Loading summary
Transcript4 lines
- [00:00]
A
Safeway and Albertsons have made saving easier than ever with great savings on family favorites this week. 16 ounce sweet strawberries are two for $5 member price. And don't miss the incredible deal on Signature Select Boneless skinless chicken breast value packs for $2.97 per pound limit. One plus medium avocados or mangoes are five for $5 member price. Fresh and delicious savings for every meal. Hurry in. These deals won't last. Visit Safeway or albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.
- [00:32]
B
Get in the game with the College Branded Venmo Debit Card Wreck your team with every tap and earn up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash, a new rewards program from Venmo. No monthly fee, no minimum balance, just school pride and spending power. Get in the game and sign up for the Venmo debit card@venmo.com collegecard the Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA Select Schools available Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply at venmo me stashterms max $100 cash back per month.
- [01:01]
A
Hey everybody. Tim, over from the Bulwark here. You guys know I like it when I get to flex my fiscal conservative muscles. You know I'm always living out with you guys and so I like it when I get to kind of bring out the old green eye shade, Tim. Is that what it's called? Blue eyeshadow? Whatever. The eye shade, Tim, the one that cares about balancing the budget. And I saw this top line number this week that's been going around about how much the Iran war is costing us. And the first estimate that came out had it at $1 billion a day. This was a congressional official talking to the Atlantic and then the Politico said they had sources that said the estimate was looking more like $2 billion a day. When I saw that number, this insane spending that we're doing on this war that has no clear purpose or no clear explanation, no clear rationale, and maybe think back to our friend Elon Musk. When the administration started, we were spending a lot of time right here on this channel talking about Elon Musk, Elon Doge and his insane ketamine fueled tweet storms and the real life impact he was having on the poorest people in the world who are dying because of Elon's policies, but also people working in the federal government or losing their jobs or having to sue over their jobs or not knowing, being told they'd just send a memo in that, like, you know, to, to the new little groiper white nationalist boss that they had, telling them what they did every day, like, it was insane. It was insane. And since our lives are insane, we kind of forget that. And so I thought it would be important to kind of take back the lens and take this news story about how much money we are spending, how much of your money, of our money we're spending on this pointless, basically pointless war, at least war without a rationale, and compare it to, like, what their rhetoric was and like, what their plans were when they came in. Because, like, the big message of Doge was that they were going to solve this government spending problem that we had, that the Democrats, Joe Biden was spending too much money, blah, blah, blah, Barack Obama stimulus, and it was out of control and the Trump administration was going to bring it back. I mean, when I had Elon's buddy Jason Calacanis on the podcast, he's talking about how critical this was, government spending, get it in control. They're finally doing it. Politicians of both parties been talking about it forever. Nobody does anything. Trump and Elon get shit done here. We are now spending a billion bucks a day in Iran for some reason. So let's go back, let's wind back the tape a little bit and look at what they were. Look at what they were saying the run up to the election. Elon was talking about the extent of the cuts that they had planned. So the total national debt right now is 38 trillion. I gotta tell you, I haven't checked on that in a minute. I just googled it a second ago and I was thinking the number was going to be like 20. It's 38 trillion. Double what I thought. So 38 trillion, big problem, real problem. I care about this problem. Elon claimed he cared about the problem and he said he thinks that they can do two. How much do you think we can rip out of this wasted $6.5 trillion Harris Biden budget? Well, I think we can do at least 2 trillion. Yeah. Yes. Just kind of a small, small little nibble in the whole thing, but okay. He says they can cut at least 2 trillion on inauguration Day. He said, we're gonna take Doge to Mars. We're gonna occupy Mars with Doge. And then he gets in there and he wasn't limited by Trump or the law or any legal constraints. And Trump just let him buck wild. And it's really two things, competence and caring. And if you add competence and caring, you'll cut the budget deficit in half. And they were touting all the shit they were doing to cut spending. You probably remember when Musk pranced up on the stage at CPAC with Javier Milei and he was waving the chainsaw. This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy. It's the chainsaw for bureaucracy. Chainsaw for spending. They're just going to cut, cut, cut. Last March, he told Fox News he could cut 1 trillion in just weeks. So $2 trillion total, but just $1 trillion. Got that in weeks. Okay, let's watch a little bit of that conversation. He was talking to Brett Baer. I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within that time frame. So in that timeframe, 130 days. So there you go, big talk there. Big talk, 130 days. He could do it. He's Elon. He does things the private sector way not to slow down bureaucracy. And then in June, right after he left his post, Elon was talking about just how critical this mission was. He said that this immense level of overspending will drive America into debt slavery. Debt slavery. This was such an existential threat that our country would be enslaved, I assume by the Chinese if we didn't deal with it. So that was their stated claim, that Donald Trump's most high profile surrogate and special government employee was going to focus on this massive problem, cutting government spending because our debt's too high. They're going to cut maybe 1 trillion in weeks, maybe 2 trillion. Numbers were all over the place and it was critical that they were going to do it because if we didn't do it, we're going into debt slavery. Well, I hope you guys are learning Mandarin because fast forward a little bit and we didn't do it. There was a fun Wall Street Journal article last month on a guy I knew a little bit named Alan Cole, kind of one of these DC nerd types. And Alan Cole saw through Elon's bullshit. He was watching it and he's like, this guy isn't. This guy doesn't know what he's doing. Okay, just a little fun aside for you. I had somebody inside the administration who was talking to me. I was at one of these MAGA events. It was there on the opposite side of Musk. Didn't like Musk, so take that for what you will. And they said that Musk was so dumb about how everything works that he didn't realize that the Senate and the House were two different brand. Like he thought we had one branch. He thought just Congress was just Congress. He didn't realize we had two legislative branches, so didn't know what he's doing. Maybe that's apocryphal, but it's funny either way too good to check. Alan Cole saw this and was just like, this guy can't do it. Like, there's too much. There's too much inertia in the system. And if you're going to actually cut government spending, you really got to go after, you know, these big ticket items. Entitlements, military, they don't want to do that. And so this isn't going to happen. And he made a bet, which I don't. I do. You guys know I love sports, gambling. I don't. These prediction markets I don't like. Well, that's. That's a talk for another day. But he made a battle. One of these prediction markets basically saying he bet his entire life savings. Big bet. Saying that the government spending will actually increase the first year of Trump won't decrease. Was against conventional wisdom, was against what all the MAGA bros were saying. And not only was he right, federal government spending grew every quarter last year. There wasn't even that first. Remember what he said to Brett Baer, 130 days, we'll get rid of a trillion. Not even that first quarter did it go down. Government spending kept going up because Elon didn't know what he was doing. And so in the end, what he did was cause unimaginable harm for the poorest people on the planet and eliminate a lot of expertise from our government under the auspices of saving taxpayers money and cutting spending. And he totally failed to do it. So all he did was harm people with nothing to show for it. So that was the Elon Musk private sector mindset at work in the government. Now fast forward to today. It's like, okay, well, Doge didn't work, but you would assume that administration that spawned Doge would still believe that this national debt is a problem, it's gone up significantly during their second term, and that they should do something about that. Because, remember, if we don't do it, we will be doomed to suffer a life of debt slavery. It's like the stakes are pretty high here. Debt slavery for the country. If we don't deal with this and what the administration is doing right now is just putting the metal to the metal on even more spending, just making that money machine go, burr, do you want to make the interest rates lower? Okay, we're going to continue spend, you know, spending more, weaken the dollar, and simultaneously start a middle east war with no clear end game that is costing us somewhere between a billion and two billion per day. Like, remember when they talked about that big fight that the Democrats had in the shutdown about extending the Obamacare subsidies? The cost of that was equivalent to like two weeks of this war that nobody's voting on, by the way. I mean, I guess Rokon tried to, they tried to push that through, but, like, they hadn't, they haven't approved that spending. They tried to do a war powers resolution, but. So the executive has just decided we're going to do Obamacare subsidy extension level spending in two weeks on this war. Who knows how long it's going to go? Who knows how much more spending will be required afterwards? On the military dork podcast I've been listening to at night, one of the things that they're concerned about is just the amount of material that we're going through, just a lot of really expensive missiles and other weaponry, air defense weaponry. And, and so we're gonna have to get more of that. So that's gonna, so it's like, even when it ends, it's not as if that's gonna be the end of the cost of this war. Like, the costs are gonna continue and like, who the hell knows, like, how long that we'll be sucked into some morass we don't even get to pick. And one of the things I've been saying about this is that, like, Trump might end up just deciding he's bored of this war and stop it. But the Iranians have a say in this too. Like the threats from terror, the threats from other asymmetric foes are going to now be increased. And so that's going to mean more. We're going to have to spend more on military, we're going to have to put more assets in the region. I mean, it's just the cost of this is mind blowing. So it's like, when you think about this in the national security perspective, you take them at their word. They said part of the rationale from Doge was that it was against our national security interest to be this crippled with debt. And so here we are piling more and more debt on top of what we already had. We're doing so for an unclear mission. We are weakening the dollar. They're throwing some tariffs on top of that, which is going to make things more expensive for everybody. And it is just an absolutely insane grab bag of fiscal policies. And you haven't, you haven't noticed Elon saying much about that. So I do wonder and you think that if Elon was concerned about debt slavery that he would want to weigh in on this? Or you think that Elon would be concerned about his legacy? Or that Elon would be critical of the administration that has totally just shat all over the entire project that he undertook when he was in the White House. But no, I guess he wants to make sure he's got good contracts for his weapons and can go to Mars and do all the other fucking shit he wants to do. So that's what we got. So that's the legacy of Doge. Lot of harm to people across the globe and at home. Federal Spending growing up last year every quarter Federal spending going up even more this year thanks to this dumb war. And I guess the future for us might be Chinese enslavement. Fingers crossed. Hopefully not subscribe to the feed Appreciate y'. All Let me know what you think about that in the show. Notes I got one particular fan reader emailer that reaches out to me and cares about this issue, doesn't believe that I care about it enough and I tell him I do, but he wants me to talk about it more because I don't. This is not sarcasm. I do. I mean, I don't know that I think that debt slavery is imminent, but I do think this is a real crisis and I think that it is important that the lack of seriousness which with they undertook this crisis is something that people know about because eventually Bill's gonna come due on this sort of stuff. So shout out to my buddy bw everybody else comment like thumbs up all the other shit. We'll see y' all soon.
- [14:54]
B
Get in the game with the college branded Venmo Debit card. Wreck your team with every tap and earn up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash, a new rewards program from Venmo. No monthly fee, no minimum balance, just school pride and spending power. Get in the game and sign up for the Venmo debit card@venmo.com collegecard the Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank N.A. select schools available. Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply at venmo me stashterms max $100 cash back per month At Strayer University we help students like you go from Is it possible to Anything is possible by offering access to up to 10 no cost gen Ed courses so you can reach your goals affordably and fast. Visit Strayer Edu to learn more. No cost Gen EDS provided by Strayer University affiliate Sophia. Eligibility rules apply. Connect with us for details. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by chef and has many campuses, including at 2121 15th Street north in Arlington, Virginia.