 All right, everybody, welcome to your Unbrook show on this Thursday, April 11th. I hope everybody's having a fantastic week. My last day in Chile, I have a 4 AM flight out. I'm at home to Puerto Rico, stopping on the way in Panama City. I hate 4 AM flights. I mean, God, all right? It means I have to get up like at 2. But anyway, next show will be from home. I'm looking forward to being home. I need to get home. Home is good. All right, Ian says I'm competing with NRI Stream. I don't think that's how it works. I don't think they're competing with my stream. I think that's a show. All right, I assume many people are over at the AOA stream. They're talking about the election. That is always more popular and more interesting than talking about almost anything else. All right. Yeah, let's jump in. We've got to go out to cover a lot of news out there. As we'll see how long the show lasts. Ike says he left the AOA stream to come and join the stream. Thank you, Ike. All right, we don't coordinate. AOA and I don't coordinate. I do my stream when I can, particularly when I'm on the road. I do it when I have a window, a time window. And that's what happened. I did notice before this that they won. It was not intentional. All right. I think I'm coming down with a cold. I hope not, but it feels like it. Let's see. Yes, breaking news, I guess, just announced this morning. OJ Simpson has passed away. OJ Simpson has died at the age of 76. OJ will be remembered, of course, for the OJ Simpson trial, his acquittal for the murder of his ex-wife and her friend. He will be, you know, he was a, for those of you who may be too young to remember who he is or know who he is, OJ Simpson was a football hero, somebody who seemed to be unbelievably successful. He broke a bunch of college records, was a Heisman trophy winner, was broke records for running back in NFL. And after an amazing career there became a, was a spokesman for Heinz Ketchup, was, started in one movie, was a commentator of the NFL for some TV stations. I mean, seemed to be somebody who was incredibly successful and had a great life and everything was going great. And then his ex-wife and her friend, not even boyfriend, for just friend, were found brutally murdered outside their home. And OJ was arrested and tried for the murder. The evidence was pretty unequivocal. The evidence was, was, was straightforward. OJ Simpson committed the crime. He, he murdered them. And a jury, a jury of, of mostly, of mostly black jury members landed up acquitting him. Now, I think the most memorable thing for me about the OJ Simpson trial was kind of the Lenin-Pikov analysis of the trial. I think those are available online, but Lenin would analyze regularly what was going on in the trial, analyze on a show, analyze the evidence, the testimony basically came to the conclusion that this was beyond a reasonable doubt OJ Simpson had done it. He commented quite a bit about the, the defense, OJ's defense, use of arbitrary, the arbitrary to see it to, you know, just arbitrary claims about, well, what is the DNA? You know, and to see doubt in the jury. And the fact that this trial very much played on racial themes, that this was a real elevation of race, that is, well, of course, you're accusing a black man of murdering white people. I mean, that's just racism. And the defense was very successful in seeding those doubts in the jury. And I think the racial element played a role here in creating doubts about why the police had arrested him and so on, although they arrested him because of blood in his driveway. They arrested him because there were gloves filled with blood, the victim's blood in his garage. They arrested him because every piece of evidence, every shred of evidence, are pointed to OJ Simpson as having committed the murder. I think Leonard Pickup's analysis of this was brilliant. If you can find the show, you should. He basically, basically, you know, this was, basically said that this was an indication of how far gone the America was. The killing was in 1984. I think the trial was probably later that year in 1995. So you can find his radio show from back then. He basically did an analysis about how Americans can't think, how if this kind of defense would cause people to quit Simpson, then people's ability to think, their epistemology was completely rotted and hopeless. And he was very, very negative on America, on American society, on the coverage. It wasn't just the jury, but the way this was covered, the way many of these experts analyzed the case, so-called experts analyzed the case. I mean, I think this was really a brilliant analysis and a real negative call on American society, on American culture, on the American people that Leonard made, which has only, over time, kind of proven to be right. And of course, the racial issues have only become worse in America. The racial questions have only become issues. To hell with the evidence, what matters is race. That kind of attitude is much stronger today than probably ever before. Anyway, O.J. did land up serving years in jail. He was found guilty in a civil lawsuit brought by the parents of the victims against him and had to pay millions, I think $23 million, an enormous amount of money. So in a civil lawsuit, he was found guilty of the murder and had to pay. He landed up leaving California, moving to Florida, trying to sell assets. And as part of that, I never got into the details of this, he gave away some of his memorabilia or sold some of his memorabilia, his ice-metrophy and other things. He then broke into somebody's home to try to steal them back and had a weapon on him and was accused of kidnapping. And anyway, he landed up spending a significant amount of time in jail as he deserves. I guess good riddance from the world to O.J. Simpson, a bad, bad man who had every opportunity to live a good life, had ultimately, I mean, had a horrible upbringing and had a really difficult time in his youth, but overcome all that, became this incredible athlete, became this very, very successful person, a business person, but obviously, something was rotten deep down in his core, something so rotten that would lead him to slit the throats of two people in a state of rage. There was a real evil in this man and it's good to have seen him suffer even though he was acquitted. I think he spent the rest of his life from 1994 to today basically in horror and suffering and part of that, of course, in jail and he passed away today, so that closes a chapter on O.J. But I do, again, recommend finding Leonard Peacock's analysis of that trial. It was truly brilliant. All right, Iran is in the headlines as it has been for now a week since Israel bombed the Iranian embassy. In Syria, Iran has been threatening to attack. Israel has responded by saying that if Iran attacks from Iran, which is a weird kind of, it just shows again Israeli weakness and meekness, Israel said, if Iran attacks from Iran, that is, if Iran launches missiles from Iranian territory that hit Israel or target Israel, Israel will attack Iran proper, implying that if Iran doesn't attack from Iran, that is, if it uses its proxies, but clearly its proxies doing its bidding and they attack from Syria and Lebanon and Yemen and Iraq, then Israel won't attack Iran, which is bizarre and wrong and weak and just horrible. Israel should have attacked Iran a long time ago, should have taken out its nuclear program. All indications now are that Iran with the heightened tensions with Israel is invigorating its nuclear program and could be very close to developing a nuclear bomb. This would be, of course, a major catastrophe and a disaster. It also, so why is Israel not going to attack Iran? I mean, this is a fantastic opportunity to attack Iran, to attack its nuclear facilities, to take them down a notch, to weaken them substantially, to weaken their influence in the Middle East, to weaken their influence on all these so-called proxies and if we're going to have any peace in the Middle East, the Iranian regime has to go or the Iranian regime has to be neutered in one way or another and this is an opportunity for Israel to do that and it seems like even with this, they will only do it if the Iranians attack from Iranian soil which is if that is significant. It does seem like Iran is likely to attack Israel at any time now, any moment. It does seem like Israel is braced for this as is the United States. Diplomatic missions all over Israel are getting instructions from the home offices on preparing and the preps are for a disaster, for taking out the electricity grid and taking out cell phones. But I expect anyway, so there is a lot of prep going on in Israel right now. You know, the headline in Bloomberg is US sees imminent missile strike on Israel by Iran and its proxies. The real fear is, I guess, that they all attack it once, that Israel is overwhelmed from every, the south, the east and the north and that really tests its missile defense system and that means some missiles will get through. So there is real fear, I think, right now in Israel. I think there is real fear that Iran will take this opportunity to really try to cripple Israel. Now, I haven't taken this and of course we'll find out what the truth is soon enough. I think in the end the Iranians will launch something pretty mild. I don't think Iran wants a war with Israel. I don't think Iran wants a war that might cause the United States to enter. I think the Iranian regime is weak from the inside. I also don't think, I don't think Hezbollah right now wants a war with Israel, even though they keep pretending they do but I don't think they really do. Again, Hezbollah is pretty weak and it's weak politically within Lebanon. Many Lebanese don't like Hezbollah, don't want Hezbollah and Lebanon has been kind of a state on the brink of just disaster for years now and a war with Hezbollah between Hezbollah and Hezbollah would cause Lebanon to collapse is the fear. Just for those of you not familiar with this Lebanon, a country which has both Shiite Muslim, Shiite Muslims, Sunni Muslims, Christians, Jews has a pretty diverse population in terms of religion. It's a country that has been inflicted with instability really since the early 1970s when Palestinian refugees were kicked out of Jordan and settled in Lebanon and immediately started fermenting a civil war there and there was a civil war which pitted the Shiites against the Sunnis, the Sunnis against the Shiites, both of them against the Christians and everybody against the Jews but alliance kept on changing a brutal civil war which was horrific which ended in the 1980s but never really ended in that violence and tension and continued in Lebanon and continues in Lebanon politically instability many of the Christians, the Christian Lebanese over the last 60 years have left Lebanon and sought greener pastures in South America there are lots of Lebanese in very wealthy successful Lebanese families in Mexico, in Brazil, in other parts of Colombia and other parts of Latin America they've also gone to the US they've gone to Europe so the Lebanese remember Lebanon pre the early 1970s was thought of was talked about as the Paris of the Middle East it was a beautiful, beautiful city I was in Beirut in 1982 it was pretty devastated when I was there this was at post civil war and post war with Israel and the city was in shambles and yet in spite of the fact that it was in shambles you could still see how beautiful the city it was and all the stories of how vibrant the culture it was, how vibrant the nightlife it was it was a secular beautiful, amazing city it is not anymore it is a sad, very, very sad city a testament to what happens when tribalism dominates when violence dominates when hatred dominates and of course the one party within Lebanon that has only grown in power over the years, particularly as Christians have left and even some Sunni Muslims have left is Hezbollah which represents the Shiites and the reason they have grown in power is because they are supported by Iran so they have a constant flow of funding in and they have built weapons they have supposedly 130,000 130,000 missiles aimed at Israel, ready for launch and they are also a very experienced military force they have fought in the civilian civil war for a decade now and they of course have fought against Israel on occasion so we are talking about an experienced and many of them have received training in Iran and have seen combat so we are talking about an experienced military group with fighters with experience so Hezbollah is a significant force I think a more significant force than Hamas is and they are... anyway Hezbollah is one of those proxies that could very well attack Israel so Israel is on high alert Israel of course is threatening back a powerful response on Iran's territory if it's attacked and so there is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee about an hour ago made a post regarding Iran's imminent attack against Israel you know this is a Republican senator, Tom Cotton he wrote and guaranteeing America's full support you've also seen statements coming out of the White House saying that in spite of disagreements that America will provide Israel with its full support you're also seeing leaders of Saudi Arabia and many of the Gulf States calling the Iranians and trying to get them to stand down the German Foreign Minister was on a phone call with the Iranian Foreign Minister trying to tell him to stand down and explaining to him that Germany would stand with Israel I mean Iran attacking Israel would be a massive miscalculation for Iran it would set it back dramatically according to China 14 in Israel the latest assessment of Israeli intelligence suggests that the Iranian retaliatory attack will occur any day now and it is the first... in its first phase will consist of dozens of missiles launched from forces in Iran, Iraq and Yemen though the participation of Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups is still unknown so again it looks like it could happen any minute now any day now it will be interesting to see if Iran itself its Republican, its Revolutionary Guards participate or just proxies whether Hezbollah participates without a doubt Hezbollah is the one entity that can do the most damage to Israel missiles launched from Iran provide Israel with plenty of warning they take a while to get to Israel they can be shot down by airplanes they can be shot down by missile defense systems Israel now has a squadron of I think F-35s in the air 24-7 so they are rotating a squadron in the air 24-7 its entire air force is on in a sense red alert the majority of its airplanes could be in the air in a matter of 10 minutes that would give them plenty of ability if airfields are targeted to get airplanes in the air before the airfield is struck if the airfields will be struck I think most of them will be shot down and of course to launch either a counter-attack or to help shoot down the ballistic missiles that are being targeted in Israel so Israel is in a major state of alert the army is in a major state of alert civil defense is in a major state of alert again it is rotating a squadron in the air constantly so that is just a quick update on Israel at the same time this morning Israel launched a major operation in the center of Gaza on one of the refugee camps that had not yet entered it had intelligence that Hamas had many fighters there there were still tunnels there that they had not destroyed and they were entering as of very early this morning they were entering that camp killing Hamas fighters and destroying the tunnel systems there so there is fighting on the ground occurring right now again my thoughts go to the young kids who are fighting to defend their lives against the barbarians alright just one other related issue that relates here to the war but is directly related to what is going on in the US in yesterday I guess in one of the pro Hamas demonstrations in Michigan protesters chanted death to Israel well they do that all the time there is nothing new but they added a chant and they are becoming bolder death to America they were chanting death to America these are Arabs living in America I wonder how many of them are going to go back to where they came from as a consequence of this so death to America chants in Michigan today the congresswomen from that district in Michigan representative Rashida Tlaib we know Rashida Tlaib pretty well was asked to condemn the chants of death to America she instead had a complete meltdown in front of the camera refused to condemn the chants and resisted condemning them I think this is God I mean it is pretty amazing that both Democratic Party and Republican Party are committed to imploding they both are trying to alienate as many voters as they can and if representative in congress is not willing to condemn chants to death to America it is hard to see how her political party is going to be successful it is likely that Jews generally supporters of Israel are going to have a very hard time voting for Democratic Party whose representatives are not only willing to stand by calls for the destruction of Israel but also now willing to stand by and not condemn calls for the destruction of Israel and at the same time you've got a Republican Party that is imploding among many things over the issue well two issues I'd say imploding the Republican Party one is incompetence just shoe straightforward incompetence whether it's nominating really really horrible people to run for office or whether it's what's happening in the House of Representatives and how totally incompetent the Republican majority is in handling their affairs there and then of course the second issue is abortion which is just unbelievably destructive to the Republican Party right now but yeah but there you have it death to America is now a chance in Michigan let's see all right yes talk about dysfunctional congress maybe in this case not a bad idea this is dysfunctional since 9-11 after 9-11 a law was passed part of the Patriot Act which is called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA for short this is a law that allowed the NSA and other intelligence agencies to A to have secret courts which could grant warrants for all kinds of things and allowed for surveillance for surveillance using a big net to accumulate and then screen the data that we use in our phones and our computers not only of foreign citizens not only foreigners but also of American citizens now the NSA claims, keeps claiming, continues to claim that no, no, no, no, no it doesn't use it on American citizens but I think the revelations of Snowden a long time ago now revealed that that was indeed not the case and indeed that the FISA was being used to spy on Americans and the whole idea of the NSA keeping our data, holding our data I think I told you a long time ago that the NSA after the Snowden issue invited, I was invited to spend a whole day at the NSA where they tried to convince me and some other people there were about a dozen of us mostly conservatives who were very pro-initiated I was the only one who was skeptical there they tried to convince us to deal with the good guys and they weren't spying on Americans and Snowden was wrong and all this was bogus but I asked a lot of questions and I came away with the conclusion that I came away more negative about the NSA than I was before I got answers to questions like why do you do X when clearly X is not good because we follow orders not a good response, not a good answer anyway you know the the the FISA bill which authorizes the NSA and the rest of the intelligence community to do these things which authorizes the secret courts there was a slight overhaul of it very modest and it was coming up for renewal it gets renewed I think it'd be five years and it came up for renewal to his credit, Donald Trump came out and said that Republicans should vote against it now you never know why Donald Trump says what he says I don't know why he said that is he concerned about our liberties and our freedoms I'm skeptical or is he committed to creating mayhem in the House of Representatives and creating gridlock so that nothing really gets done I think that's probably more the motivation but in any case a number of Republicans who would typically vote for this because they're conservatives and they don't mind spying on Americans voted, landed up on Thursday in a procedural vote voted against it which kind of scuttled the whole thing and it made it impossible to move forward Speaker Johnson has then met with them and supposedly he has a plan to move forward with the legislation but it's not clear that anything can really be done procedural vote is going to be had today and I don't know that anybody expects the result to be any different and again this is the bill to reauthorize Shexen 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which allows the intelligence community to gather and sort the communication of foreign targets without a warrant but the accusation is that they use it also to to gather and sort information about Americans and I have no reason to doubt that that is indeed some of what they do this so we will see whether Johnson, the Speaker of the House can get this through we will see what happens if he doesn't if this section is not authorized what happens to NSA what happens to intelligence agencies they've got a lot of intelligence agencies dedicated to this particular activity can they maybe reform this act in order to in a way that got rid of spying on Americans got rid of the secret courts you know I doubt it because I doubt it would get support because I think Republicans ultimately want the secret courts so hard to tell when Trump was president he didn't do anything to reform this bill when Trump was president this was renewed as always so there's no reason to believe that a Trump presidency would change this I think one of the options suggested was to reauthorize it for two years and then if Trump becomes president he can chime in on how he'd like to see it reformed my guess is he will not have it reformed at all and we'll just go with the flow but anyway FISA I've never I've never supported the whole Patriots Act should be dramatically reformed and done away with it is a massive, massive, massive expansion of government power and a massive, massive expansion of their power to spy on you and on me all in the name of stopping terrorism when what we should be doing is destroying terrorists way before they get here and then spy on them and to do that we should take out Iran we should take out other terrorist organizations around the Middle East to prevent them from organizing and plotting against the United States but that's just me it's almost impossible to get people to move such a program forward alright let's see what happened in Arizona about the abortion bill today the Democrats and the Arizona legislature together with one Republican tried to propose a bill that would repeal the 1864 law and put in its place the law that was already approved two years ago that would set the restriction on abortion at 15 weeks Republicans most of the Republicans who have a majority refused to take up this proposal it became a shouting match between them and you know shouts of shame and shame and anyway Republicans will not view this they cut it off twice and quickly adjourned for a week so the the legislature Arizona legislature adjourned for a week now and we'll see what happens when they come back and if Republicans are willing to talk about something to prevent this 1864 law actually going into effect the state attorney general who I think is a I don't know if she's a Democrat Chris Mayer, he is a Democrat or a Republican I don't know the governor is a Democrat the legislature is a Republican I guess it's a she she said that she will not prosecute anyone under the 1864 law she will not prosecute them under the law but will doctors continue to do abortions in spite of the law given that she has promised not to prosecute you know hard to tell and it will be interesting to watch how this evolves in Arizona I mean again this is a boost the Democrats hopes in November because there will be a proposal on the on the ballot in November to make it part of Arizona constitution to protect abortion rights that will drive I think turnout for Democrats quite significantly and that I think is bad for Kerry Lake happily I'm very very happy to see Kerry Lake lose the Senate seats from Arizona I mean she is a nut she's a mega nut she lost the governorship two years ago governorship should have been Republican and she lost it because she's a nut and and then she claimed it was stolen from her and went to court and was pathetic and ridiculous in court and then she has the audacity to run for Senate and then the Republican party has the stupidity to provide her tendencies to actually make her the nominee of the Republican party in Arizona I think she's going to lose I hope she loses she doesn't deserve to be senator alright finally some economic financial news so first because of high interest rates the U.S. government budget deficit has hit 1.07 trillion in the first half of the physical year 1.07 trillion dollars that is 4% higher than last year on a year to date basis and all of this this massive ballooning of the deficit and it's ballooned over the last over the last year or so is a consequence of rising interest rates the fact that you know the government has to pay more and more to service the debt as interest payments to people who bought the bonds in the past as interest rates have gone up the government issues bonds at a higher and higher interest rates and therefore has to pay higher and higher interest rates to people who own these bonds the weighted average interest rate on outstanding U.S. interest rate bearing debt was 3.22% at the end of March if inflation picks up again it could go significantly higher I mean it could go to 4-5% U.S. government so this is the one expense that could just skyrocket without any vote in congress without any additional spending without anything because it's automatic this 3.22% is the highest it's been since April 2010 of course in April 2020 the government debt was a lot smaller a lot smaller than it is today since 2020 we've had the massive government spending we've had the massive government spending of Biden we've had both the COVID stimuli and we've grown the government unbelievably and as a consequence of course the debt has increased or the bonds the government issues have increased and as a consequence of the increasing debt as interest rates have gone up they've gone up by 65 basis points that's 0.65% from a year a year ago that that is that is huge that is simply huge amounts of money that are paying out in interest and it's a huge amount of money because interest is relatively high 3% is still pretty low it's lower than my mortgage and it's got the potential to rise and it's on a growing growing number because government spending just keeps increasing government deficits keep increasing and therefore government debt keeps increasing and a big chunk of the increase in government debt is going to finance the interest on the new debt coming in and there's no this can grow exponential the only thing that can stop this is a dramatic reduction in interest rates but given the inflation numbers we've just seen there's absolutely zero reason to expect to expect a reduction in interest rates alright one of the things that higher interest rates of cause of course is a significant increase in the cost of a mortgage and a significant increase therefore in the monthly payments that people have to make on their mortgages and you can see this in dramatic fashion I think in this graph right this is graph the top graph the graph that goes kind of up is a graph of average monthly new home payments that is what you pay on a monthly basis for a new home now this includes interest which is a big fact then this big spike up that's mortgage payments going way up but it also includes increases in insurance costs on owning a home it includes increases in property taxes which we're seeing across the country but a big chunk of this is and includes maintenance and everything else that you know what do you call it homeowner association fees which have all been spiking they've all been going up with inflation and you can see here that the cost of owning a home is dramatically higher more than 50% higher than it was just a few years ago just as it was in 2021 it's been going up dramatically since it bottomed out in 2012 now part of this is part of this is all those things that I mentioned but a big part of it as we'll see in a minute is the price of the homes the more expensive the house the bigger the mortgage the more your monthly payments are so this is home prices mortgage prices maintenance costs taxes everything that goes into owning a house gone up by more than 50% home prices out of control in terms of the upward trajectory part of that is inflation and part of that is dramatic lack of supply dramatic lack of supply you can see that the gap between owning and renting is exploded renting is a lot cheaper right now than owning a house these values usually converge because what happens now is most people should be disincentivized from owning a home I mean if I was on the market right now I would not buy I would rent this doesn't make any sense given this gap to own a house right now if you're in the market renting is so much cheaper dramatically cheaper so right now it makes sense for people to be renting as people shift from owning to renting rents supposedly would come up and the cost of housing will come down because there's less and less demand so these will converge at some point this is why investing right now in rental properties might not be a bad idea and don't invest in homes for sale because this is not sustainable this is just not sustainable and what drives this is let's see if you can see this you can see it here is on the left is a graph of the fixed rate mortgage now you can see that there's been a massive spike in fixed rate mortgages over the last couple of years but it's still pretty low as compared to what it was in 2000 or in the 90s or certainly in the 80s so we've gone back really to normal mortgage rates what was abnormal is what we've had the zero interest rates mortgage rates at 3% that's abnormal the mortgage rates in 2021 were abnormal the mortgage rates right now are normal what's really driving the cost of housing is the graph on the right look at sales prices look at sales prices I mean they've just gone through the roof since 2010 nothing has stopped them it doesn't matter who is president doesn't matter what administration they just go up and this is truly insane I mean they've been going up since the 1970s they've been going up forever but this rate, this pace is really unprecedented it's very much like the rate in the just a few years before the financial crisis before the crash in the early 2000s but it's actually much steeper than that even so I don't know how this ends but it cannot end well and it really ends with people not wanting to own a house which is not necessarily bad again I don't think there's anyone with renting but to buy a house in this kind of market to buy a house when the trajectory is like this I think is and when you rent to so much cheaper is insanity and anyway you know and I think some of you will be telling me it's impossible to buy a house it's ridiculous I think you've been right so this maybe is the primary thing that explains why people are so negative about the economy is the status of home buying is just and the cost of buying a home is just ridiculous and again it's more than just the price of the house it's interstate on the mortgage but it's all the auxiliary costs I know that insurance has gone up dramatically and people are paying a lot more today on insurance than they have in the past I never said by the way I never said that we should keep buying in an office because things are going great I said that the economy is doing much better than people say it is and it is indeed doing better and wages are up significantly and generally the economy is doing much better than anybody predicted or that anybody claims and you're seeing that now with consumer sentiments on the rise housing is out of control that's absolutely right but the rest of the economy is doing pretty well and indeed one of the things that this housing market will do is it will spur housing growth and all those illegal immigrants will be able to find jobs where there is a massive shortage of workers and maybe will start making a dent in the massive shortage of homes in the United States however however I don't support anything Biden done everything Biden has done is hurting the economy whatever the economy is doing well it's not because of Biden any more than when the economy was doing well relatively well under Trump I thought it was because of Trump that the Americans get that kind of credit I don't think any of them do I think it's absurd that you think they do I think it's absurd that you think they're responsible Biden is not responsible for this inflation Trump started it it's the first trillion dollar stimulus with Trump's stimulus and Biden doubled up on it so Biden and Trump are responsible for this inflation and the Federal Reserve played a huge role in it so the idea that President should get the praise when the economy is doing well no the economy does well in spite of Trump and in spite of Biden my view on the election is not that Biden is doing a good job he's doing a terrible job he's one of the worst presidents in American history the only reason the only reason you know that's God my only point about it is I don't support Trump it's not that I support Biden I don't I never have I didn't in 2020 and I don't today I don't support Trump Trump is a disaster for reasons I've articulated many many times both of them are horrible for the economy Trump marginally less horrible because in the past of his regulatory policies not his spending policies his spending policies were just as bad as Biden's but marginally if in a second term he will keep those regulatory policies I worry that he won't given the kind of people he has surrounded himself with for the second run yes and Ken and Scott will appeal to authority over and over and over again and he says well let him pick up support Trump and that's good enough for Ken I mean you're so shallow and empty it's unbelievable I mean it really is unbelievable the one time they bring out Leonard Peacuff's name is I just talked about Leonard Peacuff with the OJ Simpson case and stuff the only time they pick up Leonard Peacuff's name is but Peacuff will pick up votes for Trump and that's supposed to end an argument right there's no argument what if Leonard Peacuff votes for Trump and it's curious because when Leonard Peacuff told them they should all vote for John Kerry in 19 in 2004 I doubt they said well if Leonard Peacuff says it I vote for John Kerry it's just they use the authority when it's convenient for them it's convenient for them so yes you know what Leonard Peacuff thinks is relevant and important but the way you use it is you use it as a complete sheer unequivocal appeal to authority and nothing nothing else is brilliant he's a genius alright let's see alright super chat let me first say that this show is supported by listeners like you those of you who contribute there's a bunch of you on here that don't just here for entertainment value and don't support the show at all free writers we call them in economics that's okay but thank you for those of you who support the show you can support the show if you're listening if you're watching live on YouTube through super chat there's also an applause usually button where you can support the show if you watch it on YouTube afterwards which I very much appreciate those of you who use that feature of course the best way to support the show is a monthly contribution on Patreon and on you on bookshow.com membership which is paypal also the Anduin Institute is a sponsor of the show they are they are now taking applications for scholarships for Okon Okon in June so please consider consider applying for Okon Okon is a fantastic conference you'll get some of the best speakers in the best speakers and objectives and will be there it'll be fabulous to be an opportunity to really engage with with the intellectuals but also to meet and make new friends meet and engage with new people but also refresh friendships from the past anyway April 15th four more days to apply for a scholarship for Okon expenses paid it's pretty cool alright and finally Alex Epstein is a sponsor of the show hey I can drop names too and Alex of course is the writer of energy talking points you can subscribe to that it is a brilliant exposition of the issues related to energy and you know energy and climate change are probably the most some of the most urgent issues that we have that we have out there and Alex is by far the best voice in the world in these issues right now so go subscribe to alexepstein.substack.com you can also get a premium subscription and get Alex's AI which basically is trained on Alex to answer your energy questions alright let's see oh we got $250 questions thank you guys let's start with Sylvanos Sylvanos says if you had the money if you had the money could you buy out the national debt and in essence conduct a hostile takeover of the U.S sounds nonsensical but couldn't resist nobody has the money nobody has the money if you bought up all the U.S. debt you would have a lot of leverage over the U.S. government of course the government the government could default on that debt could just not pay you but then it could not raise any more debt if defaulted on the debt and that would have forced it to shrink so if you bought up all the debt forced the government to in a sense shrink as a consequence you would be you know moving the country to grow its great economic freedom in a dramatic kind of way of course assuming they shrunk in the right way which given the politicians I don't trust them when I order to do but yeah it's it's in the what is it 27 trillion I don't know what the number is exactly right now but it's beyond the reach of even the richest of the rich Ashton is all art is all art political if not what art would you both would you consider political no no art is political art is fundamentally not political and that is good art so good art is not political it has political implications but it is not political so the left the left believes that everything in the world is about power it's about a power struggle it's a zero sum world in which we're constantly in a struggle among each other to try to capture more of the pie and therefore more of stuff right to impose power on others in their view art is 100% political and they make a lot of political art so does the right there's a lot of political art on the right as well certainly Nazi art Soviet art were political but they were shit art they were really bad art as is almost all art that has a political banner on top of it art is fundamentally metaphysical it is a reflection of the artists good art is a reflection of the artists metaphysical value judgments what are metaphysical value judgments they are judgments about your attitude towards metaphysical but towards reality so art reflects the attitude towards is reality normal is reality coherent is does man belong in the world does man understand and accept reality is man competent so art addresses the questions about the metaphysical nature of reality and your evaluation of those things and the metaphysical nature of man so if you look at the dark ages the sculptures all of groveling gargoyles and the human beings characterized always meek and bent over and emaciated they're just horrible and that is a metaphysical view of the nature of man it's not a political statement although it has political implications Michelangelo's David is a rejection of that view of man man now is heroic competent able to deal with reality so it's a metaphysical statement about the nature of man that Michelangelo's David makes you watch a movie is the movie coherent, does it have a plot does it follow any logic that's all good that's suggested reality is noble or is it incoherent mumble of jumbo jumps around you can't really make any sense of it and that says something about the view of the filmmaker about the metaphysical nature of man and his knowledge of reality is it is the God I was going to give an example is it boring does it suggest that you know life and reality as such are metaphysically just uninteresting that they're just you know it's just not great to be alive or are they stimulating and interesting and exciting so that's what art is about there is no art good art that is primarily there was primarily political now every art has a political implication if you have a certain view of man you'll have a certain view of politics but art that is explicitly political is arguing for a political agenda if that's the primary it's not art or it's a very very it's very very bad art you know often they can be you know political themes but that is not it's never the fundamental it's never the fundamental I'm trying to think I don't know a movie about Lincoln obviously has political themes and says something about the view of I don't know fighting against slavery or whatever but at the end of the day the movie art is going to stand a fall is going to stand a fall on the idea of on the idea of how characters are presented and again the nature of reality as the artist sees it Ashton asks don't you need a politics in order to have an aesthetics same as you need ethics in order to have politics no absolutely not absolutely zero that's again a very leftist view so the hierarchy of knowledge doesn't go metaphysics, epistemology, ethics politics and derived from that aesthetics that's not the hierarchy aesthetics is derived from ethics and epistemology just like politics so in a sense aesthetics are politics if you did a tree metaphysics at the bottom then epistemology and slightly with it is ethics so ethics has a component that's metaphysical which is the nature of man and then both of these have arrows that go to politics you can't have politics just on ethics without epistemology and the same thing happens with art it goes metaphysics, epistemology and ethics all go to aesthetics does not rely on aesthetics does not rely on politics at all and in that sense I mean you know better art is created under freedom than under non-freedom but that is not about aesthetics everything about aesthetics is derived from your most basic philosophical views your metaphysics and your views on the metaphysics of man and you can have a moral themes and epistemological themes it's very rare that a piece of work can have a think about a movie like Terminator the theme of Terminator is free will which is a pretty metaphysical theme it's not I don't know freedom or liberty you know now you can have I'm not saying you can't have a political theme but it also has to have it has to have something much more fundamental below that it has to have a again art is about the recreation of metaphysical value judgments it's all about metaphysics so in that sense art is on the side just because it's presented in objective as the last branch of philosophy does not mean it is derived from politics it's not derived from politics at all by the way I haven't seen you in a long time so it's great to have you back I think I haven't seen you in a long time am I confused but I think that's right anyway great to have you back John I've just started reading The Fountain Head I really like the relationship dynamic between Henry Cameron and Roark absolutely yes and that's what great productive genius is the kind of friendship and kind of mentor-mentee relationship they can have and it's very touching and very beautiful I think and it's great that you're reading The Fountain Head congratulations that's terrific John continues Cameron seems like he's a representation of the human spirit a pure human potential that's being squashed by a culture of second-handedness I really want him to experience success yes and you know Roark is Cameron who hasn't given up, who hasn't surrendered who hasn't compromised so Vanos hypothetically if major conflict arose between the US, Israel and Iran over the embassy bombing would it hurt or help Biden in the election well it really depends on how he responded right and really depends on what the outcome was if he landed up if the United States landed up you know with Biden's support and backing destroying the Iranian nuclear project and ultimately overthrowing the Iranian regime and bringing a new era to Iran then it would help Biden a lot if he entered in a quagmire in the Middle East it would hurt him a lot so it really depends on what the responses to in that conflict how we behave in the conflict John, Iran the Statue of Liberty has a torch raised high a book clenched in her arms and a crown on her head I don't know what any of that symbolizes if you would make your own Statue of Liberty would you change anything I mean the torch is the torch of liberty it's showing the way I mean remember that the Statue of Liberty is an ode to immigration and it's showing the way to America it's like a beacon of light in the darkness to show the way here's America the land of light the land of opportunity come so it's showing the way I think the book represents the fact that America is based on a philosophy based on ideas based on thinking I'm not sure what the crown on the head represents I'd have to think about that and I'd have to look at it but I don't know I'm not an artist and I don't have that kind of imagination but it strikes me that she's pretty good it's a pretty good sculpture it's a pretty good symbol of America and her location right at the mouth of the entrance into New York City is perfect ultimately New York City is the American city not Washington D.C. God forbid it is New York City so that's where she belongs and that's where the torch belongs that's where you should enter that is America it is the land of production and so on so it is it is a beacon of hope and of opportunity of opportunity it still is America still is it's just we have rejected it as such Bradley in business but I fear this ability how is it different from social metaphysics is it just a matter of purpose i.e. reality productive focus versus nonproductive social focus jobs versus Obama charisma yeah I think that's right charisma just means that you have an effect on people and it's hard exactly figure out exactly why some people have charisma and other people don't but some people do have charisma some people clearly do but charisma is not necessarily a negative that is it depends on why you have that charisma if the charisma comes from your interest in and study of how to manipulate people then obviously it's bad but if your charisma comes from you're just good at articulating ideas in a passionate way in a way that people respond very positively to nothing not a bad thing so that's something to be impressed not to be rejected so yeah very much the commissar of jobs versus the charisma of Obama the charisma of Clinton is a good you know example of the different types of charisma and yeah jobs charisma comes from exuding confidence and knowledge and understanding his audience understanding in a positive way what they want and more than they do right teaching them what they need and that's a very different than pandering to the audience Shahzad have you ever been inside the statute of duty yes absolutely several times I climbed to the top you used to be able to go I don't know if you still can you can go to the torch and look out from there it's a magnificent view it represents I think it represents really positive forces in American history it was built with private money it was contributed it was built it was created by the same guy who built Eiffel the Eiffel title so Eiffel it was a gift from France but it arrived in the US and the government didn't have money to build it so it was built with private funding it was built very very fast very very efficiently and it was placed in the perfect location I think because it was a private project not a government project so the history it's worth reading about the history of the Statue of Liberty it's quite amazing alright we have a few more questions so let's get through these Roland you're competing with an AI and an ARC UK stream hope to see more of this in the future yeah it's getting very difficult it's getting very difficult in Objectivism there's so much content being produced there's so much stuff going online that people are challenged in terms of figuring out what to watch and when to watch it so thank you for being here when you have other opportunities out there and thank you for supporting the show with your superchats Mary Aline why would anyone waste their time asking Iran to stand down Iran just gives them recognition and don't deserve is Iran even open to persuasion I think they're open to pressure I think they're open to threats I don't think they're open to persuasion but why would people do it for the same reason people do what they do because they're pragmatists they're principles they're salutes they're altruists they coddle evil all the time I mean the United States nonstop so yes I like numbers why did ARI put out a video suddenly implying it was somehow Maria and Millay's fault for an interview format that ARI ultimately agreed to well ARI did ultimately agree to that format so it's not I don't think it's anybody's fault you know how so you can be critical of how Millay answered the questions and you can be critical of the interview itself without disagreeing about the format and this is not me saying because I'm not that critical but Millay took half an hour to answer the first question and that's ridiculous and by doing that the questions the interviews of questions that ARI would have liked to have asked him was never answered because he took half an hour to answer the first question and the way he answered it was more of a campaign speech than anything else so I think it's disappointing that we didn't get to ask Millay all the questions we wanted to ask him and I think everybody's disappointed including Maria that she didn't get to ask him all the questions she had a long list of questions she didn't get to ask him some of the other questions because and I was the interview generally in terms of the interview itself not in terms of doing something with Millay but the interview itself was disappointing because Millay said nothing what he said was it was basically kind of a campaign rally more than anything else he had all dealt with the politics of situations he said I mean few things he said were good but mostly it was not that interesting and not that important so that's disappointing it would have been great to have a real conversation a real deep dive into what he thinks about the world what his philosophy of governing is what his views on different things including views on things that we disagree on unfortunately it never got to that point of him expressing anything deep it was all pretty shallow so that was what was disappointing about it and it's too bad that Millay didn't he knew he had a script so he knew all the questions he was going to be asked you could argue that he strategically spent half an hour answering the first question in order to avoid answering many of the other questions because he knew there was a limited time if he ate all the time up with the first question then he wouldn't get to the questions maybe he didn't want to answer that's you know but my view is my view is that was completely predictable given that he's a politician he is in a position he is now a politician he didn't want to have a discussion with me partially because of English partially because he didn't want to have a discussion he wanted to answer questions he's a politician and he's the president of a country and there's no upside for him to have a discussion of debate with me so I'm not surprised he didn't agree to that in my view and he agreed to the questions and then he developed a tactic to avoid answering the questions he didn't want to answer chat says until recently I could never understand how holocaust could have happened now I totally get it also do you think Israel will exist in 30 years or so I do think Israel will exist I think Israel will survive the Israelis have no way to go and they will fight certain countries in Europe and things like that because Europe doesn't have the will to fight and I worry about the politics of what kind of an America we have in 30 years I think America will exist in 30 years but what kind of an America will it be in America will it be happy with even moderately happy with or not that's what I worry about I'm not that worried about Israel surviving in 30 years because of demographics but the demographics have turned out pretty good for Israel even without the religion in other words Arabs in Israel having fewer and fewer babies as they get rich as they get free and rich they have fewer babies which is what you'd expect and yes I agree with you what's happening over the last 10 years has made extending the Holocaust much easier I think the Trump Phenomena has really shown how mindless people can be even in a fierce country in the world Trump is not Hitler but just a Phenomena and the mindlessness around Trump is astonishing and the the anti-Semitism there's a reason since October 7th is just stunning do you think Brooke Derangement's syndrome exists no I think it's much more right wing mindlessness syndrome I think there are a lot of people who follow this chat who are just mindless and they have in a sense talking points that they get from the right wing whatever and they have no mind of their own and they just that's what they mouth that's what they spout and you can see it you can see how they they have their talking points and they just they can't think they can't even put their talking points in an original sentence the sentence just sounds like the talking point that every other right winger says out there all the time so I don't think they're deranged about me they're deranged about reality about the fact that I mean and they have they all have this emotional link to objectivism they all think of themselves or feel themselves to be objectivist or it's something that they appeal to them in their youth and they still have some affiliation to it that's why they still hang around here among objectivists they still connect it to it somehow but Chuck Leif is an example of that and maybe he's not even connected to objectivism he's just here to I don't know troll or to just be an asshole but you know so it's just you know it's not that if I although I do have a negative impact on them so there is a sense in which they have a book derangement syndrome in a sense that even when I say something that you would think they'd agree with they find a way to spin it to make it seem terrible Neocon if what I say is just parroting CNN MCMC, why are you listening? you can go see CNN MCMC that's the point I don't get by people like this, I mean what are you doing here? Neocon, it surprises me that people like Charlie Cook and Candace Owen praise Winston Churchill Churchill but if they were alive in World War II they would call him a war monger well maybe not, he's kind of defending defending Anglo-Saxons, he's defending England, I don't know I mean who knows how these people don't not think there's only one way to think and lots of ways not to think so you know that's that is Charlie Cook's a particularly disappointment because as I've told you in the past I had a good connection with him and he was very interested in Iran at some point Candace Owen I'm not surprised I was never really that excited about Candace Owen but Charlie Cook has just gone off the deep end, he is horrible horrible horrible horrible I used to have a really nice conversation with Charlie I knew Charlie when he was a high school student that is Trump Mindless Nest Syndrome that's what got Charlie and it's got a lot of people a lot of people are suffering from Trump Mindlessness Syndrome Sylvanos is there any justification for private citizens taking foreign policy into their own hands or is that illegal well it should be illegal you have a government representing you it's the same as individual citizens can become the police they can't go out and inflict justice even if it turns out what they're doing is correct there is an objective mechanism for doing justice and that objective mechanisms that objective mechanism is something important and that we assign to a government and that's the responsibility of government both in foreign policy and in domestic policing if you will thank you Sylvanos alright let's see here's the kind of criticism right this is the kind of criticism I don't know why I interact with this but anyway all the generalization about right-winners with specifics but never mention a left-wing except Biden really never mention a left-winger except Biden I didn't mention what's her name today just today Taleb the congresswoman from Michigan and her inability to condemn chance of death to America I didn't mention that today she's an illusion somebody there willing to verify that I mentioned her I haven't mentioned all the education stuff in California all these leftist I haven't mentioned leftist professors who advocate for crazy insane left of ideas by name and gone in depth over this I didn't do at the time a whole show on Ibrahim Kendi and his anti-racism or about what was it white guilt or whatever that book was called it's just ridiculous you know this is so maybe I take everything I said back there is such a thing as book do arrangement syndrome there is I say stuff and they can't they don't hear it no I said it because because people chanted death to America death to America and so I condemn the left pretty much on every show something about the left all these new shows there's almost always a story about what the left is not just Biden and nobody can hear it they can't hear it because they've convinced themselves no no no Iran loves the left he hates the right he only talks about the right he never talks about the left and that's it that's it and so who asked me was it Apollo Zeus yes there is such a thing as book do arrangement syndrome we have coined a new medical phenomena a new psychological phenomena that definitely is but I think it's part of a broader phenomena with I think the broader phenomena is people can't think they can't hear they can't really read because they can't think they read and hear what they want to hear and read and they they can't be objective about it alright everybody I will see you on Saturday I'll try to think of some leftist attack on Saturday just because now I'm worried I'll see you all Saturday and I will be traveling all day tomorrow I'll be finally getting home I'm looking forward to that see you guys have a great Friday today, Thursday and Friday I'll see you on Saturday bye