 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Brookshow. All right, everybody, welcome to Iran Brookshow. Friday, January 5th. First Friday of January, first week of January over. I hope everybody's having a fantastic week, a fantastic year, and looking forward to the weekend. All right, let's jump in. Job numbers came out today. Everybody's watching this carefully. Everybody's still, I think, most economists are still uncertain about the trajectory of the US economy over the next year and what exactly is going to happen. I think a lot of expectations about lowering interest rates, that the Fed would lower interest rates later in the year, it's just an election year. That's typically what the Fed does during election year. Also, there's a lot of the suspense. We're all in suspense of whether we're going to get a recession, a soft landing, a don't feel it at all, just continued economic growth. People are just not sure exactly how this is all going to play out. The rise in interest rates that were experienced in 2022-2023 was really sharp and at least since the 1980s kind of unprecedented. And most economists, and I was one of them, expected that the response of that, given the inflation and given anything else, would be a recession. And that has not happened yet. And a lot of people are looking into 2024 and saying, is there going to be a recession in 2024? What are going to be the challenges? What are going to be the issues that the economy faces? Well, the job numbers came out today for December and those numbers suggest a fairly robust economy. That is, the economy continues to grow. People continue to hire. Job gains were higher than expected. They added 216,000 jobs last month. That brought the total for 2023 to the extent that these government measures are accurate. 2.7 million jobs were created last year. That is pretty robust for an economy that was supposed to slow down, for an economy that was experiencing rising interest rates. These numbers are actually better than the final Trump years. If you take out a COVID, these are higher numbers than, let's say, 2019 in terms of job creation. So you remember in those days when Trump got his job numbers, he was the greatest economy in human history. So the economy continues to create jobs, which is, again, impressive and I think it estimates to the flexibility and the entrepreneurship and the business genius of American entrepreneurs. It really is interesting and pretty amazing. And in addition to that, in addition to the increase in number of jobs, wages grew at an annual rate of 4.1% last month. So from a year earlier, so over 2023, wages grew by over 4%. Now inflation was higher than that or around that level. So on a real basis, that's not huge. But yeah, I mean, CPI was a little below... Yeah, CPI was 3.8 over the year. Wages were 4.1, so a little higher than CPI. So it's not like people are making a lot more money in real terms. But it's still better than anybody expected. And I think this has resulted in people thinking not, as some might fear, that maybe this will cause the Fed to keep interest rates high. But this has caused people to think, well, the economy is going to do okay. And as a consequence, markets were up, although they didn't stay up for very long, I think in response to these numbers. So hot end to put any one set of numbers, but last year's economy was okay. In spite of Biden, in spite of the Fed, in spite of inflation, it wasn't horrific. And in terms of getting a job creation, quite good. And one can only imagine, only imagine, in our wildest dreams, I guess, what would happen if we actually had capitalism in this country with American spirit and entrepreneurs going at 100% or right now, they're going maybe at 30%, I don't know, and look how well it's doing. And this is, by the way, why the U.S. is not going to have a melee. I mean, things are just not bad enough. We're going to continue to argue about how much of a mixed economy we should have. You know, how much of a mixed economy we should have, because the reality is the mixed economy hasn't produced bad enough results yet. The mixed economy that we have in the United States is kind of okay. It's for most people. And the projection of what could be, the projection of what should be, the projection of what the potential that exists is, it's too, people are not willing to be radical for some imagined potential, for some thing that maybe, people are willing to be radical when things are nuts, like they're on Argentina, and inflation is at 140%, although it's going to be much higher in the next few months, and everything is going to hell. The United States is chugging along slowly. I've been talking about this for over 10 years now, since the financial crisis. We're just going to have this boring stagnation. It's not even stagnation because we're growing, we're just going slowly in real terms. And sometimes we're inflation, sometimes we don't, sometimes we have, you know, other kind of distortions and perversions in our economy. And actually that's happening all the time. But overall, people are doing okay. And of course, next year's election, or this year's election, God, it's already that year, it's already this year's election. I think at the end of the day, this year's elections will be determined by, in the third quarter of the year, going into the fourth quarter when the election happens, how are Americans feeling about the economy? If the economy seems to be robust to people, and they feel confident in their job and things are going well, and maybe inflation's come down, so they're enough feeling at the grocery store, then Biden has a shot. If inflation is going to come back, if people are worried, if this job creation is a mirage and companies are going to start laying off here any minute now and we head into a recession, then whoever's running against Biden, like the Trump, is going to win. I mean, basically I think this election will be determined because nobody likes Biden, nobody likes Biden. And like 25% of the population likes Trump, but nobody else does. Nobody, there's not a majority for either one of these candidates. So they're going to win with the least negatives. And a lot of that will be determined by how people feel emotionally about their position in life, about the economy at that given point in time. So for now, it looks positive for Biden. However, people feel very negatively about the economy in spite of the positive numbers. This has been the trend all year long. All right, well, I'm sure we'll keep returning to the economy because there's so much there, and it's an ongoing issue. It's always an issue. Oscar Pistorius is a South African athlete, the one who doesn't have legs, has kind of prosthetics, instead of his, I think, from his knee down or from his calf down, and was an athlete that competed in the, what do they call it, Olympics, right? The Olympics for disabled people, disabled Olympics. And he was a runner and did quite well, was quite an inspiration, until he was accused and convicted of killing his girlfriend. Anyway, for some reason, he was sent to some 15 years in jail for murder. You'd think murder conviction would carry a bigger penalty than 15 years, but he only got 15 years in South Africa. And he is just today, basically being released on parole after serving seven years. I guess in South Africa, that's all you need to serve in order to get paroled for murder. Paralympics, thank you. Paralympics was the name I was looking for. That's pretty weird to me. I don't get that. I mean, murder should be life, maybe for good behavior, you get it shortened, but I don't see how you go to jail for seven years for murdering somebody. There's something very, very corrupt about that and wrong about that and perverse in terms of the incentives, perverse in terms of the justice of it. He killed a woman and he was angry and he shot her through the door. And did he intend to kill her? Didn't he intend to kill her? He shot somebody through the door. What else could he intend to do? And he was angry, so he was a crime of passion, I guess. Still 15 years? I just don't get that. So, sorry, he should go back to jail. He should serve at least, if he's going to serve 15 years, he should serve them all in jail. He's going to spend the next few years with his family. He's under parole, so it's pretty strict, what he can do and what he can do while he's out. But the whole thing I think is just, it's just unfortunate and sad and, yeah, I mean, a miscarriage in some sense, a miscarriage of justice. So, I really do think people should serve longer sentences for murder. Even if it's a crime of passion, if it's in the moment or whatever, even if it's not completely self-meditated, murder is murder. All right. It's a lot to talk about in the context of the president of Harvard, Claudine Gay's resignation. We've talked a little bit about this, but I'm inspired today by TGIF. TGIF is the Friday publication of the Free Press. This is Barry Weiss's project called the Free Press. I'm going to use it extensively today. So, before you accuse me of plagiarism, I'm admitting that I'm going to read to you passages out of TGIF. Generally, TGIF is written by Nellie Bowles, who is married to Barry Weiss. And Nellie is a really good writer. And so I highly recommend TGIF. She's really funny. She presents the news in an entertaining way. It's really, really good. Somebody says, you're on people in the US commit murder and serve less than that quite often. I think that's wrong if that's true. I mean, I believe you, but it just seems off to me. It seems like you kill somebody. I mean, you kill somebody. You're not an accident. That's it. Your life basically is over. And I just don't see... I mean, you rape somebody? Violent rape? Your life basically should be over, right? They're just crimes of violence. There's just no coming back from. Again, it depends on the extent of the violence, how strong it is, but anyway. Highly recommend the Free Press, Barry Weiss' publication. In particular, I love their Friday summary of the news. It's funny. It's entertaining. And it's usually right on... I don't agree with everything they write, but that it's usually right on it. Anyway, they've dedicated a lot of space here to Claudine Gay's resignation that happened this week. Earlier this week, we've talked about it already, but it's worth kind of summarizing and emphasizing certain points. She has written... Gay has written an op-ed for The New York Times, where she's trying to justify her actions. She never apologizes for anything. Her plagiarism is just a witch hunt. And the whole thing with the testimony in front of the House committee, she fell into a prosecutional trap. And the trap, she fell into it innocently. And of course, she says in the op-ed, I'm against violence against Jews. Of course, I'm against a genocidal chance. And I would have protected Jews. Of course, this is a president of a university who did not say anything after October 7th, did not condemn what Hamas had done. She was very quick to condemn the killing of George Floyd, or Harvard was anyway. She wasn't the president at the time. And support for BLS. But God forbid you say anything about the slaughter, rape and torture of people on October 7th. In particular, she was very slow in responding, in really weak and slow in responding to the 30 plus 33, I think it was, student organizations, that on October 8th already expressed support for Hamas, what they did on October 7th. But she's innocent. And of course, she is not in support of Jewish genocide. And of course, she would defend Jewish students. And of course, all of this is a witch hunt against her, basically motivated by racial animus. Right. She is just the first black to be president of the university. She's the second woman, I think that's right, to be president of the university. And that's why they went after. It's all racism and sexism. Now, what she doesn't tell you is the extent of a plagiarism, which has been well documented in the press and you can find it all over the place. But this woman basically copy pasted whole paragraphs, even her acknowledgements, there's a section of acknowledgement that's a copy paste job. Now, I wouldn't fire anybody for that, but that shows you how absurd what she did. Over half of her publications have substantial plagiarism in it. Now, suddenly, plagiarism is not a big deal. Suddenly, plagiarism is just what's it called? This is associate press, one of our, you know, deliverers of news. They had this headline. Harvard president's resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges, plagiarism. It's a weapon. Really? I mean, plagiarism is something you, you know, kick a student out of a class for, sometimes kick him out of the university for, certainly give him an F for. Now, you know, somebody misquotes or somebody misreferences or somebody a sentence here, a sentence there, you know, okay. We're talking about a whole paragraphs verbatim with no reference. You know, there's an accusation of plagiarism against, oh, what's his name, the hedge fund guy who went after Harvard. His wife is now accused of plagiarism. What is her plagiarism? There's a paragraph there, which she references the source of verbatim, but she forgot in the publication to put quote marks around it. But she, she references where she got the text exactly from. Not something Claudine Gay does when she plagiarists. And now Bill Ackerman, Ackerman's wife. And now it's the same thing. And if you're going to go after plagiarism, I mean, no shame, no shame. What Claudine Gay did is inexcusable in terms of the plagiarism. It is unprofessional. It is a travesty from, from an academic to do something like this. She should have lost her job. Now here she lost her job as president. She maintains a $900,000 a year salary. Let me say that again, $900,000 a year salary. Just so you know where your tuition payments and your tax money to pay for student loans, all that money ultimately goes. Oh, those of you who are giving money to, to endowments to your mamata, $900,000. She will continue as a faculty member, a faculty member who half of her publications on which she got tenure plagiarized have a significant plagiarism in there. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. Nate Silver, Nate Silver, I think he tweeted this, he says, pretty worried. And this is Nate Silver, who's a leftist, sent a left, right? Nate Silver writes, pretty worried about this new chrono weapon that can force you to go back as many as 27 years in time and commit plagiarism. Conservative weapon against colleges, plagiarism. You either commit plagiarism or you don't. And plagiarism has been a sin in academia, if you will. Forever. It's not new. It wasn't discovered in order to apply to Claudine Gaye. It's been applied to many, many people over many, many years. And it certainly applies to students. And it certainly applied to students at Harvard where she was president. Tzvika, thank you, $100. Wow, that's amazing. That's a sticker for Tzvika, Silvanos, thank you. And Roosevelt, thank you. Thank you to all the stickers. Really, really appreciate that. Still about, yep. All right, let's see. And then Ibrahim Kendi. You know, you remember Ibrahim Kendi, the guy who had this massive center devoted to his anti-racist ideas and who the money for the center somehow got used somewhere, somehow. I mean, you know, and all kinds of stuff that nobody quite understands and knows and they produced really nothing anyway. He is convinced that the ouster of Gaye is all the work of a racist mob, racist mob, right? Now note that this racist mob also went after the president of the University of Pennsylvania. And the University of Pennsylvania president resigned way before Claudine Gaye. And the University of Pennsylvania president didn't commit plagiarism. She was forced to resign just for her response to the October 7th and a response to the hearing in front of Congress. That was enough to get her basically fired. Claudine Gaye, that wouldn't have got her fired, it appears. What got her fired is that plus a heavy dose of plagiarism. Now note that in a kind of rational world in which media was actually doing its work, the plagiarism would have actually come from the media. That is, the media would have discovered it and brought it to the fore. That's what the media does, right? It's supposed to do. Search and find corruption in the background. So the media, the media is defending Claudine Gaye. The media is the one that claims that plagiarism is a right-wing conspiracy. The real hero here, the person who actually did the work who actually figured all this out and revealed the truth about Claudine Gaye. It's not a media person per se, but somebody who works for the Manhattan Institute, an intellectual works for the Manhattan Institute Institute and has a Twitter account, Chris Rufo. Chris Rufo is the guy who actually did this and publicized it and made a big deal and really pushed us. Rufo, as Rufo puts it, quote, the funniest outcome of the Claudine Gaye saga is all the academics coming out in defense of plagiarism and all of the journalists coming out against journalism. Tell with facts, tell with digging, tell with discovering what's really going on. Tell with plagiarism. What matters is that Gaye was black and a woman and the president of Harvard, and that supersedes everything, right? She's the oppressed and the oppressed are allowed to commit plagiarism. The oppressed are allowed to say really stupid things in front of Congress. The oppressed are allowed to support other oppressed, Hamas. It's no surprise that the president of University of Pennsylvania was fired. She's white, and therefore, by definition, an oppressor. Oh, not huge oppressor, right? Because she's also a woman, so she gets some oppressed credit, but Gaye is both a woman and black. Now, if she was Gaye, I mean, Gaye Gaye, then, I mean, there's no way she could have been fired, right? Because she would have been at the most oppressed, you could be, I guess, or maybe trans would have been even better than that. You're seeing, I mean, what's happened over the last few months, I mean, really over the last few years, but you're really seeing it intensely over the last few months, is the complete corruption of the far left, and the real manifestation of what intersectionality really means and how it plays out. We've been talking about this a lot, right? We've been, you know, talking about this idea that if you're part of the intersectional oppressed category, then you can pretty much do anything, including murder, rape, pillage, torture, and you can get away with it. And if you're part of the oppressor class, it doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter how much you grovel, you're always guilty. You're always guilty, even if you're the one being repillaged and murdered. You're always the guilty one. Matt Egan on CNN said, quote, we should note, this is often the TGIF from fp.com, we should note that Claudine Gaye has not been accused of stealing anyone's ideas in any of her writings. She's been accused of sort of more like copying other people's writings without attribution. Sort of copying other people's ideas without attribution. What is that? And that's sort of, that's, we don't consider that a crime. You know, that's not a bad thing. You tell that to students. You tell that to other academics who actually do this honestly and do they work properly. It's just, the left is falling over one another in order to find ways to justify her, to justify her behavior and to excuse it. Now, what is the ultimate excuse for why Gaye lost her job? Well, the ultimate excuse, of course, has to be at the end, because it's the ultimate excuse for all evils and wrongs that happen in the world. And it's the ultimate excuse that both left and right really share. The ultimate excuse is that Gaye lost her job because of the Jews. I mean, it always boils down to the Jews are behind it all. The Jews are perverting, distorting, destroying our world and creating injustice. This is how Cornell West puts it, right? Quote. You know, they never say it out, they never say it. This is just, it's always kind of implied. We'll see other examples in a minute. Cornell West says, the same figures and forces enabling the ethnic cleansing and genocidal attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, Achaemen, Blum, Summers and others, push out the first black woman president of Harvard. Achaemen, Blum, Summers, all Jews, unsurprising. It's the Jews, guys. They're the problem that we face in this world. Always have been and seemingly always will be. And it's not just Cornell West. Tchaikovsky chose to go on a long rant earlier this week against whom? Some leftist crazy? Oh no, no, no, no. Against Ben Shapiro, who happens to be of course an Orthodox Jew. Here's part of the rant. Quote, the people on the right who have spent the last two months every single day focused on a conflict in a foreign country as our own country becomes dangerously unstable. He then lists various American issues. Again, this is from TGAF. He lists various American issues like drugs that he says Ben and these types have never cared about. Never cared about Ben Shapiro, really. And then he says, quote, they don't care about the country at all. And that's kind of their prerogative. But I do because I have no choice because I'm from here. My family's been here hundreds of years. God, this is so sickening. I plan to stay here. I'm shocked by how little they care about the country, including the person you mentioned, Ben Shapiro. And I can't imagine how someone like that could get an audience of people who claim to care about America because he doesn't, obviously, unquote. Now, that is pure anti-Semitic trope. Ben Shapiro is Jewish. Ben Shapiro is pro-Israel and it's talked a lot about Hamas. Ben Shapiro is also a conservative. We've talked about America over and over and over again on a show forever. But he's a Jew. He was a Yomica. He cares about Israel. And therefore, the trope goes, and this is something that Trump has also mentioned, they care more about Israel than they do about America. Indeed, it's not just that they care more. They don't care about America. Tucker Carlson tells us. And this is Tucker. Remember Tucker, the snob with the dollar store? This is Tucker, the racist snob. My family's been here hundreds of years. I don't have anywhere to go. Disgusting. You see, but Scott will defend anybody on the right. It doesn't matter how anti-Semitic, how vile, how disgusting, how horrible he is. Scott will find a bright spot. I mean, this is really disgusting. And this is, you know, Tucker, of course, is descending into, I don't know, conspiracy theory, hell, and into anti-Semitic. And I think, ultimately, he'll become kind of a white supremacist type. But, you know, it's just, it really is horrific. What I just read you is truly horrific. And we're talking about Ben Shapiro. And I disagree with Ben Shapiro on a lot of things. But to claim Ben Shapiro doesn't care about America, really? But it's not just Tucker Carlson. One of the most admired investors in Silicon Valley, I've admired him. One of the most admired venture capitalists of the last 20 plus years, a founder of, what do you call it, a combinator, a white combat, I can't pronounce anything today. Anyway, Paul Graham, who I've admired. And here's what he writes in on Twitter. Just again, I find this just hard, hard to just imagine. He says he shows the UN vote, a UN vote against Israel. We're pretty much every country in the world votes against Israel except the United States and maybe a few others. And the United States votes for Israel, and a few other countries vote for Israel, but almost everybody votes against Israel. So this is in relation to a United Nations vote, United Nations. Quote, this UN vote shows how completely isolated we are from world opinion. Is it because only America is smart enough to understand the Israeli point of view? Or because America's most powerful lobby has dragged us onto the wrong side of history? The answer to that is obvious. It's pretty unbelievable. The United States is pro-Israel because of the Jewish lobby. Again, another trope that keeps coming up, keeps being brought up. Paul Graham, for whatever reason, has been disgusting since October 7th. His anti-Israel is just being horrific. And of course, when you think about the United Nations, the answer should be, the answer should be we're just smart, better, more moral than most countries over there. Most of those countries are horrific countries, horrible. Just despicable. But it doesn't end there. Another tweet came from Dr. Rupa Maria, Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, University of California, San Francisco, a doctor, Professor of Medicine. Quote, the presence of Zionism in US medicine should be examined as a structural impediment to health equity. Zionism is supremacist, racist ideology. And we see Zionist doctors justifying the genocide of Palestinians. How does their outlook position impact priorities in US medicine? I mean, sadly, the reality today is that anti-Semitism is rampant in America. And among many of America's elites, both left and right. And it is pretty horrific from Al Sharpton to Tucker Carlson to Paul Graham to, I don't know, Professor of Medicine at UC San Francisco. It's truly disgusting, despicable. I knew this existed in America. I thought it was relegated to ignorant white trash and crazy white supremacists and crazy leftist communists. To see this mainstreamed, to see this among mainstream professors, whether it's Cornell West or whether it's somebody at the University, you know, Professor of Medicine or big, unbelievably popular and successful media personalities like Tucker Carlson. I don't know, words escaped me in how horrific this really is and how bad it really is in America, in America, of all the places you expected in Europe. All right, just another story about insanity. I don't know, just like, I guess this will just frame your weekend in a positive mood or something. Spain, Spain, another European country is getting rid of nuclear power. It's phasing it out because that's gone so well for Germany. It's gone so well for Germany. Spain has decided that by 2035, it will have no nuclear power plants. Indeed, the shutdown will start in 2027. The shutdown in and of itself will cost over 20 billion dollars funded by the operators of the plants, supposedly. And, you know, they're going to increase significant investment. I mean, this is Spain, not the richest country in Europe, not the most successful economy in Europe. They're going to heavily invest in solar and wind power. Now, in Spain's defense as compared to Germany, the sun does shine in Spain. It doesn't in Germany. Germany's investment in solar power is comical. Spain's, you know, semi reasonable. At least they'll get some electricity during the day, because the sun does shine quite a bit. In the parts of Spain, it shines a lot. Wind, I don't know, but my guess is there's always places that are windy. But just shutting down the nuclear power plants, the safest, cleanest form of energy available, is going to cost them 20 billion. I don't know how much they're going to have to invest in solar and wind. Unreliables, as Alex Epstein calls them. But, I mean, this is this is the insanity of Europe, and this is a big part of why the rate is rising in Europe, and the rate is getting stronger in Europe, because the left is just crazy, just crazy. Jeremy Morton reminds me of the rain in Spain that falls mainly in the plains. Which means that in the non-planes, it doesn't fall much rain, so there's a lot of sunshine. If you don't know, that is from My Fair Lady, one of the great musicals and just a fantastic the story that became Alien by Shaw. Is it by Shaw? I think it's by Shaw. A great play. Super entertaining. My Fair Lady is a wonderful, wonderful movie. And play. I've seen it on stage. Musical. All right. Go figure. Let's hope that the socialists lose the next election in Spain, not to the far right, but maybe to a center-right party that then reverses this. Indeed, the conservative opposition has argued that they had pledged to reverse the planned phase out, but the socialists committed to it. Committed to it in Spain, where it rains mainly in the plains. All right. Let us go to your super chat. Remember, you can use the super chat to ask questions and $20 or more get priority. Let me also remind everybody that I will be in Denver a week from today. I'm doing a private event in the morning and then in the evening, you're all welcome. If you are interested in attending, you can find the link to where to register on uranbrookshow.com, right on the front page next week on Friday. I will be in Denver. It'll be an inspirational talk. I hope we can get a few of you. It'll be great to hang out. Great to meet you. It does cost $30, but view that as a super chat. You get to ask me questions that to talk for free. So you pay up front, you get to ask as many questions as you want for free. All right. Adam, what else do I want to tell you? Yes, I have to remind you that the Ironman Institute is a sponsor of the show and that the Ironman Institute is encouraging people to sign up for Ocon and that Ocon will be in June in Anaheim, California. A fantastic location, great weather, right next to Disneyland and it'll be an amazing program. I will be there, but so will a lot of some of the top speakers. I really, really hope you attend and again, opportunity to hang out, opportunity to meet, but more importantly to meet other fans of the show, other objectivists, other objectivist intellectuals. It's a great time. It's a great place, particularly in this crazy and sane world we live in right now. I don't know. There's so many crazies out there. There's so many irrational people out there in so many different ways irrational that Ocon is a pleasure because you get to spend a week with basically people who are committed to rationality and some of them are rationalists, but committed to rationality. I mean, you're not going to like everybody. Not everybody's going to be a friend. Not everybody's integrated these ideas well, but most have and there'll be a bunch of good people there and they're 500 people there. So if you don't like 450, it means you like 50. 50 is a lot. So come lots of opportunities. You can sign up. It's ironman.org slash start here slash start here where all the kind of things we're promoting in the Iran book show occur. You can still sign up for the Austin conference, for the Amsterdam conference and so on. Look forward to seeing you at Ocon, but first come to Colorado. Adam, in coming into here from Ivan, that despite how bad a country looks politically, there is the possibility of a quick reversal from despair when you importantly have the right type of principled and influential leadership. I think that's right, but of course, it had to get really, really bad. People had to get completely discouraged with the existing political leadership with the political elite completely. And there had to be an alternative because in America, the alternative to the existing political elite is Donald Trump. We don't have anybody even at the periphery of our politics who's a melee like nobody with the courage with any kind of charisma. And I don't see anybody on the periphery. So maybe, maybe the time will come. Maybe the country needs to get desperate enough. But yes, it is heartening to see that a country can be as in horrific a state as Argentina is today. And still there's a way out. And as Ivan said, Ivan, they can be rich 20, 30 years from now. He could be placing now on a path towards being rich. Remember, Argentina still has immense natural resources, including, by the way, a lot of shale oil, a lot of fracking ability. And you're going to see a lot of investment and stuff like that. So we will see. That's inspiring. The fact that you can come out of the abyss and project a positive future in spite of how bad things are. And Sama, happy new year, Dr. Book. I've said to students that if people cheat, plagiarize in the nuclear industry, people may die. Yep. Get caught cheating and you lose your career chances. Yep. Pure and simple. No tolerance here. Yeah. And I think that's Claudine Gay is absolutely that's it. I mean, and it's not again, it's not a sentence here, it's not one paper. It's this was a systematic systematic through academic papers. Bradley, given our corrupt altruistic culture, how critical is the environment environment you choose a well intentioned man going into politics or media is more at risk compared to business or step or step? Elon is very redeemable, but Obama is toast. Yeah, I mean, I think it is crucial. The career you choose, the kind of environment you choose to live in, the kind of world in which you choose, you know, you have to be selfish. You have one life. You've got to, you should choose a career or life path. You associate a place where you can apply your reason and rationality, where you can be you, where you can be moral, where you can be a good guy and not get penalized for it. And politics is a very corrupt place today. And it's very difficult to play that political game. Unless you're going to be a real disruptor, unless your whole point is to go in to disrupt, like me, like Michael says, who is a real life else with Tui and Peter Keating? I don't think there is a real life else with Tui partially because I don't think you can be as aware, a self aware as two years. But I think there are a lot of intellectuals who have that general attitude without being as explicit as he is about it. Paul Krugman, for example, I think a lot of a lot of these intellectuals, I mean, Taka Carson is also a Tui type, right? I mean, look, he's out for power. He's out, you know, to have a loyal, a fawning base and he doesn't care what he has to say and he doesn't care what he has to hold and how he says it. So I think Taka on the right, Paul Krugman, there are lots of them on the left, but many of our intellectuals. And since Peter Keating, it's hard to tell because you'd have to know people. But I'd say a lot of people, you know, you'd have to find them and know them. But the kind of people who just want to fit in, the kind of people who choose their values based on other people, you know, you probably know people like that personally, maybe, maybe you don't. But, you know, maybe somebody like even gay is like that. Claudine Gay is a kind of an Ellsworth Tui. A lot of academics, a lot of academics are Peter Keating types. And gay is probably a Peter Keating type. They're very Peter Keating-like, right? In that what they want is to get along. What they want is to fit in. What they want is to not shake the boat. The values are chosen by others. Andrew Traygo, why do you think Biden is polling so low despite decent economic results? I think because inflation is very difficult and for people to cope with and very disruptive to people's lives. Inflation is a really nasty phenomenon. And it hurts the middle class. And I think the poor people most, they experience it in the grocery store. And even though their wages are climbing, they don't quite experience that way. They still see themselves spending more and more and more stuff. If you keep track of your spending on groceries, as I did for many years, if you keep track on your monthly spending and watch it and be careful on how you spend your money, then inflation just throws you a curveball. And suddenly, everything is more expensive significantly. I think that's a big part of it. I also think it's just, you know, our intellectuals just feeding negativity constantly. And generally, we live in a culture that's very, very negative, very, very fearful, very, very negative. And so I think that's a big part of it. I think for some people, the immigration issue is a big deal, but I really think for most people, immigration is far away. It doesn't affect them. And again, to the extent that they feel affected by it, it's the fault of the intellectuals, telling them it's a disaster. Let me, I'll do a longer segment on this, but let's think about this. Under Obama, we experienced what was then called a border crisis, right? Illegal immigrants were rampaging across that border and coming into this country and doing who knows what, and Donald Trump swore to stop that. And to some extent, he controlled it, but to a large extent, illegal immigration continued to be large numbers because he didn't build the wall, didn't finish building the wall. And it was just a crisis. And then of course, now there's this massive crisis at our southern border, a massive immigration crisis. You'd think that with a decade, really 20 something years, really since, you know, since the 1990s, we have had a crisis on our southern border. And what exactly has happened? Like a crisis usually means, I don't know, something bad happens. So all these illegal immigrants have come into the United States over the last 30 years. And what's the negative impact they've had? Almost none. None, actually. And indeed, most of it's positive. They've done jobs, nobody else wants to do. They've lowered the cost of construction and picking strawberries and all kinds of other things. What exactly is the crisis? Let's say two million people cross illegally into the United States every year during the Biden administration. Let's say that's the reality. Yeah, I mean, New York is having a hard time because they promise to pay them welfare and they won't let them work. Right. And that's because they're semi-legal. But let's say they were truly illegals and therefore they work. What's the crisis? What bad is happening in the country? I mean, this crisis actually is maybe fueling economic growth. Maybe the fact that so many illegals are coming into the country means we've got people doing jobs that otherwise would not be done, which is fueling economic growth. A wage is going down because they're competing away jobs of Americans. No, it turns out wage is going up. What's the crisis? Is crime going through the roof because of illegal immigrants? No. I mean, crime has gone up. Primarily it went up during the COVID years, but that was primarily crime committed by Americans. Almost none of it was committed by illegal immigrants. So what is the crisis? Now, if Israel opened its border to Gaza, we know what the crisis would be. Death, destruction, mayhem, rape, pillage, all of that. But what is the crisis in America? An uptick in homelessness? Not because of illegal immigrants. Homelessness, problem has nothing to do with illegal immigration. It's got everything to do with lack of housing, zoning laws, and you could argue problems with mental health and addiction. And most of the country, most of the United States, 90 plus percent of the U.S., doesn't have a homeless crisis. Almost all the homeless crisis is in the West Coast, not all of it, but almost all of it. Over 50% of the crisis is a California slash West Coast crisis. So what is the immigration crisis? What horrific negative consequences are they having on your life that you should call it a crisis? I mean, put aside whether you should import as if people are goods and put aside whether people should come into the country or shouldn't come into the country. Put that aside. Forget about that. I'm just asking existentially, factually, in reality, what is the bad stuff that has happened because two million people have come into this country under the Biden administration illegally. And many, many more than two million before that. Like even during Trump, there was cities overrun. What city is overrun? Which city is overrun by immigrants? It's unlivable. I travel a lot. I haven't seen an unlivable city in America. Yeah, again, New York and Chicago are having problems, but that's because we offer them welfare. I mean, in spite of the law, we don't let them work. But that's not illegal immigrants. That's a stupid, what do you call it? Refugee status stuff. What is the problem? And that's what nobody can articulate. I mean, even here, people who are against immigration can't articulate. What is the problem? Is crime going up because of illegals? No. Is employment down in America? Few jobs being created because of illegals? No. Is GDP, is government deficits? Yes, I agree that New York and Chicago are having a hard time in some cities, some towns and places in Texas having a hard time because they're promised welfare to asylum seekers and they won't let asylum seekers work. But if they let them work, what would be the problem? What is the problem that would be created? There is no problem. It's all bullshit. But it's bullshit to have our votes. The more we can oh my God, we're being invaded. I mean, if we were invaded, wouldn't there be lots of people dead? Wouldn't be a lot of people murdered? Wouldn't be they be ransacking and cities and towns all over the place? And yet it's not happening. It's just weird, right? Really weird. JJ Gigby says, is Tucker Carlson a Charles Lindbergh type? No, because he doesn't have the achievements that Charles Lindbergh had. So Charles Lindbergh was a real anti-Semite, but in a fascist. But he was also somebody who achieved a lot. And therefore Tucker Carlson is a media personality. He caters to his audience and always has. Yeah, I don't know. It doesn't strike me that he's lower than Charles Lindbergh. What do you think are the chances of another war in Lebanon following the growing tensions in all the Israel? I don't think there will be a war in Lebanon. And I think the reason is that Nasrallah and Iran don't want a war in Lebanon. They do not want to take on the Israel. They're not ready. They will lose. Lebanon is a country on the brink of collapse. There is no real country in Lebanon. I mean, there is a country, but it's dysfunctional completely. And most of the Lebanese people, I'd say an overwhelming majority of the Lebanese people, don't want a war with Israel. And Hezbollah is not very popular right now, and it would be a lot less popular if it got into a war with Israel. So, and then Iran doesn't actually want a confrontation with the U.S. and Israel. What Iran wants is the Biden administration to kind of deal with them. What Iran wants is the sanctions lifted. What Iran wants is the Biden administration to give them more billions of dollars. That's what Iran wants. They don't want a war. They know they'll lose the war. They can't win a war. And then nuclear plans will be retarded by decades. But what they want is a peace deal. What they want is a deal with America. And, you know, Hamas, in a sense, and they were coming in close to that, Biden was ready to sell out. And October 7th happened. But that's what they want. So both Iran and I think Hezbollah don't want a war in the North. So I don't think it will happen. It could, ultimately, they could be pushed to the point where they feel like they have no choice. But I think, again, because of the situation in Lebanon and because of Iran, the Iranian regime being relatively weak and not really wanting a war, I don't think they will be willing. I think they'll try to avoid one as much as they can to put it differently. Matthew says, a stream overlay would improve the show and make it more appealing to new viewers. I'll look into software and email you unless that's Christians up. No, please look into software and email me. I don't know exactly what that would look like. But yeah, we could definitely play around. I'm open to playing around with different stuff and testing it and seeing if it works. Andrew, I was taken aback by the lines in Hitler's speech explicitly denigrating the individual in favor of the collective. His evil could not have manifested in a country of independent men. And he knew it. Yeah, I think that's right. I'm surprised that you were taken aback by it because God, that's the whole foundation of Hitler's rising is the denigration of the individual. There's the same communism does exactly the same thing. They have to do it. They have to denigrate the individual. They have to denigrate the individual mind and elevate the collective. That is the whole basis. And that's why when you see American politicians doing it, when you see American politicians talking positively in collectivistic terms, that's why it's so scary because you would never think that in America that could happen. And that's why racism, you know, racism, anti-Semitism are so despicable in America more than in any other country because this is a land of individualism. All right, everybody. Thank you. Thank you to all the superchatters. We made our goal. I appreciate that. Always do. Tomorrow, tomorrow, 2 p.m. east coast time, we have our AMA. We have our panel of $25 and above a month supporters on Patreon or PayPal or subscribe stuff. So please join us for that. 2 p.m. east coast time tomorrow. I'll see you all then. Have a great weekend. Bye, everybody.