Part Of The Problem - The Stupidity of Karoline Leavitt

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

Dave Smith brings you the latest in politics! On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave and Robbie "the fire" Bernstein discuss Karoline Leavitt's controversial comments about young people... not working hard enough, Zohran Mamdani's speech on the 4th of July, and more.Support Our Sponsors:Quince - Get free shipping on your Quince order and 365-day returns athttps://www.quince.com/POTPShopify: Every self-made person started somewhere. Yours starts free at https://www.shopify.com/potpSuperpower - Head to Superpower.com and use code PROBLEM at checkout for $20 off your membership. Unlock your new health intelligence. 100+ biomarkers. Every year. Detect early signs of 1,000+ conditions. #superpowerpodIndaCloud - If you’re 21 or older, get 40% OFF your first order + free shipping @IndaCloud with code [PROBLEM] at https://inda.shop/PROBLEM! #indacloudpodPart 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#libertarian See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:07 snaps. What's up everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem. I'm Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire, Bernstein. How are you feeling today, my friend? I'm doing well. Refreshed from being off yesterday, a full Fourth of July weekend. Had a nice time. So, good to go. Oh, yeah, happy Fourth. That's right. I think we haven't, we haven't spoke since our fair country turned 250 years old. I hope everybody out there had a good, a good fourth of July. Always, always a nice time. It was hot. We got some hot. We got some hot. weather over here on the East Coast. Where were you? Rob, were you here? Were you, uh, I was up in Newport, Rhode Island and, uh, it was rather hot, but I got real lucky because I'm never, I'm never
Starting point is 00:00:47 gonna get off my ass and go to fireworks. It's just, uh, too annoying of an ordeal. And I don't like ordeal. It's for, it's for children. Yes. It's for taking your children. For, for an adult, the firework is like, I mean, you, you know, you watch one or two. It might be nice, but would you actually, you actually want to go somewhere to sit there and watch the whole five. Fireworks show and come down a blanket, deal with the parking getting in and out, a port of potty. The whole thing, I'm not doing any of it. Yeah. So this might be the first time in 25 years.
Starting point is 00:01:16 I got lucky the place I was staying like boarded onto a park. And then they do in Newport, the fireworks over the water. And I got to just walk outside of the rental unit I was in and be right there. But let me tell you, there's something really spectacular that I've not experienced in a long time, which is everyone gathering for something stupid. Like it was, it was like nice to see the crowds of people like getting in, everyone taking their seed, having a beer in hand. I'm like, this is beautiful. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:01:44 Well, there is something nice about it. And there is a weird, you know, I thought, I guess I didn't. I was on Pierce Morgan the other day. And I didn't, it ended up just being one of those episodes where I, it wasn't that great of one in my opinion. But that happened sometimes. Never going to all be great. But it's just like, I don't know, I just didn't really love the topics. and I don't know.
Starting point is 00:02:05 But I mean, it was fine. I got a couple of good rants out. But the day before I was on, they had out, or maybe a couple days before, the big viral moment was Brianna, what's her name, Brianna Joy Gray, who's like a, you know, she's, she's, host a bad faith podcast. She's like an anti-war leftist type. And so she was, Pierce is asking her. Like on this 4th of July, are you proud to be an American?
Starting point is 00:02:36 And she was like, well, yeah, I mean, I'm proud of all the good stuff America's done, but I'm not proud of all the bad stuff America's done, which like I thought was like a reasonable enough answer. You know, it's like kind of, yeah, I don't know. But then they all, of course, the other dubs on the panel are like, you'd be proud to be an American. And it's just such a funny. Anyway, I was prepared for them to like ask me about that because 250 was one of the topics, but it never really came up. and I was on with the guy, Ben Ferguson, who was the guy who me and him had the viral back and
Starting point is 00:03:08 forth where I said, you know, the U.S. military is the biggest terrorist organization or whatever. So I thought maybe that was going to come up. But anyway, I guess it didn't. But I thought of it as you're saying it, that it's very, you know, Frederick Bosteat wrote in his masterpiece, the law back in 1850, he wrote that the fundamental problem, or maybe not the fundamental, but a major problem that socialists make is the conflation between society and the state. You know, like just acting as if we are the people, we are the ones, as if there's a, but obviously that's really stupid. It's not true. Like fucking Donald Trump in Congress aren't
Starting point is 00:03:45 what you're talking about when you're talking about watching people gathering for fireworks. And there is something where, and maybe it's just the time I grew up in the 80s and 90s. however much I hate our government because that's what patriots do. I do love Americana. Like, say like 80s, 90s, Americana.
Starting point is 00:04:07 I do just love that. As stupid as like, no, I wouldn't go to fireworks by myself if I didn't have kids at this point. But like there is something about like the Fourth of July is like when you eat a hot dog and crack a beer and there's fireworks and all that. That is just beautiful. I don't know. I love it.
Starting point is 00:04:25 So anyway. Okay. Hey, we should, before we start getting into some stuff, we should let you know that we will be out in Houston, Texas, this weekend, or Thursday, too, as well. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, this weekend, we'll be out at the punchline in Houston, Texas. So come on out and see us there, Comic Dave Smith, to grab those tickets. But come see me and Rob, do some stand-up comedies for you. And I think we got some friends that are going to be coming out, Rob. So this should be a fun time. Um, that sounds like a good tease.
Starting point is 00:04:56 Uh, I think, uh, well, no, people, some people, people would know Scott Horton, I think is coming out. I think Stefan Kinsella, uh, is coming out. And I think there are a couple other people who are going to be there. That's insulting if you're one of those people, but it's not your fault. I'm just old. I'm just old and dumb. Last year was, uh, Tom Woods's posse. He was out, which included Steve.
Starting point is 00:05:15 Tom. Tom. Yeah, but, but Stefan lives there. Whereas Tom was like, he was like going on a. crews that was docking from Houston. So they had a big group. He was there. Adam,
Starting point is 00:05:29 yeah, he was great guy, great guy. He was there because he was going on the cruise with Tom and so. So we just happened to like catch all of them the last time we were in Houston. I think that was at a different club, right? Was that the, no,
Starting point is 00:05:39 that was this spot. That was this spot punch on. Okay, cool. No, you're right. That's right. It was punch. This is our second time.
Starting point is 00:05:46 We did this one. We're going back there. Anyway, very fun time. So come on out. Come back this time. Okay. And I've got a load of porches.
Starting point is 00:05:53 I added Sunday I'm going to be Galveston, Texas, running the FBI entrapment scheme. So even if you're coming out for the Dave shows, different stuff. And then Lebanon, Tennessee, Chickamauga, Atlanta, Sandpoint, and near Seattle. And you can find even more stuff going further down the porch door at porch store. Is that Lebanon, Tennessee? We always announce these names wrong. So something along the lines of Lebanon. But I feel like you should you should call it it's the safe Lebanon.
Starting point is 00:06:19 Yes. One, the not, the one that's not occupied by Jews. Although actually, you know what, let me look into that before I just speak so. You know what? Let me do some deep research before I just say that. Okay, so I wanted to talk a bit about there was this weekend, over 4th of July weekend. There was this video that went viral. I'm sure you saw it, Rob.
Starting point is 00:06:43 I think just about anybody, if you were on social media over the weekend, you would have seen it. this video where Caroline Leavitt really puts her foot in her mouth in an extraordinary way. And I will preface by saying, Rob, you know, there's something about this topic that almost, it's almost like when you watch the video, it feels like, it kind of feels like, I don't know, like a kind of silly, like culture war topic type thing, almost like, oh, whatever. Here's a young girl talking about, don't be so great a, don't be so spoiled, go do this or whatever. But in a weird way, the fact that there's so many actual genuine layers to this clip and why it went so viral that I just found it so fascinating and I wanted to play it on the
Starting point is 00:07:30 podcast. Before we play it, just to this lady's credit, you know, she is coming at it from a place of a person who's working two jobs, which is both defending the president every day, which is not easy and then also being in that old guy. So which is also not easy. Yeah. Which is all, it's debatable which one makes you more of a prostitute. Let's just say that. It is a genuine, like there's a real philosophers could, could bang this one out for months. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:08:03 What really makes you more of a prostitute? Accepting money to shill for a war criminal regime or just, you know, okay, look, I don't, again, I'm not, as, as Rob is alluding to, And as I'm sure a lot of people pointed out, but, you know, and maybe we'll make some of these points after the clip so you guys can see what she's saying. But the reason, part of the reason why I found this to be so interesting, and I think why a lot of people did. Like, I think part of the reason why this went viral is also that it's like, look, it was on the weekend of the 250th anniversary of the country. And this is in many ways kind of the biggest problem in the country right now. You know, there's something about like on the 250th anniversary of the country, we have this major problem where we've like to base the currents.
Starting point is 00:08:54 It's the number one issue across every single poll. It's what every Democrats got running on. It's what every Republican is going to have to run on in the dress. It's the issue that everything is so expensive. Your dollar just can't buy you anything anymore and people can't afford to live regular lives. And then you have the press secretary, the person whose job it is to be the face of the message from, the government to the people. And this is her message. Here, let's play the clip and then we'll comment a little bit more on all this stuff. Here she is.
Starting point is 00:09:26 Thinking to come here right now. Some of these kids, and I call them kids because they're in their 20s. And they've never had real jobs and they're complaining things are expensive. Yes, things are expensive when you don't have a real job. Do you think that's getting traction, complaining? Unfortunately, I do because this generation, my generation, I hate to say it, Gen Z and those younger than me have been raised with just silver spoons in their mouth, just getting everything handed to them. That's not the values this country was built on. It was built on meritocracy and hard work, pulling up your sleeves, pulling yourself up from your bootstraps, and achieving the American dream. And we need to protect it with all we got. Is it laziness? A little bit. Is it because the professor said countries corrupt, it's evil, and we just need to shake them down and hand money out?
Starting point is 00:10:12 It's laziness and it's the liberal indoctrination. You bring up a great point about our. education system. However, I will say a silver lining, so many parents that I talk to across the country are homeschooling, are turning to private education, are turning towards Christian schools across the country because they don't want their children being taught these communist and liberal ideas slam down their throat. That's why President Trump and the White House has advocated so strongly for school choice across the country. Let's just pause that for a second. You know, Rob, if you're worried about these communists and these Marxists, if you're worried about the Mamdani movement sweeping America, I could not think of a worse strategy to embark on. In fact,
Starting point is 00:10:59 if they, if Mamdani could have made a clip right here, I don't think it could have been a better one. I couldn't think of anything that would help them more than to cast the opposition, the face of the opposition, the person whose job it is, is to be the face of this message to have a 28-year-old who married a 60-year-old multi-millionaire telling other people to stop complaining. Like, listen, I'm really not trying to be too judgmental. I don't personally, like, relationships with older men and younger women have existed in many, many different cultures throughout all of human history. I'm not denigrating it.
Starting point is 00:11:40 I don't even know them. You don't know anyone's relationship if you're not in it. Like, whatever. I'm saying, you can marry, if you're 28 and you want to marry a 60-year-old multi-millionaire, you can do that. But you do kind of lose the ability to turn around to other 28-year-olds and go, stop complaining that everything's so expensive. You just do kind of lose that ability.
Starting point is 00:12:02 It's like a chick on only fans going, I don't know what you're talking about. Like, what do you mean? Everything's so expensive. I can afford it. It's like, yeah, that's the whole point. You have to do what you did in order to afford it. That's kind of the point. Okay.
Starting point is 00:12:14 So that is just, if you want to talk about being worried about, you know, these, these, the communist taking over, we'll imagine. So, okay, look, Rob, they're coming out here and telling you everything's so goddamn expensive. And that's why you need socialism. And the counter to that is, nah, it ain't. It ain't if you're a millionaire like us. Stop, stop complaining.
Starting point is 00:12:37 You're just lazy. That's the response. I mean, so before even getting into the substance of that, like, let's take a look at whether this is right or wrong. Rob, just on the politics of it, like you're the press secretary. You thought this was a wise thing to have come out of your mouth? And, and again, I got to say, like, I just can't imagine, like, the lack of, the lack of self-awareness and self-reflection to be a girl in your 20s who's married to, look,
Starting point is 00:13:09 the lack of self-reflection for Jesse Waters to say, hey, no, you guys just don't have a real job yet. When you have a real job, then things aren't so expensive. Like, what do you get? You make $10 million a year to blow the president? You get $10 million a year to go be, I mean, barely educated on any topic you speak on. Like, who are any? And by the way, Rob, again. Like, oh, when you have a real job, then things aren't so expensive.
Starting point is 00:13:45 Bro, making 70K a year is a real job. Making 50K a year is a real job. There are lots of real jobs. Like, I'm just saying, like, would you, is being a teacher or a trucker or an electrician? Is that not a real job? Like, those are all real jobs that at least in the entry level are going to probably start in the mid-60s, you know? maybe lower. Okay, go look at the price of everything today. Are you telling me, like,
Starting point is 00:14:14 this is, so on a fundamental level, this is, this is on the level of Joe Biden telling you that, like, oh, no, the economy is really good. There isn't some major problem with inflation. Like, this is just a lie. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is in the cloud. If you are 21 years of age or older, and you are looking for an online dispensary, We got you covered. Indicloud is a fully legal online cannabis dispensary. They have gummies, exotic flour, premium pre-rolls, zero sugar THC sodas. I didn't even know that was a thing.
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Starting point is 00:15:31 All right, let's get back into the show. Yeah, and on that note, you know, I graduated from college basically at the tail end of the Great Recession and there were no jobs. And I went to live at home and work terrible, terrible menial jobs fall up, pursuing stand-up comedy. And if at that time, someone in government was telling me, hey, you're just not working hard enough. It's like, dude, I just got through college and you guys created a credit asset bubble that has create the worst economic environment that nobody is hiring. Like, in what world is this just, I'm not working hard enough problem? And so for any of the kids out there, I don't know specifically what the
Starting point is 00:16:06 job environment looks like now. I'm assuming that with post-COVID as so many offices turn to like remote work or things are being adapted for AI, I just don't know. I'm not, I'm not 24 anymore, even though my liver likes to pretend like it is, you know, and I still, uh, your liver doesn't you pretend like it is. I don't think your liver is. I don't think your liver is. Yeah. I still partake in life as though I am a 24 or 25 year old, probably to my detriment. Uh, but I'm not, I'm not living the just graduated college lifestyle, but for the kids that have actually worked hard to get through school and are not, and if they're not seeing the job opportunities that they're looking for, and a lot of that will be because of bad government policies from the last 20 years to tell
Starting point is 00:16:50 them, oh, this is America, just go work hard. It's the wrong message. The right message, and you can even lie to them is, hey, our tariff policy is going to bring you a manufacturing job. It won't. Or even better messages, the corruption that has existed in D.C. has gotten in the way of opportunity and that's why our administration is looking to address that but we're fixing it we're fixing it we're fixing the problem blame someone else that's one thing but you know another look another major element here again one of the huge reasons why this clip struck such a nerve in people is that it well look it really does it touches on this generational uh um kind of divide this um This, you know, like when we, if you remember, we were talked a bunch about the breakdown of the Thomas Massey, uh, uh, polling. It was crazy to see the way that thing split over generational divides. And, and historically, that has not like in my lifetime, that was not always the major divide in America, like boomers versus everybody else. It was quite often liberal versus conservative or whatever, you know, city versus rural, white versus black, whatever. It wasn't always this.
Starting point is 00:18:04 And there's something interesting and a big part of that is that now almost everyone in the country, and I don't even think 40 and under, I think maybe like 50 and under, almost everyone consumes their media on the internet. And all the people like 60 and over almost all consume their media on the TV or in the newspaper, maybe mostly on the TV, on the radio. And anyway, there is something where we have. have this dynamic in in america where the uh the boomers are constantly looking down at kind of like they they for a while at the millennials and the zoomers and whatever other generations in there inflation we don't even have golden spoons in our mouth we're down to silver that's right i don't know have you seen those silver prices lately i mean you we might have to have some like uh fiat um spoons
Starting point is 00:18:57 uh but there's you know the the boomers kind of look at these generations and they say oh you you're complaining about how hard it is. You have no idea how hard we had it. You have your avocado toast and your fancy latte and your college cafeteria has 75 different options for entrees and you. And then, you know, the younger people look up at them and go, dude, you have no idea the debt you've left us and how much our money is worth, nothing and how bad the job market is and how we can't afford anything. And in a way, in a way, both of them are telling true stories. There's at least enough true in both of those narratives that there's more than enough for either one who wants to be dug in on their side to grab a couple data points and then
Starting point is 00:19:47 comfortably feel like they have an argument. Because like, hey, there wasn't fucking avocado toast and shit like that around in, you know what I mean? In the 70s or whatever. And there were, well like look on one hand there were tremendous difficulties that boomers went through i think that that a lot of younger people didn't have to go through part of it including how tough uh their parents generation was on them it's a very regular uh story for boomers um which you know like the real i'm not saying this never happens anymore but it's hard to overstate how normalized like say, hitting your kid with an object was in the generation that raised the boomers. Like, ask boomers how many of them got beatens with objects, and like a lot of them did.
Starting point is 00:20:40 That is not true for most younger people outside of certain areas and certain cultures and stuff, but like for the most part, that's not true. Or at least in much, much lower rates. Look, the technological advances that we have, Rob, over boomers are incredible. the medical technological advances are truly incredible. I mean, there's literally things that like, if a boomer got, they would have died that people today can get and fully recover from and live totally normal lives, long list of elements like that.
Starting point is 00:21:12 And then there's all types of like maybe not as life threatening things, but like, my God, Rob, if you got really bad knee problems and you got to get a knee replacement surgery, how much you would rather have that done in 2006 than 1985 is really hard to overstate. And of course, there are, yeah, we got, we got lattes and avocado toast and like all these things that the boomer generation didn't have. But of course, Rob, we know the other side of the story too. And I'm sorry, but this is what I think where people are running up against there is that essentially this is what the young generation has gotten. Okay, fair enough. A lot of that stuff really means something.
Starting point is 00:21:54 And oh, by the way, add into that, Rob, right? ridiculous, like, what's the term I'm looking for? Like consumer luxury goods, you know, the TV that, the TV that you watch and the video game that you play and you have every movie that's ever existed right on your phone, laptop, and TV, you know, all types of like luxury and entertainment that, you know, our grandfathers or fathers' generations certainly never would have, never enjoyed. But what, you know, the bottom line is we talk about quite a lot because I think this is the biggest story in America is that, you know, what my, what the boomer generation could do is get a job
Starting point is 00:22:41 for, you know, you get a blue collar job and make maybe 30 grand a year in the 70s. And you could buy a house for maybe 30 grand a year in the 70s. Now, my father-in-law's story is he was making 30 and bought his first house for 35. It's a truck driver in the 70s. So if you got a job and there were jobs to be found, you could buy a house, send your kids to college, participate in middle class lifestyle. If you were doing a little bit better than he was, maybe you weren't a truck driver, maybe you were a dentist and you were making 60 or 70 grand a year.
Starting point is 00:23:16 Oh, you could buy a couple houses, have a vacation house for your kids and blah, blah. A lot of them, a lot of the working class guys had vacation houses. Today, these kids are coming out saddled in college debt, getting jobs at DoorDash, and the average house is going for 700 grand in the neighborhood they live in. There is no plausible path for many of these young people. There is, like, I mean, like, I'm saying I know people like this where it's like, you know, it's like the young couple in my, in my wife's family, really, really nice people too. And they had like she's like a bookkeeper.
Starting point is 00:23:52 He's a, uh, was an accountant for a while. And then now he's has some other gig. But like they both have regular jobs and they work really hard. And I think they bring in like a hundred grand a year. And the average house are going for like 700 grand around here. And it's like, dude, asking someone to buy, uh, you know, like I'm just saying asking Jesse Waters, Rob is making a hundred grand a year as a household income? Is that a real job?
Starting point is 00:24:16 Does that not count yet? Like, is that a serious grown up? Yeah, these are two people who wake up every single morning and go to work and raise their kid. Okay, having to buy a house that takes seven years your annual income is very, very difficult to get to. It's hard enough just living around here with a kid for a hundred grand a year, yet getting to the point where you could put away enough money to go, you know. Anyway, this, now, if you were to say, Rob, which one is better? Which one is more advantageous? Well, like, look, if you happen to be the person who gets like a life-threatening illness,
Starting point is 00:24:54 yeah, okay, you'd rather be alive today. But for most other people, for most 25, 30-year-old, say, if they're just starting out, getting married, starting a family, what's really more important, you know? Hey, you get Netflix, but your dad got to own a house. I don't know. I mean, I think most people would err on the side of like, oh, no, being able to support a family is actually more important than the cheap, you know, consumer goods.
Starting point is 00:25:23 And not just cheap consumer goods, I shouldn't say, but like than the luxury, the luxury goods. And then at the end of it, I would essentially say, Rob, that what we have going on here, right, and I'm curious to have your thoughts on this, but essentially what you have going on here, right, is you have what the market has done and what the government has done. You know, yeah, the market has made things better and better and improved life. And we benefit from a lot of those improvements. but the government has destroyed our currency, plus totally overtaxed and overregulated our economy
Starting point is 00:25:52 and made everything so expensive. And that's that. The major problem we have is that everything's too expensive. And what makes that expensive? Debasing your currency and over-regulating those sectors. I think that's a fair scoop. The things left of the free market technology has developed and become cheaper, and so you can enjoy those things.
Starting point is 00:26:11 But exactly right, the sector is where government has just completely messed up the money. and driven to inflation, given free capital to people who already have money, have driven up all the expenses for you. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is superpower. I don't know about you, but I've many times gone to the doctor and kind of felt like nothing really happened. They didn't really do anything for me. I feel like I got nothing out of it. They just kind of say you're fine.
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Starting point is 00:27:49 Superpower doesn't just give you a one-time snapshot. It tracks your results over a lifetime. So each test builds on the last one. You can actually see your progress year after year instead of starting over every January. It's really pretty incredible. This is the future of being healthy. You can do this all if you head over to Superpower.com and use the promo code problem for $20 off your membership. that's superpower.com promo code problem for $20 off your membership. All right. Let's get back into the show. No, that's right. And look, I mean, again, a lot of this stuff is just kind of like basic economics
Starting point is 00:28:24 that is sorely missing from the world these days. But like, it kind of is one of those rules of God in a way, if you think the laws of logic, the laws of economics, that like if you make something more expensive to produce, it will be more expensive to consume, all things considered, or all things being equal or whatever. And I should say, let me just correct very good. Like, technically, if you want to, the economic law would be, if you make something more expensive to produce, it will cost more than it otherwise would.
Starting point is 00:29:03 And there's a lot of, I would call it secret tax on the youth. And just two examples that come to mind is first and foremost, I don't really expect to receive social security or that if I do receive social security upon retirement, that it's going to be all that valuable. And so, you know, we're all basically just paying in for these boomers who have already siphoned all of the money out of the economy by way of purchasing these assets and having them go up in value. but then also health care. Dude, my health care is basically up there and cost with my rent. It's, you know, I mean, it's about 75% of what my rent is.
Starting point is 00:29:41 It's my second biggest expense. It's nearly unusable in that I have a 12, or what is it, a $10,000 year, whatever the highest deductible is. And I don't need to use, luckily, I'm healthy, but that means anytime I actually am seeing the doctor, I'm paying towards the deductible. There hasn't been a single year
Starting point is 00:29:58 that I've come anywhere close to that deductible. So I'm basically paying, you know, let's say, I don't know, it's much. You're paying. I'm both paying the insurance rate and then anytime I decide I would like to get healthcare, I'm not paying it out of market. It's hard to overstate how much better off you would have been with just the disaster care that was available before Obamacare than this. Because essentially all you got, which is a really good point because this is millions of people have been put into this. All you got was really
Starting point is 00:30:26 expensive disaster care, essentially. So you're getting, you're basically using it as disaster care. I have to keep this insurance because if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I can't have my entire life ruined. You know, like, if you, if I break two legs and an arm, I can't have my entire life ruined because now I owe $300,000 to these people. So I got to pay this ridiculous fee. It's almost like getting shaken down by a loan shark or something. Like what a racket it is. And that's a tax on me and that they re-orchestrated health care to force healthy individuals into these plans to basically offset the cost of getting rid of pre-existing conditions and getting everyone into Obamacare and all the rackets of why that didn't work and created more profits for the actual insurance
Starting point is 00:31:08 companies. But the point I'm just making is we've kind of had a long run here. If the boomers doing a good job of, you know, retiring with the, if you were like a, dude, if you were a New York City public school teacher and you're now like in your, let's just say you're 90 or still alive and you're on that premium pension plan, these guys got all of the better stuff. And they were just created the economy that way. They lived through the greatest wealth expansion ever, which is essentially praise Greenspan, seeing those articles, which is hilarious of what a great job Greenspan did for the economy, not like it just created a rational exuberance, his own term, and then also led to completely
Starting point is 00:31:47 just bubbles popping. But the point is to look at young kids, just to look at young kids and to tell them it's your fault is the wrong political message because why in large they went to school they're trying to pursue jobs and they're not really living in a favorable environment for owning a home and raising a family no that's that's right and right because it's like look what you've handed them and and of course the biggest one and you're absolutely right i mean that the obamacare is a really really important one to point to but the biggest one by far has just been the debasement of the currency I mean, like, this is the bottom line, is that like, hey, no, boomers, you, look, again,
Starting point is 00:32:26 I'm not holding any one person responsible or any one generation responsible. But if you're having this argument, it's like you guys, through your elected representatives or whatever, the whole nonsense that you bought into that were conspiracy theorists for not, but through your elected representatives, you know, enacted these policies. You erected this government. And I'm talking about, well, look, I mean, even starting in the great society, even starting in, which, okay, maybe we want to say you don't like put fully the blame on boomers or something like that. But the fact is that the Medicare and the Social Security that you're now extracting plus the wars that you're now supporting. And I try to keep this in mind here, right?
Starting point is 00:33:11 Think about this for a second. the overwhelmingly the by far i mean rob if you look at this on a pie chart which i know you have before if you were to take the entitlement programs and the military budget this is an enormous part of the budget right like these are the biggest at this point it's the entitlements the military and the interest on the debt are like i think like 90% of the budget or something like that if you look at it on a pie chart it's like those things and then a sliver for everything else boomers are receiving Medicare. Boomers are receiving Social Security and boomers are the only demographic that support
Starting point is 00:33:49 the wars, Rob. Right? Like you're almost like you're on the hook for kind of in some way for all of this. It's all you. And we cannot even come close to afford this. It's the federal budget, Rob, this year, we're on track. The projections are that we're going to spend $7.5 trillion. The boomers have been the one that now they're the ones who support. these programs. They're the ones who support the entitlement programs. They're the ones who receive the entitlement programs. They're the ones who support the war and support ever-growing military budgets. Okay. We do not bring in nearly enough money to cover this and have not written nearly enough money to cover this for decades, right? So the boomers are not paying nearly
Starting point is 00:34:34 enough in taxes for this, but they want it. And so they saddled us with $40 trillion in debt for this government that we can't afford. And then the 40 trillion wasn't nearly, nearly, nearly enough. And so we've just what, like what we're living in now. And of course, this is why Rob, it's so goddamn infuriating when you hear J.D. Vance talk about how we're Hamiltonians, not Friedmanites. Like, it's like, do these people even know that Milton Friedman endorsed every aspect of the state that Hamilton did? But to sit here at the end, Rob, what are we at here? The end, of, let's go from 2008. How long has it been since 2008? This is 18 years, right? So since 2008, Rob, we have 18 years. We have had what is one of the things that characterizes
Starting point is 00:35:28 the last two decades. Oh, more money has been printed than at any other time in human history. If you're aware of monetary policy, like what's gone on over the last 18 years? Okay. We had quantitative of one, two, three, four, infinity, and then you had the 2020 spending, which dwarfed all of that. Now, if you remember, Rob, at the time of like QE, whatever it was when they just extended, remember QE infinity when they just like extended it, at the time of there, that was already the biggest money printing, uh, binge of all time. And then 2020 dwarfed that. Like, you know, have you seen those charts, Rob? I mean, it's, there's different ways to look at, like, you look at like the M2 charts or whatever. If you, if you stop it at like 2019,
Starting point is 00:36:10 it's like these huge spikes for QA. But if you take it to like 20, the spike from 20 to 2020. You don't even see big spikes in the other ones anymore because it dwarfs it by so much. And it depends on like how you measure these things, like whether you look at the Fed balance sheet and you'd say like, okay, it was like 800 and something billion in 2007 and it's $9 trillion now. Or if you look at like the M2 supply or whatever it is,
Starting point is 00:36:39 You know, if you look at, God, I might be getting this wrong, but if you look at M1 or M2 or anything, I mean, the numbers just jump like trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars. They increase the money supply, I remember, by by one of the metrics. I think it's M2. Between 2020 and 2020 by 40%. That's the, I think that's the money in circulation went up by 20%. I mean, 40%, excuse me. So you finish the two decades of printing the most money of all time.
Starting point is 00:37:15 And then at the end of that, we decide it's Ron Paul's fault that things are so expensive. At the end of it, we decide, I guess it's those free market economy. They're the reason why everything's so. But anyway, so this is what the boomers handed us. It's like you guys supported these government programs that you couldn't afford. You didn't want to foot the bill. And so you borrowed $40 trillion and printed. did trillions more and then left these young people in a position where they can't afford
Starting point is 00:37:44 anything and they got to foot the bill. And there's no need to do that. Like we, as I've said so many times before on the show, if you imagine, like if you are a young person, let's say, I don't know, if you make 50 grand a year and you just have a job in your in your maybe late 20s or something like that, you absolutely should be able to go buy a house. I shouldn't be able to go buy a mansion, but you should be able to go buy a little house. And like the fact that you can't, that was stolen from you. That was, we didn't need to have giant entitlement programs. And we didn't need to spend $20 trillion on war since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Starting point is 00:38:29 But, you know, there was just absolutely no need to do any of that, except the boomers, you know, they supported it. So. And on that note, I think you rigged the game enough and you get more of a kind of a natural opt-out, which is kind of the spirituality of capitalism, which is if it rewards hard work and it's easy to save and you're motivated, hey, if I save my money is going to be worth down the line, you do more of that and you make better decisions. But you save money and you didn't put it in the stock market because you didn't like risk and now just your money's worth a whole lot less and you're looking at saving towards a bigger expense like a house and you're like, that doesn't even look possible. Yeah, of course you're making stupid decisions with your money. So they're like, I might as well enjoy it while this is here. Oh, absolutely.
Starting point is 00:39:15 No, look, there's no question about that, right? That's a very, very important point. That, like, there is, things can become so in, is there a term for this in economics that I should know? But like, things can become so insurmountable that it kind of kills the incentive to even do the right thing anymore. You know? Like, it's like, I don't know. If you're, if there's a big wave coming at you on a beach, you might run. But like, if it's a tidal wave and you're right there, it might be like, dude, there's not even a point.
Starting point is 00:39:49 You know, like, in a certain point, it's like, if you're like overwhelmingly in debt and you're like, and you got an extra hundred bucks, it's like, you really should put that toward your $500,000 in debt. And you're like, dude, I'm going to spend it because I need one goddamn moment of, you know what I mean? And it's not like, whereas if you have $3,000 in debt and someone's like, put that hundred bucks toward the three, that come on, man. Like, you could pay this thing off in a little bit. Like, it's just much easier to like motivate people to do that. So, yeah, I absolutely think that's true. But anyway, you know, again, the major point here, or I guess one of the major points,
Starting point is 00:40:24 is just that this chick is the face of the administration. And in this moment where the administration is as weakened as it's ever been and Democratic socialism is on the rise, this is the message they've got. This will not work. Like, you know, I want to play this mom-dani clip in a second because this is, I will say in some ways, I underestimated this mom-dani a little bit. He, I think he's better at this than I realized he was. And he's certainly ascendant right now in the Democratic Party. Obviously, look, Rob, he wasn't born here, right? So he's not going to run for president. unless that gets changed.
Starting point is 00:41:05 But there is something where he's a force. He's ascendant. And I think there's something very dangerous about what he represents. But my God, man, the way people are dealing with him, Rob, it's like essentially, I'm going to say he's a dirka, dirka, dirka terrorist and socialism. And that's it. And oh, you're just being lazy. Like the, and I say this man, like I'm pleading with anybody who's not a socialist here,
Starting point is 00:41:32 who wishes to resist the rise in socialism, okay? Let me just try to explain this. There is no way that just calling him a communist or calling him a terrorist sympathizer or calling him an anti-Semite that will not work. I can promise you that. It won't work because it's stupid and it doesn't appeal to anybody.
Starting point is 00:41:57 First off, communist doesn't mean anything to anybody his audience is young people and they're people who obviously aren't afraid by that. He calls himself a Democratic socialist. So like how scary is the label? Two, he's never really in any way indicated that he's a jihadist. You just made that all up. Like, I don't know. It's just it's like, they're like, well, he's a Muslim guy.
Starting point is 00:42:20 And there's a picture of him at a mosque with the Muslim guy who's like a real radical Muslim. And you're like, yeah, well, that's where you find them at mosques. So I don't know. You have nothing here. And then, by the way, the fact that he doesn't support your fucking genocidal campaigns is a bonus in his. That's a win in his column for the record. That's not helping you. What you have to do, the only way to do this right now, right?
Starting point is 00:42:46 In this populist moment, Rob, where the establishment is so corrupt. And they, by the way, call themselves capitalism. And he's calling himself socialism. you can't sit here and say, he's a revolutionary who wants to overthrow this status quo. I'm for the status quo. Because fuck the status quo. Everyone's against that.
Starting point is 00:43:08 That is why Trump won. That's why he's in there. That's why this Caroline Levitt chick is in the position to say what she's saying because no one wants to defend the status quo. Why should we? But the point is that the status quo is the biggest government in human history. The status quo is the biggest money printing scheme in history. The status quo is central planning and central banking.
Starting point is 00:43:31 And that's the only way to win this argument is to explain to them that we're doing socialism right now. Because anything else is just not going to tackle the energy that they have. You have to explain to them that we currently have a system that's rigged toward the rich and rigged toward the boomers. And that that's what they, you know what I'm saying? Otherwise, if you're just hitting him with this like you're a jihadist thing, I don't know. It's just got no chance of landing. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Quince. It is summertime. One of the things you need during summer is good, comfortable, go anywhere, clothing.
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Starting point is 00:44:54 wardrobe easier by going to quince.com slash p oTP for free shipping on your orders and 365 day returns now available in canada too quince.com slash p o tp that's q you i ncee dot com slash p o tp for free shipping and 365 day returns all right let's get back on the show well let's roll a clip um here let's go to mom dani now this is this is mom dani on uh um on the four of July. Nearly a decade ago, I too felt what you feel, the joy of no longer being just a New Yorker, but an American too. You each hold a special power, the power to determine what America means. The powerful have always known their answer. America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal. America, if you ask them,
Starting point is 00:45:51 becomes less the more people it welcomes. America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit. How small they are, how weak, how unoriginal. At every moment in our past,
Starting point is 00:46:11 those who led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power and enrich themselves by turning us against one another. Division is the oldest trick in politics and the cheapest. But time and again, including 250 years ago, those forces of division have been vanquished by the forces of progress. As Thomas Payne once wrote, this new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty. Hither have they fled.
Starting point is 00:46:40 And yet today, too many of our leaders do not believe in a vision. You know what my favorite Thomas Payne quote was, Rob? he said, government is at its best a necessary evil. You know, there's something there's something funny about the Democratic Socialists now
Starting point is 00:47:03 dressing up in like American language. Like, there's something about like literally like you're quoting Thomas Payne? Like Thomas Payne literally said, literally that's his quote, that government at best is a necessary evil, meaning like, I might be an anarchist.
Starting point is 00:47:22 Like, at its absolute best, you can convince me that this is evil, but man, we just have to have this thing. Not that, like, it should start getting in the business of groceries or something like that. You know, this is what everyone does is they try and pretend like they're a libertarian and that they're pro-freedom. This is kind of the lane in politics is everyone dresses themselves up as us to lie to you for their basically government power and control. I know. If we're so wrong, why do you all have to pretend to be us?
Starting point is 00:47:54 But in this instance, you know, he's using all of like these American ideas for inclusion and extending it to people that are not in the country. And I think what's, you know, potentially great about Momdani is that to the extent that he tries to institute his socialist policies and sticks around long enough unless he can control the media, which is what you need to pretend like all of your policies having created rationing or other disasters, we will all get a front row ticket to the disaster of what he actually successfully implements. And in this case where he's trying to basically say, everyone in the entire universe should have a right to be an American, how's that going to play out?
Starting point is 00:48:34 Go institute that policy. You want to have all the socialism that we have in this country and all the free stuff that we have and just invite everyone for that. And you think that the general public is, you think, A, that's going to work out. And that B, that the general. general public's going to like that. So, you know, you just got to listen to his message a little bit here. He's not talking about, hey, you know, the powers against all of us Americans and they're the bad guys, but us working together, we don't need to be divided. He's talking about that in reference to also illegal immigrants coming into the country, which is bat shit crazy. Now, he's doing it, he's doing it like in a pretty slick way where he's kind of painting a picture like he's talking about me and
Starting point is 00:49:13 my, you know, my Mexican neighbors that live in my shitty apartment building. But that's not really what he's talking about. Well, let's just say, to be clear here, this is, it's very, it's Obama-esque what he's doing. Like, it's all sloganeering and it's very empty on any actual substance. And he's not talking about a policy. And for the record, I hate that. I just, I wish if we lived in a grown-up, serious world, politicians, even in these moments, it's like, I, like, what did I?
Starting point is 00:49:43 just tune into Oprah or am I listening to the mayor? You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't need to hear this thing about a story about who we are as a people. Like, what are you planning on doing about this pothole and what are you planning on doing? Like, I think politicians should speak about policy. But you're right. He's now, look, one of the things that's interesting in this is that he's now, this is a national speech, right? Like, this is going super viral.
Starting point is 00:50:10 This is him. It's not just him to. And you see that. in the way they're dressing up in the American flag and in the American story, because they're presenting this in a way that, look, Rob, there's a different way you've got to present this message. If you want to appeal in Park Slope, maybe that's not the, if you want to appeal to Williamsburg or something like that, then if you want to appeal to, you know, Kansas City, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:50:31 You just got to present it a little bit different. And so there's like, they're presenting it in this way. He's not really saying anything of substance, but yes, Rob, there's signaling in there. There's signaling that like the problem is always exclusion. And the problem is always that those who think that if you look different or sound different, that therefore you can't be American. And hey, look, there's a, there's a claim that he's making here implicit in the speech that, hey, even though I just became an American five minutes ago,
Starting point is 00:51:01 I still get to say we should change this whole thing because I'm as American as everybody else. And anybody who's trying to exclude me from that as being the bad guy, you do wonder to some degree with these democratic socialists, well, like, where, I mean, because the whole thing is so incoherent, but you go like, well, wait a minute, if you're really saying that exclusion is wrong, what's the limiting principle on that? Like, can nobody be excluded? Does the whole world have a right to come here? And if we're now saying that the whole world has a right to come here, that this is not a national socialist project a la Bernie Suss. Sanders, that this is a global socialist project. Well, why then is this, would this only apply to your policy in terms of the movement of people? So in other words, why don't we just take this redistribution thing that you believe in international? And in fact, this is a real argument that the Democratic Socialist never really ever response to. It was one of the ones in Keith Knight's great video that he put out the other day. But like, I, I,
Starting point is 00:52:09 I don't know. Why shouldn't we? Look, China is a huge economy, Rob. China has, you know, like, I think it's the biggest, the biggest economy in the world in terms of, like, pure. And then, I think, maybe we're still ahead of them in terms of like per capita. But China's a rich country. Haiti is a poor country. Rob, you explain to me why we shouldn't be taxed in China and send them their stuff to Haiti. Why shouldn't we go be confiscating? a bunch of Chinese stuff and sending it over to Haiti. Why should, like, like, what, how far are you willing to extend this experiment that this all just applies to the world?
Starting point is 00:52:49 Because Rob, again, like you're saying here, you're saying you want socialism and open borders. Just think about that combination for a second. So it, you are entitled, it is your right, as they would say. You are entitled to like health care and housing and education and this and also everyone's allowed to come. How long you think that model lasts for? The borders are open to the world, and also as soon as you get here, you get put on the dole. It's almost like they don't think these things through.
Starting point is 00:53:19 Here, let's keep lying. Vision of this nation as an asylum for the persecuted, but rather as one that persecutes those seeking asylum. As we mark 250 years, what do we see? We see a city of contradictions within a nation of contradictions. We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world, one where children go to sleep hungry, while the world's first trillionaire hungers for more. We see monopolies dominate every industry. That is not a contradiction. You know, feel however you feel about it.
Starting point is 00:54:01 Objectively speaking, it's not a contradiction. It's not a contradiction to say some people have so little and some people have so much. I don't know what that, you know, like I don't know what he means to be saying. by maybe he means to be saying two things that shouldn't both exist, but that's different than a contradiction. Like just for example, like a contradiction would be where we're a nation of, of so many billionaires and we're a nation where no billionaires exist. That's a contradiction.
Starting point is 00:54:31 Contradict the last thing you said. This is not a contradiction. I don't know. I just hate this stuff. But it's a, I also do, I got to say, by the way, this is, I should say this just because I've mentioned it a second ago. And so why not be controversial and get myself in trouble? But I do think there's something that's like bad form about such a new citizen now lecturing how the nation is a a nation of contradicting. You know what I mean? And then like not even knowing what a contradiction is,
Starting point is 00:55:00 there is something that really rubs me the wrong way about all of that. But like it is not the idea that look one of the reasons why this is infuriating I guess maybe there's two things number one um well it's not a contradiction that there would be some people with a lot and other people with less also it does not in any way imply that the somebody having a lot has made the person who has less worse off that's a fixed pie fallacy it's a logical fallacy um and then I guess in addition to that, it's just like, Rob, like imagine this is one of the things we're like we're socialists because they don't understand economics. So they never think about it like this.
Starting point is 00:55:51 And they'll ask questions like, why do we have poverty? Which is a really silly question when you think about it. And a much more interesting question is why do we have wealth? Because why do we have poverty as easy? It's like, because that's what we're born into. that's the state of nature. The state of nature is poverty. Starting from scratch is when you have poverty.
Starting point is 00:56:11 And then you have to build wealth, little by little by little. Like literally, everything had to be built. It had to be made. Every building you see was built. Everything you see was made, machinery. And all this stuff has to be created. And so when you start creating, some people are going to have more. And so essentially, as soon as you start with economic creation,
Starting point is 00:56:34 you create a situation where some people have, but you haven't pulled everyone out of poverty yet, now have you, Rob? And so I can look at that and go, look at the contradiction. Some people have and other people don't. And you're like, yeah, it's called working. It's called we're working.
Starting point is 00:56:48 Now, obviously, there's a million ways, if you could just bring this back like a couple seconds, there's a million ways that people, wealth is being extracted from groups and people are being screwed over, but like get to that. Just demonstrating that one guy's successful while somebody else is not, proves nothing.
Starting point is 00:57:06 Yeah. I hate the demonization of wealth. I'm very into the demonization of grift. If you want to get up there and explain to me that Elon Musk is actually a defense contractor and here's the grip. That's how he earned his wealth. I'm all ears. But I can't stand the demonization of wealth in that like, let's just, you know,
Starting point is 00:57:25 there was this Matt Damon movie, which wasn't particularly good, where there's like this secondary planet that has these health machines and people could just get into the health machine. and be magically healthy. But let's just go with that. Let's say tomorrow someone invented the AI health machine that you can get into it. It can scan your whole body, tell you what's wrong with it
Starting point is 00:57:42 and fix it on the spot. And that guy became a trillionaire. You're going to tell me that that's bad. The guy who figured out how we can all be healthier and provide it something of value. And I'm taking an extreme example. Yeah. Yes.
Starting point is 00:57:56 No, you're absolutely right, dude. I'm sorry. I don't mean to cut you up. But it's such a good point. The idea that like, look, Keith Knight used is the example in one of his points on that great video he made the other day, that he said, just using the example of Jeff Bezos, by the way, so I'm not a big fan of.
Starting point is 00:58:14 He goes, Jeff Bezos has gotten the books in the hands of more kids than, you know what I mean? Like, oh, if a public government program had done that, they would never stop bragging about it. Walmart has slashed the price on food and clothing for the poorest communities in this country by 40. percent, 30 percent, huge no, never get any credit for it at all. So like, I'm not saying, obviously, we live in a very rigged system. The entire system is rigged on behalf of the powerful. That being
Starting point is 00:58:46 said, the idea that like anyone that, right, that wealth creation is inherently bad is so ass backward. It's like, it's like on the level of, let's say like during like COVID, when we were real upset that we thought they were given the COVID vax to a whole bunch of people who shouldn't have gotten it. And then we were to go, that's why you don't do medicine. Wait, wait, hold on, dude. No, no, no, no, no, no. You cannot throw this entire thing out because medicine saves so many people's lives who really need it.
Starting point is 00:59:16 So like, no, you can't throw all of that out. And that's all that it. Throwing out the wealth, it's throwing out all business, all wealth creation, all every. It's, it's utter nonsense. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Shopify. Have you been sitting on a business idea, but you're not quite sure how to start? will look no further than Shopify. They take away all the guesswork,
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Starting point is 01:00:22 Here, let's continue playing. There's trillionaire hungers for more. We see monopolies that dominate every industry and all. who buy elections. Okay. We see mass agents terrorizing. Again, I'm sorry. We see monopolies that dominate all industries.
Starting point is 01:00:44 Can I get some examples on that, bro? And isn't it funny, Rob, to ever? Isn't it so funny? I mean, again, just the ultimate contradiction, that a Democratic socialist talking about monopolies as they advocate for the government to do everything. Like, the government isn't only the biggest monopoly. It's the only true monopoly.
Starting point is 01:01:10 And to the extent that any company is anywhere close to being a monopoly, I guarantee you they're in bed with the government. And but again, like, you go, oh, we have this problem where there's monopolies everywhere. And that's why we'll have the government take it over. Like, it's so funny even thinking about Rob, just like in theory, like, so you're saying a monopoly is bad. And like, why would a monopoly be bad? A monopoly would be bad because, well, they're the sole provider of a good or a service.
Starting point is 01:01:40 And as the theory goes, well, if they're the sole provider of a good or a service, then they got a really, they got a lot of leverage over you, right? If you want that good or service, they could ask for whatever they want or whatever. And like, there's some truth to that in that, yeah, competition will lower prices. And if one person has a huge percentage of the share or let's just say you invent a new product. So now, in a sense, you have a monopoly on it, at least for a little bit, right? Okay, maybe that's bad. Maybe I have a product you want, and I'm asking for way more than you're willing to pay.
Starting point is 01:02:13 Now, you can't actually find me any examples in history of people really creating long-lasting monopolies in history, like literally none. You can't find any. All the robber barons of the 20th century, all the, you know, anyone you want to look at, they all lowered prices. None of them raised prices. You can't find examples of this happening. but if you're going to say that that's really bad, like, okay, I would ask for a lot of money because I'm the only one who has a certain product.
Starting point is 01:02:40 What about I would put a gun to your head and force you to pay me money for a product you don't even want? How is that not worse? How is that not a worse monopoly? A monopoly on the initiation of violence. Like, this is the worst type of monopoly there is. So, you know, pride me a river about monopolies. But it's just, look, there are, again,
Starting point is 01:03:01 I do think the economy is incredibly rigged. Rob, to say, do you remember when we were at that Gene Epstein debate? I think you were there. You read the Gene Epstein debate and there was the one woman who was talking about conditions of factory workers in America. And she started throwing out numbers that were like, she was like 60% of Americans work in substandard manufacturing. And Jean was like 60% of Americans don't even work in manufacturing.
Starting point is 01:03:26 And then she threw it at some number. And she said 20% of Amazon workers have. to wear diapers because they're not allowed bathroom breaks because the working conditions are so bad. And none of that's true. Just none of it's true. It's just like totally made up. Like the socialists really do this thing where like even sometimes when there are real problems and you could say like, hey, maybe the Amazon workers who aren't paid well enough or something like this. But you can like, look, this just isn't happening in America. What are you talking about? The same thing like the idea that every industry is a monopoly is like, Rob, we have so many
Starting point is 01:04:01 consumer choices. Like, that's just not true, dude. I can't believe the socialists are speaking out against a company that's normalizing a culture of shitting your pants at work. All right, yeah. Let's play a little bit more. Then we'll wrap up. Asing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans. We see a nation whose immense wealth has been built by those with calloused, dirt street tans,
Starting point is 01:04:30 those who toil on factory floors and chisel into stone. And we see a nation that has allowed so much of that wealth to be held instead in the soft hands of a precious view. Yes, we see America in a health insurance industry that exploits the sick, but that is not all we see when we look for America. We see it too in the nurse who works a double shift and then stops on our way home to check on an ailing neighbor. Yes, we see America in corporate landlords for whom negligence is a business model. we see it too. And the father who tucks his children in Tibet.
Starting point is 01:05:02 All right. Let me just, uh, stained with, let me just pause it right here. You know, there's something, um,
Starting point is 01:05:07 it almost reminds me in a way of, um, the way, the way feminists, like radical feminists would talk about men. And it's almost like they define men by all the worst men that are out there ever. But then, they seem to have a blind spot for the fact that they're like,
Starting point is 01:05:24 yeah, but like, I don't know, there's a whole bunch of men out there who are just like, decent enough dudes. You know what I mean? Like they just like go to work and raise their kids and, you know, or decent to their wife and like or whatever.
Starting point is 01:05:36 They're just good to their friends and they're nice. You know, like, and there is this when you sit here and you say, hey, look, man, you know, like who built this wealth? Who built this wealth? There's the people with the callous fingertips, you know? That's who that's who built this wealth. It's the nurses and it's the and all. And it's like, yeah.
Starting point is 01:05:57 Look, I'm not taking anything away from that. workers are a huge important part of an economy. And obviously it's a huge important part of wealth creation as people working. Um, entrepreneurs play a huge role in that too, humongous role. And why, why do we have to demonize that? You know, it's like as, oh, and maybe, maybe I'm being unfair, putting words in his mouth, but it's pretty clearly left out of the equation here, Rob, right? It's the workers and then that evil billionaire up there. And, and, and this is, where they get you. This is where all socialists do this. And dude, you can read about what was considered a Kulak in the Soviet Union. You know, it starts with billionaires. But then you
Starting point is 01:06:38 notice where it's like, we got to raise taxes on everyone who makes over $250,000 a year. So like that like that, you're like, hey, that's not exactly just billionaires anymore. But like, in this whole thing like, okay, you have this evil billionaire class and then you have the noble guy who works his fingers to the callus. What about the guy who like had a good idea and started a business and created 10 jobs. What about the guy who started a business and had an idea and created 300 jobs? Okay, like all those workers now have a job because that person created a company with all of these jobs to have.
Starting point is 01:07:12 And who's that? Where is that? Like, this is the one that they leave out as if this isn't like, if anything like the most fundamental driver of wealth creation. Like, I'm sorry, rich people quite often, millionaires and billion, well, I just says, billionaires pay off the government to try to manipulate policy in their favor so that they can extract wealth from the people. This has done all over the place.
Starting point is 01:07:37 It's a huge problem in this country right now. But the idea that there is no role, let alone a central, vitally important role for capital investment and entrepreneurship, it just demonstrates an infantile understanding of economics. Absolutely infantile. The idea that all you got to do is show up and work. That's it. It's the workers who make everything. Where are they working?
Starting point is 01:08:06 With what are they working? What a job are they doing? Oh yeah. All of that has to be figured out. That's important too. It's like disgusting to pretend it doesn't exist. Anyway, any thoughts, Rob. He just goes on to say a bunch more nothingness and empty slogans.
Starting point is 01:08:22 We can wrap it there. Yeah. Well, the fact that, how old was he when he even moved to the country or became a citizen. I don't know, but I think it's all very recent. Like, I think it became a citizen in like 2018 or something like that. Yeah, I don't know. It feels like more of a slap of a face, having someone who's not really an American
Starting point is 01:08:40 lecturing about why this country is so horrible. And you're here and you're tapping into the power structure for yourself and to try and capitalize on this wealth that other people have generated. You know, I don't know. It's just, uh, it, it, uh, whatever. I'm trying to, I'm trying to, I'm only thinking. a bold words and I'm trying to use soft words, but fuck you. Well, I get your point too, because there's also something about how he's going like,
Starting point is 01:09:06 um, look, there's something about how he's sitting there and he's going, look, man, these people who worked their fingers to the bone, they earned this. Okay, they earned this. Those billionaires, they didn't earn nothing. And it's like, motherfucker, you just got here. You just got to the country, the most successful country in the history of the world that was built by other people. And you just got here. And I do have to say, look, I am a, I don't think it is true that America was always a radically open country. America was built by lots of different types of
Starting point is 01:09:41 people who came here from all over the world. Now, that doesn't mean that we have to have open immigration forever because of that it just doesn't follow. But that is true, much more so than other countries that are built around a distinct lineage, a distinct language and culture and people in time. It's different than France or Ireland or something like that in America. That being said, we're still a nation, kind of. We're still a people kind of. And if you're the new, it does seem to me a little bit like if I just showed up to Japan and they took me in and they gave me citizenship. And then I go, now let's change everything.
Starting point is 01:10:21 Like there is something about that that just seems a little bit to be, let's say, bad manners. I don't know. Something about that. All right. That's our episode for today. Catch you tomorrow. Peace.

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