then his math of if you're failing more than that number then you're failing too many people so I did think it was an interesting kicker on the question I'll grant that

I will agree. Okay, let's a question here on the Epstein one. I'm sorry, someone asked if I watched Tucker's dive into Thomas Crooks. I have not seen that yet. I'll be interested to watch that, though. To what extent do you think the Epstein File scandal was particularly badly handled versus the change in media landscape just making the establishment's normal evasion strategy no longer effective?

That's a good question. I'm not saying the latter had nothing to do with it. Like, obviously, I mean, it's almost impossible for any political issue to not have something to do with the new media landscape. Like, you know, but no, dude, I mean, this was the handling of it. Like, it's, they ran on this. All of them ran on Epstein transparency and getting to the bottom of it. Trump himself talked about it. But Cash Patel and Dan Bongino.

Pam Bondi talked all day long about it. And then they just immediately pivoted with terrified looks on their face to, well, I don't know what you're talking about. Nope, there was no thing. Nope. No guy named Jeffrey Epstein ever existed. Like, it's just, it was out of a cartoon. They could not have done a worse job handling this.

I don't know. That's how I feel. It's like Trump looked at some of the information was like, shit. I didn't realize I was all over this. I mean, it really was. It was out of like an episode of Martin or something like that. I don't know if anyone would ever watch Martin Lawrence's show back in the 90s. But it was like over the top cartoonish kind of comedy.

Like it was almost like it was literally like I'm going to show everyone what's on this paper. What's on this paper is going to kick your dick in the dirt, man. You are going to lose your mind. And only I would be honest enough to share with you what's on this paper. Okay. Guys, guys, we didn't really do to see what's on this paper. It was like that, you know, like, Jesus Christ, like. and also just it really was there was even on trump but he's a better liar than most but like

dan bonjino and cash patel like you could see it on their faces like it was just it was the worst the worst handling of a scandal i've ever seen and i do think it um obviously there were a lot of other things involved with this too but it absolutely was devastating to donald trump it was it was not just something you can measure in approval ratings. It was it was devastating to Trump's aura. It was devastating to Trump's like energy. It is just he, there's almost like a before Epstein cover up Donald Trump

and an after Epstein cover up Donald Trump. And the after just lost all drain the swamp credibility. No, you're not even, you can't even pretend to be. that guy anymore when it really came down to it you wanted to protect the swamp that's all um so i don't know that's that's my feeling i don't really see how uh how they come back from that you know it's a one of the the things about donald trump and i suppose this is like one of the tragic things um is that you know we're only through year one here rob it still has three more years to ride this out Also, I'm going to say that the biggest variable here really is Thomas Massey.

I've never seen an administration looking to cover something up where a congressman goes to war over it and then manages to drum up enough support and enough public interest to get a law passed for transparency about what's going on while it's still relevant. Like, I don't think that happened to Bush. Even on the Venezuela War, Congress did, you know, didn't back that Trump should have to actually follow the Constitution and get approval from Congress. usually government's pretty in lockstep when it comes to the most egregious things of they're not going to investigate themselves even if it hurts the other team uh but somehow massey just really dug in on this one i mean we haven't seen it for covid you know whoever whoever uh transpired that scam against us congress isn't investigating it you're 100% right it's it really kind of can't be overstated how um how incredible what massy pulled off there and marjorie taylor Green to, you know, and Rocahanna, he deserves credit for it too. But the fact that they, he was, and it really did seem to me like Massey's a tactic of really, which again, when I say tactic, I don't, there's nothing like underhanded or dishonest about this, but he just straight up shamed and threatened, all the other members of

Congress. You remember his pitch was he goes, hey, guys, Donald Trump ain't going to be here forever. and like you're going to forever be known for protecting pedophiles. Like that will be your legacy in this world. And not that I think politicians are moved by the moral claim of that, but I think they are moved by their legacy. And you know what I mean? And like I think that was actually very effective.

But the way that he was actually able to corner the regime and then get them to cave and get Trump to sign the bill into law really was amazing. Yeah. As you said, Rob, typically speaking, what one of the good members of Congress, you know, whoever they might be, whether it was Ron Paul back in the day or if it was, you know, Thomas Massey or Rand Paul or, you know, Justin Amosh or whoever it might be, you know, typically what they could do is like be the lone no vote, give a good speech on the house floor. Maybe they'd get to grill someone in some type of hearing, you know, a la Rand Paul versus Fauci.

but in terms of actually getting legislation passed, they've just never been in a position to be able to do that. And it's pretty incredible that this one actually was successful. I've really never seen anything like it. It'd be like Ron Paul passing his audit at the Fed bill. You know, he made some noise with it, and it was amazing, but it's not, it never got passed. Hold on here. Let me see some, got a few other questions in the chat here.

someone asked me if i feel if i feel bad for blanking out dave do you feel bad for blacking out and then it's just blank no no i don't it's interesting um oh i have fun okay uh do do do do do all right maybe that guy blacked out in the middle of his question it's possible could be he was sitting there he's typing it and then he forgot he forgot to finish it maybe that's a joke I don't know. It could be referring to our last episode, but I don't know. Did we miss anything from that? All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Rouget.

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All right, let's get back on the show. Okay, let's here, I did want to play this clip, which I had, I saw was going, going around. the Twitters and this was from a Jillian Michaels podcast and I don't you know there wasn't I don't know why this clip was just something when I was like I think maybe we should talk about this on the show I guess part of this is just because as I've mentioned I've been this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately but maybe like my a new year's resolution is in the next year to try to like I try to focus more on economics I think like economics is just something I'm really interested in.

I know it's something you're really interested in, Rob, too. And I think it's really important. And, you know, like, I kind of made this point after Mom Donnie got elected, but I do think, you know, to whatever, you know, degree I've been, you know, kind of on a tear over the last few years. And I think I've done a really good job of, like, branding libertarianism as, like, like, libertarians are the anti-war guys and, like, the best anti-war guys who really know what they're talking about and oppose this shit for reasons um but like i don't think i've made kind of like

like end the fed is not as synonymous with me as it is with like ron paul and like i you know i almost think this stuff is important but anyway so here is the clip it's um uh jillian michaels who i absolutely adore um being fed nonsense by a fox news lady um who claimed in the interview that she is defending capitalism which is particularly what drove me crazy about this, but I wanted to play this clip, and then me and Rob will respond. What happens in a deflationary environment is nobody buys anything. They just hoard. Because why would you? Like, if I, if I know I can buy that car next month for 30% less, why would I buy it this month? Why would I buy anything? I'm just going to, I'm going to sit

on my cash and I'm not going to move. And so I'm not going to actually engage in the economy. So that is why it is the scariest situation. And a lot of people have said to me, like, over the years, why, why does the Fed shoot for 2% inflation? Why do we even need 2% inflation? Why does anything have to go up? And the answer to that, sort of the textbook answer, and you can understand it when you think about it.

If things aren't ever increasing in price, you're never incentivized to do anything today. Because we're all procrastin years. We can do it tomorrow when it's cheaper. What happens in? All right. This is just, I just hope you understand. This is just, first of all, I love Jillian. Michaels. And it makes me angry when people fill her sweet minds with this nonsense. And then I saw it

like she tweeted out and was kind of like this like made sense to her, I guess. And she was like, yeah. Like for this. Oh, God, it makes me so angry when people are so economically illiterate. I don't know. It just fucking drives me crazy. When you think about this, you can really understand it. Hey, while you're thinking about this, like if you're going to make a claim like, hey, in a deflationary environment, no one ever buys anything. Um, you do realize you're not just speaking in abstractions like there's been deflationary environments before like are you telling me and can you point to one where no one bought anything people just stopped buying stuff and like she almost answers her question in her own way like and whatever look what's annoying about this is

because it's a pathetic excuse to defend the federal reserve to defend the inflationary economy that is a complete creation of government policy that we live under but let's just for a second take on the economic argument here because like you know all i'm saying is like economics has been around for a while there's been lots of brilliant economists and believe it or not they've kind of handled this stuff already but did you answer your question why why would i buy so why would anyone ever buy anything if we lived in a deflationary economy if things were getting cheaper well the very clear answer to that is time preference this like think this through for a second here but like even if you go why would i buy a car if a car is going to be cheaper in a month

from now. It goes, okay, well, what might the answer to that be? You need one this month. Like, I mean, I'm not saying you wouldn't ever, nobody is claiming here that like no purchasing patterns would be altered by things going down in price. But just saying, we could all think of lots of examples of things. If you look at, say, electronics, which is one of the best examples of this, because it's a technology-based sector, but also because it's, because it's really completely left to the free market and isn't regulated. But like, okay, so like when I was Natalie's age to get a cool big screen TV, it was like a fucking bus that you had to move into your house and it was going to cost like $5,000.

Today, you could get a flat big screen TV that you could hold in one hand for like 300 bucks. It's the quality is way up, the price is way down. And so, Rob, as we both know, nobody bought TVs over the last 15 years because they were going down. No one bought one. Why would you buy a TV, Rob, when they're just going to be cheaper and better in a few years? Well, because I want to watch something between now and then, man. Isn't this the most obvious thing? Hey, Rob, if groceries were going to be down 30% next year, and you knew that for a fact,

why would you buy groceries this year? but can you think can you think really hard for a second to go oh because eating this year means something to me too i care about the time at when i receive the goods that i want to but like that is also a major factor in all of this now is it true that like hey if you were going to get a brand new car you have a car that's functioning already you were going to get a brand new car but then you found out that they're slashing prices next year yeah it might in encourage you to wait a little bit longer on that purchase. But the same is true in reverse, that if the cars, the price is going up and up and up, you might buy it earlier than you

otherwise would have bought it, which may not be the best thing. So anyway, I just find all of this to be like such goofy, such a goofy argument against deflation, which is objectively a good thing. Now, I'm not saying that a massive amount of deflation in a very short period of time, obviously that's a you might have a steep recession there but and obviously there are people who are hurt by deflation if you own a house and the value goes down you just lost some of your net worth um but in terms of like should we be targeting two percent inflation versus should we be targeting two percent deflation i'm sorry in one scenario things get more and more affordable in the other scenario, they get more and more expensive. What do you think is better for poor people if things are

more expensive or if things get cheaper? Anyway, any thoughts on any of this, Rob? Yeah, I mean, you're 100% right on everything you said. What just strikes me is that deflation, what you're describing is people delaying gratification and instead engaging in savings, which typically means that they can make the bigger and more important purchases because they've actually saved their money. And at a more spiritual level, if everyone's delaying gratification because their money is going to be worth more in the future, I actually think you have a better society because people don't constantly feel like, oh, my wealth is being stolen from me. Where can I spend it right away before it's worth less? Or you actually have an environment where someone's like, oh, I might be able to

purchase a house in the future. Let me save money. Let me not go out and drive. drink this weekend. Oh, you know what? It's really not worth spending the couple extra bucks that I have out at the bar because I will be able to purchase a car at the end of this year because cars will be cheaper. And then all of a sudden you got people who, as you mentioned, time preference are now starting to think on longer time horizons and actually being forward looking and thinking about, you know, their lives, savings, future investments. And you're talking about a much better, unlike a spiritual level, a better society where people are being forward looking and not just making compulsive decisions now we currently have economy

i remember going back to george bush we need people to get out there and spend it's the most short-sighted look ever of we need everyone to spend everything that they have right now we need people to borrow from their future earnings and spend right now we need everybody in debt and you know what that is that's the sickness of everything's at overinflated prices so we got to figure out how we can pull more money in to keep all these bubbles afloat and pretend like we're we're richer than we actually are. That's right. That's right.

But who could look at the American economy? Like if you looked at the American economy, and I mean every level, like the federal government, state governments, local governments, private businesses, individuals. And you would say, look, I'm looking at America right now. And Rob, the problem we have here is that there's just way too much savings. You know, everybody's just saving way too much. There's not enough spending. not enough consumption. There's not enough debt. Everybody's just at a surplus here. Say like,

what world are you living in? What are you talking about? That's the issue. And it's not just George W. Bush. I mean, he might be the only one whoever explicitly said, go shopping. And that is the answer to this recession. But that's been the economic agenda of the entire quantitative easing regime through Obama, the entire monetary policy through Donald Trump's first few years, the entire response to COVID. And now Donald Trump's angry that it's not just forever the response or something like that. But yeah, like why also why is it, you know, to your point, which I think is so spot on. But why is it like, look, obviously anticipating a price being lowered or a price being raised

could change your consumption, you know, behavior in one way or the other. but like why is it you know like if you were like oh my god i could i'm not going to get a new car this year because i can get a new car next year for even cheaper or i could get an even nicer car next year so i'm going to wait why is that worse than i don't really need a new car but i'm going to buy one now because this is the last time i'll ever be able to afford one why is it obvious that the latter isn't a bigger problem um and and so again what this all like becomes is just an excuse to continue the inflationary economy. And now, I'm sure someone like this wouldn't want Biden's inflation. She wants the Fed to hit their target. She just wants 2% of your wealth to be

stolen by the government every year. Not like 9%, Rob, because that's just too crazy, right? But like the thing is, it's a fatal conceit. Once you concede at all that deflation is bad and inflation is good, you're 70% of the way to being a socialist. You've conceded the whole goddamn thing because deflation really is the market and inflation really is the government. That's just like, and I don't, there's not really much of an opinion to that. And all I mean by that is that if you, like, naturally, organically, in an advancing economy, deflation is the status quo like if you um if you like i guess technological advances are the easiest

one to to think of but like if you whatever if you're like picking apples and in order to pick apples you have to hire a guy to pick the apples and you got to pay him 10 bucks an hour and he goes at a certain speed but then you come up with a machine that picks the apples for you and can do it a thousand times faster and you don't have to pay someone to do it anymore. Well, then what happens to the price of apples? They fall. It gets cheaper because we can produce them with much less manpower, with much less hours and, right? It's just, so naturally speaking, if you are progressing and advancing, things become cheaper. And naturally speaking, if you're devaluing your currency, prices go up. And so it's all, what's infuriating about it is it's just, it's a defense of the

status quo. And all the status quo is a bunch of bankers robbing from the rest of the people. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Ridge. I love Ridge. Love the Ridge wallet. It's the coolest wallet I've ever owned. I was an old school leatherbound wallet guy for many years, as I'm sure some of you are carrying around receipts from the 80s and all types of credit cards that I think had expired already, but I just still had in my wallet. And then I got myself a Ridge. It's a minimalist wallet. It's really sleek and cool. They got a bunch of different designs. They all look awesome. And it carries everything you need, your cash, your cards, your ID, and that's all you need. Every time you pull it out, it's a

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that's what you're defending whether you mean to or not you're filling my sweet jillian michael's heads with this poison with this nonsense um but anyway yeah that there's also uh it's also uh you know you can argue for deflation but this is the dumbest way to make an argument for deflation which is uh people won't spend money and they'll actually think on longer time horizons and they won't be incentivized just to blow everything right now. That's the wrong argument. The right argument would be, listen, if you were starting an economy from scratch and you had a free market, deflation would be great. But sadly, since we have a Fed and there's so much debt in our economy and so many companies are running off of debt, we actually can't live in a deflationary environment now. And every

single business decision is essentially made off of borrowing money is in their benefit because being in assets is cheaper. The flip side of that, though, is that, you know, that just, firstly, I think over a long enough time horizon, you're going to have a deflationary event, and it's going to end up working out well for the wealthy that actually have cash and savings ready to go. I think they're more diversified, and that, yes, they ride all the waves of assets. But believe me, if there was an inflationary event tomorrow, Warren Buffett's probably the best suited for getting out there and picking up everything for cheap. yeah so she's not even making the right argument the argument for why we need inflation and not

deflation is because we've gone so far in the wrong way it'll be devastating for so many individuals who have bought into hey i need to have as much debt as possible yeah an argument i would still disagree with but it would be at least a more sophisticated kind of plausible one yeah that no that's right the idea again the idea that just nobody's going to buy anything it's like again as i said before like there were there have been in the united states of america we've been through deflationary periods before and it's not true that nobody bought anything but again like what you're really getting at is you're like yes it is it is true that you wouldn't that inflation incentivizes present consumption whereas deflation incentivizes more long-term thinking you want to argue against that go ahead but

that seems nutty to make but i agree with you that would be the like debt bubble stuff would be a more sophisticated argument well i still think would be flawed um okay let's uh see here what we got uh why would i buy groceries today when i could just wait until tomorrow to eat okay yeah right you'll lose some weight buddy you know you start intermittent fasting and just always waiting tomorrow so you can save a quarter on beef prices really everyone's gonna everyone's gonna starve because they're going to sit around. Fat Americans are going to starve because every day they're going to go, oh, that steak's going to be 10 cents cheaper tomorrow. I'm going to wait to eat lunch. Dude, I mean, there are people who buy stuff the day before a blowout sale. You know what I mean?

Like people like, this is just, this is silly. Now, that being said, it might stop some people from buying some things and waiting until tomorrow, but that also might be the right move. Yeah, the one argument against that or the one sector might be people delaying health care purchases. and not screening things early enough, but I mean, in a free market for health care, those prices would come down. And, you know, to some extent, people need to adjust. And, you know, that's a personal risk decision. Well, also, but then the counter to that, right, is that, okay, but play this movie out

a little bit further. And if prices are going up and up and up and up and up and up, right? Because, you know, you have the compound interest effect, right? So, like, if inflation, if the target is 2% this year and then the target is, 2% next year you've grown actually more than 4% right because it was 2% of the larger number was the second year so you have the compound interest effect so all these years later and later prices are getting more and more and more expensive things are going up and up and up and then maybe somebody doesn't consume presently because they just can't fucking afford to do it like how about that

you know what i mean like how about somebody just doesn't go uh grocery shopping today because they can't fucking afford groceries anymore so now whatever they're eating off a dollar menu or some shit like that like so there's also a you know what i mean like that inflation catches up to present consumption eventually also um which is a whole other factor how about this i'd like to work hard make money and then be able to keep the money and then have it not be worth less in the future yeah yeah that's fair it seems reasonable to me um all right uh dave and rob do you think uh vance will blame trump for how all the abstein files were handled in 28 and we'll have a repeat of Trump attacking his own VP.

Look, man, I think that is the question right now. And I just, I got to be honest. I, look, there are things that I like about J.D. Bounce. There are certainly issues where I think he, he seems to be, at least from what he says, a little bit closer, like a step closer toward us. than a lot of the other MAGA people. I also think J.D. Vance is smart. And I think he's good on microphone.

He's better than I thought he was. Initially, he's good at doing like a hostile CNN interview. He's good at explaining things. He does a good job on podcasts. I have more than a tad of concern over what his ties. to, you know, to Peter Thiel and kind of like the Palantir world and all that stuff that certainly I think is fair to be concerned with. But honestly, I think almost the biggest problem with J.D. Vance right now is that he just,

there's a weakness to him. There's a weakness to him that I've never been able to unsee since the signal chat leak. You know, the one where he's the only one who objects to, uh, attacking Yemen but does it in the and this is behind closed doors they didn't think this was going to get leaked you know but he's like hey guys I don't think there's a good idea and this is kind of everything that we ran against but like if you guys want to do it I'm a team player I'll go ahead and like there was just something in that where you're like so I guess to answer your question I don't think he's got the balls it's kind of my honest feeling right now you got to have

real big balls to pick a fight with Donald Trump and if he does come out when he's running for president, and he says anything that Donald Trump did wrong, Donald Trump's going to smash him back. And now, you know, that's a nightmare scenario for you if you're trying to be the Republican nominee and you're trying to win the presidency. Donald Trump is against you. And so, but then at the same time, right, how the hell is he going to win without doing that? How is he going to energize the Trump base without doing that? And so he's caught in this real awful position. Now, as I was getting that before, we're only done with year one here. You know, it's not time for 28. I think in some ways Donald Trump has jumped the shark so much that so many

of us are like, all right, what's next, you know? But like, there's still three more years. So a lot's going to happen between now and then. But the one dynamic I don't see changing is that I don't think there's any way. You know, look, it was not that I think she would have won anyway, but it was such a disaster for Kamala Harris when she went on the view and couldn't name a thing that she would have done different than Joe Biden. And, you know, if J.D. Vance is going to be in a similar type of situation, I think. After what a disaster this first year was, you're going to be looking at a real failure of the Trump administration. And it's going to be, the dynamic is going to be, Donald Trump said he was going to drain the swamp.

He had eight years to do it and didn't drain anything. How does J.D. Vance going to handle that? I don't know. I don't know. What do you think, Rob? I think it's really going to depend on where we're at in two years, where the economy's at, what kind of foreign wars were entangled with, and how this Epstein storyline plays out. If things are exactly where they were right now, let's just say Epstein's storyline still lurking

where people are interested, but there's no... you know, real engagement from the government to uncover it. And the economy is kind of just where it's been. Feels stale, but they keep reporting good numbers. And, you know, we're not in a full-fledged board, but we're just supporting wars. Firstly, I think J.D. Vance is going to have some tough competitors within the party to win, you know, the inauguration from. But with all that said, it's going to be a lot of Donald Trump is really great and wonderful. And I'm going to be able to build off of some of his efforts. And I do have some policy disagreements with him. But, you know, we're going to be strong, but strategic with our strikes on other countries.

We're going to use tariffs a little bit differently because we couldn't implement his plan the way he wanted because of court laws. It's going to be a lot of compliment him. But listen, I'm a different guy. And I learned from my experience of watching him. Yeah, look, I mean, I think that's probably, you're probably right. Like, that's the most likely scenario. I just, that is pretty weak for me. Like, that's not, you know what I mean? But yes, I think I think you're probably right that that's the lane J.D. Vance will ultimately take because fuck, all calculations consider it's probably the path of least resistance. If things go to shit, like the economy, like there's either just a chance that he doesn't run

because he's too affiliated with the administration or he's got to go, hey, I didn't like any of these things at the time. And now I have the experience of being on the job. And so this is, this is the way that I'm going to do it. But that's a tough battle. Yeah, I don't, I don't know how you do that. I don't know how how it's possible, but again, we would, um, Donald Trump's got to be down and out for that to happen. You got to have the economy in the shitter. Terrorists have blown up. There's a new war going on and maybe he's more in trouble for Epstein stuff. Yeah, things would have to be really, really bad at that point. I will say, I think J.D. Vance really wants to be president and he, he is positioned to be the next, you know, Republican candidate.

So it'll be interesting, man. It's going to be real, real interesting. This, this, this. next year, I think, is going to give us a lot more information. You know, my, as of right now, like, you know, if I had, obviously, it's still a lot of time left, but I think that, I think the midterms are going to be a bloodbath for the Republicans and think they're going to get absolutely creamed. I think, uh, I think are top contenders against him, uh, even though Massey said he's not running. Uh, I think, uh, I think he could put together something. I think Josh Hawley's kind of the young stud and I think of Vivek separated himself from the administration and he might

he might be able to do something I think those are the people he's going to have to contend with you know I think um I don't know I don't know what position Vivek's really in you know the again just you know I never want to be too like kind of terminally online with these things or you know because there is like there is something to that and there is something to that and there is to the fact that there's like, you know, regular voters are not as, like, there's a sliver of Americans who are like super interested in politics, who watch shows like this and who, you know, like really think about these things all the time. That is not the average voter. That being said, between Vivek's H-1B debacle and the whole Saved by the Bell post thing

and just how poorly received that was. And then I saw, I don't know if you saw this, Rob, but if you saw, he had, he gave a speech at the Turning Point event the other day where he was basically talking about the, how do you put this, the idea of, like America being an inheritance or that somebody who's like, you know, family goes further back in American history isn't any more American than somebody who just got here and became citizenship and how being American as a binary, either you are an American citizen or you're not an American citizen,

no one's more American than anyone else. And, you know, I don't, I don't fully agree or disagree exactly with his message. Like, I get to some degree I agree with that. Man, does it sound bad coming out of his mouth? Like, man, are you just not? the messenger for this message. You know, like there's, um, and we've all known, you know, examples like that in life where like you might even agree with someone on something, but you're like, yeah, maybe you shouldn't be the one saying this. I'm a fan of, particularly weird for somebody whose parents weren't citizens, you know,

who like has not been in the country that long for them to be the one to say like, because it's just like, oh, well, that's awfully convenient for you. You know what I mean? Like, and I just, I did think there was something there where. Look, I'm not saying we certainly I'm I would I don't want to see like um brutalism or nativism or any of these forces like be the dominant force in the Republican party. I don't think any of that would be good. But I do think that it's just like it really misses the mark in a way when, you know, it kind of reminds me almost like, you know, like when when during like the height of COVID where like like, Like, you know, the Cato Institute would be writing some, you know, peace about how it could be

acceptable on libertarian theory to have a lockdown under some crazy conditions or something like this. And you're like, dude, no one wants to hear that right now. Like just no one wants, it's like the country is by forced government policy being radically, racially and culturally changed in like an overnight fashion. Like what is, it is crazy. that there are so many more millions of people in this country than there were before. You know, I was just reading about it before. I don't think I'd ever seen these numbers before. Did you know that like since 9-11, the Muslim population in America has like quintupled or something like that?

And nobody would have voted for that. Nobody after 9-11 was going, you know what we need to do now is import Muslims by the millions into this country or whatever. And during that whole period of time, while the country has, from the top down, against the will of the domestic population, been radically transformed, white people have been openly demonized in the most vicious way, not just rhetorically, but through legally, through academia, through big corporate America. and so for you to be coming out now and like this is your message is hey the Indian guy is every bit as American as you like I'm not even saying you disagree necessarily with that statement but there is something that is particularly tone deaf about it right now and like I think the vague would be much better off to just like kind of ignore all that shit people are going to judge you however they're going to judge you and like just focus on shit that you're really good on that really matters you're like

hey man what actually matters here is making this a better country and here are the policies that are going to do that i don't know what you think rob i i don't agree with his perspective i'm a big fan of the concept of uh seniority um i i learned that uh in my freshman year at the high school dorm i was sitting down watching tv in the basement some senior came down said i'm changing the channel i was like fuck that you're going to fight me he's like you're a freshman i'm a senior i get to pick the channel and i remember at first i was like no i don't like this at all like i'm a person you're a person we both learn in this live in this building and slept down at 24 hours

I was like you know what he's right he's been here like I will give seniority to people and I also like receiving seniority and it's a little bit like if someone walks in and they sign up for like CrossFit tomorrow and so they're the new member at the gym you can go with the Vivek argument of well we're both members of the gym

but if there's someone who's actually been there 10 years won championships and he's there are they really on the same page because technically I'm an autist and they're both members at the gym no that guy's more CrossFit than other guy is. Well, look, that's right. That's right. And look, there's, look, obviously America as a country, a big part of it is like the idea, the idea of America, the values and the

declaration of independence and the Bill of Rights of the Constitution. And I also, like, I don't think it's at all a coincidence that the Declaration of Independence is the founding document of this country and this country is the most successful country in the history of the world. That is not a coincidence, man. And like, and look, I mean, it's funny because what radical like libertarianism has really never been the founding document of a country aside from the United States of America. And if you read the Declaration of Independence, it really is just a radical libertarian document. I mean, it's, it's almost like an anarcho-capitalist document. I mean, Maybe not quite, but like they essentially say, right, was the first sentence of the deck,

or the first three sentences of the Declaration of Independence. It basically just says, God believes that man should be free. That is self-evident. And governments are just something that man creates to protect our rights. And if they're not protecting our rights and they're trampling on them, then we have every right and maybe even a duty to overthrow them and install a new government. That being said, look, if you just took the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and you instituted it in Haiti tomorrow, you said this is now the law of the land in Haiti, is the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights of the Constitution, is Haiti now America? No, because there's also more to it than just that, right?

like it's just that simple America is also a geographic place it's a specific plot of land it's a specific people it has a tradition and a culture and like there's there's a lot to all of this and so look like I understand the spirit of saying like hey once you're an American citizen you're one of us I think legally that's how it should work I also get your point Rob of like look are you going to say if somebody's family came over here on the Mayflower and then someone showed up from India yesterday and is taking a citizen step like is one more American than the other well kind of like I'm not saying in like the legal sense they should be but like yes in a very real sense that person is kind of more American I don't know and it's it's just it doesn't sound right

coming from a new arrival to say like no screw that that guy's no more American I don't know and I also don't think it's a winning message I don't think there's an appetite for that right now If I went to Japan tomorrow and I became a citizen of Japan and I said I was just as Japanese as you are, I'm retarded. Yeah, well, that's right. That's right. And so it does. And to your point, there is something with that seniority thing there. You know, I remember having this conversation.

We could wrap on this. But I remember talking about this with a young comedian at the time. And I mean, she's been, she still does comedy. She's doing good now. But like it was like when she was first starting up, but she was complaining to me about Rebecca Trent, who owns the. creek in the cave. It used to be in Long Island City. It's now out in Austin, Texas, and she's an owner of Skankfest, dear friend of mine. And she was complaining about how she's just never, she's not in with her. And she doesn't help her with anything. And I was like trying to explain

this to her where I was like, look, I understand how you feel. And believe it or not, I used to feel the same way about Rebecca Trent, because I wasn't in with her. And she didn't help me with stuff when I really could use it. And then I got in with her. And then, I mean, literally, at this point. Rebecca would walk into traffic for me. She's like, and I would do the same for her. I love her. And I was just trying to explain to her. I was like, look, I understand it's hard when you're not in because then you're out. But if you work to get in, by the time you get in, you'll realize that somebody has to be out. Otherwise, there is no in. You know, like, it's like if there is, look, Rebecca's got the creek in the cave. She's got 300 open mic or comedians.

She can't help everybody all the time. There's got to be, like, you almost have to put up fences because otherwise none of us can have nice shit. And I've noticed this the same just in my life. Like, you know, like you send your kids to like a real nice private school and they get this great little education. And then in some ways you'll kind of feel guilty because you're like, well, every kid deserves this, man.

They shouldn't be like a fence around this where only my kids get this and like the kids whose parents don't have as much, can't afford to do it. That sucks. But the thing is, what can I do? Tear down the fence? Because the result of that is just, now none of our kids get this. It doesn't bring everybody in. You have to have an in-group and an out-group, at least to some degree.

Anyway, that'll be my final thought for there. Come see me and Robbie the Fire on the road in 2006, comic dave-Smith.com. We got Philly and Portland, Oregon coming up real soon. Bunch more after that. Oh, yes. and we will not be doing the members-only episode tomorrow. We're taking off for Christmas Day. We'll do it on Friday instead,

and we'll do a double episode to make up for the one that we missed last week when I was sick with the flu. So check us out there. Anything else you want to plug, Robb? Check out Porching, Rob of the Fire, all on we're plugging into YouTube and go give that a watch. That's it. Hell yeah.

Merry Christmas, everybody. Catch you next time. Peace. You know,