 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Book Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Book Show on this Monday, beginning of a week. I hope everybody had a fantastic weekend. Looking forward to a great July. It's ticking away slowly but systematically. We're in the middle of summer. Hopefully you are somewhere where you have air conditioning, because supposedly it's very, very hot out there. I wouldn't know because I try not to leave home. No, I'm kidding. I have air conditioning. Let's see. Michael's got us off here on the Super Chat too. An amazing start, right? He's already asked two, four, five, six questions. Thank you, Michael. We will get to all of those questions later in the show. Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you, Jupiter Menace. But remember, we do have a goal. Well, we're well on our way to that goal. We have to stay vigilant. It's 250, and it is important that we try to make it every day. All right, I do have a monthly goal, and we really need to step it up the rest of the month to make the monthly goal. Let's see. Yeah, we got a full schedule today. I crammed. I don't know why I did this, but I've got a lot of topics. I think I don't have a lot to say about them. So that's what I always think. So hopefully this will go fast. Let's see what happens. All right, the first story is you probably saw this. It was all over Twitter. It's all of it was in the media. It's all over the place. RFK Juniors comments about COVID-19, which got him in trouble and accusations of, well, who knows, racism, anti-Jewish, whatever, anti-Chinese. So this is what he said. And now he said this in an informal setting. This is not in a talk. This is like a rounded dinner table, but with strangers people he knows. But this is like he's talking to them. And, you know, the whole way he, which he talks is, and given his history, is this guy's a conspiracy theory guy and he's filled with them. And he believes in a lot of them, not in just a few. And he's talking about this as if this is a conspiracy theory, as if there's something shady going on here. And this is why it was interpreted the way it was. This is what he says. COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. Now just stop there a second. COVID-19 is targeted, targeted by whom? It does say COVID-19 just happens, and it's genetic code happens too, but it's targeted. Now that implies somebody targeted it to attack Caucasians and black people. And I go on to quote him, the people who are most immune from this targeting are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese, right? Now, was that targeted? Is that just an artifact of the virus? Is it even true? There's one paper, one paper, that suggests that because of particular genes and receptors that Ashkenazi Jews and East Asians and some others are less susceptible to COVID-19 than other genetic make-ups that Caucasians and black people might have, but a lot of different ethnic groups are listed. And genetic types are listed. And it's interesting that, for example, Chinese are not mentioned in the study, East Asians are mentioned, but it is interesting that he chooses to say Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese. And he chooses to say Caucasian and black people. He chooses to make a deal out of this when it's not even clear it's true because there's no empirical evidence backing this up. Indeed, I suspect that in Israel, they would be shocked to find out that Ashkenazi Jews are less susceptible to COVID-19, given what COVID did in Israel. And I have not seen a single study that suggests a difference between, for example, Ashkenazi Jews and non-Ashkenazi Jews in Israel. You think that would be a laboratory. If you wanted to prove this point, here it is. So he just seems like, what is he talking about? And then he goes on to say, we don't know whether it was deliberately targeted or not. Well, what are the... Okay. But he was still targeted, right? Then the question is, was it deliberate? How do you target something not deliberately? How do you target something not deliberately? And then he goes on to talk about engineered... Bio warfare that's engineered for particular ethnicities and the different countries that are working on bioengineering and he mentions the lab in Ukraine and stuff. I mean, this guy's a kook. Now, it could be that there's some bioengineering going on to identify particular ethnic groups. You could probably do that, given the differences in genome. But evidence? Proof, God forbid? No. No, I mean, this is the whole point of conspiracy issues. They say something that could be possible. They quickly say, no, no, I don't... It might not be. They might not have targeted... It might not be... I'm not saying the Jews behind COVID-19. I'm not saying that the elders of Zion did this. Of course not. Who knows, yeah. But it just turns out it's always the case. Always the case that they... This is how they spread conspiracy theories. This is how they keep going. Now, he got in trouble for this, which is good because somebody recorded it unbeknownst to him. You have to be very careful. You can't say anything now in a setting with other people and assuming it won't be recorded and spread. And he said... So he posted the New York story... New York post story where it was published is mistaken. I have never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spread Jews. Not explicitly, but certainly you were suggesting it. And he goes on, I do not believe and never implied that the ethnic effect was deliberately engineered. Well, you do say we don't know where there was deliberately targeted, but we don't know it wasn't implied right there. Again, this is exactly how conspiracy theories work. This is exactly... They plant these seeds, they plant this doubt. If you mention Jews, whenever you talk about some conspiratorial thing, then people, even if you don't mean it every single time, people start adding it all up. Oh, yeah, seems to be a common denominator here. It really is sick and this guy really should be shunned. All right, where are we? Yes, a quick update on the war in Ukraine and I'll have more to say about this, I'm sure in the weeks to come. But a couple of things. One is Ukraine is making very slow progress, but it is making progress and the Russians are not, but very slow progress, much slower than I think people expected and people hoped for, certainly slow progress than I hoped for. And the primary reason for that is the fact that the Russians were much better prepared than they were in the fall, much better prepared than I think the Ukrainians and maybe Western military intelligence expected. The defensive lines, particularly the mining, the mining of the likely paths of advancement for the Ukrainians, that mining is far more extensive than I think people thought. It is causing the Ukrainians to advance at a much slower rate. You could argue that is also true of the artillery. The Russians learned from last year how to deal with the Himmars and the Western tech to deal better with them. And the reality is that Ukraine has not gotten enough of the right kind of equipment from the West, with the right kind of equipment and enough of it. The issue, you know, they could have overcome the barriers that the Russians have created. But to advance against those kind of defenses without superiority is really, really, really difficult, really difficult. And the Ukrainians are making progress, but it's very slow. And people are getting impatient and people are getting antsy and people are thinking, oh, maybe they can't win this and therefore even among those who support Ukraine the talk about some kind of negotiated deal with Russia and some kind of capitulation of the Ukrainians that leads to some of Russia's demands are increasing. That, of course, would only kind of sanction the idea that using force, initiating forces the Russians have, something good will come of it. But this is the reality. The reality is that it's slow growing on the ground. It's slow growing for the Ukrainians, slow going for the Ukrainian forces. They're not, they're gaining ground, but they're not losing it. But they're not gaining ground again, anywhere near the kind of speed that many people expected. The Wests are definitely cowards and not supporting Ukraine more fully. It's still early and there's still a lot of time for the Ukrainians to make significant gains in the months to come before winter, before it becomes almost impossible to move in that part of Ukraine. We will see how that evolves, but I'm still fairly optimistic that those gains will be made. In the meantime, Ukraine last night or the night before, over the weekend, managed to use drones coming in right over the sea to attack the bridge, the big bridge that connects Russia and Crimea. This is as they did in October when they bombed it. This is a major cost for the Russians. While they fix the bridge, they can't move stuff over the bridge. This is the main supply line for troops into southern Ukraine, for all the equipment, everything else. This is also a main way in which the Crimeans get out. So this is a major transportation. This is the main road between Crimea and Russia. And the fact that Ukraine can attack it and destroy it is a big problem for the Russians. In response to that, Russia came out today and said that it is refusing to renew the grain deal that allowed Ukrainian ships to export grains and other materials out of Ukraine for consumption in the rest of the world. They will not guarantee the safety of those ships. Again, the dominant fleet in the Black Sea where they have to travel through is Russia. So this puts, again, like last year I think, this deal that has existed for a year, it expires I think today. And this places at risk the entire supply chain of food to much of the world, particularly African places like that. Last year there was a lot of panic about this. I think there will be some panic this year, but I think ultimately food will move forward. Interestingly enough, was it last week? I think it was last week. Ogoan of Turkey said that he would use the Turkish Navy to guarantee the movement of Ukrainian ships through the Black Sea. That would be really interesting placing the Turkish Navy in potential confrontation with the Russian Navy. So we'll see if that actually happens. But my guess is food will move out of Ukraine and towards the rest of the world, exports will continue. All right, let's see. Iran, bad news out of Iran, depressing news out of Iran actually. The regime in Iran has decided to bring back the morality police. You remember they actually withdrew them and there was a room at some point. There was a room at some point that they were actually going to dissolve them and get rid of the morality police. They never did that, but they pulled them off the streets. Well, they're putting them back on the streets. They're going to be squads that are patrolling the streets. They're going to be vans that are patrolling. They're also going to use a video to try to catch female drivers driving either without a hijab or a loose hijab. So repression of women is back as a mainstay for this regime and they have renewed their commitment to this repression. We'll see what happens in terms of how much of a pushback this generates, whether these demonstrations from last year can be resurrected. But it's very difficult. It's very difficult. And what last year showed is without much larger support from the male population in Iran and without some support from some entity within Iran with political or military power, these demonstrations just don't go anywhere. It's very, very hard for them to actually bring about regime change. Regime change is hard just as the Venezuelans and as the Iranians. It's very, very hard and it takes time and it takes a crack in the system itself inside the regime. Some apparatus within the regime has to break or flip or something like that. So very difficult times and very depressing for the Iranians and a shame given about 500 people probably be killed in those demonstrations last year and early this year and a lot of people put in jail and a lot of people really devoted a significant amount of their effort and time for those demonstrations and in the end of the day it doesn't look like much has changed in Iran. So we will keep watching this. It'll be interesting to see if there are any demonstrations. Of course I would blame a big part of why this didn't turn into something wider is the lack of support that the West from the West did not provide the demonstrator support and I'm not talking about military support. They don't need the military support. What they really need is moral support. The West should have rallied around them, should have penalized Iran in all kinds of ways, should have made this a big cause, a women's rights cause and really talked it up and talked about the evil of the regime and the need for regime change and the hope that these demonstrations would lead to that and I think that might have tilted it all. But the fact is as we talked at the time nobody was covering it, nobody was saying anything. Once in a while some politician mentioned it but there was no significant movement in that direction. And at the same time of course the Biden administration tried to cut a deal over the Iran nuclear plan although the lead for the Biden administration on the Iran negotiation, the guy who was in charge, who was brought in, he was there under Obama and he was brought back in under Biden to lead all discussions with Iran basically is on extended leave because there's some issue with the security clearance. Not clear. They won't say what's going on exactly but did he reveal stuff he wasn't supposed to? Is he a spy? Was he just negligent? Not clear exactly what's going on there but his security clearance has been revoked and therefore he's out at least for now the State Department and cannot lead the administration's efforts vis-à-vis Iran. I mean he's a compromising, he's a compromiser so I'm kind of glad he's out. Of course the people replacing him are going to be just as bad but yeah, things are bad in Iran and the Biden administration is completely lost. Surprise, surprise. China just reported GDP numbers. They were disappointing the economy as I've been telling you for now several months the economy there is struggling. They're having a hard time growing. They're having a hard time increasing productivity. They're having a hard time increasing employment. Unemployment. Unemployment among young Chinese, 16 to 24, is hit a new record this quarter. It's at 21.3%. So one in five young Chinese cannot find a job. This is a disaster for this country. As it is, China is rapidly aging. They need young people to be working. They need young people to be creating wealth. It's hard to grow an economy where you're young and not participating in the workforce. It also is a recipe for social unrest and the Chinese Communist Party has to be worried about this because what are these young people going to do and when is their frustration going to bubble over and expand. Remember the demonstration in China which ultimately led to the zero COVID being eliminated. What's next? So it's going to be very, very, very interesting. But to what extent can she survive a bad economy, growing debt, local debt at local governments all over China, basically a bankrupt, the entire real estate industry is probably bankrupt and there's no way for all of that and the need to deal with that, that that doesn't affect economic growth over the next few years. So China is stagnating, certainly relative to expectations. Its youth is stagnating, they cannot find jobs and the Chinese economy is struggling. Not surprising, I'll be telling you this for years, the correlation between a stagnating economy and authoritarianism persists. That correlation is still out there and the question is will the Chinese learn that indeed the reason this is happening to them is a consequence of the increased authoritarianism, maybe the brain drain of people leaving to other countries. A brain drain we could accelerate if only we increased immigration from China. But yeah, something to watch and how does Xi handle this and what does he do, particularly as the Chinese people become more frustrated with what is going on. Talk about frustrated people, Israel is again experiencing massive demonstrations and real challenges as the Netanyahu government talks about again its judicial reforms and in this case what they want to pass right now is a law that makes it impossible or very difficult but probably impossible for the judiciary to basically review the actions of the government and the actions of parliament. So to question laws as fitting in with they don't have a constitution but what they consider the basic law of Israel. This is one of the things that the demonstrators are most objecting to, this idea that the judiciary cannot, in Israel the executive and the parliament are combined because the government comes out of the legislature and now there's no monitoring function of the Supreme Court. There's no monitoring function of the courts that allows for much more authority to be embedded with the government who then controls the legislature and the courts can't say anything about it. A recipe for disaster, not a good recipe, the founding fathers would not have liked that. After all, separation of powers is a hallmark of good government. Israel has separation of powers that is problematic, it's not ideal, there's no question it is a challenge but the government's solution to this is to do away with all separation of powers. The government's solution to this is to grant it all power and that is unbelievably dangerous and bad. Anyway, we talk about dangerous, at least 180 senior fighter pilots, elite commandos, special forces guys and cyber intelligence specialists in the Israeli military reserve have told their commanders that they will no longer report for voluntary duty if the government proceeds with the plan. That is their out. Now 180 fighter pilots, particularly senior fighter pilots, that's a big deal. Remember Israel's military is built on reserves. That is at every point in time, a significant percentage of the military, the standing military are reserve troops. And in a time of war, Israel's standing army is too small to cope with an invasion. It has to bring up all the reserves during that period of time. And of course if the reserve, like these guys, don't go in on a regular basis, then they're rusty if a war ever breaks out. 180 pilots is a lot given the total number of pilots, well 180 pilots plus, but it's 180 senior people is a lot in a small army, like in a small military like Israel. So Israel is, this is not good. It's not good for Israeli security. It's not good for Israeli's ability to defend itself. And this is really an illustration of something I talked about already. Maybe we'll do a whole show on this because it's a big issue. Israel is being torn apart basically. Israel is being torn apart by two different visions for Israel. And you could argue that this is a phenomenon now occurring maybe in the U.S. at a much lesser extent and maybe ultimately will happen in Europe. There are two visions in Israel for Israel. One is that Israel is a state for Jews. It's a regular country and has the protections of regular country. It's a regular secular country. But it is a haven for the Jewish people, for people who self-identify or people who are genetically somehow connected to the Jewish people. It's a haven for Jews. And that's the idea. But as a country, in terms of how it runs itself internally, it's just a country. It's a country built on universal principles, principles that don't have to do with the Jewishness of the majority of the population. That's one vision. The second vision is that Israel is a Jewish state. That is that essential to the character of the state, essential to the character of its laws, essential to the character of how the government is run is Judaism. And that the laws should and must reflect that. Then it's not just a state where Jews feel safe. It's a Jewish state in which Jewish law to a large extent, Jewish religion is part of the essence of the country. Now these two are radically different views of the state. One is compatible with liberty and freedom and individual rights and the other is not. And that's why this battle over judicial influence is just the tip of the iceberg of a much, much bigger battle that is happening within Israeli society. And of course, Israeli society is split along primarily religious lines in terms of, this is not so much left and right as it is religious, not religious. In terms of which side of this you fall on. And it's going to be interesting how this plays out because over the long run, the religion is having up a hand because over the long run, as long as Israel doesn't have a constitution protecting individual rights. And as long as it's a democracy where majorities count over the long run, the religious elements have the advantage because they have a lot more kids, a lot more kids. Than the secular parts of society and therefore Israel's likely to become more and more of a Jewish state rather than a state for Jews, which would be very sad. But, and, you know, maybe we can do a show sometime paralleling that to what's going on in the US and what's going on a little bit in Europe. Alright, talking about Europe, quickly we'll do this. This is in the Wall Street Journal. Today, it's a story that I've talked about before, but it's interesting the Wall Street Journal's picked it up and now I've seen more and more and more people report this and talk about this. And, you know, and I think wrongly in many respects, but they're talking about this. And that is the fact that Europe is becoming poorer. Well, America continues to become richer. Literally, purchasing power, annual income, real terms in Europe has declined over the last few years. While in the United States it continues to go up. In the US, US has expanded its gap, its lead, if you will, of this competition in terms of annual wages, GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power or not. In almost every metric, consumption, which I think is maybe the most important metric, Americans consume a lot more than Europeans. Americans have continued to consume a lot more, a lot in the post-COVID era, whereas European consumption has shrunk. Standard living, quality of life, wealth is far greater in the United States than in Europe. And the economy of the US has been a lot stronger than the European economy over the last year, really since 2008 and even more so since 2019. And there's really been a divergence. The US is just, and people give Obama and Trump and Biden credit for this, of course they always credit the politicians. But there is, there's something in the very structure of America, of the way markets are structured in America, in the way, in the entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurial motivation of Americans. I think in its openness to immigration, which is changing now, so we'll see how long this persists, which has made the US this engine of economic growth, whereas Europe has stagnated. Now, a lot of this European stagnation has to do, and I'll end with this, this is a topic we'll have to pick up another time, it's a big topic. But an interesting one. One of the main reasons for economic stagnation in Europe is the lack of ambition over material things of Europeans. So in Europe they're much more interested in working less than earning more, much more interested in working less than earning more. Unions are very strong in Europe, but unions don't negotiate higher wages. They negotiate sometimes lower wages in exchange for more time off. There's a big push now to extend a 30 day work week in Europe. Europeans don't want to work. As a consequence, productivity dramatically has lagged behind the United States, increases in productivity per worker or by any other measure. So Europe is also aging faster than the United States. And it's, as a consequence, it's going to face real problems in paying the pensions and dealing with those pensions. But it also, as a consequence, has a real problem of productivity as the baby boom generation, which exists in Europe as well, starts retiring who replaces them on the workforce. Where does that production go? Where is the wealth to be created to facilitate economic growth and to facilitate these redistribution of wealth? And if young Europeans are mainly focused on shortening the work week placed in parts of Europe, France, Germany, then how's that we're going to get done? To pay for all of their commitments, all the commitments that the welfare, the European welfare state has made. And you're seeing this across Europe. You're seeing this in, and I don't know if this is true in Scandinavia, but you're certainly seeing this in France and Germany. You haven't seen it in the UK. The UK is slightly better. But you're seeing it in Italy, Spain, Greece, and Greece has seen a real shrinkage of real incomes over the last 14 years since 2008. Of course, they went through the Greek financial crisis. But you're seeing low incomes in Spain or stagnation in Italy and even France over the last few years. And of course, one of the engines of growth for Europe has been, one of the engines of growth for Europe has been export of European goods. Europe, I think, 50% of GDP is like export. And who do they export to? To a large extent to China. And the fact that Chinese economy is not growing or not growing as fast, depending on whose numbers you believe. Well, there you go. You've got a real problem in terms of who do you export to? How do you grow when your market is drying up? So all of these things are connected. China's shrinking is not a good thing for anybody. Europe's shrinking is not a good thing for anybody. And all of this puts even more pressure on the United States, which is also going to start shrinking at some point here. As the statists, Biden is convinced that what's driving economic growth in the United States right now is Bidenomics. And he might be true in the short run. He might be right in the short run, but certainly not in the long run. All right, I think that covers our news for this morning. Let's see. We're going to jump into the Super Chat. We're only $50 short of our goal. Let's try to reach it, maybe even exceed it because we don't make it every time. So maybe we need to increase it some days so we can compensate for the days that we don't make it quite. So yes, jump in. $20 questions would be great so we can get the number. We just need two and a half $20 questions and we're there already. And we've got well over 90 people watching right now live, so that's what, that's nothing. Just a few stickers and we're there, guys. So please use this opportunity to provide value for value, to show your appreciation for the show, to show that you value the show by supporting it. All right, Michael. Michael's asked a lot of questions here. We'll go through them. There could have been tens of thousands of entrepreneurs who are on the fence about starting businesses. And after reading Iron Rand, they got spiritual fuel to take the risk and we're all richer for it. Absolutely. I've talked about this many times that I think that the real impact of Iron Rand on the culture is the impact she had on entrepreneurs, on those entrepreneurs that then went out and changed the world. And I've given names, but it's right across the board in Silicon Valley in terms of the leaders of the previous generation of Silicon Valley as being influenced by Iron Rand. So she has already had a really profound impact on our culture and will be having an even more profound impact on the culture as we move into the future. So yeah, that is a way to be optimistic about the future because I think it's real. I think it's happening. Remo, 24 euros. Thank you, Remo. Really appreciate this value for value. Thank you, Remo. And I see David. Thank you, Catherine. Thank you, Colt. And then I missed Glenn, who did $50. Thank you, Glenn. Really appreciate that. And Fred Harper and Jeff Bannister and Volta and Jupiter Menace. And of course, Jonathan Honing got them all started. So yes, please feel free to use the sticker feature in YouTube to just, you know, only $42 now short. So that was a quick $10 from stickers. And again, we have over 90 people watching, so we shouldn't take a lot of people. And if you've never done a super chat, it's pretty easy. Go on then do it. And again, it's a way for you to return the value or trade the value in exchange for the value you get from the show. No one says, what do you think about the buyers of van move bicycles, possibly no longer being able to access the cryptographic keys to their bikes? Should access keys for software of something you bought be part of property rights? Whoa, that's pretty weird. I haven't heard about that. Who got the keys? I mean, who took the keys? Were they lost? Were they stolen? What's happened to those keys? But look, property rights can be divvied up. You can segment them. You can sell the bike without the key. You can sell the key without the bike. You can sell the combine. I would want to leave that to Marcus to decide how to do it. And as long as Ford wasn't committed here, as long as it was clear, explicit that the keys were not being sold with the bike or something, then buyer beware, buyer beware. Alright, Sylvano says, for 50 bucks that got us over the target, so thank you, Sylvano. Thank you guys. We made our target for the day. Of course, we can exceed it and that would be good. But have you seen or intend to watch the Alex Friedman podcast of Netanyahu? Hard to tell what was authentic or canned responses. So I generally know I'm not very interested in watching it because I've said this many, many times over many, many years. So this is not a new, I've been saying this for 20 years. Netanyahu gives a great speech, does a great interview in English. He comes across principled. He argues passionately for the right things. He's really good. I mean, he's made some speeches at the UN, which are classics. He's done his speech to Congress was very good. He's books on terrorism are fantastic. And then he goes back to Israel and does exact opposite thing. So it's almost useless to listen Netanyahu in English because it has no bearing on what he actually believes and what he's actually going to do. And I say this in Israel all the time and they completely get it because the way he behaves in Hebrew, the way he behaves in Israel has no, no reflection, no correlation with what he actually says when he's interviewed in English. I wouldn't be surprised if is in the interview and Alex Friedman, he comes across as a pro-lesific capitalist guy, as a pro individual rights guy, as a pro, you know, what do you call it, self-defense guy, you know, slam the enemy, beat them. You got to win and all of this. And then he goes back to Israel and he compromises left and right and he sells himself out. And for 20 years, he was prime minister and did almost nothing to liberate the Israeli economy. I mean, the little he did, he did as a finance minister, but his prime minister did very little to liberate the Israeli economy. And it's not that hard, not that hard. You piss off a lot of people in powerful places, but it's not that hard to do and he hasn't done it. And it's not even about coalition. Look, he's willing to fight against his coalition members for all kinds of things. Always the wrong stuff. No, Netanyahu's bad. He's a power-lusting politician who, you know, doesn't believe in anything. Again, he gives a great speech, but doesn't ultimately, or at least is not willing to fight for anything. He's fighting for his religious cohort right now. That's what he's willing to fight for. But he's not willing to fight for liberty and economy. Boss says, why baby actions opposite of what he says? Because he believes, because I think he, at some level, he knows that what he says is true. But he also wants to preserve power. And I think he has come to the conclusion over many years that in order to preserve power, he has to do the opposite of what he says. That is what power, hand-grabbing power and holding on to it and not letting go is necessary for him to preserve power. All right, Lewis, what would you say to someone who the U.S. is not, someone who says the U.S. is not really that rich? They can inflate GDP with economic measures and they can consume so much because everyone is in debt. Well, it turns out Europeans are just as in debt as Americans are. So are the Japanese. Debt across the world is very high and the Americans, as a percentage of income, are not higher than other countries particularly. They don't make the top 10 in the world. The question is also, why are people willing to give Americans debt? Why are people willing to buy its debt? Maybe because America has something, i.e., a more secure, more stable, more robust economy than the rest of the world and that's why they're growing. But look, you can attack the U.S. economy and I've seen it done and libertarians are very good at this and it's doom and gloom and we're falling off a cliff and we're the worst economy in the world. We should be investing in China. We should be investing in Europe. Everybody's better than the U.S. But on every measure that has not been true, now, you know, maybe there'll be a recession in a month that is so deep and so bad and people will lose so much of their wealth and the dollar will collapse in the world. Maybe all of that will happen and it will reverse everything that I've just said. But it hasn't happened in spite of being predicted over and over and over again and I see no signs out there that it's going to happen. We're seeing a significant economic slowdown and there could very well be a recession, but I see no signs that the recession in the U.S. is going to be dramatically bigger than the European one. And look, the reality is this, that, you know, I say all this stuff and it's bad for my numbers because there is no question in my mind that if I was a doom and gloom, the U.S. is the worst country in the world. Let's support, you know, let's give our money to invest in China and support Russia and it's bad against Ukraine. I would have, you know, five times the number of subscribers. I know because I look at the people who say those things and that's what they have. So, but the reality is I like reality, you know, and the reality is that the doom predictions have all been wrong. The reality is that you look at the U.S. economy and if you look at it objectively, what is truly stunning is its ability, its flexibility, its adaptability, its ability to continue to produce in spite of everything. And the only thing holding back the U.S. economy right now, I mean, lots of things, but you know, the heavy burden of regulations and the lack of immigration. And if you unleash those two, wow. Alright, Finn Hopper says, what do you suppose the next member show will be about? I don't know, but let me encourage you guys to propose things. I keep saying this. What do you want the next show to be about? Use the chat, use the super chat, whatever, to propose topics. So the member show, because I have to come up with a topic every day. Alright, we'll run through the five and $10 questions. Again, we got quite a few for Michael. Michael says, someone asked a super chat question the other day about Iron Man picking her fingers to bleed in order to help her write. I've never heard this before. What was the rationale behind it? I have no idea and I don't know if it's true. So I assumed it was true and I read it, but I don't know that it's true. I do not know her biography that well. And I certainly, I have not heard that or if I've heard it, I don't remember it. Michael says, while educating, while education may be getting worse, psychology is seeing real improvements. Psychology improves what people have less of an envious inferiority complex mindset and vote less for statism. I don't think people vote for statism because of the psychological inferiority complex. I think we've talked about this in the past. I think we overstate the psychological reasons for why people do what they do. They do what they do for philosophical reasons, for ideological reasons, for reasons that have to do with belief. Now, those are not independent of psychology. They're somewhat motivated by psychology and they reinforce a particular psychology. But it's not going to help us just getting a better theory of psychology, although that helps. There's no question that helps. It makes the world a better place, more entrepreneurs, more production, more happier people and just a better world all around. But unless you change the ideas and therefore the culture, having slightly better psychology is not going to help. And I'm not sure, yeah, so and I'm not sure that the improvements in the field of psychology are sustainable unless you also improve the philosophical basis. So it always happened together. And again, it's still going to be a slow process, no matter what. Michael says, when you see how stupid and irrational most everyone is, does it amaze you that the lights still turn on? Yeah, to some extent. But I always remember how compartmentalized people are. People are super compartmentalized. And so they basically, they can be super irrational in some parts of their life and super rational in other parts of their life. And, you know, I see that all the time and have seen it since I was a kid. So I don't think it super surprises me, but the level at which people are irrational these days still shocks me and depresses me even today. Did you, did you have envision yourself as being a leader of a capitalist guerrilla resistance fighters? Am I the leader of a capitalist resistance guerrilla resistance fighters capitalist guerrilla resistance fighters? If I am, where am I fighters? I mean, where are they? And, you know, I hope that's right. I hope I am the leader of a capitalist guerrilla resistance fighters. But no, I never imagined that. And I'm still not sure it's real. Michael says, your wife beating drunk, dying in the streets under pure capitalism example isn't the best because there are plenty of abusive husbands who hold careers, some even high paying. Yeah, but that's not my point. My point is not that every white beating drunk is going to die. My point is that the white beating drunk doesn't have a job, doesn't do the work. And is supported and allowed to continue in a sense to beat his wife by the is supported by the welfare state. And my point is that the welfare state that that person, the welfare receiving white beating drunk is actually in a sense quote, worse off under capitalism. Because he's not going to get the welfare. And he might die in the street. That's my point. Not that they aren't white beating drunks who do make a living. It's just this particular type, the type that where the welfare state doesn't evaluate you based on your virtue, the welfare state just gives you money based on how poor you are. And I think a proper, what do you call it charity system would give you money based on your virtue and your need, but virtue. And if you need but don't have virtue, you don't get money. Okay, boys says, I wonder what percent of Trump voters also love Robert F. Kennedy. My guess, a very high one, a very high percent to the extent that they know him. Again, the fact that China is declining economically is very worrisome. I agree. Might be the biggest indicator for coming World War. Hope they turn towards freedom. I hope so too. The problem with a war for China is they're not ready for it. They're not rich enough for it. They're very likely to lose and that would be even worse for leadership. So, you know, we'll see. We'll see. But yes, the more authoritarian they turn, the more dangerous it is for the rest of the world. Boss says, AI will equalize the reduction of aging work face. To some extent, AI will do that. If it's allowed to flourish, if it's allowed to be used, if there are enough people in society able and willing to use it appropriately, then yes, AI saves us from the demographic crisis because it allows a productivity to increase in spite of the shrinking number of workers. Good point. All right, Michael has the last question appropriate given that he had the first seven, I think. Netanyahu always talks about how much wealth the Israelis are after his free market policies have gone into effect. Boss has confirmed some of this, I thought. I mean, yeah, I mean, Israelis are wealthier because of some of the reforms that were passed in the 1980s under a government that was way before Netanyahu's time, even under some labor governments in the 90s that are before Netanyahu's time. But, and then in the 2000s, when in the, let's see, yeah, in the 2000s, when early 2000s, when he was finance minister, and I've said this before, he passed some significant reforms, but during his tenure as prime minister, both in the 90s and in the 2000s, during his tenure as prime minister, while Israel has become wealthier, there have been very few pro-market reforms, very, very few, if any. And he's been criticized within his own party for that. They don't do it for a variety of reasons that have to do with all kinds of political considerations. So the primary for Netanyahu is politics and preserving his premiership. And economic liberty is secondary, and the reality is that as long as Israel's economy was doing well, he didn't feel the need to do further reforms because it was doing well enough. It could have been doing so much better in unbelievable ways. And of course what really drove economic growth in Israel is the tech revolution. And imagine how much richer Israel would be if every aspect of its economy was growing dramatically, not just the tech part of it. All right everybody, thank you for joining us today. We really, really appreciate it. Thanks for all the support. We blew through the goal today, so that's great. We raised $290 instead of $250. That is greatly appreciated. We will be doing this again tomorrow. I don't think there'll be a show tonight. I could change my mind later this afternoon, but nothing planned for tonight. We will have a show tomorrow, probably at the same time as this show, about 1 o'clock East Coast time. All right everybody, don't forget, those of you who are listening, not live, and would like to support the show because you get value out of it, you can do so on your onbookshow.com slash support, and you can also use Patreon to just look up your onbookshow. All right everybody, bye. See you tomorrow.