 Sound out. There we go. We got sound. All right. Welcome everybody. It's here on Brookshow on this Friday night. Thank you for joining me. As you can see, I am Traveling I'm in a hotel room You got a sound now got it. All right, I'm in a hotel room. I'm traveling So I'm better Not a hundred percent better, but better. I certainly tested negative on COVID Which was good. I wouldn't have traveled if I was positive on COVID and So as you know, I had COVID I had a cold at COVID that COVID was a cold and Tested now negative for COVID. I'm still getting over the cold. The cold hasn't gone Yeah, it's like it's well over two weeks now. It's two and a half weeks. It's driving me crazy But it's getting better. No question. It's getting better. So there we go. And as you can see I am traveling I'm in in an airport hotel in Chicago on my way to Europe. I'll be in Europe for three weeks so you can expect more Iran book show travel logs starting on sunday in two days from london and then And then we'll we'll do them regularly from different countries again, it will depend on schedule and it will depend a lot on Bandwidth whether there's enough bandwidth to do the show. Hopefully there is and And I will be And I will be able to do the shows regularly next week, so Be patient with me, but we are getting there and we will be we will be starting to do And We'll be able to again, we'll be able to do the shows regularly and and We'll get back on track. We're way behind in terms of the number of shows. Robert. Thank you. I says, Robert says glad you're feeling better You're being missed. I appreciate that I am back. I am back on the road and I'm back to doing shows one of the things that happens now on your road on the road is I got on the road yesterday I guess the day after two days after the the mask mandate was Eliminated by a court in Florida Basically a rule that the CDC did not have the authority to have a mask mandate Immediately the I think almost all the airlines Eliminated their own mandates, so Masks are not required on flights anymore. It'll be interesting tomorrow I assume there'll be no masks on the international flight to London. That's the best The best there's a long flights to have a mask on they were ready. You already were able to Cheat on those flights, but but it was really good Um, it was interesting though. So when I arrived in the airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico Uh, almost everybody was wearing a mask. It's an 80 to 90 percent of the people wearing masks on the flight From San Juan to Miami most people 70 80 percent of the people were wearing a mask. I was in business class and almost everybody Yeah, almost everybody was wearing a mask the woman next to me was wearing a mask the people in my Row on the other side wearing a mask almost everybody was wearing a mask. Um In Miami at the airport, I'd say Probably 60 no mask 40 mask. So the difference between Miami and Puerto Rico is big. I think Puerto Rico people Uh, a more I don't know Obedient maybe is the right right word or or they they follow instructions and still it's still recommended to wear a mask They they wore masks though. Um, but a huge difference in Miami I was in Actually, I haven't been to any other airports because I landed in Milwaukee wait wait late at night um, so I I didn't see what the situation was there, but It it was a pleasure to fly without having to wear a mask, but let me be clear about something Let me be clear about something I am not against masks I've never been against masks from day one my viewers of masks help And if you're in a susceptible group, if you're older than 65 if you have Different pre-existing conditions if if you tend to get covet pretty easily like I know tessie here gets Um, uh, covet, you know, she's had it three times. She's obviously quite susceptible Um, and it's destructive to your life and uh, you want to avoid it and you have a good mask like an n95 mask Then yeah, I mean wear a mask Uh, I have nothing against people who wear masks Um, I have no problem with people wearing masks and airplanes and airports In in social gatherings. I think outside it's ridiculous and stupid So I I draw the line that outside because I think outside is so absurd But indoors in crowded places if people want to wear masks, I have nothing against them wearing masks Um, and and have no problem. I think it's wrong to make fun of people like that I think it's wrong to complain about it People have different levels of risk tolerance people might not want to Get the flu or get get a cold in asia people wear masks all the time in public transportation um And have for many many years Um, so I don't have a problem with people wearing masks. Oh, I don't think it's a moral issue I don't think it's an issue of making fun of people. Um, I do think that People should have a choice. I've always thought people should have a choice And I think that people who are particularly susceptible to covet or particularly covet Constitutes a significant risk for them Should probably wear a good mask that protects them and and I even though other people are not masks If you wear a good mask, you're probably protected At least to some extent so I don't see the big, you know, the big issue the big issue has always been the mandates The fact that the government is out of mandating masks Is a major step forward. It is a it is a victory for all of us um You notice that the justice department is now appealing this case not because I think They believe that masks are that important not because they're worried about a spike in covid cases I think they're appealing it because they're afraid of the precedent That a court has basically said the cdc does not have authority um to have such a mandate they're afraid of The elimination of government power a lot of what we're going to talk about today is about government power it's about What should be the role of government and when government exceeds its power It destroys It it destroys human life It destroys freedom And it it destroys the economy It is destructive and it doesn't matter if it's republicans. It doesn't matter if it's democrats So the problem with mandates mask mandates vaccine mandates other mandates is that they are They are Government excess power they are it goes beyond the role of government to protect our individual rights It is a it is a power grab and a government interference in our lives That is unwarranted and unjustified and is a perversion and a distortion so I'm happy happy that the mandate is gone and happy to see this return to a question of individual preferences and people making choices for themselves All right, let's see Super chat just to remind everybody Super chat is a way for you to support the show. It's a way for you to Support what I do my travels the shows that I do the shows I do while I travel the talks that I give So I appreciate all the support I get through the super chat super chat is also a way for you to ask me questions And participate in the show and interact with me on the show So feel free to use the super chat. We are In terms of super chat dollars supporting the Iran book show We are way way way behind for april. April might be the The lowest month We've had in since probably before the pandemic Suddenly since the summer of 2020 So anything you can do is greatly appreciated. We have a goal of 600 dollars a show Hopefully we can exceed those goals. Thank you harpa. Hopefully we can exceed those shows Those that goal in order to to make up for for Lost revenue given that I mean sick and haven't been able to do as many shows Also, don't forget to like the show before you leave If you like it, of course, don't like it if you don't like it. It helps with the algorithms. It helps. It helps populate the show in people's youtube feed and lastly If you want to support the show on a more sustainable basis, if you want to support the show long term If you want to support the show Everything that I do not just to show itself. The best way to do so is through a monthly Contribution on your wrong book show that comes to my support patreon subscribe star All ways in which you can create a regular monthly contribution About five to six hundred if you do that And I really really appreciate it. So thank you It would be great when we reach the day with 2000 or 20 000 Of you are actually doing that. I'm reading some of the dollar amounts of some of these Patreon or youtube or whatever substack subscribers have and it's really astounding people are getting To the point where they're making a hundred two hundred thousand dollars a month off of These monthly contributions that that their their followers provide to them. That's That's pretty amazing. That's how you become rich off of this We're far far from there. So we need we'll need a lot more if we're going to get there We're going to have to Get to act together and do more in order to achieve that all right, so Not a lot of say about airports and masks other than I'm thankful That the man mask mandate is gone. I'll be particularly thankful Tomorrow when I fly to london because that is a long flight Doing that flight with a mask is a major pain in the butt It'll be interesting to see what the situation is in europe in the uk. There's no mask mandates anyway Which is great. We'll see if in the rest of europe is the same I will be on monday in prog On wednesday in bratislava on thursday in worsell all of those events are open to the public You can find information about them on the free market roadshow f m r s website free market roadshow website uran brook prog Bratislava in slavakia Warsaw trying to hit as many countries bordering russia as I can then Friday saturday and sunday. I will be doing three events Um all open to the public All of them into blesi georgia So if you live into blesi georgia, if you know people into blesi georgia, please let them know Three public events into blesi georgia. I think all of them will be open to the public Friday saturday and sunday sunday will be a day-long seminar on finance on the morality of finance on the What finance is how it works our functions? So again, if you're in georgia, please come Hopefully, uh, some of you can make it And then from there i'll be in talin Talin is in estonia That will be on the following tuesday We'll have an event in talin again open to the public. You can look this up on the free market roadshow website and finally I will be in london again Following that i'll be doing events at the institute of economic affairs at a high school and then at oxford university That wednesday and thursday in london so A busy couple of weeks and then i'll be a weekend vacation with my wife in spain in basalona. So, um That's the plan for the next few weeks. Um, thank you for those of you who are pitching in right now with super chats I appreciate it. I don't know what happened to our regular Super chat monitors who keep track of the amount of money. Uh, I guess my Crazy routine and the fact that I didn't have a routine for so long threw them off and and uh, they've all disappeared And I think that that's gonna be true while I travel again as well. So, uh, Ryan, thank you. Mine says stay strong. Keep fighting. Uh, chill You chili or something like that chili. Uh, thank you. Um And uh, free trade all of you. Thank you for for The super chat support you can just use the super chat to support without asking a question. They did All right, we've got a bunch of questions. We'll get to them in a little while I want to talk a little bit about the economy. Uh, we saw the markets take a big hit today Uh, generally markets are down quite a bit this month and quite a bit this year Um, and I want to talk a little bit about that about the effects of inflation about the war about, uh The budget deficits and everything else on what is going on from an economic perspective And uh, and and what we can expect in terms of primarily inflation because I think that's the most interesting Of all of these there isn't you um There isn't you What do you call it substack That I am really Finding really fascinating. It's it's an economist. I think it's an economist. Is an economist. I think he's an economist Uh, brian kaplan, uh, who's who's uh, uh, a free market economist. He's actually maybe he's the Anyway, I think he's an economist. Anyway, brian kaplan Is written a lot of excellent books Um, he is, uh, one of my favorite economists out there Um, this is a new substack that he has that I think is excellent On so many issues. I find myself agreeing with him um, he is Warning he is when push come to shove. He is an anarchist um, so that is a real problem, but On so many things He's right online and I don't know how much of an anarchist he really is um One would have to push and shove to see but um But he doesn't have The nihilism This total subjectivism um In what I find irrationality that most anarchists seem to have so again I'm a fan. I've subscribed to substack. I encourage you to it's brian kaplan Um, it's the substack is called bet on it brian b r y a n kaplan with a c c a p l a n Anyway, brian earlier this week had A, uh, a really good substack on the economy. He called it the economy It's very strange these days And I think there's a lot to what he says. I mean, I don't think I don't think it's That unexpectedly strange. I don't think it's that weird when you take into account Everything that he's been going on Uh over the last a few decades But if you just look at the stats It looks weird. It looks strange and let's start with the fact So we're going to go over uh his write up here and I will comment on some of these observations that he makes um Again, I encourage you to subscribe to the substack. Let's start with the fact There was seen the highest inflation that any of us Have seen since the early 1980s late 1970s Um, many of us were very young back then. Um, of course, I lived in israel in the early 1980s where inflation Was over a thousand percent said court was quite impressive Um, and we survived that but in america. We have not seen inflation this high since the early 1980s Um inflation now is at around 8.5 percent and inflation here. I mean 8 Point uh, here. I mean cpi price inflation When a freeman said uh, peter schiff was right. Yeah, peter schiff at some point was going to be right Um, peter schiff has been calling for inflation for the last 25 years and he's right Finally, um, at some point we're gonna have inflation that it was not That's not a big surprise It's it's can you identify when we're gonna have inflation. That's how you make money off of it And that I don't think anybody has been particularly good at um So inflation said 8.5, which is a particularly high rate um arguably For many people because cpi is the consumer price index Um really depends on the basket of goods that you purchase um The way they the way they Measure inflation is they choose a basket of goods like things that americans buy And then they track the price increases of those things that typical americans buy Um, some baskets of goods have higher inflation have gone up in price more than other baskets and goods This is part of the problem with using any kind of price inflation number There are lots of them you'll find that the fed releases a number of different inflation numbers. There's core inflation uh, there's inflation there's uh, uh, a variety of other You know There's the producer price inflation Are there's a variety of different measures of inflation there's Inflation the way they used to measure it which uh, would suggest much higher inflation today Other than the way we measure it today But the fact is that inflation is high By any measure by any measure Um that you look at it, uh, it's it's at 8.5 a few remember just a few months ago People were talking about transitory The Biden administration many economists were saying no no no. This is all a result of supply chains No, uh, this is inflation. This is prices going up. It's sustained Um, I've I've said this for a long time now John Cochran has been at the forefront of this John Cochran another economist I like a lot has been at the forefront of this This is inflation in that prices are up and they're staying up and it's not just because of supply chain issues It's not inflation caused by quotes shortages Shortages resulting prices going up indeed as blank Kaplan will explain explains in this piece Based on the shortages prices should be going up even more the fact That you walk into a I walked into cvs in new york city When was it a week ago a week and a half ago? And the shelves were literally empty empty That means that the prices of those goods were not high enough That is the fact that you're seeing empty shelves suggests That companies are not raising prices fast enough that happened during covet that's happening right now Prices should be going up faster in those places where you get shortages The one energy doesn't cause inflation That's the other thing all prices going up doesn't cause inflation because if the money supply is fixed And one product's price goes up Then a demand for that product goes down And at the same time people Shift to substitutes Which are cheaper So the mix of things that people buy changes the basket changes So This is part of the problem of this term of inflation because the basket of goods changes people people's purchasing habits change Based on price levels And if oil goes up people buy less oil they start driving less They they might look for different substitutes They might do things differently or they might just allocate A different amount if they're spending more on oil they have less to spend on other things their prices go down Inflation fundamentally is a monetary phenomenon It is fundamentally a result of having More money in the system without Productivity and the number of goods actually going up What causes inflation is the printing of money what causes inflation is the massive creation of money Without the backing of more goods more production more productivity so The fact that a price goes up like oil Might result in a price shock This is this is why it was all talked about supply Changed shocks it might cause a price shock, but it should not cause sustained inflation Sustained inflation is what happens When the federal reserve starts printing money when the federal government starts spending money like there's no tomorrow Which is what we've seen, right? so the first observation in terms of economics is In terms of the economy is that we have real inflation not Just supply shocks not just shortages, but real inflation but In addition to the inflation We've got real shortages You cannot get all the stuff that you'd like to get At the market price Now this is cost partially because market prices are not adjusting upwards because I think there's a fear Because of elizabeth one because of the culture because of the way we we think about prices the way we think about profits There's a fear to raise prices As you might know elizabeth one is blaming the inflation on corporate greed Because before there was eight and a half percent inflation There was no corporate greed and then suddenly over the last few months There's been a lot of corporate greed so corporations have bumped up prices and that's why We have inflation. I mean it's so bizarre. It's so silly and nonsensical It's almost not worth commenting on but Elizabeth one keeps repeating it and then in addition elizabeth one repeating it. Whoops, what did I do? Did I just erase a bunch of once and once and once and once and Trying to think where am I? Oh god Sorry This this thing got all confused All right, let's see if this will work. I'm not sure Hopefully I didn't lose anybody's questions. I will see you later on if if if I missed some of these questions Please let me know, but hopefully I didn't miss anybody's questions All right, uh, where were we, uh, let me Let me just get back to where we were. Okay, so we've got shortages We've got inflation Some things are just unavailable. You cannot find windows in portuico Garage doors or heating oil drums in some places Brian, uh suggest there's just things you can't get unemployment at the same time Is that it's very close. That's 50 year low Even though we had the largest unemployment spike Um in 2020 in all of recorded history the sharpest drop in employment And yet unemployment as measured by the government Is that a 50 year low right now? At the same time, this is all the different things going on at the same time labor force participation is still way below You know where it's been since uh Since really the 1970s Way below the maximum rate, which was in the early 2000s late 1990s early 2000s And still quite a bit below what it was before the pandemic So labor force participation has been declining Suddenly declined dramatically during the after the 2008-2009 recession It declined through the obama presidency kind of stabilized Under uh trump didn't really rise a lot but stabilized took a huge beating during COVID And it's not recovered since then labor force participation is the number of adults actually working Whereas unemployment is measured as based on the number of people looking for work So if you're not working But not looking for work You don't count as unemployed Which is kind of bizarre So labor force participation is still not recovered prime age labor force participation Right is nearly fully recovered prime age meaning 40s 50s young people Are not participating in the workforce The labor force participation is really low Old people over 65 Are not participating in the workforce Their labor participation rate is really low. This is all getting screwed up Sorry that my software here is all over the place. All right So what you get is older people older people are um Retiring and not coming back to work Younger people are in their parents basement The only people really who have come back fully to work Adults over 30 over 35 Yeah over this period The amount of money in the economy the amount of money that the federal reserve produces and pumps out there into the economy Has grown dramatically Not surprising inflation is up from uh You know during covet The amount of money in the economy Is just the money supply m0 who's just gone through the roof right and The fed is just pumped out money It started to shrink a little bit the amount of money in the economy started to shrink a little bit But still nothing is compared to what they pumped out. Remember This is a federal reserve run by a republican drew on power Nominated to the job by trump number of republicans on the federal reserve board voting for this and they have just been flooding flooding the system with money So It's a weird economy On the one hand it looks like the economy is growing and plenty of jobs More jobs than there are people the economy is doing What looks like really really well it's really really strong Job creation is really strong Inflation is really high unemployment is really low But a lot of people are not participating in the workforce a lot of young people staying in their parents basement They're not going back to work They lost their job during covet and they're not going back to work a lot of old people for whatever reason have decided to retire early Or retire earlier than they would have otherwise and not going back to work What's going on here? well first look This is all a result of the insane growth of government over the last hundred years and The fact that government today has what you would consider unlimited power Government today can do anything it wants Government today can print whatever money it's wants can distribute it to whoever who want whoever it wants to distribute it Can bail out whoever it's wants. There's no limit right now constitutional legal Legislative to the power that the government has taken upon itself And as a consequence when a crisis happens like covet The response of government has been to dramatically expand its mandate Write checks to everybody spend like there's no tomorrow mandates Government just went through the roof in terms of its growth in terms of its power in terms of its impact on our lives and Well, you know Trump started this with stimulus after stimulus after stimulus he told us to stay home And then they sent us checks to compensate for that and you could argue that maybe you know trump's stimuluses would have Being okay in terms of inflation if they'd stopped there But the fact is that they didn't stop that when biden came into office He did another 1.9 trillion dollar stimulus now. I strongly believe that if trump had been reelected He would have done the same thing. So I don't think there's a difference here. I mean indeed trump was lobbying For an actual increase if you remember for 1400 per person in the stimulus bill to actually 2000 per person so trump wanted actually to have an even bigger stimulus But they wanted a bigger and bigger and bigger stimulus. So physical policy government spending out of control Massive government overreach But this is what you get when you give government the kind of power that they have They are going to try to buy votes They're gonna try to make you happy and the easiest way to make you happy is to send you a check at home Now what's interesting is that the american government does this on a grander biggest scale than anybody else So while everybody stimulated the economy, everybody had massive physical stimulus during covid The u.s. Did more of it than anybody else if you look at If you look at inflation one of the ways to see That inflation is not just a supply chain is to look at inflation across the world If inflation was just a supply chain issue was just shortages Then you would expect inflation to be high everywhere because everywhere in the world is experiencing shortages. For example Japan is an island is an island that depends on importing many of its goods suddenly Somebody mentioned oil the oil shock oil prices have gone through the roof energy prices have gone through the roof It's all energy policy. Well, japan imports all its energy You'd expect japanese inflation to be through the roof right now And yet japan is experiencing almost no inflation Exactly for the reason i told you before energy prices might be up at other prices are down So overall inflation in japan is about 1 in the united states. It's 8.5 percent The reason it's 8.5 percent in the u.s. And one in japan is because japan Has not pumped huge amount of money through physical policy into the economy the way the united Not just through physical through physical and monetary policy into the economy the way the u.s. Did during covid Same as during europe europe has inflation four to five percent not 8.5 Because their stimulus was significantly lower than ours so inflation is a Monitoring physical phenomena. It's a phenomena of deficits that the market believes cannot be paid and of monetizing those deficits By the federal reserve just printing money the fed basically printed money Like it was at war It printed money not To fulfill its goal of price stability It printed money to fulfill its goal of appeasing the politicians of appeasing the political class Of sustaining the u.s. Economy of bailing everybody out and as a consequence As you probably know it bailed out Dozens and as we've talked about in the past it bailed out dozens and dozens of companies that should have gone bankrupt during covid It bailed out many what we call zombie companies And one of the things we're going to see Is as we head into a session the zombie companies that should have gone bust in 2020 are going to go bust in 2023 You have to pay the piper. They have to be consequences to bad managers to going taking on too much debt To doing stupid things business wise The fed bailed everybody out not too big to fail. They bailed everybody out As they raise interest rates as we'll talk about Those businesses are going to collapse Those businesses are going to go under At the same time At the same time interest rates Because of the way the fed has behaved because of the way it's bought up debt It's bought up bonds. It's expanded what they call expanded the balance sheet by buying up bonds Because of that Because it's been buying up all this debt. We basically had negative interest rates negative interest rates that is You're basically paying people to borrow your money. I mean Think about the prime rate right now The prime rate now now is five percentage points below inflation. It's You're basically Losing money by lending the money out at prime rates So we have an environment of what in a free market would be an impossibility Something that could never happen Something that would never happen Which is negative interest rates Interest rates are always supposed to be positive So in the united states, they're positive But they see an interest rate should be made up of three components Three components. Here's a finance one-on-one lesson Interest rates should be composed of three components one inflation right, so If I'm lending you ten dollars I want to make sure that the ten dollars when I get the money back That I am compensated for the fact that over the next year that ten dollars is going to lose its purchasing power So if inflation's eight point five percent over the next year I want at least eight point five percent to compensate me for the loss of purchasing power So one component is inflation The second component is risk I'm not sure you can pay me back So I want to be compensated I want our profit because I'm lending out to a bunch of people Some people I'm going to lose the I'm going to lose the loan. They're not going to pay me back So I want to make sure that the people who do pay me back Pay me back a premium to compensate for the risk associated with some people not paying me back and the third Is I want to be compensated for what's called the time value of money I want to be compensated for the fact that I cannot use the money today I want to be compensated for the fact that I cannot invest it in other things today I want to be compensated for the fact that I can't go buy ice cream with it today That's called the real interest rate. It's called the time value of money So the real interest rate is typically One two percent Then on top of that you have risk depends on the investment depends on the loan let's say it's a government loan risk is zero the US government will pay back its loans we assume then that's zero and then you have inflation eight and a half percent so one-year interest rates right now should be eight and a half percent plus a real return of one to two percent so that's between nine and a half to ten and a half percent you won't find a US one-year treasury bill selling for ten and a half percent so somebody is buying it for let's say I haven't looked at what it is right now but let's say it's two percent three percent basically they're giving up they're losing money when they get the money back in a year they will be able to buy less with it now that's upside down economics that's completely insanity and the only way that is possible is because of artificial manipulation by the federal reserve so we have negative interest rates have had for years now negative interest rates so we have prices not adjusting we're wages this is not the problem we've we've heard over the last few years that wages are rising but wages are not rising enough to compensate for eight point five percent inflation so real wages in terms of the purchasing power of the dollar real wages over the last year have declined significantly dramatically to people are getting poorer even working people are getting poorer and young people are not going to work I don't know parents must be willing to subsidize their kids because of COVID young people idle not all young people obviously but enough young people idle now the response to this inflation is going to be a federal reserve that increases interest rates and starts selling all those loans that they've been buying by selling those loans they're going to drive up interest rates people are going to buy them but they're going to want to pay less and less money for them the less they pay for them the higher their interest rate and the Fed is also driving them interest rates just by raising the bank lending rates and what you're going to see is rising rates across the entire rates spectrum from short-term rates to long-term rates as interest rates rise let's say you have a a a variable rate mortgage well as rates on mortgage rise you will have to start paying more and more and more money as your monthly mortgage payment many of you didn't take out 30 year loans as I advised you took out variable rates and therefore you're going to have to pay more and more and more interest some of you won't be able to afford that some of you will default on your mortgages businesses that have loans with banks have loans with other financial institutions might have bonds in the marketplace as the rates start going up won't be able to refinance those loans if they if their variable rate loans won't be able to find it won't be able to have the cash to pay interest payments on they're going to default on those what happens when companies default on bonds and loans what do we call that we call that bankruptcy so companies are going to go bankrupt that's what a recession means recession means companies letting people off companies cutting costs companies going bankrupt because they cannot usually it's caused by the fact that they cannot pay their debt obligations now in a normal time you'd have that anyway but what's going to exacerbate at this time is the fact that the Federal Reserve has been bailing out all these companies for years now all these zombie companies are in a horrible condition to be able to pay back their debt the only reason they've sustained themselves is because of the Federal Reserve bailing them out buying up their bonds as this gets reversed not only are the normal some normal companies going to get into financial trouble but all these zombie companies are going to get into financial trouble and that's where you get a recession so I think there's a good likelihood that we will get a recession there's a good likelihood that that recession won't happen this year it'll happen in 2023 I think to that extent the power fed is trying to help Biden and the Democrats not get completely swamped in the 2022 midterm elections if a recession happens this year Democrats will be crushed they're going to get crushed anyway but with the recession they'll be completely crushed so they're they're delaying everybody says why isn't the Fed acting faster I think they're not acting faster because they don't want a recession this year because it's an election year so much for the independence of the Federal Reserve but that's true of Republicans Democrats it doesn't matter they're always like this okay so we're heading towards a recession um it's going to be very hard to avoid we could very well get stagflation where we get both a recession and inflation I think part of that is mitigated by the fact that Republicans are probably going to win the House and Senate if they do I think the markets will view that very positively and the reason for that is Republican House Senate Democratic president usually what you see is spending as a percent of GDP decline or at least flatten out so the good news is I think I think that reverses itself if you get a Republican in the in in the White House but we don't have to worry about that for another three years but at least for this year divided government is good divide government means lower spending that the markets will view as a good thing I think that will suppress inflation expectations and I think the Fed raising interest rates will work it will work to force the market into a recession but it'll also work to crush inflation bring it back down so I expect we're heading towards a period of inflation recession back to low inflation again all better off if Republicans have the House the Senate and the presidency and start spending like there's no tomorrow again all right that is you know some brief thoughts on the economy on markets on inflation wow Troy thank you whoa Troy just came in with 500 Australian dollars haven't seen you in a while really really appreciate this thank you really really appreciate the support so I think wait for a rough ride I think those of you who have jobs hold on to those jobs I think those of you who are in shaky companies you should look for alternatives I think those of you who investors look for a lot of volatility you're seeing it now you're seeing it with with stocks going down as much as they did today but you're going to see more of that you're going to see very volatile markets because it's hard to tell who's going to go bust it's hard to tell who's going to suffer it's hard to tell when a recession is going to happen which of the industries that's going to get hood which of the industries that are going to do okay all of that is massive uncertainty uncertainty creates massive volatility what about bitcoin I hear I don't know what about bitcoin bitcoin is being down a lot since this inflation is up so obviously bitcoin is no hedge against inflation bitcoin is down way down off of its highs of last year bitcoin has been flat around 40 bouncing around from 33 to 43 so 43 000 and 33 000 and bouncing I don't know if it goes up I don't know if it goes down I don't understand bitcoin and therefore I'm out of it gold I think it's priced inflation already at 1900 if inflation goes much higher then yeah you'll see gold go up but I don't see a huge spike in gold prices I think gold is around where the market believes it should be given the inflation is visible given we know what inflation is it's priced in the market housing is problematic because on the one hand you have a housing shortage there are way too few homes in America on the other hand as interest rates go up mortgages become unaffordable people start defaulting on their mortgages how more houses go on the market because people can't afford it I think now is a great time to own rental units people are going to be moving from buying to renting because buying is going to be just unaffordable because of mortgage rates so I don't expect housing prices to go up I expect them to come down or stabilize or come down a little bit I expect people to emphasize renting rather than buying once the recession is over and interest rates come down a lot then you might see another spike in housing because long term housing is still a limited supply in the United States there's still a shortage of housing in the U.S. so long term you're still going to expect housing prices to go up but in the short run I don't necessarily see it because of mortgage rates I mean if mortgage rates are high people can't afford the houses so rental properties if you can get if you got rental properties and you bought them at a low mortgage rate you're set because rents will go up your mortgage rate is flat that's who will make money in this environment you know and right now buying rentals is problematic because mortgage rates are high but they're not as high as they're going to be so maybe now is the time if you can pull it off Boaz has asked what about high tech industry I mean high tech industry seems to be very sensitive to inflation in the market seem to suggest that they don't think high tech will do well in inflationary environment tech companies have been pummeled not big tech but the the small to medium-sized tech companies have been pummeled during this during the last few months I don't see that recovering I don't see how that recovers a lot of the valuation of tech companies from six months ago was under the assumption that the consumer would have money to spend on them that that they were going to grow at unbelievable growth rates forever that has come down to earth it's obvious that that is not sustainable and what we're seeing right now is is is tech being wiped out NFTs same view of bitcoin I don't know recession is not good for NFTs NFTs are luxury item they're a collectible NFTs are collectibles they're like art they're like things that you buy to collect they don't have value in and of themselves so collectibles are the first things people give up on buying during your recession so I don't think NFTs are going to do well during the recession all right let's do Disney quickly I don't think it's that complicated and I'm not going to get too much into it but let's do Disney quickly at least my take on Disney so you all know about this bill that a Florida passed the don't say gay bill as it's called I'm not going to get into that bill I'm not going to get into the details of that bill I don't think I don't think it's important for the issue of Disney to get into the details of that bill generally my view is children should not be taught about sex at school school's job is not to teach children about sex school's job whoops the job of what is going on with this ah sorry I'm this word is behaving very weirdly all right all right I I fear that your super chat question is all going to be gobbled so I will try to get to all of them but I have a feeling that some of them are just going to be gobbled yeah there's a bug somewhere here in the system it's causing huh I can't get control of this now all right I have to deal with it another time but um I will try to recover all the questions but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to this is very frustrating it's not doing it um all right I'm just gonna I'll just read this super chat question because I'm afraid I'm going to lose it's 50 bucks uh please read the bitcoin standard by Sephardine Amos it's the absolute best foundational knowledge of bitcoin I think bitcoin is definitely a long-term inflation hedge bitcoin's not crypto or NFTs um I've I've I've heard talks by Amos um uh sorry I you know I've read a lot of stuff on bitcoin I still don't quite get it um and I and I'm not convinced certainly about I don't know what long-term inflation hedge means uh it certainly doesn't seem to be um hedging against inflation right now uh so just so you know there is a possibility that uh I will not be able to um answer all the questions that you've asked today that they're lost because of what looks like a glitch in um I'm gonna open up a new file new document and at least to put the new uh questions uh in that folder all right sorry about all this okay Disney so we had this bill passed by uh by Florida the basically says you can't teach something like you you can't teach uh issues around sexual orientation and gender and things like that to really really young kids and I'm not going to get into the details of the law because I don't know them I haven't studied it I haven't looked at it carefully and I don't want to talk out of turn but it basically relates to the teaching of sex uh to young children I don't think young children should be taught in school anything about sex I think sex education is not part of school I think sex education should be left to parents I think sex education should be left to parents to decide um this is a problem of our public schools the existence of government schools of public schools and unified curriculum because I don't think I don't think the state the government should be invested one way or another in sex education I don't think there is such a thing as age appropriate who gets the side what's age appropriate age appropriate for whom for what kid for what kind of experience for what kind of life they've had who gets the side what's age appropriate so I am skeptical of the whole issue of trying to bring sex education of any kind of format creating age appropriate standards and teaching it so I'm against all of it so you know I don't know the details of this bill so I don't know if I'm for it or against it but generally I'm against teaching sex to kids in school not the job of schools so Florida has banned the teaching of certain sex education classes in schools I don't know there should be a hygiene class in school but Frank says sex is taught in hygiene class I don't know that there should be a hygiene class in school none of that is the job of the schools all of that is the job of parents so Florida passed the bill that says none of this gender sexual orientation stuff for really young kids should be introduced in the classroom okay government shouldn't be in schooling if it is these are disastrous issues to deal with in private school education every school can have its own policies teacher parents can choose which school to send their kids to they can make the choices about sex education and who should provide it with government schools government should not be involved so Florida decided that they're not going to teach you fine I again not having reviewed the bill in detail I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other Disney the largest I think it's the largest employer in the state of Florida um Disney came out with the statement saying they disapprove of the state doing this but they think it's a mistake for the state to do this that they think it's important to keep this whatever the education was whatever the standards were again Disney's probably wrong on this Disney's probably mistaken so what Republicans for years to their credit one of the good things Republicans have been doing to their credits for years and years and years have been arguing the corporations have free speech citizens united one of the most important cases in front of the Supreme Court decided in a positive way by the Supreme Court over the last 20 30 years was citizen united which basically recognized that you cannot limit corporate contributions to campaigns because contributions by corporations constituted speech and therefore and they had free speech rights major major major statement it doesn't matter why Disney said what they did doesn't matter because the employees went crazy it doesn't matter if the management are crazy it doesn't matter Disney came out with the state so what corporations just like individuals many Floridians disagree with the law I think most Floridians agree with the law many disagree with the law should we penalize the people who disagree with the law Disney came out against it DeSantis went apeshit how dare they disagree with this law how dare Disney a business say that the law is wrong whether the law is right or wrong is irrelevant hold on a second thought somebody was knocking at the door maybe not and as a consequence of Disney speaking up against the law DeSantis and the Florida legislature has now taken away I don't know the special provision that allowed Disney world to basically have governance over the properties Disney world is not part of any county it's not part of any city it's his own city it's his own county run by a corporation there by the way 1800 of these different agreements with businesses around the state of Florida Florida has taken this away from Disney now many think this will cost taxpayers a billion dollars because now a lot of things that Disney was doing like infrastructure on its properties now counties and localities will have to do so there's a lot of complexity around the actual financial consequences of this and who is going to suffer and who is going to be good but the fact is that Disney was penalized from the perspective of Florida for disagreeing with the governor for disagreeing with the state legislature they're penalized for speech now this is horrific this is awful I mean DeSantis here is acting out like the worst fascist left as possible he's using government to penalize business for speech now he's been hailed as a hero by conservatives it is hailed as a hero by conservatives why because he's standing up to the left because he's fighting in a good fight here's one conservative writing DeSantis made the right call when he went after Disney the only way these corporations are going to start to respect conservatives again instead of taking us for granted is if we give them a reason to do it that is what's important here is that corporations respect conservatives what's important here is they appreciate that we have power what's important here is that business gravel before the state how are conservatives here better than democrats how is the right here better than the left this is no different than all the efforts by left and right to break up big tech to bring big business to heal to heal before whom before the state before politicians before government this isn't freedom this is fascism it's exactly this is why I'm not a DeSantis fan yeah he fights the left by using the left's means by using the left methodology fights the left by becoming the left he fights collectivism by becoming a collectivist so I'm not a DeSantis fan I wasn't before this now I'm much less of a DeSantis fan there's no respect for free speech no respect for free speech you think it's just a woke left it's a problem here's the woke right you don't act like we expect you to act what cancel you you think only left can cancel no no we in the right can cancel as well that's what you're getting from DeSantis that's when you're getting from the future of the republican party we are royally royally screwed in this country because these are the options we have hey all right let me see we have a lot of super chat questions a lot of super chat questions let me just get some of these um oh I did that one already let me just see Troy again thank you really appreciate the support all the way from Australia thanks I really okay that's that all right let me see if I can find the relevant questions what's going on here it's like it copied itself over and over and over again or at least those questions we have over and over again I know we had a few 50 buck ones I want to get to those first just repeating itself okay it really looks like I've lost the super chat questions I really really apologize if you guys know super chat questions that you had if you can basically recreate those by putting them into the chat without dollars and I'll try to pick them up or if you want to make sure I see them put them on at one dollar a piece right but I you know this my system that usually works perfectly today just completely collapsed I don't know what exactly happened but okay let me do the ones that I can access easily Ryan asked still waiting for the death of the demand side economics if not now when yeah I mean this whole demand side economics is Keynesian economics it's the whole idea that what drives the economy is demand what drives the economy is consumption what drives the economy is is the consumer consumer wishes consumer wants consumer desires consumer whims a production has nothing to do with it and that's what's been driving the economy that's what's driving economic thought and and forever we're all Keynesian now Richard Nixon declared for a while there we thought that Keynes was dead under Thatcher and Reagan but Keynes has made a full rebound so much so that Keynes is now considered a right wing fanatic as compared to the modern monetary theorists who think that money can be just printed out of thin air and money the demand that money creates is the only thing that matters okay Brie writes my company has been part of GDP since 2010 they have me categorized in a completely unrelated industry and I've tried to correct the error every quarter for the last 12 years so what else is wrong is anybody's guess it's not so much yeah I mean it's a bureaucracy it's a government bureaucracy all these statistics have a lot of error in them because the way they collected all right I think these questions my boss I actually answered Joe's question I answered okay we've got a few other ones here that I know were asked let's see Michael asked a lot of pushback I get when I present objectivist ideas is it makes sense but has no academic credibility and no established people take it seriously so there must be something of both the simplistic about the philosophy um you know that's a pushback you're going to get you're going to get it from people who um you're going to get it from people who think that the standard right that the standard of of everything is academia that the standard for truth is academia but over time over time we're going to get over time they're going to be more objectivist academics there's going to be more there's going to be more for them to deal with they're going to be confronted um oh Robert just emailed me all the questions right um and uh that's going to be an objection that's going to be impossible to make because objectivism is making real inroads into academia but look uh if prestige in academia is your standard rather than truth being your standard then that is a real issue now let's see Robert says he emailed me all the questions so let's find the email and then we can go over over that all right let's go over these I see the questions all the way to that excellent excellent excellent thank you Robert that is that is amazing all right um let's start with uh Hopper Campbell Will Smith and Mike Tyson didn't get didn't even get arrested seems like leftist that conditioned us to where certain people blacks have the right to be violent while others have their lives ruined over social media you know I don't know if it's if it's the color of the skin that's determining this or whether it's a celebrity I mean a lot of celebrities have been accused of a lot of bad things and have managed to wiggle out of it you know so I yes we don't penalize people for real crimes and that's horrific that is truly horrific and I don't think it's just based on color of skin political connection celebrity all kinds of things we're not a nation of laws anymore we're not equal before the law all right this is not my day officially declared as not my day uh well I'm going to find this all right next question um let's see another $20 question theme asked with free speech would it be possible for anyone to get out with the intention of getting someone arrested and keep harassing them until they snap like the incident with Mike Tyson recently it seems impractical no I mean there's there's such a thing in the law called harassment um it is a crime to harass somebody it's a crime to infringe on their space to constantly berate them to to so free speech free speech harassment is not speech harassment is action so free speech does not apply to that kind of harassment now I don't know again the details of the Mike Tyson case but if you're constantly berating somebody harassing somebody in somebody's face you're not giving them any peace of mind um you are violating their rights now it doesn't give them the right to snap at you but you are violating your rights you should be stopped from doing it uh let's see I'm sure there were other ones my oh yeah Michael asks does having self-esteem mean you shouldn't be afraid to be alone in the world but aren't we social creatures doesn't happiness require connection with others even if those others aren't the greatest people it's better than nothing so yeah I mean we get great value from other people but the fact that we gain value great value from other people doesn't mean that other people are necessary for our lives I'm not afraid to be alone in the world I don't want to be alone in the world but that doesn't mean that the alternative is you either want to be alone in the world or you're afraid to be alone I don't want to be alone in the world and I'm not afraid to be alone in the world I want people around me but if I can't find good people to be around me then I won't be around me I'll do my own shtick so we do want desire rationally desire other people in our world but not anybody not somebody who's going to do me harm not somebody who's going to make me worse off I want other people in my world who add value who make my life better that's the kind of people that I want in my world so I don't know what it doesn't happen is require connection with others yeah it doesn't it's important to have connection with others to be happy but even if those others aren't the greatest people what does that mean what isn't the greatest people how not great are they how bad are they are they bad are they just not great it all depends and the better they are the more you can achieve with them and the more happy you can become so is it better than nothing not every you know is Hitler better than nothing no so I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at but it's it's not the case that the alternative is either to be with anybody or with nobody you got to find good people um let's see the master we did that already okay he says DeSantis is a mixed bag Florida is the fierce state in the country yes even before DeSantis Florida was the fierce country in the fierce state in the country according to most people have moved to Florida in the past two years than any other state by far true but they again they'd be moving to Florida for a long time not because of DeSantis but he has these fascist religious inclinations as well yes he does makes him hard to evaluate yes it does he's a mixed case I think primarily he is going where he thinks he can win votes I don't think DeSantis is principled I think DeSantis has recognized that he if he can combine if he can rally together the populist wing of the republican party the trump wing of the republican party and he can rally them around issues like um you know kicking out disney or not kicking out disney penalizing disney um uh having the opposite kind of anti vaccine mandates which are just as bad as vaccine mandates and and doing things in the cultural world that if he can do that then he can get the trump voters and if he can also normally pretend to be pro free markets and pro the constitution and pro the declaration of penance he can also get kind of traditional conservatives that somehow he can get the best of all worlds and so far given DeSantis's success and popularity maybe he's succeeding politically but I don't think he's principled I don't think he believes in anything except winning and he is committed to winning and I think he will do and say whatever takes to win and I don't trust politicians like that and he scares me he scares me because of what he can become all right let's see if there are any other 20 dollar questions did you have a comment on the libo scandal and its subsequent phasing out I did um I can't remember exactly the details I think the scandal wasn't a real scandal to a lot there was some fraud but mostly it wasn't a real scandal mostly it was a made up scandal libo was ultimately phased out and has replacements today um but the whole libo issue was blown out of proportion Ali asks any advice for divorced guy I'm losing focus on day-to-day job and tasks spending more time on useless stuff like social media how can I get back on track look you get back on track by focusing you get back on track by figuring out what your values really are they are tough times in life divorces are tough time there are lots of other things that you know death in the family all kinds of things that are really tough time and the way to get over them is to rededicate yourself to the values that that you really committed to and you know so find things that you really love doing find things that are truly important to you and drop things that you know are useless fight yourself and get rid of the things that are truly useful but to do that maybe you used to have a hierarchy of values maybe redo your hierarchy of values sit down and reconceptualize your hierarchy of values figure out what are the things that are really important to you what are the things that truly commit contribute to your happiness what are the things that you find useless waste of time that you know you shouldn't be doing put it down in writing put it in front of you and then motivate yourself around the positive around happiness around passion around the things that truly motivate you the things that truly drive you focus and orient yourself around those things you gotta be motivated by love not motivated by fear if you will by the negative but motivated by the positives okay free trade says doesn't disney have their own police force on their properties if so isn't this in conflict with the government's monopoly and force required for a rights respecting government no because their police force on their properties is a private security they abide by state law they abide by federal law there's no separate judiciary it's just that they enforce disney acts like a local government that is enforcing state and federal laws they're not free of those laws it's like it's like a security agency so no i don't think that it is a it is a rights violating fact that they have there just like if you hire security guards to protect your property at night that's not violating even though they might carry guns they might patrol your property that's not violating the monopoly over the use of force by the government floatatious uh asked hello you're on after watching you shut down malice's arguments for anarchy brought me into the fold of objectivism excellent um and i have since read the fountain atlas shrugged we're delivering an anthem thank you for saving my mind wow you're the first person who i've heard from who listened to the malice my discussion with malice and um agreed you know changed their mind as a result of it so thank you that that's great news and it's invigorating to hear that i've had an impact like that on somebody so thank you again all right um let's see we did those all right let's go back to the non uh five dollar question the non 20 dollar questions okay uh hop up amandade fascist trying to destroy small businesses so they are only a few large businesses they can control to keep an eye on um i don't know if they're that sophisticated because at the same time modern day fascists are afraid of large businesses this is why they are both the democrats and republicans want to reinvigorate antitrust laws they want to break up big businesses because they're afraid of big businesses they they pose a challenge to them i think fascists modern and old hate big business and small business they hate business generally they want to be able to control them and what they don't like as you can see in the disney example are businesses that act independently of them what they want is the businesses that are obedient whether they're small or big doesn't matter james asks money doesn't buy happiness but it buys access to things that bring happiness absolutely i i still think 10 million is a little light for an fu number but i admire you dreaming big i don't think it's light it depends on your ambition um i know how much i need in order to buy the things that bring me happiness i know how much i need to secure my future to secure my health care um given my age and given how many years i have i know much i need if i lost all ability to work tomorrow super chat went to zero you guys stop supporting it or i couldn't do the shows because i got sick or something like that i know exactly what i would need in order to live in order to live well and by my calculation you know 10 million assume that means half a million a year to spend i live i live very very very comfortably very well travel go to nice restaurants do all the things that i like doing with half a million dollars of spending remember i i paid very little taxes because i live in potorico so 10 million is 10 million so um no i don't think so davis says if i had 10 million i would be in thailand with aids um let's make sure you don't get 10 million then davis that would not be good you in thailand with aids but that that's that's irrational and you should control yourself uh let's see ryan asks uh no not that one simo asks book the dc renaissance this weekend my first okan see you guys there i like whisky and margaritas excellent all of you guys should be coming to okan in dc it's gonna be a blast it's gonna be so much fun i will be there you get to meet me we get to hang out it'll be a lot of fun um davis says can you do a show a start a series titled how only i ran can cure the opioid crisis and depression i think it will catch on i like that title we'll see michael says a remnants of the dark ages and dark age thinking still around today yes all around us all around us i mean uh the religious nuts um and the complete um nihilists you find both of them in the dark ages the the the lack of thinking in any kind of principles the the the the tribalism the the um the subjugation of their old minds to the tribe's mind that's so much of dark age thinking or dark age non-thinking michael asked did you have a chance to listen alone musk most recent ted talk interview where he said he read and rejected german philosophy in his youth no i i haven't but i i intend to um as you know i've become an alone musk fan i i'm i'm not that influential yet so i don't know i i i'm not surprised it's taking this long but i haven't achieved that level yet i would achieve that level of influence yet there were there were periods about 10 years ago i thought it would happen a lot faster because it looked like i was becoming more influential a lot faster but a lot of that were false signals false flags um let's see we talked about that we talked about that we talked about that we talked about that we talked about that we talked about that um boss says any good news today any good news today did i see anything in the news today well the good news for a couple of nights ago is that the celtics one game two of this series with the nets that was good news i mean i'm sure there's good news every day every day in the technology sector every day i get emails about innovation every day there's something good news there's no good news out of ukraine right now um yeah i mean the good news for today was i gave a great talk in milwaukee to a lot of influences all on the right all conservatives i taught them what capitalism actually is and what it means and why they're so bad at defending it and why they failed so badly at defending it um uh so that was good news and they listened and they appreciated it and they seemed to be positive about it john says tucker calls and claims environmental pollutants are causing testosterone decline in men trying to link environmentalism and nationalism not a good sign i told you that i tell you or didn't i tell you um i told you this was going to happen yes i saw that now there is a question about testosterone testosterone isn't declined among men in the west it's not clear exactly why it's not clear what's causing it but levels of testosterone are down um and there is uh there's some claiming it's uh pollution but yes this is another way in which the right can get excited about environmentalism because now it's about manhood it's about another issue of the right not necessarily nationalism manhood men being men and to be men we need to stop strong and we don't have enough of it and the environment is causing it and therefore we need to be poor environment so it's consistent with kind of the attitude and the trend that i was i've been suggesting for a long time that nationalism religion and and environmentalism are going to unite uh charlie says can you do a show on the county enlightenment sometimes it'd be a fun one yes absolutely i'll i'll do it at you know once in a while i'll bring up some issues around it but i'll definitely do it all right let's see all right i think that's it we didn't have a lot of uh live listeners today not sure why exactly um and curious maybe i need more sexy titles uh maybe i just need to give you more notice before these shows go live um but um well thanks everybody we raised a lot of money today primarily uh because of trey but all but a lot of you uh participated a lot of you participating asking questions there were a lot of a lot of questions uh a lot hopefully i got everything i think uh uh robert got me all the questions robert nasa got me all the questions that i needed um in order that we covered we raised over $800 so that is great i really appreciate that i think the next show is going to be a rules for life which won't attract a lot of live listeners either but so be it we're going to be traveling anyway so i think on sunday from london i will do a rules for life and this one will be about seeking out the good seeking out seeking out exaltation so we will do rules for life on sunday not sure what time because i'll be in london so we'll have to adjust for time zones but we'll definitely be doing it and we'll be doing a bunch of shows um while we go thanks everybody i will see you all sunday no show tomorrow because i'll be traveling to london i'll be on a flight all day but i will see you on sunday bye have a great day have a great night