The Dan Bongino Show - Ep. 577 Don’t Fall for Media Groupthink
Episode Date: October 26, 2017In this episode - Be very careful about media-driven narratives about our national drug problem. https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-bipartisan-drug-cartel-1508886015 Here’s the real story about ...the history of high tax rates in the US. https://mises.org/library/good-ol-days-when-tax-rates-were-90-percent Jeff Flake wasn’t “brave” by not running for re-election. http://dld.bz/gpCHS The GOP has overwritten this rule which was written to benefit lawyers, not consumers. https://www.forbes.com/sites/legalnewsline/2017/07/25/house-republicans-vote-to-kill-cfpb-rule-called-a-gift-to-class-action-lawyers/#7016318c3bd5 Liberals economists are scrambling to cover their tracks on corporate tax rate cuts. https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-turnabout-on-corporate-taxes-1508883600 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Dan Bongino.
Aiming to stop free speech so the speaker can no longer speak is exclusively a far left
phenomenon.
The Dan Bongino Show.
I'm talking to moderates in the Democratic Party who are actually interested in what's
going on, not blind lemmings walking off a cliff into an abyss of stupidity.
Get ready to hear the truth about America.
The rich did it. Yeah, the rich did it.
They lent money to people who bought homes,
and the people never paid the money back.
Oh, wow, that sounds like a great business plan.
On a show that's not immune to the facts,
with your host, Dan Bongino.
All right, welcome to the Rain Gainer Republic. I'm Dan Bongino.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Hanging in there, brother.
You know, I neglected to mention a couple stories yesterday.
By the way, I'll be on Outnumbered today on Fox, so make sure you tune in.
Don't miss that.
I'll be the hashtag one lucky guy.
But the Jeff Flake thing and the Bob Corker eruption in the Senate,
and also there was another story which fits right into the constant theme of my show here,
which has always been liberals telling you one thing, meaning the other.
And there's always an agenda, right?
Like the why.
So just quickly on this, there was a, a, uh, Mike Pence was forced on Tuesday to cast a
tie breaking vote.
And this is, you're not going to hear much about this.
This is one of those stories, Joe, that slips under the radar.
But it's just more examples of, you know,
the litany of examples of liberals screwing you over
and lying to you like they're somehow fighting for you
and they're fighting for the little guy.
It's all crap.
So the gist of the rule was this.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,
which is just becoming a tyrannical agency founded under the presidency of Barack Obama, run by Richard Cordray, who is all over the place, basically doing things now because he wants to run for governor.
They instituted a rule, and the rule would have blocked mandatory arbitration clauses.
It's simple as this.
Rule would have blocked mandatory arbitration clauses.
It's simple as this.
If you had a contract with a bank or credit cards or other things like that, whatever it may be, they can put in the contract that before you go to court, that arbitration is mandatory.
Not a big deal.
Happens all the time. I actually have it in a couple of, am I even allowed to say that?
A couple of my contracts.
I don't know.
Probably not, but that's okay.
I don't think anybody's going to really care.
But those are it.
I mean, these are really common things.
Mandatory arbitration.
And it's meant to be an agreement between a provider of a service and the person accepting
that service so that they don't get tied up in court if they can just handle it through
arbitration.
Not complicated.
Well, the Democrats hate this.
Why would they hate that?
I mean, Joe, you think lawyers are, largely speaking, when it comes to donations and the
Bar Association, I'm going to talk about every lawyer out there.
There's obviously a lot of conservative lawyers.
But largely, you think the money flows to Democrats or Republicans?
I would think Democrats.
Yeah, you would be correct.
And that's exactly.
But this is not good for lawyers because lawyers want cases
in court. Again, I'm not
blaming all lawyers. I'm just saying that this would benefit
the legal profession because
they don't want arbitration. They want cases
in court, which is where they work
so they can get paid.
All these
legal associations that have political
influence were pushing for this rule for a very
long time. They finally got the rule instituted that would bar uh mandatory arbitration first meaning you'd
have to go to court and it would make it easier for lawyers to engage in lawsuits class action
lawsuits specifically well the republicans drafted a law that now basically threw that out that's
allowing now companies to institute institute arbitration clauses in the
contract.
Not complicated.
The Democrats are going wild,
but forget about all that stuff.
I had to just set up the story.
None of that matters.
What really matters is what's funny about this story is the Democrats are
losing their mind,
Joe,
but Forbes did a study on this and found out that consumers actually
benefit more from arbitration,
not from legal cases.
Who benefits from the legal cases?
The lawyers.
So, you know, again, I'll put a piece up.
Let me take a quick note on that.
I don't want to forget it again,
but I'll put a piece on it up in the show notes
for you to watch, for you to read, excuse me.
But again, it's another example of how liberals
wrap everything in this, you know,
they give you a gift and you
open it and there's nothing but air popcorn in there oh look we're fighting for the little guy
these banks are getting over they're going to force you to go through arbitration first yeah
but i actually read the report and we do better through arbitration than we do through class
action that doesn't matter that doesn't matter those stupid facts don't let them get in the way
this is what liberals do everything they are so full of crap all the time. You will do better in arbitration based on simple facts and data than you will in a class action lawsuit. Who does better in class action? The lawyers. So that's why the House and the Senate and Mike Pence had to cast the deciding vote in the Senate, you know, instituted this piece of legislation to counteract this rule, which was devastating to consumers. But again, don't let facts get in the way of a good argument. Secondly, the Flake thing, Jeff Flake, the
Republican senator from Arizona. My apologies for not bringing this up. I just had a lot of
material yesterday with the Trump-Russia story breaking. I still have tons of stuff. I'm not
even sure we're going to get to it all. But folks, let me give you the background first.
So Jeff Flake is not a Trump fan at all.
He is a Republican senator from Arizona.
I know a lot about Jeff Flake.
And the reason I know a lot about Jeff Flake is we ran in the same election cycle.
And I had lobbied for support for some organizations and some conservative organizations, which went out and backed Jeff Flake with a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of their email list efforts,
and encouraged people to go knock on doors for Jeff Flake. Jeff Flake, in my opinion,
betrayed the Republican cause. Jeff Flake got in there. He joined the Gang of Eight.
Jeff Flake has been weak on the Second Amendment, in my opinion. Jeff Flake ran as a Tea Party member and has been terrible on debt and deficits. And listen, I don't care.
Don't give me the percentage he voted with.
You know what?
I care where the percentage he voted with conservatives, not the percentage he worked with a sitting president.
I'm not interested in any of that.
Flake was a disappointment.
Jeff Flake was at 37 percent approval in his own state.
Jeff Flake was going to lose and lose badly in a Republican primary as a sitting senator in a
red state. Yeah. So what does Jeff Flake do? Well, on Tuesday, he goes on the floor and gives this
impassioned speech, Joe, which, by the way, this speech was lacking when Barack Obama,
where was the speech when Obama was in office trampling on the Constitution and comparing
Republicans, by the way, Joe, to Iranian hardliners? Where was the speech then?
Jeff, where was it, buddy? All you supporters of Jeff, where was the speech the way, Joe, to Iranian hardliners. Where was the speech then? Jeff, where was it, buddy?
All you supporters of Jeff.
Where was the speech?
Oh, now that Trump's in office, now we get the speech.
Okay.
Yeah, now, of course.
So he gets on the floor and gives this impassioned speech
about basically how Trump's a cancer to the system
and he needs to speak up because he's a principal guy
and he's now not going to run for re-election,
just like Bob Corkum.
We're all supposed to go.
And I hear, Joe, the pathetic CNN, MSNBC, hack media, and he's now not going to run for re-election just like Bob Corkum. We're all supposed to go.
And I hear, Joe, the pathetic CNN, MSNBC, hack media.
Oh, oh, he's so brave.
He's so brave.
He's not, folks, he's full of crap, okay?
He's not brave.
He would have been brave doing it when Barack Obama was in office.
The only reason he's giving that speech
is to cover his ass, okay?
He was going to lose and he was going to get annihilated.
He was going to lose a primary in a red state as a sitting United States senator.
That's why he's not running.
There's nothing brave about that.
You know what's brave, Joe?
What's really brave would have been to resign now and give up your seat
or to go and say, seriously, because I've done this,
so I don't speak with forked tongue again,
would say, you know what?
I am going to run for reelection here because I believe in unfettered immigration and endless government spending.
And I think that's the future of the Republican Party.
And I'm going to represent the Republican Party and do that.
That's brave.
It's not brave to say, and by the way, I lost, so I'm quitting.
Oh, he's so brave.
I hear the media.
He's so brave. Nah, he doesn't have the pills man no the pills missing pills being pill castrated i mean it's pathetic pathetic
folks i'm tired you know he's i don't know if he's auditioning for a contributorship at cnn or msnbc
but it was a joke the guy is not brave okay give me a break he may be a nice guy i don't know him personally but i'm talking about
this specific political move brave i've run in in in far left democrat leaning districts okay
the one i ran and i almost won be lost by one point running as a conservative yeah i'm not
saying that's brave i'm just saying it's what you do the fact that flake took money to run as a
conservative got elected and turned around and betrayed us on a number of issues.
And then doesn't want to run again because he's going to lose because he's not conservative.
He's not brave.
Sorry.
Get in line.
Go, you know, the litany of politicians who failed the Republican cause.
Beat it.
And Corker, too.
Corker's another one.
All of a sudden, Corker's, when he wanted to be the vice president, Bob Corker, Republican senator from Tennessee,
and he wanted to be secretary of state, he couldn't say enough about Trump, how great
Trump was.
Now, all of a sudden, he's not running for re-election.
All of a sudden, he hates Trump, and he knew the whole time, get out of here, beat it,
get lost.
All right.
A couple of interesting stories I saw, and one of them, this one's a little personal.
And I know, Joe, you know a lot of
people as well have been impacted by drugs and stuff. And it's a sad thing to watch.
Joe and I have both seen people, and it's a tough thing.
I've been affected by it. Yeah.
Yeah, man. It sucks, man. I mean, that's freaking brave to say that. I mean, that's brave,
telling people you're foibles and acknowledging we're all sinners, man, and we've all had these problems, and it sucks. And I totally get it.
I've been a, my family, I have a really bad problem. Someone with abuse of opioid drugs,
it's devastated a lot of people around me, and it's tough. Most of you regular listeners
may not know the entire detail, but you know I've mentioned the story before, and it's tough. Most of you regular listeners may not know the entire detail, but you know, I've mentioned the story before and it's been really hell to deal with. Folks, there's no,
I'm not sugarcoating anything. There's no point in me trying to. We have a really significant
problem in the United States right now with the abuse of prescription drugs, Vicodin, Oxycodone,
opioid-based medicines. This is a really, really big problem. There's no doubt about that. There
are areas of the country that have been ravaged by it. again you know joe and i joe would have very personal experiences with
this so we're you know this is not some issue that's just uh esoteric or otherworldly this is
it home for me i wanted to talk about this though because there was a piece in the wall street
journal yesterday it was a very good one about how folks it's times like this,
you know, where the cannons are playing in the background,
not the violins,
where it does take a little bit of bravery to stand up and say, you know, wait, hold on a minute.
If we're going to fix this problem,
should we jump into the groupthink mentality
and listen to what 60 Minutes and the media are telling us is
the solution, or are we going to think this through and do what works?
Now, why am I bringing this up?
There was an expose on 60 Minutes that aired a couple of weeks ago with a former DEA agent,
who, by the way, is now working on behalf.
He's being paid to lobby on behalf of a lot of the efforts he's talking about.
He may be a nice guy, but there's no question there's a conflict
of interest there.
But there was a DEA agent on this expose on 60 Minutes, which I have to admit, I watched
and was devastating, and was basically pointing out the fact that distributors that distribute
these pills, Joe, oxycodone and Vicodin and these types of drugs, that they're somehow
complicit in the drug epidemic taking over
the country.
Now, when you watch the piece, it's very convincing, which no one's doubting there's a problem,
okay?
Right.
But the end note to the piece was that some legislation was passed in Congress sponsored
by a Republican from Pennsylvania named Tom Marino, who was supposed to be the drug czar
who subsequently pulled his name out after the piece, I think due to the controversy it generated, sponsored a piece of
legislation. And the gist of the 60 Minutes piece was that this made it easier for drug distributors
to distribute massive amounts of pills into these areas of the country and basically fueled the
epidemic. And everybody ran for the hills. Now, folks, folks again i have a personal interest in stemming the tide
of abuse going on right now but let's be clear about what happened here so again the the here
let me just give you the and the piece describes it pretty well but i'll give you the bullets and
the takeaways all right so the 60 minute piece basically was saying that this bill sponsored by
this guy marino republican from pennsylvania made it easier for distributors of these products to get these products out into these communities.
And they should have known, because look at the numbers of pills versus the number of people, and they should have known they were contributing to this epidemic.
The bill advanced that.
Well, I disagree completely.
I've done some homework on this, and I did some reading, and I saw a really good piece in the journal.
And here's what actually happened.
some homework on this and I did some reading and I saw a really good piece in the journal and here's what actually happened the DEA the Drug Enforcement Administration which can obviously is that has
is charged with the investigation of drug crimes at the federal level in the United States
has this a tool called a show cause order and the show cause order can suspend a distributor
of these products Joe oxycodone and vicodin right others as well but can suspend a distributor of these products, Joe, Oxycodone and Vicodin, others as well,
but can suspend their registration if they think something's wrong.
Now, they can issue also an immediate suspension order.
In other words, to stop these distributors from getting these drugs to pharmacies and
hospitals and stuff, okay?
They can pull the registration.
They can also issue an immediate suspension order.
But here was the wording of the DEA's authority
prior to this law that changed it.
They had to show imminent danger
to public health or safety.
Now, you may say, well, what's the problem with that?
If the DEA can show imminent danger
to public health or safety,
they should be able to immediately suspend the distributor's ability to get these drugs out into a community.
The problem, folks, is the immediate suspension order. There was really no viable administrative path for companies to fight this.
Well, what am I saying? What I'm saying here is some of this could have been legitimate mistakes.
saying what i'm saying here is some of this could have been legitimate mistakes like they bring up in the piece like hey um you know a lot of these markets they had nine billion pills for 900 people
and then they point out in in the piece that well what if that market was just saturated with
pharmacies and you know older people in the area who were using the pills legitimately and not
abusing them again folks i these are not everybody who takes opioids becomes an addict.
I had back surgery once.
I took them for two days.
I'm fine.
Matter of fact,
a very small number of people do.
I'm not defending the industry.
Again, I've been a victim
of a lot of this.
I'm just saying,
at some point,
human responsibility
has to factor into this.
So, all the bill did,
and I know I'm going to get
some negative emails on it.
That's okay,
because I understand how
personal this is for many people it changed the imminent danger to public health joe to
substantial likelihood of basically public health or safety being damaged substantial meaning the
burden of proof was now on the dea before they pulled the company's distribution license or
registration joe yeah to show that to show that there was at least some substantial evidence there
to back this up, which gave them some form of administrative relief
if a company was unfairly targeted.
I mean, nothing controversial, but oh, since 60 Minutes put out a report,
all of a sudden now, everybody who touched this bill
is being tarred with it.
Like, oh, look what you did.
You guys are in the pockets of the drug companies.
Listen, I am not suggesting in any way, way shape or form that the drug companies didn't have
an interest or lobby people to get this change it's not what i'm saying i'm just saying that
you know it takes a little bit of guts sometimes for all of us to sit back in the face of an
epidemic of drug abuse no question again it's affected me joe and many others that are listening
out there but it's up to us also to say, okay, hold on, hold on.
Let's step back for a minute.
Are you really, do you really believe,
it's probably a better way to say this,
do you really believe that there's a government solution to this?
Is the government just going to say tomorrow,
okay, now we can pull distribution licenses
and this is all going to go away?
Folks, I got news for you.
There's no distribution license for cocaine.
There's no distribution license for crack.
None of it.
And it was an epidemic in the 90s too.
I was there as a cop.
I remember it.
Yeah.
The bottom line is sometimes we need to step back
and say, well, I saw the report.
It was obviously very sad.
There are obviously vast areas of the country
that have been wiped out by this opioid epidemic.
But is the solution more government or is the solution public education, better jobs, you know, fixing people's home lives, encouraging marriage, the kind of things, stable families?
Folks, this is really is the I just get bothered every time that the default position, Joe, is always, oh, OK, there's an epidemic, and the government's going to fix it, so let's give them more power.
And I love the DEA agents.
My cousin's one.
They're great guys.
They're great women.
But I'm not sure the solution is always going to be a government one.
Maybe it's time to take a step back and start to ask what are our, I mean, what kind of organizational problems do we have as a society first
where we're putting so much power
in the hands of bureaucrats?
Here's a, by the way,
here's a quick line from the piece.
In case you think any of this, by the way,
by the way, this was signed by Obama.
Not that I'm blaming anyone.
I'm just saying it was signed by Obama.
This law that everybody finds so controversial.
And by the way,
they're trying to blame Marino for it
because he's a Republican.
Senator Hatch, Orrin Hatch, again hatch again a republican has also noted that the length this is from the piece has also noted that the language for the standard was written by obama administration officials at
the justice department and the dea joe and they both supported the final bill also on board were
many patient groups and the academy of Integrative Pain Management,
which reiterated its support this month.
In other words, the bill that changed the standard and gave these distributors
at least some administrative relief if they were unfairly targeted
was supported by just about every stakeholder at the table.
This is nothing new, but it goes to show you how a groupthink public Joe scandal starts
without anybody going and doing the homework
first now one one more uh line from the piece it's important because it goes to show you be
careful about the media guys and ladies can't caution you in strong enough terms be careful
with these people their interest is not yours their interest is clickbait joe opioid crisis government fix republicans screwed it up
click on my story yeah so it says the piece goes on the media narrative is now that the pharmaceutical
lobbies lobby is pharmaceutical lobby spent uh spent big to hoodwink congress to pass a bill
members didn't understand the reality is that the trade group you know femra the pharmaceutical
research and manufacturers of america known as knownIMRA, took no position on the bill.
So, folks, the lobbyists that they're claiming influenced this Republican lawmaker from Pennsylvania took no actual position on the bill.
Again, I'm not suggesting this isn't a problem.
I just want to reiterate for the 10th time, don't be a sucker for groupthink.
The media saw this story it was i
watched it it was heartbreaking i lived it in real life government was not the fix here and this this
this bill that they're suggesting like open the floodgates is you're you're being it's a hyperbolic
narrative it really designed to engender an emotional response from you. That's it.
All right.
Interesting story, though, right?
Mm-hmm.
All right.
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All right. Another story. So I got an email from a listener. And folks, forgive me,
I do read all of your emails, but I can't cover every single thing on the show just simply because
of the volume of emails. It would become a show only about viewer email. We wouldn't actually get
the news of the day. But I did get one that was interesting from a college student. And I really appreciate
the college men and women who listen. It means a lot. We have to start getting the next generation
involved early in politics. So I appreciate you listening to my show. And he said, you know,
I'm in this class and I'm in with this professor and he's talking about, you know, voodoo economics
or whatever. And he mentioned the fact that in the 50s,
in Eisenhower's era,
that the tax rate,
the top marginal tax rate was 90%.
And he said to me,
the professor said,
and everything was just fine,
which to I promptly laughed.
And I thought, gosh,
these professors,
they get away with everything because they know.
Now this kid was smart enough,
so young man, I should say,
to email me and say,
hey, is this true?
The answer is no, of course,
it's not true. You were told that by a liberal professor. So it's by default, it's probably not
true. So I just wanted to hit this a bit, not because I want to cover the history of tax rates,
but because the reason that I assume, and he didn't say this in his email, but the reason I
assume this was brought up in class is because the argument now with the Trump tax plan and the GOP
tax plan on the table has turned again to taxes. And liberals will use every misdirection in the book
to make you believe what's not true is in fact true. So yes, folks, there was a 90%
marginal tax rate under Eisenhower and the country did do quite well.
Well, a marginal tax rate is not an effective tax rate. Does your professor get that?
And I sent some articles back,
and I will put an article in the show notes today.
Please, folks, I know I'm always begging you
to read some stories.
Maybe two, three times a week,
I beg you to go to the website.
Please go to Bongino.com and read the story
or join my email list, and I'll email you the story.
I will put up a blog piece.
It's from 2015. It's a good a blog piece. It's from 2015.
It's a good one, though.
It's one of my go-to resources.
From the Mises blog.
The link is super easy to read.
It's not overly wonky.
And they will tell you in detail what I'm going to tell you in an overview right now.
A marginal rate is not an effective tax rate.
A 90% rate under Eisenhower does not mean people paid 90% of their income.
What is a marginal rate? A marginal rate is a tax rate on the last dollar of income earned.
Meaning that 90% rate only applied to dollars earned over $3 million. Folks, yes yes there was a 90 tax rate on the rising hour here's the catch
nobody paid it nobody paid we had a 90 you know what the effective tax rate was
what during that era joe half it was 45 percent meaning the effective tax rate what people
effectively paid in their taxes was close to the rate, the top marginal
rate now. Meaning the taxes were in fact higher for people at higher income scales, but the
effective rate, what people paid was only about 45%. The top rate now is 39.6. So the taxes were
a little bit higher, but they only hit, and by the way, I'm not suggesting this is a good idea,
by the way, taxing success. But let's be, again, let's do what liberals won't.
Let's give you the facts.
Point number one, yes, there was a 90% tax rate.
And yes, people were doing well.
Point number two, very few people were paying this tax rate.
Point number three, the effective tax rate was only a little bit different than the effective
tax rate we have now.
So stop making it out that this 90 rate was
ubiquitous across rich people across the united states and this was what led to success you're
just making it up it's total garbage also the 90 tax rate which applied to incomes three million
and uh it was actually more than three million but more than three million dollars which was a
whole lot of money back then jo Joe. You bet, man.
The tax code was laden with carve-outs.
The reason very few people, even over $3 million, actually paid that 90% tax rate on dollars.
Because, Joe, marginal tax rate, you don't pay that 90% rate on income up to $3 million or more.
You only pay the money from like, say you made $6 million. So you'll only pay that 90% rate on $3 million to $6 million, not $0 to $3 million or more. You only pay the money from like,
say you made $6 million.
So you'll only pay that 90% rate
on $3 million to $6 million,
not $0 to $3 million.
Gotcha.
But even on that,
the $3 million to $6 million,
the reason the effective tax rate
for most of these folks was 45%
and not 90% or close to it
was because the tax code was laden with carve-outs.
Meaning there were a million different ways
to get out of this thing.
And what did people do?
They went out and bought municipal bonds,
tax-free bonds,
rich people invested in these bonds
to get out of paying the money.
Folks, the oldest accounting skill in America
has been tax avoidance.
Again, not tax evasion.
That's a crime.
But tax avoidance is not a crime.
If you buy legal, tax-free equities, securities, whatever they may be, financial instruments,
you're just avoiding things.
You're not evading taxes.
You're not committing a crime.
This is the oldest accounting skill in America.
So when your professors tell you that, or your liberal friends are going to 90% tax
rate, you're not the rise now.
Yeah, who paid that?
What was the income scale?
Oh, 3 million bucks? Oh, and with the carve-outs, their effective rate was actually half that, and I have to rise now. Yeah, who paid that? What was the income scale? Oh, 3 million bucks?
Oh, and with the carve-outs, their effective rate
was actually half that, which is where we are now.
So basically what you're saying is that
tax rate was too high because nobody paid that
90% rate. They only paid half
because you just said, Joe, like the
professor told this young man,
that, oh, and things were just great. Things were
great at a tax rate half of what you're suggesting.
Right?
Does that make sense? Yeah. The tax rate just great. Things were great at a tax rate, half of what you're suggesting, right? Right? Does that make sense?
Yeah.
The tax rate's 90%.
Things were wonderful.
Actually, it was 45%.
Are things still wonderful?
No, no, now they suck.
We want 90%.
These people just make stuff up.
Please read the Mises blog.
P's at mises.org.
I will put the link up.
It has very easy to read charts.
Talks a little bit about Hauser's Law,
which drives Joe nuts when I bring it up.
But because I can never,
that's the one thing, forgive me,
I never explain right,
but it's in the piece.
And you'll talk about it.
It shows on charts how the tax income
to the government through the income tax
has changed very little,
regardless of what the rate is.
You bump it up to 90%, Joe,
people hire expensive accountants.
You lower it to 28%, people don't pay the accountants anymore and they pay the rate is. You bump it up to 90%, Joe, people hire expensive accountants. You lower it to 28%,
people don't pay the accountants anymore
and they pay the taxes instead.
Either way,
you're not getting much more money out of people.
So just cut the crap, all right?
Stop lying to people,
you're liberal professors.
And I sent this young man the articles.
I hope he shows it to his professor,
who I guarantee you
will promptly call him a racist.
No doubt about it.
You know that's coming. Let's show him the piece and you must be a racist. I mean about it. You know that's coming.
Let's show him the piece.
You must be a racist.
I mean, come on.
Yeah, the white privilege.
Here we go.
Oh, yeah, 100%.
I don't even know if he's white.
But I don't even think that matters.
You know what I'm saying?
It doesn't really make a difference.
One or the other.
Yeah, one or the other.
It doesn't make a difference.
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On a personal note, Joe,
listen, this show,
as I've said many times,
I'm not a stock picker.
I do not give financial advice
on this show.
You all should seek
people in the financial arena
to do that,
but I just wanted to bring this
up quickly because I love you all and you know so much about my life that sometimes I get so
involved in the news of the day that I forget that we're all people. And I feel like one of
the qualities of the show you all enjoy based on your feedback only is that you feel like you know
just about everything about me. I have some guy who invited me out to dinner up in New York. He's like, I feel like I already know you.
But I bought Chipotle stock a long time ago after the food crisis because I am a firm believer.
Matter of fact, I just bought some again today.
I am a firm believer in the purchase at the sound of cannons
and sell at the sound of violins.
I start selling when the stock market gets high
and scooping stuff up whenever I read a bad story about a company in the news. I know that sounds
ridiculous, but it's worked very well for me over the years. I got Ford very cheap. I got Snapchat
very cheap. And all I did was read the headlines. I know it's not some genius advice I'm giving you
here, but I just wanted to bring one quick thing up about why my logic is, at least with Chipotle
here, because it speaks to a common thread I talk about on the show,
which is business and investment and all that kind of stuff.
But Chipotle got mauled yesterday.
Their stock was down.
Joe,
I bought it a long time ago,
like 400 a share.
It's now at 276.
So I'm getting hurt.
So I picked up a few more shares yesterday and they missed their earnings.
But I was having this conversation with a stockbroker friend of mine and he's a good guy and he hates the chipotle stock and i'm not really crazy
but i took kind of a bath on it but i do i do like to buy it the sound the cannons which were
yesterday obviously but here's my logic and i use the same logic with snapchat i buy long term joe
i don't buy this i don't buy anything short i buy everything and I keep it. I hold it for a really long time.
This is a company that has just revolutionized the entire fast food industry and has a customer base that over time, granted, they had some problems with getting some people back after the foodborne illness thing broke with them.
But I go in the place by me in Palm City and it's always crowded and I see the same faces all the time.
I mean, this is a loyal customer base
willing to spend money over time
consistently on your product.
And by the way, it's not that cheap either.
When I lived up in Saverna Park in Maryland,
not that far from Joe,
you know the Chipotle on Ritchie Highway?
Down where the Atlanta bread used to be?
Yeah.
Joe and I reminisce about the good old days.
Folks, that place was packed all the time.
You went in there on a Friday night, the line was out the door and it still is now. If you're buying long and you're
not buying short-term fluctuations, I think it has a potential to change the food industry forever.
I mean, there's a first mover advantage towards doing things like that, towards getting in and
saying, you know what? We're not going to do fast food like McDonald's anymore. We're going to do
fast food like a la carte with these items here and you get to pick out what you want. It's going
to be fresh. I don't know. I just think in the long run that
businesses that have this loyal consumer base are going to do well long term. And I'm not suggesting
you buy or sell anything. It's something we do on the show. I'm not a financial advisor.
But I applied the same thing to Snapchat. I saw these kids, and I teach a CCD class,
religion class, and the kids in the class, they love Snapchat.
So I, you know, I always asking them about stuff like technology wise.
What do you guys think about Twitter?
Like, yeah.
What do you guys think about Facebook?
Yeah.
Now, I like Facebook because businesses are integrated into Facebook.
But with Snapchat, I'm thinking to myself, Joe, you cannot have a generation of kids that are growing up on this, I mean, attached
and married to this platform, Snapchat, that in the long run is not somehow going to be
profitable for the eyeballs alone.
You can't tell me that.
I don't know if they can monetize it now, but sooner or later, they're going to figure
it out like Facebook did.
So that's why I bought Snapchat.
So, all right.
Sorry.
You know, Joey, we had the same conversation just this week.
I said, what are you doing?
He says, Snapchat. I said, what are you doing? He says, Snapchat.
I said, what do you think about Facebook and Twitter?
He says, it's like for old farts.
Yeah, that's exactly what these kids in the class.
Now, I own Twitter, too, and I own Facebook.
But Facebook, I like because it's the business.
I think it's going to be the yellow pages of the future.
Twitter, I bought it cheap.
I don't know what I got it at, like 15 bucks or something.
So I made a few bucks on Twitter.
But yeah, how can you have an audience of these loyal kids growing up?
And I mean, Snapchat's the Facebook for their generation.
So it's funny Joe said that.
Because like I said, these kids in the class said the same thing.
All right.
You know, I've been hot on this corporate tax story because the hypocrisy of the liberals
has just been amazing.
How liberal economists under the Obama administration
made a big deal about the benefits of cutting corporate taxes
to a degree when Obama was in office.
And now that Trump wants to do it,
the exact same liberal economists are now changing their minds.
So here's a quote from yesterday's Wall Street Journal,
written by an economist I really like, by the way.
This guy, Casey Mulligan, who does really terrific work. But he wrote a scathing, scathing piece about economists who, like Larry Summers, the former
Treasury Secretary, who is now changing his mind on the corporate tax now that Trump is
in office.
A scathing piece.
And here's a quote from the piece, which is really good.
To show you that, I don't make this stuff up.
And by the way, the overall why this matters to you is, folks, Donald Trump's proposal
to cut the corporate tax rate, the business tax in the United States at the federal level
from 35 to 20 percent, there are mounds, listen to me, mounds and mounds and piles of solid,
strong, nonpartisan, unbiased economic data that this is going to lead to a very substantial raise
in your pocket.
Maybe not tomorrow, folks.
Remember, the money takes time to filter through the economy.
But that the mounds of research have indicated
that this will be nothing but positive for you.
And as a positive double whammy here,
there will likely be no revenue effects to the government at all.
I don't really care about revenue to the government anymore.
They waste it anyway.
I don't.
I mean, I don't want us going in debt, but it doesn't matter what you do.
They're still going to waste it.
But if you're a moderate and you believe that the government, you know, oh, we got to pay
down, they're never going to pay down their debt.
They're going to inflate their way out of it.
The double whammy positive effect is not only will you get a raise eventually from this
corporate tax cut,
and the mounds of economic data support that,
but secondly, the revenue losses to the government from a tax rate cut in the corporate tax will be minimal if nonexistent.
Meaning, Joe, that if companies grow, even at the lower rate,
they'll probably be paying similar if not greater amounts of money from a greater amount of income from investment.
Now, what's fascinating about this, again, is how all the Obama liberal Democrat economists who are not economists,
they are liberal politicians, have now changed their mind now that Trump's proposing it. So
here's a quote from the piece. In 2012, President Obama and his advisors proposed lowering the
corporate tax rate. I didn't say that wrong. Because it creates, quote, good jobs with good
wages for the middle class folks who work at those businesses.
In 2013, Larry Summers, President Clinton's Treasury Secretary and Chairman of Mr. Obama's
Economic Council, argued that the tax on corporate profits, Joe, creates a burden without commensurate
revenues for the government and that changing it is, this is great, this is Obama's guy,
the government and that changing it is this is great this is obama's guy is as close to a free lunch as tax reformers will ever get wait wait what and now that trump is in office now that
this joe same guy remember i always told you that story about clinton when i went out golfing with
clinton one time when i was a secret service agent Whenever he'd hit a shot and it was a good one
and his partner would hit a good shot
and then the partner would hit a bad shot
and then the partner would then hit a good shot,
the guy he was playing with, he would go,
same guy, same guy.
Meaning, dude, you can do it
because even though you hit the crappy shot before,
you hit a good one now.
So we would laugh because he would say,
you know, Clinton's playing with Joey Bag of Donuts
and he shanks one, right? And then right down to right down the center of the fairway
clinton would go same guy same guy it's the same guy larry summers when obama was in office was
arguing that the corporate tax is a mess that it's a free lunch cutting it because we don't lose
revenue and employees benefit and now that trump is in office, he's saying, this is absurd.
Remember the show I did the other day where I quoted Larry Summers?
Do I have the notes on that?
Oh, here's Summers' quote.
I have it from the other day.
About the corporate tax, now that Trump's proposing it.
So what was a free lunch and was a great deal before is now ignorant disingenuous dishonest and wait and
it's an atrocity an atrocity same same guy he's shamed yeah he's shamed this guy's unbelievable
now by the way you got to read the piece i know it's the journal sometimes it's i'm sorry about
the subs i can't help it folks i you know i link to people's stuff that you know they gotta they
gotta do what they gotta do with their sub stuff.
What are you going to do?
I get that a lot lately, but what are you going to do?
Yeah, what are you going to do?
My son's a junkie.
What are you going to do?
My son's not.
I don't have a son.
You listeners to the show get what I'm talking about.
But read the piece because it points out the blatant, obvious hypocrisy by these leftist economists who have said the exact opposite thing.
Now, the piece points out as well is that now they're trying to backtrack.
Summers and a couple of others, not just Larry well as that now they're trying to backtrack summers and a couple of others not just larry summers but they're trying to backtrack now because now the credible economists like mulligan and other people are coming out and going wait
wait wait wait not only does the research say that this corporate tax is going to benefit the
american worker to increase investment in in the workplace which will lead to increased salaries
later on.
But the mounds of research say it, and you said it too.
And now they're like, well, we missed a few details, but you don't really know.
I mean, listen to the responses.
It's almost comical in the piece where they're going with this.
All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in.
I really appreciate it.
Please go to Bongino.com and subscribe to the show notes. I will send these
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Hey, don't forget Outnumbered today by the way. I'll be on it.
What is it? 12 o'clock. Yeah. See you all
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