PBD Podcast - Education Is A SCAM w/ Zuby | PBD Podcast | Ep. 176

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

In this episode, Patrick Bet-David is joined by Zuby, Tom Ellsworth, and Adam Sosnick. They discuss the truth about university and education and how we can reform it, Tiger Woods turning down $800 mil...lion to play in the Saudi-backed LIV golf league, GEICO closing all California locations, and California providing 'safe injection sites' for heroin users. PBD Podcast Episode 176.  For Zuby's new children's book "The Candy Calamity" - https://bit.ly/3BWYE2T For Zuby's book "Strong Advice" - https://bit.ly/3zVtuXT Text: PODCAST to 310.340.1132 to get added to the distribution list Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pbdpodcast/support

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Okay, it's my iPad actually. Hey, hello, hello, hello. So today is what? Episode 176 with the great Zubi in town. I can't even say from where? It's just you're in town. Because who knows where you live nowadays, right? You travel all over the world.
Starting point is 00:00:14 Yeah, man. I'm doing the nomadic thing. So from the UK, from the UK via Saudi Arabia via Nigeria. But I've just been on the road now for the past 15, 16 months. And how do you like that? It makes sense for now. It's not a forever thing, but the thing is even if I had a house or an apartment, I'd
Starting point is 00:00:33 virtually never be there. So you would virtually never be there. I'd essentially never be there. No, literally never be there. I do. I'd do it on the run. I'd do it on the run. Yeah, because I'm just doing events and speaking and performing and just doing stuff all over the place.
Starting point is 00:00:47 I love it. I mean, it's like a good life for a bachelor. Hard when you get married with kids. It's going to be challenging to say, hey kids, so what do we live, Daddy? No, we're just everyone. And a van down by the river. And the nearest hotel. Well, you always tell the story about when you took the road trip
Starting point is 00:01:05 for how long on the month on a bus. Yeah, and you had kids and you were married at the time, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I was married and we had two kids. Now you got four. Tiko and Dylan. Not if I could.
Starting point is 00:01:16 Dylan was just born when we went on the RV tour. And it was a, it's something like that. Now he was a year old or something, but we went all over the place with the RV. Mm-hmm. And had a great time, but I slept in the same bed pretty much every night in that RV. In the RV.
Starting point is 00:01:30 Yeah. He's super just said that he hasn't stayed in the same place for more than what, two weeks? Yeah, two, three weeks. Yeah, but I mean, look, I know that the world's been in a weird place for the past two and a half years. Stuff has been more, in most places, more normal over the last six months. But I had no idea where stuff was going to go. So for a whole host of different reasons, I mean, I think long term, I never planned
Starting point is 00:01:54 to live in the UK long term. Anyway, I still don't, I still don't actually know where I'm going to live long term. It might end up being multiple places, but I knew it wasn't going to be the UK. And then when stuff just started going, going nuts over there last year, that was just kind of the straw that broke the camel's back. And I was just like, you know what, for my own, for my own protection as well, I need to get out of this country. And the flexibility is, it's for a lot of reasons. It's for career reasons.
Starting point is 00:02:22 But also it's just like, I like knowing, okay, if stuff hits the fan anywhere, I can just be out, I can just be gone. I don't feel firmly rooted somewhere, because to me that's like an anchor. I don't even own a lot of possessions, I don't own much. I can happen.
Starting point is 00:02:38 It'll change when you get married. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. Well, and I'm also hyper aware that that's in the cards for the future. So I'm like, okay, right now, I'm at this very unique time in my life right now where I can do this. I've got the financial freedom to do it. I have the career freedom to do it. I have no dependence right now, now's the time.
Starting point is 00:03:00 You know, the world's weird stuff is chopping and changing and very unpredictable. Now's the time to do this. Let me add on to that because you hit the nail on the head. You said flexibility. I talk about this all the time, especially if you're not married enough kids. I know you guys are married enough kids, it's going to be a lot harder for you, but I talk about having low overhead and high flexibility, key to life these days. Things are moving so fast, especially with COVID lockdowns.
Starting point is 00:03:22 You don't know where you're moving. You don't know where you're going. If you don't have those dependents that you have to actually pay for and they rely upon you, why wouldn't you just kind of keep your head on a swivel and keep it moving and pursue the best possible opportunities? Sounds exactly what you're doing. And it's fun. It's fun too.
Starting point is 00:03:37 I mean, it's cool just to be, I mean, in two weeks from now, I can just be, you know what, let me just go to this place. Let me just go. I went to Mexico City a couple months ago, just on a whim, I went to Antalya, Turkey, spent some time in Dubai. How old are you? I'm 35. 35.
Starting point is 00:03:55 Yeah, I'll actually be 36. You're excited. So the plans are eventually to get married. Oh for sure. Unlike Adam, you do plan on 100% no doubt. We are on the same picture. We'd like to get married. You know what's do plan on one of the hookers. I know that. We're on the same picture. We'd like to get married. You know what's crazy?
Starting point is 00:04:07 I was watching a video clip popped up to the Jordan Peterson and he says, man is selfish until he has kids because you don't know what life is like until you have kids and you're thinking about somebody else where you're willing to die or live for that other human being. I sat there, I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, okay, let's see if there's credibility to this.
Starting point is 00:04:29 Because a lot of times, married people want to sell singles to be married. Divorce people want to sell married people to be divorced. Single people want to sell married people on being single. People with kids want to sell people on having kids. People with no kids want to sell people on not having everybody is you know You know you want to indoctrinate others to your world. That's right You're not gonna push them away, but if you really think about it like you know the the argument of Kids no kids does having kids really change your life in a dramatic way like if I right now
Starting point is 00:05:01 I was doing a podcast you saw my boys were here and they're upstairs. They're Taking a Udemy class nine hours on how to do a final cut pro, okay, and that's kind of what they're going through right now. But the 2011, the last time I had no kids was 2011 and how life was wired then versus today, lot more freedom, you can do a lot more things, two things that kind of
Starting point is 00:05:25 locks you down, one is starting a new business where you have to show up on a daily basis and two is when you have kids. Those two things, and let me tell you, it is not, it's responsibility at the highest level, but today's argument is also, do you really want to have kids in today's climate? Do you really want to have kids with what's going on today? So that's the challenge. If you're somebody, I feel this morning I was listening to a a capella song that just totally messed me up. Okay.
Starting point is 00:05:55 Now listen to it 50 times. All morning, I mean, as a matter of fact, I had him listen to it. I'm crying. I'm crying. Show him a camera guy crying. So hot up this morning. And it's a song by Imagine Dragons, Bad Liar, and it's a Buck 26, Minute 26 on YouTube or Instagram, and then I'm listening to this song,
Starting point is 00:06:12 and then I go play it for Dylan, and I tell Dylan, I said, Dylan, you know, there are certain gifts God gives you, that's not yours, it's the world. This is what he mean. I say, if you got a great voice, you got to share it with the world. You can't just keep it to yourself. You got to share it with the world. If you are somebody that's a leader and somebody that's got strong values and principles, we probably need more men like you to raise kids because you
Starting point is 00:06:38 would raise better kids in a society like this where not only would the world benefit from it, your last thing would benefit from it, your heritage would benefit from it. That's the processing for me with kids. There are certain men that I'll say, dude, don't have kids. Take, just go ahead, bro. Stay single, the rest of your life.
Starting point is 00:06:56 But certain people, you're like, look, those values being duplicated amongst one, two, three, four other people, I wonder what the world would be with you having more kids. So, anyway, I agree. Sometimes the wrong people are having too many kids. Yeah, well, that's a whole nother issue. That's a whole nother issue.
Starting point is 00:07:11 Exactly. Anyways, let's go into the topics. It's good to have a Zubi here. We got a lot of topics to cover today. It's myself, Adam, Zubi, and Tom also here on. So Tom say hello to everybody. I'm sorry, lose. That was Hamilton, isn't that how to do this yourself? That's how Tom is to be for himself. Believe that first. uh... time also here on so time say hello to everybody i'm sorry lose and i was hamilton is in the house
Starting point is 00:07:25 that's a time to be self believe that for that that i have a but i have a that i'd be respect for the newest minority owner of the Denver Broncos
Starting point is 00:07:36 is a lose Hamilton is a lot of them in the uh... ownership group that american football team okay let's go through some of these things here first of all big news concerning concerning news, US sanctions Putin's reputed girlfriend. Okay, we're gonna have to talk about that. Yes, China would go to war over Taiwan. Gallup surprise, Supreme Court approval ticks up
Starting point is 00:07:57 after end of Rome. Deep mistrust has developed between White House and Zelensky. It's an interesting story. California to fund heroin injection, sites in LA, Oakland House and Zelinsky. It's an interesting story. California to fund heroin injection, sites in LA, Oakland, and San Francisco. Pelosi says US will not abandon Taiwan as China plants military drills.
Starting point is 00:08:15 Americans are pulling up credit card debt as they struggle to keep up with the high cost of living. US household debts surpasses $16 trillion on higher mortgages. Michael Sailor, we had on the podcast a couple months ago, Household debts surpassed $16 trillion on higher mortgages. Michael Saylor. We had on the podcast a couple of months ago, steps down on micro strategy. CEO, after they take a $917 million charge
Starting point is 00:08:33 on Bitcoin, that's a Yahoo Finance story. Robinhood lays off 23% of their staff as retail investors, fate from platform. Reality bites, carol tech staffer working harder is job number one. CNN's having a hard time. They lost substantial sum of money as ratings. Plummet, Geico closes all California offices, lays off workers, Forbes set to explore sale, Adam,
Starting point is 00:08:57 $630 million. Let's come up with that. Let's do something. Jared Kushner claims Donald Trump tried intimidating Kim by seeing that Tom Brady was also interested in Ivanka, which I love that's the one. You got to be cool. That sounds like a limitation. We'll get to the story.
Starting point is 00:09:12 Inaccurate credit score. It was an appreciation. On millions of consumers and entire whist turns down seven, eight hundred million dollars offer from Lyft, which is, can you imagine being in a situation where you can turn down? You know what? I'm good. I won't take that $7,800 million but get into that as well.
Starting point is 00:09:26 But let's talk about consumer debt time. Americans are piling up credit card as they struggle to keep up with the high cost of living. So let's see what these numbers look like. Pah, pah, pah, pah, pah, pah, pah, pah, there we go. US household debt increased by 2%. No, that's not the one. American, okay, there it is.
Starting point is 00:09:44 US household debt surpassed $16 trillion for the first time ever during the second quarter Household that increased by 2%. No, that's not the one. American, okay, there it is. US Household that surpassed $16 trillion for the first time ever during the second quarter the New York Federal Reserve said Tuesday, even as borrowing costs surge, the New York Fed said credit card balance increased by $46 billion last quarter over the past year. Credit card that has jumped by $100 billion
Starting point is 00:10:02 or 13% the biggest percentage increase in more than twenty years credit cards typically charge high interest rates when balances are fully paid off making this an expensive form of debt high inflation is also making it more expensive to carry a debt credit card balance because the federal reserve is aggressively raising borrowing cost time what is really happening here with that
Starting point is 00:10:22 well that the big headline on sixteen trillion dollars of total household debt, what you have to do is back off mortgages a little bit. And here's a quick little case study for people. Whenever you look at mortgage debt, you hear the word debt mortgage. If housing prices are higher and people put 20% down, then the mortgage will be higher. But these could be mortgages are perfectly good and people are paying their payments and everything. But the mortgage debt number will be higher What really jumped out to me was a credit card debt that 13% increase is the largest increase in credit card debt over one year period in
Starting point is 00:10:54 22 years That's huge the other side of it is is right now the link-in-sea only ticked up a half a percent So the link-in-sale credit cards was up, but it's only a half a percent It's up very little. It reminds me and we've mentioned this last couple podcasts movie the big short How things were moving slowly and then they suddenly popped I think the big thing to look at right now is the length of the because you also look at That I was looking at a credit card stat site. I'm not going to say who, because they kind of disagreed with two other statistics, but I think that this one
Starting point is 00:11:31 was right. And they were saying that right now, if credit card debt for the individual goes up another 17 to 20%, you're going to start to see the length and see, because it's at the max point that they've been looking on the ability to make minimum payments. That's a good step to know. Like I would wanna know how much,
Starting point is 00:11:46 you know how you have like a $10,000 credit card limit, but you're at $7,500. But maybe you can make the payment just fine. Yeah, but what I'm trying to say is, I wonder if there's a way to figure out how much total credit card debt is out there and what the limit is. Like let's just say, you know how it's a $16 trillion
Starting point is 00:12:03 or whatever the number is, $16 trillion, that's total total total total total all debt combined. 16 trillion. Is that credit card debt? No, no, no, no, no, that's all debt. Okay, that's how so of the of that 16 trillion to Tom's point, 10 of it is mortgages. So do some basic math. What's 10 out of 16?
Starting point is 00:12:20 Well, you can have six million. You can have some other stuff. No, yeah, of course. Well, I was saying it. I wanna know how much, how, where are we at? Are we at 70% or we at 80% or we're at 90%? You're saying the credit card limits.
Starting point is 00:12:34 Yeah, so if your limit is 10K, if you're dead in it is 7000, that's 70%. Right. I wonder where we're at. Because as that gets higher and higher, the other thing that happens is, like the whole thing with quantitative tightening, credit card companies are gonna start also lowering
Starting point is 00:12:53 their limit for people. That's absolutely correct. Right now, if the link with C goes up, one full percentage point, one up half a point, but if it goes up, one full percentage point in a quarter, the credit card companies go to the lower credit scored people and they will lower that number by 10%. So if you had a $30,000 credit card, it's going to drop down. You're going to have a statement that says your credit limit is now 27,000. So they
Starting point is 00:13:19 lower at 10%. So as soon as you see, the length would see go up by 1% in one month. Credit card companies are going to quickly flip the knob over to prevent people from borrowing past the last 10% for the lower half of people holding credit cards. There's the answer to your question. So we are very, very, very, very close to that point. Another 15, 20 points of personal credit card debt. So if you have 8,000 debt in your house, another 20 points is $9,600. You're not too far away.
Starting point is 00:13:52 And what if you've got his energy prices, you're doing three, 400 a month, you're only three to four months from that creeping up, simply because of inflation cost to living. And at that point, the length of the rate would go up, credit card companies are going to turn down.
Starting point is 00:14:06 I think we're less than a quarter away from starting to see those stats on consumer spending because it's all right here. I'll put it in basic terms. I have with my brother in the car, we bonk the car on the of the garage, and we screwed up the front fender. My mom is upset, but my dad's not home yet. But three hours from now, life's gonna get real for my brother and I. And I think that's the kind of thing
Starting point is 00:14:35 that's going on right now. So it's five o'clock. Yeah, it's five o'clock when dad walks in. That comes from my day to clock. And when dad walks in at seven thirty, mom's piss, the car's messed up. My brother and I are sitting quietly at the kitchen table.
Starting point is 00:14:45 Life gets real. You think that's really where we are right now. So, Zubi, you're traveling all over the place. What are you hearing people saying about that and the current financial situation? Not a lot. I'm not having a lot of conversations about it, to be honest. What I was just thinking, I mean, these numbers are pretty mind-blowing. One thing that's always perplexed me about the USA is an non-American.
Starting point is 00:15:06 Is the way the obsession with credit. I find it really weird. Like, I've never even owned a credit card before. And I don't even understand the purpose of them. And to some people that even sounds weird, but just like the obsession with credit card. Dave Ramsey will appreciate what you're saying. Yeah, but just like the obsession with credit card. Never owned a credit card.
Starting point is 00:15:24 No, I don't need, why? Why? I don't see the point. I have cash. But everything in the US runs on debt. Everything's debt and credit. And it's, I think maybe people here think it's normal, but it's not a global norm to the degree it is here.
Starting point is 00:15:40 There's so many people stack up credit cards this obsession with credit scores. Yeah, I don't even, you don't even hear about credit scores in the You can you pull up while he's doing an atom response? Can you pull up credit card dead by Style? Go ahead. I totally appreciate what you're saying. I'll tell you something else interesting here is Even with like cars and stuff like the like people talk about cars not in terms of what they cost But in terms of what the monthly payment is. 100%.
Starting point is 00:16:05 And that's so weird. I've never been to any other country where people even talk like that, you'll just say, okay, like how much does a car cost? If you can afford the car, you can afford it. If you can't, it's not, can you afford the monthly payment? It's, can you afford the car? So I don't know what the stat, okay, oh, those are the stats.
Starting point is 00:16:20 Oh, there we go, okay. Well, in Muslim countries, there's a cultural thing about debt in general. Oh, it's not, yeah. And you're not allowed to charge interest, right? Correct. In Islamic banking. There's no. Sorry, but you can look at this. So here's how we call you by it. Can't afford your weight. So you say average credit card that is 5,331 second is Canada. Third is UK. Then it's Japan, Germany, China, France, Italy, Brazil, India. I just pulled up a stat here as well. Card ownership of the 2.8 billion credit cards worldwide. 1.1 billion is in US.
Starting point is 00:16:55 And there's 330 people here. See those numbers? Okay. Of the, of the all, 2.8 billion credit cards worldwide, 1.1 billion of those credit cards are in the US. Which means 40% of the credit, that's like to match it with population. If the world population's 8 billion, you would need to be at 3.2 billion. So we have 10 times the amount of credit cards
Starting point is 00:17:21 that we ought to have. Because, yeah, so that's an interesting point about how America's a credit economy. Because, so that's an interesting point about how America's a credit economy. That's four cards per person. If you take 1.1 billion cards, and you take 330, 340 million people in the US, and you take away the kids,
Starting point is 00:17:35 and you take away the highly elderly. So those people in the middle probably have about four cards each. Yeah, it's weird. Totally cow. Yeah, it's really interesting. There are a lot of things that are unique to the US, that I think a lot of Americans don't realize and perhaps think are just international things.
Starting point is 00:17:51 But when you come in as an outsider, you notice them and you're like, that's weird. Why is it like that? Another big one here is a pharmaceuticals. Good grief. Pharmaceuticals, like the amount of drugs consumed in this country, is astonishing. I mean, I think the USA has what, 4% of the world's population, 4% and consumes, I believe, 90% of the opioids and something like 70%, I believe. You can check that, something like 70% of the overall total pharmaceuticals. Why do you think that is? I'm farma.
Starting point is 00:18:25 There it is. But I actually go see why do you think that is? Oh, here's a big one. Here's a big one. There's only two countries, I believe, in the entire world, where it's even legal to advertise prescription pharmaceuticals on TV and in magazines and so on.
Starting point is 00:18:42 The USA and New Zealand. So all these ads you see, like if you're, all these ads, every time I'm looking at a screen and it's these pharmaceutical ads, you know, ask your doctor about, that's not even illegal. That's not even legal in most of the world. So it's completely illegal across Europe. It's illegal across Asia.
Starting point is 00:18:56 It's illegal in Africa. And here it's something like 60 to 70% of the TV advertising revenue. And so that's a massive factor. So there's a huge incentive for drugs to be pushed, whether this is even on children, which is really concerning, right? Whether that's all of these,
Starting point is 00:19:14 the amount of kids that are drugged up here is crazy. It's crazy, it's not normal at all. And I think it's probably a relatively new-ish problem in the last few decades. I don't think it used to be like that. Well, I mean, if you pull up opioid's death, you'll see it. It is a decade. I don't even think it's two decades.
Starting point is 00:19:31 I think it's a decade that just spiked up suddenly. You know what happens? It just validates that as controversial as Tom Cruise was about 10 years ago in the Matt Lauer interview, he was right. He was talking about Britain. He was right. He was right about Britain. He was right. He was right. He's sitting there saying, well, you got to take this
Starting point is 00:19:48 and you go, what are you talking about? Says, Matt, Matt, you haven't done the research. I have, Matt, you don't know what you're talking about. I do, and everyone's like, what an arrogant, so what if it's helping around and all this stuff? And he's like, no, you're not right. By the way, here's what it shows. It says, in the EU, the number of credit cards carried per person is 0.8.
Starting point is 00:20:08 Not even one per person. US is four. Which is like a debit card for your bank, just a bank transfer card. That's all you have. Yeah, we just use debit cards. Yes, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but in that case, there's no debt, right? I mean, at worst someone might have an overdraft, but...
Starting point is 00:20:23 No, it's just a secure transport of money. Yeah, I genuinely don't understand the point of credit cards. I don't get it. I've had people try to explain it to me and I'm like, I don't get why I'd want that. Well, why? Well, I will tell you, you can spend somebody else's, but I will tell you, amongst people who have money,
Starting point is 00:20:45 you'll see that guys who have real, real money they will not use a debit card. And not because they're not using a debit card because they don't have the cash. They use the kind of a credit card that you pay at the end of the month. Not the kind of a credit card that you're like, hey, I'm gonna, you know, I got, you pay off. People have credit cards that they pay at the end of the month.
Starting point is 00:21:04 Every month we have one of our credit cards. We pay, I don't know, what. People have credit cards that they pay at the end of the month. Every month, we have, you know, one of our credit cards, we pay, I don't know, what the number is every month, four, five, hundred thousand dollars per month that we pay off because it's like a business credit card, but we have to pay it every month. It's not rolling, right? And the reason for that is protection because you don't want your debit card number out there.
Starting point is 00:21:19 That's what you don't want because that can be hacked into your cash, where the money's at. So that's the only argument against debit is to use credit that you pay at the end of the month. What you're saying is which makes a lot of sense is the credit card to just use and pile up the debt. I paid off. I paid off. I paid off. And that's kind of the culture.
Starting point is 00:21:37 I mean, I got caught up in that in my early 20s. I was in it 49,000 dollars and it was a mess. It took me a minute to pay that thing off. I had a choice between BK and paying it off and eventually paid it off, but it was not an easy000 and it was a mess. It took me a minute to pay that thing off. I had a choice between B-Cain paying it off and eventually paid it off, but it was not an easy transition to go through it. So can I add to this? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:21:52 You touched on it, I don't understand the purpose of credit score. I talk about this all the time where I don't really, I mean, I have a good credit score, I'm not gonna lie, it's 800, whatever, but it's like, I'm more concerned with my net worth than my credit score.
Starting point is 00:22:07 That's what people's like, you talked about the problem that we're having in America is the credit score and credit cards has been gamified. I'm getting points, I'm getting miles, I get to travel, I get to travel for free. Who's the guy catch me if you can? The movie that Leonardo DiCaprio played. I'm escaping his name, but the great guy, he's basically saying you need...
Starting point is 00:22:27 Frank Avignau, exactly. He was saying you have to have a credit card. That's the only thing to prevent fraud. If someone takes your debit card and takes 10 grand off of it, that's going to be a lot more difficult getting it back because that's your money versus the credit card. You call it the credit card, you call it in. So there is this thing with that. Back to the credit card situation. I don't know if you're aware call it in. So there is this thing, the thing with that. Back to the credit card situation, I don't know if you're aware of this time.
Starting point is 00:22:47 So I talk about the four Cs of debt. Everyone has to deal with this. We've got credit cards, you've got car loans, you've got college, right? Student debt. And the big one is CRIBS, aka mortgages. Obviously, if you buy your house right, you know what you're doing, but a lot of people feel like they have to buy, they buy more house than they can afford, and they get into this mortgage debt situation,
Starting point is 00:23:07 where we've all seen the cribs on MTV. Payment, Baselack style, how likely. Exactly, and I go. I'm much gonna do it, but here's the interesting thing about credit cards. Credit cards during the pandemic was the only of those four that went down. Two point one billion dollars
Starting point is 00:23:22 for credit card debt were erased. Exactly, so people were buying so people were buying cribs people were buying more cars we all saw that used car prices of skyrocket when is that ever happened right and then people still keep going to college but credit card debt went down by 13% no we had this big spike of up 13% because it went down because everyone's sitting at home no one's traveling other than Zubi traveling around the world and Everyone's just sitting home. They're they're getting stimulus checks. They're getting unemployment checks They're like, I fuck it. I'll pay down this credit card debt
Starting point is 00:23:54 So that's the reason that it's escalated. So if you look at the Credit card debt I think student loan debt is at 1.5 trillion car loans are at like 1.3 trillion and Credit cards has never even reached a trillion I think it's like hovering between 800 and 900 billion it goes up that's right. That was that's been the peak it's been there a couple times exactly But it hasn't hit a trillion so it's not that big like the student debt issue is way worse in the credit card It's how much is student loaned it total about 1.5 trillion. Okay. And then cars 1.3 trillion credit card hovering between, you know, 750, 8, 5,900. As students are going back, Zubi, it's kind of interesting.
Starting point is 00:24:32 United States, sometime next year, it will be official. Unless this economy causes people to put their life on credit cards, what's about to happen is student loan debt is going to be two times credit card debt sometime next year. It's already close if that number on the screen there's right? 1.75. Yep, I think even up from the last time I checked the stat with 1.5 now it's at 1.7 trillion. What? This has gone up in the last six months.
Starting point is 00:24:58 I remember how earlier I said I wonder how much room is left in credit. So the 16.2 trillion is all. More gages out on credit card. Right. Okay. The increase in borrow on which equals 300 two billion dollars over the last three months reflected in higher prices for homes, cars, and aggregate consumers still have plenty of room to spend with another 3.33 trillion in available credit. That's a lot of money. Okay. So 3.33 trillion in available credit. Since the pandemic lot of money. Okay, so 3.33 trillion in available credit since the pandemic started
Starting point is 00:25:26 about 42 million new credit card accounts have been opened and consumers now hold more than 750 million out-of-lone credit card mortgage and home equity line of credit overall consumer ages 30 to 59 have record levels of debt. There you go. They go back to the point pack. You got to connect those two dots. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You You gotta connect those two dots, I'm sorry, zoom. Oh, okay. You have to connect the two dots. What hasn't gone up is wages. And so the delinquency rate, regardless of how high
Starting point is 00:25:53 that credit ceiling is, as soon as this delinquency rate starts moving, that's when we're in trouble and that ceiling's gonna come down. I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah, no, sorry, did you say there were 750 million car loans? 750 million car mortgage credit card. So it's like all combined. So if you run a credit report and say,
Starting point is 00:26:12 you got a $28,000 car loan, you got a $476,000 mortgage loan, you got a $9,000 credit card debt, all of that, they're counting as accounts. 750 million accounts like that. I think total debt per person, if you divvy it all up just using those math, I think total debt per person, if you divvy it all up, just using those math, I think the average American
Starting point is 00:26:28 mortgage is included, it owes about 50 grand, or 50 grand in debt. So what it is? Do most people here have negative self-net worth? Oh yeah, oh my gosh. So the running joke, you'd say this in comedy is like, all right, I just graduated college and I just ran into a homeless guy on the street.
Starting point is 00:26:42 He's asking me for money, it's like, nah buddy, I owe 100 grand in debt. You're zero. Okay. So, who's worse off? It's so confused. This country really confuses me in so many ways how it's like the richest country in the world in certain aspects, but then the majority of adults have a negative network.
Starting point is 00:27:00 I mean, that doesn't sound like those sound like contradictory. Well, here's the deal. You could be smart and misinformed and stupid at the same time. You know, you could be like making a ton of money, but also broke a shit. Yeah, it's true. That's America for you, baby. Welcome to America, Zubi. Yeah. It's just really weird because you hear these stats about, I don't know what it is, like 50% of people couldn't afford a $4,000 emergency or something.
Starting point is 00:27:25 I don't want to quote the stat, but something like that. And then, I mean, when I just, when I'm out in a bell and you're just seeing all these cards on the roads and you're seeing the houses and stuff, I'm like, how does that even make sense? It's like that, doesn't it? Well, bro, here's what I say all the time. There's a difference between poor and broke.
Starting point is 00:27:41 So you said you grew up in Nigeria and then you... Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, but your parents are from Nigeria, okay. I agree with you, yeah. So, but there's certain places in maybe that part of the world, third world countries that are your poor, right? You don't make any money, you're relying on whatever it is a day, a dollar a day.
Starting point is 00:27:57 We've seen these commercials, UNICEF, whatever. America, most Americans aren't poor, they're just broke. They make 50 grand a year and they spend 55 grand a year and they just make poor financial decisions and that's why the average credit card debt I think is about six grand. The average student loan debt I think is closer to like 35 grand so it's not a shocker
Starting point is 00:28:16 that student loan debt is way higher than total credit card debt because you could rack up 50 grand student debt, no problem but in, because there's not gonna be no limit. I think you can go to get your masters, take out another hundred grand of debt, student loan debt, okay, I'm sorry, grand student debt, no problem, but in, because there's not going to be no limit. I think you can go to get your masters, take out another hundred grand of debt, student alone debt, they'll, I'm sorry, credit card debt, they'll cap you at five, ten grand, whatever it is. The university thing is not, just strikes me as completely unsustainable.
Starting point is 00:28:36 I think we're, I think in our lifetime, we're going to see such a huge change and revolution in higher education. I think we're still running off the fumes of previous generations where people thought and a lot of people still think, oh, you have to go to call, you have to get this degree to do this, you have to get, I think like people my age
Starting point is 00:28:57 and younger who are starting companies and running companies and so on, I think understand, okay, this is no longer the case. I think many people in the older generation, because they're still thinking, okay, when I was a teenager or I was in my early 20s going to college was the thing, it made sense. You had to do it for this and the world has changed so much. And I think that it's just the credential now, isn't it? So I think that just like you've had a revolution in so many, everything else has been disrupted,
Starting point is 00:29:30 but education hasn't. Everything else is, I'm a musician, right? The music industry, I was one of the first, right? Completely disrupted. Photography, disrupted, movies, entertainment, whole entertainment industry, completely disrupted. So many things are chopping and changing, but with education, both school and especially university level, it's just stagnant.
Starting point is 00:29:51 It's gotten way more expensive. Why do you think? And the value of it has gone down. Why do you think? Why? Why do you think it's gotten more expensive? Because there's an answer, I'm just curious about it. Why do you think it's gotten more expensive?
Starting point is 00:30:03 When did it change? I don't know for the USA. So in the UK, in the UK, it's changed significantly because in the UK, it used to be taxpayer funded. So all the MPs and government officials in the UK, they went to university for free, right? No tuition fees, zero, right? Nothing, it costs nothing.
Starting point is 00:30:23 When I was there, I think per year, the tuition fees were 3 right? Nothing. It costs nothing. When I was there, I think per year the tuition fees were 3,000 pounds. Now I think it's about 10,000. So I left university 2007. So it's gone from zero to say 9,000 over the course of three years to 30,000. That's 2007 to now. Should be, who's the Sally May of UK? I don't think there is one. So, who financed a school loan in UK? So if I'm going to school, do I go to the government get a loan and a federal loan to go to school?
Starting point is 00:31:02 I believe it's a federal loan. Okay, so here's the challenge on what happened. From 1980 to today, I'll give you exact stats in America. Okay. From 1980 to today, inflation is up 217%. Just basic inflation. So whatever was worth, you know, if you were buying something for 10 bucks,
Starting point is 00:31:20 you're paying, you know, whatever, $20 amount for it, right? Okay, 207, 217, 21, $20 round Ford, right? $200, what? $200, $207, $207% inflation from 1980 until today. Do you know what the college tuition has gone up from 1980 till today? $1999%. Wow.
Starting point is 00:31:35 I'm sorry, $1,199% which is exactly like 1,200%. So in five times. Six times, inflation is up to 17. College tuition is up 1200%. So now why? Here's why. If you know how, if you start a new business, okay, and you got this idea,
Starting point is 00:31:57 if you go to BFA or Wells Fargo, what are the chances of BFA and Wells Fargo are saying, no, I'm not gonna finance it. Pretty high, okay? Banks like those types of banks are not going to finance your business idea. If you have zero credibility, I'd like a half a million dollar loan. Yeah, okay, whatever. This is not the 60s.
Starting point is 00:32:12 Go somewhere else, right? So you have to go get it from angel or you have to get it from other people, right? You're not going to get it from a bigger bank. Okay. If college education is so worth it, why don't banks finance it? Let me say one more time. College education is so worth it because it's not worth it. So even banks don't believe you're gonna pay that back.
Starting point is 00:32:34 So banks are like saying, we're not gonna take that risk, but the day the government said, we will finance college tuition for every dollar that the government finances, colleges can increase at 60 cents. So I don't know if that makes sense or not. So every year, so you know like you and I, there's a certain regulation you have when you're competing, it's a monopoly,
Starting point is 00:32:55 you can't compete all this other stuff. So everybody's targeting companies. Well, they're a monopoly, they're a diss, they're a that. Okay, the ultimate monopoly and everyone's back, corporations don't pay taxes. First of all, let me give you one crazy stat, crazy stat on this. There's 13 universities in America that have $10 billion or more in their bank account cash. They call it endowments. Yeah. Okay. Harvard number one, right? Harvard's number one at 53 billion, but you got
Starting point is 00:33:24 10 to 53 billion, okay? In savings. Now let's see who the real greedy people are. Watch the statistic. Name me a, you know, fast food place we've gone to, the biggest fast food place in the world. What's the name of it? McDonald's.
Starting point is 00:33:39 How much do you think they got in cash? So remember, the 13th University has 10 billion in endowment. It's just a college, okay? How much do you think McDonald's hasn't cash? 10s of billions 2.3 billion. That's it. Right. That's it. They got 50,000 freaking locations worldwide and point hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. They're only sitting on 2.3 billion hours. They're the greedy people. How much do you think Starbucks hasn't cash? 400,000 employees. One. How much do you think Starbucks,
Starting point is 00:34:08 and do you see where you're going now? Now you're thinking about it, right? Starbucks only has $3 billion in cash. Check this out. Facebook, trillion dollar company only has $54 billion in cash. The same as Harvard, how to help us Facebook have the same amount of cash as Harvard.
Starting point is 00:34:23 Tesla, massive company, only 18 billion, okay Disney massive company only 16 billion in cash. How How so so and then they have the audacity to say corporations don't pay taxes But no one has the audacity to call call our colleges while they pay this much taxes March madness zero in taxes call colleges while they pay this much taxes, March madness, zero in taxes, football, zero in taxes, they get away with all of that and they get to charge parents more money every year and pressure parents to finance their house
Starting point is 00:34:53 and take money out, you're absolutely right. I think the face we are today, people are starting to realize and question everything, people like yourself, people like us, we're like, dude, I don't know what the hell is going on, but I'm questioning, and I want to learn more. How to hell the Starbucks only have three billion? How do hell does McDonald's have 2.3 billion in the bank? We got 13 universities that have 10 billion
Starting point is 00:35:13 and more in the bank. See, this, this the kind of stuff where, when you question it and you kind of open up to, you're like, holy shit, they got no competition and the government's got their backs. And if education is so worth it, why are banks financing it? Maybe it's no longer worth it. And the worst thing that happened to colleges and universities,
Starting point is 00:35:31 you know what's the worst thing that happened to college? Government getting involved? You know what's the worst thing, not the best thing. That's the best thing that happened to them. You know what's the worst thing that happened to colleges and universities? The internet, COVID. Oh, okay.
Starting point is 00:35:41 Best thing that happened to us, worst thing that happened in college is universities. You know why? Because COVID forced people, universities to get cornered. COVID happens, then Harvard students and parents are like, look, now that everybody's doing it from Zoom and they're no longer on campus. Can't allow a tuition, of course, right?
Starting point is 00:35:57 Yeah, you're gonna be a little tuition in Harvard. No, no, the stamp of approval of Harvard is you still have to pay full tuition. And then they said, well, I thought the experience of college was, you got a insurance policy because if something doesn't work out, you can always say, I got a degree from this school. I thought it was about the education. I thought it was about the pride.
Starting point is 00:36:14 And I thought it was about the network and the experience of being there. Oh, so now I can get a degree online. I don't need to pay this anymore. So I can be a no mad person traveling the world and still get my four year degree. Hey, mom, hey, that, why don't you finance me, track my grades, just allow me to travel the world while I'm getting my four year degree.
Starting point is 00:36:36 I would much rather do that way. The worst thing that happened to colleges was COVID and they're gonna pay price for it longer. Yeah, so COVID plus the internet. COVID plus the internet, yeah, absolutely. COVID plus the internet. Can I give you a little pushback maybe? All right, all right.
Starting point is 00:36:50 Because it's a little bit more than, by the way, we're on the same picture. The word entrepreneurship, we didn't hear growing up. Like our age, if you're in your late 30s, early 40s, when did you hear about entrepreneurship, Tom, you just turned 60, happy birthday, by the way. When did you hear about the term entrepreneurship? It was probably five years out of college.
Starting point is 00:37:07 I knew it was, and I knew the concept, and knew there, but the economy of all the startups and everything like that, I was in LA, so there was proximity to it, but it wasn't as, it wasn't front of mind, and it wasn't like seen as a valid option. Now the whole notion of side hustle is micro entrepreneurship and it's very, what are you doing for a side hustle? You know?
Starting point is 00:37:34 Exactly. Well, anyway, where I was going with this argument is that because it's conflicting because you're going to want to send your girls to a good college, I assume. Oh, they're not going to study art. They're not gonna study anything soft. But you're sending them to college, bro. I think it's a good idea for doctors and nuclear physicists to get an education. Yeah, I think stem and law out.
Starting point is 00:37:52 Yes, totally agree. I agree. The problem is, and I went to college, but I always tell people, I don't even know why the hell I went to college, just went party and hanging out with chicks the whole time, and maybe I went to class. But if you look at the stats,
Starting point is 00:38:04 and this is comes down to individual responsibility, if you look at the stats, the average college graduate will earn double what a high school graduate will earn in their lifetime. So let's back out the numbers. If you go to college, average college student will make two million dollars over their lifetime. Okay, the average high school student high school graduate will make one million dollars. Okay, so if you're going to take out 50 grand in debt, let's just say, it's a pretty fair trade-off to take out 50 grand to make an extra million dollars. The college isn't the necessary factor, though.
Starting point is 00:38:33 I was about to say that, but go ahead, make your point. I'm just, who will have something? I'm with you on this. However, the challenge is where are you going to college? Like you said, you're not going to do an art history major. That's really what it comes down to, is like you're four year degree, you can take it to state college, state school,
Starting point is 00:38:50 pay the normal state tuition, and if you can get into Harvard or Yale or Stanford, you're going, I don't care what you say, you go to Harvard, you take the opportunity, you'll deal with the ramifications of the debt at a later date, but it's when you go to like Oberlin College in wherever some liberal arts and you'd pay out-of-state tuition where you could have just gone to, you know, FIU here in South Florida, FAU, whatever, but no, I'm going to go to whatever random private school in
Starting point is 00:39:20 whatever city because you want the college experience. That's where you end up spending instead of 50 grand, 250 grand, and depending on your major, you know, because certain majors of different ROI. Yeah, that's the difference. Yeah, let's be real, a lot of degrees are trash. I agree. Most, there's a small handful of the traditional ones,
Starting point is 00:39:40 which we know, you've said stem, law, you know, you wanna be an engineer, a doctor, a lawyer, like, there's certain ones, very obvious. Anything that ends in studies, nonsense, right? Anything with studies in the title, nonsense. I love that. And then there's other stuff that's more kind of in the middle, you know, geography, history, English might be
Starting point is 00:40:06 useful for some very specific niches, but you probably going into a huge amount of debt to get that degree in this day. But the problem is you have to make this life-altering decision when you're 17, 18 years old. How the hell do you know what you're going to do the rest of your life? So you're like, all right, do I go to college? Do I not go to college? I put it on parents. I mean, this is an interesting one, because my perspective has changed on this a lot,
Starting point is 00:40:30 not because of, because the world has changed and the reality has changed, and the opportunity cost and real cost has completely changed. So for example, when my oldest brother went to university in the UK, didn't have to pay anything out of pocket, right? Tax payer funded tuition fees covered, right? So this is in the 90s, it's like, well, if you're in the UK, going to university was like a no-brainer.
Starting point is 00:40:58 It barely costs you anything. Like, it's just upside, right? Like, why would you not go assuming you're mentally capable of going? Why would you go? Yeah, you may as well go. And the value of a degree was still high because there wasn't the internet
Starting point is 00:41:12 and all these different options and opportunities. It's like, yeah, you know, you get a degree, get a job, you're good to go. And then I, you know, years later, you know, a decade later, I go to university and say, okay, the cost has gone up now. You're starting to, we're starting to move into this world. I was in university in 2004 to 2007.
Starting point is 00:41:31 We're starting to move into this internet era, but it's not like it is now kind of in the middle. Okay, the costs are, there's some costs, but it's still very affordable, three thousand pounds per year, very affordable, you know, very affordable, 3,000 pounds per year, very affordable. And then now it's like, okay, another 10 years passes by, the cost has tripled, the value has dropped, you've introduced even all these new majors and courses which are complete nonsense.
Starting point is 00:41:59 And it's like the equation changes. So by the time I have kids in their 17, 18, assuming it keeps going on this trajectory, I have no interest in them going to university, right? Unless it's like for something very, very specific, because the world has just changed so much, right? So this is the thing. I think so many parents and I understand it. I'm not trying to put them down or anyway, but I think they're still viewing it as in, okay, in the 80s or in the 90s, this is how it was. And they're still viewing it the same way. They're not even realizing that, okay, they're not getting the same value. It's wild that you're getting all these people coming
Starting point is 00:42:40 out of university. And then you go and work in Starbucks or you go and work a shoe shop, or do something that you could have just done without a degree. And you have to consider the opportunity to cost. What else could you have done in that three or four year period, or five year period, right? It's not just that you're going into debt. It's like, okay, you're losing out on earnings, you're losing out on experience. There's some degrees that make you dumber, right? If you go and you study women studies and with a minor in queer theory,
Starting point is 00:43:09 you're coming out dumber, then you went in. Or maybe just more woke. Dumber. No, really. You're coming out worse. You're actually coming out worse. You're coming out with less common sense, less grasp on reality, more of an less of an ability
Starting point is 00:43:25 to communicate with normal people. You've just been... Depending how far you go down that rabbit hole, that way. If you measure in that for four years, you're going to come out with some loopy ideas, and it's a Ponzi scheme, because the only way you can even make money from those degrees is going back into academia and brainwashing another generation. But I got to tell you this. Okay, so just think about if you had all the resources
Starting point is 00:43:46 in the world. Okay. And say you have 10 billion in a bank. And you're at a point you've traveled the world, you have kids, you're 59 years old, Zubi, King Zubi, you're 59 years old, you got 10 billion in a bank, beautiful wife, your kids have done your kids are doing great, they love you. Life is good. Married. Happy. Everything.
Starting point is 00:44:08 You're politically making an impact. You've done great for yourself. And then you're seen a big leak in education. And if you chose to start a university, how would you start that university? And what would you teach? What would be your format? Because there is a leak in it.
Starting point is 00:44:22 And there is experience in, there's a big difference between us doing the podcast this way, versus us doing a podcast on a Zoom. You're sitting right here in flesh. I'm sitting right here in flesh. We're having this conversation. It's a little bit more intimate versus, hey, Zubi, so how are things? No, no, no. So that there is that intimate experience.
Starting point is 00:44:41 So if you have 10 billion and all of us and you get the itch and you say, you know what, I just think, you know, we do need a university. I do think we need to do something there's a way of doing it better, how would you do it better? I have some ideas, I'm curious on how you guys would do it better. That's a great question. I mean, the first thing I would do is have this conversation
Starting point is 00:44:59 with smart people in different fields, successful, beyond people in the world of science and law. Talk to doctors, talk to people like yourself, entrepreneurs, and see, okay, what we've been running with this system for centuries, right? The world has changed massively in each person's field and sector. Let's have this conversation and see, okay, like what would what would what would you want to teach? What do you think would be valuable ask that of different people and then over time? I would I wouldn't put it all on myself and think, you know, I'll see you for it I have the knowledge of all these, you know, I just know I just for you just for you like I deal for you like okay, so for example
Starting point is 00:45:39 You know, uh, you know like you you start a restaurant, okay? You know, you know, like you start a restaurant, okay? And if we're starting a restaurant together, the four of us, first thing, let's just say, okay, what do you want to do? Do you want to make it a niche? What do you mean? It's a sushi? If it's sushi, we're doing sushi. If it's, you know, American, we're doing burgers, okay, we're doing that. If we're doing the Italian, we're doing Italian. If we're doing, are we doing a mixture? Are we doing like a fusion? Is that what we're gonna be doing? Okay, let's just say we're doing a fusion. What's the fusion between? Let's say we're doing Peruvian and Chinese food combined, like Chinuchiklano by Jose Andres. Okay, we're doing a fusion of Mexican food and, you know, whatever food.
Starting point is 00:46:14 Perfect. That's what you took me in Vegas. That's what you're coming up with. Chiclano is in DC. Vegas is poblano. poblano is Mexican and Chinese fusion. That's right. So then we make a menu.
Starting point is 00:46:23 And we say, what do you like on the menu? You say, I like these seven things to eat. What do you like? I like these nine things. Tom, what do you like? I like these six things. Tyler, what do you like? I like these eight things. We added. Then we look at the lesson. We say, guys, which one of these can we eliminate? And one by one, by one, we eliminate. And we keep the top 40% of the items on a menu that we all love. Okay, I think the first step is take all the topics that are teaching and look at it and say, which one of these you're gonna use in your life is? Okay, and I wanna say, okay, let's take the top 20%
Starting point is 00:46:57 of things that we are gonna use, okay? And then let's add new things that nobody else is teaching to it, business, entrepreneurship, negotiation, sales, money. Let's add this to it, right? Fitness, health and fitness. Let's add this to it, diet, like that kind of stuff. Let's add this to it, and let's go with it. And by the way, if you want to study philosophy,
Starting point is 00:47:15 go to university of whatever. If you want to study this, go over there. Our school is to teach you stuff that you're gonna apply in your life. And then here's what makes us unique at them. What's that? Two things. Number one, 50% of our professors are former operators. What do you mean? It's a form of a contribution to society. Hey, Adam, you're 63. You've made a lot of money. You don't need to make another 50 million bucks. Are you willing to contribute six hours of your week to society? Yeah, what do I need to do? A
Starting point is 00:47:49 class a day for one hour. I can do a class every other day. No problem. Let's start off with that. Adam is now a professor teaching basics of money because he became financially free, but he's not talking as a guy that desperately needs the salary. He's talking from a guy that's worth $10 million. Here's how I did it. These are the mistakes that I made, right? Okay. Zooby, your topic is going to be this.
Starting point is 00:48:10 How you want to contribute to such that guys I can only do two hours a week. No problem. It's fine. Here's what we're going to do. Then, my format will be the following format. In topics that there needs to be a lot of debate, the class would have two professors, not one professor. If we do religious studies, I'm going to have a Christian and I'm going to have a lot of debate, the class would have two professors, not one professor. If we do a religious studies, I'm going to have a Christian and I'm going to have a whatever,
Starting point is 00:48:28 pick another, a denomination, or not denomination, religion, Muslim, put Catholicism, Mormonism, Judaism, pick them, okay. And that's what it is. So you debate and I debate and I'm the student, I'm an amateur, the entire time, because I'm like, what a frickin' format. You're sitting there teaching history, half a couple people debate. The every class would have two professors, not one. And the format would be debate. Because I think what we're saying here with universities, I think if a university like that existed,
Starting point is 00:48:57 I would love for my kids to go there. Like the idea's gotta be dude, I am so happy my kids are in your hands. Thank you, I'm so happy my kids are in your hands thank you I'm so happy my kids are in your hands I was at a wedding last November and At the wedding the father the guy that was getting married shows up to me and he gives me a hug and he starts crying He says listen, and I'm so glad you got to hold on my son at 18 years old Because it because the teaching the change. So I have kids. I know eventually these kids got a goal on from somebody else.
Starting point is 00:49:29 For me to be able to say, my son is spending a quarter with Tom. I'm like, it's coming from a place of dude, that kid is going to come better. So the idea of education for parents needs to be, I can't wait to meet the final product of my daughter or my son, but that's not the feeling today. Okay. However, if you are woke left, if you are liberal, and you are sending your kids to UC Berkeley, guess what?
Starting point is 00:49:54 You are going to get exactly what you were hoping to get when the kids come out of college. Yeah. If that makes any sense. Yeah. And that should be that, the choice. You all right? Let's put it up to the free market, have these different,
Starting point is 00:50:06 and we'll see who turns out better. I love the debate philosophy. Another problem is that we touched on this, a lot of these teachers are, don't have, understand money, don't understand, unless they're an economics professor, don't understand how money works,
Starting point is 00:50:21 and the economy works. And they lost about money, they'll be else. Sometimes it's, so like here you have these teachers and respected teachers. I mean, I'm not going to shit on teachers, but overall, I think they, you know, we, that's a necessary component of society.
Starting point is 00:50:34 But you go to school to make money, or to learn how to make money, and then you're learning from people that don't know how to make money. So it's sort of a backwards philosophy. And I think we'd be doing a disservice if we don't talk about the advantages of a lot of people going to make money. So it's sort of a backwards philosophy. And I think we'd be doing a disservice if we don't talk about the advantages of a lot of people going to technical schools.
Starting point is 00:50:49 In America, it's your frowned upon if you become a plumber, right? Or if you become an HVAC technician, or if you become any sort of electrician working with your hands, it's like these guys make six figures. Do you know what's going on here? And this is the case with many things in our society
Starting point is 00:51:04 is there's this concept of perceived legitimacy. And I think this is what these universities are still running on. Some of them rightfully so, right? But many times it's all smoke and mirrors and fumes. It's branding, right? So why should, you know, why does somebody say, if someone says, oh, you know, I work in this legal office and I make 80 grand, people look at that one way and a plumber who's making
Starting point is 00:51:33 120 grand, you look at a different way or an electrician or a mechanic or something, right? It's this concept of like perceived legitimacy or clout or sort of prestige. But a lot of it is just branding and marketing that's kind of been put in people's heads for decades that causes them to kind of turn their, turn their nose up as certain things or frown on certain things and look at other things and like, oh wow, this is amazing.
Starting point is 00:51:59 And I think that as you, as we've all alluded to, people are waking up to that. And I think this is gonna be a generational shift. I think far more younger people, people say under 40, certainly under 30, are looking at the numbers and are looking at, by now we've had a decade of people coming out of college in multiple countries who can't get a decent job.
Starting point is 00:52:24 And people are looking at that and waking up to it and experiencing it themselves, and are like, hmm, okay, I did this thing, even if you, even if someone's there with 100 grand debt and you're 27 years old, and you're now thinking, honestly, if I'm honest with myself, that wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth me going into all that debt
Starting point is 00:52:42 to get my degree in history or fine art. They'll make a different choice when they have children, right? They're going to look at that situation and be like, okay, my parents did this because, you know, they thought they thought it was the best for me. Maybe they encouraged and pushed me to go to college because that's what they did and it worked out well for them. But look, the world has changed, the game has changed, there's new technology, there's new options, we don't need to kind of keep going down the same thing, because ultimately when you think about what is the,
Starting point is 00:53:10 what's really the purpose of education? And I think people get this twisted, right? People confuse, I've said before that education is cheaper free, but college is expensive. People conflate college and education. They're not the same thing. You can be extremely highly, highly educated, very, very knowledgeable, and not have a university degree.
Starting point is 00:53:33 You can have a university degree, and be very ignorant, and naive, and not very intelligent. I don't know how many people go to college because they wanna get smarter. No, return on your investment, to have a career and a job, so you can make money. That's it.
Starting point is 00:53:46 Yeah, but it's not even, it's not even really that practically, right? For so many companies, again, the legacy companies, the college degree is just a filter. It's a filter. And I think a lot of those big companies, such as the big tech companies,
Starting point is 00:54:00 are no longer demanding that you have a college degree. This is what I'm talking about. So they're waking up and going, okay, actually, we want to know that you can do the job and do the job well. Maybe 20 years ago, a degree was a very good sign of that. Now for whatever reason, it's not. We want to know, have you got the skills? And so I think that, I think there's a disruption that's happening. I think we're in the early phases of it
Starting point is 00:54:27 We've seen it in all of these other sectors just over the last few decades And I think that the same is going to happen with education and I think once that perceived legitimacy Switches from just being oh, you know, you you will have to go to this college or that college and it just becomes oh Okay, there's these other options and there's these other ways and we respect that and that's valid and that's legitimate and we don't frown upon that. Then I think the whole game is gonna gain it. I think it's already happened.
Starting point is 00:54:53 And it'll also cause the colleges to have to respond and react to that because if they wanna keep attracting and getting students, they're gonna need to step up their game. They're gonna realize, okay, we can't keep charging people 20 grand a year to learn some nonsense that they're not going to get any real value from because they're starting to get hip to the game. Yeah, it's happening as both surface. Pat and I are both very passionate about education.
Starting point is 00:55:17 I mean, at the core, my alter ego, the biz-doc is a teacher. That's me. And I look around it, I want to state-stool Cal State North That's me. And I look around it, I went to state school, Cal State Northridge because that's what I could afford. Those scholarships, not the ability, that's what I could afford. And I did pretty well because I was a smart kid. I learned some things, I studied business administration, marketing, so the finance was valuable. Certain things were valuable. They made me take some general ed courses, geology and stuff because I need science credit. I don't think that was valuable. I think it was profitable for the school.
Starting point is 00:55:49 Sure. I don't know that that was. For you requisites, you're required to take these classes before you can start doing your major bullshit. But Pat and I did, we went to a conference and GSB puts on an education conference and we went and saw there are lights shining out there and I'm not going to hold any up but we just you got to you got to clarify GSB is not
Starting point is 00:56:11 George St. Peter this is a GSV GSV yes this is the one where Betsy DeVos was getting protesting outside correct it was a issue GSV some of our education but really it was a showcase of some really clever companies. One was out there to you, and because we were both very impressed with this guy, Chip Possek, who came out there and said, hey, I'm going to make technical education available for the masses without the debt overhang. So you can go learn how to code and to be a computer science engineer and then go get yourself a job in an industry that had a shortage.
Starting point is 00:56:51 And so they'd love you to get skills in two and a half years and be available. They wouldn't, rather than waiting for you to go through MIT or Caltech for four years. And so there are, I think, our lights shining there. And also, I think people need to pay attention to things online education United States a lot of colleges of university are just waking up to it. Yes. If you look at ads on TV like ESPN and stuff You'll see S uh Southern New Hampshire University Grand Canyon University. You know the ones I'm talking about. Of course. You don't see Cornell ever
Starting point is 00:57:22 Types University. Well, University of Phoenix. We had another problem and it's a shadow of what it was and I don't think it's really doing it right. But the ones I'm just talking about, they are effectively educating people distant from their homes while Cornell is like, we would never do that. Why? Because it's not the economic model at Cornell wants to keep. But are those online universities actually worth it? Because I don't know how many people go
Starting point is 00:57:48 to those universities because they want a degree in something or a major education. It's just like, I gotta get a fucking degree. Let me just do it online. All right, cool, bang it up. Boom, Southern New Hampshire. Well, that's part of the thing that is slowly moving. Is you're slowly seeing things move or corporate America
Starting point is 00:58:03 is not using it. You were so correct, he called it the filtering mechanism. That's exactly what it is. It's a filtering mechanism. Okay, you have a degree and from where did you get the degree? From Southern New Hampshire University. From Southern New Hampshire University. Now, I'm going to another level, right? I don't care where someone got an education as honest as I can show me what they did. You know, we hired a business analyst. I didn't care where he got his education as long as he could show me what he did.
Starting point is 00:58:27 He was a smart guy. We trained him and he brought raw materials and worked out great for us. That is, and by the way, why do we do that at our company? Because before we came from, we weren't Ivy League bigots. We didn't look at it that way. Pat say, wow, I said it from this school to that school? We looked at him and say, is he smart? Clever? Smart, clever, two different things, right? Is he dedicated? Is he focused? Is he teachable? Is he personable? We looked at all these things and said, okay, he's bringing around materials
Starting point is 00:58:57 and he already knows how to do this and this. We're gonna show him the rest. And guess what? The guy had a really good run with us. Another thing that's so major is, because when I think of education in general, both school and university level, because a lot of this stuff can filter down to schools as well, is I think, okay, what are the things that no matter if you're an adult, you're going to have to deal with these things, right? No matter what you choose to do, how you live your life, there's certain things that we all have to deal with. That's why I brought up health and nutrition. We all have a body, we all eat food multiple times per day, and we've got one body that we need to take care of. So, to me, it's ludicrous that someone can go through
Starting point is 00:59:37 multi decade education process, and you don't learn at least the basics of taking care of your body. That's insane, right? Money. We all deal with money. Whatever job you do, however you live your life, whether you stay single, you get married, have children, you're gonna have to deal with money.
Starting point is 00:59:54 You're gonna have to deal with money and with finances. Gaping hole. That's not even a subject. How's that not a school subject? This is where I start thinking everything is a sia up because I'm like that. Sia up benefits. That's where I start thinking everything is a sly object. Because I'm not that kind of. Scythe or benefit. Exit, that's where I think it can't be accidental. They want people to be stupid about these things.
Starting point is 01:00:10 So you're going to have to deal with those things. Of course, communication. Communication, right? And not what to think, but how to think, right? Like being able, not everyone has the skills to have this type of conversation. They haven't learned how to communicate, how to listen, not just how to talk, and how to read, and how to write, and how to understand, but how to just sit down and listen to another person,
Starting point is 01:00:32 and, you know, control your emotions, and, you know, know when to... All of these things are really important skills, and as we all know, as entrepreneurs and people who do what we do, so much of it isn't just the hard math and hard science and hard, it's like cool. Those are important in certain ways, but it's, can you relate to people? Can you communicate? Can you get an idea across? Can you influence people? Can you persuade people?
Starting point is 01:00:59 All of that stuff. I think we have that. I think we have that at universities. I just don't know if some do it better than others. I think that have that. I think we have that at universities. I just don't know if you know some do it better than others I think that is taking place and a part of that like look Let's not get it twisted even if I go to the best school based on everything that I just talked But are you just talked about that they're gonna offer and you come out? You still could fill in life and you still could still be a schmuck because
Starting point is 01:01:19 You're not gonna be able to apply this stuff. It still goes back to the individual when they come out, right? Like when you say the average person that finishes college, it makes $2 million more than the other person that doesn't. Okay, is that the college or is that because the kids got the discipline to finish things? He starts, we don't know. So what are we going to give the credibility to? We don't know the data there, right? The whole debate with our men, better drivers than women. You know, a guy was showing me one of the Tate's videos about the guy's question I'm saying, Hey, are women better drivers than women. You know, a guy was showing me one of the tape videos about a guy's question, I'm saying,
Starting point is 01:01:46 hey, are women better drivers than men? And I'm sitting there saying, this guy's actually making the argument. And he's serious about it. He says, well, yeah, women are better drivers than men. According to data, data sometimes lies. What do you mean by that? First of all, okay.
Starting point is 01:02:00 So let's talk about a couple different things when it comes out to why insurance is cheaper for women than it is for men number one Who in their lifetime drives more miles men or women? Who drives more miles? Is it even a question? Well, if you're gonna go no truckers Not this man, but I'm saying like most men nobody's over more than me around there Most men drive more miles than women do. Okay, second statistics. If we were to take the average speed, men go versus the average speed women go.
Starting point is 01:02:31 How many more miles per hour do you think men go than women? Probably 10. I was gonna say 10 miles, right? Okay, if you go in 10 miles faster than women do, the chance of you getting conaccident, it's probably if it's 50 miles, 10, 20% higher if you killing yourself in car accidents.
Starting point is 01:02:47 Okay, I totally get that. But does it mean women are better drivers than men? No, but sometimes data is so misleading, like $2 million more. You know what I'm saying? Who calculated it? How did they calculated? What are the factors?
Starting point is 01:03:02 What are the things that we're not given? Are we giving way too much credit to the actual college education and not enough to the individual? Are we giving credit to the upbringing of the... There's so many different factors, but it's easy to always just give the credit to Because the colleges there's way more factors to it than just colleges again. I want to change topics You have some stuff to say about Saudi Arabia. Let me just first give credit to a couple You have some stuff to say about Saudi Arabia. Let me just first give credit to a couple superchatters. We have the mind of Vina gay 50 bucks. It says part of the US brand, part of the brand US identity
Starting point is 01:03:32 is bigger is better. Whether good or bad, this is true for military complex, dead obesity, drugs, excess good, bad skyscrapers, everything is bigger than US identity. This is abundance, but also egregious excess brand. Look at Texas, everything's bigger than Texas. Hello, come on now. Smedley Butler III says,
Starting point is 01:03:49 Zubi, the purpose of credit card, this were never meant to be for the consumer, through fractional reserve lending, banks multiplied the full credit card limit by 10 and loaned it out to consumer to someone else. As soon as you swipe it into existence, thank you Smedley. And outside of that, I wanna talk to you about Saudi Arabia.
Starting point is 01:04:08 Engol. Okay. Okay. So we went viral last time we talked about that. That one crazy. There is this phenomenon with tiger woods turned down live golf. 700 million to an $800 million offer. This is the biggest offer they made to anybody.
Starting point is 01:04:25 This was in an attempt to lure the 15-time major winner away from the PGA tour, according to Liv Golf CEO Greg Norman. The number has been out there, yes, Norman said. Tiger is a needle mover. So of course, you got to look at the best of the best. They originally approached Tiger before I became CEO, so yes, that number is somewhere
Starting point is 01:04:47 in that neighborhood. The Saudi Arabia back Gulf League has grown notorious for offering audacious sums of money to pry golfers from PGA tour with Woods offer being the most lucrative total known to date. So what do you think about, you know, why this has become so controversial? You know, oh my God, I cannot believe you're going to go and take money from, you know, Saudi Arabia. Why would you do that? Do you realize what they do over there? What are your thoughts on this?
Starting point is 01:05:12 This is my very first time hearing anything about this and I'm not, I'm not even familiar with live golf is what exactly is live golf? Oh, you're, this is, you have no clue about that. This is totally new. I'm totally new. So do you want to kind of tell them what's going on with Liv golf? Oh, you're this is, you have no clue about that. This is totally new. I'm totally new. So, do you want to kind of tell them what's going on with Liv golf? Yeah, not that I'm a huge golf guy,
Starting point is 01:05:29 but basically they started a competitive league to, or a championship series to basically the PGA. Okay. So, and now they're basically, let's see who can be bought. Well, Phil Mickelson can be bought. That's guys got to have a lot of problems. Boom, that's by that guy. He's a big name. Boom, here's a couple hundred million. Well Phil Mickelson can be bought. That's guys got a lot of problems Boom, that's by that guy's a big name boom. Here's a couple hundred million good good good for you Capca good, and then there's names after names of a big golf guy exactly. Okay, who can be bought who can be bought away from the PGA the way that I'm processing this is like
Starting point is 01:05:58 You know what China has done in the NBA why you know LeBron takes a lot of heat and a lot of the NBA players, what they don't speak about, what's going on in China, the totalitarian state that's going on there, and the weekers that are forced to do whatever are allegedly they have to do. It's a whole lot of TV money. Exactly, so basically, I think Saudi Arabia sort of took the blueprint
Starting point is 01:06:20 of what the China has done with the NBA and said, all right, let's do a little golf league here. And let's see how many players we can purchase. And it's a Saudi company. It's a Saudi company, exactly. And players are for a higher. And Tiger Woods, they said, all right, he's the biggest name in golf.
Starting point is 01:06:41 How much is it gonna cost to buy Tiger? And allegedly that number is gonna be more than 800 million because he said no to that. Interesting. So when they throw a B on there, is Tiger going to say yes? He's going to say no. We'll see what happens. But and Greg Norman, the shark, right? I think he's what the director of operations. What is he? The president? He made a president. He won't see you. See you. Yeah. Okay. So,
Starting point is 01:07:02 interesting. And then obviously there was a lot of backlash last week at Trump's golf course because they hosted, I think, a big live event. And you had a lot of 9-11 descendants, right? Advocates basically saying, all right. I mean, they, some stuff was declassified recently about Saudi Arabia and basically their role in 9-11. And it wasn't pretty for Saudi Arabia.
Starting point is 01:07:27 And then you can throw on top of that, the whole Jamal Kashoggi thing, you know, blood on the hands, what, you know, how much can it, does it cost for you to be bought? I think it's the big question here, that's right. So I mean, you're a follow-up guy, what's going on? Yeah, what do you think is going on here with live golf and Tiger?
Starting point is 01:07:44 So there's a couple of things that are going on. The first of all, the PGA tour has always been heavy handed. Whenever you have a monopoly, whether it's the NFL, the NBA, or Major League Baseball, you always have these conflicts between players. And the players' associations, they always unionize versus the... So you have the owners and the stadiums on this hand, and then we have the players associations on this hand. And the TV money goes over here, and then they give them contracts to play.
Starting point is 01:08:08 Well, that way in golf, too. And the interesting thing about it is the PGA Tour has been kind of heavy handed, and they've been inconsistent on things. Dustin Johnson was a very, very popular golfer who flunked three drug tests that we now know for using Coke. And instead, they said he's taking a six-month leave of absence because he heard his back jet skiing. And everybody in the tour was like, what's sort of BS is this?
Starting point is 01:08:37 Why can't we just come out and say he failed the drug test? Any drugs are performing the enhancing drugs. We don't want them in our sport, including recreational abuse drugs. So there's always been this thing with the PGA similar the way the NBA sometimes, or NFL will suspend this player, not that player, you know, when things happen. And so it opened the door for a competitive series. And they had big Saudi money behind him and says, tell you what, there's no monopoly. PGA tour players get the play in the British open, the open, you know, you don't have to be member of the tour, you're invited to the open, you're
Starting point is 01:09:13 invited to the US open, you're invited to the masters, those are not PGA tour events, they're all independent, the majors, except the PGA. And so finally the pop boils over and they're like, well, what if we got a bunch of money and started a competing global league? And what if we paid people to come into the league so we could prime the pump and get some people, you know, here. And that's what's happened. Big names, right? And it happens to be, it comes with Arabia and the underlining social things that people know about, but that's what's happened. They've tried to compete at a competitive league
Starting point is 01:09:50 and they've paid some big appearance fees, by the way, appearance fees have been around a tennis forever. The Joker gets $3.5 million to appear in certain tournaments that are not mainstream. Here's what Tigers, let me just read what Tigers said. Okay, so in other words, like to really compare, Paul just said something very interesting, he says, live golf is like the Jake Paul of the golf world.
Starting point is 01:10:15 Okay, so they're kind of cutting the big checks is what they're doing. Okay. And here's a comment from Tiger Woods, I'll just read it. I said at 2022, Open Championships, he was asked about joining Liv. He said, I disagree with it. I think that they've done is they've turned their back
Starting point is 01:10:37 on what has allowed them to get to this position. I know that the PGA tour stands for. I know what the PGA tour stands for and what we have done and what the tour has given us The ability to chase after our careers and to earn what we get and the trophies We have been able to play for and a history that has been part of this game This is his comments when you turn down seven or eight hundred million dollars. Tom when you hear that No one tiger. What do you think about tigers saying something like that?
Starting point is 01:11:07 Well, I think tigers had his own set of headlines for which he could have been suspended in many sports, unfortunately. And tiger is just saying, don't bite the hand that feeds you if we don't need change. That's always saying. That's always saying. You know, you were... He's also worth a billion dollars.
Starting point is 01:11:26 So it's easy if you're worth a billion dollars to kind of turn down a heavy many hundred million. And that if your, if your bubble Watson's point. Right, and so if you're, if you're only worth a couple million bucks and you've been working your ass off your whole life and you're 48 years old, whatever your number is.
Starting point is 01:11:41 Well, you're 35 years old and you're number 25 in the world. You've gotten up there to that level and they're going to offer you a walk across a appearance fee of $20 million exactly part of the tour. You look at it and you say, wow, but at the end of the day it just comes down, can you be bought? Can you be bought? I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Do you want to?
Starting point is 01:12:01 Well, wait a minute. It's a professional athlete taking the biggest contract on the table being bought. That's what I was about to say. Define being bought. It depends. Well, being bought is suggesting that there's some major objective ethical issue with it. Well, I mean, if you're American as an example, like you did hear the news about all the people protesting Trump's golf course in New
Starting point is 01:12:25 Jersey. You heard about this, no? Yes. Okay. So, all right. Over the last week or so, I mean, we've all known that Saudi Arabia has played some sort of role in 9-11. You've heard this, right?
Starting point is 01:12:37 Well, the hydrogen, some of many of the people who committed it, I know were Saudi nationals. Correct. The government. I'm not aware I haven't looked into all that. But apparently now they full on came out and they said, no, the government did have a role. Straight up, this is not my opinion, this is what is going out circulating.
Starting point is 01:12:53 So, and then you throw on the Jamal Kashoggi thing, right? So, that's the question, I know you're Saudi, so this is like, yeah. I'm not Saudi. No, you didn't, then you live in Saudi for a while? I live there, man, I'm not Saudi. Okay, well, you defend Saudi. So this is like, no, you didn't, then you live in Saudi. I live there, man. I'm not Saudi. Okay. Well, you defend. You defend, you like, you don't, don't put words in my mouth. But, but, but, Zubi, you came out and you said that you liked Saudi
Starting point is 01:13:13 a little bit. I like Saudi Arabia more than America and more than New York City. No, I didn't say that. What are you talking about, bro? That was the whole clip that went by. New York City, not America. It's okay. Yeah, man. Like, I said, yeah, I said New York City. I apologize, but I did say that. But you're defending Saudi Arabia more like the New York City easily. Correct. But a lot of Americans would disagree with you, bro. But they've never been.
Starting point is 01:13:33 Correct. But they don't think they're people are clamoring to go to Saudi because of what we've assumed about Saudi Arabia. Bringing it back to the Gulf situation is, you know, people are very uneasy with Saudi Arabia, especially with their role in 9-11 here. So that's the story here. I mean, nobody's, if the UAE started this, nobody would be talking smack about this, right?
Starting point is 01:13:56 If the country of Jordan did this, is because of the connotations with Saudi Arabia. Yeah, but this Saudi Arabia had a role in 9-11, period, full stop. So if you're American, you're probably gonna have an issue with Saudi Arabia. Yeah, but this Saudi Arabia had a role in 9-11 period full stop. So if you're American, you're probably going to have an issue with Saudi Arabia. When I get that there's some sort of a fringe ally, whatever, you know, they're opposite of Iran, you know, we're who who who who does Saudi Arabia buy all their weapons from United States. Okay. Exactly. That's
Starting point is 01:14:20 why I said there's some sort of fringe ally. This is the fucking debate, bro. This is the debate. From, I mean, it's like, people are so inconsist- What bothers me is like the inconsistency on these things. Well, it's because Saudi Arabia is inconsistent. On one hand, they'll buy weapons off us, and there'll be our ally. But at the other hand, there's a report that comes out and says that the government did have a role in 9-11.
Starting point is 01:14:42 Well, look, Greg Norman made a really good point. And I watched his interview and people said, well, that's really apples and oranges. No, it wasn't. He pointed out that one of the top three sponsors this year in the LPGA is Aramco. Whoops, wait a minute. Where are they?
Starting point is 01:14:59 What are they? Saudi Aramco. Correct. And he pointed out, he said, take the top 10 advertisers or something from the PGA, and look at how many of them are energy or massive banking consulting companies that have massive, not just a couple million dollars, but massive economic relationships
Starting point is 01:15:17 with Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, KSE and the government, for years and years and years, not just that they did a deal this year, but they've been this, it says, so why is it so bad that you've got royal money and country money coming out to create this golf league when sponsors here, are they real high-end moralists, or are they turning a blind eye, or are they just doing business. These people, the inconsistency is ridiculous. What about China?
Starting point is 01:15:48 I'm watching business. I'm watching stuff. Everything's made in China. Everything's bought from the... If someone was to even attempt to be moderately consistent on this, then you can't really do anything. And this is one of the sort of saddest things about the world
Starting point is 01:16:02 is I often think, this is kind of getting a little philosophical, but I often, I'm intrigued by the concept of what I would call complicity with evil, right? Because unfortunately, it's impossible for any of us, just by paying taxes, just by living, just by buying things, there's a degree of complicity with things that we all have
Starting point is 01:16:25 moral and ethical issues with, right? We all have smartphones, right? Where is the mining of some of the materials that are used for smartphones, coal, coal, tan, it's like everything you buy, right? You're buying something from, from your buying Nike shoes, right? Or the box con factory, your buying electronics, right? Like whatever you're buying, there is somewhere down the line, most likely something you have an ethical issue with factory farming. Like everything, even just paying taxes,
Starting point is 01:16:52 even the way your own government spends money, right? You pay your taxes and then they go and start some foreign war that you are completely opposed to, whether it was Iraq and our life. So all these military interventions, and it's just messy. It happens on a governmental level, it happens on an individual level and so on.
Starting point is 01:17:14 And I'm a big fan of doing my best to try to reduce what I'd consider my complicity with evil. It's actually part of a reason why I tend to lean more libertarian on many things because I'm like, man, I don't want it. It's one thing taxing me and those taxes are going towards schooling or helping homeless people or helping widows or so on. It's another thing taxing me and then you go and you spend that money on some crap that
Starting point is 01:17:39 I totally, totally disagree with and have no say in. So I think all of this stuff is very, is very, very messy and it's confusing because you've got, we know what the CCP is up to, you've already talked about, because they've literally got concentration camps, literally, right? Saudi Arabia has it since Russia.
Starting point is 01:17:59 Every country has it since Western countries have their sins too, but they're all working. Yeah. It's so complicated. That's the thing with me. So when I see stuff like this, I'm kind of like, well, you know, each, I think each individual should make their choice. I think if Tiger Woods is like, you know what, I have an ethical issue with this.
Starting point is 01:18:20 The same thing happened by the way I know because they did the Crown Jewel WWE events in Saudi Arabia over the last couple of years. And some of the wrestlers were like, you know what? I don't want to participate in this event in Saudi Arabia. I have some kind of ethical issue with this. I'm going to step aside for this one. Other wrestlers were like, you know what? Some of them thought completely differently. Some were like, you know what?
Starting point is 01:18:40 Actually, this is an opportunity to look, the country is becoming, the idea of even having a WWE event in Saudi Arabia 10 years ago was absurd. It wouldn't have happened. So their country is actually liberalizing and opening up in various ways. And they're like, okay, this is an opportunity to use our talents to help open things up. And then later down the line, you know, it's gonna be a process.
Starting point is 01:19:06 And by the way, I think people often forget. One more thing, one more thing. My brain is jumping around everywhere because it's such an interesting topic to me. It's also, I think people also forget that countries take time to get to places. Where was the USA in 1922? Right? Where was the USA even?
Starting point is 01:19:23 They might have had the great depression. Yeah, but I mean, from a social standpoint, you have the freaking KK, millions of KKK members running around, people getting lynched, like, 100 year, like, stuff was bad, like countries take time, like, history's dirty, history's messy, it's violent, it's nasty, you've had genocides, you've had wars, all of this,
Starting point is 01:19:41 and countries change, and they progress. And things are not stagnant. Where things are right now is not where they'll be in the future. So I do think that many Westerners and Western countries, despite all their own sins, which I won't even get into, oftentimes they're like, okay, well, we're here right now in 2022. I think super woke people especially have this problem. And so we want to like snap our fingers and expect everywhere else around the world across Africa, across Asia, across the Middle East.
Starting point is 01:20:11 Like they should all just be, they should all just be like us. Get on our level. Just like this. And I'm like, bro, but 20 years ago, like, you know, take a topic like, I don't, easy one, gay marriage, right? 20 years ago, your opinion and the general opinion on the same, is this exact same thing the view is in Nigeria.
Starting point is 01:20:31 Right, so you're here now trying to like pressure these countries and push, oh, they're so backwards like it's like bro, like 20 years ago, that wasn't even the opinion here. Let's be real. So why are you like expecting, okay, well, this thing changes here. We should snap our fingers and by magic, all the billions of people in the world just suddenly shift views
Starting point is 01:20:49 that they've held for centuries. It's like, it's a messy one. So I've said a lot there. I've got a lot of thoughts on it, but I just think it's a complicated thing. I would say it's actually very simple. You know, okay, they have competition. And you know, they have competition. And you know, PGA has had a monopoly for a long time and there's never been a second leak to compete against them. Like, weren't the insurance industry? Let me tell you, I wish you knew how much competition we've had every fricking day that we've got to figure out a way to improve, you know.
Starting point is 01:21:21 Everybody's like, well, you know, how about that podcast, this podcast, that podcast, what if this guy, what if that guy? Look, if you have a message, we started with zero subscribers and audiences showed up because we had to get better. If you don't get an audience, you're not interesting. The audience will say it. You can try to do whatever you want to do. People can say whatever they want to say about Mr. Beast or people can say whatever they want to say about PewDiePie or Rogan, they are interesting and people want to hear what they have to say and there's competition.
Starting point is 01:21:50 Today, you know how many podcasts there is today? You know how many podcasts there is today worldwide? Four hundred million podcasts today, okay? Four hundred million podcasts. You got, there's, there's, there's a massive number worldwide in the US, I think, I'm sorry, in the US there's four million podcasts, in the US. There's four million podcasts. You got four million podcasts to choose from, okay?
Starting point is 01:22:10 Not four hundred, no. No, no, no, in US, the number I'm giving you, it's saying worldwide has gone. No, US, a 400 is an accurate number. In US there's four million podcasts, okay? How many podcasts do you got to choose from? Oh my God, like, imagine how competitive that is is so PGA tours upset because there's gonna be one other
Starting point is 01:22:29 golf Competition for you. I'm sorry PGA You you you you you have now somebody that you're competing against so if they can pull it off You know great look what they know why it's it. They know what says the best thing when Jake Paul says stuff to him. You know what he says? Good. You want to pay him better? Start a leak. No one's stopping. Start a leak. Go for it. If you want to start a leak and compete against us and pay people better, start a leak. See how you can do it. Go see how many I've tried. So if live things, they can do it better. And they think their method of doing this is by cutting the big checks that you got oil and you go get a badass guy like Greg Norman who is going to be making
Starting point is 01:23:09 these calls to them. All right, see how it works out. It may or may not work out. Props to Tiger for saying, yeah, I'm not taking it. And he chose this position that he chose, but you cannot make this about Saudis are linked to 9-11 because when the moment you play that card, you're messing yourself up because the game of hypocrisy is going to come back and catch up to you, man. The game of hypocrisy is not a good game to play. You can sit there and try to judge people. The moment you play the judgment game,
Starting point is 01:23:44 first thing that happens is if somebody like, you know how they say, well, do you realize what you did when you did this and you did that and you did this? All the person has to say, I'm sorry, for everybody watching, if you ever went to high school with this guy or college with this guy, can you please email us whatever you have on this guy? Are you okay with that Mr. reporter?
Starting point is 01:24:02 Well, no, no, no, no, okay, then listen, maybe like chill out, we all got stuff in the skeletons and a closet. And we've all made mistakes, kind of relax. And let's compete and see who's going to get better. And then if you got a better argument, I'd live more power to you. Don't you don't Trump try to start a league NFL? Who's the one player he picked up? Do you guys remember? Steve Young. Who else did he pick up? The name that now was running for Senator. Personal Walker. Hershel Walker. It was the biggest thing with Trump started a football league.
Starting point is 01:24:28 He was here as he generals. And he went and brought Hershel Walker. And Hershel Walker said no to the NFL, but he said yes to Trump. Why? Because they paid better. So as Hershel Walker is a guy that's for sale. And then he went there and he's like, again, I want Trump. You failed.
Starting point is 01:24:40 I'm going to go to the NBA and to the NFL. And then, so this is not easy to do. There's a lot of XFL is out there people have tried a BA was out there Julius Irving used to be part of a BA before NBA Bunch of guys played for a BA So we're gonna find that if they can compete here's a truth It's gonna take a lot more than money to be able to compete against the PGA a lot more money. Yeah, then that so We'll see if they'll pull it off or not anyways, it's definitely interesting. Yeah, then that. So we'll see if they'll pull it off or not. Anyways, it's definitely interesting. Yeah. It's more interesting. They're not cutting players. All the players are getting paid. They have
Starting point is 01:25:08 teams. You're bringing hot young names. You're changing up the format. It's not boring old PGA tour. They're going to cater to the young audience. And they're going to pull it off. They will pull this. You know what I like about this Tyler? You know what I like about this? I agree. You look like you could be the nephew of Greg Norman, by the way It's like a is there relations that were here defending them or maybe a little bit of Saudi with your beard that you guys No, I used to I used to play a lot of golf man I'm a big fan of the sport and I think the PGA is boring
Starting point is 01:25:33 I think it's very hypocritical of tiger as a billion dollar athlete to sit here and criticize these guys Imagine your pat Perez on two of her for 20 years. Okay. You travel along the country You're paying your caddy your paying a ship all your stuff and you're now, now you can go to a grand where you can't pay every event. Your 48th last place makes 120 grand for event. I love it. That's the point. Go do it. See how you do. I'll play. Go do it. See how you do it. Right. See if you pull it on for a grand for coming last. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go. You have to be in like the top 30 and if you J event to make to make any money. Let's talk about Tyler with your permission. Can we talk about Geico?
Starting point is 01:26:06 If that's okay with you. I think it's great. Let's go talk about Geico. Let's go talk about Geico. Okay. So Geico closes all California offices, Lazy Off workers. Okay. They've reportedly closed all their 38 of its agent offices in California, laid off hundreds
Starting point is 01:26:21 of employees and will no longer sell insurance through telephone agents in the state. California can still obtain guy copalesis in the state but will only go through a computer or mobile service posing a challenge for those who are not technologically proficient. California is a strong insurance market more than 130 companies competing for consumers, private passenger, auto business, and more than 70 companies writing home orders and insurance. the California apartment insurance said we encourage consumers to look at their options for coverage
Starting point is 01:26:50 in California competitor marketplace. So now why did Geico leave? Geico's name is not a small name. They're everywhere. Branding, they're commercial, they're Geco. They've made some of the funniest commercials. What do you do and live in the state of California? You're in the insurance business.
Starting point is 01:27:04 Why do you think this is happening? I have zero clue, like Geico's sounded like this. All I know is that a lot of companies are cutting staff these days. We've seen that Robin Hood just cut a bunch of staff, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has come out and said his staff. There's something going on in California. That's for sure. Is that where you're going with this? Yeah, listen, the question, this is what's unique about this article. It didn't say Geico is shutting down 78 offices nationwide. Okay? It says they're shutting down all of their offices in one specific state.
Starting point is 01:27:37 Why? Why are you only closing all of your offices? It didn't even say they're closing 38 of their 92 offices in the state of California. It's saying they're closing all 38 of its offices in California is the climate bad in California. Are you choosing to leave? Is the regulation just not worth it? Are the taxes just not worth it?
Starting point is 01:28:01 Is the cost per leave you're getting that you have to pay the commission for the agents to make money for the least you pay for the building to get the customer support To be there and then have to go through the loopholes that the state of California offers just not worth it I don't know but this story that title right there says a lot Geico has closed all 38 of its locations in California does not say any other state and doesn't say a percentage of their offices? It says all, that makes you think. Tom, what do you think? I think it's a business environment in California
Starting point is 01:28:32 because Geico is not leaving. Geico is continuing to service and to sell to consumers in the seventh largest economy in the world, California. So they're not leaving. They're not leaving. They're just saying, it is hard to do business here in California. What, and you know what? I think it could be a combination of, or all the reasons Pat just said.
Starting point is 01:28:54 And they're like, you know what? We're out of here. But also I take a look through the between the lines really quickly. Hundreds of employees, when the longer longer sell insurance through telephone agents in the state. Could it be that finding that being able to pay people to be a telephone agent in California does not match with the cost of living in California? Maybe they can't find enough of these agents. I don't know. But what this says to me, hey, we're still going to sell this online, but we're not going to have offices
Starting point is 01:29:25 in California. I think it means the California business climate was difficult. They still want the business from the seventh largest economy with the greatest automobile culture in America. They don't want that market. Of course, they want that market. Yeah, I think where you're basically saying this is a metaphor for why you left California. You're in the insurance business here. I mean, I'm reading between the tea leaves here. this is a metaphor for why you left California. You're an insurance business here.
Starting point is 01:29:45 I mean, I'm reading between the tea leaves here. Actually, there was a reason you left California a lot of meetings because of the lines and reading the tea leaves. Yeah, but both of those things between the lines and smoking some tea leaves. They, um, they're must be there must be exactly there must be a reason. But we didn't do this. Taxes regulation is ultimately why you left California.
Starting point is 01:30:04 But what I'm trying to say to you is we didn't leave California. So if I, you're saying that California left you? No, no, he's saying we don't say permanently shut down and chant right new policies in California. And agent told the reporter on Thursday. So an agent who worked for Geico, that's 38 offices. I don't know how many hundreds of agents, but an agent said, I can't no longer sell Geico
Starting point is 01:30:31 in the state of California. That's like PHP saying, hey, to all the people that are in California, you can no longer sell in California. Why would a company this size shut down a state that's the sixth or seventh largest economy in the world? Why would you do it? That's what I'm interested in knowing because there is a, you know like no came out. Shakira is getting the divorce. Her husband getting the divorce. Remember that? And in a month later story comes out and says
Starting point is 01:30:59 what? Taxi. They got you. Eight years going to jail for taxes, okay? So you're like, oh, what happened there, okay? You know because if you're married, you got taxes shoes, who's linked to the taxes shoes if you're married? Both of you if you're divorced is it so you don't know we're not gonna know why guy called left California All I'm saying is why is a company as big and pro you know who owns guy cool? You know who's the biggest shareholder in Geico? It's Buffett. So you think Buffett, you know, like, I don't know. I just think there's gotta be something going on there
Starting point is 01:31:32 with the climate that's getting somebody like this to say, we're leaving the sixth largest economy. And who are? Gotta get you to think about that. Pat, that's a great point. And who runs to the microphone? The California State Department of Insurance, and it says, point and who runs to the microphone the California state department of insurance and uh...
Starting point is 01:31:47 it says hang on everything's okay we encourage customers look at the options for coverage of california's competitive marketplace that's kind of the way that quote that comes from just a lot of that's a freaked out bureaucrat saying everything school california we got all these insurers companies no problem that's a lot of choices you know throughout the running out there saying everything's cool, California, we got all these insurers companies, no problem, we've got a lot of choices. You know, they're out there running out,
Starting point is 01:32:06 they're saying, everything's cool. Why is the state running out to say all is well when a company moves? The answer is, I think it was the regulatory environment. That's my guess. What's so interesting about all these conversations is they're all really about competition, right? It's competition, because this is the same.
Starting point is 01:32:25 This is what's happening playing out right now in the USA, especially over the past three years, is just competition, right? People migrating and moving to where make sense, California is losing people, Florida is gaining people, and so on and so forth. And so, to me, it's interesting. I feel bad for the people who end up kind of just casualty, like this, how many people
Starting point is 01:32:50 just lost their jobs from this, right? Like that sucks. But I do think in the long term with all of this stuff, it's going to be really interesting to see where it all goes. I think where it's such a transition point right now in our countries in so many ways. And it's scary and it's unnerving and it's freaking a lot of people out in many ways for many different reasons. But I think that in the long term, it's going to be interesting just to see where it lands and see where it's see where stuff is in 10 years from now.
Starting point is 01:33:23 It would be really interesting. It's going to be. We'll see what's going on. But all I know is, you know, this is a little bit strange when somebody as big as Geico, as profitable as Geico, leaves the biggest economy in America. What are you doing? Leaving that place.
Starting point is 01:33:38 It's a very strange move to leave. You got so many potential customers that can no longer be written by agents This is a very very weird move and it's terrible for the Department of Insurance But let's change transition. Let's go into a different topic Zalinsky Okay, so report came out deep mistrust has developed between White House and Zalinsky This is a hot air story and ominous detail is buried buried in Tom Fried's column. This is a guy who had lunch at the White House with Biden less than three months ago. The timing of Pelosi's visit could not be worse.
Starting point is 01:34:11 Dear reader, the Ukraine war is not over and privately US officials are a lot more concerned about Ukraine's leadership than they are letting on. There is deep mistrust between the White House and President Zelensky of Ukraine considerably more than has been reported on and there's a funny business There's funny business going on in Kiev on July 17, Zalisky fired his country's prosecutor general and the leader of its domestic intelligence Agency the most significant shake up in his government since the Russian invasion in February it would be the equivalent of Biden firing Merrick Garland and Bill Burns on the same day. But I have still not seen any reporting that convincingly explains what was that all about.
Starting point is 01:34:55 It is as if we don't want to look too closely under the hood and Kiev for fear of what corruption or antics might, we might see when we have invested so much there. That's a very well written article by the way. It makes you think about what's really going on over there. Tyler, I'll go to first. What do you think's going on with this? I think that the White House is exactly what it says. They're terrified to see that Ukraine is exceptionally corrupt,
Starting point is 01:35:22 that it's never been a true democracy, that it's always been an oligarchy, and it's always been exceptionally corrupt. It was what, the third most corrupt country in the world, like they ranked these things, and it's always been hugely corrupt. We've now sent them what, $51 billion, $52 billion, and they know they fucked up.
Starting point is 01:35:38 They don't want to look. They're afraid of it. But then Ben Stiller says, Zelensky's his hero, he flutters, he's my hero. Yeah, you two did the concert in the subway. This thing's been so weird. Zelensky's is hero. You flew up there and said, you're not gonna come. Yeah, you two did the concert in the subway. This thing's been so weird. Zelensky's had Russian assassins
Starting point is 01:35:49 after him since the war started, but he can do his shoot with Vogue. You've got people going to the beach. It's, I mean, it's weird, man. It's one reason why I've been very silent since this whole thing kicked off because from the day one, it's just struck me as weird.
Starting point is 01:36:04 I don't get what's going on. And again, this comes back to a point I was making earlier, which is, with this situation and so many others, I think oftentimes people conflate governments with the people, right? So when someone even says, I stand with Ukraine or I support Ukraine, what does that mean? Or if someone has, you know, says they don't like the USA or they don't like Saudi Arabia,
Starting point is 01:36:30 or whatever it is. And I think it's always a mistake to conflate governments with the people of a country. I think anyone who's traveled knows these things are very, very different and that the CCP is not representative of Chinese people in general. The US government absolutely is not in a, you know, I think virtually every America, I feel like every American I've met is like a is better than the top people in the government. And so on. So the notion that the government and the people are the same thing is very messy.
Starting point is 01:37:07 So I think with this situation, it's been confusing because of course you have all the nonsense and social media, but when someone criticizes or is critical of Zelensky or the Ukrainian government or says they're corrupt, right, people automatically jump. Oh, so you're pure proputed and you're pro- right people automatically jump. Oh, so you're pure, proputed in your program. You don't care about the Ukrainian people.
Starting point is 01:37:25 It's like, no, you can totally care about the people who have been killed, injured, displaced from their homes, et cetera. You can have complete compassion for those people, but you can also recognize, okay, at a governmental level here, there's something weird going on here. You've got that whole A's off battalion in there
Starting point is 01:37:42 and you've got actual neo-nazis who are fighting in the what? I don't know all the details, but it's messy and I think people try to really simplify it and just be like, okay, either you're pro Russia or you're pro Ukraine and it's like, well, what does that even mean? I think we're so quick to label. All right. That Putin's the bad guys. So those guys must be the good guys. It's, you know, it's, there's a lot of gray areas where you're talking about. There's more than meets the eye. Everyone wants the label, Russia, the bad guy. And then you crane the good guy. So Zelensky is the face of Ukraine. You know, good looking young guy. What have you? So he's the good guy. But I think what we're learning is maybe there, it's sort of a lesser of two evils thing.
Starting point is 01:38:23 Russia can be the bad guy Putin could be the bad guy, but at the same time Ukraine's a linsky can still be corrupt like Tyler was talking about you so this can be a more yeah I mean, it's just not it's not a black and white thing bad. I've been a less bad And I don't speak on it too much as well because I'm aware that this stuff has been going on for for decades these countries have decades Yeah of history and I'm aware that this stuff has been going on for decades. These countries have decades of history. And I'm very far, you know, there's people who didn't know what Ukraine meant was. Well, Pat, do you remember when we had Oliver Stone here? Yeah. Okay.
Starting point is 01:38:55 Do you remember the conversations there with what he was talking about? Very different perspective. Yes. And it's not this perspective you're going to hear from mainstream media. People were upset about what he was saying. So, look, I mean, when this thing, but the whole thing with timing is what the writer is making you think, because while this is going on, and what Ukraine is to Russia is what Taiwan is to China, the closest correlation, and you go during this time, I don't know, it's kind of interesting what's going on over here.
Starting point is 01:39:27 I, one thing I've been thinking about a lot over the last few months, and people have brought this point out, I'm not the only one, but I think on a world level, the USA, certainly from a governmental perspective, is looking weak and incompetent right now. And I think that was massively exemplified by the people who have already forgotten about the Afghanistan pull out last year. I mean, that was a complete catastrophe. And I think that with this, you know, I don't even want, I don't want to be that guy who's I do wonder, I do wonder what all of this have happened under Trump.
Starting point is 01:40:04 Would you brush it, have invaded Ukraine? Would China be making the moves it's making? I doubt it. It's a conjecture. I don't know, but I think that the USA, I think with Biden, is looking, I mean, you've got dudes in dresses like in the cabinet. You've got diversity highs. There are militaries putting out woke ads and whatever.
Starting point is 01:40:21 I think if I were in China or I were Russia and I was like some general or so, I'd be looking over the US and being like, okay, okay, right? Don't interrupt your enemy when they're when they're making a mistake, right? Like it's just looking soft and weak. The USA is not looking as strong on national stage as strong and as competent as it did previously, whether it's under Trump or under Obama or under Bush or so on. And I think that China and Russia are seeing that. And I would assume that's why some of these moves are being made at this point because the administration is just looking weak. I mean, the president can't string sentences together. Greatest motivational speaker of all time. So it's,
Starting point is 01:41:02 you got to give credit with credits too. Okay, we got a couple minutes left. Which story do we wanna go into right now with what we got going on? Like you said, Robin Hood. Since we're talking about California, what is going on with all day, the drug stuff? Oh, do you wanna talk about the drug stuff?
Starting point is 01:41:17 Okay, California, you had to fund a heroin injection sites in LA, Oakland, and San Francisco. Okay, what a brilliant strategy. So let's cover this one here to see what they're doing there. A bill passed Monday in California, state legislature would enable LA, Oakland, and San Francisco to open heroin injection sites for drug users. The bill would authorize cities and counties
Starting point is 01:41:39 to establish safe consumption sites where addicts could use illegal narcotics under supervision. Those excess and the hygienic space supervised by trained staff guys, they're trained, could consume pre-obtained drugs. Program staff would be trained to administer an opioid antagonist in the event of an overdose. Under federal law, it is currently a felony to operate a space to distribute or use a control substance. federal law it is currently a felony to operate a space to distribute or use a control substance present a Biden co-authored the federal state statue during his time as a senator
Starting point is 01:42:12 how do you even respond to this uh... reacted as article yes you can illegally by heroin on the corner and then walk into a safe space where they're going to give you a clean needle and a iodine or an alcohol kit for your point of injection. Okay, and by the opioid antagonist in modern parlance, that's like an epipen. Like when people have like when people have allergies, you have to carry the epipen like a child with peanut butter or a beast thing. It's a it's a big adult version of that. Oh yeah, I'm gonna oh the guys have an overdose Hit him with the no arcane, right? Yeah, exactly similar exactly right
Starting point is 01:42:50 Hit him with that. So it's just shocking to me. It's it's this is really shocking Why why would we help to perpetuate someone's Situation with such a drug like heroin and bad brown is the hardest to kick, you know, as they refer to heroin. This is what they call their so-called harm reduction policies, isn't it? Have you guys read us? Where's the methadone helping these people maybe to get off it back to some other place? No, no, have you guys read San Francisco?
Starting point is 01:43:21 No. Michael Schellenberger. Michael Schellenberger, have you read that book? I've not read it, but I've seen a lot of the stuff you guys read San Francisco? No, Michael Shellenberger. Michael Shellenberger, have you read that book? I've not read it, but I've seen a lot of the stuff he's been doing. Yeah, I'd really recommend reading that book because I went to California for the first time in my life in 2019.
Starting point is 01:43:33 And I was shocked by LA and San Francisco. I saw stuff in those two cities. I'd never seen anywhere else in any city in my entire life. And this is 2019 and stuff in many cases, waste as worse since then. But those places are, they're not normal. My mind was blown. I was so confused.
Starting point is 01:43:50 I was in San Francisco for a week and I was like interview. I was like informally interviewing Uber drivers and everyone's like, what is going on in the city? Why is it, why is it like this? I mean, I remember being out there and I was in a park, it was 8 p.m. on a Saturday. And there were like 20 people just shooting heroin
Starting point is 01:44:07 in the park behind me, just casually. I was, I've never seen that before, just out there. And the open people are walking past, going out to clubs, going to restaurants and whatever, it's just people doing heroin. I was like, this is not normal. And then I was so intrigued by it and I got led to this book and I was reading about it
Starting point is 01:44:23 and the history and why the policies are like this and so on so this does not surprise me in the slightest But it's insane these places. I've described California as a beautiful place Run by complete idiots. I think it's run by complete crazy people with no grasp on reality and It's sad it's sad because San Francisco is a beautiful city architect really, whether in LA is fantastic. These are cool places, but the policies are just nuts on so many levels and they just keep getting worse.
Starting point is 01:44:57 It's almost like they're trying to drive people out. I was also in San Francisco in 2018, 2019, and I was with my girlfriend at the time. And we checked into our hotel, cool. We got, we were so excited. We drove from LA, what is it, the 101 highway up in California? Did the drive, big sir, if you ever drift through big sir, it is ridiculous.
Starting point is 01:45:18 Talk about gorgeous, forget about it. And then we get to San, we're so excited. It's the New York City of the West, you know? And we get you checked in a hotel and we asked the The bell hop or the person in the front is which way to go they go definitely don't walk that way Yeah, like because it's nighttime don't go that way go this way even that way Long story short my girlfriend. She's like dude We get like what the fuck is this city get me out out of here. I go, we're here for four days.
Starting point is 01:45:46 Let's give it some time. We'll see up tomorrow and we went to like Fisherman's Warf and it was actually really nice. But there are parts of it that are absolutely insane. Fourth world. Disgusting. Like, what the hell is happening here? And that's the most expensive city to live in America.
Starting point is 01:46:03 New York is San Francisco. So it's like, there's this ridiculous profound wealth because of the big tech. And that's the most expensive city to live in America, the New York San Francisco. So it's like there's this ridiculous profound wealth because of that big tech and everything that's gone and Silicon Valley. And then there's this disgustingness that's happening on the underbelly, not even so much the underbelly because it's out there on the streets. It's in the center, but it's just like this backwards thing.
Starting point is 01:46:21 And on the surface, even this story is disgusting, so I can come in and do heroin professionally. I want to mature a way to do heroin. And I've lost some friends to overdose, whether it's opioids, whether it's this kind of crazy stuff. And I'm trying to wrap my head around why they would implement policies like this. And the only thing that I can really come up with
Starting point is 01:46:42 is the fact that while these people are gonna do it anyway. Yeah. So if they're trying to prevent deaths and overdoses and sharing disgusting needles and if people are going to do it anyway, why not allow them to do it in a safe space? Now, I'm not an advocate of heroin or pills or overdosing, but there must be some methodology to the matter. Yeah, I think it's kind of, and people on the, kind of far-left progressives can have this type of,
Starting point is 01:47:11 almost like toxic compassion. It's the opposite of tough love. They're completely opposed to tough love, right? It's this, but it's to the, you've ever seen those programs where someone weighs like 600 pounds or 700, and their mom is still feeding them. Why are you feeding because I love him, my girlfriend, right?
Starting point is 01:47:28 They're so unwilling to enact anything that is just like, look, you can't do this. So it's so permissive that it ends up being destructive. Yes. Right, and that's... I totally agree with you. It's the same, they've done it with a shoplifting, right? You can shoplift up to $900
Starting point is 01:47:45 or cause criminal damage up to $900, and it's not a felony, right? Or the way that they have the tents and the people just injecting or whatever, as long as you're not physically assaulting someone, you're just gonna come and ask you guys. I wanna ask you as this question. So tell me this policy of creating a safe space for heroin addicts
Starting point is 01:48:08 to go use heroin. I want to hear from who the hell says what an honorable thing to do. Like give me beta devil's advocate and don't think logically. Okay. And go to the person that says that maybe they lost somebody to heroin. Like who's gonna say, man, what a great idea. Tell me that, can you even do that? Like, do you understand what I'm asking? I think I do. Okay, so I know. I think I know how they come from it.
Starting point is 01:48:39 I think there's two perspectives. There's the number one, this is where I'm not, this is one thing where I'm not sure, I don't think the libertarian thought process really works on this one, but number one is the whole, your body, your choice, you're not hurting it. As long as you're not hurting anybody else, you should have the right, and it should be legal
Starting point is 01:49:02 for you to consume whatever you want, put whatever you want into your body. So there's that there's that libertarian Approach of just like well, that's up to you has to have nothing to do with the government so on and then there's the more Progressive side, which I believe they call these productions Sorry, they call these policies harm harm reduction Which is as you alluded to, people are going to do this anyway. So it is safer for them to be using clean needles and to have some staff in case they overdose and people who know how to use an organ and so on. That is, they're going to do it anyway. So it's better for them to do it in this type of environment. I think
Starting point is 01:49:42 it, using the principle of charity, that's those two things combined, or how they think, this is not a crime, this is not a crime, this is an addiction, it's an illness, and we need to be kind and compassionate, and take care of the people, and that's how they view it. So, okay. So, both, it's a fair to say that both Democrats and Republicans have lost people to drugs.
Starting point is 01:50:04 Yes. Okay. So whether you're a Democrat or a Republican who lost somebody to drugs, if somebody came and said, hey, I'm going to help your kid, would you want me to help your kid? Regardless of where you lean politically, I'm going to help your kid by bringing him to my house.
Starting point is 01:50:21 It's going to be safe. I'll help him take the heroin, but it's going to be my house in the safe place and I'll feed him. Is that what you want me to do with your kid by bringing him to my house, it's gonna be safe. I'll help them take the heroin, but it's gonna be my house in a safe place and I'll feed them. Is that what you want me to do with your kid? Left, right, middle, doesn't matter what you are politically. So, do you understand what I'm saying? So you got a kid.
Starting point is 01:50:34 Okay, Adam, don't worry about him, man. He's gonna be able to do the heroin on my house. It's gonna be a safe place. You got nothing to worry about. How would you like me if you've lost, because a lot of these parents, every one of these people has a parent that's going on through this hair on and they've made a bad mistake, bad association,
Starting point is 01:50:49 bad, someone's in a lot of pain watching their kids being addicted to drugs. I've seen parents, it's you can't we can't do nothing like they can't go to work. You're in the middle of the day, you're working, all you're thinking about is my kid is a fricking addict. Okay. So the only thing they're hoping, I just want my baby back. I want my kid back. Kids whose parents became addicts, siblings who sibling became an addict, friends whose friend became an addict. What do they want their friend to do?
Starting point is 01:51:18 I'll give you the policy that's coming to mind to me that I think that we can all relate to because I don't know a lot of people that do heroin and are addicted to opioids, but I do know a lot of people that like to drink. And I remember in high school, there was a friend who's like, we were gonna go drink beers, you know? We were 18, 17 years old.
Starting point is 01:51:36 So one of the dads, one of the families was like, look, I know what you guys are gonna go do on the weekends. You're gonna go drink, you're gonna have fun, you're gonna get into cars, and you're gonna go drive drunk. Listen, if you're gonna drink beers, I'd rather you hang out in our backyard, do it safely. I'll make sure that everybody gets home safe,
Starting point is 01:51:52 so I'll be the adult in the room, and I'll make sure that you guys are drinking and getting home in a safe space. And there's a part of that that I think is exactly analogous to this. It's like, teenagers are gonna go have beers anyway. Drought addicts are gonna go do heroin anyway. Let's try to implement a safe guard system so people don't fucking die. Well, so we've we've only done this half way
Starting point is 01:52:13 because to your point, the libertarian case, not only would we have the safe injection sites, we would be creating the drugs. It would no longer be dirty heroin. It would be clean, true, honest heroin. Portugal did this. They decriminalized heroin, okay? In the 90s, one in 100 people was addicted to heroin. They since decriminalized over the last nearly two decades, the number of heroin users in Portugal has been cut by two thirds and drug related deaths have plummeted from more than one a day in 1999 to 30 in all of 26 days. It's like one of those things where crazy problems might need crazy solutions.
Starting point is 01:52:47 Stuff that you think on the surface is like, what you're doing, what? That might be something that could work. But it's because they decriminalized everything. And it was actually a true pure heroin, which is very different than black tar or cocaine cut with fentanyl or any of this nonsense. When it's actually the true drug, it's very different.
Starting point is 01:53:04 And in Portugal, you don't see all the madness you see in LA and San Francisco. I do know what I honestly think when it comes to drug policy. This might be controversial to some. I think the only things that work in practice are one or other of the extreme approaches. Right? I think.
Starting point is 01:53:24 No drugs whatsoever. It's illegal. You're going to jail if you do it. Yes. Or if you be killed or do what you want. The extreme zero tolerance, you know, death to drug travelers or life imprisonment. Saudi Arabia, I think.
Starting point is 01:53:36 Saudi Arabia, I think countries like Singapore is extreme. Is Singapore is extreme and straight. There's some cut just zero tolerance. Yes. Turkey in the 1970s, so in practice that works, right? In terms of... Or you do what Erdogan did
Starting point is 01:53:51 and decriminalize all drugs here in the United States? Yes, or the type of porch, you know, just, okay, we're completely not treating this as a criminal issue. But we're not, it's not a criminal. It's not legal in that you can just just walk into the grocery store and buy cocaine or heroin, but we do criminalize everything. You have policies and strategies and things in place to reduce the risk that someone's
Starting point is 01:54:19 even going to fall into that and so on. But the whole type of halfway war on drugs, you know, where drugs are coming in and people are doing it, but then you're trying to lock in people up for weed and you're doing it, this kind of have a approach just is clearly not working. Interest in perspective. Interest in perspective.
Starting point is 01:54:39 So, Zubi, tell us about your books. Yeah, sure. Okay, sweet and grinch. So, I just released a children's book. It's called The Candy Calamity. It's a collaboration with a company in Texas called Brave Books, who put out a new book every single month. And it's all about health and fitness and taking care of your body.
Starting point is 01:54:55 In 2019, I wrote my previous book, Strong Advice, Zubi's Guide to Fitness for Everybody. That one's for the grownups. That one's for the kids. It's a fun story. The whole thing rhymes as a rapper. I had to make sure my first children's book was going to rhyme. The the kids. It's a fun story. The whole thing rhymes as a rapper. I had to make sure my first children's book was going to rhyme. So the whole thing, it's a fun story. It's beautifully illustrated. And it's really, I'd say, for kids maybe between the ages of four and 10, we'll probably get the most out of it. I think when you look at kids' books, there aren't actually
Starting point is 01:55:20 that many about health and fitness, nutrition, exercise, like why is that important? Why is it important to take care of your body? So I'm all about putting positive messages out there trying to inspire and motivate people who have different ages. So that's my book. It's available at candy calamity.com. Strong advice is available at teamzuby.com. So yeah, go check that out.
Starting point is 01:55:42 Gank, if you enjoyed Zubi as much as we did today, and it looks like you guys loved having a month today, go support him by purchasing both of his books to link sir there in the chat room as well as in the chat box as well as in the description. Go get the book, support Zubi. Zubi once again, it's always great having you on man. I appreciate it guys, thank you.
Starting point is 01:56:01 Yes, safe travels. Take care everybody, bye bye, bye, bye, bye. I appreciate it guys. Thank you. Yes, safe travels. Take care everybody. Bye bye bye bye bye.

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