 The radical Fundamental principles of freedom rational self-interest and individual rights This is the Iran Brook show Welcome everybody to Iran book show on this Saturday, oh no, it's Sunday already. I skipped the show yesterday. Sorry about that a little a little tired but thanks for joining me today on this on the Sunday and Hope you're having a great weekend. All right, a few we're gonna cover We'll see how many topics we give it today partially depends on the kind of questions you asked on super chat and stuff, but I Want to talk a little bit about the Pinsicola shooting And and then I want to get to this video of Mark Cuban There was sent to me for comment and you know, it's just the same old stuff of Billionaires defending themselves and then maybe we'll get to a Richard Wolfe video and comment on it. So but also feel free to Indulge in super chat questions if you feel up to it. So as you probably know There was a shooting in a Pinsicola at a military base You know, what's interesting about it You know, three people are dead and number of people are injured, which is horrific. The shooter himself was killed But what is what is truly? What is true? What makes this interesting versus other shootings is Who the shooter was and the shooter was a Saudi Arabian? Air Force officer second lieutenant who was in the United States for training In the United States for training, you know by by I guess the United States Air Force and he's one of you know hundreds of Potentially thousands of Saudis who are in the United States Who are serving in their Saudi Arabia's military and who the United States is training? in flying and in whatever, you know military competence and And So no, so this is the latest terrorist attack by what appears to be I mean, we don't have all the Evidence, but what appears to be in you know, America hating Israel hating Islamist But here it is somebody who didn't come in Didn't sneak across the border a wall wouldn't have stopped him. It isn't somebody who Came in on a visa and and was You know vetted There's somebody who was invited in Invited in as a Saudi military officer now What makes you know, what's interesting about this is is the idea that If you're really concerned about terrorism Islamic terrorism Then you don't build walls you don't ban Muslims from Sudden countries like Trump did early on in his administration 10 countries none of which have ever produced any terrorists But you strategically look at your enemy you evaluate them You figure out Who they are you identify them first then you evaluate them you figure out their weaknesses and you basically destroys them So the only way to deal with terrorism is to go and destroy your enemies It cannot be that the way to deal with terrorism is to train the military of One of the two largest sponsors of terrorism It cannot be That one invites into your own country the military of a country who on every Friday In the mosques are calling for the death of Americans in the establishment of a Islamic Empire throughout the world as the Wahhabis do And and granted Saudi Arabia has been moderated in recent times and some of those Wahhabis are sitting in jail bed Only marginally and is it sustainable Saudi Arabia is not our friend And as long as Saudi Arabia and indeed Saudi Arabia is if one evaluates the situation as I have been doing since 9 11 Saudi Arabia is our enemy in The struggle as is Iran and When does not invite our enemies troops to be trained by our own troops? I mean that is suicide That is suicide Now it's not suicide completely in the sense that America is so powerful and so big that the Saudis are not gonna destroy us But it certainly is it certainly is Going to get Americans killed and and the Americans in Pensacola are killed because we invite enemy soldiers into our country now most of them are Fine because the regime in Saudi Arabia knows better Than to advocate directly for the destruction of America and to fight us directly they basically have outsourced it to all kinds of charities and all kinds of other institutions That do the dirty work but There's no question about the connection between Saudi Arabian charities Saudi members of the royal family in Saudi Arabia members of the Saudi intelligence and terrorism and Yet we ignore it. We do nothing about it. We pretend that they are friends our president goes dancing with his sheiks and We invite them in to train them to become better soldiers and All it takes is one of them or right now. They're looking I think for another person They were detaining about 10 so I don't know exactly what's gonna come of it It could be just a lone person it just we could be just him But you've got to calculate that in a certain percentage of Saudis Given what they're taught given what they were advocate given what the state religion is And how it is practiced that a certain percentage of Saudis are going to be violent You don't train them militarily. It's just nuts That is just nuts and of course if you're gonna have a Muslim ban You don't have a Muslim ban in all countries excluding Saudi Arabia I mean that was that was a reflection of What happened back there now? Luckily, I mean I had to say luckily in this context, but it is not a major terrorist event Thousands of people were not killed But it is tragic that three people had to die for nothing Because we have an incoherent Unprincipled foreign policy practiced by all sides same foreign policy under Democrats and Republicans it hasn't really mattered Saudi Arabia is our friend no matter who is in the White House No matter who is in Congress. It's exactly the same outcome Until we wake up to the realities of the Middle East until we are willing have the courage to self-esteem The backbone to define our enemies and our friends support our friends and reject our enemies These kind of things will continue and they will they will be worse in the future All right But of course, you know, this will just be more excuse for people to shout for a Wall for more limited immigration even though this has nothing to do with immigration Not even to do with Muslim immigration. All right Let's see. Oh, so I wanted to talk about I mean, there's not a lot for me to say about Pensacola other than that really I If anybody wants to as I said if anybody wants to use the super chat feature I am I'm available to answer your questions today. Okay. Let me shift now shift a little focus to to the attack on billionaires and and Mark Cuban and Mark Cuban was bought on Fox News kind of defend capitalism to defend billionaires to talk about health care and You know, somebody send me actually Christian send me the video of a couple of leftists talking about this interview and I have to admit and and Christian warned me, but I mean, they were so vulgar and You know, it was the f-word every second word and you know, couldn't couldn't really even You know, I couldn't play it for you. I apologize. I'm when it comes to language I just don't it's just it's just offensive and stupid and they were so stupid in their commentary and Mark Cuban is so deserving of criticism that I'm much more interested in attacking Mark Cuban than I am in attacking those crazy leftist because anybody who watched it could Have seen how empty shallow stupid they really were, you know, I think it was something atheist something atheist anyway So I'll I'll look at other videos of theirs and see if because they've got a huge following They've got like one point something million subscribers and actually more people have watched I think this Mark Cuban interview through their criticism of it Then have watched it directly on Fox businesses YouTube channel So you can see the kind of influence they have but man it was just Just a way I mean anybody who doesn't see through that there's nothing I can do to help them So I'll look to see if there's something a little bit more rational that they produce That is worth commenting on. All right. Let's take on Mark Cuban. I mean Mark Cuban is pretty pathetic Obviously Mark Cuban self-made billionaire Comes from true comes from working-class family got into the internet very early Basically, I think it was internet kind of internet radio music over online sold to Yahoo at the peak of the bubble unlike many others Didn't keep a stock Didn't invest massively in comm thinking it would go up, but implicitly or explicitly Recognized that there was a bubble and basically took his money out Out of the market and ultimately is best known for having invested in the Dallas Mavericks and becoming the owner of The Dallas Mavericks and and being quite visible out there as a billionaire since then Basically that was the one transaction that made him. I'm sure he makes money at the Dallas Mavericks I'm sure he's made some other good investments that have just fueled his billionaire status But the real big thing was was he he got on the internet early He made a lot of money and he was smart enough because I knew a lot of people who became very very rich for a few months and Then basically lost most of it He did not because he was smart enough to get up So here's on Fox He's actually sitting you'll see him sitting neck right next to Steve Forbes who is much better at defending capitalism while Cuban but also pretty weak and We will watch and see how he addresses Medicare for all and socialism and Defense capitalism Cuban is here. He has been a capitalist his whole life And he actually started with nothing and became a billionaire because of hard work and just smarts and luck and luck Yeah, I mean they always emphasize the luck. I mean, maybe it was lucky to I'm not saying he wasn't timing is important But why don't you just leave it at? You came from nothing you worked hard and you and you're smart. Why do you have to undercut yourself? What do you have to undercut yourself? by Emphasizing luck. I mean Bill Gates does the same thing one Buffett does the same thing But that's because they're embarrassed. They have no self-esteem tied up in this wealth that they've created and They feel guilty to some extent at some level they feel guilty Now Stephanie asks has a right try to talk to these billions. Yeah, I mean I've exchanged emails with Mark Cuban But he only replies with one word to my emails Anybody know what that word would be? I mean Mark Cuban actually answers his emails and I have his email address somewhere and his answer is always No, and I've asked to meet with him the answer was no I asked him to support the distribution among high school kids of his favorite book the Fountainhead and he has said No, I've asked him to support the essay contest on the fountain at his favorite book He says and he has said no to help expose young people to the Book that inspired him and he has said no so Anyway, that's Mark Cuban So Immediately, it's luck right Let's keep going of course. So tell me about that What do you think about how 2020 is shaping up and in capitalism versus socialism? Well, I mean capitalism is gonna win capitalism is gonna win and and His confidence that capitalism is going to win. It's not an ideological confidence It's not comes from an understanding of capitalism and we're gonna win the the intellectual debate with the socialists his Confidence that capitalism will win is a practical confidence, but we have the money Socialism doesn't work and people don't do what doesn't work. I Mean, I would argue so security doesn't work. Medicaid doesn't work Well, if it doesn't work regulations don't work and we still do them So there's a huge amount of evidence to suggest that people actually do actually do vote for and embrace things that don't work but He's you know, most of these billionaires most of these rich people who've made their money in the market Don't believe the world will turn against markets Because markets work Question about that, but I look no question. I'm never against open discourse. That's what makes this country great You know people being able to convey their opinions now. I'm not gonna agree with all of them Socialism just doesn't work Medicare for all notice. It just doesn't work not wrong immoral indefensible Causes people to die starve. It just Doesn't work now. What about all the socialist stuff that we have in America today all the places in which the government intervenes in The economy that is basically adopted Elements of socialism like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, welfare, and of course the regulatory state that works But he's gonna defend all that actually I Believe health care is a right. Whoa. Do you hear that? She said when it comes to Medicare for all I agree Medicare Medicare is a right. Well, look, that's it Once you accept health care as a right Then it's over. There is no debate socialism has won You can't deny people rights If health care is a right you have to provide it and In order to provide it you can only do it through government and To do that you have to use force against doctors nurses hospitals and other Taxpayers to take their money so that you can provide that health care Once you've given up health care is a right. You've given up the whole debate You've given up everything. There is nothing more to really talk about This is Mark Cuban defending capitalism. He's on the show to defend capitalism To argue against Medicare for all but there was no argument against Medicare for all if health care is a right and You know somebody says how can he not defend capitalism while being on a show that shows capitalism in action, which is shock tank well, because he Doesn't have This self-esteem to defend capitalism. He doesn't have the philosophical tools to the full company indeed he rejects them because He's obviously read the fountain it thinks it's his favorite book, but has no understanding no understanding Of what the book actually means he won't defend individualism. He won't defend egoism He won't defend capitalism and he won't defend he will defend the idea as he just did that health care is a right now. Let's Talk about what is a right? Where do rights come from rights are not given to us by something external rights are not in us a Some intrinsic thing writes a moral principle moral principle that is necessary for human beings to live in a Community in society it is a moral principle a moral truth About the conditions necessary for human success When living in a social context So if you believe that the individual has a right to his own life If you believe the individual has a right to pursue his own happiness He must be free to use his mind to choose his values and to act to pursue in pursuit of those values Right to recognition of that right say you are free To act in pursuit of your rational values in pursuit of your survival and happiness Free of coercion free of force force free of authority you should be left alone So you can use your mind to pursue your values Now where does the right to health care come there I? Mean the rights articulating the Declaration of Independence a clear ever right to life Which means to take the action necessary to sustain and to live a flourishing life You have a right to liberty which is mean a right to think and to articulate those thoughts as you see fit Recognizing the importance of thinking the importance of reason the importance of knowledge the importance of speech to your own survival But that not at anybody's expense nobody has to give up anything so that you can speak freely right freely think freely And you have a right let's say to property Property doesn't come at anybody else's expense property is something you create By your efforts in Voluntary interaction with other people you can't use force It's not property. It's not your property. It's not private property if you used force to get it So again no expense of anybody else's It's about how you need property in order to pursue your life. You need to be able to keep to keep That what you create That's what life necessitates. That's what your life necessitates need to be able to speak and you need to have property And a pursuit of happiness again pursuit of happiness free of coercion free of force Not anybody else's expense because happiness doesn't come at other people's expense so There is no right to other people's stuff to other people's work to other people's effort to other people's wealth I mean, there's a sense in which there's a right to health care, but not the sense in which Mark Cuban means it The right to health care. It's just like the right to anything else is the freedom to use your mind and to use your resources To pursue their health care you need it doesn't guarantee you anything It just makes it possible for you to choose whatever doctor you want Medicare for all is a violation of your right to health care Because it tells you which doctor to go to you cannot choose you cannot select you cannot use your mind To judge which doctor which drug to take which procedure to engage in no some government bureaucrat gets to tell you all of that So right to health care is a right to freely choose to freely engage in market transactions to go to any doctor Who's willing to trade with you to? Engage with any hospital willing to trade with you to buy whatever drugs a drug company or pharmacy is willing to sell you The right to health care is a right to engage in voluntary transactions that enhance your health care. It's a freedom But that's not what's meant what's meant here is a right to health care means you get to be taken care of We're gonna take care of you by the government funded through coercion and Coercion used on doctors hospitals nurses medical practitioners of all kinds and all sorts Force used on them To make sure that they service you know none of this voluntary transaction None of this idea of choice none of using your mind or the doctor's mind or the pharmacy's mind to make decisions about what is best No The so-called right to health care is a right to enslave all of us to the medical bureaucracy To the bureaucrats who will tell us what kind of health care we should pursue But this is the definitive capitalism saying We have a right to health care But you're not gonna all of a sudden create an environment. Well, let's just talk about her plan, right? We're not all of a sudden gonna have many can fall How about later? How about slowly? Yeah, and you had a twitter battle. Yeah, not even with her right? I think she just let me go but um You know, if you look at her plan, there's just things that just have no chance of passing You know, so it's a practical issue Practical nobody's gonna pass this nobody's gonna have to make it happen And of course all the arguments he's gonna make or you cannot Economic arguments financial just don't make sense like so Part of her plan says employers will take the money that we were paying for insurance And put that into the payment for medicare for all for their employees Now she had the choice of saying let's increase payroll taxes by a certain amount. No, why is that? I mean, he comes up with all kind of convoluted reasons here. Why that doesn't work But why wouldn't that work all you do is you take the stuff that Employees the health insurance premiums and pay it now to the government instead of the insurance company That's what she's proposing If you're a statist if you're a socialist if you believe in medicare for all Why would that not work and if you're not and that doesn't increase taxes now it doesn't work numbers wise but What's his objection would have been the more viable way But we what she chose was something called a head tax Which says for my companies any company that has more than 50 employees Rather than paying a higher payroll tax We're going to charge you the average of the last three years plus an inflator Each year for each one of your employees now That means that in her mind that we'll be paying $7,500 to pick a number per year per employee Now for somebody who's making $200,000 a year. Okay, that's not bad But what's the impact on someone who's making $10 an hour or $12 an hour or $30,000 a year If you know if you you have to hire somebody and the the payroll cost is instead of 6.12 percent or whatever it is, right? You're having to pay $7,500 per year You're going to have second thoughts. You're slow hire Right, you're going to have second thoughts about hiring that person even worse as you evolve into her plan You're going to see companies cut payroll benefits because they know if they push their cost down leading into the plan for the calculations It's going to cost them less per employee and that's going to create a difficult problem It's not thought out So it's a right so it's not thought out to maybe bernie's plan is more thought out Or maybe somebody can take elizabeth's plan and make it more realistic These are the arguments against Medicare for all Because of the Cadillac plans go out. Well, yeah, I mean, yeah look for the douse mavericks It cost me for a family of four my we self-insured my insurance costs are $29,900 per year But i'm okay with that because our insurance is great and it's a great premium for employees Under Medicare for all they're going to take a huge step back in what they get And like to your point with unions for their Cadillac plans You're going to have a lot of people that are very upset that medicare for all doesn't provide the quality of care that they're used to And but everybody gets it and it's a right going to create huge transitional problems So when I look at this whole thing though, right? So we've got these policies and you're saying that they're they can't work except the american people are A lot of people think they're they're good ideas and then you look at the landscape right and on the left And you see we've got new entrants. I think that are saying we're going too far left Let's try and be a little bit more moderate. You've got bloom ball patrick the ball patrick. We've got bloomberg coming in I think what happens there is it hurts the moderates because it takes it They all fracture and then you end up with lisbeth warren more likely to have a path I'm not so concerned like when the bloomberg comes in. I think that's good. I think they're looking to be power brokers I don't think they're necessarily looking to win So if you have if you're getting down to the convention and you've got an x number of delegates and you have influence I think that's a good thing for michael bloomberg and that takes the democratic party to the center because you need your Delegates to have a have a candidate, right? So i'm not that reinforced by the whole proportional Representation they have now in the primaries that if you get 15 percent Yeah, this is all about the election. It's kind of annoying stuff. Yes Sometimes you have to take all or you could put a majority together before the convention Yeah, and so it changes the changes the calculus if you will well Tom steyer tweeted at you only one person here is diverting attention from reality at mark cuban And the reality is is that we need a wealth tax according to tom steyer Look, i'm not opposed to a wealth tax. Notice that he's not opposed to a wealth tax The defendant capitalism the billionaires not opposed to a wealth tax. Then why would anybody else be opposed to a wealth tax? out there If the billionaires want to pay it And and again, you hear the same thing from all of them bill gates One buffet they all want taxes to go up for themselves now. He's going to be opposed to a wealth tax in a minute He's not opposed to a wealth tax, but It gets the job done. Does it get your job that i'm opposed to is wasting my money So he's opposed to wasting his money so He's opposed to a wealth tax because it doesn't work. He's a pure pragmatist like all of these guys Like all of these guys He's opposed to a wealth tax because it doesn't work Maybe they can increase a different tax on him the world work. I mean that's one buffet and and and uh bill gates want to increase All the other taxes Say it again businesses cannot survive if their communities are if their social unrest in our communities So he's worried about social unrest So what he's really trying to do and i hear this a lot from rich people We need a bribe people so that they're not Going out into the streets and and breaking windows And the only way to bribe them is i pay more taxes and to redistribute to them So it's okay to raise my taxes if it reduce The the probability of riots in the streets that might hurt me Can't open the store. You can't do business. Is a wealth tax really going to pay for all of these things? That's the problem. It's like you say it's a wealth tax would they say Is that the problem that it won't pay for these things? Isn't it the problem that it's their money that you're taxing Savings and investment That you're taxing production And what are you doing with that money? You're throwing it away. You're consuming it. You're destroying with it You're not doing anything of value with it Isn't that the problem? Not that it can't pay for all their plans. What if it could then you'd be for it Tax just on the top 1% it's right. You're gonna have to raise taxes on everybody Yeah, of course you will but i don't i don't look the wealth tax in a vacuum right It's part of a bigger tax and of course you're going to try to tax everybody as much as they can The question is how do you spend it and what kind of results do you get taxes hurt the economy The more taxes you put on the more they hurt the economy now, you know Steve vote says that but mark kubernetes like yeah, well, I don't really believe that It's a cartoonish idea that you're sitting on billions of dollars in cash. They don't realize no, that's asset Yeah, and then when you tax the asset you're gonna affect the value of yeah The other thing is how do you value stuff? I mean you've got are I mean rich people buy a lot of stuff You know you you own the fabrics. So how do you value this stuff? So I said now the problem with the wealth tax is this notice this it's not that it's confiscating your money It's not that it's destroying production investment It's that you're gonna have to sell your investments and that's going to drive their value down and other people will Behood by that as well all true began such trivial arguments But this is all he can muster one of the economists that were listed in Her plan and I asked that very question because I did the math for myself. Look I'm the luckiest guy in the world and I thank goodness every day How blessed I am but I did the math and her six percent wealth tax would cost would require me to pay more After the first year and a half that I have in cash And so I sent an email to one of the economists and I said look did you guys do Take into consideration liquidity? When you defined your wealth tax model That's a good question. They said no, they think they should So they think you could sell off a business and hope for the best So what I think what happened is if you're forced to sell off assets And everybody in a similar situation is forced to sell off assets Then you'll see something like we saw in the 80s where the japanese and foreign investors will come in So you said now the bad thing is now the bad thing is notice I mean, this is this is so error of trump kind like So now the real evil of a wealth tax is that all these wealthy guys are going to have to sell assets and that Foreigners are going to buy them Oh my god, this is the worst case scenario foreigners like the japanese and the china Chinese or the other or the europeans or maybe even the saudis are going to buy all the assets because these guys will be liquidating them And that's the real evil of a wealth tax is it's going to cause foreign ownership of businesses to go up I mean really It is so nutty It is so pathetic. It's so weak That it's no surprise that we are losing the battle for capitalism. It's no surprise That the left has captured the imagination of young people it's Saudi Arabia and foreign entities come in and just buy up everything because there's Elizabeth Warren is counting on china to bail out or bail out or Saudi Arabia, right? Do you make a good point because the other day bernie sanders says it there should be no billionaires Yeah, there should be. I mean, what do we want? Do we want the billionaires to go to europe to go to china? I mean already we're not leaving no matter how much you tax me. I'm not leaving this. There you go So he's saying it doesn't matter how much you tax you. I'm not leaving So, you know, it doesn't matter I don't know from billionaires Look Everybody's getting very trumpian these days, right? You donald trump was brilliant at picking Looking at his base and saying what group of people are they not going to care about that? I can pick on now. Elizabeth Warren and bernie sanders have picked up that skill, right? And they said billionaires, you know our base Let's throw them under the bus because no one's going to stand up and support them So, you know, Elizabeth Warren is is playing that is becoming very trumpian and she's taking a big page out of the trump Do you think she's going to be the candidate? Um, no So he's right. Elizabeth one is becoming very trumpian in in that sense pick pick somebody That everybody loves to hate pick somebody who you can blame all the problems of the world on And um, and then run on that and and she is so and uh, that's always been a strategy of of kind of authoritarian types Donald trump made it into an art form. He did it particularly well and uh, I think for the first time in american history really Uh launched a campaign ran a campaign and won the presidency basically on the idea of blaming the other for all of our problems Uh, tyler asks are there any business leaders today who stand up for capitalism with moral conviction? No, nobody says that nobody significant. They might be some small business leaders. They might be some but no nobody Literally nobody even the ones who are semi libertarians. Look at look at, um, uh, the guy who used to own whole foods Um, uh Oh, I forget his name. I mean, he's coined in youtube conscious capitalism because capitalism is not good enough We need conscious capitalism. We need capitalism where we pay our work as well and what we care about the quality of the product that we sell people You know Yeah, I mean if you're in Whole Foods and you charge massive margins and you Uh, a server clientele that's quite wealthy, then yeah, you can afford to pay people more than Walmart can But if everybody paid people the way Whole Foods did There'd be no Walmart and where would poor people shop? It's nonsense like that as if To make money in a capitalist economy one has to treat your employees poorly As if to make money in a capitalist economy when treats your customers suppliers Shareholders debt holders everybody else poorly. I mean, it's just They create a fiction about capitalism and then have to moderate it by calling it conscious capitalist Or people like Jeff Bezos or or or or Zuckerberg or any of these guys who either say nothing or constantly apologizing Wikipedia says mark cuban is a big fan of iron rand. Yeah, he's a fan of the fountainhead not of iron rands I mean wikipedia is not to be trusted and in this case, I can tell you factually. He's never read atlas shrugged He has read the fountainhead. He loves the fountainhead. He often says that when he feels down in life He goes reads the fountainhead to give him a pick him pick me up But that's about it in terms of his fan hood of iron rand The fact that you eat a book and like a book does not make you Have any understanding as you can see Of her philosophical ideas not even of the book not even of the philosophical ideas Expressed in the book. No, Howard walk would never say any of the things mark cuban just said. Oh, I was lucky Oh, yeah, I'm not gonna leave this country no matter how many people come and take my stuff away from me Oh, I think health care's all right On and on and on and on. All right. Let's see. Uh, so pathetic pathetic Defense of capitalism. Okay. What we can do now is either we can go since we can go and Do a video by Robert Reich the leftist on should we abolish billionaires? um, and and I can point out all the lies or we can go to Professor Richard wolf about banks All right, let's do I mean both are such liars So pathetic Let's do, uh Robert Reich if you guys are up for it. Yep for Robert Reich All right. Ah super kill says wolf Those are your options. What do you want? Okay. Super chat. I'm gonna let leave you. So you've got Reich or wolf Who do you want me to go after? Uh Yeah, we got one vote for wolf. That's it. Nobody else is voting either way Wolf. Okay. We've got a wolf. All right. We can do that. There's wolf Particularly bad lit You know Okay, wolf is winning. Okay. Here we go. So here's wolf being asked a question about too many banks in america. This is Richard wolf with a response To an ask prof wolf question from our patrion community And in particular from liz mednick Who asks about what she sees Where she lives a proliferation of bank. Can you believe Richard wolf has a patreon account? He's using a capitalist tool To raise money I thought we're not supposed to be greedy not wanting money Um, and he takes questions and you not to mention all the technology is usually right now to livestream this or whatever but all right Ignore the fact that he takes patreon. I mean a good marxist Wouldn't do that. Let's let's see what he has to say about banks something. I actually know something about Literally occupying all four corners of an intersection spreading around the community As if a kind of hysterical process Of plunking down bank branches was underway She worries that this is crazy That this is too many banks chasing after a limited number of Depositors and it won't end well And she wants my response Good question Okay, so there's a proliferation of banks the bank branches everywhere you go to a corner. There are four different branches under four corners It's just crazy the number of banks that we have in the united states the number of bank branches we have in the united states It's insanity. It's really really bad. Now the funny thing is in the beginning of wolf's answer he has actually says some things that are God forbid true And then he goes completely nuts, but let's start with the truth correct observation Let's see what it means More than ever in today's capitalism Everything is financialized. Now one of the things You'll note and this is true of the of the robert reich video of many of the videos Is that nobody actually defends capitalism? So capitalism is the mixed economy today Anything that's happening is a consequence of capitalism if it's happening today Indeed in history the world according to richard wolf another video i saw of his the world has always been capitalist Why because they've always been markets There's always been some semblance of private property in any successful culture So the world according to richard wolf has always been capitalist So every problem that's ever existed ever in human history at least since the launch of agriculture Is the fault of capitalism Because capitalism is the prevailing system always. So he blames world war one and world war two on capitalism even though Because he thinks the nazis are capitalists He blames He blames slavery and capitalism. He blames feudalism and capitalism. He blames colonialism and capitalism When you don't define your terms When you don't have clear definitions and understanding you can do whatever you want. You can say whatever you want Consumers spend more borrowed money Often then they spend of their own earned wages salaries and so on that is true Every business borrowing wildly Especially in the last 10 years As the government responded to the crash of 2008 By dropping interest rates to the lowest levels in history This is the federal reserve central banks governments not capitalism Not capitalist not a system in which there's complete separation of economy from state, which is what capitalism is No, this is the mixed economy in which the government rules banks The government rules the central banks the government determines the interest rates the government determines the money supply And yet he is blaming what the government is doing today in the world We live in today in a mixed economy. He is blaming all of that on what On capitalism this only system that actually opposes all of that But everything he says about the evil of what the federal reserve has done is true of what central bankers have done is true But that's socialism Yeah, somebody says and the thing that he even accused he claims that the soviet union wasn't really socialism It was state capitalism So capitalism equals evils in the world Then yeah, all right, then capitalism is awful, but he is so pathetic so non a non thinker That he can't actually He doesn't actually define his terms. What is capitalism capitalism is a system in which our property is privately owned In which the role of the government is to protect individual rights Protect from coercion and in which the state owns no means of production No banks no central banks no money State owns none of that That would be a definition socialism is the system in which The means of production are owned by the state The means of trade are owned by the state That's socialism But if you don't define your terms you can make up anything you want You can make up anything you want And that's basically what he does blaming all this on capitalism. So which was an incentive, of course For everyone in economic difficulty a consumer a worker a business A government to borrow like crazy absolutely and a consequence of government intervention Money was rendered so cheap And so the level of indebtedness exploded Everybody needs to deal with their debts with the credit system and therefore everybody needs a bank Everybody needs a bank all the time we'll get to the number of banks in the united states in a minute And as everybody needs a bank more and more To get cash out to solve problems with your checking account Your savings account your credit card your home mortgage and whatever else the banks Not only reap a profit bonanza, but they banks are not particularly profitable right now. It's pretty amazing profit bonanza banks Profit-wise below historical averages have for the last 10 years struggle to get back to the kind of profits that they had in the past Uh banks are not making huge amounts of money in spite of this debt boom Which he correctly correctly identifies But just factually these guys make stuff up There's no profit bonanza same thing is always told to the drug companies. Ooh the drug companies they make so much money But they don't They return on equity and return on assets a pretty average Banks are pretty low Somebody who invests is in banks for a living. I can tell you banks are not very profitable right now. They're not Badly profitable. They're not losing money by any means But the idea that they are hugely profitable is such bogus lying Typical of these leftist intellectuals and by themselves in a tough competition for the loyalty and the business of companies Individuals and so on and so a mad rush of competition is underway And that's what you see every spare office every spare storefront Grabbed so that there can be a teller machine Perhaps a teller or two that are living people and the rest of the apparatus of a bank Now notice what he's saying is this mad rush Are banks to open up more branches? more and more and more branches Because the banks are trying to get the loyalty of their customers But what is the reality? factually Well, the fact is That over at least the last three years The number of branches in the united states has declined The number of branches Is less and less I mean you can go look at the data I have again. This is my field And the number of branches in the united states is in decline Banks are not rushing to open branches. They're rushing to close branches Because how many of you use a branch when you can do all your banking on A phone So again Just lies Factualize It won't end well Chaotic It is competition is chaotic the socials don't like competition Competition, you know, you can't tell who the winner and losers are going to be Competition means that people are pursuing their own self-interest independent of a central planner The independent of an economics professor independent of an expert independent of a philosopher king Competition means people are actually pursuing their ideas pursuing their interests Free of asking for permission It's chaos They hate chaos They want order The best examples of capitalist Inefficiency that one could look for Now why the america has so many banks because man america has a lot of banks I don't know some of you live overseas and you don't know Uh, the extent to which the american banking system is massive america has 5600 banks 5600 independent depository institutions Now anybody know how many banks they were 50 years ago 40 50 years ago in the 1970s What how many banks Is this mad rushed open banks mad rushed engage in financial activity? How many banks existed back then? Actually 20 000 banks And why were there so many banks? Was this a phenomena of capitalism? This capitalism caused a proliferation of banks I mean you think a socialist 40 years ago, there were 20 000 today. They're 5600 number shrunk by almost 75% And why were there 20 000? No other country has anywhere close to that number banks per capita So there were 20 000 banks in the 1970s in the united states today the 5600 banks Uh, so there's been a shrinkage of 75 in the number of banks You think an economist like professor wolf would know this And of course the reason there were 20 000 banks in the united states was not because of capitalism The reason was because of financial regulations What are the financial regulations that made it possible for made it necessary for 20 000 banks to exist? Well, it was state regulations States basically did not allow their banks to merge And and branch across state lines in some states you couldn't have more than one branch You couldn't have more than one branch So that if you wanted to have a bank in your neighborhood, you'd have to open a new bank So during the 19th century 20th century you had a massive proliferation of banks because of regulation No other country was like this Canada for example, where you could branch anyway You could consolidate across state lines You could establish a canadian bank from coast to coast has five big banks and a bunch of little banks and less than I think 30 or 40 banks overall And they by the way have had no banking crises in their history The united states is at 12 Because we have too many banks Because of the proliferation of banks Finally when congress did something that made sense it happens once in a while in 1994 congress Eliminated all the regulations at the state level that prohibit bank mergers bank consolidation Bank branch openings across state lines and allowed banks to go anywhere they wanted Finally when that happened in 1994 since then you've had a lot of consolidation in the banking sector But again, it's not capitalism That created the problem It stayed intervention stayed involvement And there's no proliferation of bank branches in spite of what you might think And the fact that there are four bank branches on a corner Means that you've got options you can choose which banks to use Richard gulf would want to have one bank a government bank the same government That is flooding the market with dollars and lowering interest rates to zero That government he wants them those people To own the one bank But we won't call it a monopoly god forbid because he's against monopolies That one bank owned by the people it'll be a people's bank democratically run democratically functioning That's the kind of world richard wolf wants But first first he should get the facts about this world right He doesn't have them Number branches in the united states are shrinking primarily because of technology Think about it for a minute if as you have in my neighborhood Banks on all four corners of an of an intersection. Here's what you know with modern computers One bank could easily handle the business now being handled by four of course and ideally The government could handle the business of 20 But the only reason they are four banks and not one is because of regulation that some central planner put in place Thinking that they were doing what is good for quote society Rather than lending the market dictate Because the market would dictate Not four banks on a corner. Maybe two maybe just one And that's what we're heading by the way with bank consolidation I strongly predict that within 20 years There'll be less than a thousand banks in the united states and you won't have four branches on a corner because all banking will be done from your iphone Maybe I mean ideally if the government stays out of it, there probably wouldn't be more than 50 banks in the united states Good luck with the keeping the bank the government out of it Particularly with people like richard wolf will call themselves economists and pretend to be such The same computer could easily handle it the same or a larger number of teller machines Could exist in one room or anti chamber of an office as in That's why there's bank consolidation right now bank consolidation elizabeth won once they end because she she says is anti competitive So the socialists have to decide Do they want competition or don't they and what kind of competition? And how do you manage your competition? But the fact is the banking industry is consolidating. There are fewer fewer in branches. There are fewer and fewer banks But what wolf really wants is one bank run by the people one computer Dictating everything to all of us for The duplication of security personnel of clerks and so on all the product of regulation idiotic Ditto for the safe deposit boxes and so on and so on This is a vast Waste of resources true. And if we didn't add regulation, we'd be like canada with basically five banks serving what end? Well, after a few years Some of these banks will collapse and be replaced by another kind of store The chaotic and inefficient Competition among capitalists. Yeah, they'll be replaced by store and then There we will have also inefficient competition between capitalists because we'll have lots of different clothing stores and each clothing store I mean they could consolidate we could have one big giant workers run clothing store run like a co-op non-unprofits All guided by a computer program by government officials the same ones who put together that wonderful Obama health care exchange Will end up with only one or two left and guess what? They will reward us for this capitalist wasteful competition By becoming monopolies or oligopolies when a very few are in a position to jack up the rates Because we're used to banking in our neighborhood. So there you go The solution of course is what? Because capitalism gives us too many banks and then too few banks What are we going to do? If there's only one bank it can charge more for the face the positive And the logic you see the picture it's chaotic. It's inefficient. It's the way capitalism works Good observation Liz Mednick All right, let's get him off my screen. It's pretty disgusting I mean This is what they do over and over and over again They lie They make up stuff They engage in pseudo economics in pseudo facts They never offer a solution the solution is again the solution is collectivism The solution is national nationalization this solution Is to get rid of private property this solution is to have one bank But god forbid not one bank run by the profit motive This solution has to one bank one bank That is basically run by the government for the people No profit no private property No private interests He's an authoritarian the worst kind of authoritarian he might call the Soviet Union State capitalism at the Soviet Union is exactly the system that his ideas have to manifest and he has to know it Somebody with a phd in economics Spouting the kind of nonsense that he does Is a massive evader is somebody who evades reality constantly evades facts Constantly evades the economic theory constantly and according to objectivism The source of all evil is evasion Richard wolf is evil. He's a bad human being. He's immoral because of his evasions He's dishonest yet People love him He appeals to young people He appeals to their ignorance. He appeals to their naivete He appeals to their lack of ability to think for themselves. He appeals To their lack of education. He appeals to their altruism and collectivism that they have been filled with throughout their lives Now I mentioned this in previous videos where I've talked about Richard wolf. He also talks with hatred in his voice He has an ugly ugly soul He has an ugly ugly mind He has an ugly ugly spirit He is an evil man through and through and you can see The justice pervades in this world. He's not a happy person. He suffers for his evasions All right, let's go through some super chat questions. Isn't the federal reserve a private company? No, no, no, no, no Who appoints the chairman of the federal reserve? President does and it has to be approved by congress. What private company has the president of the united states appointed ceo? Who gets the profits from the federal reserve? Federal reserve makes a lot of money Some years huge amounts of money Who makes the profits? The government does profits Overseed by the treasury as income not the banks that supposedly own the federal reserve Who appoints the other members of the board? Who make decisions at the fed? The government does the president does The federal reserve is through and through a government institution It is nominally owned by banks But the banks don't run it don't appoint the ceo and don't benefit from the profits So no the federal reserve is not a private company It is a public government institution disguised As a private company Do you think if a business leader a ceo similane banking supported capitalism free market? They would soon be fired. No, not necessarily Take john allison who for years and years and years was a massive huge supportive capitalism ceo of one of the most successful banks in the last 40 years bb&t corporation Nobody fired him. He left but he left because he retired So no I actually don't think that is the case somebody with a kind of moral authority who is successful Who has actually built up the business? Who advocates for capitalism morally? I think that's the only way the world will change if we're in businessmen are willing to do that Are willing to stand up for capitalism? Nothing else will happen as long as we have You can look john allison up on the internet There's a bunch of videos of his lectures all recommended as long as we have people like malcuban As long as we have people like zuckerberg and bill gates and buffet As long as that Their defense of themselves their defense of capitalism is what we have we lose iron man's final last speech she ever gave Was about sanction of the victim. It was about the sanction Businessmen give to their own destroyers to the politicians the intellectuals the professors Who will have them destroyed their inability and unwillingness to defend capitalism morally is what is destroying this country They are the most potentially influential people who could have an impact out there But they don't partially because they don't get it. They don't want to get it They're cowards And they're they're intellectually corrupt Which is sad because the genius is otherwise Incredibly productive human beings admiral human beings and every other respect Ben Shapiro states capitalism results in a sort of reality forced I talked to him about this and why it's wrong. I may not want to help you I may dislike you But if I don't give you a product you want I will starve any thoughts. Well, no None of that is true If I don't give you a product you want, there's no you here I mean, I don't want a lot of products that people sell They don't starve. They find somebody else who does want So it's true It's true That you're not going to be successful unless you convince people That they should want your goods at least some people never all of them So Capitalism requires engaging in win-win transactions with other people So it helps other people, but that is not what altruism is Altruism is not and you can listen to all of my lectures. I repeat this over and over and over again Altruism is not about helping other people Altruism is not a moral system that is geared towards helping other people if it was Then capitalist would be the greatest moral heroes Even for Ben Shapiro capitalist are not the greatest moral heroes moral heroes The jewish religion does not say that the greatest saints the equivalent of saints in judeism are businessmen But they should be Because nobody has benefited the human race more than These self-interested profit-seeking businessmen Yet when does he get moral credit? Only when he stops being a businessman when he stops benefiting for himself Altruism is fundamentally anti-self-interest Not fundamentally pro-helping others It's the self-interest they despise So for example If you work, create, build, make stuff and thus help your neighbor That's not that doesn't count morally Nobody supports you morally But if you suffer, if you give all your money away, if you go live in India with the poorest of the poor And live a miserable, pathetic life, then you get sainted Altruism is a term coined by Augustine Comte, C-O-M-T-E And Augustine Comte says that the purpose of life under altruism Is to serve others with no benefit to yourself The fact that you benefit makes your actions amoral The fact that you benefit makes your action amoral So altruism rejects the idea of win-win relationships That's why altruism has to reject capitalism It rejects the idea that by helping myself, I help other people, by helping other people, I help myself It rejects that It is about you helping other people, no matter what At all costs And the more you suffer, the more noble and virtuous you are Yeah, Shane asks the doctors, teachers, etc. Simply just people, business people Yes, of course they are They're making themselves better off, they're selling a service, they're selling a product In exchange for They get money, they get a salary, and they get the pleasure and enjoyment of providing that service Businessmen, successful businessmen, do it on a scale. That's why they make so much money And businessmen are the greatest beneficiaries of mankind, more than teachers, doctors, and all these other individuals combined You don't get The wealth to have teachers without JP Morgan and JD Rockefeller You don't have the wealth to build hospitals and to do to do research into healthcare Without the great wealth creators that are the business people, the business people on scale Not the business people who are, you know, self proprietors, the successful business people, big business All right, so No, altruism is evil because altruism rejects Your self interest as being moral, it tells you that you must reject your interests That morality demands that you never think about yourself, that Morality demands that you sacrifice your own interests for the sake of others That's what morality is, the negation of your own interest in the interest of other people All right, have you seen the movie L-u-c-e based on a play? I don't think I have I don't think I have I'll look for it Would you kind of look into copa youtube situation as written any remotely kid friendly youtube creator would be fine $42,000 per video violation for having ads I'll look at it, and I you know All right What is wrong with pragmatism as a defense against brutal ideological enforcement Of a faulty principle that didn't seem flawed at the time Well, it just is not a Good or successful strategy And it's As a way of thinking it is ultimately destructive Pragmatism is the negation of the long term It's the negation of principle, which helps you think long term. It's the negation Of thinking it's a negation of reason It's whatever goes whatever seems to work in the moment without the consideration Of what impact that has long term So pragmatism is an ideology as a methodology is terrible And I've said this over and over again and this relates to the mall cuban video People want to be good people vote their morality between a battle between These the two it doesn't work and but it's the right thing to do It's the right thing to do will will win And until you can say no, it's not the right thing to do They will win so maybe for a short period of time. This is all you can do Because you don't have I don't know the mall language to oppose it, but then realize you are going to win lose long term Capitalist nick asked why is medicare for all such a poison pill for any candidate? Juan pushed it hard and it almost killed her election bit I don't think I don't think that's what killed her election bit what killed Juan's election bit Is that she lied and distorted on how she was going to pay for it and I did a show on that And everybody saw it even the left said wait a minute You're making these numbers up That's what killed her election bit medicare for all won't kill the election But indeed all of them are for medicare for every single one and puts people on the left The only differences some of them are for medicare for all with private insurance Which is not sustainable model, but they and others are medicare for all with no private insurance complete replacement of private insurance And it's not clear which one of those two will will win But no what killed Juan is that she lied about the numbers And even some on the left won't tolerate that kind of line That's what ultimately destroyed her Um All right, I think we'll call in a Show I apologize for the break in the middle I had a power out each year and it took a while for the generator my batteries to kick in and during that period Uh, I couldn't see whether you could see me or not turned out you could Uh, but anyway, we got back on track. I lost facebook in the process facebook is more Finicky about these things youtube, uh, somehow sustained connected in spite of all that So, uh, thank you all. Thank you all for watching today Don't forget that if you like the show if you find value in it Then show your appreciation by supporting the show I will do the Robert Weisch video another time. So I'm not giving that up. There are other videos. I will do You guys voted for wolf. So you got wolf And um, don't forget to share my videos particularly the short ones that come out Which are much easier for people to watch and uh much more focused these long ones. Yeah, I guess are more difficult for people but Hopefully you enjoyed and uh, appreciate your appreciation through Your on bookshow.com slash support or on subscribe star subscribe to that com slash your on book show All right. Thanks everybody and I will probably talk to you tomorrow Maybe I'll show the Robert Weisch video tomorrow. Maybe we'll find something else to do. We'll see. Bye everybody