 fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and fundamental principles of freedom. This is the Iran Book Show. All right, everybody, welcome to Iran Book Show on this, what is it, Sunday night, a little early today. Good morning to everybody. I assume if you're in the U.S. We'll see. Today will be a good test to see whether Europeans are staying alert and are going to join the show and watch live. This is an opportunity for them. It's three o'clock here in Paris. I know it's 9 a.m. in the East Coast and 6 a.m. on the West Coast, so I'm not expecting as many of our usual American viewers to be here on a show live, but it's a nice good time for you, Brits. It's great for you, French and Norwegians and others out there, so let's see if we can fill a super chat or fill a chat and a super chat with Europeans watching live. Because I'm not going to be able to count on the Americans today. Yeah, we've got Netherlands represented. You know, I think we can make a go at this. I think they might be, they might, oh, look, Jennifer's up early. All right. Hey, Jennifer. Jennifer's up in, are you on East Coast time? Is Michigan East Coast time? I guess so. So maybe it's not up early, but listening early. So thanks, everybody. I know it's an unusual time, but I've got a talk tonight, and I haven't done a show in a long time, and I don't know when I'll be able to do a show or won't be able to do a show tomorrow. I've been traveling, as you know, it's been a crazy schedule, equal to reality, watching life in the UK. That's good. So we've got Michigan. We've got the UK. We've got Norway. We've got Netherlands. No local, nobody local here in France. Bonjour Monsieur. So it looks like we've got a Frenchman. All right. So we've got somebody from France. All right. So we're picking up, we're picking up Europeans slowly here. This is good. So I've been traveling a lot. You know, I can't remember when we last spoke. I think it was Sunday and there's Vienna. We've got Vienna and some more Americans. So we've got, you know, it was an Edinburgh. I think you know that. I put on, I put up the video from Edinburgh, so you should be able to see the talk from Edinburgh about why Scotland should not go independent. I've already got a bunch of, a bunch of critics. David Baker says Paris versus London. Okay. I can talk about that in a little bit. Might piss off some people, but let's see. So that's, we did Edinburgh and then Berlin and then Milan and then Oslo and then today I'm in Paris and tomorrow in Lisbon that after that Madrid. And then a few days of vacation, but it's been hectic. I've been under the weather. So traveling and feeling not quite right has not been fun. I'm having a harder time sleeping for whatever reason. Maybe maybe I'm getting too old anyway. Having a harder time sleeping while I travel, which makes it difficult. And I think reduces the quality of your immune system, which makes it and makes it difficult. There's Henrik. So we got another Norwegian, so we've got two people from Norway. That's great. Yeah, look at that. We're at 45 already, 45 live. Okay. So we're picking up some Europeans slowly. This is good. Trip has been good. Lots of good talks, lots of good presentations, lots of opportunities to talk to people, meet people. This is Ertan from Turkey. That's fantastic. Yep. People are listening to the Iran Book Show in Turkey. And I have to say, you know, probably the most inspiring part of the trip, the most fun for me actually in the trip, interestingly, is, oh, we've got somebody from South Africa. Kobus. Wow. That's great. And South Africa, the time zone is much better for you in South Africa now. Yeah, we should have some Israelis. I mean, this is a good time for Israel. Yeah, we're in the time zone for this part of the world. We should have Africa, Israel, Europe. We should have them down and we should even get some Indians, right? It's probably not that late in India right now. Anyway, what was I going to say? The most inspiring part of the trip, the most inspiring thing that's happened these last week and a half, there's Israel on board, is there's been all the people who've come up to me and said that they're regular listeners to the Iran Book Show and have expressed in one way or another the extent to which the show is meaningful to them. So that's great because that helps keep this keeps it going. It helps motivate me. It helps make objective, I guess, the value that I'm providing and make objective the scale of it because otherwise it's just numbers, right? So many people watch. So many people support. So many people listen to but actually meeting you and actually many of you being eloquent and expressing the value the show has for you, some on the verge of tears. And it's just, wow, I mean, to know that I'm having a significant impact on hundreds of you is amazing and to meet some of you in person. So those of you, I know it takes a little bit of coverage, particularly when you're young. If you come up to me and thank me and express, it is greatly valued by me. It is you are partially responsible for me being able to continue to do this and me being able to continue to do this, hopefully indefinitely. I don't know about the travel that I'll have to give in the years to come. But in terms of the show, I hope to have the energy and the motivation and to be able to do this indefinitely. And you guys, what provide that? So thank you to all of you. Thank you for all of you doing that. New Ideal has posted my content. I don't know what that is. All right. Oh, they're posing some of the content. I'm posing some of the content. So yeah. So in terms of the talks themselves, there have been some good panels, good discussions, good debates, some good talks. I thought they'd talk in edema. It was pretty good. I'm still waiting for the talk in Durham. So far, that's my favorite talk just because it was relatively new material. I've given that talk two or three times before, but I thought the one in Durham was the best. That's about war and capitalism. So I'm waiting for that one and hopefully be able to put it up online for you guys to see and get comments on. And I do read the comments under the video, so particularly insulting ones. So please go, you know, comment on them and let me know what you think. But the Durham talk I'm looking forward to, I want to do more talks on. I mean, there are two topics I want to do more talks on. One is war on capitalism. As long as the war on Ukraine is going on, it's a good talk for me to give. And then the other talk is a talk I kind of gave in Norway in Oslo. When was it? The day before yesterday. And that is, that wasn't a title of the talk, but it's a talk I ultimately gave because I was bored with the title. The title of the talk was basically why liberty? You know, I think, and this is an important issue, I think people take for granted people free market types, including objectivists, I think, take for granted the idea of freedom and liberty. And it's just, yeah, well, everybody's for liberty and freedom. Of course, liberty and freedom. I mean, isn't that obvious? Isn't it obvious that we should be for? Well, it's not. And the clue to the fact that it's not obvious to be pro liberty, pro freedom is the fact that freedom and liberty are so rare and have been historically so rare and so rare even today, even after they've been, you know, established politically in some places and during some times, so frigging rare to have freedom and liberty. And then, of course, for people to understand what it means and then for people to embrace it. So before we even get to advocating for freedom, we have to understand why we want freedom and we have to be able to convince people of the why. Not just that it works in a in a crude sense, that markets work and, you know, prices are good signals and government is is doing all these awful things. But why is all that good? What's the standard of good? What's the standard by which you should measure all of that? And that is not obvious, I don't think. I mean, it's obvious to us, maybe. But I don't think it's obvious to the world. It's a question of where do we calibrate our education? To what? All right. So Tessa saying Sunday morning surprise. Thank you. Thank you, Tessa, for contributing and for joining us on a Sunday morning. Joe says 7 a.m. You're on. Great way to start the day. All right. So so Joe is somewhere in the mountain zone. Not sure exactly where. And yeah, Rob is Rob is it's 8 a.m. In Rob country. So Sunday morning. So yeah, I don't I think this is the first morning show. Maybe we should maybe we should do a we could do a regular morning show for the Iran book show morning and evening show. We could do two shows a day. Maybe that's my retirement plan, you know, do two shows a day every day. And that's it. That's all I do all day is my two Iran book shows. And that's it. Need a few more super chats and need a lot more monthly contributors to make that a reality so I can retire from everything else and just do Iran book live video, you know, eight hours a day or something. I don't know if you'd get I think you guys would get tired of it. So yes, somebody somebody wants to talk to me about how to increase the number of hours I do. Let me know. Let's see. All right. So I thought, you know, a lot of stuff in the news as I'm traveling, most of it kind of international, most of it's happening here in Europe, China as well. We've also got a we've also got a more and more talk about a recession in the United States. And so if we have time, we'll talk about that as well. But I thought I'd kind of do an overview of what's going on kind of in the news in the different in the different aspects of of the news. Let me see here one second. Right. Yeah, I think I know what I need. OK. So let me just see this. Yes. So let's start with with obviously the the the UK and what's been going on there. We've talked a lot about that. Oh, we've got a six a.m. We've got a six a.m. Alicia must be on the West Coast. So all right, so we've got we're covering all our bases here. And that's that's that's excellent. All right. I don't think I've commented since Liz Truss resigned. So Liz Truss would kind of force out a power by I think her own party, her flip flopping, her backtracking, the strategic errors that she made in proposing the economic plan that she actually proposed. All of that was was just too much. She is the shortest serving prime minister in UK history. She is, you know, if. She's a complete embarrassment, I think, to the Conservative Party, a Conservative Party full of very, very embarrassing stuff. And and. Oh, and so let me just find the stuff that I need. Anyway, yes. So she resigned, she resigned because of this economic plan. She resigned because she backtracked from it. She resigned because she mishandled it. She resigned because she gave the impression she didn't know what she was doing and she didn't know which direction she was heading. She was elected to the job on a kind of pro-growth platform. Of course, she was elected by a very small number of constituents, but she was elected for the job on a pro-growth, a pro-market agenda who her version of what a pro-growth, pro-market agenda looks like was rejected. Obviously by the media, but you'd expect that. But more importantly, it was rejected by the markets. It was rejected by the bond market. It's an a clear signal. The markets in a clear signal that this was not a good plan by any measure. And I actually agree with the markets. I think I think it's not a good plan. I'm not one of those people who think that any time you cut taxes, that's good, and that's enough. Or even that that should be the first thing you should do. I don't think that should be the first thing you should do when you're particularly when you're running deficits. So I don't think cutting taxes is the highest priority. She messed it up. She screwed it up by any standard. And then she couldn't explain the plan. So she had no communication strategy. And then she backtracked from pieces of the plan and then she fired the Treasury Secretary and the Treasury Secretary who had proposed the plan. She fired him and then chose to replace him a middle of the road. Nothing Treasury Secretary who represents kind of the the bland, grayness, you know, status, government, intruding center British politics. And then he retracted everything in the plan, basically, and was basically proposing the same old, same old, increased taxes, increased government spending, which the market rejects as well. And certainly the conservative party rejects, or one would hope so. And that has led to basically that led to pressure on her to resign and forced it to resign. Good. I mean, good residents. The Liz Truss, she turned out to be a massive disappointment on every front, on the front of economic policy and on the front of inability to communicate even basic basic principles. And there's Siri trying to correct me and just prove it. You know, I wonder if that's the NS, you know, NSA checking in on me. You know, we can talk about what should have been done. And I will in a minute. I'll talk about what I would have proposed. I've talked about this before. But but there is so that so now there's a new competition. There's a new election within the within the conservative kind of the core members of the conservative party to elect a new prime minister. The the same candidates are similar candidates as before. But now the threshold to become a candidate is much higher. So they're only going to be two or three of them. The it looks like Boris Johnson is interested in the job again, which is stunning. It would be stunning. Of course, Boris Johnson is the one who was prime minister, was the head of the conservative party when the conservative party won a landslide victory. But a lot of that was because he promised to run it as kind of a left of center political party. On economic issues and a right of center political party on cultural issues. So we will we will see he's he's seeking the nomination again. It's not it's not clear if he if he can get it. I don't think it would be good just politically for the party to do it. I mean, he's obviously he's obviously an elite, you know, exudes kind of a leadism above the law. You know, like everybody else down, but but but I'm above that. I don't need to be locked down. I don't need to not go to parties. I'm above all that kind of attitude, which I don't think is going to play well in the elections when there's an elect when there's a new election. I think the the other is Sunak Rishi Rishi Sunak Rishi Sunak is I don't know, probably also a fairly middle of the road, not particularly free market guy. And then there's there's a woman whose name I forget right now, but there's a woman who's also going to be running. Basically, I think the three of them, I have to say all three of them, all three of them represent the gray penny. Thank you, penny. You have to get Penny, whose name I can't pronounce. Penny is the third one. All of them represent the not free market. Penny Mordent represent the not free market side of the conservative party in the UK. So really, that part of the party supposedly was represented by List Trust. And as I said, she has done so much damage to the free market view. She crushed and burned on a pro growth, pro economic growth agenda. It wasn't a real pro economic growth agenda, but but the pretense, the pretense of pro economic growth is worse than the not pro economic growth. It just so there's nobody to represent that pro economic growth liberate the British economy perspective. So all three of them are kind of middle of the road. Of the three, I don't think you can elect about Johnson. I think that's that would just be a disaster. I don't think you can elect. I think penny is probably I don't think penny stands for anything. I think penny is nothing. So of the three, I would go with Rishi. And Sunak is probably just I don't know, it's hard to tell. You know, he's also obviously is he. I don't know if he's Indian or Pakistani. I'm not sure where he's from originally. That would be interesting. Just just that aspect of it would be interesting to have him to have in there. But yeah, I'm going to go with Rishi. He's an investment bank at least. He has some financial experience. He's going to be middle of the road. He's not going to be a real pro growth, pro liberty, pro freedom, pro free market kind of guy, but none of them are. And Boris is shot and penny strikes me as the most of all of them kind of lefty. And so I'm willing to give Rishi a shot. And another reason I'm willing to give Rishi a shot is that he's being endorsed now by by God. What's her name? Somebody will tell me in a minute what her name is. But by Kenny, by Kenny, Kenny Bradnock, she's endorsed him. You know, she's my favorite candidate candidate so far. Again, based on what she has said, give the speeches she's given and based on my interaction with her. She's still a politician. She's still going to make a political decision. She's still going to have to tread lightly. She my guess is she nominated Rishi. And I'm sure she'll get a juicy spot in a Rishi government. And that's a good thing because she'll be a voice for relatively freedom, relative liberty on the economic front. At least they'll be there. They'll be a voice. Not that there'll be anybody to hear it, but they'll at least be a voice. So yeah, so no good candidates. Again, I think the idea of presenting a pro-market, pro-freedom, pro-free markets, pro-economic growth agenda within the Conservative Party has now been squashed by the pathetic performance of Lys Tras. So she has done a lot more damage than just being a, you know, Prime Minister for 44 days. What she's done is she's tarnished the reputation of anybody. Who might stand for a better agenda. Who might stand for an agenda that is associated with again, with with with economic growth and. And so on. All right, let's see. What else? Yes, I wanted to say something about. What Lys Tras should have done. And I said a little bit about this a few a week or so ago. But I want to say a little bit more because I really, the more I think about it, the more this idea of the way she approached it and the more I kind of agree with the markets that what she did basically by suggesting lowering taxes and and suggested dramatically increasing spending primarily to subsidize energy was was justifiably both inflationary because it would have required the selling of a lot more bonds and the ultimately the monetization of those bonds by the Bank of England. Or if the Bank of England was not going to monetize them, it would have demanded a lot more people by those bonds that would have increased interest rates. And it would have shown would have would have resulted in significantly higher interest rates in the UK. That's what the bond market basically priced. They basically said, oh, interest rates are going up. Let's do it now. And they increased interest rates in anticipation, in anticipation of all of that. So, you know, so so that was a disaster. You cannot argue for markets, for freedom, for any semblance of growth, for economic growth, you cannot propose that by cutting taxes and increased spending at the same time. Now, you know, Ronald Reagan got away with it. Margaret Thatcher did not. But Ronald Reagan got away with it. But Ronald Reagan, it was a different era and we'll get to the aspect of the era. There was particularly good. But one of the one of the reasons was different era that debt was a lot lower than it was than it is today, dead generally. And so there was a lot more room to maneuver, if you will. And most of government spending increases in the 1980s were due to military spending, although domestic spending didn't shrink, but due to military spending, which was to combat the USSR. So it had some rational basis. This subsidies, all the rest of the spending, all looks, there was no end to it. When was it going to end? And most Western countries included the UK and the US. Very much worse shape physically in terms of the amount of debt that they have taken on. And the bond market said, no, enough's enough. This is ridiculous. And justifiably so, I think. Justifiably so. It reminds me, I mentioned this in a talk the other day, it reminds me of the bond vigilantes of the 1990s. Any time Bill Clinton would propose some spending plan to socialize health care, like Hillary care and other programs, the bond market freaked out and interest rates would shoot up and Bill Clinton would have to retract the proposal and back off. And it got to the point where James Carville, Bill Clinton's advisor, said that if he died, he wanted to come back reincarnated as the bond market because it was more powerful than God. Well, that's good. That what happened in the 90s is the bond market provided the discipline that voters were not. It provided discipline on government. And I wish that were the case today. So a return to that would be good. Now, one of the questions you could ask is why isn't it the case today? And the main reason for that is that for the last 13, 14 years, the Federal Reserve has been so involved in buying bonds, so involved in the bond market, as so is the Bank of England, so is the European Central Bank, that they would determine prices, not the bond market. And everybody in a sense got used to that and the bond market lost its edge. It's lost its kind of sensitivity to economic policy because even if the federal government did something stupid that the bond market didn't like, the federal is going to bail it all out. Only now, with the unwinding of the stimulus, with unwinding of the balance sheets, both at the Federal Reserve, at the Bank of England and the European Central Bank, is the bond market going to stop playing a role again in our economy. And I expect bond vigilantes to be back now. And I think the United States and I think the Biden administration and future Republican administrations better pay attention because I think that what happened in the U.K. could easily happen in the U.S. There were some technical issues about why it happened so quickly, so dramatically in the U.K., technical issues about the way bonds, the way pension plans are funded in the U.K. But who's to say that American pension funds are not doing similar stuff, basically using derivatives or using leverage, equivalent of leverage to kind of exacerbate the returns. They could lose a lot of money if bond yields go up very, very quickly. Remember, when bond yields go up, bond prices go down. So this could very much happen in the U.S. And pay attention, people out there in government. And that would be good. One of the good things that could happen out of this is that people start paying attention to the bond market. Maybe the bond market wakes up and actually start pricing these bonds, not based on how much the Fed is going to buy and what's the Fed rate, what's the Fed going to manipulate and where's the Fed going to place interest rates, but maybe based on fundamentals, maybe start the bond market will stop pricing bonds based on fundamentals, based on log-took prospects, based on inflation. I mean, we still don't have that in the U.S. The 10-year bond is 4%. The yield in a 10-year bond is 4%. 4.2%, I think maybe, finally above 4%. Inflation is 8%. It just doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. I wouldn't buy a bond for 4% when inflation is 8%. I'm losing 4% of my money. Now, maybe there's nothing better in terms of safe, but I think over time and as government borrow more and more and more, those yields are going to go up. Government, by the way, is going to have to borrow more and more and more partially to pay interest on the debt as interest goes up. As the interest rate goes up, government's going to have to pay more and more interest on the debt. That's going to mean they're going to have to borrow more, deficits are going to go up, plus everything else, student loan, forgiveness, and everything else where deficits are going to go up and up and up in the United States. Interest rates, I think at some point, are going to have to reflect all that. That doesn't mean a 4% 10-year bond and mortgage is 7%. That probably means a 7% to 8% 10-year bond and mortgages are 10% to 12%. People forget that in the 90s, those were interest rates. My mortgage, I can't remember what my mortgage rate, but my guess is that my mortgage rate in 1993 was 9, 10, 11%. My first mortgage I ever got, I still bought a house, much lower prices than they are today. And prices will adjust downwards as affordability. As interest rates go up, the value of assets goes down. As interest rates go up, prices of assets go down, says interest rates go up, housing you'd expect to come down. As interest rates go up, stocks you expect to go down. As interest rates go up, bonds, prices come down. That's by definition. But as interest rates go up, asset prices are anything that people buy vis-a-vis an asset. This is why Bitcoin is going down, because Bitcoin is not currency, Bitcoin is an asset. Every asset price comes down. So housing prices will decline in spite of the fact that there's a shortage of housing. As interest rates go up, it's inevitable, almost metaphysically necessary for prices to come down. And we're seeing that. We're seeing that in housing, we're seeing that in stocks, we're seeing that in bonds, we're seeing that across asset classes. All right, what else did I want to say about all this? Yeah, it's bond market is waking up. That's what you should take from today's show. Bond market is waking up, and that's a good thing, not a bad thing. Now, of course, you should ask, what should Liz Truss have done? Let me just say a little bit on that, and then I think some of you are getting restless in terms of super chats. So maybe I'll do a few super chats. But if I do the super chats, it'll be the $20 and above, and the rest will have to wait until later. But let me just say what I think Liz Truss should have done, or what a new prime minister should do, or what a new president of the United States should do. It's all the same thing. I think the first thing that needs to be done, and you could have done this so quickly, and so efficiently, and so and it would have had such a profound effect, is the first thing that Liz Truss could have done, and she could have said, we have made a list of 500 regulations that we adopted in the United Kingdom because of the European Union, because of our membership in the European Union, that now because of Brexit, that now we don't have to have these regulations, we are eliminating them immediately. So something will be phased out, something will be just written off the books right now, but it will be immediate. It will not be next month, it will not be right now, it's happening. So that would be the first thing I would have done. Then we put a committee together to start studying all of our regulations, in particular, regulations limiting the production of energy in the UK, and we will be working to phase those regulations out, encourage innovation, encourage entrepreneurship, encourage ingenuity. So we are, so what she should have done is first, if she attacked all the regulations from the European Union, that would have, people would have loved it, right? I mean the base, the conservative base, the people who voted for Boris Johnson, all the people who voted for Brexit, that would have been yes, finally, we're seeing a consequence, a positive consequence of Brexit, because there's no other positive consequences that have happened because of Brexit yet. We can't see a single one in the UK right now. So that would have been the first thing, right? And then talk about deregulation of energy would have been maybe not well received by some, but would certainly have shown that you're doing something about it and would have had very quick, I think, benefits if you actually went through with it. And then deregulation generally, so deregulation, deregulation, deregulation, you start with that, you start with that, that's the most important thing. Second, if she's going to give a subsidy, some kind of subsidy for energy, and let's assume politically you have to do that in the UK right now, then make it somehow market-based, make it so that the more energy you use, the more you pay, because a flat giveaway is just stupid on every single fund, and it's actually going to lead to shortages. So make it somewhat market-based, help people who can't afford it, help the bottom, but penalize, penalizing a sense of increased prices, people who use more, just use a market mechanism to do it. And then, because you're increasing spending on the energy side, cut spending somewhere else, at least offset that, if not much more than that, that is put a program together and make a commitment to the markets, that you will be looking carefully at the entire budget, you will immediately cut enough to justify the upside on the energy. There's no way they want shortages. Shortages is political suicide for the party in charge. The last thing in the world they want is shortages. The opposition might want shortages, but not if you're in government. So you cut enough immediately to offset the energy, that's a good signal to the market, and then you commit to cutting, I don't know, 5% of the budget every year for the next five years or whatever, you actually make a commitment to cut a particular amount. You don't give specifics because you're still studying it, you're a new prime minister, but you make a specific, that, and then you say, once these cuts are going to be in place, once we start implementing these cuts, then we expect to reduce taxes significantly. And if you want to cut taxes at the same time, the one tax I would cut, that she did cut, but she also included lots of other taxes, lots of other cuts, is you cut the corporate tax. So, you know, in order to make British companies more competitive, blah, blah, blah, but at the end of the day, what corporate taxes cuts do is they reduce prices and they increase wages. So all of those would have very, very quick effects. So it's true that there's no appetite for austerity politically, but you've got two years before an election, you can get a lot, a lot can happen in those two years that is positive. A lot of economic stuff can happen that would spur economic growth. And by the time the election comes, you'll be writing on the benefits of your program. And that's, that's what you put together. That's the plan. That's not an objective plan. That's just a good kind of free market oriented plan that's not radical, that's not crazy, that's not insane. And one that respects and pays attention to your constituency, constituency voted for Brexit, a constituency that doesn't want to see tax cuts on the rich right now. You can get to that, a constituency that probably is going to demand some energy support and you customize it for them and still without compromising your market credentials and without pissing off the bond market, which I think is really important. I'm excited about, you know, we'll call this the return of the bond vigilantes. All right, I like that we can have a segment titled that, you know, Action Jackson could create a short segment with that title. Okay, let's see. What do we want to do? I see a lot of super chat flowing. That's great. We're still short quite a bit, but doing pretty well. Given the early morning, we actually got quite a few viewers. Let's let's pop in and see how many 111 live viewers. This is pretty good for a morning show. Maybe there is an appetite for a morning show like as you're sipping coffee before work on the West Coast. You go in and those of you, of course, would like to watch the One Book Show while you're at work. You can don't forget to like the show before you leave. We've got 108 people watching, but only 47 likes. So don't forget to like the show. It really helps with the algorithm. It's really helpful. Okay, let's do a few of the super chats. We'll do the $20 plus and we'll start with the big spenders. This is 45 pounds sterling, which is not as much as it used to be. Alexis asks, how do we deal with the, you see the free market, don't work, comment, we'll get after this fiasco? Well, we have to say what we always say. It wasn't the free market. We have to say Liz trust plans sucked even by our standard. It sucked. It was a bad plan. You can't keep spending the way you're spending and expect the bond market to respond any other way. The free market actually worked beautifully. The financial markets, which are in a sense relatively free, people buying sell. And if the Bank of England is not intervening, people are buying selling freely and determining prices responded perfectly to a bad plan. So I think that's how we need to respond. We need to not sugarcoat it and just we need to throw Liz trust under the bus. She deserves it. Let's see. We had Michael, Michael Sanders for $50. Thank you, Michael. Do these leftist elitist actually feel guilty and want to punish themselves over their own wealth? The ones I've seen in London and New York City seem to revel in their leader status and treat the working people. They want to help like crap. Yeah, I mean, they definitely have a superiority complex. They definitely look down or some of them, particularly the not all of them, but some of them look down on the people they want to help. Part of the reason they want to help and they think they deserve, they should help is because they believe that the regular people can't take care of themselves. They believe that they are somehow anointed as philosopher kings at some level. So I don't think it's just a question of guilt and punishing themselves. I think they also view it as kind of civic responsibility, the civic responsibility to help. They are the smart ones after all, they're the successful ones after all and they need to help all of us lowly cave dwellers to use the Plato's cave metaphor. Some of them also feel a tinge of guilt and therefore they want to get involved and they want to help with the expectation that guilt will go away. It won't go away. It won't help them. So they resent it. So they resent helping because it doesn't actually reduce the guilt, but the guilt is still there. But I do absolutely think that they feel the guilt. But they can't get rid of it. You can't wash that guilt away because the guilt is from a completely irrational source. There's nothing you can really do if the guilt is from the source of altruism. Well, you're not being an altruist by giving a little bit of charity. So there's no way to get rid of that guilt. So it's a complicated psychological state that they're in. And it's a combination of this elitist, philosopher, king attitude. I think a lot of people in Silicon Valley have it, a kind of moral responsibility, duty aspect of not just taking care of people, but also telling them how they should live, combined with a sense of guilt for their own success and for their own selfishness that kind of permeates everything that they do. And for some of them, they've got the two east syndrome of hatred of mankind, hatred of other people, or the wine syndrome of resenting other people and thinking that other people are worthless and looking down on them. So it's a combination of all of that and different people manifest it differently. All right, let's see what other $20 questions we have. We have Rob saying 20 bucks is a tie. Thank you, Rob. Let's see. Fred Harper says, woke up to medicate my sick cat and found YBS today on time on acts by accident. Happy to catch the show. I hope you are traveling well. Cheers to your content that the new ideal is posted. Started listening to that podcast as well. Yeah, I don't even know what new part new ideal is posted so far. Tessa says, Sunday morning surprise. Thank you, Iran. Thank you, Tess. Appreciate the support. Jay Lord, Jay Lord, 20 Australian dollars. Okay, I'm going to give you $20. It's not quite $20. He says, I recently heard someone say that I ran was much like Leo Strauss. How do you respond to this claim? I mean, I don't know even how we to start to respond to the claim because I don't know what that means. Their ideas are completely oppositely completely opposed to one another. There's no similarity between their ideas. Leo Strauss was fundamentally a Platonist. I mean, he and I ran as an Aristotelian. You know, Leo Strauss is a collectivist. He is a status. And in our book on the new conservatives, I think Brad Thompson myself argued that he kind of paves the way to fascism, some form of fascism. Strauss is not pro-capitalist. He's not pro-free markets. He's pro-state intervention to achieve the greatest good for the greatest people or the greatest good for the state. So no, there's nothing about Leo Strauss and I ran that is similar. Strauss believed that their hidden messages and the great works of the ancient philosophers exoteric and esoteric. I don't think I ran believed any of that. So there's nothing similar between the two. And so they have to give some content to that statement for me to be able to address it more specifically. But just as a general statement, it's nonsense. James Taylor asked, do rational people need to be prepared to live lonely lives in a new rational nihilistic world that the one we're stuck in today? No. I mean, and that's really, you know, part of what traveling around the world, you know, shows me and no, I mean, there are lots of rational people out there. There are lots of good people out there. There are lots of engaged, passionate people out there. There are lots of people who are trying to make their world better. There are lots of people who are trying to make trying to live the best life that they can. There are a lot of value seekers out there, a lot of truth seekers out there. Maybe it's more difficult in the world in which we live because of how many rational people they are relative to rational, but that just means we need to find each other and stay in touch and create communities online and in person. I mean, again, I've been traveling this, really, what is it, over a month now? Because I started in Korea and in Japan and in South America and then here to Europe. It's been over a month now that I've been traveling nonstop. Yeah, over a month. I think it's five weeks. And everywhere you go, you find communities of people who share values, who talk to each other, who, you know, some communities are closer, some communities are further apart. But people need that and they benefit from that. And in some cities, there's more than one community. There's a number of different people who hang out together, enjoy talking about ideas, enjoy experiencing art, or enjoy whatever it is that they enjoy. They enjoy doing stuff together. And so I don't think there's any reason to be lonely. And if you are, then you've got to get more aggressive about finding like-minded people and or converting people. I mean, I met two objectivists in Norway who are married one to a Brazilian woman and one to a Colombian woman. So, you know, you can import them. They weren't imported in that sense, but they, you know, you find people and you find people and you move to where you need to move to in order to make it work. Surrounding yourself with good people is more important than a particular geographic area. And more important than being close to your family or something like that. So, get up and go to where the good people are, find people, go online, you'll find people. So, no, I don't think you should give up and I don't think you should accept being stuck. I think you should work hard on finding the right people that will benefit your life and surround yourself with those people. All right, Alexis, shouldn't the European pensions be paying even more attention given that rates have been even lower over there? Yes. I mean, European pensions need to be paying attention. They were caught in a panic, a panic that was well deserved in a sense. And the European pensions are going to have to figure out how to restructure their balance sheets in ways that are conducive to rising interest rates because the Bank of England, while it bailed everybody else a week and a half ago, has committed to not continuing the bailout indefinitely and be selective about who and how and when they do bailouts. If they do bailouts, I think they shouldn't. I think they should let it crash and burn. But, yes, everybody should be really paying attention. Everybody should be really paying attention, particularly you, Alexis, because you trade in these things to what's going on. But European pensions, I mean, in European banks, I mean, European banks, we know Credit Suisse is in trouble. Now you got the finance geek out in me. We know Credit Suisse is in trouble. I would not be surprised if that was just the tip of the iceberg. I'm sure Deutsche Bank is in trouble. What if Italy gets into trouble? How many of Italy's bonds does Deutsche Bank and some of these other European banks have on their balance sheets? Can they afford to take a significant hit on Italian bonds? Italy is a lot bigger than Greece. The European Union generally was a much better position to bail out Greece than I think it is in a position to bail out Italy, partially because Italy is so much bigger, but also because I think their finances were better 12, 13 years ago than they are now. We've already had negative interest rates. You can't go much more negative than negative than we've had. So I think the European banking system is in trouble. So from an economic perspective, I think what we saw in the UK is a real warning sign to European pensions and European banks and ultimately European governments in terms of the dangers ahead. Italy just put in place a new prime minister, Milani. My Italian friends were not negative about her, so they are hopeful, but she's a populist. Can she put in place the kind of economic program that will enhance the Italian economy and give confidence to the bond market? Those bond vigilantes again? I don't know, but she would have to do a very similar thing to what I suggested Liz trust you. Do you regulate to the extent that she can, given that she's still in the European Union, start cutting spending? And I don't know how you do this, but there has to be a way somehow to put in place a real, not a fake, but a real anti-corruption program in Italy. I don't know if it's the most corrupt country from a political perspective in Europe, but if it's not, it's very close to that. So the whole thing is a complete disaster. But we've been building for this disaster. You can't have negative interest rates for 10 years and not have horrible consequences. And I fear that the horrible consequences are coming. And the more I think about it, the more I think 2023 is going to be a lot worse than people expect. The recession is going to be deeper. It's going to be global. And it's going to be brutal. It's going to be brutal. So be careful, people out there. Don't take your job for granted. Don't take anything for granted. Now's a good time to maybe save a little bit, maybe put some money aside a little bit, maybe hold on, because we're heading towards a recession. Certainly the UK is heading towards a recession. The US certainly is heading towards a recession in Europe is, or at least sent a big chunk of Europe is. I don't know if all of you, and recessions can be ugly and they can get out of hand, particularly given again, 12 years of negative interest rates and all the distortions and perversions and zombie companies and zombie stuff, zombie living dead that exists out there. Thanks, Alexis. All right, James Taylor, the more frustrated people become, the more right they are for authoritarianism. Absolutely. Our philosophers and academics trying to get people more frustrated and hopeless through promoting envy and government controls. No, I mean, I don't think that philosophers and academics want authoritarianism. That is, I don't think they explicitly want it. They might implicitly, they might deep down want it. They might in the dark dreams want it. But I don't think they admit to themselves that they want authoritarianism. So it's not like they're doing this on purpose. I think what's happening in the world is just a consequence of the ideas and the philosophers and intellectuals and academics are stuck with the ideas that they have. And these ideas are ideas that are leading us towards authoritarianism. And you know, as long as we don't have alternatives in terms of intellectuals and in terms of ideas, we're stuck with us. There's nowhere really to go. So I don't think this is some conspiracy to make everybody more hopeless so that they become more authoritarian. I think we're making more people more hopeless because those are the ideas we have. And the outcome, yes, is going to be more authoritarianism, but not because it's a big plan and conspiracy. Then even if they held those beliefs and they wanted more authoritarianism explicitly, they're not smart enough. All right. D'mon, D'mon says, finished fountain head and Atlas drug. Wow. Amazing. And moving there is so much. And moving there is so much I can say about them just wow. That's a great response. Wow is right. Make stories today feel bland minus a select few better call so well, we can talk about better call so already has impacted my life. Thank you, Iran. So I assume did you read the fountain head and Atlas drug because of me? Or because I mean, you're thanking me because I encouraged you to do it. I'm curious. By the way, I watched the first season of better call Saul and gave up. I couldn't watch it. Couldn't watch it. It was pointless to a, I mean, characters, none of whom I like, not a single one of them, and just pointless point and you knew where it's going because you know what Saul is later on from Breaking Bad. Well written, brilliantly acted, good filmmaking, just the kind of story that just I can't stand. I can't stand it. And I, you know, Breaking Bad was problematic for me as well. Daman says, yeah, I hate reading. So I put in the effort with a large reason was your suggestion. Well, that's great. Made my day. Thank you, man. That's great. That's what this is all about. If I can get you guys to read, I mean, I mean, Daman says it's better than Breaking Bad, better call Saul. Well, I only watched the first seasons. I couldn't say, but Breaking Bad wasn't, I mean, it was good again in the writing and the way it was made. But it's this is these are horrible shows. I'm sorry. But the themes, the philosophical themes, the characters are really horrible. These are bad people. And we get to we get to see their badness from every aspect. And we see the slippery slope of doing a little bit of bad stuff leads to doing a lot of bad stuff. And we see how particularly in Breaking Bad, how the evil that he does does not just affect him, it affects his family. It affects everybody around him and everything descends. And everything just collapses. They're all horrible people. And Breaking Bad was just too long, way too long. And as I've said before, I think it was a it made it made him to be a hero in the end with his heroic, you know, death at the end. And Jesse should have died. Jesse was a pathetic character, weak, whiny. You know, and he should have died. He deserved to die. He was he was he was, you know, a murderer, you know, he basically was part of everything that the main character participated in and the fact that he was allowed to live in there. And because we feel sorry for him because he's deep down, he's a good guy. Yes, he know deep down, good guy would ever get involved in selling meth and in running, you know, the way he ran, right? He had so many opportunities to redeem himself. And he didn't. A good movie would have you kill off the people who don't redeem themselves. Kill them off. You don't keep them alive. So, um, yeah, I mean, Breaking Bad could have been two seasons or three seasons, didn't need to be as long as it was. It just it just, you know, there was a certain pleasure in slushing around in the in the it's not even mud in the in other people's crap. I mean, it was just and yeah, and there's a certain pleasure in that and seeing it and you know, how evil people kill each other and tolerate each other. And then I mean, the real sad part was to see what it did to his family who were basically decent people. But yeah, it could have ended. I mean, Gus dying was yes, was definitely a turning point. All right. Yeah, Walt is definitely dead. There's no question. Walt is dead. But Jesse is not dead. Oh, this is friend Harper has a theory. Wait, friend Harper has a theory. Breaking Bad theory, he survived since ambulances were on their way and could have saved him. You can hear them close by at the very end. And the injury was survivable. He probably lives to suffer the consequences. It's a really suffer the consequence of what what would know. Anyway, I don't think Walt survived. I hope he didn't survive. He deserved to die. Again, my only regret for the final is a that they made it out as if he's going out in a blaze of fire so that he gets a heroic ending. And the fact that Jesse didn't die. Yeah, friend Harper means he's in jail and he spent the rest of his life in jail, you know. I think for somebody like like Walt, you know, he can't everybody in jail. I think he'd enjoy so I want him to die. Maybe a slow death. Maybe a slow death. But I want him to die. Enough of that evil. Equal reality from the UK says watching life in the UK. Thank you and thanks for the support. Let's see if there are any other quickies. Greetings of Turkey. Thank you, Eretah. Parashtra Salon will do later. You already did. You already asked the Leostra. Oh, yes, Leostra's question twice. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All these other questions we'll get to later. All right. I want to talk about China. Dramatic video yesterday from China that was kind of kind of interesting and a little bit fun and spooky and everything. So I mean, the use of China is what we expected. And that is that she was appointed for a third term. Basically, she has basically made himself a ruler for life. He is the first ruler to have this kind of power and this kind of control over the Politburo, over the Chinese governing authorities, governing body over the Chinese state since Mao Tse-tung. He is almost if not as powerful as Mao was in his heyday. And there was this event yesterday that people showed on live television because it was being broadcast in China. That's what's surprising about it. They're all seated like the front row is all the top people in the Chinese Communist Party. And right next to Xi is sitting the former head of the Communist Party, the one who ruled there until 2013. He was there from 2003 in 2013. And indeed, while he was still an authoritarian thug, he was definitely better than Xi. And it certainly 2003 to 2013 is a period known as a period of opening up, opening up internationally, opening up of domestic markets, more free markets, if you will. It's a period of, it's a period in which there was a lot more free speech. It's a period in which some of the free market think tanks, some of the people, it's a period in which I and Rand's books were all published, it's a period with the free market think tanks were allowed to thrive and allowed to get instituted with freedom seeking professors for the most part, not completely left alone and allowed to allow to write and publish and speak and teach in China. So the previous leader who's name now escapes me and I was looking for the article with his name, the video of him being escorted out is old news, I guess. So I can't find it. But anyway, so basically, so you have Xi sitting there and Hojintao, thank you, Brownie. Hojintao is sitting next to him. Hojintao is 79 years old. So he's clearly weak and he's sitting next to him and Hojintao obviously represents a completely different perspective on ruling China than Xi, Xi is much more authoritarian, anti markets, anti giving any kind of economic freedom and definitely anti any form of free speech and any form of opposition. And so Ho is sitting next to Xi and then suddenly these guys show up and they kind of the guy whispers in Ho's ear and puts a hand under his armpit and kind of helps him stand up. And there's some discussion and deliberation and Ho is going for papers and but he's being escorted out. And this is the final closing meeting of the 20th Chinese Communist Party thing and it's a big deal. This is the event and they're going to vote for Xi to be ruler for another five years. And the guy sitting next to Hojintao, again, name I can't remember, but I think the current Premier of China starts standing up to kind of help Ho to try to figure out what's going on. And the guy next to him, who's one of the cheap propagandists of the party, basically pulls at his coat jacket and seats him back down. Don't do it. Don't stand up. You don't want to be seen with Ho. So in public, in this major event on television, broadcast of the world and broadcast within China, Hojintao is basically humiliated, walked out of this grand meeting. No explanation is given by any of the Chinese authorities. Nothing. And you know, that's it. Now that's a big deal. That's again, I think Xi doing a Mao Zedong, a embarrassing another leader with might have a power center within the Communist Party. And, you know, it's a Stalin Mao move to kind of humiliate him in public show who is the boss now show that that era is gone. It was dramatic. It was dramatic to see all these people sitting around and they all just accept it. They all just roll with it. And it was brutal. It was brutal to watch. It was brutal to see Xi is a true little monster, real monster and a monster who will destroy China. I mean, you have to say that under Hojintao, Chinese growth was like four times higher, five times higher than it is under Xi Xi is pushing China towards negative economic growth. And in terms of losing whatever momentum, economic and I'd even say military momentum that China had, it is going to start losing it significantly as a consequence. Just some other notes that they announced the new Politburo, the new governing body in China. It doesn't have many of the people who were there are gone. Many of the supporters of greater liberalization, both economically and politically are gone. There are no women, not a single woman for the first time in a long time on the Chinese Politburo. All men, all men loyal, sworn loyalty to Xi. This is Xi's complete and out of consolidation of his power, complete out of consolidation of his power base. This is him cleaning house, getting rid of all opponents. This is the beginning of the end or beginning of the slow decline. Well, it's already declining, but the continuation of the slow decline of China is a significant, I think, military and economic force in the world. And I feel sorry for the Chinese because as you know from previous episodes that I've talked about, I'm a huge fan of China, of the Chinese people, Chinese entrepreneurs, Chinese innovation. I'm a huge fan of their ability, their ability to be so productive and creative and to create so much at such a short period of time. Huge fan of what China did up until about five, six, seven years ago. Somebody's arguing in the room next to me. Sounds like they're talking Chinese. So maybe it's a Chinese Secret Service listening in on me. But yeah, I think it's sad. I think it's sad and something to watch, but Xi is consolidated his power, consolidated his power. All right. All right, let's go back. What was the other topic I was going to talk about? Oh yeah, quick Ukraine update. We'll do that. But let's go to do some super chat and then we'll do a Ukraine update. Yeah, we got some $20 questions. And let me just say, yeah, we're making progress towards the 650, making very nice progress towards the 650 considering no biggies, nothing above $50 bucks or above $52, $3 bucks. And given the early morning start, we're doing well, but we still have about $200 to go. So $10, $20 questions of desired. All right. Morandi, Morandi, Morandi AR, Morandi AR, something like that. Anyway, does free market oriented people have a bias for economic liberty over political liberty? I see a pattern of people cheering on a authoritarian populist because they come across as pro free market and anti left. So what is happening today, and this is the tragedy, is that I don't think there's anybody really pro free market today in politics, certainly not in American politics, but I think it's also true of the UK. What you're seeing really is a people who are have historically the political parties that have historically been associated with free markets, but that have banned in their free market ideas. And the only thing that unites them and the thing that gets people really excited about them is their anti left. But even in the anti leftism, they're not necessarily anti left. When it comes to economics, they just want different kinds of subsidies, different kinds of promotions, different kinds that they want to pick winners and losers. Maybe they win as a different winners, right? But they still want to pick winners and losers. They still want state intervention. They're still statists, but they want slightly different outcomes. But they are not free market when it comes to economics. So I, you know, everywhere in the world, you look the right, the people on the right who historically have been viewed as free market are no longer free market. So most of their agenda is an agenda that has to do with social issues. Most of their agenda has to do with anti left and most of the anti left aspects of their policies have more to do with I don't know, gays and trans and in America, CRT and things like that. Again, there are some economic issues, but the economic issues more have to do with, you know, so maybe some on the right want to slightly smaller government, but not dramatically. And the right certainly wants different industrial policies than the left. But they still want industrial policy. Thanks for the question, Miranda Alexis. I've been interpreted this taking an opponent out in front of everyone as complete hubris. Do you agree? Yes, I definitely think it's hubris. I think it's very dangerous to see, but it also he is definitely he is definitely showing the world and showing China and showing the politicians around him. Who's the boss? And it's a mafia kind of move. Ultimately, it's self destructive. But in the short run, it because, you know, it sets up the next guy to do same to you. But in the short run, it is it is a powerful symbol. It's a powerful message. And I think people won't want to mess with them. So I think what's what's what's happening now is that things will have to get really bad in China for people to rebel against Xi because he has solidified his control and so many aspects of the political world. And I think he's also solidified through various corruption campaigns solidified his control over the military in China. Another reason why I'm not worried about the Chinese military. I don't worry about the Chinese military, not that they won't do anything, but that they could win is because the political parties, they're not quality people, they're not quality military thinkers, they're not strategists, they're people who appease Xi, just like the Russians are people who have appeased Putin. And much of their function as a military is not so much to train and prepare to invade other countries. It's to control their own people. I mean, remember that there wasn't a revolution 1989, because the military came out to the streets and the military shot their own people. And to a large extent, that's what the function of the Chinese military. Now they would like to have a global presence. They would like to put America in its place. They would like to dominate that part of the Pacific, the eastern part of the Pacific. They would like to invade Taiwan and take it. But are they capable of that? And then you have to ask the question of are their capabilities going to get better or worse as Xi becomes more authoritarian? I think the answer to that is pretty obvious. Fend Harpers says PSA, public service announcement. Gene Moroni's Ocon Talk on happiness has been released on Iron Man Institute's YouTube channel. You and her brought it up when she was on YBS. Having a standard to measure happiness with is very helpful for being happy. Yeah, so I encourage people to go watch it. We need to think more about happiness. We need to investigate more about happiness. We need to devote more resources and time and effort intellectually to figuring out happiness and to making sure we as individuals achieve it. Achieve it. So absolutely go for it. It's on the Iron Man Institute website. Right. We're chipping away. We're chipping away. We're in a $190 short of the 650 goals. Somebody could just step in and get us there all at once. Okay. So I see a question about Paris versus London. And then there's also one about Berlin. About Berlin. Where's the question about Berlin? Oh God, a lot of super chat questions. Yeah, why don't you like Berlin? Aren't people less rude there than Paris? And then there's a question of Paris versus London. You know, both cities have their amazing positives. I love both cities. I personally prefer London. I prefer London for a lot of different reasons. One is they speak English. I have a strong preference for people speaking English. It makes life a lot easier. London also exudes more, I don't know, it's in some sense richer. It exudes that. It's, I think it's cleaner. I think they've done a better job preserving their buildings and keeping it attractive and clean and vibrant and interesting. I think France has character, so London certainly has character, but France has character as well. London has a diverse character. So what you find with London is, I think more than Paris, that every little neighborhood is different. Every little neighborhood, whoops, whoops, what's going on? What is going on? Can you hear me? Maybe you can't see me? That's weird. That has never happened before. Camera shut down because of too much heat. Too much heat. I don't know if anybody has any suggestions. It's never happened before. Should I turn on the air conditioning? Is that here? Is that it? Yeah, it's black screen because the camera shut down because it said, it has symbol says, it's too hot shutting down and it shut down. So Sony, it's a Sony camera that's never done that before. I've used it for years. I used to use this camera for the main year on book show. Now it's just for when I travel. Maybe the sun is shining directly onto it. I'll be right back one second. I think it's, yeah, it's mostly internal, but still. Let's cool it down a little bit. All right, let me try and turn the camera on and see if it'll come on. Right? It's on. You should be seeing it in a second. I don't think this has anything to do with YouTube. Whoops, there I am. Damn gone. It was on for a minute. Then I disappeared. Now I'm back. All right. My camera needed a rest. You know, not only am I overworked, but my camera's overworked, but I haven't used it that often. So the camera is not overworked. So I'm not sure what's going on. Anyway, here we are. You can see me now. What was I talking about? Let's see. Yeah, so Paris versus London. So London generally is, I find, more interesting to walk around, less planned, more character in particular neighbourhoods, more variety, more different things, more, you know, there's a distinct Chinatown and there's the city has a completely different feel than, I don't know, less the square that has a completely different feel than St. James that has a completely different feel than Chelsea that has, London has neighbourhoods that you can, that are safe and you can walk in and that are beautiful and that have character and that are great. Paris is more the same, is more, I'd say, similar, less variety. And if you go out, you know, just like London, they're bad neighbourhoods, but it's much more organised, Paris. I think it was much more planned and a lot more zoning, probably, and the architecture is much more, there's also no modern architecture here where there is in London. So you get some really nice modern buildings along the Thames, in the city, in, I don't know, yeah. So in that sense, I strongly prefer London. Paris has better museums. I couldn't get into them today because there were such long lines, but you can't match the Louvre and the Dorset and then there's Rodin and there's a bunch of others. So Paris definitely has better museums. In that sense, it's better. They both have a lot of culture, opera, or concerts. You know, London probably has more classical music than Paris, but maybe I just don't know enough about Paris. I spend a lot more time on London. Well, Paris has the left bank and the right bank. That's true in a sense of, in a sense of neighbourhoods. Still quite, not quite as... Now, the French, of course, I prefer the English to the French. English might not be my favourite people on earth, but they're definitely more, you know, pretty much everybody is better than the French. The French is just not as friendly and not as nice and not as polite and not as cheerful as the British side. So my preference is London. London is like, I feel London is my second home. It's the place I feel most at home at in terms of outside the United States, other than maybe Israel. So that would be me. Berlin, why don't I like Berlin? Because it has all the reminders of, you know, the Nazis, right? Sorry, but it's part of my it's part of my content of my subconscious, right? So it has the language, German, which I just can't hear without a little cringe. I find it more palatable in Austria than in Germany, but it doesn't really matter. It's German. And then the other thing is that it's got these big boulevards. It's got these, I don't know, the architecture is kind of monumental in a kind of, at least the parts of it have this monumental architecture. It's also got some really nice areas. It's really pretty. There's some nice areas that are more, that are more, what would you call it, more modern, some of them more quaint, particularly in the East where a lot of it was destroyed and rebuilt. A lot of the East has been destroyed and rebuilt. So yeah, you know, but the people I find Germans, you know, again, this is generalities in the street. Yeah, they're friendlier than Paris, but they don't have the virtues of Paris, which is great food. German food is not great. Don't get me started. Great food, great art, and just an easier place to walk around and to enjoy kind of the architecture. Jim, you know, Berlin doesn't have any of that. All right. And then somebody asked, since we're in geography, Sydney or Singapore? Again, for a visit, I would go with Singapore. Sydney's nice. I mean, it's pretty. It's on the water. It's got the famous opera house, which is a magnificent building. But Singapore is magnificent. Singapore is exciting. Singapore has got this amazing architecture. It's it's just new. It's bristling with energy. It's more manageable. It's got a size that you can manage. You can get a hand around. Fantastic food. Yeah, I think Singapore is more exciting and more fun and more interesting, more interesting, even though in both places, you can speak English and get away with English. So I like I like probably I like Singapore more than I like Sydney. Jerry Baker asks, What did you think of Michael Saylor's speech at the recent Atlas Society? I haven't listened to it. I don't listen to stuff produced by the Atlas Society. Is it worth me listening to? Should I listen to so I can have an opinion about it? Yeah, let me know if you think I should listen to it because camera's out again. Yeah, let me know. We'll go we'll we'll I'll let the camera cool down a little bit and then we'll go we'll try again. Let it let it cool down again for a little bit. Let me just I am surprised again because it's never happened before. Let it cool and we'll turn it back on. All right. What else do we have? Switching to the iPhone is too hard. It would be too disruptive. Let's see. What else? Yeah, okay. Let me know if you think I should watch his talk that there's value in it positive or negative that would it would be good for me to critique in some way or to comment on. All right, let's see. More and he asked does YouTube enforcing elitism when my super chat gets highlighted even more even though the monetary value of it is low compared to yours to your I think what happens with super chat is it doesn't it doesn't convert. So it looks at the absolute number. So I think I think and that's the problem. It's not the complete problem. So something's going on. I don't understand why it super chat seems to have so much trouble categorizing the highlighting appropriate to the actual dollar value of the contribution but it seems to have that problem and I don't know why. All right, Michael asked is there legitimacy to the boomer comeback considering it was much easier to climb the economic ladder by a house 40 to 50 years ago compared to today stagnation. No, there's no legitimacy for anything. I mean, what does that have to do with boomers? The fact that it was easier, you know, is interesting because you want to know why it was easier or made it easier and how do we make it easier again? But but there's no the boomer comment is an insult. It's trying to insult somebody or trying to say somebody that you don't know what you're talking about or because of your age, you don't know what you're talking about. And we're not age determined. So so no, I don't think there's any validity to the boomer comeback. I think it's just it just shows the insecurity and the the insecurity of the person using it because it's a way of ignoring ideas and insulting somebody based on their age. So it's it's just stupid. Hoppe Campbell asked does a lot of racism and tribalism come from the patent recognition software we get from revolution that served at one point, but is detrimental to modern complex societies that demand individualism? I mean, maybe I don't know. It's quite possible that there is something about patent recognition that our brain is cultivated towards that that makes us connect more with people who look like us. But you know, I've never found that that were true in my life. So I've never had to make an effort to not be a racist on effort to not be tribal on effort, you know, to not want to, I don't know, say hello to somebody because they color their skin or to be nice to somebody because they color skin. That has never come up. So I think you have to make an effort to to put yourself in to be a rational animal. You have to make the effort to be a being of cognition. And once you've made that effort, these this thing goes away. So the patent recognition becomes irrelevant. But if you don't make that effort, then you have to rely on kind of all these defaults mechanisms that exist in our brain, kind of just basic simple rules that default to. And that is probably the case. But it's not even that people are not individualistic, because it really is this issue of are you rational? Are you being, have you made the effort to bring cognition into play, to to use your mind, not to just drift, not to just be nothing. I think I know what's going on with the camera. Give me one second. It's not going in. Oh, all right, almost there guys. That's if that works. It's the the power connection is not working. The power it's not the camera itself. It's the power. It's for some reason not receiving power. So it's this one. All right. So the the battery is basically out. Let's try something else. All right. Once that almost there. Right. So that's tribalism and racism. Right. Liam asks, why hasn't North Korea discovered freedom? You'd think by now they'd have a little. Well, because they control that these bastards hold on North Korean society. And for some reason on the North Korean military is so I don't understand exactly why it is so overwhelming that in who knows what's going on in North Korea, who knows what struggles they're facing. But it's just it's just completely it just dominates everything. So so exactly how it's surviving for as long as it's surviving with as many people as they're killing, why there isn't an uprising, why there is an opposition, why there isn't more. I don't know. You'd have to study what's going on in North Korea more, but they're so poor because they were always poor. It's not like they declined. They declined, but they declined from poverty to extreme poverty. They're so poor. It's so pathetic. It's so awful that I just think that it's almost like when you're starving, who has the energy for revolution? But I don't know enough about North Korea. Hopper Campbell says, how much dollars for you to read and review Mein Kampf? It's not about the money. Why would I do that? It's it's, you know, you're paying me to to suffer and to to read the worthless piece of shit. So Mein Kampf didn't change the world can't change the world and and and all the philosophers that made Mein Kampf palatable and possible. You know, do I really need to understand those stupid speeches that he was that he was yelling at the audience? So it's not an issue of money. What type of rental care have you been driving? Rental care? Rental car? Have you been driving around Europe? It better be safe this time. No car flying. So airplanes pretty safe. Flying everywhere using taxis, using Ubers, haven't rented a car anyway. Don't intend to. Maybe in Spain. We'll see. Michael asked and the car was driving when I had the accident was pretty safe. So is it a Jeep? It was a big car. All right, Michael says, are the British people a lot more socialist today than they were in the 80s when they let Thatcher operate? No, I think I think they've always been socialist. I think Thatcher kind of had her way with them or they were so exhausted by socialism. So it's not that they turned intellectually against socialism, but they were so exhausted by the horrors of what the Labour Party had inflicted on England and the horrors of of of what socialism inflicted in England that they were willing to give somebody a shot at trying something different. But it wasn't that they were anti socialism at that point is that they were anti what had happened to them and they were willing to to try something different and try something new. And, you know, Thatcher was opposed, particularly early in a term opposed that she was fought over every single thing she tried to do. She had to fight her own Conservative Party on a number of occasions. They tried to kick her out. And indeed, they did kick her out in the end. She was kicked out by her own people by the Conservative Party because she was going too far. And the only reason Thatcher got a real mandate for change was because of the Falkland war. I mean, she got lucky. She got a war she could win. She could win easily with very few casualties. She became a national hero. Again, it's much more about the quote, social issues, the status issues. She won a war. The country rallied around her. She used that opportunity to make big, significant changes. But none of those changes, not a single one of them was popular. And on a single one of them was popular even within her own political party. But she had the balls to do it anyway. How was Hitler a charismatic leader that was able to unite both populace left and right, watching his speeches? He seems unhinged and deranged. Yeah, you often wonder what people saw in him. But then, you know, I look at Trump, I'm not comparing Trump to Hitler, but in this sense, I am. When I see Trump speaking to his audiences, he seems unhinged and deranged. And if people love the guy, they love the guy. So, seeming unhinged and deranged doesn't seem to prevent people from liking you. I think it's more about their own frustration with their own life, with the politics, with the world. They believe that you will fix that or you can't fix that. They believe in some evil force out there trying to destroy them and that they need a savior. And Hitler was the savior from the Jews and the Bolsheviks who were trying to destroy them. The left, remember the left? The left and the Jews who were trying to destroy them. You know, Trump, you know, is saving us from the immigrants and the elitists and the left who are trying to destroy and the Chinese who are trying to destroy us. So, it's not an issue. Charisma is their ability to say, in this context, charisma is the ability to say to people what they want to hear, what they want to hear. And, you know, political charisma comes from being at the right place in the right moment with the right message and convincing people that your time has come. And look, even when Hitler was at his peak, membership in the Nazi party was a small minority within Germany. Most of how Hitler gets away with what he got away with is the silence of a silent majority or a significant minority. It's people not objecting. It's people going along for the ride. It's people just, how many people actually attended the rallies? How many people actually supported him? How many people loved him? How many people thought he was charismatic? I mean, one of the reasons that charismatic leaders need secret police, one of the reasons charismatic leaders need people to watch over other people is because they're always afraid of revolution because they're not that popular. So, their popularity has more to do is, they're not that popular. Their success has more to do with the fact that the majority stays quiet. And they stay quiet for philosophical reasons because they don't have an alternative. Yes, definitely read the ominous parallels by Lenin Pekov. Ominous parallels by Lenin Pekov explains the rise of Hitler and what makes him charismatic. Why are so many, this is Harper Campbell again, why so many objectivist intellectuals, superficial and not passionate? That's not the same thing. Superficial and not passionate is not the same thing. Why isn't ALI training firebrands? Do they want young people to come off as too zealous and confrontational? No. I don't think objectivist intellectuals are superficial. Many of them are not superficial, are really, really deep, but not firebrands. Some people are just not firebrands. Ankar is not a firebrand, but he's anything but superficial. He's super deep. He's really good and really smart. He's not passionate. That's just not who he is. Expression of passion in the way the passion is expressed. A lot of the intellectuals at the Ironman Institute, Greg Salamiere is not a firebrand, doesn't express passion. Sometimes he does, but most he doesn't. But he's super deep. So I think it's a huge mistake to conflate the two. I don't know any of the objectivist intellectuals who are superficial. Passion is hard to instill in people in terms of how they communicate as adults. It's hard to bring that to the foreground. It's hard to make that a theme. We get the intellectual talent that we have and we try to help them to be the best communicators as possible. We have no problem in them being confrontational. We have no problem in them being passionate. We have no problem in them being firebrands. But we train the material that we have. But Don is a firebrand. I think Don is a firebrand. Alex is. I think Nikos is. I don't know where you're getting this. You know, not everybody is going to be the same. They're going to communicate in different ways, and people like different types of communicators. But no, I don't think anybody at ARI is holding their punches. Michael asks, people today disintegrate reflexively. They think forming principles is not legitimate. It is something to be left at. Absolutely. And this is the dim hypothesis by Leonard, right? This is the disintegration that we're seeing in the culture, and it's why the culture is in dramatic decline because that disintegration is not workable. It's not practical. You can't actually produce. You can't actually think. You can't actually plan. You can't actually do anything long term with it. And that's leading to the disintegration of the culture. Michael says, what causes people to blank out and not process what you're saying? I don't know what causes it. I'm not sure. I'm not sure there is a cause in and of itself. So, you know, the cause is the unwillingness to listen. The cause is that they're emotionally upset. The cause is that they just, that are lazy, that they are lazy intellectually, or that they are on a premise where they're just not thinking, not thinking. And they just phase out because they don't want to hear it for emotional reasons or because they feel threatened, fear. Michael says, you notice all the talk show hosts interviewing Ryan Rand were extremely condescending to more sexist times. No, I think they were kind of sending because of the ideas. I think the ideas were shocking. The ideas were controversial. The ideas were upsetting. So, to this day, the way, if a normal person, you know, just somebody from a modern intellectual, they're always condescending against anybody who holds Iron Man's ideas, whether they're male or female. I don't think it was sexism. I don't think that was the issue. That doodle bunny, where does the name Ein come from? Why, you know where the name Rand comes from? I don't think you know where the name Rand comes from. I can't remember exactly, but the name Ein, I think comes from a Scandinavian name that, you know, Ein Rand used to read these heroic stories about Scandinavians. And, you know, she picked that name. It was the name she liked. I think from one of those books, but I can't remember exactly. There's a story about it, but I can't remember the story. And Rand does not come from the typewriter. That is just not a true story. The fact is that Ein Rand, the name of the typewriter, Ein Rand picked the name Rand before that typewriter was in existence. So it just doesn't match up in terms of the timing. So it couldn't have been the typewriter. It had to be something else. Somebody says Ein means I in Hebrew and that's where it came from. No, it doesn't. It has nothing to do with Hebrew. It has to do with something about a Scandinavian. Yeah. So she said the name, so she said Ein was the name of a Finnish writer who she declined to identify and the surname was described as an abbreviation of Rosenbaum, Rand short for Rosenbaum. And that sounds as, I mean, that's Prato. I assume he knows what he's talking about, but I don't know. But that sounds right from what I remember. That doodle bunny. Do you consider yourself overworked and underappreciated? God. Well, I don't know what overworked means. That I don't know. Underappreciated? Yeah, of course. Hugely so. But not by you, but by the world. Yes. I don't think I'm overworked though. I choose my work. So it's not that. I'm definitely underappreciated. That's a big deal. Daniel Duffy was Hank, the DEA agent, a virtuous character in Breaking Bad. Yeah, he was, but he's undermined constantly. And so he's virtuous, but also impotent. He can't. He's completely undermined in the end. He's killed in a kind of ridiculous way by his pathetic brother-in-law. Michael asks, in a free society, should the government have the right to advertise for enlisting an army? Yes. Yes, it should be able to market the job, market the profession of soldier. So as to volunteer and enlist people. Let's see. Michael asks, why have you never visited Auschwitz as unbelievably evil as it is? Was, aren't you curious? No, I'm not curious. I won't see anything that I don't know. I've seen film after film after film about Auschwitz. I've read stories about Auschwitz. I've read testimonies of victims of Auschwitz. I've seen movies. I've seen documentaries. Enough. Enough, I get it. There's no reason to put yourself through the horror of it emotionally. When you get the point, what's the point of doing it again and again and again? I mean, I grew up with it. So you guys didn't, but I grew up with that as part of, part of, you know, the way we were educated in Israel. I just don't see a, you guys should go. I think anybody who is not deeply exposed to what happened should go. But I'm done. James asks, easier way to control the nation is start when they are young and solely shape them into the slaves you want. Yeah, but it's still hard because people grow up, people become teenagers. They get, they get, you know, it's hard. Nobody's ever completely been able to suppress people. Although China and Chinese communism and Russian communism lasted for a very long time. You know, both, both had a period of rebellion against that. And now they're sending back into that. And we'll see. But you know, the Catholic church had them when they were young said, yes, the younger you get them, the more, the more easier it is to control. But there's always people who are going to rebel. Always people who are going to rebel. Daniel says, you should have Chinese expert objective Scott McDonald on the show. I have a lot of super checks for him. Sounds good. I'll, I'll, I'll contact Scott and see if he's interested. Jay Lode asks, have you been on the already express? No, I have not. I'm not being on the already express. Maybe one day. All right. That is almost two hours. I'm going to call it here. We've got two other topics. Ukraine will update and recession. We'll have to get to another time. Not sure when the next show will be. Maybe Tuesday, maybe Wednesday. I don't know. Not probably not tomorrow. Unlikely tomorrow possible, but unlikely. I'll just see how the schedule goes from now on. But I do would like to do a few more shows before the end of the month. Thanks, guys. I hope it turned out that it wasn't too bad that it was morning, at least maybe it was because the weekend, it's a Sunday morning. Interesting. If I do this, if I do this morning thing during the week, what would happen? But anyway, thank you guys for joining. Don't forget to like the show before you leave. And yeah, have a great week. Great rest of your Sunday and have a great week and hi to all you Europeans who usually don't watch live. Thank you for watching live today. Bye, everybody.