 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Book Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Book Show. On this Monday, January 29th, it's been a while since we've done one of these news roundups. But I am back, back in town, back at home. And I expect to do one every day this week. And for the next few weeks, we should be back on schedule. There will be probably a change to the schedule of the evening shows. I expect to be doing an evening show today, tomorrow, and Wednesday, nothing Thursday and Friday. Again, roundups will still be there. But just so you know, probably either at 7 or 6 PM East Coast time. Probably at 7 PM East Coast time this week. So yeah, let's jump right in. A lot of stuff on the news, particularly given that I haven't done one of these in a while. But we'll try to catch up on some of the main stories. And yeah, as I said, we'll keep doing this the rest of the week. All right, the big news. I think over the weekend, it seems to wow people up. Although why this was a surprise to anybody, why anybody thought this was something unexpected, was the death of three American soldiers actually in Jordan. So on a small base on the Jordanian-Syrian-Iraqi border. So it's a three-way border. It's a three-way spot. So pretty strategic in terms of what the United States is trying to do there. And it was in a territory pretty sure of Jordan itself. Jordan is an American ally. I think the United States changed Jordanian troops. I think the United States has a presence in Jordan. Anyway, this base in Jordan, we'll get to why it's there in a minute, was hit by a drone from an Iranian-supported, an Iranian-backed, an Iranian, whatever militia. It turns out that the air defense system that the United States has that should have shot the drone down, confused this drone with an American drone and thought that it was an American drone coming back to base. These are the kind of errors, similar to friendly fire that you expect in war, that happen in war. You can't get too upset about these things in terms of the error, although I'm sure the people who committed the error would heart for them to erase it from their memory, given the three of their fellow soldiers died as a consequence. The Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and in Syria have basically been attacking US bases all over the region, now systematically, really, for decades. The Iranians were responsible for many of the deaths that the United States military incurred in Iraq. Actually starting from 2006 on, hundreds of Americans died because of the Iranian-backed militias, however you want to call them, Iranian-provided military equipment. And the whole gamut of ways in which Iran was intervening in what was going on in Iraq. This has been going on steadily, again, since the United States entered Iraq in 2003. And Iran has been trying to kill Americans systematically over the last few months since October 7. Iranians have attacked military bases over and over and over again. They've injured many American troops, but indeed, they have not killed any. The Biden administration has threatened, it's shaken its finger at them, that there would be consequences for this, but the consequences have been trivial and minor and insignificant. Iran, I mean, look, God, Iran has been at war with the United States since 1979 when they captured the American embassy and held 200, what is it? I can't remember the number, but they held the embassy personnel hostage who were only released after a deal with Ronald Reagan Cut, but a deal where the Iranians got something in return. Iranians were behind the attack on the US Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. They were behind the kidnapping and murder and torture of Americans in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East. Throughout the 1980s, they were then responsible for the bombing of the Koblo Tower in Saudi Arabia, which killed many dozens of Americans. Iranians have been trying to kill Americans, any American presence in the Middle East, since 1979. And they continue to do so, and nobody does anything about it. Trump killed Soleimani in January of 2020. Following that, the Iranians bombed some allied facilities, the facilities of the forces, the allied forces that were in Iraq killing three soldiers. The Trump administration didn't do anything. So this has been going on forever with almost no American president, no military standing up to the Iranians. Nothing zip nada. Biden has said that there will be a response, that the response might also target the Iranian Republican Guard, as well as the militias themselves. The Republicans, some Republicans, not all Republicans, some Republicans, are urging dramatic, significant offensive actions. We'll see what happens. My expectation is it'll be more pinpricks along the way. It's stunning. Iran has been a war with the United States in 1979. We refuse to confront that war. We refuse to do anything about that war. And the Houdis are stopping shipping in the Red Sea. We bomb a few of their sites, and we pretend we've done something, which is what the Biden administration has done so far. I expect that they will bomb some stuff that are under a lot of political pressure to do so. They'll bomb the militias in Iraq and in Syria. They'll maybe even bomb some installations of the Iranians in Iraq and in Syria. Will they bomb anything in Iran itself? I think it's unlikely that they will actually bomb something in Iran, but it is possible. It is possible. What else? Yeah, I mean, one of the things they could do that would help a number of different causes, I think, that the United States support, is how about bombing all the manufacturing facilities in which the Iranians are building drones? I mean, Iran is one of the largest manufacturers of drones right now in the world. Maybe it's only second to China, I don't know. But they build thousands of drones. They're shipping them, selling them to Russia. They're shipping them to the Houdis. They've obviously, in the past, sent them to Hamas. They're shipping them to Hezbollah. They are sending them to all the Iranian groups in Iraq and in Syria to attack the Americans. How about just not touching anybody else? All you do is you basically eviscerate every single manufacturing plant in Iran that is producing drones. Now, that would be so cool. I think that would be so cool. First of all, it would help the Ukrainians. It would help the Israelis. It would help the shipping in the Red Sea. And it would help the Americans. It would help everybody in terms of the result of it, basically crippling the ability of Iran to produce and sell these drones. And it would piss off Putin significantly. And that is worth doing it. So that's what I would do, among many other things. I mean, I would also take out their entire oil exporting facilities. I've told you that's relatively easy, because it's all concentrated in one place. That would be relatively easy to take that out completely. And if you just do those two things, I'm not sure the Iranian regime survives over a very long. Well, the third you have to do as well is take out their nuclear facilities. Take out everything where they produce nuclear stuff. So we will see. But those are the three things I would do. Oil, drones, nuclear. If it was me, let's be serious here. If it was actually me, I would also take out the regime from the air, bomb all regime facilities and take out as many of them as possible, Khomeini and the whole Iranian power structure. And then let those girls, how about let those girls who demonstrated so bravely a year ago, let them take over the regime in Iran. That would be my solution, but I don't expect that. How about Biden? The drone factories, that's a simple one. It's not that hard. It's pretty straightforward. It was a drone, an Iranian-made drone, that killed those Americans doing it. One other comment, I want to make one other topic related to this, and that is the question of the presence of Iranian troops in the region. If you remember, Trump promised to bring all the troops from Syria home. I mean, he made that promise several times. American troops are still in Syria. And the fact is that American troops are constantly being attacked in Syria. American troops are still in Iraq. And as you can see, American troops are in Jordan. The supposed reason American troops are there is to be able to take out ISIS, to control ISIS, and al-Qaeda, and anybody else in that region. It's also the case that American troops are there. I think they're still involved in training Iraqi military or whatever. Who knows why? These are troops that America has now in 100 different countries, all in the name of dealing with global terrorism, global Islamic terrorism. We've got troops all over Africa. We've got troops all over Asia, all with this idea of dealing with Islamic terrorism. I've said this over and over again over the years. Bring these troops home, particularly given that we're not willing to defend them, particularly given that we have no strategy to defeat our enemies. If we had a strategy to defeat Islamic terrorism, and these troops were necessary as part of that strategy to deploy all over the world, and we had an end date, and this was going to be a program and a strategy. And we're going to take them out and done with it. Then I'd say, yeah, keep them. That's fine. But there's no strategy. These are sitting ducks in foreign countries. They take out ISIS, al-Qaeda, operatives here and there. They help the locals fight the Islamists here and there. Not a part of the broad strategy. No willingness to engage with the real villains, the ones who are really promoting, funding, supporting Islamic terrorism. We pretend that Qatar is a friend, Qatar who funded ISIS, who probably is funding al-Qaeda. Many, many, many countries are funding al-Qaeda. There's al-Qaeda in Africa. Where does that come from? Who funds them? Shall I guess? Maybe Iran, maybe Saudi Arabia, certain foundations in Saudi Arabia, maybe the Qataris, maybe the Kuwaitis, maybe some others. Where the money is? The money is in the Gulf states. So let's stop pretending that we're fighting a global war on terrorism, which we should fight because it's going to kill us. We should fight it. But we're not doing it. We're pretending to do it. And all we do is place our kids in danger and they get killed like they did over the weekend for no reason, for absolutely no reason. So bring them home. Bring them home or engage in a proper war to eradicate Islamic authoritarianism, totalitarianism, not authoritarianism, totalitarianism. 23 years ago, 23 years ago, unbelievable, right? In 2001 after 9-11, Congress passed a AUMF, right? AUMF, which was not exactly a declaration of war, but it was basically an approval that Congress graved the president to do whatever he thought was necessary, deploy troops wherever he thought was necessary in order to combat global terrorism. It wasn't even Islamic terrorism because they were afraid to name Islam. So the AUMF, it was the authorization for military action. They purposely did not call it a war. I say repeal it. I'm not sure it's constitutional to begin with. Congress is supposed to approve the wars. It's supposed to declare wars. Ideally, you repeal it and declare war on Islamic totalitarianism. You list organizations and the countries that are responsible, and you wipe them out. Yes, this was an authorization for military force, which means nothing. This should be an authorization, a war declaration. But then it has to be bounded. It has to be clearly defined. Who are going to war with and what are the goals and what does victory look like? But that's what we refuse to do. And kids are dying, continue to die, because we refuse to do it. All right, let me just thank Applejack. Thank you, Applejack, Andre, Belgalt, and Art Lens Design. Thank you, guys, for the stickers. Really, really appreciate the stickers. Oh, so I noticed this, too. Somebody's just posting here that they noticed that Alex Friedman has taken down his post, announcing his decision for the Israel debate with Destiny and Finkelstein. He's taken down that post saying that that's what the debate would look like. I'm curious why. Who knows? Maybe Destiny didn't want to debate Finkelstein. Maybe somebody else raised the lockers. Who knows what exactly is going on there? But as far as I can tell, the decision in terms of who is debating whom is still not being determined, we will see what happened. Maybe you listen to your book show and I said Destiny is not right. Destiny's not your gut. I doubt it. I doubt that he's taking advice from me about this. Maybe that would be nice. All right, next story. And again, we're stuck in the Middle East. Over the weekend, Israeli officials passed on to the United States evidence, and the New York Times has received this evidence, evidence that UN, the UNRA, the refugee organization responsible for Palestinian refugees. No, there is another UN agency responsible for all global refugees all over the world. UNRA is responsible just for Palestinian refugees. That's the only function of this organization. Now note, too, that UNRA was founded in 1949, right after the war of independence of the Israeli war of independence after the Nakabah, right, when Palestinian refugees, the first Palestinian refugees as a consequence of the establishment of the state of Israel. And they've been refugees since 1948. And the UN has been aiding them and assisting them to stay refugees since 1948. Note that every other refugee group in the world, what the UN's responsibility vis-a-vis those refugees is to resettle them. It's to resettle them. And after a certain period of time, it's clear that that resettlement will probably not happen where you came from. Forget it. That's gone. Keep on living. Not with the Palestinians. The Palestinians have been basically kept as refugees since 1948. The Palestinians have been denied resettlement. They're treated horribly by the countries in which the refugee camps exist. And Arab money, as it flows into various causes, refuses to flow into resettling these people as citizens. They could be citizens of Jordan. They could be citizens of Lebanon. They could be citizens in Syria, in Egypt, and all any one of these countries. And if these countries refuse to accept them, and if they do accept them, they segregate them into refugee camps and keep them there without citizenship, without rights, without ID cards, completely dependent on the United Nations. And the United Nations does nothing, nothing, to try to get these people to integrate into the countries that are hosting them, or even to move them out of these countries into countries that might be willing to host. So the United Nation is an immoral criminal organization. It has been forever. But UNRWA is particularly evil because of the way it has dealt with the Palestinians, the way it has kept them around as refugees. Evil in the way they treat Palestinians and what they've done to the Palestinian people. And then on top of that, or one of the reasons for keeping them refugees, is so that they are always, always dangled in front of these railies. As a sin, Israel has committed, something Israel must do something about. If suddenly the refugees, the Palestinian refugees, get settled and everything is OK with them, I think if they're settled and everything is OK with them, then the whole issue goes away. What UNRWA has kept alive is this idea of a right of return, this idea that they will once, one day settle in Israel in a sense by replacing the Israeli Jewish population. So UNRWA is already evil just for that. But then this report from the Israelis passed on to the Biden administration, leaked by the New York Times, shows that UNRWA employees were actively involved on October 7th in the massacre. They were involved in kidnapping women. They were involved in helping Hamas stage the attack. They were involved in working, killing, in killing Israeli citizens, in facilitating Hamas, helping Hamas, working with Hamas. But they were actively in Israel. There's actually cell phone evidence of UNRWA employees crossing the border out of Gaza and into Israel. So they were active on October 7th. They were part of this evil. And of course, their salaries are funded by you. By you, if you're an American through your tax money, if you're European through your tax money, the United States is the largest donor to UNRWA. I think Germany and the UK and France all give huge quantities of money to UNRWA. So here you are funding the salaries of people who then go in and murder and butcher Israelis. On top of that, this has been known. UNRWA's involvement with Hamas has been known for years. UNRWA's responsible for the schools in the Gaza Strip, in the refugee camps in Lebanon and elsewhere in the West Bank. And we know what they teach. They teach hatred of Israel. They teach veneration to the martyrs, to suicide bombers. They've been teaching this hatred for years and years and years. We know that UNRWA's schools were bases for Hamas, were launch pads for missiles into Israel, were places in which Hamas was hiding. One school, the floor above the school, was completely boober-trapped. In another case, we know that one Israeli hostage was kept in a home of an UNRWA employee. Add to that that evidence of discussion, this is going to be presented I think in front of Congress tomorrow, a chat group of 3,000 UNRWA teachers, where they discuss all kinds of stuff like when are they going to get their salaries, also includes messages, photos, and videos celebrating Hamas, celebrating the massacre of October 7th, and other acts of terrorism if you go back far enough. In other words, 249,000 user posts in this chat group, many of them, a celebration of death and destruction. So UNRWA has been working with Hamas. It is an evil organization. It is one more evil to add on to the list of evil things the United Nations does. The United Nations should be shut down. It should be shipped off to Caracas or to, I don't know. You pick the spot in hell where we can ship the UN to and make it its base. It certainly should not be on a prime real estate in New York City. The UN represents everything the opposite of America and New York. I think that's a horrific story. The Biden administration has stopped funding UNRWA as of this weekend, as have many European countries. Norway stands out as somebody who is a one country that said they will not cease funding. Who knows why? Of course, the guilt card is played. If they cease funding, what will happen to all these poor refugees? What will happen to their children? Well, it's better they get no schooling than they get schooling in Hamas propaganda. In 2018, Trump, one of the positive acts that he did, suspended funding for UNRWA. He funded UNRWA in 2017. In 2018, the Trump administration was trying to rage a deal with Israel and the Palestinians. Trump administration was actively involved in trying to establish a Palestinian state. Not under terms that they viewed as friendly to Israel, but those active negotiations that, what's his name? Trump's son-in-law was engaged in. He was shuttling back and forth to Islam. He was meeting with the Palestinian leadership. And in order to put pressure on the Palestinians to engage in the negotiations and to compromise, the Trump administration stopped funding Jared Kushner, stopped funding UNRWA, stopped funding the support for refugees. Remember, this is also a time where Trump had a great national security adviser. I think one of the better national security advisers we've had in the last 30, 40, 50 years, I don't know. And that's John Bolton, which everybody in the Republican Party now hates. So they were tough. They were tough. And pressure. And John Bolton knows exactly what the UN is. He served in the UN, like Nikki Haley. He never got a permanent appointment because Congress refused to appoint him because he was too controversial, too good. John Bolton knows what UNRWA is because he is a foreign policy expert. Everybody pretty much knows what UNRWA is, but he has the courage of his convictions. And as a consequence, because of the influence of Bolton, the Trump administration stopped funding UNRWA. One of the first things that Biden did in coming into office was restarting the funding. What they've done now, they suspended the funding. But what's different now from 2018 is so have many countries in Europe. UNRWA basically is bankrupt. The head of the UN, a horrible human being and a real monster of a human being. The head of the UN is begging. I'll begging that countries start funding UNRWA again. Otherwise, I'll have to shut it down. And the poor kids are going to starve. No money for UNRWA should be the push right now. And hopefully that'll hold. Hopefully that'll hold. All right. Talk about more stuff in the Middle East. Last story from the Middle East, I think, yes. Last story in the Middle East. The United States has just announced that it will supply or sell Turkey 40 F-16 fighter jets, as well as upgrade kits for dozens of other F-16s that the Turks already have. That is, it upgraded to a state-of-the-art F-16 standards. This is all part of, if you remember, I think it was last week or the week before last. I talked about this. Turkey's voted to approve NATO membership for Sweden. This sale of F-16s to Turkey has been long coming. It's been negotiated over many years. Nobody has really opposed this. And they were supposed to get the F-16s over a year ago, but the Biden administration halted the sale of the F-16s as part of putting pressure on Turkey to approve Sweden and Finland into NATO. If you remember, Turkey refused to approve that partially because it's somewhat friendly with Putin and partially because they don't like Sweden's attitude towards the Kurds and what the Turkish consider terrorist groups in Turkey. Sweden has reformed their terrorism laws. Sweden has also passed a law to ban the burning of the Quran as part of this appeasement of Turkey. And now the United States is delivering the F-16s. Turkey, in the meantime, has approved NATO membership. Now the only country holding up NATO membership for Sweden is Hungary. But the Hungarian obon said, I think it was a week ago, that they would approve it soon and that Sweden would become a member of NATO. Let me just say, I've said this before, no matter what happens in Ukraine, basically from a strategic perspective, Russia lost this war as soon as Finland and Sweden became NATO members. I mean, Sweden and Finland are substantially more important than Ukraine for NATO. They have significant militaries. Sweden has a significant military-industrial base. They build weapons systems, including tanks and airplanes. And having them as part of NATO is a huge win. Finland, of course, has a very long border with Russia and a military that has fought the Russians, granted, a very long time ago, but it fought the Russians and a military and a people very, very, very much committed to fighting the Russians if it ever happens. So the fact that Sweden and Finland have joined NATO, Sweden will join NATO soon, is excellent, strengthens NATO dramatically, and is a strategic loss, dramatic strategic loss for Putin. But it will happen, and it will happen very soon. All right, let's see, what else do we have? Talk about Ukraine. God, I'm surprising, I think, to anybody who actually knows Ukraine and knows what goes on there. Ukraine has just uncovered a mass fraud in weapons procurement. This is not weapons procurement from the United States. This is $40 million that were allocated for buying shells that were paid to a Ukrainian defense contractor, who then supposedly was going to outsource this and bring in the shells. And it turns out that the money was delivered, and the shells were never delivered. And there were five people within the Ministry of Defense, including managers of the military supplier, Lviv Arsenal, that pocketed the money. The money is being moved around, and it's in foreign bank accounts and so on. But sadly, I think, as anybody again who knows, is there is significant corruption in Ukraine. And attacking Ukraine for corruption is a good thing. Having the United States carefully monitor how any kind of money it sends Ukraine is used is an important thing. Ukraine now, on several occasions, has prosecuted people for corruption related to the war effort. Hope they keep doing it. Hope the Ukrainians keep cleaning house. I hope the Americans help them by monitoring how the money is deployed, how the money is used within Ukraine. Primarily, the US can help by just deploying weapons rather than deploying money. Don't give them dollars, give them shells, tank shells. So we will see Ukraine continuing, I think, to try to clean house, particularly if it wants to get EU membership and ultimately NATO membership. It's going to have to show a pretty clean slate. It will have to show limited corruption, significant limitations on corruption. And I think Ukraine's engaged in these efforts to try to do exactly that. Some of the Republican excuses for not helping out Ukraine in the war or Ukraine's corrupt, any help we give them is siphoned up. Again, there is an element of truth. That's why it's an argument that seems to work on people. But A, it's not reason enough to let Putin win. And B, Ukraine can do a better job, can do a job, and the United States can do a better job in making sure that that corruption does not affect US aid, does not apply to the aid that comes in from the United States. All right, let's talk about LNG. The United States is the number one exporter of liquefied natural gas in the world. That happened in 2023. It surpassed Qatar and Australia. It shipped 91.2 million metrics of ton of LNG across the world. A big reason why Europe is managing, in spite of the fact that it is not getting natural gas from Russia, is because of liquefied natural gas that is produced in the United States, that is pumped out of the ground in the United States, turned into a liquid and loaded onto ships in the US. The United States has built a large number of liquefied natural gas export terminals. Right now, the United States has seven, and they have five more under construction. The US has unlimited, almost a number of such natural gas. There's a huge amount of natural gas that it can deploy for this. Its main market, or one of its biggest markets, is obviously Europe. Sadly, it can't actually deliver the LNG to any American port because of the Jones Act, but we can certainly export it to places like Europe. And again, this has been a lynchpin in the strategy of Europe to manage without natural gas from Russia. This massive expansion of LNG and becoming number one LNG exporter has all happened under Biden's watch. Indeed, the United States is the largest producer of fossil fuels right now in the world. It produces more oil than any country in all of human history has ever produced, 13.3 million barrels a day. And it's interesting because this is both an asset and liability for Biden when he's accused by Trump in debates or whatever, if there are any debates, of clamping down on energy. He can say, no, under me, we're producing more oil than we produced under Trump or under anybody, any country, ever. And we're the number one exporter of LNG. But the problem for him is that if he says that, all of which is true, and I think gets him the votes of independents and others, it alienates young people. It alienates climate change activists, primarily the young. It alienates people on his left who are already alienated because of his support for Israel. So he is stuck as part of unsticking himself, I guess, and he announced today, this morning, I think, or yesterday, he announced that they are freezing the permitting of new liquefied natural gas assets, new liquefied natural gas export terminals. This is, of course, as a result, we've talked about this on the show, actually, of environmentalists, activists trying to convince them that natural gas is particularly liquefied natural gas because this methane, I guess, released when the gas is turned into a liquid, something like that, they argue, is really, really damaging in terms of CO2. This is a consequence of that. Now, he's not stopping the export of liquefied natural gas. He's not taking away permits, not for the terminals that exist, and not for the five that are under construction. All this is really freezing future construction. Temporarily, he claims, while they look into it. Now, that's tragic enough. But you have to understand this again, so much of everything that happens over the next few months. He saw this with immigration that I talked about yesterday. It's all about politics. It's all about perception. This is all about showing his base, showing those kids on the left, young people on the left, that no, no, no, he's clamping down, even though it does nothing to reduce the 91.2 million metric tons. Indeed, I expect 2024 to exceed 91.2. We'll export much more than 91.2 in 2024. But he'll be able to say, look, I froze it. We're looking at it. They might be more in the future. I haven't abandoned the climate agenda. I'm all with you on the climate agenda. Well, at the same time, going to independence, wink, wink. Yeah, but we're the number one exporter of LNG, and we're producing more oil than we ever have. Now, whether he can get away with that, dualism, who knows. Again, the number one asset that Biden has going into this election is not young people. It's not his position on anything. It's not his Asian experience. That's a liability. The only asset, I think, that Biden has, really, the only asset he has, because he doesn't have many, the only asset Biden has is Donald Trump. That's it. If it wasn't Donald Trump running against him, he would lose, I think, in a frigging landslide. He just doesn't have. The left is willing to abandon him. The radical left. And the Jews are looking at Israel and stuff, and they don't want to have anything to do with the radical left. I think they'd be open, certainly, to Nikki Haley, to voting for somebody alternative to Trump. And independents don't really want Biden. He's senile. He's completely lost it. He's clueless. Why would you vote for him? The only reason to vote for Trump, the only reason to vote for Biden is Trump. And it's the only chance, the only chance he has to win is if he runs against Donald Trump, which it looks like he will. So we'll get to see Donald Trump losing. I think losing again. We'll see. I mean, he might not, because he's running against Biden. So who knows? Two unbelievable losers. All right, finally, we've covered this quite a bit over time, the real estate collapse in China, the real difficulties that real estate developers are having in China. And Everglade, which started this all off, really, the Everglade group, is now being ordered by a judge in Hong Kong, basically to liquidate. So what you're going to see is this massive, huge company that at some point was valued, what was they valued? It managed to amass, not that they were valued, managed to amass $300 billion worth of liabilities. And they are going to have to, they're going to liquidate the whole thing. It shares down 99% from its peak, that is, and bonds, which usually trade at 100, and now trading at about a buck. Sorry, it's less than two cents, right? Less than two cents. So here is a company that's been eviscerated because of the insanity of the real estate market in China, the Chinese government used real estate, and in a sense, a pyramid scheme within real estate to artificially ramp up their GDP numbers, ramp up the sense of wealth and success. Everglade, sorry, not Everglade, Everglade, Evergrande, something like that, they used these real estate companies and these real estate projects to beef up the perceived wealth of the Chinese people. That has collapsed completely, and is in free fall. Evergrande is the first, they're going to be others, and it's going to be interesting to see how this liquidation happens, who is in charge of the liquidation, and what prices, and who buys these assets. Other real estate companies are also in liquidation in China, smaller, much smaller than this, but again, nothing really is happening. Part of the problem is that if you start liquidating these real estate companies, the valuations in real estate come down, and then you start looking at other real estate companies that seem OK somehow under current valuations, but under liquidation valuations, maybe also bankrupt, and so the Chinese government might have a strong incentive not to liquidate very quickly and to wait. All right, the Chinese economy, generally, broadly, we'll keep talking about this, is in deep economic trouble and is economically struggling significantly. All right, I think that a lot of the Chinese all right, I think that that does it. Let's see, let me remind you all that you can support the Iran Book Show by providing monthly support at IranBookShow.com slash membership or on Patreon or on Subscribestar, but Patreon is a great way to to do it. You can also support the Iran Book Show by making a super chat by using a sticker to make a monetary contribution without asking a question or by asking a super chat question in the section in the super chat section below. All right, let's see, there's a dollar sign below that you can get it. All right, I also will remind you that I think these are the last few days to sign up for the INRAND conference in Amsterdam and the INRAND conference in Austin. I just came back from Austin, as you know, and Greg and Ben and others who are part of the program that is that is being put together for the conference in Austin. They describe what they will be teaching really. I don't want to reveal it here because I don't think the Institute has yet really, really, really cool stuff. I mean, really good stuff. I would love to go. You're going to get great teachers, great lecturers on interesting, interesting philosophical content, interesting applications of objectivism. It's going to be a fabulous conference. So if you can at all sign up for the INRAND conference in Austin or in the Netherlands, I'm actually on a phone call in an hour to discuss the program of the conference in the Netherlands. But I really, really, really hope you guys can sign up. Many of you can get scholarships, but to do all that, you have to go to INRAND.org slash start here. You should go to INRAND.org slash start here anyway. Just to check out all the different things that the INRAND Institute is doing right now is involved in right now and that you can sign up for right now. So go to INRAND.org slash start here. And the reason to do slash start here is that that page is curated, especially for those of you who listen to your on-book show with special offers just for you. So please, please do that before you sign up. All right, let's see. What do we need to do? We need to answer super chat questions. But let me first thank Mary Eileen for $50. That is amazing. Thank you, Mary Eileen. Stephen, thank you. Let's see. Ryan, thank you. Gail, thank you. An anonymous user, thank you. And we did the outlines design, so I think we're all caught up. All right, let's see. Mary Eileen says, thank you for the fantastic talk in defense of Israel. My pleasure. Thank you for all the support. Thank you for having my back on all these issues and all these controversies. All right, let's do a Sivano. Sivano says, whoot, return of the news. Yes. Thank you, Sivano, for being a consistent, steady supporter of the on-book show and particularly the news show. So thanks, Sivano. Ryan, if Biden drops out of the race and the dams nominate Michelle Obama, is it possible that she becomes the authoritarian authoritarian precipitated by Trump's influence? She may be of the left, but it makes me nervous all the same. No, I don't think so. I don't think there's any reason to believe that Michelle Obama is that authoritarian. I mean, Michelle Obama is, again, a D1, maybe bordering on D2, like her husband was. Ds are not Ams. They're not the authoritarians that you would expect. They're disintegrators. They can't unite. And just imagine the right going out of the plectic. The whole point of the dem hypothesis is that, as I understand it, is that the left, the egalitarian left, the D2s, the complete disintegration, the D2s are so disintegrated, so disintegrated, that they create chaos and they create destruction, they create anarchy. And as a consequence, they make it possible for an authoritarian to come and unite the country. It's important that the authoritarian present himself as a uniter, not as a divider. So D2 and Nihilists, they can't unite, they can't put anything together because they're D, they're disintegrators. So what you need is an M, somebody who is a misintegrated, integrated around something wrong. And what that misintegration is, Leonard speculates that it's somebody who wraps around, you know, is across and a flag, and I agree with him. I think it's across and a flag and maybe environmentalism roped in. But the society has to get to such a point where everything is fragmented, everything's falling apart, that even the leftist supports the new authoritarian. Think of the Nazis. Think of Hitler. What he does once he gets into power and how he unites the left and the right through his authoritarianism. And that is only made possible because of the complete fragmentation and disintegration of the Weimar Republic. And therefore people searching and looking. And if they can't find it in communism, because many of the Nazis started out communists, then they'll shift to being Nazis because there's not that much difference in policy. Because ultimately what they want, what they're seeking is, you know, to be told what to do. What they're seeking is some kind of thing they can believe in and be told what to do. You should all read the ominous parallels by Leonard Peacock. And those of you interested in digging further should read the dim hypothesis by Leonard Peacock. But the ominous parallels is happening. You can see it around us. Dim gives it an epistemological basis in terms of how to look at it and how to try to predict where we're heading. That's what I try to do. I know some of you don't agree with my analysis. That's fine. Leonard Peacock might not agree with my analysis. That's fine too. We are in objectivism, not a cult. I have a feeling though that if I sat down with Peacock and we talked it out, I think we'd agree in the end. Shazba, what do you think of the following talking point? The best way to make fill in the blank more affordable is to make everything more affordable. I think that's true. I think that's true, particularly if you can guarantee everything more affordable. Then yes, it's to increase the purchasing power of your dollar and it's to make components more affordable. It's to make, I mean, except wages. Wages should not be more affordable. Labor should be less affordable because you want people to be able to afford their affordable things. Yeah, I think that makes sense. Okay, James, one of my colleagues just flew into Boston to visit and noticed homeless people sleeping in and around the airport, which is weird because Boston is cold. Is it a security risk to have homeless people or migrants sleeping there? I don't know near the airport. Why is it security risk? I don't know why it's security risk. There's no threat from the airport. There's no threat that the homeless people, I mean, it's only if the homeless people are dangerous and then they're dangerous anyway. I don't know why them hanging out around an airport is a risk. It's probably a little warmer around the airport because of the jets flying in and out. Maybe that's why they sleep there rather than in Boston, but I don't know why they would be there. I don't know why anybody homeless would be in Boston. Start hiking south. Yeah, no idea. Larry says, your speech in Austin was magnificent. Thank you, Larry. You really, really appreciate that. Please, please, please share, share, share. And if you anybody, if you know anybody who's willing to invite me to come and give that speech anywhere, to a social group, a campus club, a university, anything, then please, you know, friends of the IDF meeting, then please have them contact me and I would love to do it. It's a shame to have a talk like that and just do it once. It would be great to right now do a tour around the United States defending Israel. But for that, we need people who are willing to host me and we need people who need to fund the tour. I think I can get the funding to the tour. It's the people who want to host me is the challenge right now. So hopefully we can find some people to host me and we can make that happen. Eyal says, why is it always the evil countries that have all the oil and gas? Well, the United States has more oil and gas than anybody or at least is producing more oil and gas than anybody. And it's not evil. There's a lot of oil and gas in France, or at least you need a frack to get it. A lot of oil and gas in the UK, a lot of oil and gas in Ukraine and in probably in Germany. The good guys won't drill for it. They won't seek it out. There's a ton of oil and gas in Canada. There's a ton of oil and gas in Alaska. Oh, Argentina, huge basin where you could frack and produce oil and gas, huge quantities for 100 years or more in Argentina. But you have to be willing to drill. You have to be willing to go for it. And the best way to do that is to assign property rights to mineral minerals. So assign people mineral rights. And then suddenly the incentives change and the people living there actually want you to drill. Remember today, every country except the United States and the world, the mineral rights, therefore the profits from the minerals all go to the government. They don't go to the individuals on whose property the mineral is found, which is a travesty. James says, what do you see happening in finance in the next few years in London and Singapore? Do you think Singapore will finally overtake London? It has been number three as a financial center for many years by most metrics and lists. I think it very well could overtake London partially because I think that Hong Kong is in decline and a lot of Asia will move to Singapore. I think Singapore also could be a bridge to India, not only to China where it already does business, but also to India because it's kind of on the way to India. And of course the relatively growing economies of Indonesia and Malaysia, which are all in that area. So I do think Singapore has a chance of overtaking London. London though I expect to remain strong, not because of anything except that it has immense talent. It has a huge network. There is a massive networking effect of everybody being in one location, a lot of smart people in particular industry being in one location like Silicon Valley. And London has had that historically and even though it's at a big disadvantage now because of Brexit, relative to the advantages it had before Brexit, it still is a very, very powerful financial market and I think still maintains itself. But it is gonna be challenged because of Brexit and we'll lose some of its business because of Brexit. Singapore I think benefits from the decline of Hong Kong. All right, Robert, last night's show was especially good. Oh, I heard it live or multi-tasking and then listen a second time this morning while shopping. Nice that the episode got high super chat dollars you earned it. Thank you, I really, really appreciate it. Yes, and it was nice. We did very, very well in super chat last night. So thank you, Robert. 2046, what do you say to the we shouldn't have been there kind of response? Well, I talked about that, but we shouldn't be there but it doesn't matter, neither should Iran. That is, it wasn't Jordanian killing us because we're in Jordanian land. It wasn't even, you know, it was Iranians. And Iran has no business there. So my point is this, it doesn't matter whether you should or shouldn't have been there. Americans are killed. It is the responsibility of the United States government to protect them. And in this case, the United States government put them there. Now you could argue they shouldn't have been there and I agree, given the lack of strategy, I disagree given that I think there should be a strategy and that, you know, we need to have a strategy against the terrorizing nations of the Middle East. It's sad that we don't. But it doesn't matter. The reality is Iran has killed Americans. It needs to pay a price. And it's been a war with America since 1979, killing Americans all over the Middle East. Should have been there, shouldn't have been there is irrelevant, don't touch us. And if we'd responded appropriately in 79 or in 83, or in 85, or in 89, none of this would be happening right now. The whole Middle East would be a different place. So do it. Yeah, I mean, as one of FEMA said, this is in the chat, American military is thereby the invitation of Jordan. Not that I think that's an excuse. There's still no strategy. And therefore you don't put people in harm's way without one. But Jordan is very concerned about ISIS and al-Qaeda infiltrating its east. Its east is just desert. That nobody lives there. Just huge swaths of desert. And it borders both Syria and Iraq and all the challenges there. And I think part of the alliance between the United States and Jordan, Jordan has asked America to be there in order to help protect it from al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other Iranian forces. Christian says, what is your opinion of Dr. Dan Suftan from Haifa? I find him quite interesting as an intellectual and he's often really funny. I have to admit, I don't know him. So I'm gonna copy paste and look him up. But I don't know him. Thanks Christian. Ryan says, with minds everywhere to like the show, share the show, live your life using your mind to pursue your rational values. Like the show guys, there's, I don't know how many likes there are, way less than views. So it really helps the algorithm if we like to show. I know the Godzilla movie, I know, I know, I know. I'm waiting for it to be streamed. I'm waiting for it to be streamed. I've got a really nice setup at home. I don't think I'll lose much by watching it when it streams. But get one of the streaming companies to start streaming it and I'll watch it. Henry Hammond says, how does Nikki Haley compare to other Republicans in the past, except Trump? Like the presidential candidates in 16, 2012 and 2008. She's better than all of them. She's better than all of them. She's much better than Bush. She's not some mealy mouth, compassionate, conservative. I don't think Nikki Haley has any problem after 9-11 blaming Islamic terrorism. Islamic radicals, jihadis, Islamic totalitarians, like Bush freaked out and couldn't say the word Islam, called it a religion of peace and invited them all to pray at the White House during Ramadan. Right after 9-11, a month after 9-11, unbelievable. She's much better than Bush. McCain was nothing and nobody and in the middle of the road, that was awful. It was not Obama. That was Trump. Sorry, it wasn't Obama or Trump, it was Bush. Bush called Islam a religion of peace. Bush hijacked by bad people. Bush invited them to celebrate the Ramadan in October, 2001, in the White House. I know, because I was commenting on it as it was happening. Don't give me that BS. Bush wouldn't say Islamic terrorism. Now he said one week, one week. I can't remember what year it was. He used the term Islamic fascism other than that, he never said Islamic terrorism ever. Bush is the culprit, not Obama. Obama was just following up on Bush. There was no change in that policy. So Nikki Haley is much better on foreign policy. She's tough. She was excellent as a UN ambassador. She's excellent now on her delivery. She's the only candidate who actually has written about wanting to preserve capitalism and wanting to enhance capitalism. She's the only candidate who has talked about cutting government spending, so cutting government spending. So yeah, she's better than McCain. She's better than Romney. She's better than Trump. She's better than Bush by a long shot. I think you'd have to go back a long time to find a better candidate. Certainly, I mean, Ronald Reagan was the last good Republican. She's better than every single Republican other than Ronald Reagan in recent times. So I'm all for, you know, she has problems. Her thing about no anonymous posts on social media is absurd and ridiculous and borderline fascist. She had a few other, what she said about the civil war was terrible. Yeah, I was just saying that. So she has some really bad positions, again, particularly on anonymity and social media. But, and I think those are unconstitutional anyway. I don't think it's the government can step in and eliminate anonymity, particularly when the federalist papers were written anonymously. But, you know, again, she is good on all these other things in a way that others have not been good on them. And given the alternative is Trump, she is way ahead in my view. Anonymous user, absolutely horrific abolish the UN. Absolutely, Ryan says abolish the UN. Thank you, Ryan. Henry, on page 81, Eddie talked to Galt, which no one knew at the time. And he said that everything depends on power and the engine. And then he said to Galt, why are you laughing? A nice detail, yes, it is a nice detail. And who said Iran didn't have a sense of humor, right? Yeah, it all depends on energy, right? Anonymous user says, keep up the Ukrainian updates. It's very important. Will do. James, how will the Chinese economy slowing down more and more each month, impact manufacturing in the US and Southeast Asia? I mean, it's not that it's slowing down. It's hard to tell what's exactly happening. Actually, manufacturing is going up. Other parts of the economy are collapsing. I think the fact that China is shifting again after it tried to shift away from manufacturing and shifting towards manufacturing, towards increasing dramatically manufacturing, is actually going to lower prices. It's actually going to cause problems for manufacturers around the world because they're going to be competing against a desperate China trying to get its manufacturing back on track. So I think it's going to be difficult for other parts of Southeast Asia and manufacturers around the world to compete against China at least with regard to cheap goods, low margin goods, because China is trying to beef that up right now in an effort to inflate the economy or reverse the damage being done by the investment sector collapsing and the real estate site collapsing. Note that stock market in China was in freefall in spite of the government's effort to try to beef it up, to try to underpin it by subsidizing people buying stocks. I am Mika wants to flatten Gaza. Maria Lien says, thank you for a fantastic talk in defense of Israel. I appreciate it, Maria Lien. James, have you given any talks in Scotland or only Ukraine? No, I've given many talks really only at one university, I think, in Scotland. I'm trying to think. Yeah, I think I've given talks in Edinburgh on a number of different occasions. Several at the University of Edinburgh and then one as part of something called the Free Market Roadshow in Edinburgh a few years ago. So, yes, I have given talks in Scotland. Happy to do more. Shelley, are you going to talk about the defunding of UNRWA? Great news if you ask me. Yeah, it is great news and I talked about it like 30 minutes ago. So rewind the show and it's right there. I did talk about it. All right, everybody, thank you. I appreciate it. Of course, it's only good news if it holds. Let's see if all these countries have the stamina, have the, it will be able to withstand the pressure coming in from the United Nations and everybody else and the guilt that's placed on them. All right, everybody, I will see you tonight, 7 p.m. East Coast time. Yes, 7 p.m. East Coast time today. Tonight, I'll let you know what the topic is later.