We Designed the Perfect Country | Ep. 062 Lemonade Stand

Summary

Lemonade Stand Podcast – Episode 062: "We Designed the Perfect Country"

Podcast: Lemonade Stand
Hosts: Aiden, DougDoug, Perry (with notable participation from Atrioc)
Date: May 13, 2026
Podcast Network: Vox Media Podcast Network

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Overview

In this episode, the Lemonade Stand crew embarks on the ambitious, tongue-in-cheek task of designing the “perfect country.” Drawing inspiration from their collective expertise (allegedly suited only for running a lemonade stand), they gamify nation-building using a point-based system, weighing categories like military, education, housing, and more. Drawing on real-world examples and banter, they reveal their personal utopian—or dystopian—visions, and cap it off with a “world leader draft,” assembling historic figures into fantasy governments. They also offer sharp, grounded commentary on real fiscal policy, notably New York City's budget maneuvers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Behind the Scenes: The Point-Based "Country Builder" Game

• Timestamp: 02:18–04:59
• Perry introduces a 12-category system (military, democracy, infrastructure, culture, science, diplomacy, education, business subsidies, healthcare, vanity, housing, welfare) with 25 points to distribute.
• The concept: trade-offs reflect each person’s values, as you can’t max everything out.
• Listener engagement: Over 1,200 community responses inform later discussion.

2. Individual “Perfect Country” Blueprints

(Each host presents and justifies their approach.)

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DougDoug’s Country: Welfare-Heavy, Autocratic Iceland

• Timestamp: 06:42–18:12
• Prioritizes low military, high education, robust housing and welfare, minimal vanity/culture.
• Inspiration: Iceland’s stability, Sudan’s needs (based on a humanitarian anecdote), Singapore’s housing model, Vienna’s social housing, LA’s housing crisis.
• “Education is kind of the foundation for a long term, healthy society.” (Doug, 10:52)
• Weakness: “Dictatorship Iceland,” with low defense and little culture/soft power.
• Internal debate: trade-offs between democracy and efficiency, risking autocracy for social stability.

Atrioc/Aiden’s Country: The Authoritarian Meme State

• Timestamp: 19:03–23:50
• Zero democracy, maximum military/vanity (“posters of me everywhere”), moderate education, business, healthcare, zero welfare.
• “If there’s democracy, they’re going to vote me out almost immediately!” (Aiden, 19:25)
• Comparison to North Korea and Sparta, but “a little too high” in education and healthcare for those analogies.
• Rationalization: maintenance of power over public good. Dismisses culture/tourism as priorities for a new, “unloved” nation.

Perry’s Country: The “Singapore-San Francisco” Tech Hub

• Timestamp: 35:39–39:47
• Maxes out science, education, and business subsidies; prioritizes diplomacy over military for survival.
• Minimal housing and welfare—acknowledged as a substantial downside.
• “If we can survive 10 years, we’re going to fucking rock.” (Perry, 38:27)
• Long-term plan: export high-skill talent, incentivize brain retention with business grants.

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3. Audience Results: The Community’s Average “Dream Country”

• Timestamp: 44:24–47:52
• Top priorities: education, infrastructure, science, healthcare, housing (all around ~3 out of 5).
• Very low vanity, business subsidies lower than hosts anticipated.
• “This is pretty close to mine. This is pretty close to Aiden Stan,” (Doug, 45:40)
• Community seems to prize daily livability over aggressive national ambitions or hard power.

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4. Subsidies, Soft Power, and Real-World Parallels

• Timestamp: 28:01–32:21
• Discussion of targeted business subsidies, citing Singapore, Switzerland, China’s solar industry, Taiwan’s semiconductors.
• Recognition that some priorities (e.g., welfare, business) can be achieved through strategic government intervention rather than sheer spending.

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5. Corrupt Nation-Building (Parody Segment)

• Timestamp: 49:00–52:19
• The hosts construct the “most corrupt country possible,” maxing out bribery, border control, secret police, cult of personality.
• Notably, a low military but high internal repression is seen as more efficiently corrupt.

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6. World Leader “Fantasy Draft”

• Timestamp: 54:43–68:16
• Using a $10 budget, hosts “pick a cabinet” from historic leaders (Lincoln, FDR, Lee Kuan Yew, Mandela, Ataturk, Trump, Cleopatra, etc.).
• Notable picks:
  • Perry: FDR, Otto von Bismarck, Cleopatra—balancing business, diplomacy, and culture.
  • Doug: Mandela, Ataturk, Putin—hoping Mandela’s ethics balance Putin’s shadiness.
  • Aiden: Alexander the Great, Trump, Otto von Bismarck—military and diplomacy focus.
• Hosts poke fun at the downsides of pairing certain leaders.
• “You could get the best out of somebody if you round them out with the right person.” (Doug, 65:49)
• Parody picks (“eight Hitlers, one Trump for $10") highlight the darkly comedic tone.

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7. Real-World Application: NYC’s Budget, Mamdani’s Diplomacy & US Fiscal Policy

NYC Budget Crisis and Mamdani’s Response

• Timestamp: 68:31–84:58
• Praises Mamdani’s clear communication and pragmatic approach balancing a $12B deficit, with aid from the state, new taxes on wealthy home-owners, and cooperation with Governor Hochul.
• Delayed payments to the pension fund: acknowledged as risky, with historical parallels where this strategy backfired.
• “He seems to be very forward in all of his communication... putting the budget at such a front position is really impressive.” (Doug, 70:56)
• “Cutting is not just austerity...he’s promising to spend on good things instead.” (Aiden, 84:04)
• Discussion of NYC’s structural constraints and the importance of messaging.

Inflation and Central Banking in the US

• Timestamp: 86:53–93:23
• Current problem: persistent inflation (~3.8–3.9%) with rising gas prices; stagflation risk.
• Upcoming Federal Reserve change: Kevin Warsh (Trump appointee), uncertainty over whether he’ll bow to political pressure to lower rates.
• “If inflation is bad, you almost can’t cut rates without being like, this is because Trump said so. There’s no rationale for it.” (Aiden, 92:04)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Gaming Country Building:

  • “If you had to make a trade off, what would you take away? That’s the interesting part.” (Aiden, 04:32)
  • “The constraint is what do you value more?” (Aiden, 04:28)

• On Dictatorship Design:

  • “You did nothing on Vanity. And I’m worried about that.” (Aiden to Doug, 13:00)
  • “Once I’m in power, I need to keep running it! ...Democracy has to go to zero.” (Aiden, 19:26)

• On Diplomacy vs Military:

  • “If you’re gonna have low military, you better be engaged in allies.” (Aiden, 17:19)

• On Real-Life Parallels:

  • “This is like kind of where you want to end up... you have to find a way to do it without sacrificing your long-term competitiveness, which I think is like some countries in Europe are running into right now.” (Aiden, 46:08)

• On Leadership Drafts:

  • “You could get the best out of somebody if you round them out with the right person.” (Doug, 65:49)

• On Political Messaging:

  • “He’s solving the messaging problem of it... able to do some cuts without making it seem like the UK where they’re doing cuts and people fucking hate it... he’s promising to spend on good things instead.” (Aiden, 84:04)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Country Builder Explanation & Setup: 02:18–05:36
• Doug's Country Design: 06:42–18:01
• Aiden's Country Design: 19:03–22:23
• Perry's Country Design: 35:39–39:47
• Community Average Results: 44:24–47:52
• World Leader Draft Segment: 54:43–68:16
• NYC Budget & Policy Discussion: 68:31–84:58
• US Inflation and Fed Succession: 86:53–93:23

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Memorable and Humorous Moments

• Perry’s tongue-in-cheek "corrupt country" design, maxing “bribery and border control,” serves as a satirical take on real-world governance failings (49:00–52:19).
• Banter on historical leaders adjusting to modern tech: “Any old world leader looking at a smartphone: their brain crumbles.” (Doug, 64:56)
• Ongoing ribbing about who would be run out of their own country first in a real-life Pacific island battle scenario (40:02–40:38).

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In Summary:
This lively, sarcastic episode wields a country-design “simulator” as a way to spark debate on governance, public values, and the perennial pains of trade-offs in policy. Alternating between serious critiques (education as a social bedrock, the importance of fiscal transparency) and the playful (corrupt regimes, world leader fantasy drafts), it’s both entertaining and unexpectedly insightful—serving as a spirited civics lesson for listeners who like their politics with a side of irreverence.

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Further Engagement:

• Try your own hand: country.dugdug.com
• Share your country or leader picks with the Lemonade Stand Discord.
• Tune in to Patreon for extended discussions and book club episodes.

Transcript

[Brandon]

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[Aiden]

Zootopia 2 has come home to Disney. Let's go get ready for a new case.

[Brandon]

We're gonna crack this case and prove

[Doug]

we're the greatest partners of all time. New friends, you are Gary Desnake. And your last name. Desnake.

[Aiden]

Dream team.

[Perry]

New habitats.

[Doug]

Zootopia has a secret reptile population.

[Aiden]

You can watch the record breaking phenomenon at home.

[Perry]

You're clearly working at Zootopia 2.

[Aiden]

Now available on Disney. Rated PG.

[Doug]

It's time to come clean. We've talked a lot on this show about how we're part of Vox Media.

[Aiden]

Oh yeah.

[Doug]

They're our network and we have a partnership. We often say that they don't have any editorial input on the podcast and that's a lie. Cause last week they made us censor Atriox address on the show. So I think a foundational trust in the relationship has been broken.

[Aiden]

The fucking Murdoch stepped in. Rupert himself and censored my address. And even though it seemed like I didn't want you to say it, I did because I'm a free speech advocate.

[Perry]

Right?

[Aiden]

That's why right now I think we should all say our addresses. I love as a moment of pushback, don't censor it.

[Doug]

They'll ask to censor that too.

[Perry]

I'm sure I will cut your big.

[Doug]

I'm going to need you to come in. But other, other than that, breaking news about how you can no longer trust this show. Uh, I want to get to building the perfect country.

[Aiden]

It's always been the goal is podcast to build a perfect country. Do you know what I'm saying?

[Perry]

The end state we've covered, the end state is the country that we live in or anyone in the world is now perfect. And once we've done that, we stamp

[Aiden]

off and we're done. And there's a way to do that by moving around sliders.

[Perry]

A bunch of sliders.

[Doug]

I think now that we've done a year of the show where we've shown our expertise in such a range of topics, I think it's clear that we'd be able to run the country.

[Aiden]

People are clamoring for they're saying, run a country. Run a country.

[Doug]

Like what they say to the Patreon all the time? Yes.

[Aiden]

You're not seeing it in the main comments.

[Doug]

It's not in the main comments. In the Patreon comments, they're begging for us to run a country.

[Aiden]

And so we decided to do it. Doug created a system for us to prove our expertise in this subject using

[Perry]

my executive assistant, Claude. Harry, pull this up. We have actually recreated what the Oval Office looks like, because, little known fact, the President actually sits there with a bunch of knobs and dials and you crank them up and down. There's 12 different categories.

[Aiden]

One of Biden's worst choices was take the inflation knob and crank it all the way out.

[Perry]

Makes no sense because why would you crank.

[Aiden]

Why wouldn't you just crank it down? But he was. I think, yeah, it was a big mistake of his.

[Perry]

He cranked the woke thing so hard that it pulled inflation down.

[Doug]

He's in the. He's standing in front of the server room for the nation. Like that. One photo just mixed up the labels.

[Aiden]

Hey, Gary. Squinting.

[Perry]

All right, I threw together a little exercise. This is an intellectual exercise where you are designing your own dream country. You can try it if you want. It's@country dugdug.com and you have 12 different categories. Military, democracy, infrastructure, culture, science, diplomacy, education, business, subsidies, healthcare, vanity housing and welfare. This was inspired by one of those, like, viral build your perfect NBA team type of tweets. Right. So the idea is each one of these categories, you have. You can spend between 0 and 5 points on them. You have 25 points total, and you need to come up with your ideal distribution for a dream country.

[Doug]

And I know what the listeners are thinking. How did you manage to synthesize every single aspect of running a country into just 10 points? And I'd say we've done it again.

[Aiden]

Brilliance, actually.

[Perry]

That's why there's 12. The extra two is what made this entirely comprehensive.

[Doug]

Oh, whoops.

[Aiden]

Well, I think what's interesting about it, though, is obviously you can flip, add things to this category, but what it shows is what. Because I think the constraint, you made the certain number of points way less than the total thing.

[Perry]

Yes.

[Aiden]

So the constraint is what do you value more? I think that's the interesting part is what.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

If you had to make a trade off, what would you take away? I thought that was the.

[Perry]

So we each filled out our own dream country and I submitted this to our lovely Patreon Discord and we got back 1200 submissions. That people put in. So I'm also going to show the average of what our audience thinks a dream country should be with the caveat of, like, look, you can't perfectly illustrate exactly how to run a country through 12 categories. This is kind of roughly based off the US budget. But ultimately it's not. Like budget isn't exactly correct.

[Aiden]

What you're saying is it is scientific. This is the perfect method and we figured it out.

[Perry]

I said, claudia, make no mistakes. So look, so some of these are. Obviously the budget, for example, is not gonna be comparable between military and vanity, for example. But generally the idea is like, if you had a blank slate country that let's say is somewhere in the world, but you're not in a specific area, so you can't be like, oh, because I'm in Europe, I don't have to do X, Y or Z, what would your priorities be? This is your priority as a leader on a blank slate country. And then things just so people are aware. Vanity would be something like focusing on your own, like showcasing yourself as a leader.

[Aiden]

Right.

[Perry]

Like glorifying yourself. Business subsidies, any kind of, you know, focus on industry or direction or supporting things. Diplomacy is external diplomacy, science is any scientific research. Culture is going to be things like tourism, your own country's appeal and sense of national identity, potentially things like sports and other aspects that make people proud or have a sense of national pride.

[Aiden]

I thought vanity included things like. I guess it is kind of same thing, but like statues.

[Doug]

Yeah, yeah.

[Aiden]

Okay.

[Perry]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

All right.

[Perry]

I mean, you could look, there's statue

[Doug]

to remind your constituents of here of how amazing it is.

[Perry]

And democracy is meant to sort of say how much effort is spent towards a, you know, a thorough democratic system with all of the things that go into managing something like that versus you being more autocratic and just kind of doing whatever you want at any time. So you had 25 points to distribute amongst these. We're going to each demonstrate what we think is our dream country and make an argument for why. We're going to show the communities country. And we're going to start with Aiden. Stan.

[Aiden]

Aiden. Stan.

[Perry]

Aiden, can you.

[Aiden]

All the Aiden stands are moving here.

[Perry]

Hold on. One on military and two on diplomacy. All right, sorry, go ahead. I don't need to get ahead of you.

[Doug]

It's. Look, this was a tough exercise, but I think I tried to create a country that emphasized the points that I thought would be create the most healthy, educated populace that would be able to navigate as many problems in the future as possible. So in my mind, I went low. I went low on the like, military end for. As an example.

[Aiden]

Okay.

[Doug]

A country that popped into my head, I'm weak militarily.

[Perry]

No military, no science. You're just a bunch of educated, weak people sitting around waiting to be dominated. If you roll bad, you're next to Russia. You're gone in a month.

[Aiden]

Yeah. If you are next to Russia.

[Doug]

So admittedly, during this exercise, I forgot that I couldn't just pick a location. And in my head I was like, Iceland is an example of a very stable, successful country that has no standing military.

[Aiden]

True.

[Doug]

Mostly due to the lack of importance of their geographic location. Nobody cares about them.

[Aiden]

I guess you could just take a flat is.

[Perry]

Be unwanted. Yeah. No military. No one wants you. Okay.

[Doug]

But Iceland was of my frame of reference for that. I do think the, the difficulty there is like, if, if you look at successful neutral countries that I had in mind for other things like Switzerland or Singapore, they often spend a lot on their military relative to other countries.

[Perry]

Yeah.

[Doug]

In order to maintain their stance of neutrality in the world, like it's. If you're going to be a neutral country in you, you need to have a military presence.

[Aiden]

Singapore say that like they, they, they famously have like, uh, isn't it mandatory service? And like. Yeah. They have all that stuff to make sure that they have a strong enough military so they're not bullied around. Cause they're small.

[Doug]

Yeah. But I gambled on the Iceland position. I think the most important things you'll see, I'm almost maxed out. Education, housing, and then healthcare and welfare are also pretty high. I, I think my basic, my, my basic idea here. It came back to an anecdote where I was interviewing this guy who runs a huge charitable organization in Sudan. And when I was talking to him, he, he talked about how there's a lot of people that are interested in donating or supplying help to Sudan, especially because they're in this civil war right now. Even prior to that, because the country's been in such an unstable place. And oftentimes when people donate, they, they want to provide things like food, something that provides instant relief to some sort of problem. So they feel like they have an immediate impact. That's what people want to see. But he said, as someone who context. This is an American guy who moved there 20 years ago and has lived in Sudan with. Has like a Sudanese family, speaks the local language. Like when he talks to people about what they need in the country, the number one thing they say is education over anything else. And people see education why not like

[Aiden]

big A clips like you airdrop them in? Or is that.

[Doug]

Yeah, you airdrop in the big A clip.

[Aiden]

Wouldn't that Save Studio VHS.

[Doug]

VHS, they pick up the tape. It's like, I watch YouTube, I have the Internet here. And he was explaining how a lot of people see education as the foundation to be able to escape a lot of the problems that the country is experiencing. Because so many things are the cyclical nature of a relatively stuck and uneducated populace. Not knowing how to deal with issues on the ground, not knowing how to communicate or build the government structures needed to build the country to a place where it needs to be. And education is like at the root of being able to develop those things. And that's what people want. They want support building schools. They want that more than anything. I was very surprised to hear that. In my opinion, I feel like education is kind of the foundation for a long term, healthy society. So that's why I almost maxed it out. And then alongside that, I think housing in my mind is the other foundation to like a healthy, happy life.

[Perry]

Well, okay, real quick. This is like your priorities running the government. It's not necessarily there is more or less housing. This is like you want to be involved as the government ensuring that housing is very present.

[Doug]

Yeah. Not necessarily spending, but maybe I misread the prompt but. Or like the government's like priorities should be to like help build these things somehow. It isn't necessarily a one to one relationship with how much you'd spend on it.

[Perry]

Sure, yeah. It's just your priorities.

[Doug]

Yeah, yeah. And I feel like education and housing, housing being this, you know, place of stability, you can't like build your life up or do things if you have housing insecurity. Right. So these things feel like the root of like a long term successful society. Housing. I look at a place like Singapore, like even though housing super expensive, they have a ton of programs that like enabled people and young couples to get into their first homes. They have like a robust public housing system in order to make sure, in order to make sure that the bulk of people have a path to homeownership. Somehow when we talk about places like Vienna earlier last year, like having, you know, good modern social housing available as a counterpart in the market to private housing. And even, even in a place like la, where housing is so unaffordable and so many people are homeless, like you're not, if you're in a housing insecure situation, you're not really able to do anything else with your life because you're constantly in this game of trying to just figure out where you're going to stay that night. And it's really hard to get your life to progress.

[Aiden]

Have you thought about how someone without housing could look up at a big statue of Aiden and feel better about their life? You did nothing on Vanity. And I'm worried that that's.

[Doug]

It's, it's, it is a huge gaping hole in my plan. I will give you that.

[Aiden]

Like, it's just like.

[Doug]

And I could have given it one point for maybe some, like, paintings around. Yeah, around the country or something. Not even statues, just paintings. I thought about that. I thought about docking. Docking housing. One point. Get a few.

[Aiden]

Have a slightly worse house, but at least cease. Here's the thing. I think it's actually crazy to have Vanity Zero and Culture Zero.

[Perry]

That's.

[Aiden]

Dude, that is the spongebob Chrome world.

[Doug]

Okay, I had this.

[Perry]

No science. Like, I, I have almost no diplomacy, no military. So you're like, very much in your own very min.

[Aiden]

Maxed.

[Perry]

Yeah.

[Doug]

I did have this thought of am I building like a Dubai of countries by doing that? I. Not to be a little critical of Dubai specifically, I think because of the way it's built and because of the way it prevents itself, it presents itself, and also the nature of a. How short the country's, like, modern history is. It feels like the culture of Dubai is heavily based around, like, money and modern amenities and like, flashy things. And that doesn't mean it's not a nice place. And it's also, you know, the, you know, it was also built by, like, an enslaved worker base and that part of it. That part of it as well, but with incredible benefits and, you know, educational opportunities, housing, welfare, support for the Emiratis who live there. Am I. Am I building a place? Kind of like that. And I had that thought.

[Aiden]

Perry, can you pull my screen? Because I wanted to guess what Aiden would pick. So I tried my best to fill this out for Sweden, and it's pretty close. But I'll say I think Sweden does it better than you because if you'll notice the few differences.

[Perry]

Sweden.

[Doug]

Hold on. Sweden has more experience than I do. I can be perfect. I've been running countries. I've been running in a country for maybe 48 hours. You just told me that I'm not actually on an island like I thought I was.

[Perry]

But anyway, this is Sweden realizing they have neighbors.

[Aiden]

Sweden, I noticed compared to Your chart, has 4 points in democracy because they value a.

[Perry]

And you put one point in democracy. Yeah, because you're like a dictator who's giving everybody free. Yeah.

[Aiden]

But dictators, giving them no culture. They're not even going to believe in

[Doug]

you because you cared about getting the job done. You know what I'm saying?

[Aiden]

You hit Lee Kwan, you with it. Okay.

[Doug]

Or even welfare is a little higher

[Aiden]

in Sweden than it is in your country. Housing is a little bit lower, to be fair.

[Perry]

Health care is the same. Okay. You're saying Sweden has no business. I want to ask you about this aid because, like, I'm surprised you put two in business subsidies instead of putting that into like more welfare. Why, Why'd you do that?

[Aiden]

I gotta make a little cash.

[Doug]

We're gonna make a little bread.

[Aiden]

Gotta make a little bread.

[Doug]

Most of it goes AIDS.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

the instant government needs a. Look.

[Aiden]

There's no democracy, so.

[Perry]

No democracy and business. Yeah.

[Doug]

My actual thought was, I think I'm not. China was the example that popped in my head. China actually has a relatively low amount of welfare, like as a, as a country. And they relied heavily on the amount they invested in infrastructure and in businesses in order to raise that enormous population out of poverty. And I think a lot of people don't know that. I think I still have welfare pretty high up.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Because I, I think it's more in line with the society I hadn't envisioned. But I think there's room to give there in a way that people don't. Don't think about as much.

[Aiden]

Here's what I'll say.

[Doug]

You can take people out of poverty without having an incredible, like welfare system. I think that's possible.

[Aiden]

I think the two sliders that are non negotiable, that one has to be high. If the other one's going to be low is military and diplomacy. If you're going to have low military, you better be engaged in allies.

[Doug]

Wait, I got two points in diplomacy.

[Aiden]

You got two points.

[Perry]

Points in diplomacy and military.

[Doug]

I'm a volcanic island in the middle of.

[Aiden]

Now.

[Doug]

You get in the, in the ar.

[Perry]

You can't be like, I don't have military because I have incredible geographic defenses. I actually just make up.

[Aiden]

I don't think anyone would kind of want to live in your country. I'm looking at it right now, I guess. Yeah.

[Doug]

You know what I realized I've made. I think I've made like dictatorship. Dictatorship. Iceland.

[Aiden]

Yeah. You've made Singapore Iceland. Actually, you made Singaporean Iceland.

[Doug]

No, I think you.

[Aiden]

That could be fine.

[Perry]

An island that is a giant target for an authoritarian person who's going to come in just Destroy you.

[Aiden]

Authoritarian doesn't necessarily mean aggressive. Like, Singapore is authoritarian.

[Doug]

Kind of.

[Aiden]

Kind of.

[Doug]

It's like they have elections.

[Aiden]

They have elections, but only one party's ever won.

[Perry]

I'm just saying.

[Aiden]

And other parties that tried somehow get their party offices raided and, like, taxed and.

[Doug]

But they're fair elections.

[Aiden]

Yeah. All right, walk out. I can see this. I can see this. Can I show mine?

[Doug]

Yeah, I do want to see yours. Because ultimately, I'm grasping at straws. Right. I think I looked at these, A list of countries I had in my head a mixture of, like, Denmark, Iceland, Singapore and Switzerland. And I kind of went through these factors in these countries, kind of went over how their, like, healthcare and welfare systems function, the amount they invest in infrastructure, like, and then. And then noted things that we've learned over the year from places like China and then tried to piece something together. But that was where I was coming from.

[Aiden]

I mean, I think there's another way to go about it. And I want to show you the. You call it the Atrock apocalypse. I've decided democracy is a failing strategy. There's too much.

[Perry]

You have zero democracy, five military, okay,

[Doug]

I put one point into democracy.

[Aiden]

I have zero democracy, zero diplomacy. We're going all on. Here's what I figured.

[Perry]

You have high inference. Okay.

[Aiden]

I was legitimately thinking about this question. I was taking notes. I was looking at other countries, and I realized they're going to let my dumb ass run a country. And if there's democracy, they're going to vote me out almost immediately. So that's your goal, is less a

[Perry]

great country and more you keep running.

[Aiden]

Once I'm in power, I need to keep running it. And so to maintain that, I'm going to need to change a few things about how it's run. Democracy has to go to zero, military needs to go to five. Because I'm also bad on diplomacy. I don't think people are going to like me that much. So from there, I need to. Here's the thing. I don't think you can go low democracy, authoritarian, if you don't have high vanity. I need statues of me.

[Perry]

Right?

[Aiden]

I need posters of me. We need a lot of that around there so that people recognize that I am the rightful leader. I'm doing a good job, of course. And from there, I kind of tried to have a balanced situation other than I didn't really have any money left for welfare. At the end of the chart,

[Perry]

you put money in housing before welfare.

[Aiden]

Yeah, well, they have the place.

[Doug]

Well, they got to have houses they

[Aiden]

got to have houses.

[Perry]

You've got two in education, two in business subsidies, two in health care, five in vanity, two in housing and zero in welfare.

[Aiden]

That's correct.

[Perry]

Why'd you put three in science? Why do you care about science in this fucked up country?

[Aiden]

I've. First of all, it's like four is three in science. Yeah. I figure first of all, part of the military thing is you got to stay on the cutting edge.

[Doug]

Right.

[Aiden]

I don't want to have an old ass military because then I'm getting, I'm getting Venezuela, you know what I'm saying? They're going to.

[Doug]

So you got to be cutting it.

[Aiden]

So I have to be, I have to be, you know, on the, on the leading edge of military.

[Perry]

Yeah, this is like, you're like Sparta kind of.

[Aiden]

This is a bit of a spartan situation, I would say. I don't know what a modern analog would be. I know North Korea in a way, like a North Korea thing.

[Perry]

I think health care is maybe a little too high for North Korea. Education maybe a little too high maybe.

[Aiden]

But I, Well, I'm sure if you're

[Doug]

not a dissident when I say the

[Aiden]

education is that too there. That's probably how much it costs to put big egg clips on, on screens in schools across the country.

[Perry]

You're running the country but you're still making YouTube videos for your K. Because

[Aiden]

it's a guaranteed built in audience. I have millions of citizens, they're required

[Doug]

to watch big A clips. Like state media.

[Perry]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

And I don't live in the country

[Doug]

because you still live in la.

[Aiden]

I'm not leaving L. A.

[Perry]

You're imagining this like you're here, your life continues, but you're sort of told you inherited, you inherited a country and this is how you're going to like let it run.

[Aiden]

And if you think you can run a country from a distance without a strong military and no democracy, you're an idiot. Like there's only one way to maintain this level of control.

[Doug]

Right.

[Aiden]

So I've, I've, I've, I think realistically applied the constraints that you've given me and done the best job to maintain power. And I think it's, and I think it's not going to be that bad for them, all things considered. What are they missing out on? Democracy, who cares? It's working out pretty well. Culture bind. That's a bit of a downside.

[Doug]

Well, I will say. Okay, so culture was, I viewed it through the lens of like cultural exports, cultural soft power that you have on the rest of the world. And I was like, I think I can let this go.

[Perry]

You know, I mean, it's also internal culture, like how people are proud to be or feel like there's something going on in their country.

[Doug]

You know, I kind of left that part aside, admittedly, and thinking about how that's. I think that's important for people living in the country. I think I viewed it more as like an external thing.

[Aiden]

I thought of as like tourism and history in museums. And I figured since my country is brand new, we're not competing with Greece or France or, you know, it's like, give it up. Nobody's coming to Atriox Dan to see our museums, bro. When I founded it 10 minutes ago.

[Perry]

I feel like you guys are both underestimating how important it is to be liked in the world.

[Doug]

Wait. Diplomacy had two points, Doug. I don't understand five.

[Perry]

And with no military, they can't all be five. They can't all be five.

[Aiden]

I feel like two is a pretty solid. If you put it too. That means it's like, it's a. It's on your priority.

[Doug]

It's on the board.

[Perry]

The priority list.

[Doug]

Yeah. My highest one was a four. I didn't know five would be.

[Aiden]

I think five is almost extreme. You know, this is a bit of

[Doug]

a joke, and this is a scientific process with no holes.

[Aiden]

Yeah, there's no holes in it. You forget that I legitimately, if I'm being more serious about it, I think having a five on something like a five on military is like, you are a war state. You. I mean, that's a huge. That is a massive priority for your country. I mean, it's probably. America would be five.

[Perry]

Okay, hold on. It's not a five, dude.

[Aiden]

No.

[Perry]

Look at our budget. Like, we spend so much. We spend like a trillion, right? Yeah. Out of a seven trillion dollar. I mean, it's probably a four, right?

[Aiden]

It's a four and a half. I mean, you know, I mean, raw

[Perry]

numbers, obviously it's huge, but like, we spend a load on other things.

[Doug]

I, I'm, I am curious when you were making this one. Yeah, maybe this is the opposite of what this is. But I did like, like I said, I did have really successful countries in the world in mind when I was like, you know what, what do I value? What do I think should be prioritized? Do you have countries in your head that you view as the most, like, independently successful? Not what the US could copy or, but. But just countries you admire for their, Their policy?

[Aiden]

I was trying to at first fused the parts I liked about US and China, but it became very difficult through this lens. So I sort of went on a goofier situation.

[Doug]

This infallible lens.

[Aiden]

Yeah. I don't know, it's. It's funny because every one of these you can make an argument about the benefits of five or like a long investment. So it's hard, it was hard to do the trade offs. I think if I really wanted to deprive something, it's obviously vanity. And I think legitimately, I mean, if you look like you said about China, they're pretty low on welfare, but even housing, like in terms of. I was looking at this part of the study of it is government spending on housing by China is actually really low.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

Almost all the massive housing stock we saw, we were driving through there is built by private developers over the past. They make money off it through land sales, through the thing. But like they don't, that's not, they're not spending government tax money.

[Doug]

It's kind of like health care. Like health care spend in Singapore is really low and they do have a system that has like huge private players involved. But it's more complicated than public versus private. You have to like create a system that allows, you know, that health care to remain low, cost, good quality and have these like private players be involved, which is like not the US's system.

[Aiden]

Yeah, exactly. Anyway, what it feels like is like almost what you're trying to do as a country is because if you think of this as points as in focus, it's kind of different. If you think of it as money, it's different. What you're trying to do as a country is find a way to get more points for less money to be really, really efficient. To find like some hack to get more out of it than having to throw more money at it. I think is the, is the dream.

[Doug]

Yeah, there's like a mixture of, you know what's. We're working in this scenario, right. There's like this fixed budget of points. But you know, your budget could be bigger or larger. And there's ways to make efficiency of. You can change the efficiency of how those points are spent depending. For instance, if you're a volcanic island, you don't really need a military.

[Aiden]

The only one, the one that's really interesting is democracy. Because Thea.

[Doug]

Right.

[Aiden]

I mean there's successful countries that don't use that slider at all. Like that one's almost a personal preference. It's not like five is better than one on this one in My opinion it would be. But that's not like you could. That's really just a choice like how what you think is more effective.

[Perry]

And it's whether people are able to influence the direction of government where they can come in and change these sliders

[Aiden]

or they don't want.

[Perry]

If you. Okay, hold on. If you took slide. If you took vanity and you slid to zero.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Perry]

And you took military and dropped that down a bit. You had seven points. Where would those first go?

[Aiden]

Oh, that's a good question.

[Perry]

Because those are like kind of your bits.

[Aiden]

You know what's interesting?

[Perry]

Where do those go?

[Aiden]

What's interesting is I think I'm a person who. I would probably put 2 more into business subsidies.

[Perry]

Damn. Up to 4k.

[Aiden]

Because I think if you're a smaller country, as I'm picturing I am, you really want to.

[Perry]

That's my marketer, dude. Still zero in welfare. That's fucking right, man.

[Aiden]

Yeah. Okay. You put two in welfare.

[Perry]

Okay, put two in welfare.

[Aiden]

So we're not. We're not worse in the world, honestly. Go five in business subsidies. I want to be like a place where people want to, you know, Singaporean, where people want to start a business. And then I would probably put another one into diplomacy. Tuned to diplomacy.

[Doug]

I think on the opposite end of that because I looked at that like what's out of the countries I listed. How do business, you know, what do business subsidies look like in these places? What are the big overarching ones?

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And Singapore has. Is a real like pick the winners mentality. Like make sure like big modern industries have a reason to come here and we have money to invest in those things. I remember even at beyond the Summit there were these opportunities that came up through the Singaporean government, like funding certain types of events. This came up a couple times and I was like, is something like esports was something the government was interested in and you could apply even as like a foreign business for like grants or something. And then on the other end of it, I looked at Switzerland, you know, like a country, I would say a country known for business in a lot of different ways. Yeah. But their main subsidies go to farming in the country mainly as a way of maintaining like food security.

[Aiden]

Right.

[Doug]

And they don't have a lot of subsidies for other. Other industries. They have a business friendly tax environment and kind of treat that as the subsidy. But they just like, like set up what you want here. But we're not going to like play our cards to influence it. And we're only going to subsidize we're or mainly going to subsidize the farming industry. Let you have.

[Aiden]

Yeah, I think based on what your country needs, you can subsidize different things. But I think there in the past few decades there have been countries who have said we want to be leaders in. You can think of Taiwan in semiconductors or what countries that have been like this is a important technological industry. It's going to be big in the future. We want to be leaders in it, we're going to subsidize it.

[Perry]

And all of the Asian tigers did that.

[Aiden]

By and large it's worked. By and large that has been a successful method to be like we have this industry, we're world class in it. We have a cost advantage because we put a little money in from the government and, and now we have expertise because it kind of snowballs. Once you have the subsidy at first you become the best at it and then you get all the demand from around the globe and then you become legitimately on your on fe good at

[Doug]

it and then you can even pull the subsidy after if you need to.

[Aiden]

Right.

[Doug]

Isn't that what happened with Chinese electric cars? Like there's so much money going into it, the industry gets going and then I think in 2022 was when the big subsidies for most of these companies ended and now they just same with solar panels.

[Aiden]

Like China did an inordinate amount of solar panel subsidies and now it doesn't really need them as much because they have a lead in it and in batteries and so people just buy from there. Like they, it just, it works like it's a good way to do it. So I would probably put a lot into that. And then obviously I think yeah, science or education, those are pretty good. The thing about this sounds stupid, but the reason I had education a little lower. Don't call it a truck shithole. It's a gunplay. We're turning it around is Dude, I'm so, I feel like no one knows how to do education really well right now. The examples are our system I think is being destroyed by AI. Like it's not, it's not surviving contact with cheating. And then the Chinese system is like making kids want to commit suicide. Like it's just so insanely intense. I, I, I don't know who's doing an incredible job on education with modern Finland's nailing it. And I don't know what Finland's percent is of like how focused they are or if it's just working out because they're a stable Society. I don't. I don't know.

[Perry]

Actually, because they're a volcanic island.

[Aiden]

Support for this show comes from Shopify.

[Perry]

And if you're starting a country or a business, it's normal to wonder, what if I fail? What if you don't?

[Aiden]

What if you don't?

[Perry]

And what if you had a shopping entrepreneurship platform that could bring a product that no rational, normal human on earth would ever want for any reason to the masses?

[Doug]

Guys, hear me out. I'm selling wholesale fresh fish online just by the boatload, and I need a platform to sell it on. For starters, Shopify is a commerce platform behind millions of other businesses. So why wouldn't they. Why wouldn't they work for my very real, even wholesale fresh fish business? Why wouldn't they work for that?

[Aiden]

What gives you an advantage in fish?

[Doug]

It's actually behind 10% of all E commerce in the U.S. that is insane. Well, the nice thing about Shopify, they have a design studio with a bunch of ready to use website templates.

[Aiden]

That's true.

[Doug]

So surely they have one that works.

[Perry]

We haven't confirmed if there's fish templates.

[Aiden]

I don't know about that.

[Perry]

Time to turn those what ifs into sfx. Cha Ching Shopify. New sale sound with Shopify today.

[Doug]

You can sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com lemonade. Go to shopify.com lemonade. That's shopify.com/lemonade.

[Perry]

SFX Cha Ching Shopify. New sales hound.

[Doug]

Why don't you guys.

[Aiden]

I'm not buying your fish.

[Doug]

Why don't you guys.

[Aiden]

I'm not buying your fish. Support for this show comes from True Work.

[Perry]

Now, we noticed our producer Perry was wearing true work pants, and we said, perry, we'd love to show those off during this ad. And so we did. He's not wearing pants.

[Aiden]

He's not wearing pants.

[Perry]

But naked on that side of the camera, ladies and gentlemen, wish you could see our view.

[Doug]

Well, because we needed them. Admittedly, they did send us a free pair of pants. Not these ones. And I just took them and I've been wearing them. They're fantastic, by the way. Yeah, I love them. I wear them all the time.

[Aiden]

And I. Perry legitimately bought these.

[Doug]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Aiden]

Using our discount code. And then we made him disrobed.

[Perry]

Yes.

[Doug]

Yeah. Because I don't want to share mine.

[Perry]

Perry, by the way, does a lot more real manual labor than us. These are advanced performance Fadricks designed specifically for work on the site. They look so good. I want to give them A try right now.

[Aiden]

Okay. Okay.

[Doug]

Okay. I mean they are great.

[Aiden]

They're great. You don't have to put them on, right?

[Perry]

Keep doing the ad.

[Doug]

Harry's going to have to put them back on.

[Aiden]

And the work doesn't stop just because the weather changes.

[Doug]

Upgrade to the T2 work pin. Stay comfortable no matter what the day brings. Get 15% off your first order at True Work.com with code LEMONADE.

[Aiden]

That's T r u e w e r k.com code lemonade. True work built like it matters because it does. You just stole our producers pants. Really?

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Perry]

Nice. These are really nice.

[Doug]

They're great.

[Aiden]

Support for this show comes from Fora

[Doug]

in every group, Doug, there's the planners and the non planners and maybe you're the guy who helps your friends plan trips or you have a little, you know, business helping people out. But if you're interested in becoming running your travel agent operation, Fora has an all in one platform where you have instant access to supportive to a.

[Aiden]

Bringing a basketball on your trip is not cool and not like knowing where you're going.

[Doug]

Professional booking and payments, tech and extensive training all bundled into one membership. It's not for everybody. It's not. It's maybe not for people named Brandon.

[Perry]

Look, some people put the slider into dribbling a basketball in public and other people like maybe you put it into travel planning and you really like that.

[Doug]

As a for advisor you get best in class training, powerful booking tech, a vibrant global community of experts to get that. Share real insider knowledge to help you launch and grow your own travel business. And again, it's just not for every. It's for people who probably plan things.

[Aiden]

Well, you know, the customer, 2/3 of people.

[Perry]

Maybe it's like a sample.

[Doug]

If we were looking at a sample size of data immediately.

[Aiden]

Our producer planned it.

[Doug]

Our producer planned it because today@foreign travel.com lemonade that's f o r a travel

[Aiden]

advisor, not you guys.

[Doug]

And make sure you tell a lot

[Perry]

of spirit to the church.com lemonade.

[Doug]

Lemonade.

[Perry]

All right, look, this leads into my plan which is largely to create a sort of weird Singapore San Francisco type vibe.

[Aiden]

Okay?

[Perry]

I want the obvious Doug Opolis zero military big in diplomacy. That's my strategy for staying alive. Charming said. I am a supple peach on a tree that any dictator could come and grab. So our goal with this society we're gonna rock in 10 to 20 years, okay? If we stay alive until then. Because zero housing, zero welfare. So things I hardcore maxed on science education and business subsidies is a 3 high high as I could make it. And I think the, the thing here is like honestly a Singapore esque Strat where Singapore, that's what they did. When Lee Kuan Yew came in it was like we are going to be this super, super, super focused education and sort of science engineer focused society. Teachers are going to be really well paid, they're going to be treated with a lot of respect and engineers, doctors, scientists are going to be sort of venerated in our society. And then I agree with needing business subsidies. I think it sounds stupid on paper, but that's true of like Japan post World War II. You know, they did tons of business subsidies. Germany, Korea, like the countries you see that have, aside from China which we just talked about that have massive, massive success in growing these huge industries are largely the government directing resources towards that and as a reminder, importantly defending against other countries coming in and just destroying your, your industry with exports. So I'm imagining a world where China does exist with Dougapoulos. And so actually another thing that influenced this was we talked with Simon, one of our lovely viewers who helps run like AI in a, in a large German company. So this dude, we chatted with him, yeah like PhD student, like super brilliant, has made his own startup, is a really like wickedly smart dude and told us when we were chatting with him I would basically move to America because they, they could pay me insane amounts of money to be involved in the tech industry. But I'm staying here because of like family and friends. Yeah and I thought about that of like a lot of European countries are offering all this free education and incredible like opportunities for their population. And then you have America, who I'm also assuming exists in this world, who will just pay like anthropic is going to come in and pay my people a million dollars to leave and go make AI for them in San Francisco. So business subsidies to me are like we're going to educate the shit out of people. We're going to have a lot of money in science. But then business subsidies are how we ensure, hey, we want you to stay here and actually build business here and protect our industries from just being dominated by China. And then infrastructure I think is like important to make people happy and make science actually able to proliferate. Culture is important because that way people won't leave as hard. Hopefully welfare is just like elephant.

[Aiden]

The room people seem pretty sick.

[Perry]

So here's the thing. If we can survive 10 years, we're going to fucking rock. We're going to Invent our health care. Look, we have about zero healthcare and zero housing infrastructure. Like it helps people out kind of. But that's so they can get to and from work, utilize our science, Our diplomacy is to keep us alive until then. And you might be wondering about democracy too. Why not just be authoritarian? And the reason I was thinking about this. Yeah, I don't want a situation where once we invent all the cool science stuff that makes our country rock, then it just goes to oligarchs. Which is what happened sort of in Korea, it's what happened sort of in the Soviet Union, where there just wasn't the ability for like the benefits of these things to spread or be well managed. So I want enough democracy so that once we get over the hurdle and we invent shit that makes our society safe and healthy, then people can vote in a way that like redistribute. It redistributes from that point.

[Doug]

This is, this is an interesting. You have a holding pattern. You're like, this is. This is my ten year plan, my time cap, my ten year culture.

[Perry]

Look, culture again. This is like tourism. I want people to like us, right? We want to be cool. We want to be like Pre World War I Germany, where we're like, not very fun and don't make a lot of jokes, but we're impressive scientifically.

[Aiden]

What happened after pre world war in Germany? What did they do to see the problem?

[Perry]

The problem is because of this too, on democracy, they might take away some of the business subsidies of the science and put that in the military.

[Aiden]

I'm just telling you.

[Perry]

And then we're in Prussia, I'm using

[Aiden]

my 5 on vanity to make statues of me conquering your country. And we're.

[Perry]

Well, the funny thing is if our country, three countries just suddenly poofed into existence in the Pacific Ocean, Atriokville would immediately take over my country and Aiden's

[Doug]

country, my country, my country would lose out real quick. I will give you that.

[Perry]

And you'd be like, no, we're on a Duncan island.

[Aiden]

He has diplomacy. At least. You would ask. No one would even listen to your call.

[Doug]

I again put one point into diplomacy. So we're, we're trying.

[Perry]

Dude, you know what's also crazy?

[Doug]

I send a guy, I send a guy who's a little drunk to the UN every year.

[Perry]

But that's the thing. You would show up, people would be

[Aiden]

like, who are you?

[Doug]

Oh my God.

[Perry]

It's like if you ask somebody like, oh, did you hear about what's happening in Turkmenistan? They're gonna be like no. And then they're gonna keep. Keep going about their day. That's how they'll respond to your country when you're being invaded. Nobody will care. They won't know who you are. You've got to have some culture, man. You've got to be known. Culture and diplomacy maybe.

[Doug]

I was thinking about this when we made this. There's one category that I did think that we should. We have put energy on this.

[Aiden]

I thought of an infrastructure. I agree. Similar thing.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

I do think. Okay, a larger scale question about this because I think this is a real topic that's been coming up a lot when you read about this type of thing on social media. And it's like this. I'm being really simplified here. But it's the idea that Europe has done a pretty good job more than the other two big powers of America and China on like welfare and quality of life. Yeah, they've out competed on that but they've fallen behind perhaps on like economy and tech. Like these are two areas where they're. They're lagging a bit on the two. And then China is probably doing really well on economy and tech and also pretty decent on infrastructure, quality of life but authoritarian 100%. Like they don't have, they don't have the democracy that you might enjoy.

[Doug]

I would also say like the, the balance of life and labor in China.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Like everybody, everybody has insane work hours. Has to work insanely hard. Even if you know, workers rights there have gotten better in a bunch of areas like we learned about. It's like comparatively the, the hours are insane.

[Perry]

I would also say culture is not as big as a country like China should have. That's obviously China has a ton of culture and history but if you think about the international influence that that's been changing.

[Aiden]

Their soft power has been changing.

[Perry]

Right. But. But as a long recent super. For how giant and powerful they are compared to Japan or America or Britain for the amount of international cultural influence they've had, it's like a lot less than you would expect.

[Aiden]

I totally agree. I mean they had that. That massive movie that broke every box of record and it sold nothing outside of China. It was literally all in China.

[Perry]

The. And yeah the last.

[Aiden]

They've had some games four years. Obviously changing and then obviously the problems with America we've talked about but America has its own America. You know, big on military, done really well on that and leading in some aspects of tech. Like really good in tech.

[Doug]

If I was putting America on this chart, it Would be all maxed on all of them, probably.

[Aiden]

It'd be like, I don't know how you do it. Yeah. Infrastructure pretty low.

[Perry]

Be high. Now, with RFK Jr, we have no science. Our diplomacy is way down. Dude, everything has changed in the last one year.

[Doug]

Our education going down.

[Perry]

Our education's going down.

[Doug]

Business subsidies. Like, it's like it's in the middle. Right. Yeah. I feel like. And then health care.

[Perry]

Health care rocks.

[Doug]

That's a five.

[Perry]

No, I mean,

[Aiden]

we spend so much on health care. I thought about this. America's point allocation would be 5 for health care. We literally spend more per capita than anyone else.

[Perry]

Okay.

[Aiden]

But the quality of what you get is so low.

[Doug]

So this was. This was the. The interpretation of this chart and how you engage with it. This is the big question. Because I don't think points inherently correlated with spending. Because I would say with the way I viewed mine and the way I filled it out, I would put America's health care at. At like a two.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

You know, or. Or three. Maybe like, you know, relative to every country on earth.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

But if you were doing spending. Yeah, it would be max.

[Aiden]

Yeah. It's a weird.

[Doug]

So the way you interact, it's like, this isn't an infallible exercise. This is for fun and, like, a way to explore different, you know, ideas about these countries. But, yeah, I think that's worth saying is, like, spending doesn't correlate with success.

[Perry]

Yeah. In fact, let's tie this to what our Discord users actually did. And this has, like you said, it's been a fun exercise. There's been various people who are asking, oh, why? Why don't you should have information about where you are in the world and, like, budget and all these different things? So maybe we make it way more complex in the Future, but. From 1200 submissions.

[Aiden]

Drumroll.

[Perry]

This is the average of what our community. Hold, hold. There we go. This is the average of what our community picked. Now, it doesn't map exactly to individual numbers, but we're looking at like a 1.3 in military, like a 2 1/2 in democracy.

[Aiden]

They're not gonna like my country.

[Perry]

3 in infrastructure, a 1 1/2 in culture, a nearly 3 in science, a nearly 2 in diplomacy. Education is the highest, and that's like 3.2 very low. Business subsidies, which surprises me. That's like 0.8. Healthcare almost exactly at a 3. Vanity, extremely low. Not surprising. That's like, point.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Perry]

Why did. Who even put. Whatever. Housing is about 2.7 and welfare is at about 2. So it's more balanced. But education is a clear kind of front runner. Infrastructure is a clear front runner. Science is pretty high. Health care is pretty high. Housing is pretty high.

[Doug]

I got to say, this is pretty close to mine. This is pretty close to Aidan Stan.

[Aiden]

This is close.

[Doug]

Maybe a couple more points. In democracy, I think when you think

[Aiden]

about livability, this is where the average person wants to live. I truly believe, I think like day to day quality of life. I think for leaders or for a country trying to plan for the future, maybe some of this stuff. Like I think for example, something like business subsidies, that's a thing that for the regular person it's like, why do I give a. Like I don't care.

[Perry]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Aiden]

But then like as a leader, you do it because it creates a lot of jobs down the road and you know, whatever. It's like one of those things. So I, I, I, I don't disagree with it. Like this would be, this is like kind of where you want to end up. It's just you have to find a way to do it without sacrificing your long term competitiveness, which I think is like some countries in Europe are running into right now where, you know, like the German welfare model is running into the fact that their auto industry is now getting cooked by China and they have to figure out how to, like that's the thing they're dealing with. But it's like quality of life there is pretty ice. I lived in Germany. I really like it, people like it. So it's a thing you have to balance. I don't, I don't. Yeah, I mean, there's no answer, but

[Perry]

this feels a little idealistic with military barely above one point and diplomacy under two. Like, wait, I feel like you can't at some point. Again, a lot of this is about the exercise of the circumstances around your country. But I think if you assume that you are within striking distance of any antagonistic country, like, that's dangerous, man.

[Doug]

This doesn't add up to 25 though, does it? People must be finishing submissions with overspending points. Because I'm looking at this and I'm

[Aiden]

like, do they get more points?

[Perry]

No, I mean it's potentially. My code is wrong. I did this morning someone military. So the average is, you know, Democracy is like 2.2. Infrastructure is like 3 and military was at 8 trillion. And so somebody, I realized I didn't have like validating on my server.

[Aiden]

I was gonna, I was gonna F11 and edit it and go to the Thousand on military and put everything on zero. But I think you guys.

[Perry]

But no, I fixed it. I mean potentially it's wrong.

[Doug]

So I guess the interesting part here

[Aiden]

is like what, you know, on. If you're talking about broad based thousand plus people, what do they value? They want better health care, they want better education, they want better infrastructure. And that, that seems to track with what we've been saying on this podcast. Like that's, that that's crazy.

[Perry]

I'm actually a little surprised by how high science is. I thought, I thought that would have instead been pushed more into something like welfare or business subsidies to be honest or culture, I guess people really value. And this would, you know, this would be like fundamental science research led by the government. Part of the reason I pushed into that is like that that is incredibly valuable for a country. Right. If you think about America and what

[Aiden]

that's created to be dominant come from like came from military. Yeah. So I think like a ton of modern medicine.

[Doug]

I think we've, we've talked a few times on the show about how like the different, different historical institutes getting massive funding from the government is something that you know, the private sector can never really replace because the long term investments are just too much for any private company to be interested in. Like if the turnaround on the profit of some research is like 10, 20 plus years, it's only the government that's going to be interested in taking on that project. And that's when we say science, it's like that's why you need like grants and research for that type of thing. Because that's how you get incredible, you know, medicine or things like the breakthroughs.

[Perry]

Okay, one final exercise I do want to see. Let's say we're literally just optimizing for the most corrupt country possible, where you stay in power. Perry, pull this up. 12 categories. But now they are military, secret police. Now we're talking state media, bribery, border controls, prisons, oligarchs, staff purges, nepotism, cult of personality, illicit goods and sham elections.

[Aiden]

What Atriopolis needed. This is what I was looking for. I didn't have the rights.

[Perry]

You wanted all of this contained in military. We know that spiritually that's what you were doing.

[Aiden]

Spiritually that's what I was doing.

[Perry]

Okay. I'm actually kind of curious what you guys think of these categories.

[Aiden]

What are the most important genuinely make the most corrupt country?

[Perry]

Yes. If you're trying to have the most bribery to stay in power forever. Bribery.

[Aiden]

Max bribery to max. State media to four.

[Perry]

Yeah. You need high Right.

[Doug]

Oh, this is tough.

[Perry]

Do you need a lot of state police? Secret police? If your state media is really good, your bribery is really good.

[Aiden]

It's really good.

[Perry]

I mean, you kind of oligarchs and bribery is a little bit over the same. You want cult of personality, Right? We need a little in there, maybe even a lot. We need, like a crazy person.

[Aiden]

It's funny because this one, I almost want fives on everything more than the other one. Yeah. These are all important things.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Aiden]

All darks only need one one because there's one.

[Perry]

Military has to be five, right?

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

You can't do it without a few staff purges.

[Perry]

No, that's not true.

[Aiden]

You could have small military. You could have a small military and a big secret police. I actually think that's what you'd want.

[Perry]

Really?

[Aiden]

Because you're not aggressive at this point

[Doug]

because the military could be one of the sects that could overthrow you.

[Aiden]

Yeah. You do not want to struggle for your military.

[Perry]

But if your bribery is that high, I'm worried about international, like, again, you got to assume that other countries might try to stop.

[Aiden]

What I'm saying is we created a shithole. Nobody wants to. It's like. It's almost like how South Korea does not want to reunite with North Korea because it would be like a crisis. Like, there's so many people coming over. Like, they. I mean, they sort of do, but when they talk about it actually happening, if it were to read for Guy, it's like it. It would be like almost like a refugee crisis. I mean, it'd be so many people that have entirely different standards.

[Perry]

I just feel like, dude, military is low and you're a horrible country that you have to have enough as a deterrent. I think you would need it in military.

[Aiden]

Give me a little bit. But it's paper tiger. I want a big secret police.

[Perry]

Okay. All right. All right. So fine. We'll do four on secret police, two on military. Are you doing staff purges? You feel like that's important?

[Doug]

You need to purchase staff.

[Perry]

Do you need to purchase staff?

[Aiden]

What's the point? They're all bribed and corrupt anyway.

[Perry]

That's true.

[Aiden]

Cycling them out.

[Perry]

I think we can either put. We either put. Throw some into oligarchs or staff purges. I don't think you need both.

[Doug]

I guess if you want it to be the most corrupt country possible, you wouldn't purge the staff at all.

[Aiden]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[Doug]

And you. You certainly don't need the sham election.

[Perry]

Yeah, right. I think Sham election, obviously nepotism. Our kids are a little spoiled brats anyways. They need to earn their corrupt country, I think.

[Doug]

I think you put one into oligarchs and then you probably put the rest into presence.

[Aiden]

I don't want to be America. I'm not trying to make something that crazy.

[Perry]

How much do you feel like border control is necessary though, right? Every, like, super awful, actually.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Perry]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

You think about like the.

[Perry]

You got, you got to have Berlin Wall or whatever.

[Aiden]

Like if your country is bad enough, they want to leave.

[Doug]

Right.

[Perry]

Or North Korea.

[Aiden]

Like, yeah, you have to, you have to, you have to get.

[Perry]

I think it might almost be more important than prisons.

[Aiden]

I think you need to go five on border control.

[Perry]

Five on border and then zero prisons.

[Aiden]

If they leave, they'll leave.

[Perry]

Ladies and gentlemen, this is our dream country.

[Aiden]

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[Brandon]

I'm Mitch, first, two time Indy Resell champion, championship MVP and forward for the US Women's National Team. Before I went pro, I graduated from Harvard with a degree in psychology, which comes in handy more than you think. Any athlete pursuing greatness knows there's a certain mentality you have to have. What people don't know is what that costs. In my podcast, Confessions of an Elite Athlete, I sit down with the best athletes in the world and explore the psychology mindset and unseen battles on the path to greatness. So take a seat and learn from the Confessions of an elite athlete on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This week on Net Worth and Chill, we're diving into another edition of Am I the Asshole Finance Edition. And trust me, these money dilemmas will have you questioning everything. I'm breaking down real stories from real people who are navigating financial situations that range from money mildly awkward to absolutely unhinged. And I'm giving you my unfiltered take on who's in the right and who needs a serious reality check. Because let's be real. When it comes to mixing relationships and finances, someone's always asking if they're the asshole Learn how to set boundaries, protect your wealth, and avoid becoming the villain in your own financial story. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.com/your rich BFF.

[Aiden]

Okay? But here's what I say. Go back to our real countries. Pull up your Pope Dagestan, or pull up the Chat's country. We've got Chad's country. We need to figure out either our countries or Chat's country. Who's going to lead these countries? Because we can't do it forever. We're already past our prime. Who's going to lead these countries? And so that I've taken your idea of interpreting meme formats in a different direction and this.

[Perry]

We have not seen this. Oh, God. Okay.

[Doug]

Oh my God.

[Aiden]

Is a world leader draft in the style of. Pick your top five NBA players. Okay, so you have $10. 10.

[Doug]

That's it.

[Aiden]

To build a cabinet of three. Okay. And these three will work together to run your country. Okay? On the top row we have the $5 greats. Abraham Lincoln, FDR, Alexander the Great, Nelson Mandela, Lee Kwan Yu. I mean, you have a military society. You want Alexander the Great. I don't know if he's gonna adapt well to the modern times.

[Perry]

Yeah, that's true.

[Aiden]

Okay, in $4 you have Gandhi, Ataturk, Churchill, Caesar and Marcus Aurelius. $3 you have Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Elizabeth the First, Margaret Thatcher, Otto von Bismar. $2 you have Cleopatra, Henry VII, John F. Kennedy, Ma, and Trump.

[Perry]

Okay?

[Aiden]

And then on $1 you have Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, and Putin. Maybe some, maybe some hidden gems down there you can find.

[Doug]

What's Saddam do? Just kidding. I'm just kidding.

[Aiden]

I mean, I do feel like Saddam got put in the big league,

[Doug]

if anything. If anything, he's punching him up.

[Aiden]

Yeah, he's punching above his weight.

[Perry]

I. I think he's just stoked to be on this board.

[Aiden]

It's not scientific, all right? It's just.

[Doug]

No, no, I think you. This is clearly really serious.

[Aiden]

I just wanted to get some of the famous world leaders and I tried to throw them on a chart. So you guys have ten dollars to pick.

[Perry]

Ten bucks.

[Aiden]

Ten bucks to pick a cabinet of three.

[Perry]

Ok. And let's, let's assume roughly, we're going with Chat's average.

[Doug]

If you're picking Alexander in the smartphone era, bro, you're lost. Yeah, that's a lost five dollar pick right there.

[Aiden]

I'll do mine right now. I'll do Alexander the Great out of military society. Alexander's my five dollar. Otto Von Bismarck's my three. And I'll throw in Trump because.

[Doug]

Wait, what's, Sorry, what's my budget?

[Perry]

What's my budget?

[Doug]

Budget.

[Aiden]

Which means there's no way you could take 2, 5.

[Perry]

I just want to just again, for, for people listening. He took Trump, which is $2, over JFK, by the way. Are you assuming he's going to die in a year?

[Aiden]

Is that a military society? I know, time for weakness.

[Perry]

Okay, got it. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense.

[Aiden]

Trump, Trump can't die.

[Perry]

Why is JFK in $2?

[Aiden]

Trump has. There's been like four assassinations on Trump and he hasn't died.

[Perry]

Can you explain to me the leadership properties of Cleopatra from 30 BC?

[Doug]

We put thatch above Kennedy.

[Aiden]

He didn't make it that long.

[Doug]

Wait, Doug had a good question.

[Aiden]

I was trying to cover different styles of leadership.

[Doug]

If I pick the leader, do they have the same. Like if I pick John F. Kennedy, does he die in a couple years? If he's the leader of my country.

[Aiden]

A couple years. These are three people who have to get in a room and work together to build your society. Okay. And you're sort of taking their ideals. Like if you picked Thatcher, you would want that type of.

[Doug]

Right.

[Aiden]

Well, I'm austerity or.

[Doug]

I'm not picking that.

[Aiden]

Yeah, well, you seem like a Thatcher guy.

[Doug]

And Genghis Khan, you know, his, his morals were shaky at best, but other than them, it's really just a listen.

[Perry]

Yeah, you wouldn't want Julius Caesar over. Dude, if you're going military, you go Genghis Khan or Napoleon or Alexander the Great.

[Aiden]

Well, you know, Genghis Khan kind of really rode the horses with moving archers.

[Perry]

Oh, but Alexander was real pure of heart. What are you talking about?

[Aiden]

Alexander, he studied under Aristotle, right? He knows his shit. He's got, he's got real military strategy. He'll know how to move tanks.

[Doug]

Wait, wait, wait.

[Perry]

Genghis Khan covered a lot more. Okay, where. Whatever. So look, I. The obvious, I gotta grab a five dollar one for me and it's got to be charged.

[Aiden]

Before you say anything, is that if I have mispriced something, that's your advantage. No, you're.

[Perry]

No, you're right, you're right.

[Aiden]

It's when you find like arbitrage. It's an arbitrage. It's when you find a, you know, Steph Curry, he's not, he's not in the five dollar tier. He picks Steph Curry, it's like, okay, I've, I've.

[Perry]

You know, that's a Good point. I would take 10 pull pots. If you put enough pole pots in front of a typewriter, imagine the amount

[Doug]

of people I could kill.

[Aiden]

Yeah, 10 pull pots. You have no country left.

[Perry]

Okay, I, I would, I would have to go Lee Kuan Yew or fdr. Lee Kuan Yew. Because my society was literally modeled in part after it.

[Aiden]

You definitely want.

[Perry]

Yeah. Which is interesting. I didn't get to some of the quotes. Lee Kuan Yew was like, really against welfare. Like here's a quote. When people get equal handouts, whether or not they work harder or better, everybody then works less hard. The country must go down. He was like, really against welfare, which is interesting. So I would kind of go more towards fdr, who did a lot of like countrywide organizing towards important efforts, but also cared about government wide programs, which is important to me with the business subsidies. That was, you know, those Lee Kuan Yew as well. But I think I'd go FDR.

[Aiden]

Okay.

[Perry]

As my, as a $5 pick. And then I would do five pole pots.

[Aiden]

No, that's not three people total. Okay, well, you have FDR.

[Doug]

I mean, I'm going for a crazy lineup recency bias. I'm picking up Mandela.

[Aiden]

Mandela, okay.

[Doug]

A man of the people. Brings everybody together. Takes time to learn about his fellow man. Just read a lovely chapter about him.

[Aiden]

And you did just humankind, you did talk about Mandela.

[Doug]

So the recency bias is taking me over there.

[Aiden]

Okay, you got Mandela, so I've got Mandela.

[Doug]

And I'm picking up, I'm picking up attitude for 4. Transform the country.

[Aiden]

Yep.

[Doug]

Made it probably the most important person in Turkish history. Maybe some recency bias there too.

[Aiden]

Okay.

[Doug]

But I'll call that. Seems like a get it done type of guy.

[Aiden]

And I work well with Mandela.

[Doug]

I know Mandela will get along with maybe, maybe round out some Ataturk's hedges.

[Aiden]

All right, you got Mandela and Ataturk. All right. I mean, here's the problem. Because you spent $9, which means you have to finish in the bottom tier. You have to get.

[Doug]

And I know you're looking at the bottom tier and you're thinking, who is getting thrown in this lineup? Aiden, it's just a throw.

[Perry]

A little Hitler garnish on your sauce.

[Aiden]

They can balance it out. Mandela and Hitler is your choice.

[Doug]

Hitler? But he can only paint. Yeah, I want the painting I'm throwing in.

[Perry]

Your country doesn't even have military for him to abuse. Dude, he's going to sit around hanging out, enjoying the housing I'm throwing in.

[Aiden]

Put Putin. You're throwing in poo.

[Doug]

And is he? Is he. I don't know what he'll do in my guy.

[Perry]

I think, respectfully, he'll kill your other two leaders. He will assassinate them or take over your country.

[Doug]

The dollar tier is rough.

[Aiden]

The dollar tier is rough, but the dollar tier. I do think Putin's probably mispriced if you look at this tier. And so if you're picking dude, he's

[Perry]

the most likely to take over your country.

[Doug]

You absolutely most likely. Most likely Hitler. Most likely.

[Aiden]

Of those five, you think. You think Adolf Hitler's going, damn, Putin's mogging me?

[Doug]

Here's what I'm saying. I pick up.

[Aiden]

Pooh.

[Doug]

I pick up. Because he's got the KGB history.

[Aiden]

Right?

[Doug]

And I'm thinking Mandela wears him down and turns it. And we have.

[Perry]

We read. Just keep pouring him tea, being really nice.

[Doug]

Putin runs our, like, intelligence.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

You know.

[Aiden]

Oh.

[Doug]

Give a lot of power over your

[Aiden]

secret service and intelligence. Limit his worst instincts. Now you're locked in. You're Mandela, Ataturk and Putin.

[Doug]

You cannot tell me that isn't a crazy lineup.

[Aiden]

Yeah. I mean, what I have, I have Alexander the Great Trump and who? Otto von Bismarck.

[Perry]

Dude, Auto is way underpriced. I'm going. Fdr, he runs my business. Subsidies, general government program organizing towards science. Okay, right. That's that. He did that a whole bunch. That makes total sense. Auto von Bismarck, like I said, I need a lot of diplomacy, not a lot of military. I'm trusting him on diplomacy. But then because he's a little military focused. Little allegiance focused. Yeah. He helps with trade with other countries. Cleopatra, my two dollar. She's my culture. Okay? Because what's a way to prevent myself from being taken over by crazy assholes like Vladimir Putin in Aidan's country? That's right. My Cleopatra starts a dalliance with Putin. Okay. With Rome a little bit with Mark Antony and Julius Caesar. Right. We form a couple of romantic allegiances in my country. Safe up until we invent DGI.

[Doug]

What. What about. Can I pick up first 10 years? Mao.

[Perry]

Okay.

[Aiden]

You get the full mouth.

[Perry]

You have to take the full mouth. I think you get the full.

[Aiden]

You get the. The full. Now you don't get the unifi.

[Doug]

I would maybe say first five to ten years. Ma. At $2 a steal.

[Aiden]

A steal.

[Doug]

But if you have to round it out with the back half, it gets tougher.

[Perry]

No, you. You also.

[Doug]

It's a tougher ch.

[Perry]

Full jfk, like his dead body's laying in the office for a Decade.

[Doug]

You get the full.

[Perry]

You get full. Okay, let's, you got to stick with them for like.

[Doug]

Yeah, no, I think you said $3. I think I, I, you know what I'm saying? By, I got a fire lineup. I got Mandela editor. Putin. Yeah, four, four people would be too crowded.

[Aiden]

Brandon Mandela, Gandhi.

[Perry]

Stalin.

[Doug]

Controversial Gandhi. Weak pick.

[Aiden]

Weak pick. You think Overpriced.

[Doug]

That's overpriced. Gandhi's overpriced.

[Aiden]

You could do an all Rome. You could do like a Julius Marcus Aurelia. No, I guess Cleopatra. You could do like a 4, 4, 2 situation.

[Perry]

Yeah, no, you just run it back.

[Aiden]

You run it back.

[Doug]

What about Cleo? She is sleeper pick.

[Aiden]

It's Cleo, sleeper pick. I don't know what, I actually don't know what her leadership style. I only know her in the context of, you know.

[Perry]

Yeah, it was just, they got taken over by Rome.

[Doug]

I, I, I think you actually take anyone from like that far back and they just crack. Their brain crumbles at the first set of a TikTok.

[Aiden]

So it's just you take the leader you want and then you get some.

[Doug]

You ever seen the end, you know, the end of the Raiders of the Lost Ark? That's, that's, that's any old world leader looking at, looking at a smartphone.

[Aiden]

So you're going like fdr, Cleopatra, Henry viii.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

You're just knocking them out of the picture. You're getting an FDR clean.

[Doug]

You know, if you're listening to this and you've, you have did not participate in making the, you know, charting out your own country or picking your world leaders. Post your picks.

[Aiden]

Yeah, post your picks.

[Doug]

I want to know your picks.

[Aiden]

Go to the discord. Post your picks. If you think you, I, you know, I've left some errors here. So if you found some mispriced leaders and you want to show me the ideal line, there's going to be a

[Doug]

couple like cow, she savants. You just find the crack.

[Aiden]

The line turns out that Pol Pot actually works really well in combined. In his early years he worked with him.

[Doug]

That's what I'm saying. There's a, there's like a, there's a synergy aspect here where it's like you could, you could get the best out of somebody if you round them out with the right person.

[Aiden]

What's the perfect military one? If you're trying to make the most aggressive nation the most aggressive.

[Doug]

Genghis Khan is a sleeper pick there. Even at $3.

[Perry]

You do, you do Napoleon, Genghis Khan and Caesar, you drop Alexander the Great. You let those three just go out and take over every different part of the country world.

[Aiden]

That's a pretty good one. Napoleon, Genghis Khan and Caesar. It'll be so bad.

[Doug]

Alexander.

[Perry]

Alexander was a bit of a Nepo, baby. Dude, we were talking about it last week when I gave that fresh update on the Battle of Karenia.

[Aiden]

You know, I just figured you can't have. You can't be the great and not be in the five dollar tier. You know what I'm saying? That's a goat status.

[Perry]

But they didn't even call him that at the time. The Romans just called him later. They're gonna call me the Doug the great in 50 years and that doesn't mean right now I'm a badass.

[Aiden]

Not after your picks, bro. They're calling you. Well, yeah, give us your. Give us your picks on the discord. We'd love to see them. I think that's a pretty fun experiment.

[Doug]

Did you pick your line?

[Aiden]

I told you my line. It was. It was Alexander the Great.

[Doug]

Oh, my bad.

[Aiden]

Otto von Bismarck and. And the Trump.

[Perry]

All right. Oh, wait, hold on. You should say that because I didn't hear that either, so. I think you just didn't.

[Aiden]

Yeah, well, it was more of a joke. What my actual line would be, dude, I think Lincoln's kind of goated. I wrote a Lincoln book. Man's a good leader.

[Perry]

Yeah, yeah. Lincoln, I get it. You think he's great. Lee Kuan, you sucks. I get it.

[Aiden]

That's not what I'm saying. I also really like Napoleon in some aspects. Lincoln, Napoleon, jfk. JFK teaches Lincoln. They both presidents, they have a lot of connective tissue. He teaches them about certainly modern times, but the 60s, there's a lot of

[Perry]

tissue caught up for sure.

[Aiden]

And then they put Napoleon, you know, get him on the military.

[Doug]

My lineup, Dust series, man.

[Perry]

Okay. What I do Donald Trump, $2 eight Hitlers. We do Celebrity Apprentice.

[Aiden]

Dude, how about you do Hitler, Stalin, Paul Pot. You save seven bucks and you let him. You just put them in a room, let them kill each other.

[Perry]

Yeah. And then you collect the interest on it.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Perry]

You get five out of the future in 200 years. No, that's good, that's good.

[Aiden]

All right, well, now that we've solved all that, I don't think there are gonna be many issues in the world going forward. But for now, there still are. So let's cover what's going on.

[Perry]

It was only this last week. Once the UN proposes all of that,

[Doug]

I'd like you to think about the holistic picture of what I've seriously drawn out as is the greatest country of all time. It's a small island nation in the Arctic. That's not Iceland. It has maybe, maybe hundreds of thousands of people. We've invested heavily in housing, education. There's no democracy, however, very little democracy. And it's run by Nelson Mandela, Ataturk and Vladimir Putin. If I could just. If I could, could just synthesize this serious evaluation of the world we live in and. And my values.

[Aiden]

That has summed it up.

[Perry]

So bummed he comes back to life. It's like this. This hole is what I got.

[Doug]

Brings that back to life.

[Aiden]

You think it's after he dies?

[Perry]

Oh, well, I. I guess if the country existed right now, I'm assuming it's

[Aiden]

in two years after that he realizes I'm losing.

[Perry]

Oh yeah.

[Doug]

It's just a transfer.

[Aiden]

It's kind of a good thing because you're saving Russia in a way.

[Doug]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Aiden]

You're ending the war in Ukraine and the east rulers.

[Perry]

That's a new exercise we can do in the future. If we could swap leaders across every country, how would we achieve. Yeah, how would we achieve world peace?

[Aiden]

We should do that. Leader swap. Okay, world updates, world news. We have a little bit time left this episode and I think, Aiden, I want to start with the story you were talking about off pod, which is, I think, interesting, which is we've. Mom, Donnie has come out today and said that he has officially balanced New York's budget, which is a pretty insane claim. It's only been a few months. Yeah, that's a pretty powerful thing to do.

[Perry]

He posted this image with a bunch of sliders. He slid welfare down.

[Aiden]

He's like, I got Ataturk. And I got.

[Doug]

He just touched the right dials. It was crazy.

[Perry]

And we're honored to welcome our another share of housing. Vladimir Putin.

[Doug]

He talked about Ataturk, another New York mayor with weird connections to Turkey. I. Yeah, I think he came into office and the deficit that they were coming in with was like $12 billion. And I think something I really appreciate about Mamdani in his position so far, as admittedly someone who doesn't live in New York is. He seems to be very forward in all of his communication. I think his comms team does a really good job of getting him out there. Him clearly explaining concepts of what it's like actually like to govern a place. Him putting the budget at such a front position of his communication is really impressive in the way he's gone about it so far, in my opinion.

[Aiden]

I super agree because I don't see anyone else doing it, leaders anywhere, taking a real effort to try and get the public to understand there is a budget, this is what we spend it on. This is the sacrifice we have to make to balance it like that. Most politicians have given up on that because the average person doesn't seem to care. And that's allowed this bad incentive system where every leader's incentivized to take on a lot of debt and just kick the can to the next guy. And him not doing that on its own, regardless of anything else on its own. I'm super impressed with that. I really do appreciate it. I hope it is successful politically for him and I hope it inspires other leaders to do more because I think it's important. I don't. Again, I would like to talk to you more because I think you know more about this specific issue.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

Of like how he was able to balance it or whether there's some cons to that. But the idea of just making it an important thing I think is cool. And as you get some context here is that the city of New York is like 90 to $100 billion in debt from previous deficits. And the deficit going into this administration was 12 billion a year that he is now apparently closed.

[Perry]

And also it's important they cannot just like take out more loans. They ha. They are legally required to balance the budget.

[Aiden]

So that is technically true. However, the government of the City of New York is $100 billion in debt because you can. You can actually get around that. They found ways to issue bonds for things that allow you to like, that's why they have all this day. Even though they're legally supposed to balance it, they don't technically. And so this is the first time it's like kind of being seen as a priority to get our fiscal situation in order. It's not going to solve all the debt problem. But if they're not increasing it, if they balance the budget, then naturally growth will take care of the debt problem. So I think this is like a serious. I mean, it's a cool thing to do. I would like to know more about. I don't know the specifics, so.

[Doug]

Yeah, well, so the earlier communication about it before today was. Mom, Donnie was laying it out like, here's all the ways we're looking for cost savings without making a bunch of concessions on the programs that he has wanted to put into place. Things like the universal childcare. Right. Yeah. And by cutting things like city worker overtime hours or through a broad audit of spending. They wanted to cut costs, but still had this giant gap to fill of, I think about like, $5 billion for the year. And initially he had. When that messaging came out, he said, I'm in a position where I need the state to push through an increase in taxes on the wealthiest people in New York or we're going to have to do something like raise property taxes, which he actually got a lot of pushback to, even within New York City. And he was stuck in this spot where they didn't. He didn't have, like, a clear way to close this much of a gap in the budget.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And now he has kind of a renewed cooperation with the governor. I think it's Hochul or Hochul. Hochul.

[Aiden]

I think it's Hochul.

[Doug]

Hochul is running for reelection. And even though they've kind of clashed in the past, Mamdani gave his endorsement. And after that, they have been a lot more cooperative in what they've wanted to move forward. One of the things is this new tax on second homes in New York City over a value of $5 million. And that's expected to raise, I think, like, $500 million in tax revenue. So there's these small bumps there. But also the state has agreed to send, I think, for the next two years, a bunch of money to New York City. And that isn't locked in for the long term, but the $4 billion from that is a huge needle mover for closing this. And the other thing they have decided to do is they are delaying or payments to the New York City pension fund, which is for all, excuse me, unionized municipal workers. So this applies to, like, firefighters, you know, other positions around the city that the city employs. And there was a raise in those payments a long time ago because the expected returns of the pension fund were expected to go down. I think they raised it in, like, 2013, but now they're delaying those payments as a way to save money temporarily. So I think the criticism here. I think there's a really. There's a really partisan criticism. I saw in, like, the New York Post, where they're talking about, like, this is already Mamdani's socialist failure. He's, like, stealing money from the state in order to fund this, which is kind of ridiculous because he came into office and this deficit already existed. Like, he's fixing a problem that already existed. And also, you can make the argument that New York City contributes way, way more tax revenue to the state then it draws back from it. Yeah. And now the argument you can make is New York City is seeing a bit more of that tax money returned in these payments from the state in order to close this gap. The problem is this only seems to hold up if this relationship with the current governor continues, if she stays in power, like, and, you know, subject to any disagreement in the future. And it's a lot of. It's a lot of dependency on state money that they're willing to commit right now. And if that goes away, then, you know what happens. You need to find, you need to make up for this in other ways. And the one concession that he's managed to get on an increase in taxes doesn't actually increase tax revenue by that much. So it's like he solved the problem seemingly for this year.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

But how long will that continue into the future?

[Aiden]

No, that's only fair. I will say, I think it's interesting that if he had a slider on diplomacy, it seems to be a five.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

Because his ability to get concessions from a diverse enough group as Trump and Hochul is like, she, she was seemingly attempting to block his mandate like he was, she was trying to stop him from getting the taxes raises he wants, and now they're buddy, buddy and is sending $8 billion total.

[Perry]

Well, it's, it's not that she's blocking it.

[Doug]

Right.

[Perry]

It's just that she has to do it.

[Aiden]

Right.

[Perry]

It's not under his control as, as the city mayor. Right. It's like they need the state legislator and the governor to agree, like, we are going to send you guys money.

[Aiden]

That's what they're doing. Now, what I'm saying is originally he was trying to raise taxes on the wealthy in New York. And he said, if I don't get the ability to do that because I need state approval, I will raise property taxes.

[Perry]

Okay. So, same thing.

[Aiden]

It was setting up for a battle with her, is what I'm saying. And instead that has been put aside and they're now friends and he's endorsing her and he's getting what he needs from the state. So it's. I don't know. I just. He's pretty good at playing the game in a way. I don't. However, that works.

[Doug]

Dude, that's what I admire so much about him. I think he's, he's managing to maintain a lot of what, like, he, he stands for, while also understanding that I need to play ball with people in order to accomplish my goals. I'm not saying there's zero to criticize him for or anything like that. I just see a guy who understands that his like he needs to cooperate with other people to get shit done but isn't compromising his long term vision. He's still making like concessions along the way. It's not like everything Mamdani promised is like in place all of a sudden. But I, I think it's just the way he's going about it. Maybe I'm falling for the Riz in a way.

[Aiden]

It depends. Like, but I, I just, like I said, like you said, I agree. It just feels pragmatic. It feels like he is willing to, to sacrifice some things for the, for his longer goal. And that, that's impressive because he could have totally gone pure ideological and flamed out or like just not, not made the progress and things been blocked by other things and just been like, well I try. Like I did. Exactly. But he's like trying to make real livable progress. So we'll see. It's interesting.

[Perry]

You know what's funny is so I've like watched a couple of his press releases or press conferences now where like. And so the two things that he's like drilled into me is what I've said to you and then you've corrected them and added additional nuance which I think is interesting because it's like he just done a really good job. For me as somebody who's not as deep in New York politics and being like, this is the thing we legally have to balance the budget. We need Governor Hochul Hochul to approve this and send us the taxes. And it's just really simple. I'm like, okay, cool. It's really simple.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Perry]

And it's funny that it's not right, but he's doing such a good job of like identifying the key things, make it so that somebody like me is still going to watch a press conference of him. He's phenomenal. He's just an absolutely phenomenal communicator.

[Aiden]

If I were to, you know, the, the landmines here, like you said, cutting. Other cities have tried delaying payments to pensions.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

And it can be a grenade that goes off later because there could be city union strikes. There can be like things like that can happen there, there's, there's problems that have happened in other cities that have tried this where these groups protect their own obviously financial interests and then become basically against the city government. Then that's things that can happen. The obviously. After two years, it remains to be seen whether the state of New York will continue to do the payments. Even though, like you said, I looked into the math on it, it's like New York still nets out here. They're still making more in tax revenue off of the city than they're giving back. They're just giving back a slaughter percentage.

[Perry]

So that's another thing that was drilled into me repeatedly by Mamdani, who, again, is really good. All the reporters will be like, well, with the complexity here, you promised and you said this and this and also Israel and also blah, blah, blah. And they just like, go in a million directions. And then he just gets back to like, the same core, just says it over and over. So one of. One of those points that he just kept saying over and over is that New York sends more in tax revenue to the state than they return. You're saying that's not.

[Aiden]

No, I'm saying it is true.

[Perry]

Oh, that is true. Okay.

[Aiden]

No, it is that. That's why this payment makes sense. Like, it's like, like theoretically can continue on, basically. It's just. It's just rebalancing it so that less of New York State cities tax revenue go to the state. It stays in the city.

[Perry]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

And that's what it's doing. But it's still enough that there's still a surplus going to the state. So. Yeah, I don't know. I. I'm positive and hopeful on it. I think it's good. It reminds me of, like,

[Doug]

I don't

[Aiden]

know, he's figured out, like, he's learned some lessons from Trump but used them for good. You know what I'm saying? Because Trump kind of did this ability of, like, taking complex things and making a really simple, repeatable solution that you can get voters on board, but he's used it for a better. I don't know. That might sound like a negative thing. It's not. I'm being really complimentary. I think he's found a way to, like, message for our modern times, but to use it for a. A better goal.

[Doug]

Yeah. Creating concise rhetorical ideas.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Perry]

Which that a guy can then repeat on a podcast.

[Doug]

Yeah. Okay.

[Perry]

I have a question for you. So given that he seems to be doing a good job of communicating the actual logistics of running a government and needs and not, as you said, just being inflammatory.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Perry]

Do you feel that someone like this, in the right position in the federal government, could tackle our deficit? Do you feel like, I mean, obviously, much bigger problem.

[Aiden]

Much bigger problem, and there's no bigger, like, you know, in this case, he went to a bigger institution, New York State and was able to renegotiate a deal and get. We don't. I don't know that we have that with America. There's no. We. We don't have the ability to go somewhere bigger and get the money.

[Perry]

Bezos.

[Aiden]

Bezos is like a small drop in the bucket.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

Here's the thing. What I liked most about his conference on this or his video was he said we were able to do this without doing austerity, which is like, technically true. But the word austerity is a real loaded trigger word that has been used in a lot of different ways. Like in a way they did they cut some of the things. Yeah, they, you know, some of the individual things. If that was the only thing he did, you could call them as austerity. They've literally done less in government spending. And I do think on some level we're going to have to find a way to spend less on certain things as a government. Maybe you can increase efficiency to get the same amount out of it, but we're going to have to do that in America to balance the budget in some way that's. And they did that in America back in the day. Like, we had a balanced budget and we still built highways and did all of the things we used to do, and we can't do it now. I don't know what the problem is. There's a, there's a leaky pipe like we said. But the word austerity is going to be thrown around in some way. It's like, it's a weird. Like, I don't know. Yeah, it's a. He's. He's solving the messaging problem of it is what I'm saying.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

He's able to do some cuts without making it seem like, like the UK where they're doing cuts and people fucking hate it. They're just. Because I think, I think he's promising to spend on good things instead. Instead of like cutting it and then giving a subsidy to a rich guy or something. I don't know. And also I think the idea that rich people are pitching in, they're. They're taking some pain as well as part of this cut. And the idea is like this, his main thing is this pied a terror tax, even though that's not a huge part of the budget. It's like, hey, the primary thing is like, first person we're going to hit is the people that own a second property over $5 million. Like, that's.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

And I think it helps people get the realize like okay. They're not making off scot free while we're taking all the pain. It's like everyone's kind of putting in, but there's a lot to unpack here. I think he's one of the best political messengers in America today.

[Perry]

Looking at the Pied a tax they're so they're saying it's going to raise $500 million. There's about 13,000 homes that this would cover. So it's again 5 million or over, which comes out to about 38,000. 38 and a half thousand per person of those 13,000 homes. So it's not nothing of a tax, but probably if you own a second home that's worth $5 million, you can pay the 38,000.

[Doug]

Yeah, I mean Brandon be paying it.

[Aiden]

Yes sir. It's on both my addresses. Tell my New York, New York address, New York visit squeaks up there and

[Doug]

yeah, your $10 million. And that's why not even hate Mom. Donnie.

[Aiden]

He's going to tax my property that I earned. No fucking way.

[Perry]

You know what? I think you should just move out of New York.

[Aiden]

I'm leaving. I'm not going to do it this second. But I'm.

[Doug]

I really want to get. I would, I would love to have him as a guest on the show. We had like an opportunity last year that didn't work out and I really, really hope. But he, it seems like he only does New York, New York based media now, which is, I mean makes sense. He's not campaigning anymore. Like he's come to la.

[Aiden]

Mom. Donnie, let's fly out to LA for the lemonade standpoint.

[Perry]

It's, it's exact. That's exemplary that he wouldn't be interested in our show. Right. It's exactly what he should be doing, which is a politician focusing on the actual city he runs. And I'm so glad he has no interest in our show. Seemingly.

[Doug]

Well now that it negatively affects me,

[Aiden]

I think I don't like a bad idea. I think it should be on Mr. Beast, help draw the support. What else is going on in the world? You guys, you. You add something.

[Perry]

Oh man, I feel so full and inflated.

[Aiden]

That reminds me of inflation.

[Perry]

Dan. Dude.

[Aiden]

Mom, Daddy.

[Doug]

You're missing out.

[Aiden]

You're missing out on a great show. You're missing out.

[Doug]

Oh, Mom. Donnie, what do you think of my three?

[Aiden]

I wonder what every guest.

[Doug]

This could just be our go to

[Aiden]

question to figure out where they stand politically. Inflation report came out today and I want to talk about a little bit because it is for A while in America we actually had a problem, or at least we said we had a problem of too low inflation. This is a relic, a fossil from 2019, where Jerome Powell said low inflation is one of the major challenges of our time. We're like, we simply can't seem to get inflation up to what we want, which is 2%. That's our goal. And now ever since this statement was made, pretty much as the last quarter that's happened, we have had above 2% inflation. In fact, it went really high in 2021 and it trickled back down towards the end of like 23, 24, still above 2. And now the last inflation report is trickling up again. So we're up to three point think eight, nine was the most recent report and, and we haven't been below two in a long time. Now when they talk about a long term average of 2% inflation, central banks, what they say is if you have a period of time above 2%, you need a period of time below to balance it out. They literally, that's part of the goal. It's not like just get it down to two and be there. And we're nowhere close to that. People are really starting to feel the pinch on inflation. A huge part of this inflation report was that the one thing that was keeping inflation anchored, which was low gas prices, is now not only gone, but like off a cliff. And so, yeah, that was the one thing in each report that was kind of stabilizing it. And now we're seeing massive spikes. And if this continues, there really is no anchor to stop this from going back to, you know, 21 type levels. So it's a real, it's a really bad inflation report and it does put a hamstring on the new guy. So if you guys don't know central bank Jerome Powell, he's about to be replaced by Kevin Warsh. Trump's pick. Trump has demanded that Jerome Powell cut interest rates for years now. Been called him too late, too slow, idiot, bad guy who employed him. And now it's now it's Kevin Warsh who campaigned for this job by saying, I will lower interest rates as Trump won. I'm going to do it. Yeah, what's up?

[Doug]

I'm, you know, big, big a fan. Yeah. Isn't Jerome Powell sticking around to maybe be the shadow governor?

[Aiden]

So he said because of the lawsuit on him, even though it was dropped, there's too much risk that he'll be punished by Trump. We have the legal system. So he is sticking around to be a voting Governor, he does not say he'll be a shadow governor. Yeah, well, the shadow governor would never say it. So we don't know. He might just try to help Kevin Warsh. We don't know. But the idea is like the central bank, really, if inflation is bad, they can't, I mean, unless they're fucking crazy. Maybe Kevin Wash is you can't cut interest rates into a, into ripping inflation or you just gotta. It's gonna rip your face off. So this is the big question is like, if they can't get this down soon, Iran war seemed to be causing it. Then he's going to be faced with his first term or his first Fed meeting of like, how do I balance the fact that Trump got me into this job for one reason. I can't realistically do it without destroying the faith in the US dollar.

[Doug]

Not saying that he wouldn't. Yeah, he couldn't be pressured somehow. But realistically, once he's in that position, doesn't he just. He can't be fired. He gets to be in the position for free on paper.

[Aiden]

That's what Powell did.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

The hope is that when he's in power, he's locked in. That's it. Even Trump has said, like, you can't trust any of these guys. You help them get into office and then they just, they turn on you. You can't do anything about it. Like he said that basic line and he's hope he was like, he cut a lot of people from this process to try and nail down the right person who will do what he wants, which is Kevin War.

[Doug]

But could you kind of point and at the clues we have in this guy going in one direction or the other, because I remember you saying something along the lines of he looks like he might do the right thing and not cave to Trump.

[Aiden]

What's interesting about Kevin Warsh is that if you look at his old stuff, his classic albums back in the day, Kevin Warsh, during the great financial crisis, was a voting governor and wrote these long opinion pieces on how we should not print money, we should not cut rates. Inflation is the biggest threat. It's more scary than losing jobs. Inflation is the biggest deal. And so he seems like a guy who'd be really averse to cutting rates. But then in the campaign for this role, he has been 100% opposite. And for me, it's a real, like, you could say the same thing about J.D. vance or whatever. It's hard to tell whether or not their old stuff matters or Scott Besant, Scott Bessant's, writings that I really like from back before he was in this office are way different than how he's acted in the role. So I don't know what Kevin Morris will do. I do know that he might not have a lot of choice. Like, if inflation is really high, you, you almost can't cut rates without being like, this is because Trump said so. There's no rationale for it. So I don't know. It's just a big question that's coming up. And I think this recent inflation report is, is kind of spooky because you don't want inflation to be bad. At the same time, as jobs get worse, that stagflation, that's the worst. Does the war give. Our producer is asking, does the war give worse cover to not cut rates? Yeah, but again, Trump, the last thing he wants if you're trying to be his ally is to be like, well, the war's ruining the economy, so I can't. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, may even mentioning the war is like something he wouldn't want. It depends. We'll see.

[Doug]

Is it. So when they, when they decide the rate adjustment at the Fed, it's every quarter, right? Yeah. They have the, they have the board or like the governor's vote on what the change or the adjustment should be.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

It's not just JP sitting there making a call solo. Does he have the ability, does the chair have the ability to override what the vote is if he really wants to? Because even in a scenario where this person's in charge, there is. I mean, this is unprecedented from my understanding. But the Fed chair could just lose to what the rest of the board thinks. They don't have to fall in line and just do what he says.

[Aiden]

12 voters and they will decide whether to raise or lower rates. Just never in history has the chair recommended something and it's not been voted on. It's always fallen in line with them. But theoretically that's why they call him the shadow chair. Jerome Powell, as one of the voters, could be like, nah, we do this and everyone votes with him. And, and it's a big question.

[Doug]

We'll see kind of crazy times. Unprecedented things.

[Aiden]

Unprecedented times.

[Doug]

That was fun. Up. I. If I really want to see what people have to weigh in on the beginning, whether you, we can. I mean, the link for the, the, the chart to submit, it will still be up if people just want to mess around with it.

[Perry]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Dougdug.com and so build your country, pick your leaders and share them with us. I'd really like to see what people's. People's lineups are.

[Perry]

Maybe we do something like this in the future. We do like a budget, you know, where you give. Here's the US Budget. How would you allocate it? And it's something that's more grounded because I think it was cool seeing we got a lot of feedback from folks in the Discord, our lovely Patreon Discord that you can join for $5 a month. But folks, you know, making the very good point of, like, obviously enormous amount of different factors, and it would be really interesting to get an actual sort of specific time, a specific place, a specific budget, and then say, what would you do? And compare it against each other and would Putin be in your cabinet or not? That'll be one of the sliders. Not a matter of Putin.

[Doug]

Sometimes he scrapes in. Okay. Sometimes he's $1 and you need a guy and you look at the four others. It's a bit of a rough list, but if you do want to join us for an extra hour of the show every week, you can subscribe to the Patreon. We also just did a really cool book club episode. If you are going to do [e-mail] Lemonade sand. Don't do it on iOS. Don't give Apple your extra money. The prices are lower. Do it on desktop. Anyway, thank you.

[Aiden]

Thank you for watching. See you next week. Bye.