 fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran-Brook Show. All right, everybody, welcome to Iran-Brook Show, and this, what is it? It's Monday, Monday, April 8th. I am in Chile, in Santiago, Chile. I have to say, Santiago is a beautiful city. I mean, it's, I look out of my hotel room, and you can see the city, a lot of it, parts of it quite modern. There's a big skyscraper, really tall building, not far from here. And in the background, just behind the city, are these, just the Andes, the mountains, just straight up, I mean, truly magnificent. It was a little hazy today, so you didn't get the full effect. But I'm looking for, there's actually snow at the top, even though it's, what is it now? It is fall, here. But there's snow at the top, it's on the mountain. So it's really, it's beautiful. I'm looking forward, I hope one of the days that I'm here, the air gets clear, and I can actually see the city and the mountains with clarity. It is interesting, the mountains, no trees, they completely bare, and they just jot up right in front of this. Flying here from Buenos Aires is very cool because you fly over the Andes, it's quite dramatic, and really quite an amazing, quite an amazing view out the window of the airplane. So I'm here in Chile, we got a two-day conference tomorrow and on Wednesday, and then I head back home on, let's see, on Friday. What else do we have? So yes, we talked, we talked on yesterday, yesterday, no, the day before yesterday. Whenever, we talked after the, after the Milay interview, before the Milay interview, I can't even remember. I think it was after the Milay interview. It, oops, what was that? Big beep coming in, all right. Oh, is that a, let me just put this on silent, all right. So yes, I think Milay has released the interview he did with Maria, it's up on his channels, you can find it on Twitter if you wanna see it. I don't think it is particularly interesting, I don't think he said anything particularly of interested. As I mentioned the other day, it was more like an election rally than it was intellectually informative in terms of what he said. But again, I was positively impressed by him, I'm positively impressed by him generally because I think he takes ideas seriously. I think he's had, he only came to free market ideas about 12 years ago, he's relatively new to these ideas. He'd been studying them, he's read a lot, he's internalized them, and I think he's, I think he's open to new ideas. When I handed him free market revolution, he smiled, and he said, you wrote this? And I said, yes, and he said, oh, congratulations, he smiled, and it was the first time I really saw him animated a little bit, and he said, oh, I'll definitely read it, I'll definitely read it. So we will find out if he reads it, we'll make sure to ask the people close to him whether he reads it, I think he was very touched by the fact that he received as a gift from a sculptor, Walter Peter from Guatemala, gave him a copy of his atlas, atlas holding the world with one hand. Milay seemed genuinely touched by that, seemed depressed, you know, but on the other hand, he avoided mentioning, he avoided mentioning Einrann's name at all. Anyway, even when he saw us next to the Einrann sign, we're both from the Einrann Institute, Tal and myself, even on stage, even when he's presented with an atlas, he seemed to not wanna mention Einrann one way or the other, so that was kind of interesting. Okay, so I mean, Chile, Chile is a fascinating country because it has a really interesting modern history. It is, it was, you know, it's the richest country on a per capita GDP basis, I think today, in Latin America, and it has, it did in the 1970s and 80s. A lot of what Milay is talking about doing in Argentina was done here in Chile during that period, and I think that completely changed the dynamic in Chile. There was the poorest country in Latin America in the early 1970s, is today the richest to a large extent because of the reforms that were done in the 1970s. So I just tell you the story of what happened. I know a lot of you are kind of interested in kind of history, and so I thought we'd just go over kind of what happened in Chile. I'm not an expert, so this is an overview and might probably overly simplified, or not overly, but simplified a perspective on what happened and on what happened in Chile. I, you know, so we'll go over that, and of course I'm open to any questions you guys have, so feel free to use the super chat, ask questions and take this in any direction. I don't have a lot of, if you want material prepared, these are kind of shows that I do on the road, and this will be a relatively short show because I do have to leave at 8 p.m. east coast time for dinner. I don't get, you know, the whole Latin culture thing about eating at 8, 9 p.m., I don't understand it. It makes no sense to me. That's when you should be relaxing, getting ready to go to sleep. I mean, eating that late is just incredibly disruptive. I was incredibly hungry an hour ago and had to go and find some food to eat, and now I'm gonna eat dinner again. It just doesn't make any sense. Anyway, I'm in Latin America. When in Latin America, do as the Latin Americans do, I guess. So yes, please, the cops put you out. I don't eat cops. What are you talking about? You see, people try to tell me what's going on with my own body. Let's see, what did I want to say? Yes, so let's talk a little bit about Chile, and then happy to answer any questions you have about Mele, happy to answer any questions you have about pretty much anything, the news, what's going on in the world, whatever you feel like asking about. Chile was a relatively poor country. I mean, I don't know much about the history, the pre-modern history of Chile. Chile is a resource-rich place, but like the rest of Latin America, Chile was dominated by both left-wing and right-wing governments. There were statuses that believed in central planning, central control that believed in the government ownership of resources, government ownership of companies. It didn't really matter whether it was left or right, and this is the same as true of the regimes in Argentina, where the pro-ronists, are they left, are they right? What does it even mean in those terms? You can clearly in Brazil say that Lula is a socialist, but even in Brazil's history, it was the military dictatorship, a left-wing dictatorship, a right-wing dictatorship. It doesn't mean anything in any significant way. All these rulers, whether elected democratically or authoritarians, have all been, almost all of them have been statuses of one form or another, and whether they created crony systems, they all nationalized industries and tried to establish robust, I mean not robust, but minimal welfare states. Minimal because it was poor, these countries are poor, and there was not a lot of money to redistribute. They had some big corporations, big corporations that are always connected directly to the government. In 1970, Chile elected an explosive Marxist to head the government in Chile. Yende was elected president, and he was a real socialist and a real Marxist, and very much had sympathies with the Soviet Union, and had sympathies to the worst of the communist regimes, and the economy in Chile was already in bad shape before Yende showed up, but during the Salvador Yende period, it really spun off and became much worse. Inflation picked up as it did in many parts of the world, and inflation was out of control. And again, he had this affiliation with the communist block. I think the US feared his affiliation with the Soviet Union. There was always the Monroe Doctrine of not allowing communists to get it really established in the Western Hemisphere, in the American Hemisphere. So in 1973, a few months, well, maybe 1972, I ended up appointed Pinochet to head the army, to head up the army a few months after that appointment in 1973, Pinochet basically headed up a coup with a junta and deposed the Yende and they actually ended up committing suicide in the presidential palace. And Pinochet took over with his group, ultimately he relegated his co-conspirators to some more minor world in government, and Pinochet became the leader of Chile, the unchallenged dictator of Chile. In 1981, there was a constitution, and part of that constitution gave Pinochet an eight-year term with the idea that there would be a referendum at the end of those eight years, which would determine whether he had another eight years after that. We'll get to that later on. Anyway, in 1973, Pinochet takes over. I mean, his main focus, Pinochet's main focus is that Scott will love this. Pinochet's main focus was destroying the left. 130,000 people rounded up, many of them killed. There were brutal pictures of people being thrown out of helicopters into the ocean, of people machine gunned, a lot of people, thousands of people were tortured by the Pinochet regime, people were hunted down. It was a brutal time, a brutal time for anybody with left-wing sympathies. And while I do not like the left and resent the left and don't agree with much of their policies, I do not believe that killing them and murdering them and imprisoning them and doing away with freedom of speech is ever the solution to such things. Pinochet was a, probably was a standard right-wing, you know, Latin American dictator, a statist. He wanted political, he wanted control, but he also faced a really difficult situation, a really difficult economy, an economy that was struggling, really high rates of inflation, and he needed a solution. He was not gonna be able to maintain his position. He knew that unless he found ways to stabilize the economy and actually get it growing. Now, there had been a group, I think it was like 30, 30 young people who had gone to the University of Chicago to study economics as part of an exchange program, Catholic University here in Santiago with the University of Chicago. These students had gone and they had studied with Milton Friedman and others of the Chicago School of Economics, a free market school of economics, a monetized school of economics. And they were now back in Chile and Pinochet turned to them, and in 1975 appointed one of them as Treasury Secretary and then many of them were appointed to positions in various economic positions within the Chilean government. And Pinochet basically gave them a free reign. Over the next from 1975 really until then the Pinochet regime in 1990, so over the 15 year period, they did some amazing things that you could probably only do at least at that time with the dictatorship. They privatized basically 95% of the state-owned companies in Chile. They cut government spending dramatically. They cut regulations, they slashed regulations. They did a lot of the things that Millay is talking about doing, a lot of things that Millay would like to do. Millay is of course being challenged in doing it because he is going through, and I think he has to go through, he has to go through the political process. They didn't have to go through the political process, so Pinochet basically backed everything that they did, but they basically slashed government spending, slashed regulations. They did something very rare in history really. They privatized Social Security, Jose Piner was the lead behind privatizing Social Security, but they did the kind of economic reforms that you wish every country would did. They did the kind of economic reforms that were hoping Millay will actually do, that he has promised to do, but now is being constrained by the political process in doing, but the Chicago Boys program, that's what they were called, these graduates of the University of Chicago Economics. The Chicago Boys program is very much or very similar to the program that Millay has launched in Argentina, and let's hope that the results are similar. But that is that the Argentinian economy does as well as the Chilean economy has done since 1975. It is worth noting that it wasn't easy, right? Chile went through some really hard times as these reforms were being put in place. Its economy had years where trunk in 1981 during kind of the global recession that afflicted the United States as well, during the early part of the Reagan administration, the Chilean economy shrunk significantly. And so it's not that you can impose these free market reforms and cut spending and deregulate and everything just, boom, happens. It takes time and the adjustment for some people, many people, can be very painful. Ultimately, during the Pinochet years, the economy grew at about 3% a year on average, some years much higher, some years as I said shrunk, shrink. And the real benefits of the Chicago Boys reforms were actually captured by governments after Pinochet. That is 15 years after the Chicago Boys started. So from 1990 on, the Chilean economy grew at 7%, which is dramatic and that's how it became the richest country on a per capita GDP basis in Latin America. So one of the lessons and one of the things to pay attention to in terms of what happens in Argentina is that it's not gonna be all roses. And I think again, Millay has a pretty good economics team around him, I think he knows what he's doing. He is an economist himself. And I think everything that he is proposing doing from an economic perspective are the right things, fundamentally to do, but it doesn't just result in readjustment and everything starts rising and everything starts getting better. And this is part of the dangers, the dangers that bad things happen. His reforms get blamed on it and everything is reversed since Millay, not like Pinochet, Millay has to get re-elected. Has to get re-elected in four years. And in 2025 there are parliamentary elections and I think that if he really wants to have these reforms go through, if he really wants the reforms to be implemented, he's gonna have to do very, very well in the parliamentary elections. He's gonna have to form a coalition around these ideas in the parliamentary elections so that he does not get vetoed by parliament as he has been so far. So in Chela's case, in 1981 some of the Chicago boys were fired because of this big recession that happened, but basically these reforms continued into the 1990s and as I said 95% of the companies were privatized. It is true that given the nature of authoritarianism not only did that result in just horrific violations of individual rights, a horrific treatment of people, of people who were sent to prison and tortured and murdered. So that is definitely horrific. But in addition to that, there's a lot of cronyism, right? So privatization, privatization can go a variety of different ways, but you get a sense that if a dictatorship of an authoritarian is managing the process of privatization, even if the economists have the best of intentions, the Chicago boys have the best of intentions, it's not surprising that family members and relatives and close associates and friends of the ruling junta of the dictatorship are going to get some of the juicy prizes, some of the juicy properties out of a privatization and that cronyism is gonna dominate. And I think one of the things that are holding Chile back from even being a biggest success and one of the things holding Chile back today as it has turned leftwards over the last decade or so, particularly over the last few years, we'll talk about that again later, is this legacy of cronyism the idea that some people benefited from those privatizations, from the liberalizations disproportionately and not based necessarily on merit, that there is vast inequality in Chile, not surprising, but that the inequality maybe was not earned, that inequality to some extent resulted from the cronyism. So Chile, as I said from 1990, continued to grow substantially. It had several presidents democratically elected. I will mention this about Pinochet to his credit. I mean, he was a brutal dictator and deserves condemnation on every front, but when it came time to have a referendum about whether he should have another eight years or not, he could have not had the referendum. He could have just like most dictators just continued to rule and he went through with the referendum. Now he was convinced he would win. He was convinced he would win. There's actually an Argentinian movie, a dramatization called, I think it's called No. And basically what Pinochet did is he had a referendum and you could vote yes to continue with Pinochet or no. And I think that Pinochet's complete surprise, the people of Chile voted no. They voted against him. They voted to kick him out even though the economy had done really, really well in the late 1980s and Chile was starting to really benefit from all those reforms. They voted him out. And again, he could have ignored them. He held all the levers of power. And Pinochet stepped aside and there was an election held and somebody won. I don't think it was even his candidate, but they continued the reforms and they continued, they didn't undo the reforms and Chile benefited enormously from those reforms. By the way, the movie's called No, as I said, and it's definitely worth watching. It's a good movie. It's in Spanish. It was made in Chile and I think it's definitely worth watching. So referendum was held. Chile became a democracy. Presidents have been elected since, I don't know if I said before, five years. And for the most part, they have preserved many of the reforms that we're engaged in. I'd say the one area where Chile has reverted is on the welfare state. I mean, it's very hard given altruism, given morality to sustain a small welfare state and the welfare state significantly has grown in Chile and is growing right now quite a bit. So Chile became, I'd say in the 2000s, the richest country in Latin America, as I said. And it's interesting that people in Chile were not satisfied with that. They were not happy. Starting in the 20 teens primarily, there was a big outcry about inequality. Even though the poor in Chile are doing better than the poor in other places in Latin America, the rate of poverty in Chile is significantly lower than other countries in Latin America. Inequality became a big issue. At about the same time, it became a big issue in the rest of the world. And they started demanding significant changes. They started demanding a shift away. I remember seeing a talk by Jose Pinerra at a Montpeleran Society meeting. Oh God, this is probably close to 10 years ago. Maybe a little less, maybe seven or eight years ago. And Jose Pinerra basically said that the successful people in Chile, the rich in Chile, Jose Pinerra, the architect of the privatization of Social Security, were feeling guilty. Guilty for their success. Guilty about the inequality. Guilty that they were so rich and there was still poverty in their country. In other words, the tentacles of altruism were deep in the culture. Chile is a Catholic country, very Catholic, as is much of Latin America. And it's impossible to sustain freedom. It's impossible to sustain capitalism in an altruistic culture. I think this all happened in Argentina as well. Although, you know, as if Argentina holds onto its altruism and Catholicism, then no matter what reforms Millet actually passes, ultimately they will feel guilty about them. And that guilt ultimately manifests itself. Manifests itself. Tentacles is not good. Chandler's making fun of my tentacles. Manifested itself in the Chilean people voting and starting to demand a return to some of the socialist policies of the past, that it clearly failed. It got so bad that, you know, a few years ago they demanded a constitution, a new constitution, a constitution that undid the reforms. I mean, the reforms are pretty deep, even to the extent that schools here, there's a lot more privatization or semi privatization of the schooling system is a lot more private health care here than there is in any other place in Latin America. So you have, so they demanded that there be a constitution convention to undo the liberalization and they landed up electing a leftist Marxist president. Now what's interesting is that they, when the leftist Marxist president came into power, that the Chilean economy started doing poorly, crime rates started to increase and people started to regret their shift to the left. I don't think they regret their opposition to the liberalization, but they don't like this president partially because of their regret around the shift to the left when a constitution was presented to them, they would undo the reforms of the liberalization and would make Chile a much more socialist country. They turned that down, they voted against it. It was, it was, it's interesting though that when it went back to the constitution convention and they adopted a right wing constitution, a much more religious constitution, a constitution that banned abortion and things like that, and that came to a vote. They voted that down, so that's good. So the, it seems like the Chileans are not ready to embrace statism of left or right, at least not at the constitutional level. And now the current president is very unpopular. I think his popularity is lower than that of Biden. I think his approval rating is something like 25%. And in the coming election, it's likely that a right wing status will be elected. It's, I mean, it would be amazing if maybe inspired by the election of Milay in Argentina that somebody with a more free market credentials gets elected, so we don't have a right wing status replacing a left wing status, you know, big deal. But, so it's gonna be interesting. I will know more about the political situation in Chile in the next few days as I meet Chileans and as we talk about these things and I get a lot of insight from the locals. This is more me speculating right now than anything else. But they do seem to be some strong candidates who are likely to defeat the leftist president in the coming election. Obviously, some of the reforms have been undone. There are, the momentum of reforms has slowed. Economic progress has slowed significantly. And while Chile is still a relatively wealthy place and you can see it looking out the window at how many new buildings they are here and how much cleaner and nicer Santiago is, from the perspective of just, you know, expression of wealth, then let's say, Sao Paulo or Buenos Aires. It's a smaller city, but it's, yeah, I mean, it looks much nicer that, you know, we will see, we will see what happens with this. It's a great experiment and it's really fascinating to see how altruism, you know, pushes the country even though it has clear and equivocal proof that free markets have helped, free markets have improved people's condition. And they also have neighbors like Venezuela that have embraced socialism and gone from the richest country in Latin America to the poorest one. And they've got other countries that have declined dramatically in terms of wealth like Argentina and like, in relatively speaking, to Chile, like Ecuador and others. You would think they would have learned these are the policies that are good. But if your standard is not individual, human, flourishing, if your standard is not individual or being, then yeah, if that is the case, then it's, if that's not the standard, then if altruism is the standard, if guilt is what drives decision-making, then people are willing to give up the wealth, the prosperity, the flourishing, the freedom in order to feel less guilty. And that's so far the story of Chile. We'll see what the next decade or so bring and how it develops, in particular, how it develops in contrast to what's going on in Argentina. And again, who knows how things in Argentina can evolve, but, and how much they'll be able to get done. But I'm cautiously optimistic about that and the contrast with Chile is gonna be interesting. Both Chile's past and Chile's future is going to be interesting. All right, that was just a quick rundown on modern Chilean history. And I'll have more to say about Chile, I think, after I get to talk to the Chileans and get some feedback, including tonight over dinner, after we finish the show. All right, let's go to the super chat. I'll remind you, we have two sponsors, three sponsors, two main sponsors of the show. The first one is the Anduin Institute, the Anduin Institute is taking applications right now for scholarships for Ocon in Anaheim. The annual conference, you've got a week still to apply for the scholarship. It's April 15th. It'd be great. I mean, why would you not apply for a scholarship? You get all expenses paid and you get to attend this fantastic conference in Anaheim, California with all the leading intellectual, objective intellectuals and just a great social environment and just a fabulous, a fabulous place to be with a lot of cool people. So yeah, I encourage you to apply, apply, apply. Nothing to lose. And the second sponsor is Alex Epstein. Alex, of course, is behind I Love Fasal Fuel and Behind Fasal Future, which is a terrific book. You should all be, you should all have read and have bought and have read and maybe bought a few copies and giving it to friends. You know, actually we need to get Alex. I was told by the Argentinians that Alex needs to come to Argentina. So Alex, if you're listening, the Argentinians want you there. Maybe even some people, they could arrange a meeting with you in Mille. But Alex has energy talking points. You should subscribe to that. You should also, if you're in the energy space, if you're in policy, anything related to energy or if you're just really interested, you should subscribe to Alex AI, which is an AI artificial intelligence chatbot that basically gives you Alex's answers to any questions you have about energy. It's being trained on Alex. We need a Iran AI. We need that. We're gonna work on that. I keep saying that and somebody's actually started and I need to give him feedback, but anyway. Go to alexepstein.substack.com and subscribe. All right, let us jump into the super chat. JJJBs, sending you some money because I'm about to send you a longish email about an intense conversation I had with some Israeli relatives in Tel Aviv about the topic I emailed you before. Didn't want you to read, respond for free. Thank you. Thanks, JJJBs, looking forward to seeing the email. Yeah, I'll let you know what I think after I read it. Clock young, narcissists and people who toot their own horn all the time strike me as incompetent human beings. Generally, yes, generally that's true. It's rare that somebody who toots their horn all the time actually has something to toot that is justifiably proud or justifiably competent. Mostly it's people who do it out of a sense of a bit of an inferiority complex. But yes, I think incompetence is one way to think about it. Michael, do you feel better or worse about Millet since you met him? Do I feel better or worse about Millet? I feel about the same. I didn't learn as much as I wanted to learn about Millet. My meeting with him was very brief. It was very short. I didn't have a meeting with him. I basically said hello and shook his hand and asked him to read my book with Don Watkins, not just mine. But other than that, Don didn't really engage much. The interview he did did not teach me much about him. So didn't get a lot of insight about who Millet is other than he's a shrewd politician but I think I already knew that. He knows how to play an audience. He knows how to play a crowd. He knows what to say in an interview. He can go on and on and on talking about himself for half an hour. But no, I don't think I have a better feel yet for him. I mean, as I said in the past, I think he's sincere. I think he is knowledgeable. I think he's a real economist. I think he is still learning. I don't think he's philosophically very deep. I don't think he's knowledgeable philosophically. I'm not even sure he's read Iron Grand even though he claims he has. I'm not sure I believe that. And if he has, I don't think he understood it. So, you know, but I don't, yeah, I don't have any better sense other than what I've already said about Millet. Andrew Trigga, what led to the divide on the right between the traditionalists and MAGA? Just a thought, the tradcons philosophical inconsistencies made them feckless, which led to the rise of frustrated, anti-conceptual mentality. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, there's a lot to unpack there. I mean, that's a whole show about the divide. I think it depends who, what is the divide you're actually talking about? Is the divide you're talking about a divide among the intellectuals? Is the divide among the electorates? I don't think those are the same two things. I think, you know, the basically the among the electorate called them the traditionalists basically disappeared. They all became MAGA. They didn't have much intellectual content before. They had a vague sense of the constitution was a good thing and the founders were good, but never really solid. And they didn't really understand the implications of it. So the constitution and the founders. So, and then they elected some tea party representatives. They were all in the tea party and those people didn't do much and didn't satisfy them because they wanted quick change. They wanted immediate change because they were super frustrated after the great financial crisis. And so they became MAGA because out of frustration and anger and wanting to break stuff and wanting fast remedies, I think they were never very, very intellectual or very, but they became even dumber. They just wanted action. And they became MAGA and that became kind of a MAGA, which is, you know, a real dedication to anti-conceptual because they feel like they felt like when they were conceptual, conceptual supposedly, i.e. when they advocated constitution and finding fathers and real ideals, they got nothing done and they got defeated and nothing good happened. And then when they went all out emotionalist, anti-conceptual and they elected Trump, they won. And they still think they're winning with Trump. They still think Trump is a winner somehow. It's bizarre. But then there's the intellectuals and the intellectuals are the right. Never really embraced MAGA. I think for the right reasons because they realized MAGA was anti-intellectual. Now some saw opportunity to become the intellectuals of MAGA and they're having some moderate success because the other intellectuals are the right basically turned away from them. But again, it's a complicated issue to talk about quickly in a Q&A where I really need to wrap up soon. So we'll talk about this again. We'll talk about this again. Savano, Salih Iran, I hope you're enjoying your time down there. I saw that Israel is pulling troops back from South Gaza despite BB saying there was a date for going to Ra'far. As genocide Joe finally pulled the leash. I don't think so. I think that this is what's called troop rotation. I think they're pulling them back from Gaza to rest them up a little bit. I think they're taking a pause. I think Israel genuinely hoped that there would be a ceasefire so they could arrest their troops for a little while. So this is kind of a unilateral ceasefire on Israel's part. It's also wants the temperature and the world to go down. It wants the United States to calm down. It wants the whole bombing of the aid workers to dissipate a little bit. And as a consequence, I think that they haven't pulled that completely but they're pulling some of the brigades out and repositioning them, hopefully, to enter Ra'far. They don't seem in any hurry. I think they're still hoping, sadly, disappointingly, they're still hoping for some kind of ceasefire and get some of the hostages back before they go back in. I don't know if that's gonna happen. And the longer they wait, as I've said, over and over and over again, the harder it's going to be. But that I think is the strategy. Everybody in Israel you talk to says, no, they're going to offer, it's absolutely the case. This is just a temporary timeout. We will see, we will see. I hope that's true. And I hope that they enter Ra'far soon, sooner rather than later. And look, it's not an issue of, Ra'far is where five brigades of the Hamas still are. Ra'far is where the leadership of Hamas is. It's like the, it's where the hostages are. They need to kill the leadership. And one very big part, very disappointing part of this campaign that Israel is engaged in is the lack of killing of the very senior people within Hamas in the Gaza Strip. And they need to get it done and they need to get it done sooner rather than later. And yeah, we will see. We will see when and how. Some of the leaders in Qatar, some of the leaders, but the main leader, the main military leader certainly are all in the Gaza Strip still. And they need to be hunted down. They need to be killed. And it is a massive, a massive intelligence failure that they haven't been able to do it. And they don't know where he is. Sinwar and his number two. All right, Justin, what's the current vibe on the streets of Santiago vis-a-vis a free market versus statism? I don't know. I mean, again, I'll tell you more in the next few days, but I just arrived and came to hotel. I'm doing the show. I'm off to dinner with some Chileans. So I'll know more after I talk to them. So ask me again in a few days. Wes, thank you. Really appreciate the stick of $50. Really appreciate the support, guys. All right, Rafael, let's say an objectivist has a satellite with a laser capable of destroying anything. Would it be moral to use it to really implement freedom in the world? No, you can't force people to be free. You cannot, should not force people to be free. And they won't be. No matter what laser you have. No, it could be used to kill some really, really bad guys. I'm all for that, but I wouldn't use it to impose freedom on the world, to force them into it. No, that's negation of freedom using force. Leah, men are apt to mistake the strength of their feelings for the strength of their arguments. The heated mind resents the chill, touch, and relentless scrutiny of logic. That is true. I don't know who, I don't know what that quote is from, but that is absolutely true. Michael, did Ayn Rand live in any other city besides New York for any significant period of time? Yeah, she lived in LA. She lived in Los Angeles for a long time. So in Los Angeles, and then she had a house in the valley in San Fernando Valley. The house, unfortunately, was torn down. It was a beautiful house by a magnificent architect whose name escapes me right now, but beautiful, beautiful house. Yeah, too bad it didn't survive, but they're now condo buildings where that house sat. And they had, I think they had an orchard and they had a huge piece of land there. No, it wasn't Fankler, that I would not have forgotten. Clark, if Biden wins, will you feel a sense of relief? No, no. No, I don't feel a sense of relief. I wouldn't feel a sense of relief. You know, escaping one big evil and getting another big evil is not something you should feel relief over. Thank you, Andrew. It was Richard Neutra, Neutra, which is the great architect who built the home in which that Iron Man bought in San Fernando Valley. So I wouldn't feel a great sense of relief if Biden won. I would just feel like, oh, God, now we have Biden. So yeah, we're not in a place of relief. Christian, Christian. Baruch may be left of center, but he is not a real socialist like Maduro. I think that's right. He even embraced me late at his inauguration. That's surprising, which Lula Boycott had thoughts on this. I mean, he's left of center. He was a Marxist. He's not a socialist like Maduro. I don't think he could survive in Chile if he was a socialist like Maduro, but he's bad. I don't know why he embraced me late, maybe because me late as anti-establishment and they all think of themselves in some way as anti-establishment. He's certainly not a pro-free market, it's a pro-free liberty. And yeah, Lula is worse. Lula is a criminal. Lula is the mafia and believably corrupt. I don't know if you're following maybe the next show while I talk about this. I should have talked about today, I forgot, about the free speech thing that's going on in Brazil. The Twitter files in Brazil are much, much worse than the Twitter files revealing a much, much worse situation than the Twitter files in the United States and it might be the Twitter closes in Brazil. Lula is a really, really, really, really bad guy and is very dangerous and fundamentally thoroughly fundamentally thoroughly corrupt. He went to jail and then he was released from jail and then he won an election. He went to jail for corruption. I remember being in Brazil when he was put into handcuffs and put into the police car and driven off to jail and the whole auditorium full of people cheered on as we watched this on television. Nobody in that audience thought that Lula would make a comeback and become president. So yeah, so Boerick is better than Lula, good, he's better than Maduro, good, still bad. That Duda Bunny, what are your thoughts on tofu as a source of protein? You know, probably good. I don't know, I don't eat tofu but I'm sure it's a good source of protein. I have no real thoughts on it, not that much. Michael, Milton Friedman never had a lasting impact like Ayn Rand. No, but he's had an impact but his ideas are not as deep and they're not as well-shattering and they're not as impactful on the individual. I mean, his impact is in economics. Ayn Rand's impact is on everything and that's, she's a philosopher. Philosophy lasts and because it impacts everything has a different and much bigger impact. Andrew says, does it bother you that a contingent of Hamas leadership is allowed to peacefully negotiate in Qatar? Yes, yes, you know, somebody should poison them all at one of these negotiating sessions. I think they should all be dead and I think the Qatari regime should be penalized for hosting them. Now, the Qatari's are claiming that the Americans want them to host the Hamas because it moderates Hamas and it allows for negotiations and I wouldn't put it past the Biden administration or any administration. Remember they were hosting there during Trump's administration. I wouldn't pass the Americans to think that having Qatar host Hamas is a good thing because it's a neutralizing element. So I would like to see the Qatari regime I don't know, destroyed and I'd like to see, I'd definitely like to see the Hamas leadership all killed. All that needs to happen with Qatar really is for the U.S. to leave. The U.S. has a massive military base. It's the largest military base in the Middle East is in Qatar. It's headquarters, it's command center for the entire Middle East is in Qatar. That is a sanction if there ever was a sanction, a sanction of the victim because you know, remember Qatar has been funding, Qatar has been funding America's enemies, not just Hamas, but ISIS had funded, ISIS had funded, al-Qaeda for many, many years. You know, America were launching planes out of Qatar, if it was based to bomb people that were being funded by the Qataris and America was fine with that under Bush, under Obama, under Trump, under Biden. All, they're all despicable pragmatists when it comes to foreign policy, they're all pathetic. And that's what we get, that's what we get. All right guys, thank you, Mary Eileen. Really appreciate the support. Did I miss any of the stickers? Probably did. Or Leon, Rafael, thank you. And John, of course, John started it all off with a $20 sticker, thank you, John. All right, sorry, I mean these shows are short but that is because my schedule is difficult. I'm hoping to do a show tomorrow and maybe definitely a show on Thursday, we'll do a long show on Thursday. And in that show I'll also tell you everything I've learned about Chile. We should definitely talk about free speech in Brazil. And then any other stories you guys want to talk about, let me know. I'll definitely be looking at some of the news items to give you a news update. But I'm hoping for a show tomorrow and Wednesday, but definitely, definitely Thursday. I've got time on Thursday to do a show. Friday, maybe at night, maybe no show. Friday's gonna be a long day. Saturday, definitely a show. And then next week, we're starting the new schedule, I expect. So next week you can expect basically shows from two to four, maybe even longer, every single day, except Monday. So every single day, except Saturday, Sunday, Monday there'll be a news roundup show early in the day and then an evening interview show. I think that's it. Thank you everybody. I will see you all maybe tomorrow. We'll see how the schedule pans out and have a great rest of your evening and a fantastic week.