 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Brookshow. Alright everybody, welcome to Iran Brookshow on this Tuesday evening. Hope everybody's having a great week. Great start of the week anyway. Yeah, I'm back. Some of you might not have noticed. I'm back in Puerto Rico, at least for a little while. I'm leaving again next week. And those of you in Europe, you might want to check out my website, iranbrookshow.com, where there is a list of all my appearances in Europe. I really hope you guys show up. I'd love to meet you. I'd love to say hello. I'll be in London, Edinburgh, Durham. That's all in the UK. I'll be in Berlin. Or did I say Berlin? I've forgotten what's after Berlin. Oh, Lugano in Switzerland. And then from Lugano, maybe Batislava, and then Oslo, and then Paris, and then Lisbon, and then Madrid. So if any of you out there, please come. So Auri's not going to be there. You're not going to be there when I'm in Berlin? God, you guys need to get organized, synced with my schedule. Sorry, I miss you, Auri. That is indeed too bad. Hopefully you guys will be able to make it. All right, today we've got another full schedule. We'll see how much of what I have will actually get to cover. We're talking about Elon Musk, Twitter. Elon Musk is buying Twitter, but you also tweet. So we'll talk about Elon Musk tweeting and the last one buying Twitter. And then we'll talk about the Italian, Brazilian elections. We'll talk about the Iranian protests. And if we have time, we will cover the latest from Insanity from California. But if not, we'll just push it out tomorrow. And I'm sure we'll have more to talk about tomorrow. Rob says, when the world is your own book. Puerto Rico, look, I'm home. Yeah, so the question is how many topics will I get through today? I've got one, two, well, two and a half, right? Because it's Italy and Brazil elections. They're really two separate topics. And that's three, four, five topics. We'll see if I get through two or three or four, whatever, right? There's no rush. The world is, like, not ending tomorrow. And none of these stories are going away. They're all with us for a while. But let's start with a hot story right off the presses, just announced a couple of hours ago. Elon Musk is now officially recommitted to buying Twitter. And he, it's two weeks before the trial is supposed to begin. You remember that Twitter sued him over breach of contract. They claimed that he had basically committed to buying Twitter at a certain price and was in violation of his contract. And they were trying to use the courts to, in a sense, force him to buy them. And he has decided, I think, what he decided was he was going to lose anyway. He was going to lose that court. So I think he decided to basically, you know, just buy the thing for $44 billion. $44 billion, that's a lot of money. You know, he originally had offered to buy Twitter and then the stock price collapsed with the rest of the NASDAQ and technology stock. And he kind of changed his mind and he claimed that the data that he got on which basis he made the proposal to buy Twitter was flawed, but he had signed a contract at least levels. And, you know, on and on and on and on it went. And in the end, Twitter said, look, you signed a contract. You're obligated to buy us for $44 billion. You know, Elon Musk said no. And it was on the verge of going to court, right? On the verge of going to court and Musk folded. So it really looks like Musk is going to own Twitter. Now, this is going to be interesting. It's hard to tell what direction he's going to take. He's going to focus on just making this a platform that doesn't ban anybody, is really going to not ban anybody. What are the new criteria going to be? What are the terms of service going to be? Has he really thought this through how he wants to do this? What do you expect the terms of service to be? It's going to be fascinating. I think what Musk will discover is how hard it is. That it's not as easy as he thinks. I think that he'll discover that you need some terms of service. And so I think that's the one thing he can focus on. The other is technology. I think Lex Friedman put out a post saying congratulating Elon on doing this and encouraging him to focus on improving the technology of Twitter. So it'll be interesting to see what he does. I mean, an edit button would be good so that you can actually go back and fix my spelling mistakes before I actually after I tweet them. So it would be good to have kind of an edit button that goes back. You don't have to completely delete a tweet if you change your mind about particular wording. Other innovations, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe Elon Musk can figure out how to make money with Twitter. Maybe it can sell something to the government. This will be the only one of the few companies that Elon Musk has ever owned that will not rely on the government for some funding. So that'll be interesting. Can he turn it profitable? Can he make, can he discover a way to make Twitter earn money in any kind of significant way? Because it hasn't. It's not a very profitable company. It's a mess, I think, in terms of advertising and everything else. I have not been able to really use it effectively for any of that. Maybe you guys know how to do it, but it doesn't seem like a great platform for that. So it'll be interesting if you can improve that. So it's going to be fascinating. It's going to be interesting. It's going to be interesting to see how much he resents the fact that he has to spend the money that the court, in a sense, is forcing him. This is not something it seems like he really, really, really wants to do as he seemed to want to do it earlier. It'll be interesting how many of the other tech gazillionaires who supported him will actually come out of the shadows and participate in some of the strategy around Twitter. So I'm looking forward to it. I've always been looking forward to it. I think this is exciting. I think it's going to be interesting. I don't think it's easy. I think, again, it's going to be much, much harder than he expects it to be. This is not just a technology play. This is a social political play. It delves into human interaction and how they interact online. And it's complicated. And yeah, let's see. It's going to be exciting. I'm definitely looking forward to it. Trump will probably be back on Twitter now. It doesn't really matter that much to me, but it'll be interesting to see if Trump does that and acknowledges the feat of his truth network and why that was a failure. Maybe he can make a better run at Twitter. Maybe Trump should have bought Twitter. Maybe he doesn't have the 44 billion. Anyway, so yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It should be fun. It should be interesting. It suddenly shakes things up and we will see. We'll see what happens. We will see what happens in the months to come. The other thing that happened with Elon Musk on Twitter today was we talked yesterday about Elon Musk's tweets about Ukraine needs to sign a peace deal with Putin and he proposed a particular peace deal. You know, it's too dangerous to fight the Russians. We need to appease them. We need to kind of deal with them. Anyway, he was challenged by Gary Kasparov, the maybe the greatest chess player ever, but certainly a world champion of chess who has been, since he retired from chess, a real advocate for rights, for liberty, and a real critic of Vladimir Putin and the regime in Russia and a real opponent of the regime in Russia. Anyway, so Elon Musk was criticized by the chess master, by Kasparov, and Elon Musk's response was pretty pathetic. So I told you yesterday he sounded like Jordan Peterson. This sounded like, I don't know what this sounded like, a sport brat. He tweeted back to Kasparov. He said, well, I supplied the Ukrainians with the satellite internet. It cost me $80 million money I lost. I think actually the Biden administration paid for all those satellites. But anyway, I lost money. What have you done except tweet? We're talking about one of the most well-known Russian dissidents in the world. We're talking about somebody whose life has been threatened regularly. We're talking about somebody who is basically left his country, Russia, and can never go back. We're talking about somebody whose friends and associates have been attacked by Putin. Some of them had been poisoned and killed. We're talking about somebody who lives with the fear that Putin's going to kill him. But oh no, he doesn't do anything except tweet. We're talking about somebody who's been fighting against Putin, against Putin's authoritarianism, against this thuggery for over a decade now. We're talking about one of the really the best voices out there for, you know, not objectivism and not complete freedom, but certainly for greater freedom, certainly in countries like Russia. And Elon Musk is so childish as to attack him as just an armchair commentator. It really is pretty pathetic. So my opinion of Musk over the last two days has dropped significantly, significantly. He is clearly under the influence of people like JP Morgan. Jordan Peterson, he is behaving like a child. He can't handle criticism. It's a little pathetic. It's a little pathetic. So while I'm still excited about him by Twitter, his views on Russia are pretty disgusting and awful. And you think he'd know better, again, that Jordan Peterson like and his response to Kasparov was terrible. So we'll have to keep an eye on Elon Musk, the very, very mixed character. I've been hot and cold on Musk forever, right? He of the car made of subsidies and he sometimes has great one-liners and sometimes he makes a complete idiot of himself like he is right now. So we will see. We'll keep you posted. We'll keep monitoring the situation with Mr. Musk as we go along with. All right, let's see where do we go now? So that was quick. Put that in 15 minutes. So we'll see where he goes from here. Rob, for $100 rates, this doesn't begin to cover the value I've gotten from you. Really appreciate it, Rob. Thank you. Thank you for supporting the show. Thank you for being on here. Thank you for advertising the show on Twitter. I really, really appreciate it. Thanks. And let's see, let's take the $50 question from James and then we'll go to the elections in Brazil and Italy. James says, you mentioned last night that life came easy for you essentially because you only let the bad go so deep. How is one able to do that? Genetic temperament or the self-esteem you generated for yourself over decades of applying objectivism? I mean, I think it's a self-esteem. I don't think there's any genetic temperament and a self-esteem that I think I started gaining even before objectivism. I think that self-esteem came from a childhood where I was given a lot of freedom, allowed to roam, allowed to be independent, allowed to try things, succeed, fail, but on my own terms, the opposite of helicopter parenting. So I think you develop self-esteem. A lot of us at least develop self-esteem even before we discover objectivism. Maybe it's part of what objectivism appeals to. Is that sense of self-esteem, that self-confidence, that independence that already is there fundamentally? So yes, I think I already had it in a sense. Yeah, but that question about coming easy is a tricky question and it's not clear what the motivation is. Is there virtue in having it hard? Is there virtue in suffering? Is there virtue in struggling? I certainly don't think so. I certainly don't think so. Yeah, I was never taught to be afraid of reality. Even though I lived in a country where fear was part of life, where you were told not to pick up stuff off the ground because it might be a bomb, not to ride your bicycle on cardboard because there might be a bomb underneath. It was a country where your father went to war and you never knew if he'd come back. I grew up with that kind of fear in the air, but I never grew up afraid and I grew up super independent and super confident in my own ability to deal with whatever happened. So I think all of that, I don't believe much in genetic temperament as it applies to something like this. There certainly is genetic temperament, but I don't think it applies to issues of bad only going so deep. I think that's almost all an issue of self-esteem, a fundamental valuation of yourself that says, I can handle what they throw at me. I can handle it, I can survive, I can do well. I think that's the essential characteristics of why you can overcome this. On the Leroy says, no better start to Yom Kippur than watching the Iran Book Show. Welcome back, Iran. Thanks on the Leroy and thank you for reminding me at Yom Kippur because I think I forgot. I keep getting reminded during the day different people have told me it's Yom Kippur, what do I know? I've been eating, obviously not taking Yom Kippur too seriously. Yom Kippur is one of those holidays I hated, always hated. It's one of those holidays where you atone for all your sins and you spend all day in the synagogue with smelly people who have not had a shower and have not brushed their teeth and have not eaten anything all day. It is not a fun day and I remember it always as a pretty bleak day. I am happy to be an adult and therefore not having to go places I don't want to go, not having to in this case do what my parents told me to do. Alright, let's talk about elections. So let's start with Brazil and then we'll talk about Italy and Brazil just because I was just there. I think I know a little bit more about Brazil than I do Italy. I've been following Brazil for a long time since I went there for the first time, I don't know, 10, 12 years ago. And so Brazil is a fascinating country, a vibrant, dynamic country. A lot of energy, super warm, super friendly, immense poverty, immense gap between, you know, this is inequality but inequality generated from corruption and generated from exploitation. It's an immensely incredibly corrupt country with a lot of people in power, in the government, being explicitly corrupt and a lot of business and government intermingled to a very large extent. It is a country which has vast natural resources. So it's a country with immense potential in terms of the ability to exploit those natural resources. Oil off the shore of Brazil, they have minerals, they have amazing agricultural land, they have wineries, they have industry all over Brazil. It's an impressive, beautiful, amazing country. As I think you know Rio de Janeiro is one of my favorites, if not my favorite city in the world. Just geographically it's the most beautiful city in the entire world. It's just stunningly beautiful, I encourage everybody to go and visit, very poor and quite violent. Not well, very poor is an exaggeration. They have quite a bit of poverty there, although they also have a lot of wealth there. Let's see, what else? So, Brazil is this amazing place. Since I have gone, you know I've been going again, I can't remember when the first time I went, but it's I think 2012 or 2013. And the first time I went there I was invited to this conference, the Forum Libertad in Porta Lega. And the Forum Libertad brings together 4,000, 2 to 4,000 people. It's some of the largest audiences I've ever spoken in front of. And the reception I got was stunning. People knew who I was. It was really the first time, I think this is 2012. It's the first time I realized explicitly, it really sunk in, that whatever, that the whole line-ran thing was global. And then in a sense I was global. I remember going to speak to some students in Porta Lega and I was taking in this theater and introduced on stage and the guy introducing me asked the audience, how many of you know who Iran Brook is? And every hand in the room went up and it was like stunning. I'd never been to Brazil before, I didn't know these people. And they all knew to take out their iPhones. They all were kidding about the fact that I use my iPhones and all my talks. And it was like they had watched all my videos on YouTube. This is before I had a show, before everything. And it was truly an amazing experience. And it was energy focused around liberty and around freedom and a real desire for change. And in the years following that, there were many demonstrations and many much opposition to the corrupt and socialist presidents of Brazil. Somebody asked if I had a translator. Sometimes I've had simultaneous translation, but most Brazilian young people seem to know English. And most this may be exaggeration, but the ones I interact with certainly have very good English and can listen to my lectures without a translator. Anyway, Brazil has gone through a lot of upheaval. It is a relatively poor country, particularly given its potential. It is a very corrupt country. And I remember I was there on two occasions that were pretty dramatic. One was when the Supreme Court ruled that I think the president, what was her name, a woman was corrupt and needed to go to jail. And that was huge. This is after massive demonstrations in the street. And I was there when it happened, when the court ruled. And then the next time I came was the time when, that was Dilma. Thank you, Brenda. And the next time I came was the time when I gave a talk and as soon as I finished the talk, they put on the TV behind me. And literally it was live, the police putting handcuffs on Lula, putting him into a police car surrounded by his supporters and driving off. And of course he landed up in jail again on corruption charges. And this is Lula, the socialist who had been president of Brazil for I think eight years. And it seemed like he was over. He was done. And it was great. I witnessed it live. All the students, everybody in the auditorium opened up champagne bottles and everybody was happy and yelling and cheering. And there was a lot of festivities going on. This is the same Lula that got the most votes in the election on Sunday. And then of course I was there when I joined the campaign for the Bolsonaro election and Bolsonaro victory over the left was at four or five years ago. And that was interesting because the people that I know in Brazil are very divided about Lula. Sorry about Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro is a real populist, somebody who played to the religious elements within Brazilian society, the evangelicals, somebody who had no real sense of economic liberty, but was clearly opposed to the left. It was also suspected that Bolsonaro was corrupt himself. I think those suspicions have turned out to be true. But on the other hand, and he wasn't a very smart person, there was general agreement that Bolsonaro was just not that smart. He had been a relatively minor congressman in the past and now he was launched this career particularly on the backs or on the shoulders really of the evangelical community, which is large and growing in Brazil, replacing the dominant Catholic religion. And so people split. On the one hand, he was this not too smart populist, uncommitted. On the other hand, he wasn't a socialist, but what really tilted it I think in his favor ultimately for most people was the fact that he had appointed and committed to appointing some really really good people to his government starting with the economic minister of Paulo Guedes, who was, and I'm pronouncing his name a little wrong, but who was a free market guy who was kind of a Chicago school influenced by Austin Economics, a real free market guy and he was going to get a lot of power in the new government. And then the other big appointment, so that swayed it and a lot of people held their nose and voted for Bolsonaro and Bolsonaro won the election. He landed up appointing these people. And maybe one of the appointments that I found particularly positive and particularly interesting and was excited about was that he appointed for justice minister. He appointed Judge Moro. Judge Moro is famous in Brazil, a real hero for many Brazilians, in that he has stood up against corruption, fought corruption, fought corruption within the police, outside of the police and really being a heroic figure in terms of dealing with corruption. Unfortunately, he didn't last very long in parliament, I guess, or in the cabinet, because he was too anti-corruption and I think the Bolsonaro government and Bolsonaro in particular and his sons and the people around him didn't want somebody who truly is committed to anti-corruption running the justice ministry so they managed to get him, they get him to leave. He's now, I think, I think he won a senate seat, so I think he's going to be one of the senators. So he's a good guy, so he's somebody to watch. So Bolsonaro ran, Bolsonaro was president. He kind of, it was complete flake during COVID, complete flake. In terms of the economy, he didn't do very much. Now, a lot of the blame for that, people tell me is on parliament. He didn't have the votes in parliament to get real economic reforms passed, so he passed what he could, which was not that much. So not a lot happened. Yeah, Sergio Moro is who I mean. Judge Moro, I call him. I once saw him live at the Forum Libertad. I mean, people went crazy. He's such a hero to so many in Brazil. Yeah, so he didn't pass much of the economic agenda, but a lot of that has to do with congress and the senate where he didn't have enough votes. And, you know, he lived up to his reputation of not being too smart. He lived up to his reputation of being corrupt. There's no question he's corrupt and his sons are corrupt, but he passed some reform. And of course the guy running against him is Lula, who was freed from jail by a supreme court that is super politicized and is very, very, very pro-left and basically released him from prison in spite of the evidence, in spite of his corruption. So he is released from prison, allowed to run for president, and now it's Lula versus Bolsonaro again. Well, not again, this is the first time, but, you know, it's hard to imagine. Now the election was held, now Lula is a real lefty, real socialist, very corrupt in addition to that. But he is supported by a lot of the poor in Brazil, a lot of the people in northeast to feel left behind by Brazil. So it's, you know, in the election on Sunday, Lula got the most votes. I think he got something like 48%. Because nobody exceeded 50%, there will be a runoff. But what's really interesting about the election on Sunday is that the pollsters have basically thought that Lula would get over 50%, he didn't. They thought that Lula would defeat Bolsonaro by double digits, he didn't, Bolsonaro I think got 43%, so quite close. And they completely missed the parliamentary elections. So in the parliamentary elections, candidates associated with Bolsonaro, candidates associated with the right, basically winning, and it looks like there's some runoffs that they'll have to play out. But basically it looked like in a position to win a majority in parliament. They also looked like they're going to dominate the states. Brazil has kind of a federal system with the states having a lot of power. And it looks like the centroid is going to win the states in Brazil. It looks like the left, with the exception of Lula, was thoroughly defeated, particularly as compared to past election. So that was, I think, surprised the pollsters completely. So the pollsters seem to continue to get it wrong when it comes to conflicts between right-wing populists and left-wing candidates. Just like they missed out on Donald Trump in 2016, they missed the British elections a couple of times, they missed Brexit, they missed this big time. And there's going to be a runoff at the end of the month, I think October 30th. It's hard to tell how this will go. I mean, most of the people who didn't vote for Lula are likely to vote for Bolsonaro. I think in a face-up between the two, now there is a real chance that Bolsonaro could win this. Bolsonaro way outperformed low expectations that people had of him. And there is a chance he would win. And this time, with a Congress that is more friendly to his agenda, there is a chance that some of the economic liberalization that, I wouldn't say he has proposed, but his appointees have proposed, the people he has appointed into the government have proposed, this could be a real turning point in Brazil. I mean, it really could. So in spite of his populism, in spite of his leaning towards religion, in spite of his flakiness and his complete unseriousness and the fact that he is not very smart, he might actually change Brazil because of the people he's appointed and if he gives them the latitude to actually pass the bills and the Senate and the Congress indeed shifts to the right, this could be a real turning point in Brazilian history and this could really bode well for the future of the country. It could be exciting. I agree. I mean, there's a real sense in Brazil that it's hopeless. But, you know, maybe I think with the right policies, Brazil is certainly not hopeless. There's a lot of, I think a lot of people are there who are strongly motivated. There is a very, very large free market movement in Brazil that I think is very influential in politics and very influential on the right, so potentially very influential with the Bolsonaro government. This could turn out quite well. In spite of Bolsonaro, not because of Bolsonaro, I'd say in spite of Bolsonaro, this could turn out quite well. We will just have to see how it plays out. Now, of course, there is concern that Bolsonaro loses the votes on October 30th, but on the other hand, he, you know, refuses to leave office, that he claims for already setting this in motion, claiming already that Sunday's vote is no way Lula got 48% and so on. They've learned the Trump lesson and Bolsonaro, of course, is a huge Trump fan. They've learned the lesson from Trump that you can actually, you know, and make the case that you didn't lose the election and people will follow you. The difference between Trump and Bolsonaro is that Bolsonaro probably has the military on his side so that he might be able to have a coup where he stays in power because the military will support him. A lot of people hate Lula so much. Lula is such a leftist that they would go along with what Bolsonaro would do. So it's something to watch. It would not be a good move. It would not be good for Brazil, not in the short run, not in the long run. Military rule has not played out well for Brazil in the past. And, you know, it's going to be, it's going to be really interesting to watch the Brazilian election as they manifest themselves in the next few weeks and with a final vote on October 30th. I kind of, kind of hope that Bolsonaro wins only so that they have a shot at having their forms. Vinicius, who I assume is Brazilian, says the few market people actually lost much ground in this election. The Bolsonaro supporters who got elected are more of the hippo-religion side. I think that's right. But this is the thing. What happened in this election is that the right kind of consolidated around Bolsonaro's people with the idea of giving him the votes, with the idea of giving him the opportunity to pass his agenda. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of liberals, liberals in the European sense, not in the American sense, voted for Bolsonaro's people in order to give him that majority. The liberals couldn't have won, probably, so people shifted to make sure that the Bolsonaro people won. It's dangerous, and I would not be surprised at all if at the end of the day Bolsonaro told his economic advisors, told the free market people that have influence within his camp, go to hell. I'm not going to pass your reforms. I'm going to keep things the way they are. I'm just going to do the social stuff. I'm just going to, all of that. We will see. You know, we will see. That is definitely a possibility. This is the real, real risk of electing somebody like Bolsonaro. He's not committed to free markets. He's not committed to capitalism. He is committed to kind of his populist rhetoric. And of course, so, you know, it's really risky. It's really risky. And we'll see. We can certainly hope that the bad elements within Brazilian society, the bad elements on the right, actually prevent Bolsonaro from either declaring himself a winner when he loses or from him, in a sense, walking away from his commitment to the people who want free markets. So we will see. Generally, São Paulo, where I was, was booming. There seemed to be a lot of construction going on in São Paulo. Curitiba seemed like it was really doing well. And Porta Lega, I'm told, is on the verge of a comeback. So it looks like at least southern Brazil is doing quite well. I fear probably that the rest of Brazil is not so much. That's also the rest of Brazil is where you get more corruption. Okay, let's shift to Italy. I mean, there's a trend in the world, it seems. And that trend seems to be the victory of the right. The right seems to be on the ascension. The left seems to be in decline. We'll see if that, you know, it seems that's the case in Brazil. Although, granted, in the rest of Latin America, the left is on the right. The right is in decline. So it's going to be interesting to see how all this plays out on a global scale. But in Brazil, sorry, in Italy, we had, we also had an election last week, and we had a new political party, or not a new political party, but a, for the first time, they got a significant percentage of the vote. This is the Frantelli d'Italia FDI party. This is the sons of Italy, not the sons, the brothers of Italy. Frantelli is brothers. Brothers of Italy political party led by Giorgia Miloni. They got 25% of the vote in Italy. This is a right-wing political party that has some roots in neo-fascism, and in, you know, post-World War II fascist thinkers in Italy. And Giorgina is probably going to be the prime minister. She will be the first woman to be prime minister of Italy. But she is helming a political party that is significantly to the right of political parties that have managed to, you know, to gain political power in Italy in the past. If you look at her competitors, the two other right-wing political parties, they both declined significantly. She picked up a lot of their votes. You had the Forza Italia. Forza Italia is Berlusconi, the billionaire's political party. He was prime minister for many, many years when Forza Italia was the largest political party in Italy. It is a center-right political party. It is not particularly radical. It's not particularly extreme. It's not particularly capitalist. It's not particularly free market. It's not particularly nationalist. But it is to the right. He went from 17% to 8% or for 15% to 8%. And then the League party. The League party is probably to the right of Giorgia Miloni. It's quite a nationalist. Again, not a free market party. None of these parties are free market parties. This is the Italian right that's not free market, very much like most of the right today. Not free market, very nationalist, anti-social issues, anti-gain marriage, anti-abortion, anti-things like that. But not particularly free market. They went down from 17% to 9%. So she picked up all of their votes plus some other ones. Her party was at 4% in 2018. There's now 26% in 2022. So big gains for the brothers of Italy political party. The center-left significantly declined. The five-star movement, that's an interesting movement. The five-star movement was this mishmash of left and right that was basically populist, whatever stood for nothing, represented nothing. They had actually formed the government in the past and complete failure. And then the so-called reformist third poll, again, complete failures did nothing, weren't re-elected. Let's just quickly run through these. The Democratic Party, which is social Democrats, the center-left only made 19%. The five-star movement went from 32% in the last election to 15.5%. And the Liberal Alliance and Italia Viva, which are the more free market ones, were only 7.7%. So Italy's a mess. It always is. It always has been. Oh my God, Catherine is here. Catherine, where have you been? We need your help. We're way behind today. You've got to help us out here. So that's where we are in terms of the election in Italy. So let's just talk a little bit about Giorgia Miloni. She has expressed sympathy for fascism in the past. She has retracted a lot of that. She has said positive things about Mussolini. I don't think she ever retracted that. Generally, there is growing nostalgia in Italy for Mussolini. Mussolini, after all, took an Italy that was post World War I, that was fragmented and poor and just a mess. If you don't know the story, Mussolini started out as a socialist, figured out that the socialists were just incompetent, and started his own political party, a fascist party that basically took the economic policies of socialism, that is state involvement in the economy, state management of the economy, but kept the pretense of private properties, so kept private businesses alive, and packaged it with nationalism, with what he called nostalgia for ancient Rome, nostalgia for Roman Empire, and nostalgia for military adventurism overseas. So he launched a number of military campaigns in North Africa, in East Africa, to kind of create an Italian Empire. But in the end, it was very anti-free speech. Mussolini was a real opponent of any kind of freedom and liberalism, any kind of free speech, any kind of free press. Basically, he was dictator of Italy and ran the country better than it was when it was in complete chaos, but not particularly well. Ultimately, he landed up falling under the influence of Hitler. Hitler was stronger, Germany was significantly stronger, Hitler was ambitious, he had bigger goals, bigger aims, and Mussolini became the junior partner in the Hitler-Mussolini-Germany-Italy alliance. Of course, that alliance doomed him because that meant that he was now an enemy of the United States, an enemy of the Allies. Ultimately, the United States landed in Italy before it landed in France, before it landed in Normandy, and ultimately completely destroyed the Italian military and the German military in Italy. Ultimately, Mussolini, while the Americans were advancing within Italy, was deposed by his own people and ultimately was lynched and hung by his own people. So he landed up being killed by the people who had enthusiastically supported him when he was el dulce, the great dictator. So that is the fate of dictators. Miloni is, as I said, has said some positive things on Mussolini, but she's also a pragmatist. I think what she longs for and what her party longs for is that sense of Italian greatness, some sense of stability. Italy is well known for, I think, having more governments over the last 50 years than any other country in the world. And yeah, St. Louis IX makes a good point that Hitler was an even bigger loser than Mussolini, no question about that. All dictators are losers, all of them, including the one in Russia right now. They're all losers. There's no question about that. You know, we will see what she's like. There's definitely a sense of making Italy great again. It's certainly part of the agenda. The party is primarily focused on things like a restricting immigration. This is primarily immigration of Africans into Italy. I think they have something like 750,000 African immigrants who they basically immigrate into the immigrant to Libya. And then they get on boats and they cross the Mediterranean and they land in Italy and they demand asylum or request asylum in Italy. So she wants to stop the immigrants from crossing the Mediterranean. She's very opposed to things like gay marriage. She has declared herself to be clearly a Christian and a Catholic and wants to bring Christian values much more into the center of government. So she's against gay marriage. She's against abortion. So she's very much committed to kind of the right wing, right of center social agenda. And being that about in Italy. She's not a free marketer like I don't think anybody really in Italy in the political world. Maybe the liberal alliance of Asione and Italia Viva was somewhat free market oriented. She is not. Nobody in the Italian right is free market. And they are all, you know, they're all basically status of different varieties of statism. Is she going to declare herself a dictator of Italy? No. Is she going to bring about fascism to Italy? Probably not. Not her. I mean, she might lay the conditions for some future fascists to take away. Is she going to leave the euro? This is a big one, right? One of the fears of the Italian right, and this was a fear of the five star movement that got elected in 2018, was that they ran on an anti-Brussels agenda. They ran on an anti-euro agenda. They ran on an anti-European union agenda. But once they got into power, they realized that Italy cannot afford to leave the euro. Italy cannot afford to leave the European Union. Italy is not the UK. Italy is a very, very, very, you know, it's a country that is very dysfunctional. It has massive amounts of debt. It is not particularly productive. It is a poor country. Historically when they had their own central bank, they inflated that crazy. So what they realized is that Italy is a net recipient of benefits from the European Union. And if it left, it would become poorer almost immediately. And it would have a much harder time exporting its materials, exporting its goods. It would have a much harder time funding its debt, would have much harder time paying its debt. It would be an unmitigated disaster for Italy to leave the European Union. So there's actually no chance of an Italian exit from the eurozone. Zero chance. Even though many of these political parties run on an agenda that would suggest that that's what they want, what they strive for. That's what they'll do when they're in power. It just is not going to happen. Because again, these are the kind of countries that are net recipients. It reminds me, I mean almost all the countries that are anti-European Union, actually the countries that benefit the most from the European Union in a sense that they would collapse economically if not for the European Union. Hungary is another good example. Hungary is always complaining about the European Union, always against the European Union. And yet the European Union is a massive net subsidizer of economic activity in Hungary. And it's a reason why they won't leave in spite of Oban's antagonism towards Europe and his fiery speeches about the evils of Brussels and his fiery speeches about the evils of liberalism. He won't leave the European Union because he knows that his country would spiral into massive poverty if they did leave the European Union. That they are, again, being subsidized, subsidized by the European Union. Do something says, you won't stop calling Bolsonaro stupid. I will when he stops being, he's not smart. He's just not. I mean, I've heard him talk. He's not smart. He's a political operative. There's smarts in being a political operative. He's a great manipulator of people. Reminds me of some other demagogues. He's a great manipulator of people and he's a real demagogue, but he's not smart. He's not smart. All right. Will she be able to do much about immigration? Probably not. In order to curb immigration, she needs help from the rest of the European Union. I don't think there is energy at the European Union to launch a fleet, which is what she's asking, a fleet to blockade the northern coast of Africa. The alternative is to bribe Libyans, to write the Libyan's big checks like European Union does with Turkey. The European Union basically pays Turkey to not allow immigrants to leave Turkey towards Europe. So the alternative is to try to bribe Libya. If they bribe Libya, will the immigrants then go to Algeria? If they bribe Algeria, will they then go to Tunisia or they go to Morocco? The Spanish have been better off at sealing off Morocco, but is there an end to it? Is Germany really going to want to solve Italy's immigration problem by writing big checks to the Libyans? And who in Libya are exactly paying off? Libya is kind of in a state of anarchy. It's not clear who in Libya has the power to stop the immigration. They have a centralized government that can actually do it. So who are you bribing? You're going to bribe the gangs. So I don't see how she stops the immigrants. She might want to stop the immigrants. She'll give fiery talks about stopping the immigrants. She'll complain about the European Union not helping her stop the immigrants. But will she actually stop them? Probably not. Will Italy, as always as the rest of Europe, miss out on years of integrating these immigrants and actually integrating them into the workforce and actually getting them to be productive members of Italian society and actually giving... No, they'll waste their time. They'll waste their effort on stopping immigration and keeping these people in the shadows, which will do nothing to solve their problem, make it worse. In the meantime, remember, Italy not only is by European standards on a per capita basis relatively poor, particularly the southern part of Italy. Not only is Italy in massive amounts of debt, not only are the Italian banking system questionable if it's even solvent, but Italy is shrinking. It's got a massively old population. It is a country that is going to struggle in the future to fund all the social benefits they promised to the old people. You saw how they, of course, responded to COVID. They were the first ones to embrace lockdowns. They very much are South Korea, but without, I think, the economic growth of South Korea, the efficiency of South Korea, the relatively upside of South Korea. So they are a shrinking population, a dying population, more like Japan than South Korea. Nobody's quite like South Korea. South Korea literally has the lowest birth rates in the world. Italy is about 1.2, I think. I think it's the lowest birth rates in Europe in spite of being Catholic. I find that interesting. It's Catholic countries are shrinking faster than the non-Catholic countries, which is interesting. So Italy is in deep trouble, and its primary problems are economic and cultural. And economic and cultural in ways that these political movements cannot solve, these political movements will only make worse. And it's truly stunning that doing the things that would actually help Italy, doing the things that would actually sustain Italy and make Italy richer and prosperous and successful in the future and being able to stand on its own two feet and getting out of debt and all those things. That is not on the agenda of center-right political parties, not center-right, right-wing political parties. They're much more interested in slamming immigrants, complaining about the European Union and stopping gays from getting married than they are actually doing the market reforms that need to happen in order to get Italy to become an economic superpower because it could be. There's no reason it can't be. And integrating the African immigrants into the economy would be step number one of increasing their workforce and shifting their culture away from ridiculous and stupid xenophobia to a forward future-looking, future-aspiring country that is positive and optimistic about the future. They can actually generate babies. They won't generate babies as long as they're poor. They won't generate babies as long as they're pessimistic about the future. They won't generate babies as long as they are. Generate babies. God, that sounds awful. They won't have babies as long as they have one of the most corrupt governments in Europe, certainly the most corrupt government in Western Europe. So, yep, yeah, but you know, so Italy is stuck. All these right-wing governments, all these right-wing political parties, we saw this with the five-star movement, the populist right-wing, they go nowhere. They do nothing. They're completely incompetent. They're completely unable. And they are stuck because they refuse to do the things that are necessary to actually move their countries forward. They're stuck on a model that is government-centric. They're stuck on a model that is corruption-centric. They're stuck on a model that doesn't work and creates more poverty. The thing that makes Italy poor are not the immigrants. The thing that makes Italy poor is its government. Its immigrants could be part of the solution. And I know you racist out there, you think that because the immigrants are from Africa, they can do anything, but I will remind you that the most well-educated immigrant group in the United States today are Nigerians. I know maybe some of you don't know geography, but Nigeria is a country in Africa and the people there have black skin. They're highly educated, very prosperous in the United States, and have done phenomenally well. The rest of the world could benefit from more Nigerians immigrating there. The minister of trade in Liz Truss's new government is, God forbid, Nigerian. Oh my God. The fact that Nigeria has oil doesn't change the composition of its people. But no, I have, because I guess I talked about Brazil, and I don't know why, but in Italy I'm getting a bunch of racists back on my channel. I thought they were gone forever, but it looks like they're back. So no, the immigrants in Italy are just as productive as Italians are. There's no reason they can do every piece of work that the Italians can do. They need to be integrated in society, which doesn't mean spending money on them. It doesn't mean anything. It just means them giving them work permits, allowing them to work and actually denying them welfare. It means denying them welfare and giving them the ability to work, stopping their, quote, illegal status. I mean, it's insane to me. The number one way in which countries can almost instantaneously increase their production and increase the standard of living and quality of life is to increase immigration. But you're much more concerned about cultural purity and skin color purity than you are about actually increasing wealth and actually making countries more prosperous and more successful. And people get stuck on that, and that's what the new right is all about, and that's what these new right political parties are focused on, and that's why they all fail, all of them fail. They're all following the same kind of model and they all are disasters, and they all admire Putin and they all follow his path to hell. All right, let's see. Yeah, you know, what Europe is becoming is more and more and more tribal, which would not surprise I grant at all. Not surprise I do. If you read her essay on vulcalization, you would know that. By the way, I'm giving a talk on vulcanization and why Scotland should stay with the UK and not go independent in Scotland, in Edinburgh, in a couple of weeks. All right, Catherine is failing dramatically here. Catherine, we did well yesterday without you, but you're not having the impact. I don't know what's going on. You need to come earlier. All right, we are, you know, way behind. We're not even halfway to our $650 goal, but I am going to start doing super chat. I'm not going to get to the Iran protests in California Insanity. We'll do those tomorrow. I certainly want to talk about Iran. That's important for me to talk about Iran. And we'll definitely cover the story from California and then we'll see. Yeah, people after I've gone for so long, not interested in supporting the show using super chat, I guess. We'll see. We'll see what happens the rest of the night. All right, Michael asks, are you shocked when you tell someone a brilliant ran quote or insight and it doesn't resonate with the person you told it to in the slightest. I just don't understand how people unblown off their feet by this woman. I agree with you. I guess I'm not shocked because I see it all the time. I see it all the time and I've witnessed it here in the chat, never mind out there in the world. It doesn't surprise me anymore. It doesn't shock me anymore. People have their preconceptions. They're not interested in thinking. They're not interested in expanding their mind. They're not interested in considering new points of view. They're just stuck on where they are and they're not thinkers. To be interested in Iran, to find comments interesting, you have to be a thinker. And you have to be a little brave because you have to be willing to challenge your own set of beliefs. All right, Robert asks, I hope everyone made a ton of money on TWTR. That's Twitter today. And be sure to cash out before Iran changes its mind again. Yeah. I wonder, a lot of people made up 22% today. That's not bad. Not bad. All right, Scott says, if Biden did have the courage to blow up the pipeline, did he have the model and legal right to do so? Did he have the model or legal right to do so? I don't know what legal right when we'd be talking about. I don't think there would be any legal framework. It would be an act of war if he blew up the pipeline. It would be an act of war against both Europe and Russia. It's why I don't think he did it. It would be a pretty audacious move. No, I mean, I don't think he has the model right to do it. Particularly, I don't think he has the model right because he's putting America at risk here. America doesn't need to go to war and it doesn't need to antagonize the Europeans. There's no reason for it. Let the Russian messes primarily a European mess. Let the Europeans suffer the consequence of their own mess. So I don't think he had either the model or the legal right to do so. And I'm pretty sure he didn't do it. There's no way he did it. Jennifer writes, Neil put on tribalism. This is Neil, the drama, right? Quote, they shoot without shame in the name of a piece of dirt for a change of accent or the color of your shirt. That's very good. That's very good. Yeah. They shoot without shame in the name of a piece of dirt. That's Putin shooting without shame. Slaughtering people for a piece of dirt for change of accent or the color of your shirt. Very good. Thank you, Jennifer. Michael, so I often hear people say, quote, Hitler would have never won. Hitler would, oh, I often hear people say Hitler could have won. In a sense, it was just luck that allies won. Would you say because of the nature of the collective system, it was a zero chance of ever beating a free country in the long run? Yeah, I don't think he had any chance of beating a free country. And you think about all the mistakes Hitler made and people say, yeah, if he hadn't opened a second front, if he hadn't made this mistake, if he hadn't made that mistake. But that's the point of authoritarianism. That's the point of authoritarians. They make mistakes. They're idiots. They don't have a standard. So yeah, because they're delusional by the very nature they're delusional. They're delusional to think that they can run the world. They're delusional to think that they are a superior race. They're delusional to think that the Germans can win on two fronts. What's the difference? Once you're delusional, it's just a question of time before you lose. And given the American industrial capacity to produce weapons systems, the Germans could have never beaten the United States. Now, it's true that if Japan had never attacked the U.S., I guess it would be possible if Japan had never attacked the U.S. that the U.S. would have never entered the war in Europe. If the U.S. doesn't enter the war in Europe, Hitler could have won or at least fought to a stalemate against the Russians, bloody himself significantly. I don't know that he could have ever taken England in the U.K., but he could have dominated Europe for many, many, many decades just as the Soviets did. But in the end, he would have collapsed. In the end, he would have lost. In the end, he was pathetic and poor, and he could have never, never, ever achieved anything. Ari asked, I don't think to ask, got a new job, loved the show. Thanks, Ari. Really appreciate it. I'm glad you like the show. Right. Yeah, I know. We passed a half-way mark, so we've only got $300 to go to get to the $650 goal. We'll see. We'll see how we do the rest of the day. Anybody out there with $1,500, $250, maybe, to kind of square us off and get us to our goal, that would be nice. Harper Campbell says, are there any limitations to reason? How would we even know? Is IQ a limitation? I don't know what limitations to reason means. Reason is not bound. Reason is not intelligence. Reason is, you know, a faculty that we have, and we all have it. Now, some of us can deal with the abstract world more effectively than others. Those are people with high levels of intelligence. But it turns out intelligence is not a one-dimensional thing either. It's a multi-dimensional thing, so there are various ways in which different people can deal with different types of abstractions. But intelligence, IQ is a limitation, yes, on understanding. At least it's a limitation on being able to suddenly discover new things and push the envelope of new knowledge. But it's not a limitation on reason. Reason is just that faculty at whatever level of abstraction you can take it. But the very faculty, we all have eyes. We can see the world. We can integrate the information from the world. We all use concepts. We can all kind of understand concepts. It's not really an issue of intelligence. Issue of intelligence only comes to more abstract thinking. But you don't say that people who don't engage in abstract thinking are not using their reason. So reason is something we have the capacity to utilize, if you will. It's our means of survival one way or another. And intelligence is on top of that. In addition to that, it's one of the features of reason, but it's not a limitation on reason. Now, if you really cannot conceptualize, if you're so mentally deficient that you cannot conceptualize, cannot, not won't, but cannot, then yes. Then that's, if you will, a limitation of reason and then you rely on other people in order to survive, even at the very basic level. Linda, thank you. Really appreciate the support. Thanks a lot. Linda had no question. All right. Ryan asks, Liz Truss is folding on tax cuts already. We have much work still to do. Yes, I talked about this yesterday. She couldn't defend her plan. She was pathetic at it. Of course, I don't believe in tax cuts as the thing you lead with. You lead with government spending cuts. She couldn't do that. She's afraid to do that. So, you know, once they start with tax cuts and they won't talk about spending cuts, you know we're in for trouble. We're in for trouble because the tax cuts don't achieve as much as you'd expect. Now, the one tax cut that was good was eliminating the 45% top budget on tax rate. And that's the thing she folded on. Yes, they don't have a moral backbone. They don't know what they're doing. They can't defend themselves. They're not good economists and they're not good communicators. And they have no moral backbone. The doodle bunny says, we can now say the N-word on Twitter, don't you feel free as a consumer now? Can we say the N-word on Twitter? Will Elon Musk allow that? Anyway, he hasn't bought it yet, so don't start saying the N-word yet because you're getting in trouble on Twitter. No, I don't feel free for being able to say the N-word. I don't think that's much progress. James Taylor, should we be afraid to try a mixed economy? Should we be afraid to try in a mixed economy? Should we be afraid to try as entrepreneurs or in a mixed economy? As chaotic as statism is, is it still predictable enough to take chances in Korean business? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So look at Silicon Valley. Look at all the businesses that open in your neighborhood. Look at all the people who are successful in business, that are successful in life in spite of the mixed economy. It is, don't use the mixed economies in excuse. There's still plenty of opportunities. There's still plenty of upside. If you're hardworking, if you're smart, if you're innovative, if you're willing to fail, there's still a lot of freedom. There's a lot of freedom and a lot less free economies where people are hugely successful. So go out there and do, don't use the regulators in the mixed economy in taxes and excuse not to live. Anonymous use Brazil saying, Brazilian saying, quote, crime exists in the entire world, but only in Brazil do they fan clubs for criminals. Do they have fan clubs for criminals? I love Brazil, but I hope it gets better. Me too. Me too. I mean, I love Brazil and I hope it gets better. What I tell the Brazilians over and over again is, government has one role, one role to protect us. And a big chunk of that role is to protect us from criminals, from muggers and pickpocketers and murderers and gangsters and people who break in our homes and steal our stuff. That's the one job of government. The one thing they need to get right. And in Brazil, they can't do that. They don't do it. Brazil is a, you know, it's interesting. It's one of the few countries in the world where I was told this trip, I was told, and past trips. I was told, don't hold your phone in public, out tight. Don't hold your phone because somebody will grab it. Somebody will grab it and run off. And indeed, in Argentina, funnily enough, not in Brazil, but in Argentina, somebody who was driving along, one of the conference attendees was driving along and they stopped at a traffic light and he took out his phone and the window was open and somebody put his hand into the window, grabbed his phone and ran off. So it's a sad state of existence when you have that and you can be happy in the United States that as bad as crime is maybe getting, it's nowhere near those kind of levels. Michael says, did you think Reagan was smart? The left always painted him as an ambiable dunce. I think he was smart. You know, I go back and listen to him in the 1960s in his governor of California and he was smart. And he was smart. Now, by the time he became president, he was already old. He was a little slower. He probably was starting to suffer from dementia towards the end of his second term. But no, Reagan was definitely, at least in his youth, smart on the top of things and sharp and quick. You can see him in the debates. He's very quick even at the older age. So yeah, I think, I think Reagan was smart. I mean, he's not brilliant, but he was smart. Let's see. All right, we have $264 left to get to our goal. You know, that's a lot of $20 questions. That's, you know, 13 $20 questions. So to get there, we probably need some people to chip in a couple $100 or some $50 questions. That would be nice. But we're almost done. So whether we make it or not, we've got five questions. Maybe a few more that come in as we talk, but that'll be it. Gale says, you're right. You're on statism, religion, nationalism and anti-trade, anti-migration is a death wish. Yes, it's a death wish in any country, any country, and particularly a country that is already shrinking like Italy, but even Japan, right? The anti-migration in Japan is very, very bad. And it's changing. The Japanese are starting to allow more foreigners to come in and provide them with work visas. So the Japanese are smart enough to realize, but they're still nowhere near enough immigrants in Japan. And the same is true all over the world. There's just not enough immigration in the world today. You can run the numbers, you can do some simple economic analysis, and you can see that immigration would dramatically boost world GDP, dramatically. An economist have run this, but nobody seems to care. Valdrin says, your phenomenal at times sparks a brilliance. Only at times? Really, Valdrin? Only at times? Not always. Thank you, Valdrin. I really appreciate that. Bash Bran, again, is reason different than logic, and isn't logic learned and not something we're born with? Yes, reason is different than logic. Logic is all we apply out, certain aspects of our reason. It's the way in which we use our conceptual faculty to figure out what's true and what's not. But it's an aspect of reason, but it isn't reason. It's a technique of reason. It's a method of reasoning. But it is not reasoning of itself. Reason is a faculty we're born with that we need to engage, that we need to turn on. Logic, I mean, defined as the art of non-contradictory identification. So it's the use of the principles of logic to identify and resolve contradictions to make sure that what reason is identifying, what we're identifying, what our sense is identifying, what we're conceptualizing does not contradict, does not, we don't hold contradictions. Colts, update on reaching out to the center, both of my parents are anti-Trump, they're both moderates, but maybe lean in the conservative direction, they both want something else from the GOP in 2024. Good, and I assume you've had a positive influence on them in getting them in that direction, but that is really good. We'll see if the GOP actually gets somebody better for 2024. Hard to tell. Alright, let's see, we got two last questions. Anybody who wants to step in, support the show and contribute. By the way, well over 100 people watching the show, only 59 thumbs up. So if you like the show, please click the like button. It really helps the algorithms. It really helps us out. It's a way to support the show. It's a way to get the show more visible in the algorithm. It's a way to subvert YouTube's algorithm and get the show more prominent. So please, before you leave, like the show. Yeah, I just like the show. Let's see, Fend Hopper, not Hopper Campbell, Fend Hopper, the other Hopper. Anyway, always confusing. Fend Hopper says, how do you differentiate between power and strength? God, I don't know. I mean, I think there is, yeah, I don't know. I'd have to think about it. I think, I mean, if I remember from my physics class, there were different definitions of power and strength. But I can't remember. And then I'm sure that there are differences in terms of working out and in terms of muscles. And I think, you know, so yeah, power strikes me as something that's kind of what you can do as a one-time thing. The power that you can exert on something. Strength is a feature of yours. How strong are you? The strength that you have. Now, you're talking politically power and strength. Power is the ability to impose your will on others, I guess. Strength is, it can be in a sense passive because power is not, power is active. Because it's just, how strong am I? I haven't used that strength. I haven't used that strength to attain power. I'm just strong. Anyway, so it's something I'd have to think more clearly about in terms of the differences and how to define them clearly. All right, Francis, if Russia is an outlaw state, Germany had no moral right to finance Russia by buying gas from it. Why do you say the U.S. had no right to stop that? Well, it's not that they have no right to do it. It's that they have no moral reason to do it. That is, it's a problem between Russia and Germany. Not an American problem. So why risk, you know, in a sense, conflict with Russia and with Europe when it's none of American business? I mean, I don't think, I think the whole approach to Ukraine and Russia from an American perspective has been wrong. But why, this is not America's issue, the pipeline. This is a European and Russian issue. And Europe and Russia have to solve this. So U.S. going in there and blowing up pipelines are not blowing up pipelines. Why? It just is not, doesn't make any sense for America to do, doesn't add anything to American security. And as such, it's probably immoral. I may, yeah. Frank says, having French food, Italian service, German security, British entertainment, really? Hell, French service, Italian security, British food and German entertainment. Yep. That pretty much sums it up. It's nice to see clear divisions of labor, people doing what's important to them. Friend Harper says, strength is one's ability to exert their will over circumstances, one's ability to get what they want out of a situation. Yeah, I think that's right. That was similar to the way I put it. Alright. Daniel says, how do you introduce Rand to a 20-year-old? My sister has a negative confused view from reading TikTok comments about Rand. Well, I mean, the way is to get them to read The Fontanet or Atlas Sharks. I mean, that's the best way. Get them to read. And I know people don't like to read, but get them to read. Get them to read one of those books. Alright, we have our last question from Katharine. We're about $220 short, but we'll probably call it a night. Katharine says, have you been to Boston Public Library? Yes. I've been to Boston Public Library many times. I was there this weekend and spent hours looking at the gorgeous art and sculptures. What do you think of John Singer-Sargent murals? I mean, I think John Singer-Sargent is an amazing artist, amazing painter. He did some beautiful things. Some of the portraits are some of my favorite art. I'm a big fan, and I love the Boston Public Library. It's a great building. It's a great place. Great art, inspiring. I encourage everybody when they're in Boston to check out the public library. Check out also the museum. The Boston Museum of Art, Fine Art Museum, I think it's called, and the God. I forget the name of it, but there's a really good museum, private museum in Boston. I forget the name of the person that the museum is named after, but it's a really, really good museum in Boston for art. Thank you, Catherine. All right. Thanks everybody. I really appreciate it. Don't forget if you want to support the show. First of all, like the show before you leave was still way over 100 viewers right now, and only 78 likes. We should be well over 100. Please like the show so we can get the algorithms to cooperate with us. Don't forget to support the show if you like the show, and you'd like to see it continue, and you'd like to see it grow. Please support it. You can support it at youronbookshow.com slash support. You can also do it on Patreon and subscribe stars. Thank you for all of you who already support the show. Really, really appreciate it. John, thank you for the support there. Last minute, last minute super chat, so we went from over 450. That's good. Get a little closer to our goal. And let's see, what else do we have? Yeah, we're good. We're good, I think. And I will see you all tomorrow. So we'll have a show tomorrow, a show Thursday, and then one on Saturday and one on Sunday, maybe next Monday. And then I'm off to Europe again. So one of the things to consider in terms of your allocation of super chat money is they're not going to be like last month. They're not going to be a lot of shows this month. So just take that into account. And yeah, I hope to see you supporting youronbookshow. All right, thanks everybody. I'll see you tomorrow.