 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Brookshow. Hey everybody, welcome to Iran Brookshow. It's Friday the 4th. Weekend is looking forward to a fantastic week. So joining today is a news, we're going to do a news roundup. And so we'll start that in a second. I want to remind you of just some of the upcoming shows. Tomorrow we've got an Ask Me Anything show. 3 p.m. East Coast time on Sunday. We have a members-only show. You can still become a member and join that show. It'll be on arts. Focused on Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Bernini, and Vermeer. There's a combination for you. For maybe the top, certainly in the top 10 painted sculptors in human history. So we'll do that. I'll have images to show, so that should be fun. What else are we going to do? And yeah, so those two. And then on Tuesday. Tuesday I'm going to have on Uncle Gatté is going to join me. Tuesday at 8 p.m. And he is, we're going to be talking about a bunch of stuff relating to objectivism. Of course it'll be open to all of your philosophical questions. So please think about questions that you've asked me and I've said ask a philosopher. Or just questions that intrigue you about objectivism, about philosophy more broadly. Uncle is incredibly knowledgeable. But we will focus the discussion on this question of closed versus open objectivism. We'll talk about fact and value. We'll talk about moral sanction and what it means to sanction somebody. So a lot of controversy, a lot of controversial issues. So please let people know out there and join the show. I'm hoping that we get a lot of people joining in that show. And please bring your questions to the fairway. Alright, today we've got a packed show. There's a lot of news. We're going to talk about Supreme Court decisions from yesterday. We'll talk about Trump's classified document problem. An impeachment in Texas, surprising. And a crazy story about New York banks. And then we can also talk and I assume we will quickly talk about just a story relating to abortion and what else do I have here? Yeah, Germany going into recession and maybe we'll mention the debt ceiling. So lots of stuff. Of course, don't forget to use the super chat feature to ask questions or just to support the show. Preference is always given to questions of $20 and above. And we do have a target. The targets have disappeared. Why is the gold not there? We'll add the, whoops, I don't know what that was. We'll add, whoops, no, I can't add. Alright. For some reason, my gold feature has disappeared. But anyway, let me try to reload. Alright, so we should get started. Okay, I can't. Huh. Very strange. Very strange. Okay. Let's try again. All right, there we go. All good. All right. So let's see, start with Supreme Court. So two, two decisions yesterday from the Supreme Court, both to the, you know, I'm not an expert and I'm not an expert on Supreme Court. I'm not an expert on these areas of law. But, you know, we will, but the, both of these, both of these cases were argued by the Pacific Legal Foundation, which is a very good organization, which I support morally at least intellectually out of Sacramento, California. That's where they're based. And the Pacific Legal Foundation did a phenomenal job and they won both cases, which is very unusual for one of these free market, pro-property rights, you know, legal firms to actually be able to, actually a nonprofit, to win in the Supreme Court. And it says something about the composition of the current court that is open to some of these challenges. The first case is a relatively simple and very, very shocking case. This is a case of a 94-year-old Jolene Tyler who owned a condo in Minnesota and she failed to pay her property taxes for several years. And as a consequence, just in case you thought you owned your own house or condo, you don't. You're basically renting it from the government. And if you don't pay your property taxes, what happens? They seize your property. They seize their property. They basically seize the property that they own. And this is how the County of Minnesota, Minnesota County, viewed this. So they basically seized their property while she owed $15,000 in taxes. They sold the property for $40,000 and kept the entire $40,000. They didn't take the $15,000 she owed them and give her back $25,000. They kept the entire $40,000. Now what was their argument? Two arguments they made. One is, well, once she stopped paying property taxes, once she no longer paid the property taxes, the property was no longer hers. It was the County's. So much for you thinking you own your own property. Anyway, it was the County's. And if it's the County's, then the County should keep all the money from the sale of the property. Not give her the difference. Not just pay the taxes. It's actually the County's. The second argument was, by the way, it wasn't her money anyway. She had a mortgage and she had other liens against the property. So the $25,000 didn't belong to her. They belonged to the bank. So the government just kept it anyway. The Supreme Court unanimously, 7-0, including the three, you know, leftist liberal judges. 7-0 ruled that this was wrong. They overturned this. They said, you know, in a sense that is ridiculous. She has a property right over the condo. The government has the right to sell the property. But once the taxes are paid, anything above and beyond that should be returned to the individual. So this is, now it turns out that this practice of the government keeping the proceeds is quite widespread. It's done in a lot of different types of cases. This will be an important precedent. This is a significant limitation of the powers of government to violate your property rights and a significant protection and defense on property rights. You know, the court stressed, quote, that property rights cannot be so easily manipulated. You know, I wish it was a little stronger than that, but okay. And it, you know, it basically ruled in Joe Dean Tyler's favor on the basis of the taking clause on the basis that this was unjust taking. The government just took her $25,000 with no compensation. And this is great. The lawyer from the Pacific League Foundation said that this affirms that property rights are fundamental and don't depend solely on state law. So, good. And what's really, I think, you know, really significant here in this particular case is that it was unanimous, 7-0. That is pretty amazing that even the leftist judges saw the violation of property rights here as a significant issue. So, good for all of them. Good for the court and good for the Pacific League Foundation for pursuing this and going after them. And you should look them up. If you're interested in these kind of lawsuits, you should look up the Pacific League Foundation to find them online. There's a number of friends of ARI and objectivists and former employee and, you know, but a lot of friends of objectivism who work at the Pacific League Foundation. So, you should definitely check them out. Second case that the court decided yesterday also argued by the Pacific League Foundation. And this one's a little bit more complex. So, I am not necessarily going to, I'm not going to give you an analysis. It's not quite as clear cut in terms of the meaning of it all as the previous case. But this is second versus the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency. And what's significant here is that the court for the second time now, this court has significantly restrained and limited the scope of the EPA's authority. And, you know, if you know anything about how the EPA restricts development, restricts building and is massively violates property rights, then any time we restrict the EPA's regulatory authority over our lives and over our property, this is a good thing. So, this is overall a good ruling even though it is more complex. Here, I guess the Sackets wanted to build on property that they owned. The property owned they was deemed therefore then by the EPA as protected wetlands and as a consequence they were prevented from building. The court ruled 7 to 0, again unanimous, that the EPA in a narrow sense violated the Sackets' rights and did not handle this case appropriately. But then, more significantly, a majority of the court, 5, in this case 5 to 4 with Justice Kavanaugh, Justice Kavanaugh, one of the justices that Trump nominated. I never liked, not because of the sexual harassment accusations against him, but because of his legal philosophy which doesn't really exist. A real wishy-washy kind of pragmatist. Anyway, Justice Kavanaugh actually sided with the three leftist judges and there was a 5 to 4 decision on this one. But in addition, there was a separate kind of decision issued by Gosig and Thomas which was concurring with the 5 to 4, but was much broader than the main decision that was written by Justice Alito. And basically what the main decision has done is it said that the EPA has to shrink its definition of wetlands, that the original law, the Clean Water and Air Act, actually only defined wetlands as navigable lands and therefore it has to, this wetland had to be connected to some other wet area, river, lake or something that was navigable. Otherwise they couldn't, the EPA did not have jurisdiction over this wetland. So are they all ruled, I think from a property rights perspective that the saccades were treated unfairly? What's important about this decision even more so is the fact that by a 5 to 4 majority they have limited the scope of how the EPA can define wetlands. And this affects probably about 50% or close to 50% of the wetlands in the United States. Now we'll see, it's not as good as that sounds, but that's already good, right? The EPA is out from regulating about 50% of the space that they assumed that they could regulate two days ago. So yesterday was a massive blow to the regulatory power authority scope of the EPA. And they basically made a decision that all of this wetlands are outside the scope of the EPA. Now it's still true that states and local authorities can regulate those spaces. And the Supreme Court, I think from the perspective of federalism, would probably not challenge if a state government then stepped in and replaced the EPA with regulations that still limited people's ability to use their own property because it was defined by a state as wetlands. But what they have done is they've clearly limited the scope of the EPA itself's ability to regulate. And this is consistent particularly with Gorsuch. And indeed, Gorsuch and Thomas wrote a concurrent opinion that was even broader and suggested that the court should actually be questioning more of the authority of the EPA and questioning more of kind of the meaning of the Clean Water and Air Act and how it's being applied and how it's being applied in this case. So we have at least two judges that I think have a real desire to rein in regulatory agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency. But generally the power of regulators. And one of the things that stood out in this case is that there's a famous case called the Chevron case, which was actually ultimately decided by Scalia, which basically said the Supreme Court is going to give deference to regulatory agencies. They're experts, they know what they're doing, we're going to defer to them for the most part. And this was a doctrine, Chevron doctrine, I think that Scalia was really behind, which is awful, really horrible. And basically what this court is doing is this undoing Chevron. It's basically saying, no, no, no, no, no. It's our job to make sure that the regulatory agencies are working according to the letter of the law. If Congress wants to expand their powers, Congress needs to actually pass more laws. And we'll look at it from the perspective of property rights and taking clauses. But we want to make sure that the law is being abided and that the regulatory agencies are not just expanding the authority, which has been happening over the last 40, 50 years, with the regulatory agencies beyond the rule, the law that created them. It's just expanding and expanding and expanding their authority and their ability to control. And this court, particularly Gorsuch, are dedicated to narrowing the scope so that the regulatory agencies can only function based on what the law says, what a concept. So, again, not a revolution. I'd like to see all these regulatory agencies declared unconstitutional for a variety of different reasons. But that's not constitutional law today. But a huge step in the right direction, at least in terms of just limiting the scope and power of government over our lives. And particularly in this case, the scope and power of unelected regulatory agencies that just seem to usurp more and more and more power over time. That seems to have ended. That is, this court is going to be around for a while. And this court really seems to be dedicated to reining in regulatory agencies and their power. So good for the, again, Pacific League Foundation, good for the Supreme Court. Two good rulings, some unanimous rulings, which are positive. A cavernized disappointment, it turns out he's just the middle of the road. The pragmatist, he might turn out to be that swing voter vote that might swing sometimes on the left. You know, sometimes he might be joined by Roberts, other times he won't. But on economic issues, on regulatory issues, the person to really look for in a leadership position, I think, here in this court is Gorsuch. Right. Let's, the next couple of items are pretty quick. So it's, you know, so hopefully, hopefully we can get through the entire agenda without taking huge amount of time. Let's see. Okay. So, Trump documents. So, you know, there's this classified document thing, and we've got a special prosecutor that's been investigating this. And now it does look like there might be criminal prosecution against Trump over these documents. Because whereas it appears, we don't know, but it appears that, you know, the documents that Biden has and the documents that Pence has and probably others have, were kind of documents that are there more as accidents and thoughtlessness and stupidity and you can add up all those kind of things. With Trump, he knew the documents were there. He knew the government wanted them. He knew the FBI was coming to collect them. And he purposefully, at least that's the allegation, that's the allegation, he purposefully kept them from the government. He moved them around. He, they actually, there was a supposed to address rehearsal to move the sensitive documents when the FBI came so they wouldn't find them. I mean, clearly, if this is true, right, these all allegations, this is all we don't have. We don't have a trial. We don't have, we don't even have an official, anything official yet. But this sounds like a real case of obstruction of justice, obstruction, you know, and a conscious attempt to secure for himself classified documents that clearly do not belong to him. So it's Donald Trump. Now, will this make any difference to people who support Trump? No. You know, if he's convicted or charged with anything, will that make a difference? Probably not. But it's pretty crazy. This guy is, it's pretty crazy that this guy is, well, for a million reasons, it's pretty crazy that this guy is still the number one, you know, the Leeds, the Republican primary, when they're clearly far, far better choices than him. Both in terms of the ability to win an election, but also in terms of, in terms of just policy and being a human being. All right, let's see. So I just thought I'd fill you in on that. It looks like the Trump drama saga is and will continue unabated. Another, you know, kind of fascinating story affecting Republicans is the story coming out of Texas. I just mentioned Biden's documents, by the way, and I've mentioned Biden's documents in the past. But one of these, one of these issues that is super interesting coming out of coming out of Texas that affects Republicans is that the Texas House of Representatives has just had impeachment documents filed against the Texas Attorney General. Now, this is a unbelievable, unbelievable, powerful attorney general. This is, you know, Ken Paxton has been elected twice, incredibly powerful within the state of Texas, a real mover and shaker, a real, you know, he's been involved in pretty much every one of the big issues. Big issues around, around cultural cultural issues. He is a poster child in many respects for a lot of the issues that a Republican care about and and Ken Paxton has just been. I mean, we'll see if they impeach him. The Texas House of Representatives has to vote on it, but a committee of the Texas House has recommended impeachment. They have filed 20 counts of impeachment, all focusing on, you know, fraud and securities violations and corruption. I mean, this is, this is really, really bad stuff. And again, for a super unbelievably powerful Republican who's quite popular within the state of Texas, he's been elected twice in spite of whispers in spite of accusations in the past about all these things. It seems like a lot of this was triggered by a sediment that Paxton came to with a whistleblower, a $3.3 million sediment that kind of silenced the whistleblower that was accusing him of something. And then he turned to the state and asked the state of Texas to cover the $3.3 million. And that was kind of, it looks like, again, this is all happening very quickly. It looks like that was kind of the, the, the stroller broke the camel's back. So this is a Republican House of Representatives dominated by Republicans in a dominantly Republican state impeaching a leading Republican attorney general for, you know, who knows, corruption, a variety of different things. I don't know anything about whether this is just political payback or this is then playing political. I just don't know. I know people who know Paxton pretty well. He was, he was very influential about setting up this Savita Center at the University of Texas in Austin. And it's, again, a big, very, very conservative, very, very conservative, both on, on, on, you know, on all the social issues, very, very conservative. So we're going to see, we're going to see how all this works out, how all this plays out. Will the House in Texas, a Republican House impeach him? Will the, if they do, then there will be a trial in the Senate, again, a Republican dominated Senate. And what happens to Ken Paxton? I mean, really fascinating that Republicans are turning on themselves in a state which is so dominated by them. A story to keep watching. I noticed that they're kind of quote, right wing media is not covering it. So that's kind of interesting. Not surprising, though. All right, let's see. All right, so thank you, Wes. Wes just did $100. Really appreciate that support, Wes. Appreciate your support generally for the, for the new shows. That's fantastic. All right. This is kind of a spooky story, but not surprising, right? This is, this is where you get the interaction of the left social agenda and American business and the impact it has. And you wonder why American business and why American CEOs co-tow to a lot of the cultural issues that the Democrats and the left pushes. This is why this story is an explanation for why. So it turns out that under the charter and rules of the New York City Banking Commission. In order to comply with the charter and in order to get your certification and in order to be in good standing with the New York City Banking Commission. Every bank has to file forms that demonstrate a meaningful commitment to combat discrimination in employment services and lending. And you have to file all kinds of documents and statements and show I'm sure percentages of loans and deposits and all this stuff. And who knows, right? Because all of this is, it's pretty subjective and it's easy to manipulate. And who knows what it means to combat discrimination when it comes to employment services and lending and how far you have to go and how much DEI do you have to impose. Anyway, the New York Banking Commission just finished reviewing all the documents submitted by all the banks that are actually active in New York City. And it turns out the five banks have failed to comply with the designation process and the controller. The commission has voted against allowing them to receive additional deposits. So for example, Capital One, a big bank with a huge presence in New York City. Which holds 7.2 million in city deposits. This is deposits of the city of New York. At the end of April, across 108 accounts. And Key Bank, another fairly big bank, which holds 10 million dollars in city. This is the city of New York deposit. At the end of April, across three accounts. They outlawed both these banks. This is amazing. Outlawed refused to submit the required policies. They refused to send in the discrimination stuff, right? Represents of Mayor Adams of the Department of Finance Commissioner joined the controller in voting to freeze new deposits in Capital One and Key Corp for up to two years. So the city of New York will not be depositing any more money with these two banks. Probably see where it draws. I think Capital One, 7.2 million and Key Bank, 10 million can easily withstand this. But think about the pressure. And we should all, if you guys, we should all consider banking with Capital One and Key Bank just for the audaciousness and the courage and their willingness to stand up to the city of New York and refuse to even submit to this kind of requirement to submit these kind of documents. Just to give you a sense of how these proceedings happen. You know, at public hearings, the Banking Commission heard testimony from Muslim New Yorkers who experienced discrimination in the process of opening and closing accounts. One wonders, right? Did they experience discrimination or did something else go on? Were both parties listened to or just the complainers? Tenants expressed concerns about predatory lending practices by banks. Yeah, and jeopardize their rights and safe living conditions. Climate advocates condemn banks that have continued to lend billions of dollars for fossil fuel expansion despite having made net zero commitments. Members of the public spoke in favor of creating a public bank, a public bank, a bank run by the city of New York, I guess, that would provide banking services for city deposits and deploy that capital to better serve New York communities. Yeah, this is the great city, the finance capital of the world, New York City. This is how they treat their banks. This is how they handle banking issues. All right, so we managed to get to those fast. Let me just, a couple of the quick ones. This is a horrific story, but do you remember the abortion doctor, the woman who actually did an abortion on a 10 year old Ohio girl who was raped and was pregnant and, you know, Ohio law prohibited the abortion. So this girl came to Indiana and Indiana, Dr. Bernard, you know, did the abortion and as a consequence, Indiana and Ohio launched investigations against her and accused of all kinds of things and just went after her brutally and tried to get her license revoked. Anyway, she was in front of the Indiana Medical Licensing Board and they came down to deal with all these charges. Think about that. And at the end of the day, she was charged with and fined for violating the girl's privacy. Even though she never gave him the girl's name, she never did anything to disclose and she claimed that the reason she talked about the case was to let people know about what's going to happen if you restrict abortion like Ohio law restricted it. These are the kind of consequences. And yet she has been reprimanded. She has gotten a fine. Luckily, her license was not revoked. This is by the Indiana Medical Licensing Board. But this, this is after this poor doctor, courageous, heroic, poor doctor had to endure a 14 hour, 14 hour hearing where these disgusting, horrible people from Deputy Attorney General of Attorney General's Office of Indiana went after her. I mean, it is a disgrace. It is disgusting. And it just shows how evil and despicable the anti-abortion forces really are and what their real agenda is. It is a true hatred of humanity. Here's a 10 year old gold who was raped, the accused rapist was just charged recently. And she can't have an abortion because of what? Because a bunch of people decided that abortion is bad. Life starts at conception. It's just unbelievable. Okay, that was a quick update. That ceiling looks like there's going to be a deal on a debt ceiling. As I predicted, it looks like the deal would be a charade. It won't actually cut spending, but the Republicans will be able to say, we did something that cut spending, but it actually won't. Democrats will be able to say they won, Republicans will be able to say they won, and we will all be the losers for it. And Republicans, again, will blow an opportunity where they had real power to get something really done. And this is a story we'll come back to, and that is that Germany is now officially in recession. This is the economic powerhouse of Europe. This is the country that because of its economic growth and its economic success and prowess has managed to pull Europe through many crises. And Germany is in real trouble, is in economic trouble, is in economic decay. And a lot of it, not all of it, but a lot of it has to do, some of it has to do with internal combustion engine and the focus on electric cars, which German car manufacturers have just not been able to catch up on. And a lot of it has to do with the cost of energy, and German is just insane, insane suicidal energy policy that they've engaged in by shutting down the nuclear power plants and building windmills and all the rest of it. And solar panels in Germany, if you've ever been to Germany, you know how often the sun shines over there. Alright, let's see, let's jump into the super chat. Thank you guys, we're just about $40 short of our goal, so we'd love to be able to make the goals if a couple of $20 questions and we're done. So please consider supporting the show, we've got almost 80 people watching live right now, so it's just a couple of $20 questions and we're done. Alright, Bree asks, the ruling on the lady tax debt is weak. They should force to go the regular court procedure to get the money. If I owe you money, you can sue and get a judgment and try and get me to pay, you can't seize my house. Well, a bank might be able to, so yes, I know, but the reality is, Bree, sadly, is that the local authorities that collect your property tax actually own your home and you're paying them rents. I mean, that is the reality, that's been the reality for a long time in America. I completely agree with you that that is unjust and that is wrong, but they basically have a lien in your property if you don't pay your property tax. And that's the reality all of America. For the court to actually say that is wrong, the local governments cannot use property taxes in that way and cannot seize the property. That would require another big leap forward in terms of the court's understanding of private property and what private property actually means. And it would also mean that the court is willing to overturn local laws, local laws and local laws that have existed for a very long time. You know, in a court that, suppose you have this real respect for federalism, it's very difficult for the court to actually do something like that. So, you know, we can hope that the day will come when a ruling like that has passed, but I absolutely agree with you. The county, you pay your taxes, you don't pay them, they should take you to court and go through the court just like the IRS does when you don't pay your income taxes. They don't just seize your property. But we know that in many cases the seizure happens and to the extent that we can limit at least the damage and the scope of it, that's a good thing. But you're right, in terms of protecting property rights, we still got a long way to go. Taisie, thank you for $20. Last night I dreamt that I was battling huge sci-fi creepy crawlies. All right, I managed to crush the head of one, but his body was still moving. Sounds like the terminator. I closed my eyes and pressed harder. He wiggled and then I woke up. What does it mean? Ooh, I don't know. It means that you're probably reading too many horror stories about artificial intelligence. I don't know what it means. Am I a dream analyzer? No, I have no idea. You know, maybe it's that creepy state that no matter, you know, no matter what we do to limit its power, it then finds other ways to invade our space. But if you really want a remedy for that, just watch the first two terminator movies and you can see that you can overcome. Jerome, hi, Iran. I was wondering, on your thoughts of rights being thought of as options, as if the same as physical or intellectual ownership. Is it the same as physical or intellectual ownership? Wow. All right. You know, this is a big question. It goes to the nature and heart of what rights are. And of course, rights are not options. Rights are freedoms of action. Rights are requirements that each one of us has. Requirements for our own freedom that each one of us has to pursue our own life to use our own judgment in pursuit of our own values. Without coercion, without force, without interference. And physical intellectual ownership is one form that those rights take. That is, your ability to, or your right over, your freedom of action to pursue material values and keep them once you attain them and preserve them. That is one of those fundamental rights. That is one of those requirements for civilization, for living in a civilized society. So rights are a moral concept that bridges the moral idea of individualism and the responsibility of the individual to pursue his own life using his own mind. Ultimately pursuing his own happiness. It's a bridging culture between that and, okay, if I'm going to pursue that, how can I do so in a society with other people who might use force against me? And we create governments to protect my ability to pursue that from people who might use force against me. And of course by doing that we also risk that the government then becomes the biggest violator of rights, which of course it is. So no, rights are absolutes. They're absolute moral requirements for the preservation of human life in a social context. And they're not options. There's nothing optional about it. I mean, I'd love to get follow-up questions on this, but it would require a much bigger show to really analyze it and discuss it. Okay, Michael says, did you see Peter Schiff's interview with Jordan Peterson? I did not. I did not. So I might watch it. I might watch it. And if so, I'll try to comment on it. Michael, do you think DeSantis is betting on Trump's legal problems and unhinged mental state to secure relatively easy path to victory? Well, I'd be surprised if he thinks it's relatively easy, but going to be relatively easy. But I do think to some extent DeSantis is positioning himself to be the second choice when and if Donald Trump implodes for whatever reason. The problem is that it doesn't seem like Donald Trump imploding has any impact on his base and on his support. So, you know, we will see, right? We will see whether the strategy works. If he's counting just on Donald Trump committing suicide, in a sense, then I think he's going to be disappointed. I think he has to become the aggressor. I think unless somebody starts going after Trump aggressively, Trump has the potential of winning this, you know, unless he goes to jail or something, we will see. Okay, to Jikin. Have you seen the Biddle Hicks discussion? I thought Biddle made a fantastic job defending the viewpoint of objectives and being a closed system. Have a great weekend. I really encourage you to come listen to Encore discuss this next week. I think you'll get a very different perspective than what you heard from Biddle. I think you'll discover that, you know, like in a lot of other things from, you know, Biddle's very rarely does a fantastic job at anything. And that is including making the right and appropriate case in a debate like this. As I said, I don't think this was a debatable issue. We'll talk more about why that is on Tuesday. And we'll talk about what the right arguments are in such a context. And what it means, what it even means to say objectives is a closed system or an open system. Is objectives a closed system? What does that mean? Is it an open system? What does that mean? Why does anybody thinking about it in terms of open and closed? All of those questions are going to come up with Encore next week. And I think you'll find them super interesting and maybe a different perspective than what you've heard in the past, even for me, regarding them. So I encourage you to join. I encourage you to join. Michael says, did you listen to Biden's recent speech where he said there's no such thing as someone else's child? He got that right out of the communist manifesto. Maybe, I can't remember. No, I haven't seen that Biden speech. It sounds like something Biden might say without even thinking about saying it because Biden doesn't do much thinking, just generally. But yes, I mean, the left is crazy. I mean, it takes a village. You remember that? That was Hillary Clinton. It takes a village to raise a child. The child is basically a village's child and so on. So I encourage you all to, well, I encourage you all not to listen to Joe Biden. All right, we, $20 short, just $20. Somebody with the $20 question, get us to our goal. We've only got three questions. We're going to end this in like five minutes. So you've got five minutes to bring up $20. Okay, Michael says, well, probably getting governor seem to be effective at passing school choice legislation. Are we going to see more privatization of the school system over the next decade? It really depends on the specific school choice regulations. So to the extent that the school choice system is a voucher system that then the state gets to decide who gets the vouchers. It's going to be more difficult for private schools to compete. To the extent that the school choice system is a education saving accounts where the state doesn't get to choose how the parent uses it. And it gives a wide birth of options, wide range of opportunities on how to use those, the education saving accounts. Then I think, yes, then I think there's going to be a real boost of private education. I do think there are real opportunities right now for private education to flourish, to grow, particularly in these states that have passed some of these laws. I'm looking forward to it. I think it's probably one of the better moves in the country. But I was disappointed, for example, in Florida, it's only approved schools that are going to get the vouchers. It's not as broad as, for example, in Arizona where pretty much the parent can do anything educational with the money, including schools that the state would probably not approve of. So we will see. But I'm excited about the potential. And I do think this is a real opportunity for private schools to flourish and to grow and to become more dominant in our... And for example, homeschooling, not just private schools, but all kinds of alternative schooling options. Okay, James says, did you see my email on Texas? One key is how Texas produces a lot of renewable energy. Do you think Germany causes global recession or only European? I did see your email about Texas. I haven't watched the video yet. I will. Texas does produce a ton of renewable energy. It would be a lot cheaper if they just produced natural gas and produced electricity from it. Do you think Germany causes global recession? No. I mean, Germany is not causing global recession. It'll cause problems in Europe. It'll make it more difficult to bail out the struggling economies in Europe, Italy, Spain, and ultimately Greece, kind of Southern Europe, Portugal maybe. But, you know, it's just a sign of European weakness. And I think you're seeing more and more of that. I think the strong economies in Europe seem to be kind of the Scandinavian economies where they haven't resisted fossil fuels, the Scandinavian economies that... Well, I haven't resisted nuclear power, really, where they've invested heavily in nuclear power like Finland and where they have less regulations than in Germany. France is in trouble, although again, Marcon has done a few things that are basically good. But Europe generally is in trouble. The global recession is a consequence of rising interest rates, which are a consequence of zero interest rate policies of the past, and inflationary policies by government all around the world during COVID. To the extent that there's going to be a global recession, it won't be because of Germany and because of all the governments that inflated the currencies during COVID and because of the central bank's zero interest rate policies going back to the great financial crisis. But again, that is a topic from much larger discussion. Oscar, thank you for the $20. Really, really appreciate the support. We have surpassed our goal today, so thank you for everybody. No more questions because I do need a run, so I've got four questions left. Andrew says, are you surprised by how much money DeSantis has raised already? What does that mean in your view? Well, it means that there is a significant percentage of particularly wealthy Republicans and Republican donors who want a viable alternative to Trump, not only because they would like to see somebody just beat Trump, but for some of them, they want somebody in place in case Trump implodes. I think DeSantis will not have a problem attracting money. I think the problem DeSantis is going to have is it attracting votes. Can he attract Republican, what do you call it, primary voters to vote for him over Trump? And that's going to be the challenge. Money he will have. I also think DeSantis is smart and organized, and he will have a really good ground game in politics, they call it. He'll have a lot of people on the ground. Some of his launch with Twitter and some of the decisions he's made early on are questionable, but we will see, and supposedly there was another tech glitch yesterday when he was supposed to be interviewed by Newsmax. So he's had a lot of bad luck, you could argue, with technology recently, but anyway, I'm not overly surprised by the DeSantis ability to raise money. I think you raise a lot of money. And who says, do you think in a sense it's hard for objectivism to get a foothold in the culture as opposed to say stoicism because objectivism is true? Well, because objectivism is a complete philosophy, stoicism as a foothold in the culture, because it takes some out of context self-help aspects and pushes them into the culture. And it doesn't require anybody to challenge any kind of truly fundamental beliefs. Objectivism is not an issue of being true, it's an issue of really challenging people's beliefs, really challenging the philosophy that guides their life, that they believed in such childhood that they have never questioned at all. That is the real challenge. Cook says, will the Celtics pull off a 2004 Red Sox? I certainly hope so, and I'm rooting for them, and I certainly think it's possible. They are the better team, the better than Miami. It's just a matter of will they show up? I mean, the last two games they've showed up, they played phenomenal defense. If they can play that kind of defense, yes, they can win another two games and be the first team in NBA history to come back from a 3-0. But it's the odds that still against them. It's very hard, given the parity in the NBA and given how good Miami is. And given the fact that Boston is known, not to show up to have this arrogance streak in them, whether you just don't play. All right, James, last question. Texas has overtaken New York with having the most Fortune 500 companies. It is number three in banking, number two in finance, overall, what do you think it will take for the NYC to not only talk about moving but do it? I don't know. I think it's very difficult. For one, Texas would have to fix its electric grid and guarantee that there was electricity throughout the state, even when there are freezes. It doesn't happen very often in New York because there's lots of freezes. In New York to stop the NYC, you literally need a 9-11 in Texas. All that would happen is a freeze. So that would be one. I'm sure there are other issues. I'm a little dubious about number two in finance. I really have to research that. That Texas is, I wonder how that is measured. Not California with its venture capital community in Bank of America and all that, not North Carolina with all the banks that are centered there. Texas, number two in finance, I'm skeptical. So I'm curious how that is measured, what that actually means, what does it mean to be number two in finance, number three in banking? If I had to guess, I would say they were number four in banking and number four in finance, but maybe number three in finance and number four in banking. But let me check the numbers and let me check that video you sent me and I will get back to you. All right. Thank you, everybody. Have a great weekend. I will see you tomorrow for the Ask Me Anything. Hopefully we get a big audience and come and ask me anything. Don't forget those of you who are members. We've got a show on Sunday at 3 o'clock. It should be a lot of fun. I'll be showing a lot of art. If you're not a member and you'd like to participate in the show, become a member. Don't give up your Patreon and don't give up your PayPal subscription. Please just add another $5 membership on YouTube and you get these shows once a month, regular shows, and you add $5 to a little bit more support for the Iran book show. So please do that. That would be fantastic. I hope we got a good showing on Sunday's show. And then on Tuesday, we'll have Ankar Ghatay talking about close and open, moral sanction, in fact, and value, and the rest of it. And there will also be an 8 p.m. show either on Monday and on Wednesday in addition to the Tuesday show. But I will update you on that. And of course, there will be the news roundup shows on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Then I'm off to Texas of all places. I'm doing a debate next Thursday on inequality in Dallas. But I will see you guys tomorrow, hopefully. Bye, everybody. Have a great time. Time. Don't forget to like the show before you leave. Just press that like button, please.