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- [00:01]
A
Hello and welcome to the Mountain State Liberty cast. I am your host, Ty Ward. Today I'm joined as always by my co host Taylor Metro News fan. Richmond. Hello Taylor.
- [00:13]
B
Happy West Virginia Day, Ty.
- [00:16]
A
Yeah, happy West Virginia Day. Give us. Okay, this episode. Taylor's going to give us a full synopsis on the history of West Virginia if you will.
- [00:28]
B
Just quickly while we're talking about that, one of my pet peeves about West Virginia history that most people don't know or misunderstand is that they always want to say that we were, you know, grafted out of the state of Virginia because we opposed slavery so intensely. And it's a giant misconception. I mean I'm sure there were abolitionists in the state and that's all well and good. Obviously the major reasons we were formed to be a state is we hated the planner class in Richmond. Lincoln wanted a another union sympathizing state in their senate and. But the, the race and slavery issue was not actually top of mind. In fact, our initial constitution that we sent to Congress for adoption was sent back to us because it lacked an abolitionist clause. So couldn't have been very too front of mind if it wasn't even part of our first draft of our constitution.
- [01:32]
A
Yeah. Wasn't it some tomfoolery where a bunch of people were out of the state so they took the advantage to. I don't know, never mind, I don't care.
- [01:45]
B
Well, they're here. Golden Horseshoe trivia fact, the episode.
- [01:49]
A
Yeah. So we have a lot of energy related stuff going on in the state. There's as. I don't want to make this a third episode on data centers.
- [02:04]
B
This is the Mountain State Data center cast.
- [02:06]
A
Yeah, I don't know. I don't think there's really too much more to say about it except for the more I hear about what's going on with. Oh, so you know our, kind of. One of our theories here is the whole concept that this isn't really smart because data centers are or AI and this whole technology race could potentially be, you know, this huge financial bubble. Well, I saw somebody was talking about there's some conspiracy theory that the, that general intelligence, general AI intelligence has already existed for quite a while and it's already taking, taking over and the, it's making the government's decisions. It's, it's telling them that they need to build data centers and that would, that would answer the question of why these people are building all these data centers even though it makes no financial sense whatsoever.
- [02:58]
B
That's hilarious.
- [02:59]
A
I Like it. So yeah, that's not, that's not the general consensus here in West Virginia. Even though I've. I keep bringing up to everybody I can get my hands on, get my hands on everybody that'll listen to me talk about it. That my theory of ringing the bell, that this is a terrible revenue base because it could potentially be just another eggs in one basket coal field disaster. But people are, people are all in. And one of the things. What's the name of the guy that was on the Metro news? The assist. He's. What was his name? He. TJ Meadows. Kept calling him the.
- [03:43]
B
He's. The Energies are.
- [03:44]
A
Energies are. Yeah, I was gonna say electricity czar, but that sounds like a spider man villain. Electricity. So he was on there. What do you know his name?
- [03:56]
B
Baldy.
- [03:57]
A
Baldy McGold guy.
- [03:59]
B
He's actually not that old looking. I don't know how old he is.
- [04:01]
A
He's older than me. So he's old.
- [04:05]
B
What are you, seven? Everybody's older than me.
- [04:11]
A
Well, I mean I'm 40 and I feel like I'm ancient.
- [04:14]
B
So if he's older, I'm a man, I'm Ford.
- [04:17]
A
I'm a grown ass man. So yeah, he was on there and I didn't, I caught a few clips and one of the clips that I caught, he was talking about the financial benefit to the counties. And as most government officials do, he made it incredibly complicated and I didn't really get a full grasp on what he was trying to say. It seemed like a lot of smoke and mirrors to me, but you know, if I thought the Tucker County. I'm all over the place. But I thought the Tucker County Data center had been scrapped. I guess that's not true.
- [04:53]
B
It's. I think they're still trying for it. I don't know, like to what level of scrapping it's at or to what level of not scrapping it's at. But it, it's definitely seems to be in flux.
- [05:04]
A
Yeah, so he was saying, you know, potentially with a 1:1 giga gigawatt power generation and the data and blah blah, blah, they're gonna get $27 million a year on top of something else. And he was being. I don't like. I think they just use all this language either because they understand it and that's how they've been talking to each other, or they don't want anybody to really understand and just sound like they know what they're talking about. But I guess the general premise was he said they'd get $27 million a year from having this data center just for their county government. Which sounds good until you realize that the state's controlling it and the state's getting 60% of the, the total revenue. So I, I don't. Do these numbers seem real to you?
- [05:55]
B
Everything's made up and the points don't matter.
- [05:57]
A
Ty, My thing is like what did, what did, what you did. What are these, how much money these data centers getting? If they're like bringing one data center is going to potentially pay what, $86 million a year in taxes? Like what are they doing? Like, I, I don't know. I guess I just don't understand how they're making money. I guess nobody really does. He didn't explain that. I know that.
- [06:23]
B
Well, I mean, so part of it, right? These are giant server farms that will be utilized by technology companies, predominantly ones that run very expansive AI. AI will, does and will have growing cost for use. Meaning you as a company, if you're replacing employees with AI agents, you're paying, you know, so much per month, just like you would if you were kind of like leasing out or like those higher rights or whatever. Companies, if you hire someone through this firm or agency, they get a profit off of it. AI is going to be doing that to some extent. Obviously personal use for, you know, just asking Gemini or co pilot questions and, or image and video creation. All those things are going to come at a cost and a lot of that cost is in maintaining those giant data centers, server farms. So what that cost is per question or per image or per hour for those AI agents is going to be fluctuating and likely going up over time. So that's part of the calculus behind that.
- [07:44]
A
Yeah, I don't buy it anyway. I don't know because I'm just sitting here the whole time you were talking. I'm thinking about all these reports I've been seeing about, I guess Apple. They're saying, and I saw a demonstration of the new Siri AI and it was actually working, which was the big joke about Apple is they couldn't make an AI that worked. But they're, they're saying, and with the technology they're using in these Mac Minis and these, these processors that they're using, they're saying that they're going to make it so that you can either run the Siri AI off of a network, but the processors will be powerful enough that once you have the latest version downloaded on your phone, you can run it all on your own phone. So it's like it's gathering from the Internet, but the, all the processing is being done on your phone. So again, as we've said, like, it's just, I'm not, we're not the type to be like, oh, data centers, it's gonna ruin the world. But we're like, I, I mean, I don't really, it seems like I don't. Am I taking stupid pills? Like, what, what am I not seeing that either? Either I'm taking stupid pills or they're taking stupid pills and somebody's selling them a, you know, what's the phrase?
- [09:02]
B
Pipe dream?
- [09:03]
A
A bill of goods that aren't really there. I don't, I just, again, I don't. We've kind of talked about these same points, but I don't know. Did you. Were you, you listened to the, the interview on, on Metro News or any of concerns or questions you've heard, were they answered to?
- [09:26]
B
Well, no, the big concern that you are alluding to was not, which is that as technology advances the, the footprint of these buildings and data centers will decrease and therefore you'll have a effectively like a brown side of, of sorts that was not addressed. Right now obviously the major concerns that are being raised by folks are power, water, local control, one, that power costs will be subsidized by local ratepayers. And the whole theme of this is, and I said this, I think on one of the earlier episodes that a lot of people's concerns and angers against data centers are against Data Centers 1.0 that we see a lot of over near the D.C. metro area in their first iteration. And just like any technology, any soiree into an industry, your first attempt to do it is going to be the worst just because humans are, you know, apt for failure. But as time goes on, we learn from our mistakes. We look, you know, we learn the negative impacts and people's reactions to them. And the marketplace tells people or tells a company, hey, if I want to expand in this venture and I don't want this continued pushback, I don't want to have this fight every single time I need to improve how I do business. So with all, with the lease of power and water, the, the gist of the gentleman's answers were we know that those are major concerns by individuals and by the communities. And they're going to be, they're looking at technology for water that are closed loop or moving to even not utilizing water, but you know, some type of synthetic materials and gels and other liquids that will be utilized. So you're, you Know, we don't need to go, you know, pulse pull directly from a stream or river or whatever. And we're not going to be polluting, putting stuff back into a local water source. You know, obviously, whether that happens with all of our data centers coming into West Virginia will be or to be seen. But, you know, that's just the nature of any industry. They get better, they get less impactful because those type of impacts are the common complaints of every industry with that are in or near residential or or other population of people. The power similarly, you know, he talked about that West Virginia is a net revenue or net power exporter. We have. We need to be doing more. And this goes probably a segue into our next topic. We need to be doing more to get. Make it easier for us to get power out to the state and utilize it in general. And that lowers base rates as we do that. And in the long run, we'll be bringing down the rate or at least keeping them flat comparatively, and some power depending on their size. Some of these data centers are looking to basically have their own energy sources, their own energy and power generation. So basically negating all that. The local control issue was kind of an interesting. I don't say sidestep, but he was like, well, the problem is that 50 out of 55 counties don't have all of the necessary planning commissions and government bureaucracies in place to do any of the things that people want the counties to do and basically ran through, you know, the bureaucratic steps necessary. It's like, oh, well, Tucker county actually wanted to say no to this or fight this on a bureaucratic step. They needed to. They need to create a planning commission, do all the studies, submit all this stuff, blah, blah, blah. And they're like, well, you basically have out bureau bureaucracy, bureaucracy yourself into a safe spot, at least the other counties. And it was just like a kind of a slap in the face to all people who are like, oh, we need government to protect us from government and how long it would take to do all of that. And it was just. It was ironically, poetically ironic, really.
- [13:44]
A
Yeah. They know that's not what they're talking about, though. They don't think that they're going to be able to. That one county is going to be able to do all the permitting. They know that needs to be done at the state level. But there's plenty of things that counties approve that the state has to permit. Sorry. And that's not what they're talking about. They're talking about what's going on like in Kentucky, they have one opening up at that industrial park, and they have a commission of the. All the different counties that are in that industrial park. And they all had representatives for every county at that commission meeting. Now, a lot of people still say there wasn't enough transparency. And people were signing NDAs, which. This is a new thing to me about government officials, including the legislators signing NDAs, but that's a different topic. But they, they wanted, they just wanted representation in asking questions, basically, or being able to conform. They can inform their constituency. All of this stuff was done at the state level with like in the. It was. Obviously this had all been planned quite some time before they did any legislation on it, and nobody was involved. So they say, oh no, it's just the state thing. Like, we have to do it. Okay. Does. Does nobody see a problem with that? Just on principle that the state is deciding and it's not, obviously the financial part is. Part of the problem with the counties is it's basically just the state. Why do we even have county commissions? Why do we even have county governments if the state's just going to divvy out all the revenue? What's the point? I. I mean, in that part of it, what does the state, if they're going to brag about, you know, what are they getting out of it? Like, are they going to put it to roads? Is the state going to put it to roads? Or are they going to put it in their surplus and. And spend it on the next data center project? I just like, if they can't see why the counties have a problem with that, it's. But you're right, that is a good sidestep.
- [15:50]
B
Yeah. I mean, don't get wrong. I think you could easily allow bodies like the county commissions to come into place. It's just, like I said, it was poetically ironic that, like. Well, actually, if you want to be able to block and fight these because of, as you've mentioned in previous podcasts, how the Bill 2024 was written, you to have more bureaucracy to be able to fight the state bureaucracy.
- [16:18]
A
Yeah.
- [16:18]
B
And if it's like this Legion of Doom scenario where the only way we can protect ourselves is by more of this.
- [16:27]
A
So, no, it's. I don't know. And it's the, it's just the arrogance that gets me is that, you know, I don't. The Department of Commerce shouldn't even exist. So, I mean, I understand we're at a level that people can't even wrap their minds around, but the one thing the black pill for me, Taylor, is like, you said that that question wasn't even answered about the whole, you know, how markets work and how, you know, industry works and how it's not a great idea to base future infrastructure on something that could potentially not exist in 10 years. But that's not even. Like, nobody even cares about that. They just. The control and the environmental stuff is all they care about. And I'm like, okay, like, I don't know. And, and it, it's not surprising to us just based on, you know, observing how this Republican government has worked, but it is that they don't even. I don't. Do you think they even have that concept? Like, did I. I guess, like, I haven't had an opportunity to ask anybody with any power, but I don't know, it just doesn't seem like they're even thinking about that.
- [17:38]
B
Oh, I, I think they thought it through when they're like, well, how do we prevent that? Like, how do we get around all this? That's my, I don't know, I don't say callous or cynical approach to it, but my guess is they've thought through. It's like, well, how do we prevent insert county name here from having any ability to really prevent this from happening, especially based on some of the calculus of, well, the state's going to get X, you know, percentage of this anyways. We don't want fly in the ointment of Tucker county or again, insert county name here, so we just simply make it a certain way. But again, that's just me being probably overcynical, but that wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.
- [18:28]
A
Yeah, I don't know, it just. It just seems crazy to me that, I mean, is the state going to. I mean, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this whole data center thing is. It's just last forever. But is the state going to be responsible for dealing with the ramifications of the shuttering these buildings and leaving? Like, I mean, how much money is that going to cost? I mean, a lot of this stuff isn't just. It's not just PC monitors in a building. It's a lot of probably highly. You know, I don't. Whatever you call it, you know, biohazard. Not biohazard, but like stuff you can't just throw away. You know what I mean?
- [19:02]
B
Like, well, they can come out and clean them out. You know, they. They're just giant pieces of computer infrastructure. I don't think it's going to be as, you know, hazardous or hard to clean up as some of like, no. Oh, no hard water sites from the Manhattan Project or chemical industries down the Canal Valley. But it would still take some work. And again, the footprint will be such that, you know, once it's. Once it's done, what do you do with it?
- [19:32]
A
But, and also I was. Somebody was pointing out that a lot of the time, like these data centers, like that stuff isn't just like, oh, you put it in there and it's just there forever. Like, they have to basically like rebuild all of that stuff. Like every so often, like every. I don't know, like, you know what I mean? Like, it all has a life.
- [19:52]
B
And I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, that was.
- [19:55]
A
And I mean, it is like it is plastic and metal and glass. It's not like it's just like, oh, I mean, you just throw it in the landfill. Like, what do we. I don't know, man. It's just so many. There. There is some credence to a lot of the issues people have with it, but I'm like, none of it's been answered. I don't know. And again, I don't want to be Johnny Come lately. Like, I don't know what dupont does with all of their, you know, waste. Like, I don't know anything about any of this industry. It's just that suddenly data are the big thing. But I don't know. But. So on to the next way government is taking authority from people in their private property. The. What is that? Moral Expansion line for isl?
- [20:41]
B
Yeah, the part Mid Atlantic Resiliency link is the. What the acronym stands for, and that's the basically layman's terms. The power line that runs out of Pennsylvania cuts through various parts of North Central. Well, not North Central, but the northern Mason Dixon area of West Virginia and then into Maryland. Okay, okay, sorry. And basically the go on. The concern with this whole project is, is that in general government fashion, this is coming through, at least for West Virginia. This is coming through a number of counties, taking up, you know, space and impacting personal property and livelihoods and farms. And at one point was going to like cut through Cooper's Rock, which is like a state park up here that's pretty iconic in this part of the state. And the. The line goes that there is no benefit to West Virginians. Right. This is not going to directly power any West Virginia homes or businesses, yada yada, to which it. There is a good bit of truth. And the long and the short of it is actually, well, it allows the region to have tie in points for energy to be dumped back into the grid, which was I mentioned earlier about the fact that we have a hard time getting some of our produced energy into the grid, which could help lower base rates down the road. But that's the selling point. It's like, well, yes, the initial plan is not that it does anything for West Virginia ratepayers by tapping them into this, the running them new links directly to power themselves, but it actually expands the grid in a way that long term it lowers rates. But you know, we've heard that line before here in West Virginia is like, oh, trust us, we're from the government, we're here to help. And the bigger concern that I have obviously is that this is likely going to be done through some extent of imminent domain where the state says, oh, we have a giant need to do this. The supporting the grid is, is so detrimental to the general, the general economic benefit of the region itself and in the larger grid capacity that we're going to take your property against your will. We'll give you some shekels for it. But thanks for playing this, you know, terrible game of Monopoly. The funny thing is it's based, at least in West Virginia, it received tripartisan support or support it received tripartisan opposition, meaning that of all the public hearings that the Public Service Commission has held in throughout the region, Democrats, Republicans and libertarians like myself have shown up at in opposition, at least in its current proposed process. And yeah, now it's just a matter of does the Public Service Commission listen and oppose it or do they just turn their backs and say, nope, sorry Joe Q. Public we believe this is the best interest of you, that you don't realize it yet and will allow this to move forward. And if you have to lose part of your backyard or family farm or state park in the process, then so be it. It's for the greater good.
- [24:32]
A
Yeah, and, and I mean, devil's advocate, it's just like anything else with a lot of this service stuff, whether it be natural gas or electricity. I mean they're a lot of it. They're not going to just, they're not taking the property. They're just making them let them put it on their property, which is not, I mean that's better than them taking their land and never giving it back. I mean that, that is, I mean just categorically on a level of, you know, bad or good property theft, that's better. But again, like I've talked to with some oil and gas guys that, you know, whether, you know, in High, high voltage lines are obviously, you know, above ground, but like with the natural gas pipelines, they'll say, well, you know, they put it underground, they leave the, they put it back as well as they can. I mean, they do a good job with, you know, resurfacing the land and seeding it and all this stuff. And in, you know, five years, you'll never know it was even there. And you know, my thing is like, okay, but can I dig a hole there 15ft in the ground? Well, no, there's a pipeline there. Right. So it's not my property then. I mean, you know what I mean? So it's, it's levels of, you know, tyranny that we accept and people in these industries accept is that in there, There is a point that. Do you want energy? Yes, I do. Okay, well, it has to come from burning something or putting up a windmill or solar farm or something. Like, there has to be some way to convert some sort of energy, electricity. And you know, people have to pipe natural gas across distance to, to make that happen. And it's got to go through somebody's property and they can't, you know, make a winding river of pipe around everybody that doesn't want their, the pipe across their property. So it's, it's one of those things that you're like, yeah, I totally understand the argument, but when it's something like, oh, well, we just want to get this power through here a little bit easier, it doesn't benefit literally anyone in West Virginia, but we're going to put it here because it's a, that's what we want to do. Like, okay, like, I don't, it's just a hard sell. And you know, I don't really care that much because it is the northern part of the state and I, it's. And screw you guys, has nothing to do with me. But
- [27:01]
B
no, and this, you know, it was funny. It ties in. Tyu commented on TJ's post about the M M's and the, the food dye. And then I went back in as the party and commented, it's, it's, it really is. And this is very libertarian of us, I know, but it is the principle of the thing, right? Because when you say, oh, well, there are benefits and we have to do it for this one benefit to the general populace or the economy or, you know, whatever, however you want to frame it, this one thing. Well, what you've done is you've given the government, you've given government the power to define what is in the best interest of the community. And when you give them the power to define it, they then also take with that the power to implement the thing that improves that or brings about that good. So if you tell them, if you tell the government you have the responsibility of determining what is necessary for lowering the cost of power through public service commissions and in other similar named bureaucracy, then you now give them also the, the ability, I keep saying power unintentionally as a pun, you give them the authority to determine how best to lower those rates. And that's the problem with this. And TJ talks about, and he's very wise on this because he came from that sector before him in radio. But the problem is, you know, we didn't have a free market capitalist environment in terms of energy. We developed the government, we allowed the government to put in place PJM and all these other like grid monitored structures. And it's because of that it's grown to become a leviathan where you can only just feed this beast. And when they do, when the government has that authority or when the government has that directive, they then can come in and say well you know, we've got to do this. It's, it's imperative or it's our only option. And because you've pigeonholed yourself by making government the arbiter of this, then you're pigeonholing yourself for them to have to come through and take your, your family farm, to take your state park to take whatever it is and run oil and gas lines, high voltage power lines, water infrastructure, whatever it is. You've basically tied your hands that this is the only way that can happen. Which is the unfortunate thing.
- [29:41]
A
Yeah. And that's the thing to the, and I know we've talked about nauseam, but just comparing the food dyes and everything else is my point of it is you've, you've had it just like with the regulatory, for regulatory agencies for power you've had. And again TJ somebody, Adam Burkhammer, the delegate, he basically said, you know, well the fda, well TJ had said well the FDA says that these food dyes aren't harmful. And Adam Burkheimer said well the FDA also said that opioids were non addictive. So it, and, and that's the point is that, and that's my only point is it's all tyranny. It's all the government telling people what they can and can't do. But when TJ goes, why don't we them have a choice if they want to consume the food Dies. Well, it's not that simple, buddy. Like that's not how any of this has worked. When you have a government agency telling people that poison is okay to eat, that's not a choice. That's not a real choice. But it's all tyranny. So it's, it's one, you know, six, six of one, half a dozen of the other. And, and I think your argument has been we're not going to add more tyranny to try to get rid of the other tyranny. And I get that. I just am spiteful and want to and Right.
- [30:57]
B
And similar to the, the power issue we have, we as a society have relegated the responsibility of deciding what is good and bad for us to government agencies like the fda, like the ama, so on and so forth. And when we trust them and we don't, you know, listen to private entities and nonprofits as much, then we also, then give. We've also relegated the ability for the government to come in and say from the expertise and recommendations of the FDA that food dyes are, are bad for you. Well, and here, here's or cigarettes are bad for you, or eggs are bad for you or wine is bad for you or whatever. And you know, again, science is, and we've seen, has been very fluid in a lot of these situations because of the leading thing at the time. I'm not trying to be an anti sciencer here, but it's like we don't always have all the answers when we look at these certain things and we allow government to make these proclamations and we swing the pendulum so far in these directions because of that. And we've given them again the power of tyranny to say, well it's banned. And it's easy for Republicans to come out and pat themselves on the back to say, oh no, this was a good use of tyranny because it was poisonous food dyes and our kids. And it's like, yeah buddy, but the principle of the fact is, you know, you've done that and not too terribly long ago we had administrations in, in control and in power that said the burning of coal was bad for our health and it was an existential threat. But and you relegate them that authority to make those proclamations, you then also give them the power to say we must outlaw food dyes, we must outlaw the burning of coal. And what repercussions does that have long term? Banning food dyes, not so much. You just don't get red dye number 4mms. You get beet juice red m m's not burning coal. You destabilize an entire region.
- [32:59]
A
Right. And to me the, the to your argument about, you know, what regulation, how it starts is when you had people selling things like that, that what is it, radium? It was some kind of medicine that had, you know, irradiated water in it that people were using. It was supposed to be a cure all for all ales. And that's 140 or 140. Like this was in the, it was in the late 1800s, early 1900s and it was one of the, you know, key examples they use for why things regulatory things were created. And it's like, yeah, I mean at that point there's this defining moment where they could have said well we can start these private organizations where medical associations do these, this testing and is funded by private agencies and if you don't have the seal on your bottle that says it's approved by the American Medical association private organ, then people aren't going to trust your medicine. I mean that's basically what they did with the FDA and usda. And that's the problem with that is it didn't have to go the way it went. But I'll say with the electrical grid and some of these other utilities is that the history of it is the federal government and state governments, they had a choice and it wasn't an easy one. How on earth are we going to do anything with these power lines? We can't just have willy nilly anybody putting power lines up. And what's going to happen if people aren't doing the same standards? And so they said well states can do it but they, the states have to manage the utility. And it's like okay, they made a tough choice. And I don't really know that there was a better choice because again, you know, we could say that, you know, the free market would find a way. But I think it's, it's one of those things where it being a pure anarchist, it doesn't really work out in reality. I mean I don't know if it would have turned out any better if they'd let it all be privatized. But.
- [35:03]
B
Well, just to push back on, just to push back on your, your power line analysis. I mean we look at what happened with the railroads. It was, it wasn't the, the government owned railroads that systemized the, the width and, and dimensions of, of rail when building the transcontinental roads. It was private companies that realized oh hey, we need to utilize the same, you know, width and depth and, you know, all this stuff or the trains won't be able to seamlessly transition across the rails when we actually do meet up at places. So maybe it wouldn't have happened as seamlessly, but, you know, I had to push back that eventually the market would have realized, hey, this is something we need to figure out if we're going to have, you know, not obviously competition, but cooperation in this larger marketplace down, down the line how I'm sure we look somewhat differently. But, you know, the fact that only, only the government could solve insert problem X here, you know, we've always seen is not the case.
- [36:08]
A
Well, and that's the thing is, I think what the federal government did is they, they did relegate a lot of it to the states and there are federal standards now. But I mean, I've been to Iraq and I' they do things and I don't know that. I mean, I don't know if they even have a free market, but they, they don't. I mean, I don't know. I don't think that standards are necessarily a bad thing. It's just, again, you could have the debate over and over again about what could have been or what would have been, but we are where we are now. And the big problem is, is that you, anytime you get involved, government involved with something, whether you think it's, you know, the best, worst choice or not, we, we get to the point where the. What is the organization that makes decisions on the energy companies, whatever the public service.
- [36:58]
B
Public service question.
- [37:00]
A
So, yeah, they, they make these decisions and, and it seems like, you know, in the last, you know, 10 years is basically just like, if they want a rate increase, they say yes. And, you know, and I'm of the pragmatic view that I don't know what it takes to make improvements on power lines. I don't know what it takes to improve these power plants. And they make them have these rates at a certain place and they make them run all these power lines up all these hollers. I vote, and I've said it on here. I've always been the idea that we didn't have. If we had a purely free market in these, in these energy sectors, a lot of West Virginia wouldn't have any power because they couldn't make any money on it because it doesn't make any sense to run, you know, all this copper and wire and putting up all these poles for two or three people up the end of a gravel road. It just doesn't make any sense. So, I mean, I think a lot of people take for granted how advantageous it is for them to have this Public Service Commission that makes these decisions. But, you know, I just don't. I don't. I don't know. You. You don't. I'm not in the books. I mean, I don't. I don't. I haven't seen their. What, what their, you know, cost of benefit ratio, cost loss ratio is for what they're doing and whether it makes sense to raise rates or not. I just don't know. I just know that corporations and companies just aren't evil just because they exist. And that seemed to be the general consensus. They're raising rates. It's because they're evil and greedy. Well, I don't. That's not true.
- [38:34]
B
Yeah, no, I agree. I think that's oftentimes how it's painted. And there are a lot of, you know, there's a lot of math that goes into some of those decisions that, you know, Joe Q. Public doesn't have to consider or think about or wrap their head around. So it's, it's one thing to sit back and say, oh, this may look bad because it doesn't have the initial net positive impact on my life that I want it to, but things have to happen a certain way or they just don't happen at all.
- [39:08]
A
Yeah, that's. Yeah, that's the thing that. On both sides and, and that's my problem with people who make these comments. Like, another thing. I know we're, we're on it, but he's. It is one of West Virginia's, you know, only, you know, statewide media sources. But TJ was reminiscing on his, on maybe his own personal page, but he was reminiscing about, oh, remember when Republicans were capitalist? And he's one of the guys that'. For this economic development stuff and, and revenue and all. Like, none of that is capitalism, buddy. Like, I don't know if you know what capitalism is, but that ain't it. Government controlling anything is not capitalism. You've immediately removed the capitalism part. When you have government controlling, picking winners and losers, giving people tax breaks and not giving other people tax breaks, changing regulations specifically for one industry, but not another. None of that is capitalism. Them. So, because, like, and it was about the M and M stuff, like Eminem's having to create higher cost to make blue M M's with natural colors. I'm like, of all the things that the state government has done, that's like the least egregious in My opinion. Oh, no, these fatties won't get M and M's. Oh, that's terrible. Did I just say that out loud? Anyway, no, but like, but again. And I, and again get my M M's, so.
- [40:29]
B
Excuse me.
- [40:29]
A
Commented. I commented on that. Like, yeah, I have the decision not to pay the cost for M M's. And they're. And they're having to make a new blue dye for M M's. I have the choice to not buy them or to continue to buy them. If you're going to talk about the, the severity of government action, I didn't have a choice whether my, my dollar was worth less because they used inflation spending from the federal government to open up Nucor in Mason County. $300 million worth. I didn't have a choice in that. We elected representatives. Cool, great. I didn't vote for them, but I don't get that choice. But I don't have to buy M M's. I'm not going to pay that extra cost. We don't buy a ton of stuff that has a bunch of food, Diana. Anyway, so. Okay, yeah. And again, this isn't just. There's nothing. That's, that's my main gist is there's nothing cut and dried in any of this stuff. There's obviously no government mandates. Is. Is the main goal. But if you're going to say that you don't want one government mandate, but then you support another, that just hypocrisy at the highest. Like that doesn't make any sense. You just don't like this one because you've got a thing that says I shouldn't tell people what they can or can't buy. Okay, well, then you turn right around and say the FDA is the arbiter of what's safe. Then you don't really believe that if the FDA says it's poisonous, we shouldn't be able to buy it. I bet he would agree with that. So then you don't believe in choice. That's not, that's not. That doesn't. That's not real. That's just a weird, childish, juvenile way of viewing markets. Give them a choice. Okay, I mean, great, yeah, let them buy whatever they want. I'm fine with that. If they want to buy cyanide, that's fine. I don't care. I really don't care. I don't think people are gonna buy. I don't think people are gonna buy food with cyanide in it. They're not going to. I don't need the government to tell me that. But people don't care if M M's have food dye in them. When they do know I buy stuff with food dye in it. I, I understand what, what the ramifications are but you don't see the state government banning high fructose corn syrup. They should. I mean if food, if food dyes are bad, high fructose corn syrup is. I mean there's no disputing that. That's bad for people's health. So why don't we ban it all? Yeah, and I'd be against that too but I mean again it's the same principle. If they banned high fructose corn syrup in any food, I'd be like oh that sucks. I mean I'm not going to be able to get my snackies. But, but it wouldn't. It's not going to hurt anybody. Except for. Hey, and guess what Taylor, the, the answer you're going to say of it hurting the markets and, and hurting all the. It's all fake anyway. We all subsidize this corn in West Virginia. The mass. A mass amount of food is bought with food stamps. So if they get rid of all this food, I mean you're just going to hurt the government more than anybody else and be. And stop them from ballooning this fake economy we have. Yeah, it's all going to come crashing down. But if we can accelerate that, I'm all for it. Ban the high fructose corn syrup.
- [43:25]
B
No, I mean. Yeah, I understand. And again it goes back to the point with the power grids and everything else we've unfortunately by buying into only the government can save us from the woes of life and everything else. We've given them the ability to decide all those things. And in the meantime this mission creep leviathan has grown to be something that is now uncontainable. And again I don't care what the personal choice I'm. You know, put cyanide on the shelves. People aren't going to buy cyanide. It's just now my, the, the food dye is a bad example but it is an issue and we saw it. Actually there was, it was funny because when they passed this bill there was like carve outs for like this popsicle company in, in Wheeling and a number.
- [44:15]
A
I didn't, I didn't realize that.
- [44:17]
B
Yeah. So my point with this is when you put in place or you allow certain things in the economy to happen and then you have these knee jerk reactions to oh, this new thing is bad. We've got to ban this new thing. Well, depending on what that thing is, if it is a major cog in the production of the widgets or whatever it is being made in your local economy or, you know, by Joe Q. Service down the street, then they have to completely retool. They possibly have to retool their whole process and company. And now that's a cost that they generally incur themselves. The government generally doesn't come in and save them from that. It's just, oh, well, that's the, that's the law now and, and figure it out. So, but yeah, it was, there was some popsicle company and wheeling that they, that what's his name, Flu Hardy was trying to save. And I think Ryan Weld or one of the Republicans was also like part of this thing where it's like, well, we banned red food dyed number seven or whatever the hell it was. And grandma's popsicle company now has to, you know, incur this significant cost to figure out how to, you know, make their popsicles without it or with the alternative. So that's the other thing that to consider is when you, at the, at some point down the road you pass these laws that say, oh, oh, you can't do this or can't use this, then those people who have instilled that somewhere in their workflow or supply chain or whatever you want to, you know, however you want to look at it, they then have to retool their whole process. And that can be significantly financially impactful.
- [46:02]
A
Well, I mean, but honestly, it's just inflation. I mean, that's, it's basically the same concept. So, so I mean, you think it's good to pay inflationary costs when it comes to spending federal money? I mean, how many, how many times do we. I'm getting a little sick to my stomach hearing about all of the federal money that we keep getting from the, from the Trump administration and everybody applauding it. I just saw a thing where, and it's not necessarily, I'll go into it, it's. Any of it might be going to West Virginia, but they just said that the dhh, DHS in the federal. My mind just went blank. Oh, Kennedy, they're going to give $400 million in grants to mental health facilities to try to expand mental health care. And everybody goes, oh great.
- [46:49]
B
Yay.
- [46:50]
A
Love it. And I'm like, okay, yeah. I mean, that's the problem is all these things are stuff that we want, but then it just more and more and more and more and more spending and all of our tax dollars just go to pay for service the interest on the debt. So it's like where do you think all this money's coming from? So you don't mind playing inflation when if it brings Nucor here or a coal fired power plant or rural health care, you don't mind paying inflation there. But if somebody says we're going to ban food dies because food dies is bad for you, well, I'm not paying the inflation cost of M&M's making blue M&M's with new tooling. Okay, cool. Because it's, because it's simple. Because that's easy. That's elementary economics. Yeah, you're right, buddy. But also you're wrong about everything else because you support all this other stuff. If you're consistent and say no, I don't support inflationary spending through federal grants and I don't support you banning things because it makes companies have to raise prices on goods. Okay, cool. Intellectually consistent. But that's not true. Nobody is. And at least I can admit that. Well, no, I am, I'm not. I, at least I could admit the food dye thing. At least I'll admit. No, it's not principled. It's just, I don't think that. I think it's better than the fda. Like anything they could do to subvert the fda, I'm all for it. Because it's evil. It's an evil organization that has killed millions of people in this country. Even just with their saturated fat rules. They've killed millions of people. It's not even debatable like overall health. They said that eating sugar is okay, but eating a steak with high fat is bad for you. Like that's. There's no science there. TJ Meadows. There's no science in the FDA unless it's bought and paid for. If there's nobody with enough influence to pay for differing science, yeah, there might be some science in there, but overall it's all just like who can get away with what and who can, you know, pay the most to get their medicine through and all this other stuff. So it's, it's all just a game. But the intellectual inconsistency of these same people being for, you know, just like environmental mandates where you're going to tell somebody what they can do on their property. But then you think all of a sudden you're for property rights Democrats when it's eminent domain for something you don't want. Like you don't believe in property rights, you think the EPA should be able to come on your property and tell you not to do something with a marshland or whatever, you believe in that, but you don't believe in them saying, well, this is going to benefit West Virginia's electrical grid or whatever, so we're going to let them put this big tower on your property. What's the difference? Because you see it as beneficial on your own personal scale. That's the problem with principles. Right? Is the main general premise of libertarianism is no, I don't, I don't think I know what's right for everyone at all times. If you hurt somebody else, then it's wrong, then it's bad. If you touch somebody else's property or affect somebody else's property, now it's bad. So if there's an environmental concern and it harms somebody else's property, now it's bad and I sue you and now I own your property. Like it's just that simple. But we don't, we've, like you said, you've been saying repeatedly the cost of this spider web of government moving throughout every single sector. It's all connected now. There's no getting away from government. There is no easy answer because it's all touched by government, everything. There's not one thing that's not touched by government unless you're just ignoring the law, which I'm all for. So yeah, I don't know that that, do you think that that transmission line is going to go through no matter
- [50:28]
B
what anybody says it's going to go through somewhere. I think it's just gonna be a matter of where is gonna be the interesting hard hitting analysis.
- [50:39]
A
It will be. But no, but no.
- [50:41]
B
YB well, yeah, it's just a matter of okay, where can we sneak it through with the least amount of people pissed off at us basically.
- [50:52]
A
So yeah, yeah, I don't know it again, it doesn't affect me. I mean there's transmission lines going all across the, and they are, you know, ugly and, and I think there's plenty of data to show that they're not, you know, benign. I mean there's a lot of, a lot of all kinds of stuff coming off those power lines and, and affecting animals and environment and I'm all team people, but if it's something that doesn't really, really need to exist and they're going to use eminent domain and put up this giant thing, I mean, I don't know, it's, there's no easy answer in the modern industrial age, right?
- [51:31]
B
Something like that. Yeah.
- [51:32]
A
All right, well, okay, so yeah, we didn't announce anything, but, Taylor, you're running for the 13th Senate District in West Virginia.
- [51:43]
B
Yeah, still doing that. And actually heading out here in a little bit to the Barack Covered Bridge Festival to go meet some folks, shake some hands and kiss some babies and all the things that politician candidates are supposed to do. So keep an eye out for me. I'm. I'm trying to make a bunch of these local activities and talk to folks one on one and get the message of liberty out there. Find me at richmond for senate.com on Facebook and the Tik Toks.
- [52:15]
A
Yeah, awesome. Yes. I'm running for the 15th House District for Ronan Work County. I've already been out. I went to Little Canal River River Fest in Work County. Went to our flag flag raising here in Spencer. Talking to a lot of people and getting some good feedback. I think the whole getting out and talking to people really does help. I think people actually seeing who you are and knowing what you stand for. I mean, if we stand any chance as a third party, that's. That's what we got to do. We got to beat feet and let people know what. Who we are and that they probably really do agree with everything we think it's just a matter of them knowing that we exist. So, yeah, I think the next thing I'm gonna do is the July 4th parade in work County. The Elizabeth Fire Department has a little parade every year, and I guess nobody really ever shows up for, you know, politicians on a representative level. So I'm gonna come and walk around and talk to people, be in the parade. I don't have a website, but I do have a Facebook. Ty. Ty Ward for WV House. Yeah, if you want to follow the podcast, get us. Subscribe on any of your podcasters. The Libertarian Party of West Virginia is on Instagram, Facebook and X. If you want to donate, go to lpw.org hit that donate button. Give us a little money for the podcast volunteer effort. We'd appreciate it. Until next time, don't hurt people and don't take their stuff.