 So we are back and we're definitely working towards some kind of sit down between me and Ben to entertain all of you. I mean, that's after all the purpose for which we live. But it should be a fun event. And I talked to Dave Rubin and I expect that it will happen sometime soon. All right, let's talk about Robert Reich. Now, Robert Reich is one of my favorite, favorite, in quotes, leftist intellectuals. He is well known. He was Bill Clinton's Labor Secretary. He is a sharp, smart guy. He is a professor at Berkeley. I think at the school of Kendrick's economics of governments over at Berkeley. He is a progressive, a leftist. But what I find interesting about Reich is that he knows what the heart of the argument really is. There's a op-ed of his that I think I did a show on, or at least I read from it in one of my shows, where he basically talks about CEO pay. And the whole op-ed, he basically says, you know, CEO is exceptional. And CEO pay is usually correlated with performance. And on and on and on he goes on all the economic reasons why CEO should be paid much more than anybody else. And he gives good arguments, all the right economic arguments. And then he says, and this is why I like him because he gets to the heart of it. He says, yeah, from an economic perspective, CEO should get as much as the market will pay and the market will pay a lot because there are a few CEOs who are any good in the competition and da, da, da, da, da. But, but morally, it's unacceptable. Morally, it's unthinkable. Morally, it's offensive. And therefore, we should have caps on CEO pay. So he's one of these guys. I'm sure he has the same view on minimum wage, even though he won't admit it. I think he's smart enough to know minimum wage doesn't make any sense that it's economically destructive and it actually hurts the people it's trying to help. But he will argue for it from a more perspective. It's a must. We have to do it. That's Robert Reich, right? He is a huge, one of these, one of the very prolific writer. He has written a lot about income inequality. That's a big issue. If he has, like most progressives, like most leftists, that is a big issue. Well, like most leftists, intellectuals, they realize that the enemy really on the right, or what they perceive as the right, is Ayn Rand. And that one of the ways, I think, to destroy the Ayn Rand brand is to affiliate it with the bad actions of the right, right? And in this case, he's trying to relate Ayn Rand to Donald Trump, which is an obvious leftist technique. They've been trying to do it for months and months and months. And he put out a video called Trump's Brand Is Ayn Rand. Now, those of you who've listened to the show know what I think about that. Donald Trump is one of the villains from Ayn Rand's novel. He has a crony, unthinking, unprincipled, thug. You know, in Secretary Tillerson's vocabulary, Amoran, not an Ayn Rand hero, but the left. I think in order to destroy Ayn Rand, not so much in order to destroy Trump, Trump, Trump, you know, everybody knows what Trump is. So I think, I think the attempt here is not to make Trump look bad. The attempt here really is to make Ayn Rand look bad by association. And by the way, one of the reasons, I spent so much time attacking Trump and making clear to all of you that Trump has nothing to do with Ayn Rand is to prevent this kind of garbage, to prevent the destruction of the Ayn Rand brand by affiliating it with the likes of Donald Trump. So let's go, let's look at this video quickly. We're going to do this fairly quickly because there's just no, there's no meets to this video. But we'll look at parts of this video and I will respond as we go along. Here we go. Here is Robin Weisch. Donald Trump once said he identified with Ayn Rand's character, Howard Rourke. I don't think he ever quite said that. I think he enjoyed the fond head and liked Howard Rourke. But notice, you'll notice that this is the only reference actually linking Donald Trump and Ayn Rand. There is no argument in this video that Donald Trump has read a nonfiction that he agrees with philosophically that he has studied who ideas that anybody in Ayn Rand's universe thinks Donald Trump is a good guy. None of that exists. None of that exists. In the fountain head, an architect so upset that a housing project he designed didn't meet specifications, he had it dynamite it. He was upset that it didn't meet specifications. You guys do with that, which will now, oh, I haven't shown the video. Oh my God. All right, I'll show you the video because you got to see Robin. He's quite a character. All right, you see him now? I think so. All right. So here we go. I grew up reading Ayn Rand. It's inspired me so much that it's required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff. Notice that he so dishonest. He doesn't actually tell us that Paul Ryan repudiated Ayn Rand and declared himself a solid and committed, whoops, what did I do here? A solid and committed Catholic. So, but that doesn't make it. You just find one quote that Paul Ryan once said that he has everybody read Ayn Rand and that's it. I wish Paul Ryan was a real Ayn Rand accolade, but he's not and he doesn't claim he is. If you'd updated the quotes, but of course, nobody on the left is going to actually update a quote to give you the full story. They want to leave you with a particular impression. Now, no, Tillerson, Ryan, Pompeo, all these guys, yeah, they read a book. They liked the book. It might have been their favorite book, a novel. All right. What do we do about that? Now, I understand that the, let me try to share the screen again. For some reason, it's not screen-sharing properly. We're going to try this one more time and see if it'll work. Let's see. All right. Hopefully it'll work now. Founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick has described himself as a Rand follower. Before he was sacked, he applied many of her ideas to Uber's code of values and even used the cover art for Rand's book, The Fountainhead, as his Twitter avatar. So who is, so no, he chooses one businessman. He uses a businessman who's been obviously, you know, shown to be somewhat of a bad guy. He did found Uber and did change over a lot of our lives. I will add that. But his misbehaved, there's no question he's misbehaved. He chooses this one. Nobody else, no John Allison, no many, many of the other businessmen. Tittleston, for example, and the other businessmen he showed, they were great businessmen and there's no evidence where horrible businessmen as, you know, did horrible things like Travis is supposed to have done. He chooses one example, no other example. And he uses an example. Everybody's familiar in the negatives. Again, notice that just the plain sheer dishonesty of what he's doing, how he's picking his examples. He only picks the examples that are convenient, that fit his story. He even used the cover art for Rand's book, The Fountainhead, as his Twitter avatar. So who is Ion Rand and why does she matter? Ion Rand, best known for two highly popular novels, still widely read today. The Fountainhead, published in 1943 and Atlas shrugged in 1957, didn't believe there was a common good. She wrote that selfishness is a virtue, an altruism, an evil that destroys nations. Now, all of that is true, what he just said about Ion Rand. Now, of course, he is playing to an audience that is outraged. How can you not believe in the common good? Of course, we believe in the common good. The common good, we all know what that means. He'll never define it in the video. But we know what that means and the common good. I mean, that's obvious. What a monster she must have been, an altruism. Everybody's for altruism. So he's playing to an audience. He doesn't really have to explain it. Now, he's going to try now to show how ridiculous that notion is. But even in his wording on putting it down, listen to this, listen to, you know, let me know what you think of this, you know, how he actually describes it. An altruism, an evil that destroys nations. When Rand offered these ideas, they seemed quaint, if not far-fetched. Quaint and far-fetched. Quaint and far-fetched. Wow. Is that what you felt when you had the Fountainhead or Atlas Shruggedo or the Virtue of Selfishness? You felt her ideas were quaint and far-fetched. I mean, what a shallow stupid, you know, just again, he doesn't want to even take her in a sense seriously enough to give an actual critique. He wants to ridicule and belittle. Really? This is intellectual conversation? Nah, not really. Anyone who lived through the prior half-century witnessed our interdependence through depression and war. And after the war, we used our seemingly boundless prosperity to finance all sorts of public. Now, by the way, our interdependency when it came to war, yeah, we kind of came together to fight the bad guys. But wasn't the war really a result of collectivism? Wasn't the war really a result of the common good? Didn't Hitler use the idea of the common good and the public interest in every one of his speeches? Isn't that what rallied the forces of darkness? Just as much as supposedly, according to him, it rallied the forces of good. And wasn't the Great Depression ultimately, he's a good enough economist to know this, a consequence of failed government policies, of the failure of the government to try to regulate and control the free market. Really? And healthcare system that is falling apart, Medicare, Medicare. This is what he's proud of. Good. We were living it. So of course there was a common good. So all of those are consequences of the common good. Really? Really, we gave opportunities to women out of recognition of the common good or out of recognition of the individual rights. We gave blacks the right to vote and did away with discrimination because of the common good or because they are individuals with inalienable rights, the right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. No, it was the protection and the recognition of individual rights that led to the achievements, the real achievement, not the fake achievements, the real achievements. The prosperity of the 1950s is not some accident. It is a consequence of industry, of business, of wealth creation, of production, of productivity, of individuals making and building and creating. Not the common good. The common good didn't create the great industries of the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and the world in which we live in today. It's those self-interested businessmen. Now, there's a sense in which there's the common good, but it's not the sense he means it. It's a sense in which, if you understand what the common is, the common is a collection of individuals. And individuals, the good for individuals is to have their rights protected. So in a sense, the common good is to have rights protected. In a sense, the common good is freedom, but not the common good as the common, but the common as a collection of individuals. The common is what is good for every individual, and therefore is good for them all, is the protection of individual rights. All right, back to the video. Of course, there was a common good. We were living it, but then, starting? No, by the way, that he never defines the common good. Throughout the video, he never tells us what it actually is, other than all those social programs and taking credit for winning the war, for example, and a bunch of other things that he attributes to being motivated by common good. But he never defines what the common good is, because you can't define it. But then, starting in the late 1970s, Rand's views gain ground. She became the intellectual godmother of modern-day American conservatism. Don't we wish this utter selfishness, this contempt for the public, this win at... Contempt for the public? I know Rand didn't have contempt for the public, she had contempt for certain members of the public who deserve contempt, but notice this utter selfishness. Again, no definition, no attempt to argue, just use utter, and it appears on the screen in big red letters, this utter selfishness, evil, so clever propaganda. Selfishness, this contempt for the public, this win at any cost. Win at any cost? Did he read the fountain head? Does he now remember the scene in which Howard Walk walks away from doodles of money on the table, because the deal is not consistent with this autistic integrity, autistic integrity above money? But no, this is win at any cost. This is money at any cost. This is do whatever you can. This is his view, the culture's view, the world's view of selfishness. Selfishness as exploitative as you or some, as doing whatever it takes exploiting anybody and anything to achieve your goals. That's not Ayn Rand. That's not her selfishness. That has nothing to do with Ayn Rand. That's your fantasy, Robert Reich. How are they? Is it roding American life without adherence to a set of common? Let me just say something, because the left keeps doing this. The 1960s and 1970s were unmitigated disaster, inflation, stagnation, crime rates through the roof and ever increasing. At the end of the 1970s, America changed and Ayn Rand had a role in changing America. I have no question in my mind that in spite of Ayn Rand's opposition to Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan would have never become president if not for Ayn Rand, if not for Atlas Shrug, if not for the resurrection of the term capitalism. Ayn Rand was integral to the changes that happened in the late 70s, but those changes were good. Those changes turned us around. Instead of an economy dying, instead of an economy stagnating, instead of an economy that was uncompetitive, instead of unemployment rates in the double digits, suddenly the economy started growing and growing fast with low price inflation. Standard of livings accelerated and went up. A quality of life today is a gazillion times better than it was in the 1970s. Just open up a CS catalog. Just the idea that you might open up a CS catalog because that's all you had in the 1970s versus the Amazon of today, the Amazon Donald Trump by the way hates, the Amazon of today. I mean, we are so much better off today than the 1970s. It is hard to imagine from a material sense. And America started falling apart in the late 1970s. America started declining in the 1970s. What were the 60s and 70s about? That's when the world decline happened. That's when the falling apart happened. And yet Ronald Reagan and the changes that happened in the 1980s put some bandages over the disaster that mostly the left, but also the right had created during the 60s and 70s. And yeah, there were only bandages and yeah, those bandages have been coming off over the last 20 years. But you're blaming the bandages for the coming apart, which you really should be blaming is all those policies you raved about the healthcare for the elderly that is bankrupting this country, the social programs that are institutionalizing huge segments of our population to poverty. It is your so-called achievements in the name of the common good that is what is unraveling America today, not deregulation and tax cuts and an emphasis, a renewed emphasis on American entrepreneurship. That's what has kept this country going for as long as it's gone. That's what's held it together for as long as it's held. You know, it's truly unraveling because of Obama and Trump, but really. Without adherence to a set of common notions about right and wrong, we're living in a jungle where only the strongest, cleverest and most unscrupulous get ahead. Notice the package deal. Strongest, cleverest, unscrupulous. And notice the examples he's going to give. All bad guys. All bad guys. And where everyone must be wary in order to survive. This is not a society. It's not even a civilization because there's no civility at its core. It's a disaster. In other words, we have to understand who Iron Rand is so we can reject her philosophy and dedicate ourselves to rebuilding the common good. Now, it would be great if he actually did that. If he actually tried to understand who Iron Rand was, even in the effort to reject her, that would be huge. That would be huge. I'd have a speck. But that's not what he's doing here. That's not what he's doing here. This is pure propaganda, nothing but propaganda. The idea of the common good was once widely understood and accepted in America. As what? I mean, after all, the US Constitution was designed for we, the people, seeking to promote the general welfare. By protecting individual rights. Not for me, the selfish jerk seeking as much wealth and power as possible. Again, that's not Iron Rand. Yet today, you find growing evidence of its loss. CEOs who gouge their customers, loot their corporations and defraud investors. What about CEOs who create great value and improve our standard of living and quality of life and change the world for the better and make and allow millions of people all over the world to have jobs and actually have almost eliminated extreme poverty from the world? How about those CEOs? No, no, no. We're just going to choose one who's a creep. This is the shaker, or whatever his name is. The guy who did the pharmaceuticals, who was a creep. That's who we're going to choose. That is the representative of CEOs. Not the ones who actually exist, who actually make our lives dramatically better. No, we're going to find the one example who is truly a crook and we're going to package him with all of the CEOs. Let's keep going. Here's an accountant who looked the other way when corporate clients play fast and loose, who even collude with them to skirt the law. What about all the corporate accountants who actually help companies make more money, create more jobs, build more products? What about all the accountants that actually often, usually, if a company is committing fraud, let the government know because the government's not going to catch anybody. It's much more likely that accountants than anybody else. No. He doesn't even give an example here. He just assumes we all know because we loathe those accountants. Wall Street bankers who defraud customers. Wall Street bankers, the only example he's giving is Booney Madoff. Booney Madoff. Yes. What about all those Wall Street bankers who saw the internet before any of us did and invested it and created the wonderful products and goods that we have today? What about those evil Wall Street bankers who funded Apple so that Apple could go and create all the products that Robert Rice is using? What about Google and YouTube that he's using here to promote his propaganda? What about all the wonderful goods and products and dramatically increased standard of living that Wall Street has made possible? But no. All there is to represent Wall Street is Booney Madoff. And publicists who choose not to see that a powerful movie mogul they depend on is sexually harassing and abusing young women. Politicians who take donations really bribes from wealthy donors and corporations. He's using that right here. I wish he'd use Dodd and Frank. Dodd and Frank who got millions of dollars from Freddie and Fannie, Fannie Mac Fannie Mae and who were single-handedly publicly more responsible for the financial crisis than any individuals. Why aren't they on this list? Why is it all Republicans and why is it only the NRA? Now I'm against all corruption. I think this is absurd that this kind of money, you know, I see too many politicians going into politics poor and coming out rich. But give me a break. Give me a break. Right? What about all the money funneled in from unions? What about all the money funneled in from your favorite causes, Robert Reich, right? Now I'm not going to use those. I'm just going to use, this is propaganda after all. I'm only going to use the ones that fit my story. Their patrons want or shudder the government when they don't get the partisan results they seek. And a president of the United States who repeatedly lies about important issues. Einwand would be against politicians lying, fuses to put his financial holdings into a blind trust. Einwand would probably be against that as well. And then personally profits off his office and foments racial and ethnic conflict. Certainly Einwand would be have been opposed to that. The common good consists of our shared values about that we don't have any shared values. I don't have any shared values with Robert Reich. I don't have any shared values with a lot of people. What does the common good mean? Which values? What are the values? How do we decide them? Which common? The common that you like or the common that I like? Which group? The common good only leads to one thing as Einwand beautifully articulated. It leads to gang warfare. It leads to pressure group politics. It leads to exactly the kind of corruption that Reich has been complaining about. That's the consequence of elevating the common good above the interests of the individual, above the rights of the individual. We owe one another as citizens who are bound together in the same society. A concern for the common good. Keeping the common good in mind is a moral attitude. It recognizes that we're all in it together. But if there is no common good, there is no society. All right. If there's no common good, there's no society. Notice the book that he's pitching. I've seen he's got a bunch of talks on the common good. If there's no common good, there's no society. Nope. I mean, not by your definition of common good. By your definition of common good, what you get is the corrupt society we have today. By your definition of common good, what you get is World War II. By your definition of common good, we get all the disasters of history. The only appropriate way to use common good is in the context of protecting the individuals that compose the so-called common. There is no other way to do it. All right. Well, that's Robert Reich. Good music. That is Robert Reich and not very impressive, shallow, superficial, propaganda. And when you see somebody like that, you know he's lying because he knows better. He's not that stupid. He's not that ignorant. And it's sad that this is the quality of the criticism. I mean, I'm waiting. I'm looking. I'm hoping to find somebody who can actually debate using facts, using truth, and debate actual positions that I ran had, not make them up, not create them, not invent them, and not skew reality so badly as to the one guy we caught on Wall Street versus the hundreds who are doing a good job, the one CEO who is mean and corrupt and nasty versus the hundreds of thousands that do a fantastic job and all in the name of the wrong thing. So I'm looking. I'm looking for a reasonable, rational critic who actually engage in a rational, thoughtful, facts-oriented debate. I have a feeling it's not going to be Robert Reich, although I have challenged him to debate. And here, hereby I challenge Robert Reich. I challenge you to debate me. Debate me on anything in that video. Debate me on the common good. Debate me on Iran. Debate me on inequality. Debate me on the virtual business CEOs and finance. Anything on that video, I would be happy to debate you.