 All right everybody, welcome to Iran Book Show. Audio only today, no video, no video. For the same reason really I have been absent for so long, I'm just having at this hotel in Brazil, I'm having a significant incident in a boardroom here, is to have it spider that buffers in and out, so it's fast, but it I think it stops and goes, right, so which the speed doesn't help when when it's doing that so that that's that is a little bit weird. Let me fill you in and on everything that's going on, I don't have for some reason. All right are we audio good you're saying? All right so let yeah stops and goes I'm told. Let me know if now it's stable and it's it's running. I you know it's good now so we'll see I'll be trying I got at my hotel room here and sadly while I really like I love the location of this hotel the it's the Sheraton in Rio de Janeiro the hotel is is very dated I stayed here last time five years ago and you can see a big difference from five years ago the hotel is really it's dated itself and part of that dating is the fact that the the internet is in my room is it doesn't exist I mean it just isn't any it's the speed of a pathetic I mean in some places it's better than other places but you can't you can't do anything in my room that requires any kind of uploading so I complained and they couldn't move me rooms and so then I then I said about the business center so I tried the business center it's hard to believe but the business Senate this hotel the internet was worse than in my room so the internet was awful so then so then finally after a few days and you can tell I haven't done a show in a while because of all this stuff going on is after a few days I managed to get them to allow me to use the conference centers I'm in the conference room so I'm using this conference room I get really good values so I thought cool this this is all my problem I'll do a show from this boardroom and as you saw earlier we tried to upload video and it was just it was just a disaster take a bite per second in terms of just it's just not a constant stream that is that there's just anyway that the video somehow overloads it or maybe there's a cap on how much you can upload maybe the service provider that provides them the internet gives them a cap on how much they can upload and and that is just anyway bottom line is I'm in Brazil and this hotel is falling apart so you know next time a different hotel but the challenge of course is going to be that I'm here for another few quite a few days I don't know when the next show is going to be I'll try to do something on the weekend but I cannot promise and I lost so so the next show might be from Sao Paulo which which I'll be I'll be in Sao Paulo on Wednesday will have better internet service than what we've what we've had what we've had here so we will see so I apologize for all the problems I apologize for the fact that we're doing audio only that there's no video I know how much you like to watch me be expressive with my hands and everything else but but I think this is a better than nothing so anyway this is what we have you know thank you guys for joining thank you for for being patient with me it you know it would still be great if you guys ask super chat questions we you know and I'll be able to I'll be able to long show partially because they're just not a lot of people watching given that last minute nature of this and given the fact that we're doing audio only and this is the third time I've tried to do this with no success now I am hearing from the chat that there was a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv just a little bit of while ago I have not seen anything about that so I you know there's not much I can really comment about it it doesn't yeah I see breaking news terror attack in Tel Aviv reporting of ramming and shooting attack in Tel Aviv promenade six people injured one person murdered yeah I mean this this is not this is really you know this is an essential of Tel Aviv it's a promenade it's it's where people hang out you know I guess the lucky that only one person is dead and you know as few as it looks like seven injured it could be much much worse given how busy that area is in the evenings so it's a Friday evening I'm sure there were a lot of people there so yeah all I can say is it doesn't surprise me we'll see more of these we're not gonna see less of these the reality is that the Israelis have not you know they haven't sold the Palestinian problem they haven't they haven't resolved the issue they haven't come to resolution and the reality is that as long as there as long as they don't resolution of this problem Palestinians will continue to feel both really disempowered but also emboldened emboldened to attack disempowered to really live their lives so Israel has to really decide what it wants to do and it needs to it needs to ultimately what it needs to is it needs to defeat the Palestinians it needs to it needs to resolve the situation it needs to have finality and as long as there's no finality terrorism the terrorist attacks will continue and people will continue to suffer as a consequence the Palestinians need to be defeated at some point and that I think is the only resolution to the issues that we are that we are facing alright I I'm hoping the audio is fine I'll keep going until you guys tell me that the audio is no good and then and then I will stop so I haven't done a show in a while and a lot has happened in the world obviously I think the last show I did was from Lima Peru where I did a number of different talks you know and the last of which was was particularly good we had over a hundred people about 150 people in the audience virgins as I like to call them people who've never heard these ideas before so it was it was terrific and got a great reception there and that was great flew then to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil where I'm gonna be here until Wednesday or Tuesday nights and then Wednesday night I fly back to Puerto Rico so you can expect a show for me from Puerto Rico starting shows from Puerto Rico starting on a week from today Friday Friday a week from today I hope that we don't go the whole week without shows but it is possible I don't I don't like the solution of no audio or no video but it is it is better than nothing at all all right let's let's go over the news a little bit you know now the noise is outside the room the first piece of news which I'm not gonna comment much about we've talked about it a little bit in the before but that is the indictment of Donald Trump the tomorrow logo and then he flew back tomorrow logo where he gave one of his typical grievances speeches about how how how badly he has mistreated but I think I don't think there's much for me to say about the indictment I don't think there is I don't think it's particularly the indictment is particularly interesting I don't you know would other people be indicted for something like this maybe this is kind of a it is a you know a tax records fraud tax evasion type case it's just it's just not something to get super excited about typically this wouldn't generate as much buzz and as much interest but it's Trump and he's running for president and all of that and I doubt that most prosecutors would actually go through with an indictment for something like this it reflects badly on Trump it reflects badly on his personality to fix badly on on his character but what really but but there's nothing new here right we know about his character and we know about his personality so there's no new information here I just think it's a it's really a waste of time to focus too much on it I think Bragg is reaching with this prosecution and not out of any love for Trump I wish it was and and opposed Trump on those you know actual actual issues I you know I I do think whether this a help Trump a hood that what alienates independence what alienates people who from voting from Trump and what makes it very difficult for Trump to win an election is his is everything people already know about him and while something like this and indictment like this suddenly gets the base wild up I certainly think it increases the probability that Trump is the nominee of the Republican Party so anytime the Democrats go after any time the Democrats go after Trump you know the the Republicans get excited the Republicans call but you know claim persecution and and and the base gets all thrilled and I think the probability that Trump is the candidate increases when when these kind of things happen but the reality is that anytime something like this happens independence and Democrats who might vote Republican or and moderate Republicans their attitude has to be and I'm sure is and I think the polls bear this out oh god more of this Trump drama more of this nonsense more of this with his ridiculous character more more more of the things that that we wanted to get rid of when we didn't vote for him in 2020 so I think these things hurt him in the general election and help him in the primary exactly the opposite of what I want I want him hurt in the primary and I want ultimately Republicans helped in the general election so I'd like to see Republicans win the general election but I do not want to see I do not want to see Trump be the candidate but these kind of things make it more likely that he will be the candidate rather than less likely so in that sense it goes against everything that I would want it goes against everything that I think is is is good and and and beneficial for the country ultimately all right let's see let's see the so the other so a number of other things related to elections happen this this week that I think or last week that I think are interesting one is the Chicago mayor race both by the way both of these examples of elections important elections that happened this last week examples of the continued success of Democrats continued success of I'd say yeah of Democrats generally the repudiation of the Republican Party I mean the midterms were supposed to be a red wave there was supposed to be a red tsunami it was supposed to be a period in which not only did Republicans take the House by big margins but where Republicans had the opportunity to take the Senate they did neither of those they took the House by a tiniest of my not majorities and they did not retake the Senate well in in Wisconsin this week there was a an important for Republicans and Democrats I guess so for for for the state an important race to fill the vacant slot on the Wisconsin Supreme Court the Wisconsin Supreme Court was four to three Republican Wisconsin generally is a swing state it is a state that has gone Democratic more than Republican but gone with very low margins that is it is a close to 50-50 state between Democrats and Republicans so it's one in contention and one where Republicans hold the significant margin for example in the House of Representatives from Wisconsin and I think the Senate is split between a Republican and a Democrat anyway the Supreme Court was 43 Republican and there was an election to replace one of the Republicans so this was a swing election would determine who would control the the Supreme Court in Wisconsin what's interesting is that became an election about abortion basically the Democratic candidate ran on a platform that basically said if you vote for me I will work to undo the very very anti-abortion law that exists in Wisconsin Wisconsin once a world versus Wade was overturned Wisconsin reverted to a 19th century law that basically prohibited all abortions except when the life of the mother was in jeopardy the the Supreme Court has the possibility and potential to overturn that and the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the Democratic nominee basically ran on abortion she ran as that as the as a major issue the Republican is known as anti-abortion was known as anti-abortion it was clear that he would uphold the existing abortion law the Republican got walloped I mean I think it was a 5545 victory 5545 in a swing state 5545 in a state that is that sometimes goes Republican that has a Republican senator and has a majority of Republican House members is a shocking defeat for Republicans and more I think indication that the issue of abortion is really really hooding Republicans and and that's it's really hard to tell how this is going to play out particularly at the state level I think ultimately abortion is you know hood Republicans significantly not a little bit significantly during the midterm election it wasn't just abortion it was also of course candidate quality and and election denial denial the 2020 election denial all hood Republicans but I think abortion was a big factor and as long as Republicans and a gonna run on an on a straight anti-abortion platform as long as they could recommend these not only anti-abortion but anti-abortion pill and anti-abortion the first trimester and anti-abortion for all reasons they are going to live to vote because abortion is a big issue for them but I also think that what happens is a lot of Republican women a lot of Republican women vote Democrats because of the abortion issue and then of course you get the independence and the swing voters these are the people that Republicans have to get in order to win the presidency they vote against so this is this is a big big problem for it was a it was a non-issue right the Supreme Court guaranteed abortion that way what how they voted didn't matter they could they could be anti-abortion for the sake of Republicans and then tell the Republican women and swing voters oh but it doesn't matter because I can't rule on abortion anyway and people would vote for them but now that abortion is on the table now that it's a real issue now that that they're both at the federal level they could they could ban abortion federally and and at the state levels there is a lot I think it is I think it is super important I think it is it is a super important issue I think it is a key issue of individual rights I in Rand of course thought this was a key issue of individual rights so I completely understand support people are voting on the abortion issue to some extent the exclusion of other issues but but it's hurting Republicans there's no question so I think Trump is hurting Republicans he's hurting Republicans among independents and swing voters and and and switch voters Democrats with Republicans the abortion issue is really really hurting Republicans so Wisconsin now has a majority Supreme Court of Democrats this is going to hold Republicans in one other way and that is that the Republicans gerrymandered the state so that they could get I think six out of nine of the House seats of Republicans now there is a possibility and now that and the map is ultimately has the potential to go to the court this Republican favorable map to Republicans that if it goes to the courts will probably be rejected by Democratic court and then the Democrats will have an opportunity maybe to change the map to their benefit so the Republicans do control the House and the Senate in Wisconsin they they don't control the state House that is a that is a Democrat now they don't control the Supreme Court this has big implications for Republicans in the state I quickly Chicago mayor race this is less Republican Democrats but more was an internal Democratic race you had two candidates you had Paul Valles who ran on a anti-crime platform pro-police was was basically endorsed by the police union he was considered you know a a centrist by Democratic standards and he ran versus Brandon Johnson who is considered a progressive a left wing he was supported by the teachers union so this is really a battle between the teachers union and the teachers union and the police union and it's a lot of people surprised because this this went against the polling the teachers union one that is the more progressive candidate one and there's there's every reason in the Chicago establishment rallied around him the Chicago establishment rallied around the the progressives and you know Chicago Democratic machine worked in the favor of Paul Johnson and and Johnson you know got the votes this is horrific news really really horrible news for the state of Chicago for the city of Chicago this is is going to mean being less tough on crime so this means crime in Chicago will continue probably to increase this means plan wealth so you can expect taxes within the city of Chicago to go up I still don't understand why people stay in Chicago and keep living in Chicago in spite of how awful it has become it's going to mean poverty rates in Chicago are going to go up it means no educational reform in Chicago so Chicago public school system which is a horrible pathetic really really bad public school system whose victims are primarily young black kids in in poor neighborhoods in the south side of Chicago and Hispanic kids in those neighborhoods they're the victims of this are going to continue to suffer from some of the worst education possible in this country so crime is up education is down and the city of Chicago higher taxes more regulations more controls why anybody stays there why have business stays there why why businesses don't you know complete move out of Chicago move anyway but Chicago I have no idea but the reality is that life in Chicago is going to become more miserable for the foreseeable future and this is this is a victory for the progressives that goes counter to many of their defeats over the last few years and it shows that when the establishment gets behind the progressives about the vote machinery they can win one of the things that a vault of Alice I think his name is vows was accused of the guy who was anti-crime was accused of was being a Republican and being a closet of a public and that that of course hurt him as well but I think bad for Chicago but one more bad thing in the city of Chicago it's been a long long time since Chicago had anything good politically happen over there another another you know horrible story out of Baltimore so I think I think we've known this but now now I think we actually have a report from the Maryland Attorney General Maryland Attorney General is accusing the Catholic Church in in Baltimore of sexually abusing at least at least 600 children over 60 years and of course keeping it quiet and covering it all up this is after a four-year investigation and it involved multiple abusers so it wasn't just it wasn't one guy wasn't but but multiple priests abusing these children I don't get Catholicism I don't get how it survived shunned as a religion shunned as a as an ideology shunned as something people practice I can't think of many more horrific things that can be done than to abuse abused children and the Catholic Church of the you know as we've discovered at least for the last for decades but really for centuries probably for two millennia I have been abusing children in a systematic you know large-scale way it has become a refuge for child abusers it has become a place where they can get away with it where they can cloak themselves under mantle of morality and under mantle of religion and get away with abusing children and they will be protected by the system and it's it's right it's hard to imagine and hard to understand how this is tolerated because it really is tolerated I mean this is an organization in which this is happening on a regular basis and and nobody seems to care nobody seems to do anything once in a while there's like an AG report and they try to go after some priest and then you know and in some sitting jail but very few actually do and yet people still go to church they still practice this conversions to Catholicism people become Catholics it's a bizarre thing and these beats continue and and who knows if the child abuse doesn't continue maybe it continues in other countries where people cave and learn so I mean Catholicism obviously is huge in Brazil it's huge all over Latin America one of the shows I wanted to do from here I was thinking of doing it this weekend but now I'm not sure because it depends on this internet situation is a show on on on why Latin America such a basket case and a big part of why Latin America such a basket case is because Latin America remains Catholic and remains committed to Catholicism committed to Christianity committed to religion and that does not allow it to escape its past and to and to liberate itself Catholicism is a reactionary ideology reactionary religion that is not good for progress of any kind all right let's see somebody said here somebody said Chicago and San Francisco becoming Detroit yeah but at the same time Detroit becomes is getting better Detroit is improving crime is declining in Detroit you know and this is there's investment in Detroit and so the Detroit bankruptcy Chicago and San Francisco are declining I don't know the other news related San Francisco that you probably heard this week was that a well-known entrepreneur found of several stab to death in a safe part of the city in south of Madison where the techie pod the entrepreneurial part where a lot of tech guys live and a lot of the a lot of tech companies have set themselves up and he was stabbed it was late at night but in the street we don't have a lot of details on what happened but he's dead you know this is San Francisco a city clearly in insignificant significant decline also vacancy rates of vacancy rates in office buildings in San Francisco or at record high I think something like 30% and it doesn't look like it's gonna get any better and we you know we still haven't had a recession we're heading towards of a cargo and but Chicago's being in a slow decline now for years Chicago's being a bastion of the Democratic Party forever but has been in a slow decline now for years the whole state of Illinois has been a basket case and problematic alright a few other news items Saudi Arabia continues to kind of snub the United States and continues to act against American interests it continues to distance itself from Israel as well the latest move you know this is after the moves to normalize relationships with Iran and befriend Iran we'll see we'll see how that how that goes but as part of I think that move Saudi Arabia is seeking to bring Bashar al-Assad the dictator of Syria the guy who's been fighting a civil war in Syria for 10 years now for over 10 years now 12 years since they have a spring they're trying to bring him back into the fold they they have you know and again this is a move that I think the Russians definitely supports the Saudis are making overtures to the Russians and and they've been they've been chumming with the Chinese and now the Iranians and other Syrians this is all not good for the region it's not good for US influence in the region it is not good for Israel there was a lot of talk about Saudi Arabia and Israel getting close and ultimately Saudi Arabia may be signing a peace deal with Israel this looks increasingly unlikely given that the you know given that Syria is basically a state of war with Israel always has been that Syria is an ally of Iran Iran is at a state with war with Israel and you know and and given that the the Saudis now the Saudis now have the support of the Russians and the and the Chinese anyway so the United States is losing here big time it's losing influence it's losing allies it's losing contracts you know this idea that the United States should continue to sell Saudi Arabia weapons without any without asking for anything in return Saudi Arabia the other thing Saudi Arabia did this week was it announced that together with OPEC that they were cutting production of oil so that prices could go up this is again counter to US interests counter to what the Biden administration wanted them to do this is all a reflection of the weakness of Biden the weakness of America more broadly the unseriousness which reached the rest of the world takes America now in regard to its foreign policy and the fact that the Saudis are looking to Russia and China not just in the United States in terms of the foreign policy and that the Middle East in spite of the Abraham Accords and despite of everything else is not a friendly place for Israel and probably never will be so or won't be anytime soon so while you know people are very excited about the Abraham Accords and and the people are very excited about friendship between potential friendship between Saudi Arabia and Israel I have never been never been particularly excited or thought you know good things we're going to come out of all of this so anyway this alright so the Saudis as I said bringing Syria into the fall trying to get them into the Arab League this is after Syria's been brutal to its own people and just just horrific in a civil war and many Arab countries cut off Syria and now they're being back together talk about Syria and in Israel Israel has launched a number of airstrikes that targeted Gaza Lebanon and Syria they were targeting Iranian forces in Syria the Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza this is a this is a response the 35 rockets that were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel on a Thursday afternoon I don't know why I guess Hezbollah was just trying to show their strength the you know the the Israeli spokesman said the Hamas was a strong presence in Lebanon Hezbollah does but you know Israel retaliated both inside Lebanon and the Gaza Strip that's Hamas and has on a regular basis of the last few weeks being bombing different targets within within Syria primarily you planning a Iranian Baku to house back who is to house the Azerbaijan secular government and replace it with an Islamic pro-uranian government so Iran is dabbling in in Uz not Uzbek Azerbaijan politics Azerbaijan is quite friendly to Israel that's one of the reasons Iranians want them want to replace the regime there all right let's see anything else super exciting I think that's my kind of weekly summary happy to answer any questions on things that that might be of interest to you guys and I'm glad the audio at least is working when the video was clearly not let's see we don't have a lot of we have one two super chat questions so really one super chat question so if that's it we'll call it a day if you want if you want to see the the show continue that is today shows continue that you can jump in with additional questions but Andrew Andrew asks why do big cities go leftist I mean they go leftist because big cities are traditionally basically there are two constituencies within big cities you know once a lot of whites middle-class whites left the cities then they basically turned into places that were dominated by low-income low-income individuals primarily ethic minorities so blacks and Hispanics and others and the Republican Party has never managed to appeal to that demographic then if managed to appeal to blacks or Hispanics they've been managed to appeal to to poor people or working class until recently but but then only primarily not only primarily white working class so the big cities with with the people going to the suburbs the big cities remained these bastions of basically poor people and in ethic minorities and those are being traditionally democratic democratic heavy but even there a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of these cities were then gentrified and repopulated by over the last I'd say 10 20 years by a lot of higher income people who've moved back in who've gentrified neighborhoods have moved into high rises in downtown but they tend to be really well educated well educated highly paid employees in more recent years people working from home you know San Francisco in particular as starting about 15 years ago started to see a boom in startups within the city and a lot of companies set up their headquarters within the city and a lot of people started moving in a lot of programmers and others and and the problem is for Republicans is or the right is that most highly educated highly paid individuals in the country are Democrats the reality is that the Democratic Party has two constituencies highly educated people and and poor people and and and those are the people who live in the cities and why highly educated choose to be leftist you know ultimately is a great question a question that you think the Republican Party would be interested in answering but I you know one good example is abortion highly educated people tend to be pro-abortion they don't tend to be anti-abortion and as a consequence they tend to be offended by a Republican Party that is so adamantly anti-abortion they tend to be secular they don't tend to be religious or we can party is religious they tend to believe in evolution they don't tend to believe in creationism Republican Party you know claims evolution is is untrue so there were a lot of reasons why you know highly educated people tend to be Democratic they also went to university and and at university they were educated in a lot of progressive ideology ideas so yes so educated and of course they feel guilty for the wealth but but but you know Republican rich people feel guilty for their wealth as well so the guilt for the wealth is not enough to explain to explain the fact that that educated people are and wealthy people tend to be Democrats luckily the nuns taught phonics yeah I mean Catholic schools tend to be better than public schools and they tend to teach some stuff that is relevant like phonics and basic math let's see Bonnie says a little buffing but super chat works fine thanks Bonnie dragon Hendricks says put this towards a decent hotspot who thought I needed a hotspot I mean it's just I used to travel with a hotspot and years ago I stopped because the reality is that every way I go there's great internet I mean hotels particularly the hotels I stay in which are good hotels have good internet they all do this hasn't happened to me in years that in a hotel I couldn't find a spot where I could do a show you know sometimes the internet's not great but there's always enough to get the video up here in my room I couldn't even do this audio in my room the internet is so slow you know it's the slowest I've seen in in in a decade but even here in a boardroom I can't I can literally not get the video the video to work because of bandwidth issues so if you're with me is seems like a really really painful thing for me to have to do and I'm still hopeful that that you know I won't have many experiences in which in which the internet will not work all right so I did start the video just out of curiosity to see if it is working any questions any other questions you guys might have and to any kind of suggestions you guys might have the super chat questions plus with all the technical problems I know I got you guys I got you guys distracted and so it's buffering right it's it's good it's again going out so there's just there's just no there's just no point yeah it's just no point so I'm killing the video alright so yeah yeah I mean it's obviously what's going on is the the internet there's a I think there's a cap on the amount you can upload and I think what's happening is it hits that cap and it shuts it down and it buffers because again the internet speed is fine and that's what I found when I carried a decent hotspot is a hotspot in the old days is that that is that I can just throw in my bag and is a backup Andrew as a follow-up says a so the left gets the uneducated and the educated yes yeah the left gets the extremes of education it gets some of the least educated primarily the minority least educated and it gets the very highly educated the right gets the uneducated and the and the uneducated primarily across the board but primarily white right because the the and it gets it you know and and this this split has become worse right it's become even more exacerbated since Trump's a Trump basically brought switched the Republican Party to brought into the Republican Party the working class working less whites who are typically being typically being kind of Democrats and and he's lost a lot of what you'd call educated independents who have often voted Republican and and and less likely now to vote for the Republican given Trump and and that's a sense that's part of the sense in which I told you a long time ago that I've told you many times the Trump destroyed the Republican Party and and by Trump destroying the public party making it the party of the uneducated and making it the party of the a populist party making it the party of the working class you know and destroyed kind of any kind of intellectual grounding it had and any kind of intellectual foundation and any appeal to the more educated and and that's that's ultimately a real tragedy and part of what's happened in the reality is that Democrats generally are more educated I've you know to the extent that IQ measures anything have higher IQ's have better jobs make more money than Republicans yeah Joe asks any comment on micro strategy now holding 4.17 billion of Bitcoin or Bank of America and Fidelity loading up on MSTR what is MSTR is a Bitcoin proxy I suppose yeah I mean look Bank of America and Fidelity are probably momentum traders Bitcoin is going up significantly and has been going up it's you know you load up on the way up that's part of one momentum traders do micro strategy has been holding gazillion dollars worth of Bitcoin for a long time I don't have the exact numbers but I'm not sure 4.17 is the peak maybe it is but for a very long time it is oh MSTR is micro strategy yeah so you know MSTR stock is basically a proxy for Bitcoin it's a way to buy Bitcoin micro strategy has just become basically a holding company for Bitcoin and it has been holding it for a long time Michael Saylor I think his name is was the CEO of micro strategy I think he's now the chairman but anyway he he he got micro strategy into Bitcoin it's if you want to speculate Bitcoin is great you buy it you sell it you you know if you want to write it up if you believe that Bitcoin you know Bitcoin's done very very well this year if you believe it'll do well for the rest of the year as it has in the past many times in the past then you buy into it but it's just a speculative asset there's nothing there there's no there there it's not a useful asset it's not a it's not money it's not it doesn't do anything it's just something that people speculate on and that speculation can cause the price to go up but that speculation caused the price to go down as you remember Bitcoin was at 16,000 not that long ago and down from 60 so if you bought at 50 60,000 and it's a 16,000 you haven't done so well it's super volatile so it can't be money and so it just is it's it's it's basically traded on people's emotions it's basically traded on people's people's predictions of other people's speculation but that's all and and back over making fidelity again any momentum trader is going to be loading up as we'll have loaded up on Bitcoin in the first quarter right Andrew asks Tucker show last night the left are crazy liars AI is bad and save the bees how does the conservative conservationist angle fit into conservatism well I mean the conservatives were there were the original conservationists the conservatives were the ones who were behind all the all the efforts around national parks and sitting aside land federal land is that will not be developed that was all part of the conservative movement up until the 1960s so conservatives actually we were the original environmentalists in the pre 1960s a period and then it kind of flipped in the late 50s early 60s with Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and suddenly it was the the the left that was upholding kind of a pretty extreme form of environmentalism but conservation and conservatism have always gone together conservatism is about not not having radical change it's about going slow it's about it's not necessarily about economic growth or economic prosperity or economic ability it's about conserving so conservation conservative same root of the word same mentality it's all about conserving the presence not being you know radical about change and environmentalism fits in very nicely with that and I think I think environmentalism and the right are going to is going to be an alliance that's going to bear many fruits for future authoritarian Joe says wasn't gold speculative at one point until enough people held it that it became money what if we're witnessing Bitcoin's monetization in real time have you seen the gold price during the Vima hype inflation very volatile yeah that's because but but gold was not money during Vima Vima Republic that's the point the point was that in Germany gold was actually very stable in the US because the US was in a gold standard so gold was fixed during during the 1920s in the US gold was fixed and the Vima Republic they went off the gold standard and you know gold was volatile only in terms of whatever they were using Dutch marks or whatever they were using in the Vima Republic but in terms of dollars it was fixed it was not volatile at all because the dollar was money based on gold reserves for a while until until FDR took took the United States off the gold standard so no gold is not speculative up to a point gold serves us money at the beginning the origins of gold are it is found and it is used for jewelry it has a use it's used for jewelry just for other things and then people notice that everybody likes gold gold is kind of fun it's pretty it's nice you can turn it into jewelry you can make it cool stuff with it so everybody wants jewelry everybody everybody wants to hold jewelry and everybody wants to hold gold sorry because it's it's this nice thing and because everybody wants it not everybody has everybody wants it it becomes a medium exchange so people this is a period in economic history of people still using barter or people using other mediums of exchange that are more primitive and slowly it evolves that gold is a pretty stable medium of exchange it it the supply of gold doesn't increase very fast it's easy to move around it's easy to break into smaller pieces it's easy to melt into different shapes it's easy to transport and gold for a variety of reasons becomes the I think because it's attractive because people want it for its own sake and and because of of these other characteristics gold is desirable gold becomes money but but it's never it's never as volatile in terms of its purchasing power as Bitcoin it can buy and if you look at the history of gold gold the purchasing power of gold has been amazingly stable I think until recent until recent times I don't go today as money either I think gold is a speculative asset for the most part just like Bitcoin but it was money Bitcoin is not money it's true that Bitcoin could stabilize one day it could reach a point where price is a stable thing about it that people will want to use it as money or what's convincing about it that that the government will let people use it as money so I think it's got two big barriers one is the government doesn't want it's as money and two I don't know how you convince people to use it as money what is it about it that is attractive to people to go out and use as money look I've debated people on Bitcoin for a long time I've nothing against Bitcoin I just don't see it and and and it behaves just like a speculative asset right goes to 60 thousand goes to 15 hours of 28 who knows where it'll be tomorrow nobody knows where it's going to be tomorrow and for that reason nobody's going to use it as money you can't use as money something that moves around like that and gold is never in recorded history at least never behaved that way I mean they might have been particularly regimes particularly places and again gold price during the Vimeo hyperinflation was now volatile not in dollars it was volatile in terms of the Deutsche Mark I think it was the Deutsche Mark but the Deutsche Mark was that was because for the Deutsche Mark dollars was not money that gold was not money so you know it's where it's money it won't be linked and that's one of the reasons why and the government's never going to link it it's one of the reasons maybe why it's not easy to link it it's not clear why it would ever dominate what what is it about Bitcoin that would dominate other currencies right Jonathan Honing he quotes me as saying Josh Hawley is the enemy yes he is he's the guy trying to ban tiktok right now because the number one threat to America is tiktok and we should ban it that's what Josh Hawley has in his mind he's got other stuff in his mind all bad all bad I mean when when when Spain imported gold from the new world they had inflation locally but but a lot of that was a lot of Spain's problems with gold were the fact that Spain didn't produce very much produced any very much of anything and as a consequence basically what happened is the gold came from South America to or Mexico to Spain and then was exported its place like England and Netherlands and other places to buy stuff from countries that actually made stuff all right everybody thank you really appreciate really appreciate the support and you know I will see whether I can do more shows this week I don't know if this audio only format works I don't know if it's worth the effort in doing it partially I look at the I look at the number of super chats but also the number of you watching live was very low I don't know if that's because it's audio only or for some other reason but it was very low so I left to figure out what's gonna happen this weekend I will keep you updated I'll let you know but I'll try to let you know thank you everybody I you know at the worst case scenario I will see you on Wednesday where I will be in another hotel where I think this problem won't exist see you in a few days or at least you'll hear me in a few days bye everybody