 Radical, Fundamental Principles of Freedom, Rational Self-Interest, and Individual Rocks. This is the Iran Book Show. All right, everybody, welcome to Iran Book Show. On this Thursday evening, our second show of the day, thanks for joining me. It's nice to have you all here. Thank you, Jonathan, for the first sticker of the night. All right, so today we're going to talk about the state of the US, really the global economy. What a watch. What are we worried about? So a few days ago, I did a show, two days ago, I did a show about doomerism and the doomer mentality and why it was bad. But we can't be optimistic all the time, and being optimistic is often being non-objective. So today we're going to take a realist, an objective look at, I think, what are dark clouds that are looming for the US economy, not just in terms of what I've been saying would be the fate of the US economy really since 2008 stagnation, but really some real challenges that could bring about much worse circumstances than stagnation. So we're going to be focusing on that. The show, we'll see how much there is to say. I encourage everybody to join us and ask questions and participate and make comments and get engaged. It'll make the show, it makes the show more interesting. It makes the show more oriented towards what you're interested in. So please ask questions and be engaged. Super Chat is open. We've got an ambitious goal, as always, to achieve in terms of raising money for the show. But yes, we're going to do that. I'm currently expecting that we'll start October, maybe November with some new sponsors. That'll be nice. The Iron Man Institute is going to become a sponsor of the show. So we're going to be talking about that in October. And then I'm looking at everybody out there who has, like on the free market side, has a sponsor of the show that does gold something, right? Everybody's selling gold in some way. So I might have my gold sponsor, which would be a little funny. But I might have a gold sponsor. We'll see if we can work out a deal for the show starting in a few weeks. We'll see if we can make it work and we'll see if it makes sense. But that is a possibility. Look for ways to enhance the revenue for the Iran Book Show. All right. Thanks, Stephen Hopper. Thanks, Louis. Liam, I'll get to your question. Thank you guys for participating and supporting in these cases by the use of stickers. All right. Again, yeah, let's just jump in. So the US economy and particularly the stock market have had quite a run. The reality is that when the market and when the economy collapsed in 2008, that is 15 years ago, it really did look like we were in for a long period of stagnation, of lack of economic growth, of declining standard of living quality of life, and potentially even, and of course, of a stock market that was challenged to recover. And yet what actually happened was that the United States economy did do well, but it did OK. The stock market did phenomenally well. And this is at a large extent the consequence of what many would argue is massive injections of money into the economy through QE or liquidity into the economy. It's not clear there was money really, but liquidity into the economy during QE. And at the time, what I said the consequence would be would be stagnation. And that's indeed what we had. We had very low economic growth. Even during the Trump years, the economy grew at 2%. It was unimpressive to say the least. What we also experienced was something completely unprecedented in really, in certainly modern history, but maybe in all of human history. And that is we experienced for a long period of time of a negative to zero interest rates. That is the cost of borrowing was sometimes negative. You were being paid to borrow money, certainly in Europe for long periods of time on certain government bonds, interest rates were negative. In Switzerland, in Denmark, in other countries, you had negative interest rates. Really unprecedented in human history and goes against flies counter to all of financial and economic theory that such a thing would exist. So you had money being created and flooded the economy. You had interest rates at zero or sometimes even negative. And in the United States, you had interest rates of basically zero, maybe 1%, maybe 2%, but nothing above that. And then of course, COVID happened. So on top of these very, very low interest rates, which was already trying, starting to create real distortions and perversions in the economy and where there was already angst about how long this could survive. We then got a COVID boost to government spending, a massive stimulus, really unprecedented in size, both under Bush. Bush, where did Bush come from? Both under Trump and then under Biden. We got two massive stimulus packages. And the result was what you would expect. That is the result of helicopter money, the result of just sending people checks in the mail, the result of just flooding the market with money directly to consumers has been inflation. And with inflation, interest rates have risen. And in spite of the fact that everybody thought inflation would peak, inflation does not seem to have peaked. It seems to have stabilized. It seems to be going sideways for now. And on top of that, interest rates are high and they seem to be, there seems to be an acknowledgement, at least among many, that interest rates are going to stay high. Now, in the States right now, the 10-year bond yesterday peaked at 4.5 something. I mean, it's kind of funny, sad, funny, to think that this is somehow high interest rates. In 1981, I think it was, the 10-year bond was in the mid-teens. Indeed, for 40 years from the end of World War II, basically until the early 1980s, interest rates only went up. And in the 1970s, they spiked up with inflation and they continued to do so in the 80s. And only from 82 have we had a period of 40 years, as it turns out, cycles of 40 years, something. Another 40 years where interest rates have only gone down. So they've gone down so much to zero negative that suddenly an interest rate of 4.5% seems high. I mean, 4.5% is not high. But if you build into your assumptions, if you build into your plans, if you build into your cash flow estimates, if you build into the affordability of housing, the affordability of building plants, buying equipment, doing business, an interest rate that is zero, then 4.5% suddenly is really, really high. So in a situation right now, where a lot of people who thought interest rates would be zero or close to zero forever suddenly encountering high interest rates, we have companies all over the place that are going to have to refinance their debt instead of at 3%, 4%, 5%, they're going to have to refinance the debt at 7%, 8%, 9%. Where people would like to buy homes, but are used to mortgages of 2%, 3%, 4%, 5% and now looking at mortgages at 7%, 8%, 9%. People don't want to sell their homes because they don't have to go and buy. They're sitting on 3% mortgages. They don't want to give that up. That's cheap money. They don't want to give that up. I don't want to sell my home because the mortgage is too valuable. The US government raised money at zero to 2% interest rates for years or short-term money. Now it's facing a situation where those interest rates are 4%, 5% and the US government is running massive deficits. And all of this has to ultimately be reflected in less economic activity, in a real slowdown of growth and in substantial bankruptcies and in companies going bust. And to that, the fact that the US government is running deficits higher than it ever has, higher than during, as high as it's been during the wars, it is running deficits. It is running debt at the highest levels ever. Deficits continue forever. So there's no prospects. No prospects of those deficits shrinking. Nobody has any plan to bring about the shrinkage of those deficits. You've got Social Security, Medicare out of control. It's just hard to paint a picture of a positive economic outcome. On top of that, China, a number one or number two trading partner, trade is win-win, is going through a massive economic restructuring. Its real estate sector is crashing, collapsing, going bankrupt. But so are many of its other businesses. Much of the Chinese economy has been propped up with, by, the real estate sector, the artificiality of that real estate sector. And it really does look like the Chinese economy is gonna slow, maybe even start shrinking. We know about the demographic collapse in China and that is not completely sunk in yet into the Chinese psyche or into the rest of the world's psyche. But it is happening. It's happening faster than anybody expected. So you've got an economic collapse happening in China. Just as China is, of course, moving in the wrong direction instead of freeing up its economy, there's a funny quote of the Chinese premier, of Xi, the other day. He was on a tour somewhere and he was kind of demanding. He was demanding more innovation. He was demanding more technological progress. He was demanding, I mean, there are ways to get more innovation and more economic progress. But the ways to do that are through liberty and freedom and free markets. And not by penalizing your top entrepreneurs, not by making them disappear, not by putting them in jail or house arrest or whatever, they put them, not by breaking them up. So China's in decline and let's be clear. I know many of you might be celebrating the decline of China. And there's an element of good that comes from China declining. But there's also a lot of that. Chinese economic activity was a real driver of economic growth in the United States. It was a real driver of rising standard of living in the United States. Counted to the story about job losses to China, jobs were not lost to China, jobs were gained because of China, because of trade with China. And quality of life, standard of living, actually increased because of trade with China. So to see China decline economically is another force. Another negative force driving economic growth in the United States downward, putting pressure on the US economy. So China's in real trouble with no path out, just like the United States has no path out. Nobody, nobody, literally nobody has a plan for how to deal with the challenges that the US economy faces today. Europe is in recession, certainly Germany is in recession, parts of other Europe are in recession. And the prospects for European manufacturing, Germany bucked the trend for a long time of being in a manufacturing powerhouse and exporting in spite of high labor costs, exporting out of Germany to a large extent, exporting to China. Well, with China's decline, German exports are down, Germany's also losing its manufacturing edge. Automobiles, for example, coming out of Germany are not the right politically correct automobiles and electric. The electric car industry is dominated at least for now by Tesla and by the Chinese. Germany seems to be in decline. The rest of Europe is in trouble as it tries to fund the Ukrainian war, tries to keep their own economies going, try to go green or carbon neutral at the same time, and somehow produce electricity for the coming winter. As gas prices or oil prices are now approaching $100 a barrel, which will raise the cost of energy significantly all over the world. So real dramatic headwinds, real dramatic clouds. Look at the UK, where inflation is persistent, interest rates are high, the economy probably shrinking. And at the same time, at the same time, every single part of the world, there is not a single part of the world where you can say economies are thriving over there. I mean, South America, Latin America is struggling in spite of the fact that they are mineral rich economies. They're struggling, they're struggling primarily because they are dominated by socialist and fascist economies. Africa is struggling, it's always struggled, it continues to struggle. Maybe India is doing a little bit better, but India has all kinds of other problems that constrained its ability to grow economically and to replace China as a motor of economic growth. Mexico is doing okay, but again, struggling under a socialist president and probably another socialist president in the next year when elections are held. Canada, struggling in spite of the fact that it has massive quantities of natural resources. The world economies, there's not a single region in the world right now that you can say is healthy, is growth-oriented and has the potential to really help avert a true economic slowdown. We've got, the United States is not only in the process of spending and deficits and all of that, but there's very little energy around getting rid of regulations, getting rid of constraints on business to expand, quite the contrary. There is bipartisan efforts to go after American big business, primarily to go after the key drivers, at least of the stock market performance of the last 15 years and that's big tech. I mean, what has allowed the US economy to be successful over the last 20 years? What has allowed the US economy to lead the world and what has made the US economy so resilient to economic forces? It's the tech industry and who are the most successful of the companies in the tech industry that employ more people that pay higher wages? It's big tech and what is our politician's response to that? Is it to encourage more? Is it to congratulate them? Is it to thank them? Is it to promote more great tech companies in the United States? Not that politicians need to do that, but no, is it to cut their taxes? Is it to reduce the regulations they face? Reduce the trade barriers they face overseas? No, it's to drag them into court to fight antitrust lawsuits. So we're taking the most successful companies in America, the ones that are responsible for much of the economic growth over the last 20 years and we're gonna penalize them. We're gonna try to destroy them. We're gonna try to break them up. All in the name of consumer well-being, a consumer will be a lot better off without big tech, without big companies employing, producing, creating, building, delivering. So if you add the fiscal responsibility of the US government to the regulatory of responsibility of the US government to this antitrust environment which is trying to break up our best in most productive companies, to the fact that productivity growth is down, to the fact that in spite of the fact that we have, maybe the record numbers of people crossing the border into the United States, we have less immigration than ever of people to come and work in the United States. People crossing the border right now, the United States are not allowed to work. We ban them from the workforce. We give them welfare. We ban them from work. Crazy policy. Insane. Yes, let's import more welfare recipients. Let's increase the welfare roles. So you've got a economic environment where basically all the forces are aligned against growth, against prosperity, against success where it's likely that we see more bankruptcies, more failures. It's hard to see what the saving, what industry is gonna save us? Where the economic growth is gonna come from? Who's gonna pay down their debts? One scenario, I guess the scenario of the market likes the best. Actually, yeah, the scenario of the market likes the best right now is a recession. A quick recession, a recession that's so bad that the Federal Reserve panics and reduces interest rates back to zero again in order to get us out of that recession. So the solution to our economic malay is not economic growth, it's not production, it's not building, it's financial jiggering with low interest rates that can only come about because of an actual economic slide recession and somehow markets think this is a good thing. No, it's terrible. And a recession is gonna be hard to come out of. There's no easy way out of it. There's no, I mean, yes, the Fed will pull money back into the economy, but the Fed will be cautious because of inflation. And the federal government will have a problem spending itself out of this because it has to be cautious because of inflation, but also because of the massive deficits and who's gonna buy that debt? So I should think the US is probably positioned best in the world economically to survive the storm that is coming. Nobody is gonna be completely spared from the storm. Nobody is going to be spared. The coming storm is could be really devastating, really challenging. Some kind of recession that we haven't seen in a long time. And a recession that hits Main Street in ways that I think the latest, last few recessions have hit, sectors of the economy that haven't affected Main Street that much, that calm bubble boosting was mainly a Silicon Valley recession. The 2008 was to a large extent a banking and was to a recession. We can see a lot worse than that, affecting a lot more people. And all of this at the time, not only of anti-just laws, of regulations not shrinking, but also of labor unrest. I mean, the auto workers are asking for a 40 plus percent raise. They're asking for defined benefits pensions going backwards. They're asking to raise the costs of producing automobile bills in the United States with labor wages an absurd amount. They're asking to make Detroit a lot less competitive, a lot less competitive than they have been, 32 hour work weeks. They're asking basically for Ford and Chrysler and GM to acquiesce to their own destruction and what options the auto companies have. They could fire all the workers, but that would be illegal. That would be impossible to do. I mean, the president of the United States was on the picket lines. So, ultimately that comes to some compromise, I assume. The compromise was still raised dramatically, the cost of making a car. You know, why is the cheapest cost of building a car in the United States? Whereas the cheapest cost of labor in the U.S., it's not Detroit, it's Tesla. And after Tesla, it's Nissan and Toyota and BMW and Mercedes in the South. It's unionized labor. The highest cost of building a car in the United States is Detroit. And now they want to make it more expensive. And how is that gonna work exactly? How is that gonna work? And how are they gonna compete? So add dramatically to our lack of productivity. And it's stunning because there's so many things that could be done. There's so many ways to fix it. And the solution that Biden, the Democrats, many Republicans and many economists seem to adhere to right now is more central planning, more industrial planning, more government subsidized electric cars and batteries and government subsidized solar panels and government subsidized chip manufacturers and government subsidized everything. Now, where exactly in the world has that worked? So again, I think we're heading towards dark economic times. I just don't see any upside. Now, whether it happens with one big drop, one big decline, whether it happens through slow stagnation for many decades, I don't know. I don't know how it plays out. I don't know. And the reality is that it's gonna be global because the world is very interconnected. The failure of the economies of China and Europe affecting the US, the slowdown in the US will affect China and Europe. And I know people have been talking about recession for a long time now, but it really does seem like just as people are coming to the conclusion there won't be a recession, that's probably the best time to be thinking there will be one. But it does really look like starting next year, we're gonna be facing a real potential for a recession. A reality, not just a potential, a reality of a recession. It's an election year. And yet, I'm not sure anybody can do anything about it. So, I mean, what will happen is the federal would use interest rates frantically in order to try to get us out of a recession before the election actually happens, but they won't succeed. And of course, this plays beautifully into the hands of Donald Trump and against Biden. But here's the really depressing part of this. The really depressing part of it is that nobody out there seems to have a solution. Nobody out there has an answer. Nobody out there is advocating for solutions. Nobody, running for president right now, is talking about significant cuts to government spending, reducing the deficit, reducing government debt, certainly not Donald Trump, certainly not Joe Biden. Trump has said Medicare and Social Security off the table. I don't think he wants to read my lips moment where he backstraps from that. Of course, if he wins, he'll be a one-term president. He'll be a lame duck right from the beginning. He won't be able to do that much. Congress will have to have the balls and the courage to reform Medicare and Social Security. And does anybody out there think that that could happen? And then what about massive, significant deregulation? Anybody? Anybody? Yeah, Scott says DeSantis is planning to go after the administration. DeSantis can go after the administrative state in Florida, but sadly, he's not gonna have any handle on the administrative state in Washington. Plus, going after the administrative state, how? By what means? How do you, and is he talking about cutting spending? Really cutting spending, slashing spending? How much? By what percentage? Is there a model budget? Is there some plan? Has he talked about reforming Social Security Medicare? No, I mean, you can talk about going after the administrative state. Bush talked about draining the swamp. If I ever drain the swamp, drain the swamp, drain the swamp. Supposedly, Trump actually has a plan now. It's 150 page document that I've seen online. 150 page document on how he's going to drain the swamp when he gets reelected. But is there any reason to believe he would do it? Or not use the swamp to go after his enemies? Is there any reason to believe he would stop spending, not from his first administration? There's no reason to believe. Any reason to believe he would fight for real deregulation? No, no evidence of that. He'll cut taxes. There you go again. They'll cut taxes again. They'll all do that. Any Republican will do that. That's a no brainer. Not enough. Not enough given the mess we're in. Not enough. And you know, that is just at the level of the economy. But you look at our education and how rotten it is. And again, this is something we've been talking about for 30, 40 years. But it just gets worse, marginally. It just gets worse. And I guess we produce enough talent that it doesn't affect the economy that badly so far. But it has to affect it at some point. And if we start cutting immigration of talented people, it's gonna affect it much more. And does anybody think that any president right now is gonna significantly and dramatically increase immigration in the near future? Which is what the US economy needs. Some fresh blood and fresh workers. So I just don't see where the positive forces come from. The antitrust case against Google and antitrust cases against Apple were initiated by the Trump administration. Which cases, which still bombed, the Biden administration inherited and now prosecuted. So maybe there'll be a little bit less antitrust enforcement, but not much. And would that matter if it was DeSantis president or anybody else president wouldn't matter? It's all the same. They all distrust. I mean, DeSantis has made his name in Florida for going after business. So I just don't see where the positive news comes from. I mean, that's a sad thing. I mean, it could come from AI if AI is allowed to go and to prosper. I mean, that's a funny thing about the case against Google. Just as they're suing Google for being a monopoly, Google's monopoly is about to be smashed with AI, which becomes a much, much more effective search engine than Google ever had. So where does the good news come from? Where does the positive stuff come from? AI, of course, is targeted at regulation, but regulation's gonna be slow in AI and they don't know what they're doing and they don't know how to do it. So AI has years to really grow before it has hampered too much by regulation. But so, oh, John, you had a question attached to your super chat. I did not see it. Let's see. Why don't you ask it here in the chat and I'll look for it because I can't go backwards very far to find it. But if you put it here in the chat, the question, then I will get to it, I promise. Yeah, I can't find it by just scrolling through the stuff. All right, remind everybody to ask questions, to support the show value for value. You can use stickers, you can use the super chat feature. Again, ask questions, I'll answer them. But also just show support through the stickers. You can also support the Iran Book Show on Patreon, on Subscribestar, and on iranbrookshow.com slash support. And so feel free to go there and support the show. I'm also doing public speaking seminars. So if you're interested in joining a public speaking workshop, either here in the United States, probably in Miami, or in London on October 18th, please write to me at Iran, iranbrookshow.com, iran at iranbrookshow.com. But please, we've got over 100 people watching right now, like the show, should be a lot more likes than that, like the show, and support the show financially. Those are the two things that are super important. Of course, share, share, share, and do all the other things you do on social media. All right, quickly to summarize, lots of negatives out there. Interest rates higher than what people have come to expect and increasing the cost of doing business for American businesses, and interest rates could be a lot higher in a few months, a lot higher, 4.5% is not that high for the 10-year bond. It could be quite a bit more than that. So stay tuned for the consequence of that. Labor costs rising because of strikes and unions, and shortage of labor, and the consequence of that is rising costs, which means raising prices, not necessarily inflationary, but raising prices, which means things are more expensive, or some things are more expensive, and you become less competitive in those industries that, you know, where you're paying higher prices, and ultimately, those jobs at risk. A government out of control in terms of spending, regulations, and antitrust legislation, lack of healthy, job-oriented immigration, and a global economy, a global economy in which every major part of it, and a lot of the minor parts of it, are in financial distress. Add to that, I think, ultimately, a Federal Reserve that doesn't exactly know what it's doing, that is floundering, that is trying, is experimenting, hard to tell how they'd respond to an economic crisis, and we could indeed get stagflation. We could get inflation with stagnation. So I just don't see where the good news comes from. And finally, a political system, that is dedicated to increased statism, increased government control, increasing regulation, increasing central planning, increasing industrial planning, with really nobody out there, nobody left or right dedicated or raising the possibility of solutions that are based on markets. All right, I see John's question. I'm trying to copy it, let's see if I can copy it. Oh, copying it off of the chat is difficult. Pen reporter, I'm gonna move for, let's see if I can go there. All right, well, we'll try to figure this out, but I'll try to copy, let's see if I can do this. All right, got it, got John's question. All right, and we will get to it. Actually, let's start with that, John, has actually put $50 into the question. I think there was, I saw 30 and a 20. So thank you, thank you, John. John says, have you seen that the Kenyan government is taking bids from private investors to lease the port in Mombasa and four other ports for 25 years, comments? I have not seen that, but it doesn't surprise me. A lot of developing countries do this. It seems like a pretty short period of time, 25 years, and it's unfortunate that they don't just sell the port in Mombasa, which would net them more money and provide better economic incentives. Most African countries have actually relied on Chinese companies to do this kind of work. A lot of the ports in Africa, some in Southern Asia and even in Europe, for example, the port in Greece have been leased to Chinese companies. The Greek experiment with leasing it to the Chinese has done very well. I mean, one of the bright spots economically, stunningly enough, surprisingly enough, is Greece. Greece is actually doing quite well economically. Remember the basket case that it was just 10 years ago, less than 10 years ago? And it's growing at a double the economic rate as the rest of Europe. I mean, it's stunning. What, just a little bit of shrinkage of government spending, a little bit of firing government employees, laying off government employees, a little shrinking of the stage, just a little bit, restructuring the banks to make them healthy, getting rid of some of the bad debt. Just a little bit of restructuring goes a long way. It's one of the reasons. I mean, yes, you could attribute it all to the fact that Nicos has moved back to Greece and he's driving the Greek economy, but maybe parts of it. But the reality is that when you take an economy that is so constrained, so distorted, so top down, so driven by what do you call it? By government spending and government salaries and all that. And you liberate it a little bit and you encourage the private sector just a little bit. And it's not that hard to turn it around dramatically. And that's what's happened in Greece. And tourism is back. That helps post-COVID tourism skyrocket in Greece. That's helped. But it's also the little bit of restructuring of the government, the little bit of restructuring of the economy that they did, not enough, not enough to fully grow the potential, I think, to exist in Greece. But so, Greece actually sold or leased its port to the Chinese and have done very well and the port has done very well. Everybody, I think, has made money off of that one. I mean, I'm glad the Kenyan government is doing that. Again, a lot of governments have done that. It's not unique to Kenya. Ports seem to be particularly attractive these days for leasing. I know that, you know, I lived in Haifa in Israel and that port keeps leasing pieces of itself, so sections of the port. Two private companies, the Chinese have a section. I think they just sold a piece to another company from a country from which country. But this is good, it's better to have it in private hands than in government hands. But ideally, they just sell it. And you know, some African countries are actually taking positive steps towards liberalizing their economies, increasing private property, you know, and increasing private incentives around private property. And to the extent that they do that, Africa could thrive. Africa could really, really, really start doing well. They have the natural resources and what they need now is to just liberate their entrepreneurs. They need to liberate their markets. They need to liberate their economies. Countries in Africa, they're doing well in Namibia, Botswana, Rwanda. And countries, they privatized the elements of it, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, have all privatized segments of the economy, even privatized wildlife in order to save the elephants, save the rhinos. One way to do that is to privatize them. It's to give them private ownership. People have an incentive then. You can sell hunting licenses and now you have an incentive to stop poaching. South Africa, of course, is a basket case, complete and utter basket case. And again, South Africa is, I don't see where the prospects for any kind of positive view of the future of South Africa come from. To really change things in South Africa, you would have to get rid of endemic corruption that is just hard to believe that it's even possible to do. Because the corruption is so endemic, it's so part of the ruling party's modus operandi that I just don't see how South Africa recovers for what is going on. The bricks are poor. The bricks is basically China. The only brick that matters is China and somewhat Russia, but it's mainly China. There is no other bricks are poor. What Brazil can get its act together. It's got a socialist running it. It struggles economically. It's full of fraud and corruption. South Africa, complete and utter disaster. What else is there? India, India is struggling. India, what is India exactly gonna do? What is India gonna achieve? And India hates China. They've got a border dispute. So India is growing. India's got the one growing economy. But not enough, and it's not enough weight. It's not big enough. It's not substantial enough to overcome a shrinking or less dominant China from a purely economic perspective. All right, let's see. Don't forget, you can ask questions. You can use the super chat. You can also use the super chat to support the show. And use stickers as well. And to allow us to grow and to achieve our monthly goals. All right, let's do Dylan. Dylan, $50, thank you. Really appreciate it, Dylan. What are your thoughts on Austrian economics and Mises' use of prexology? Also, Rand stands on a priori and the Austrian theory being deduction-based. I mean, look, I think, and I and Rand thought that Mises was the greatest economist who ever lived. He was a genius and a great economist. And he was absolutely right across the board on, you know, in principle at least, maybe not in every detail across the board in his economics. So, you know, nothing I say should diminish his success as an economist. I don't think prexology is particularly useful or incisive. I think if, and I don't think, I think the challenge he has is being overly deductive and not valuing the induction. Even though I think that in spite of saying he, everything is a priority and everything is deductive, I think Mises is very inductive. That is, economy ultimately springs from his experiences, his understanding of economic history, his observation of market processes, his observation of what happened in Europe, a pre-war was going on in the United States, his observation of actual economic phenomenon, actual economic behavior. I think that the actual economics that he develops is not ultimately as a priority as he would like to believe, as he would like us all to believe. It's not as deductive as he presents it, but in his actual development, is its actual understanding of it, it is inductive. But I think it weakens it that he won't recognize that. It weakens it that he won't, it weakens our understanding of it and our ability to present it. And I think people's ability to comprehend it is weaker because he will not present the inductive elements. And again, prexology, I mean, what a world we would be living in today, if Mises had taken Ayn Rand's philosophical theory seriously and had built his economic theory on Rand's epistemology and ethics, rather than on prexology. We'd be 50 to 100 years ahead in the battle for liberty, in the battle for freedom. We might already be there. That is, that would be such a revolution that merging of Rand's genius philosophy with Mises' genius economic mind. I mean, sadly an opportunity was there because they knew each other, they talked, they socialized, and he was a great admirer of Atlas Shrugged, but it never happened. He never took co-philosophy completely seriously and neither did any of the Austrians. And as a consequence, neither Austrian economics nor objectivism have dominated the world. I think that, I think what objectivism needed are intellectuals of the statue of Mises and what Austrian economics needed was philosophers of the statue of Rand. And that combination would have been a killer combination sad that it never actually came to be. All right, Steven says, how much have your taxes been in Puerto Rico lately? My taxes are low lately and for as long as I live here, they will be very low, put it that way. Michael says, you noticed leftists will sometimes promote individualism for nihilistic purposes, arguing we shouldn't have universal standards of beauty or health or beauty. Abese women with green hair and nose rings are an expression of individualism. Yeah, but that's fake individualism. So the left has always been for fake individualism. There are scenes in the Fountainhead where Ein Rand presents that fake individualism, the being different for the sake of being different, the counter-cultural, the avant-garde, they've always been that. But that's a fake form of individualism because what it rejects is what makes you an individual. What makes you an individual is the mind. What makes you an individual is thinking for yourself. It's independent judgment. It's independent thinking. That's what makes an individual an individual. That's the legitimate form of individualism. But what the left does is it assumes individuals are defined by their emotions. And therefore, it's feelings that make you an individual, or they assume that if you take what other people think and think the exact opposite because they think it, in other words, a form of second-handedness, that makes you an individual. But that's also complete collectivism. That's also negation of the individual. What makes an individual an individual is not the head. It's not the clothes. It's not even their opinions. What makes an individual an individualist is independent thinking, thinking for themselves, having an understanding of their views, a first-hand understanding, a concrete understanding. So their views are theirs, whatever they happen to be, even if they agree with other people. So it makes us different is our own independent thinking. And therefore, as a consequence of that thinking, our individual values. And that could express itself in clothes and other things. But without the thinking, all that other stuff is not about being an individual because it's not about really being human. And yes, the left is strong on that. It's view of individualism as anti-conformity. But of course, anti-conformity is just following the conformists and doing the opposite. It's another form of second-handedness and collectivism. And the right values conformity. And they're both anti-individualists because they both reject what is necessary for individualism, reason, thinking for oneself, individual thinking, and therefore choosing one's own values based on that thinking. Yeah, Gale says anti-conformity is something like goth, who are all followers. Yeah, they're all just alike. They all follow some menu, some dictate of what it means to be goth, but they don't think for themselves. There's no thought behind it. There's no reason to be goth. There's no value in being goth other than being part of a group, a crowd, a crowd that's anti-whatever. The same with punk, the same with all these other forms of so-called non-conformity, which is just a form of conformity. And remember, Ayn Rand depicts that in The Fountainhead. Liam, on November 30th, the Sanders will be having a one-on-one debate with Gavin Newsom of Fox News, on Fox News. Is the DNC trying to replace Biden with Newsom last minute? No, I don't think so. I wish, but I don't think so. I think what's happening is the Newsom and DeSantis are basically setting themselves up for 2020-28, right? Neither of them are gonna win in 2024. Neither of them are gonna be their political parties candidate in 2024, but this is a way for a little bit of capturing the headlines. It's a way to getting themselves into the newspapers. It's a way for looking presidential. It's a way to just get themselves attention with the expectation that there'll be the leading candidates of their political parties come 2028, where if Biden wins a second term, he can't run again, although he might die or whatever, and Kamala will be running in 2028, but Gavin Newsom figures he can beat Kamala. And if Trump wins, then Trump has one term and he's out. So again, it's probably DeSantis' to win. He becomes the assumed favorite unless he screws up Florida in the meantime for 2028. So you've got a precursor for the 2028 elections, and that's what it's for. That's why they're doing it. It's a publicity stunt. Clark says, because we are so rich, economic dark clouds cannot get that dark. And as the rest of the world gets worse, wealthy people from countries begin to pour money into less economically draconian US. Yeah, I mean, that is true. Money will flow to the US. US is again, the least bad of all these countries. But money flowing into the United States is not enough to keep the US economy going. I do agree though that because we're wealthy, we can somehow survive the stagnation. It just sucks. It, you know, we can, yeah, we can survive very low, slow economic growth. It's just not fun. It's not exciting. It's not interesting. And it's, when you know what the alternative is, when you know what is possible, when you know what we're missing out on, it's out and out, disgusting and depressing and offensive. All right, guys, we've got about $400 to go to make it, to make our goal in the super chat. I've got a bunch of five and $10 questions, $2 questions. So if you're gonna ask a question, please make it a $20 questions. Let's try to chip away at that $400, even if we don't make it all up. Let's make, let's try to make a chunk of it up. So that we're getting very close to the end of the month. We've got two shows left. Tomorrow and Saturday. And we've got quite a bit of money to still raise in order to make our monthly goal for the Iran Book Show to sustain it itself. So please consider using today as your time to support the show and to show your support for the show and present value for value. All right, we've got 96 people watching, $400 to go. Alex says, Alex is my leftist, right? The leftist, I agree in individualism. No, you don't, Alex. Somewhat, there you go, somewhat. He agrees in individualism, somewhat. But I'm a leftist. That's why you can't agree in individualism. How about a debate between Dr. Brooke and I? My only values of is supprosity and harm avoidance. How do you define harm? Right, I mean, I assume as a leftist, you believe in taxation, but taxes harm me. Every time the government sticks its hand in my pocket, in my wallet, takes a bunch of dollar bills from it, it's harming me. It's taking money I've earned. So you don't really believe in harm avoidance. You believe in minimizing harm for the greater good. Some greater good. And in that sense, you're not an individualist, right? Text is not justified by anything. This individualist, they're justified by, again, some kind of view of the collective good, right? And harm is not just mortality. You chop off, chopping off my hand is okay. Killing me is not. Breaking my legs is okay. Killing me is not. Harm is harm. Harm is taking something from somebody that is not yours, that is theirs, whether it's their life, their body parts, or their money. So you can't minimize harm. You can't avoid a harm by inflicting harm. By inflicting harm. So no, I don't think you're an individualist. You're ultimately a collectivist. And yeah, I mean, I can't debate everybody who comes in my chat and asks for a debate. I only debate people who help me gain a greater following. So people who have their own following, they have their own presence, people who have their own stature. James, there is nothing in this world that can ever trouble you more than your own thoughts. No, I think there are lots of things in this world that can trouble me more than that. Somebody sticking a gun to my head, threatening my family, wanting to chop my arm off in the name of reducing harm. No, I think there are threats outside of me that can be much more damaging than anything I can think. How do you gain more precision when it comes to introspecting feelings? Oh God, I don't know. I mean, you'd have to ask Gene or Gina Golan about stuff like that. I'm not necessarily very good or certainly not an expert on defining what those things are. So I would definitely leave that to the psychologist. Andrew, Sean Penn was asked if Europe should do more to help Ukraine and said that if an adult is on the beach and a kid is drowning, he should save him regardless of what the other adults do. Molly, do you think, what do you think of that analogy? Yeah, I mean, it's a very, very bad analogy. It's true that if you're on a beach and there's a kid drowning and it is a relatively low cost for you in terms of risking in terms of life to go and save him, you should save him. It's the moral thing to do. But dedicating your life right now, there's always a kid drowning somewhere. Dedicating your life right now to scouring the beaches and going to everywhere where kids are drowning and saving them unless that's a profession you choose would be wrong. So, you know, if there's an emergency in your immediate vicinity and you can do something at a low cost to deal with that emergency and to resolve it, then you should. But to go out of your way to engage in saving people, it can be easily self-sacrificial. Now, with regard to Ukraine, I don't think that is the right analogy. I think the issue with Ukraine is not Ukrainians are suffering, we should go help them just like we'd help the kid in the beach. That's not the issue. Indeed, I can think of countries that Russia would invade that you wouldn't be doing much at all. So, the issue with Ukraine is that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a direct threat to Europe. It's a direct attack on the rest of Europe. It constitutes a real threat in the future to other European countries. I think Poland is the country in Europe that gets this the most. If Russia was successful in Ukraine, if it was costless or low cost, if Europe had fragmented, if Europe had abandoned Ukraine, then Russia would have been emboldened to take more steps, right? And so, it's an issue of self-defense. So, Europe should do much more to help Ukraine. And to help itself, more importantly, by sending Ukraine weapons and beefing up their own military, spending more GDP per capita than they have been in the past on defense, not because they are the lifeguard of Europe, but because their peace depends on it. Peace depends on it. Future peace depends on it. Their own security depends on it. In other words, individual rights of their own citizens depend on it. So, it's a terrible analogy. All right, we're chipping away slowly but surely, but $20 questions, $20 questions will chip away better than the $2, $3 questions. Hopper Campbell, it is bewildering how many times acts of kindness ate completely betrayed, are completely betrayed. Yes, yes, I mean, people don't appreciate it and many people view it as a sign of weakness or as viewed as altruism and they then demand more. So, yes, sadly, true. Alex says, I tried to support critical race theory with math. What does that even mean? I don't know what that means. Critical race theory is not a mathematical equation. It does not have a mathematical reality. It is a theory about power relationships primarily. It's about relationships between called races, people of different color skin. It's an illegitimate theory but it has no math. It can be proven mathematically, it can be supported mathematically and it's a pro-explanation of the world. It's based on racist ideas and sadly it works against the elimination of racism. So, I guess I don't understand how you do that or what it even means, what it actually means to support critical race theory with math. Sorry. Michael, just listening to these superficial clowns last night, I think you would do very well in a presidential primary debate. Are you debating Jordan Peterson in London next month? No, I'm not debating him. I'm just attending a conference he is putting on. He is the organizer of. It's an invitation-only conference that I'm attending. I don't know how much of the conference I'll be attending, we'll see. But I'll attend a few sessions. I'll give you a report back on it. I'm curious what it's gonna be like but my plan right now is, I mean I'd debate him if they invited me to debate him but right now the plan is just to attend the conference. Frank, do you know of Canadian leftist Naomi Klein? Yes. She hates capitalism. Yes. She loves Green New Deal. Yes. Could you debate her? Her views, views corporations, villains. I could debate her. I'd be happy to debate her. I don't know that she'd debate me and I don't know how expensive she is and I don't know who would put it on. I mean I am open to debating lots of people, almost anybody but that's gonna require people to organize the debate and to put it on and to invite the people and to make it happen. And I don't know who would do that. I'm Naomi Klein as one of the real villains of modern intellectuals in terms of a hatred of business and corporation and the profit motive and capitalism more broadly. Gale says, what about the unthinkable enormous applause in Canadian parliament for honoring a Nazi war criminal? I mean my understanding was that they didn't know he was a Nazi war criminal. They gave him a thundering applause because he was some Ukrainian and they associated him with the Ukraine war and only later did they discover that he was a Nazi war criminal. So I think it was a mistake. I don't think anybody did it purposefully. I don't think there was any sentiment in the Canadian parliament in favor of a Nazi. So I think it was an error. I don't think you can read too much into it. Michael, I don't see how California survives this new minimal wage increase of $20 an hour. Yeah, I mean I don't think it's that big of a deal. Wage has gone up anyway with inflation, $20 an hour is not that much. And cost of living already is very high in California. So yeah, I mean at the margin it makes things a little bit worse but it's $20 an hour in and of itself. It's not a survival issue. Given wages have seen upward pressure independent of the minimal wage and inflation has driven up wages and competition has driven up wages. So I'm not sure market wages are that much lower than 20 bucks. Pocky, hey Pocky, how do you tell the difference between whim and values? In a case where you value something that makes you feel good, can you be risky? Danger sports, doesn't doing it simply cause you enjoy? It makes it a whim? No, I mean, it's a great question. And I think there's a lot of confusion about this out there in the world. And I think a lot of talks about values make this, involve this confusion. Just because you wanna do something doesn't make it a rational value. It might make it a value but it doesn't make it a rational value. It doesn't make it a pro-life value. Just because something makes you feel good doesn't make it good. If you do something just because it makes you feel good without analyzing its implications for your life, without analyzing rationally whether it is good for you then you are just acting on whim. But the fact that something feels good does not mean it's not a rational value. But you have to be able to rationally justify it. That is, you have to be able to think through what are the risks? How big are they? I mean, if really is life or death, a real high probability of injury, then yeah, I mean, it doesn't make any sense, right? It doesn't make any sense to engage in it even if it makes you feel good in the moment if the cost is a high probability that you will end up in hospital. And if you repeat it many times at almost certainty that you'll end up in hospital. But you might say, look, if the risk is relatively low and the pleasure this gives you is relatively high and you have the money and you have the resources and you have the time and you're fully aware of the risks and you thought it through, you can certainly make a rational argument that it's worth it. But it really, the standard here is you really have to think it through. You have to evaluate the risk versus the reward. And the emotion that the fun, the joy that it gives you is a legitimate reward. Although, I mean, another part of this that you would have to think through rationally is why do I find it enjoyable? Now, if it's not risky, okay, I find it and it's not, there's no downside, there's no negatives. I just find it enjoyable. There's just no negatives associated with it then it should do it because it's enjoyable. But if it's risky, then you have to understand something about your motivation. And you have to be able to think that the motivation is reasonable. It's rational that it's not completely women driven. So the key to all of this is have you thought it through? Both why you feel the emotion that you feel, the risk reward trade-off, the rationality of all of that. And if in the end you say, yeah, it's worth it. And I feel this way because it affirms my competence in the physical world. Then, yeah, great. Or my command over nature. I don't know, rock climbing or something. Then that can be a completely rational pursuit. Apollo, Zeus, spaceship to end of the universe, what's there? There is no end to the universe. There's no such thing as end. You can't have the concept end and the concept universe. You can't have that in one sentence, right? The universe cannot have a beginning. It cannot have an end. What is the meaning of life? Whatever meaning you give it. Meaning of life depends on you, the living being. And given that you are a being of cognition, it's the meaning you choose for it. I do not believe in the multiverse. I mean, it's not an issue of belief. There is no multiverse. The multiverse is just random speculation. Cue Santos. Machine learning is essentially inductive. I'd love to see AI and data scientists to realize and embrace Einstein-Rand's epistemology. Rand's measurement and mission theory could lead to more powerful AI's. I agree. Hopefully, there are people working on this. Hopefully, there are people working on it. Gale says, just a thank you for all you do all the time to educate us, Iran. Thanks, Emelian. Thank you, Gale. Really, really appreciate the support. Last two questions, guys, and last two questions, last opportunity, ask a question, last opportunity to provide some support through a sticker or through any other means. You cannot support the Iran Book Show on Patreon, on Subscribestar and on iranbookshow.com slash support. But two last questions and we're done. And these are gonna be fast because I don't really have answers for them. Get Ellen Kenner on as well as Gina and Jean. Thank you, Apollo Zeus. Always making sure that I get psychologists on the show. Apollo Zeus asked, my favorite pop music song. God, what is my favorite pop music song? You know, I don't really know. But I don't think, like, I mean, yeah, I mean, I was thinking of a Pink Floyd song, but it's not exactly pop. What would be my favorite pop music song? Maybe a Beatles song? Yeah, I mean, not, I don't know. I mean, the problem with pop is it's hard to have a favorite, right? It's hard to have a favorite. I mean, they all have this medium status with me. I mean, I have 20 songs I really like and they're all like, but none of them is like up here, right? Except, you know, a few songs by Pink Floyd. I mean, maybe, maybe some Simon and Garfunkel, I love Simon and Garfunkel. Yeah, I don't know what would be my favorite pop song. Sorry. And it's not something, not a category I hold. I do like Charlie Chaplin. That is true. John says, do you have any projects for the coming year? God, what are my projects for the coming year? I don't know what projects means. I mean, I'm teaching, in the next 12 months, I'm teaching four courses for the Ayn Rand University, two on public speaking, one on analyzing current events and one on foreign policy. So I've got four courses I'm teaching. I'm mentoring a bunch of people at the Ayn Rand University, some of the graduate students and junior fellows. What are the projects am I doing? I'm planning, just broadly, I'm hoping to be able to spend next summer in Barcelona. So spend like two and a half months in Barcelona. That's kind of a project and I'll be doing shows from there. Yeah, I don't really have, you know, my other project is to get my hedge fund in a good place, but I don't have any big projects per se other than those things. You know, I wanna get this show, well, sustain kind of the regular schedule that this show has in spite of some of my traveling, but I think that'll be easier as I do less traveling next year and do more regular scheduled stuff like classes that I'm teaching for ARU. Yeah, I mean, those are the projects. I mean, a big project for me would be figuring out how to scale the Iran Book Show. So I am gonna be talking to a digital marketing firm, maybe see what they can do for me. I wanna see how we take the Iran Book Show from 35,000 subscribers to 100,000 subscribers. That's my goal right now. So I'm talking to somebody tomorrow, a digital marketer who I think could really help. Yeah, and we'll see, we'll go from there. Whoops, wrong one, wrong click. Thank you, John. Thanks for the support. Paul says, Peter Zeen says China is on the verge of collapse and gives a convincing argument coupled with de-globalization, but is more positive because U.S. has Mexico and Canada to trade with. Yeah, I mean, I think Peter is wrong. I think the world is not de-globalizing. China might be in China. I don't think China is gonna collapse, but China's gonna slow dramatically. So I wouldn't be surprised if China experiences zero to negative economic growth for a while, but I don't see it collapsing. I don't think that's in the cards. I also don't think global trade is gonna collapse. I think it's re-jiggering right now, but trade between the United States and Vietnam is increasing. Yes, between the United States and China is increasing. You'll see increasing trade between the U.S. and India, South Korea, Taiwan, maybe even Indonesia, Malaysia. All of that trade will increase. Again, so sad that the United States did not join the Trans-Pacific Trade Treaty, which Trump prevented the U.S. from joining, which was tragic, I think, particularly now when we really need better trade relationships with all those countries. So I'm not quite as negative as Peter about the world or about the United States. I agree that in terms of trade, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, yes, trade partnership, the United States has the advantage of having Canada and Mexico, but I also see the potential of trade with Europe as being substantial, right? And I wouldn't give up on kind of, maybe in a post-Trump world, a real change in sentiment with regard to trade. I mean, if Trump, now here's the really negative part. If Trump imposes 10% tariffs on everything, then maybe that collapse that Peter fears will happen globally and things will be a lot worse than even I think they're gonna be. So that would be, I mean, if all the economic policies I can think of right now, that might be the worst. They're being proposed, I can think of worse. But if all the economic policies being proposed right now, I think the worst possible one is Trump's 10% tariff, 10% tax on Americans and making American industry less competitive. Stephen, my favorite pop song as time goes by, sung by Dooley Wilson in Casablanca. But is that a pop song? How is that a pop song? I mean, I like that song, wouldn't be my favorite, but I like that song, but maybe it was a pop song back in the 50s. I'm not sure it's a pop song. I don't know. I don't know what, I mean, there's a lack of definition with regard to pop. I don't like the left more than the right. God, people distort my views. I prefer some leftists to some right wingers. I prefer some people in the right to some leftists. I prefer pretty much anybody to Donald Trump. But that's not me preferring the left to the right, at all. Andrew says, F. U. and Sean Penn's altruistic analogy, resaving Ukraine, Sean Hannity's response, that's a good point. I'm not surprised. A gentle moral nudge and Hannity doubts about the war momentarily disappear thoughts. Yeah, I mean, Hannity is an altruist and he believes we should help people who are suffering. And look, Hannity's a front policy hawk. If you take Trump out of the equation, if you take the popular shift in the Republican Party out of the equation, Hannity's pro-Ukraine. Hannity's only anti-Ukraine because he's put his finger into the wind and that's where the Republican Party is swaying. It's not because he believes it. I prefer pretty much anybody to Michael Knowles, but it's not like if I had to choose between Michael Knowles and Kendi then I'd leave. It's not that I prefer Kendi to Michael Knowles. It's that I think Kendi and Michael Knowles are the same and I hate them both and I wanna go somewhere else. So it's not that I prefer the left in any way to the right, but I don't prefer the right to the left in its current composition. All right, guys, I am done for today. Thank you to all the super chatters. Really, really appreciate the support. Thank you to everybody who's on the chat. Thank you to everybody who's listening. Don't forget to like the show before you leave. If you like the show, really helps the algorithms. It really helps get the algorithms to promote the show. So please like, press that like button. Doesn't cost you anything, anything. And please consider to become a regular supporter of The Iran Book Show on Patreon or subscribe, stop at www.uranbrookshow.com slash support. That regular monthly contribution is unbelievably valuable to my ability to plan the show out into the future with confidence. So thanks everybody. I will see you all tomorrow morning for another news roundup. It'll probably be at 12 at noon tomorrow, but we'll see. Schedule to be determined. Bye everybody.