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- [00:01]
A
What can 160 years of experience teach you about the future? When it comes to protecting what matters, Pacific Life provides life insurance, retirement income, and employee benefits for people and businesses building a more confident tomorrow. Strategies rooted in strength and backed by experience. Ask a financial professional how Pacific Life can help you today. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska. And in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.
- [00:36]
B
What's up, everybody? Sorry, sorry, Rob. It was my fault. I asked you the question. What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I'm Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. We were just talking nicotine pouches a little bit as you guys came in there. I'm sorry for that. That's how it happens sometimes. I've, I've been, I'm a big alp, man. That's my thing. I like these apps. I'm getting no, getting no money off of that. I'm just sucking up to Tucker Carlson. That's all I'm doing. But no, I really do like them. They got me off the, the vape, so that's good. And Rob, they got you on to nicotine. So. Yeah, you know, one up, one down.
- [01:12]
C
I had, I was drinking pretty heavily the other night. Someone gave me a 9 milligram alp. I was like, I'll try that. I put in my mouth and realized I already had two zins in.
- [01:23]
B
That is. Yeah, there's no need for any of that.
- [01:25]
C
No, that'll even you out real quick. I had a great weekend out in California with Brian McWilliams. We filmed a whole bunch of stuff. Going to be putting out a porch tour mockumentary in December and coming to the end of the run here, everybody. So come on out. I got New York City this week at a cool spot. I've got Bridgeport on Wednesday, Walpole, Massachusetts, somewhere in New Hampshire, and then Providence, Rhode island, and then gigs next week. And that's about it for the year.
- [01:49]
B
Yeah, man, I'm, I, I got the, the festival, of course, and then we have one night, which we always do every November. I don't know why this has become a yearly tradition, but we always do one night in Poughkeepsie in November. And then I always take December off because, you know, it's holidays and I've got a bunch of family birthdays and stuff like that. And, you know, I just, I like to have one month out of the year where I don't travel for work. So that's always December. But the Poughkeepsie Shows I did were both. There are tickets available as of right now. Both these shows are gonna sell out, so if you want. And Rob, also buddy Chris Vega will be there as well. If you want to come see us, that's your last chance to see all of us together for the rest of the year is in Poughkeepsie, New York. Comicd Smith.com Ticket links are up there. All right, so for today's episode, well, the commies are pissing me off, and so I just think we got to do an episode about how they are, because communism is retarded. And, you know, there's been a couple things that have been on my mind that made me decide this, because I was thinking about a completely different topic for today's show, and then I kind of changed my mind. If you had asked me yesterday what the show was going to be like today, it would have been a completely different thing. But I just felt like what I was gonna do, I'm probably gonna handle in the next couple weeks. I got a couple. A couple big shows coming up soon that I think will be. Will be fun. I'm going on Louder with Crowder, with Steven Crowder tomorrow.
- [03:14]
C
Oh, that's happening.
- [03:16]
B
Yeah, that is finally happening tomorrow. And then I believe it's happening right before our show tomorrow. So we could, you know, discuss that I guess, maybe a little bit tomorrow. And then also, I. I believe I'll. I'll be going on. Well, you know what? Let me not announce that, because they haven't announced it yet, but another. Another big show that I think will be fun that people like in the next couple weeks coming up. So I got some more big things going that I'm. I'm excited for. And then there's one more that hasn't been confirmed yet, but I think will also happen. But I wanted to talk about this for. For a couple reasons. Number one, it kind of just. I. I was thinking about this a lot last week, and then, oh, the. You know, sometimes you kind of have a. You. You think about something, and then you're like, huh, maybe that's right. And then the more you think about it, you're like, oh, this is 100% right. And this. The thought was simply this, that the. The favorite to be the Democratic nominee right now in 2028 is clearly AOC. And it's. It's almost like once I realized that I couldn't unsee it, and I was like, oh, yeah, this is. You know, it sounds crazy that AOC could be the Democratic nominee until you Think about everyone else. And then it's. And, and part of this was that I just, I've been seeing the reaction that AOC has been getting. And then I saw another clip of Gavin Newsome, which maybe we'll play at some point in this. And I was just like, oh, yeah, this guy is just not. This guy's not a contender. He's not going to win this. It's going to be her. And she is actually the one who is, like, has a little bit of street cred with the progressives and the socialists, but also is kind of an establishment Democrat at heart. And that's just the right balance that you could, you know, have the establishment allow you in and actually be able to rally people into it. And, of course, this is all in the background of Mamdani, who is, like, about to become the mayor of the biggest city in the United States of America in the financial capital of the world. Kind of a big deal. And I've, you know, throughout this whole thing because Mamdani. Well, first of all, because Andrew Cuomo ran against him or is running against him, who is the lockdown governor, the face of the, the COVID you know, government totalitarian response, and also happens to be Benjamin Netanyahu's lawyer and has made Israel a major issue in this race. It was just very easy for a while to focus on how awful all those people are. And Mamdani is being smeared in every ridiculous way that, you know, they're. They're claiming that he's a jihadist. They're claiming that he, you know, whatever, like all, all these dumb things. He, he hates Jews, he wants to globalize the intifada, he wants to, you know, whatever. He, he's pro 911 or something like that. Whereas, like, so he's being attacked on every ground. That's ridiculous. And then nobody seems to be really focusing on what he's actually saying, which does deserve to be criticized. And so I thought maybe that that's just what some of our focus should be going forward. Any, any thoughts on any of that?
- [06:25]
C
Rob, off the bat, I think AOC beating Newsome after debates is a spicy take. Now, I don't like Newsome and I, we. There was a bunch of clips making the rounds about him being a total goo as he tries to represent himself and can't really forge a cohesive image. And he's. It's lunacy. But I don't see AOC clearing the debates. I think in a post Kamala Harris world, you're going to have a hard Time selling people on the idea that this also is not a stupid person. I do hope that AOC runs because maybe she can break AOC's. I'm sorry, Kamala Harris's record for most money spent on a campaign that goes nowhere. Now, she's not quite as stupid as Kamala Harris, and she does not have Kamala Harris's unlike ability, but she's pretty dumb.
- [07:17]
B
Okay, look, I can't. All right, I can't technically argue with that statement, but I would just say that you're. Perhaps my only gripe with it would be that I think you might be downplaying the gap there. Like, she. Yes, she's a dummy. She does not have a sound understanding of policy or something like that or anything for that matter. But she is so much better at this than Kamala Harris was. And I do think that's important to, you know, Kamala Harris might have been. Kamala Harris was good at playing the power game that she was good at. Like, I don't know, sleeping with the right guys or whatever she was doing to move up the rank to become the Attorney General of. Of California. Like, she good. Or the. One of the leading prosecutors. I forget her exact title, but that she was very good at that. But in terms of, like, appealing to people, the Kamala Harris never had what AOC does have, which is a. A somewhat authentic grassroots level of support. And so, yes, like, I. I get your point. Like, she's also another dumb chick, but not like Kamala Harris. And she, even though we really disagree with it, she does at least have something to say. Kamala Harris did not have anything to say.
- [08:34]
C
She has a charisma to her. She actually has a grassroots fan base. She is not as much of a train wreck that you can't put her on any interviews, but through a whole campaign season, I think people are going to feel uncomfortable with how. And also, I'll just say it. She's getting fatter and her tits aren't getting perkier, and I don't think that's going to help her either.
- [08:58]
B
Well, look, I mean, if we want to get serious about this, we do know what moves the needle here, okay? So I'm not going to argue with that. Yeah, some people might have to be hired, but. Well, look, I'll just say that. I'm saying, again, this is all grading on a curve. I'm saying I'm comparing all the candidates right now, and I'm just going by process of elimination. And you know what? Bernie Sanders is too old and Jon Stewart is too short and too Jewish, and Gavin Newsom is too goddamn phony and transparently just full of. And you're. What are we left with here now, Rob, like Kamala Harris gonna try to run again? Okay, that's not a serious candidate. You think Shapiro or Gretchet, Whitmore, these governors who they. The. The CNN tries to convince you have some shot. I just don't see it. And who is left standing here, to me is this AOC lady.
- [09:44]
C
Now, look, Vance versus AOC is the cringiest presidential race of all time.
- [09:49]
B
Oh, it's going to get rough, but it is. But again, I'm, you know, making these predictions. We're not even in 2026 yet. I'm talking about 2028. So obviously I could be way wrong and there could be people we're not thinking about. But I'm kind of saying, as of right now, this seems to be to me, like, what the most likely outcome is. Now. Now getting into some of this stuff here because I do think there is, you know, there's this tragedy that is just being a libertarian. That's just part of, it's part of what we sign up for. That. It's just you're always kind of, you know, it's a constant. Yes, well, it's a, It's a constant pattern. But worse than a Mets fan, because you're not actually right to be a Mets fan. You know, like, we're. We're in this position where we go, look, okay, you shouldn't go down this economic path. And then everyone goes, no, no, we're going to go down this economic path. And then they go down that path, and it's the disaster that we told them it was going to be. And then they go, this is why we got to keep going down this path. And we're just like, wait. But the whole point was where. And you know, it's funny because there's been the two, probably the two biggest crises that have hit the United States of America in my life. I mean, obviously there's been a lot of different things, but probably the two biggest ones that hit America while I was alive, like, actually this country. Not crises in other countries that we caused or exacerbated, but the ones that hit America were probably. Well, I mean, I guess 911 is. Is up there. But I was thinking the financial crash in 08 and Covid, which, you know, as bad as 911 was, it wasn't quite on the scale of, of those other two. And both of those, both times, and I Guess you could say this even for 9, 11 too. But all of those times, it was like, the takeaway was, that's why libertarianism is wrong. You know, that's why, you know, in, in there were major articles written in the New York Times and things like that. After the 08 crash, it was. And everybody blamed liberty. It was all free market economics. That's what caused this. It was capitalism, you know, and then when Covid came, it was the New York Times, major, Pete, there's no libertarians during a pandemic, you know, and that everybody knows we need lockdowns now because look at this virus. And in both cases, we were totally vindicated by totally proven right. It was actually the best argument for being a libertarian. The, the, you know, they bail. They had this huge government action after the financial crash, bailed out all the bankers and then let them keep their bonuses and still let Americans get their houses foreclosed on. Nobody defends this in hindsight. Almost nobody defends it in hindsight. And same with the COVID stuff. It's just complete. We would have been so much better just being libertarians the whole time, you know, as a society. But every time there's a major crisis, we have to pretend, like in 2008, we have to pretend that, hey, look at the culmination of eight years of Ron Paul being president and Judge Napolitano taking over the Supreme Court and, you know, whatever, Robert Murphy being the Fed secretary. Now all of a sudden we have this problem because of all you libertarians. But in fact, none of that happened. And it was George W. Bush, who was president, and we spent like trillions of dollars on stupid wars. And then he expanded, had a huge expansion of Medicare and the Department of Education and just all of big government programs. And then when it's a disaster at the end of that, they go, the problem here was libertarians. The problem here was capitalism, free markets. And so now it does seem that in this latest crisis of whatever it is that we're facing right now, it seems again that socialism is what's being embraced and capitalism is what's being blamed. And I don't know if you've looked at this, Rob, but I've seen some, like, opinion polls on this amongst young people, which really is scary, man. Just when you feel you're, you're making some strides and it's like, oh, the young people are turning against the warfare state and turning against the Zionists and they're turning against the, the legacy media and all this, but they're turning towards Socialism, just these. And, and like, and even amongst the Trump supporters, like, like Gen Z Maga, like, even they are, are like, very likely to say things like, you know, profit is theft or whatever, and, and kind of embrace this idea that the government should be taking a, a much bigger role in housing and education and daycare and all this stuff. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Tuttle Twins. I love the Tuttle Twins series. I have a bunch of them that my kids have loved already. I, I really, anybody who's got little kids who's interested in this show, you got to go check these guys out. Essentially what they've done is they've taken the work of all the guys who I love the most, you know, Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard and F.A. hayek, and they put all their greatest works into children's book form and they call that the Tuttle Twins. These books are made for kids, but honestly, an adult could spend a couple hours reading through them and walk away with a solid foundation on the core concepts. The books are really incredible and they've sold over 6 million copies. Just truly amazing. You know, so many other, these libertarian think tanks have had huge multimillion dollar budgets, haven't gotten a darn policy passed on anything. But what these guys at Tuttle Twins have done is they've gotten our ideas into the young minds of millions of children, and this is just an enormously successful venture. Go check them out. Tuttletwins.com problem. You'll get a deal on the magazine subscription if you use that link. It's like 50 bucks. It's the price of a couple of pizzas for a full year of mind molding, learning for a little one in your life. Really can't recommend them highly enough. They got like the board books for toddlers and stuff like that, too. So it's just a great, a great collection to. Tuttletwins.com problem. Tuttletwins.com problem all right, let's get back into the show.
- [15:45]
C
Well, you can blame Trump, who's indoctrinated his base for central planning, U.S. manufacturing jobs and high tariff policies. So it's very much a part of Donald Trump's agenda. And the Republicans at large have absolutely just folded on defending free markets against socialism. When you have people like Josh Hawley talking about why you need more Medicaid and you've got other characters talking about why you can't end Obamacare. So the Republicans have no one but themselves to blame for basically embracing socialism to try and appeal to the masses.
- [16:19]
B
Oh, 100%, man. It's a failure. Look, I mean, the truth is, if in 2025 you have young people embracing socialism, even communism, then yeah, obviously, Rob, right, Like by definition, the Republicans have failed. And you know what? That. I'll, I'll take a piece of that failure for all of us. All of us have failed. Like the Republicans have failed. The Cato Institute has failed. The Mises Institute has failed. Reason magazine has failed. Our podcast has failed. Like, ev. If, if there is. If you're telling me that the most disastrous economic policy of the 20th century, I.e. wherever it is still alive in the 21st century, still results in nothing but misery and starvation and tyranny. Like the most, the biggest disaster of any ideology that's ever existed is communism. It's like responsible for like 100 million deaths in the 20th century alone. If people still are asking for that, then yeah, we've all failed. But obviously, Rob, to your point, no one owns that failure more than the freaking Republican party because there's supposed to be an entire political party, one of major two political parties that's devoted to what, Republicanism, right. Like keeping a limited constitutional Republican style of government, which means to some degree, laissez faire capitalism. And yeah, they've completely failed to, to fight against this whole thing. And, and a huge part of that, of course, is because we, we live in this insanely corrupted big government country and everybody's been convinced that that's what capitalism is. And if that's what if this most crony and corrupt and blood soaked version of capitalism is capitalism, well then of course the young people want whatever the opposite of that is, you know, and you watch this all the time, man. Like, it's one of the weaknesses that, that libertarians or just people like us, it's one of the weaknesses we have is that we, we live in this world of like, arguments and evidence and policy views. And that's not how most people decide what team they're on politically. Most people that, you know, you, you some guy in a suit who's 28 who's going, you know, to work and he's trying to move up the corporate ladder and he's trying to make money and hustle and then he sees like some hippie smoking weed who's like, hey man, like money is theft or something like that, and he goes, dude, I'm going to be a hardcore right winger because I'm just going to be the opposite of Whatever that is, you know, like, that's, that's how most people decide what their politics are. It's like who they don't like. They make an emotional decision, then they rationalize from there. And you see this all the time, dude. You see how many people that were left wingers just became right wingers during COVID because they're like, I don't know, I'm against this thing. So I want to be the opposite of whatever the people who are for this thing is. That's how it happens. And so the same way they look at this system and go, well, this is capitalism. Call me a communist, you know, and that's, that's what seems to be happening here. But so let's like actually try to. Because the thing is, is that the argument for it is just so weak. It's so I've always found this to be the case that, like, it is. And, and you know, there's people who I like who are on the left. And weirdly, you know, through the last couple years, there's been a lot of kind of allies or coalition building with people who are just against supporting Israel in this war. And a lot of those people are left wingers who are supporting mom Donnie and are pretty damn socialist. And now I don't think any of them, to be completely fair here, would call themselves communist. But so much of the thinking does come from that. And straight up communism does at least seem to me to be almost the implied, obvious correct answer. Like, if what you're saying is true, then why wouldn't we just do this? Which seems to be the logical conclusion of all of it. And, but yet, you know, it's like, as I've said, like I've read a lot of socialists over the years and read communists over the years, and there are. There, it's just garbage. Like, the whole thing is just such bad theory. It's like if you read Karl Marx, the theory is awful. It's just, it makes no sense at all. The, all the, the stuff about like the whole labor theory of value thing is all completely flawed. This has been dep. Debunked. It's not even like anyone can. There's no economists who are defending the labor of theory value. And if they are, they are just out to lunch. His whole idea of like being, you know, like you should be able to be a fisherman one day and then a poet the next day and a factory worker the next day is like, this makes no sense at all. It's just removed from reality. People get good at the thing they do. It's so much more eff. Efficient for us to have people that do something that they have a knack for and get better at. And his entire prediction of the future, everything was wrong. And he said, he said the workers of the world were going to unite to bring global communism. And then he was, he wrote this in what, 1848. And then in the next hundred years the workers of the world all united underneath their national flags to go kill each other in two world wars. Like just these predictions were terrible. The theory was terrible. And everywhere it's been put into play, into practice, it's been a complete disaster. And then you read like Mises and Rothbard and you're like, oh, see this is good theory. So anyway, let's get into it. Let's play this clip from Mamdani, the, the, his freeze the rent clip here. These are the campaign speeches he's given. Let's take on some of these ideas.
- [22:17]
D
Here is what we stand for, my friends. We are going to freeze the rent for more than 2 million rent stabilized.
- [22:24]
B
Tenants.
- [22:28]
D
And use every resource at our disposal to build housing for everyone who needs it. We are going to eliminate the fair on every single bus line and make what are currently the slowest buses in the nation move around this city with ease. And we are going to create universal childcare at no cost to parents.
- [23:02]
C
So.
- [23:03]
D
New Yorkers can raise their family in the city they love. Together New York, we're going to freeze up. Together, New York, we're going to make buses fast. And together New York, we're going to deliver universal. We will make our city one where every person who calls it home can live a dignity of life.
- [23:35]
B
All right, so I mean look, not great chance first just not. It doesn't have the rhythm. A good chant is all about rhythm. And he not doing great there. But this is the stuff that is like, look, everybody's attacking the guy for being a jihadist. You know, I think I, I mentioned this on the Daryl episode. I had the, I posted on Twitter the other day and I was like, everybody's telling me this guy's like a Jew hater Jihad. Like what's this based on? What are you talking about? And they have nothing. Everyone goes, he said globalize the intifada. And you're like when did he say that? Can I see the clip of it go? Well okay, he didn't say that, but he was asked about it and he refused to denounce it. And you know, whatever. It's all this other. They're like, trying to convince you of. But this is the. That's resonating with people. And look, let's just start with this, right? One of the. And this is why I. I do say it's almost like I say the implication is communism is because none of them ever seem to give you a limiting principle. Like, they always seem to just. It's like with the minimum wage debate. They always seem to go, like, we need. You know, the minimum wage is currently 12 bucks. We need 15 bucks an hour. And then, you know, like, a few years later, all their spending bills have destroyed the currency. And then they go, you know, we need 25 bucks an hour. Right? Like that. So now it's like 25 bucks an hour, minimum wage, but no one ever gives you, like, why not 30? Why am I not better than you? If I say 30, and then someone could come along and say, 35, like, why. Why not a hundred thousand dollars? Like, they. They never grant you, though. So in other words, like, if this model works, if saying, if we can say the buses are free, that works, well, why stop there? Why go with rent freezes? Why not lower rent, Right? Like, if you're already dictating that you can control the price of it, why stop there? Right? Like, it just. It seems like you're. You present it as if it's an obvious good for the government to do more of this, but I'm just asking the question, reducto absurdum, right? Why not go further? Why not pay people every time they get on the bus? That's better than free. Why not give them 10 bucks? You get on the bucks, here's 10 bucks. Is there a problem? Are we starting to see an issue? Because again, why can't I just stand next to Mom Donnie and go. Freezing rent and free buses is kind of nice, but I say eliminating rent and making everything free. Boom. What? Like, what's your counter to that, Mom Donnie, why is that not better than your plan? I say, that's my plan. I want to be mayor in New York City. Everything free. Everything. No more money. You have whatever you want. It's all free. Does any. Is this sound economic policy? Does it sound like that to you? Like, before I even have to get into why that wouldn't work. Don't you just, as an adult, go, yeah, okay, we can't do that. Like, that doesn't. And then, okay, so as soon as you accept that, go, oh, okay, well, then might there be some costs to doing a little bit of it? Like, why is it that if. If There's a cost at a certain point. Where is the limiting principle? Where is this sweet spot? How do you know exactly what this is? And maybe all of it's just damaging to the economy because maybe you can actually make things free. Isn't that, like, the. The whole center of it, Rob? Is that the idea of saying we're. We're. Look, you have this thing called the government, right? The government is a group of people who have a monopoly over the law. The. They can't just make things happen. Government doesn't produce anything. It can't give you anything. Like a guy who owns a factory and the factory makes widgets. He could give you a widget, but the guy at City hall can't give you anything. All he can do is tax people. And who are the taxpayers? The New Yorkers. The same New Yorkers he's talking about. All they can do is take you. You know, it's like if you have a swimming pool, and I go, I could give you more water in the swimming pool, but I don't have any water. So what I can do is, like, I could take some water out of the deep end and put it into the shallow end. You're like, yeah, but that's not. Do like, the same people who you're talking about riding the bus are paying taxes in New York City. O. All you can do is tax them for the bus ticket rather than charge it to them when they get on the bus. And by the way, you find out how nice it is. Like, I don't think actually, you know, the MTA monthly cards aren't cheap, but, like, it's actually not, like, the biggest expense for poor people. And what do you think's going to happen when all those buses are free? It's just going to mean you can't take them anymore because it's going to be homeless people all over them. But anyway, regardless of that, like, you get my point on this, Rob. It's like you're sitting here, number one. It's like, why shouldn't we just make everything free then? And also, what the hell do you even think it means to make things free? What does. Like, this is just like. It's like you're promising alchemy.
- [28:42]
C
Any thoughts? It's shocking to me how bad things have got in New York City that people are excited over a free bus ride. No one even likes the buses. People want the subways fixed. They just want government to govern and do all the things that they're supposed to do. And speaking to your point, it's just. This is how low people have stooped, that they're just. I've never seen a more pathetic. Just clapping and yes, free. You're going to make it free. And that's going to be free. And this is going to be free. Listen, I don't. I don't currently live in New York City. I can't afford to live in New York City, and that's a problem. It would be better if New York City was not this just rich playground for people with a ton of money or the kids of people with a ton of money. I don't know what happened in New York City that it stinks, but it stinks now. But I don't have a right to live in New York City. You know what I mean? If I can't afford to live in New York City, I got to live somewhere else. And so there's something just crazy about some guy going, I promise you that you can live in this place if you've declared it home. Like, I don't know if there was a private neighborhood I wanted to live in and declare it home, but it happens to be the wealthiest zip codes in the world because the rich are living there. I'm probably not going to be able to live there. And so when you just make promises, oh, if New York City's your home, I'm going to make sure that your childcare is free, your transportation is free, and no one can raise the price on your rent. Hey, I think the best that can happen right now is this guy actually gets into office, he enacts all these policies, there is no bailout, he fails miserably. And people realize that when the government promises you free stuff, you don't want to take that offer. It's a deal from the devil.
- [30:14]
B
All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is my Patriot Supply. This is a company I've been telling you about for a while. If you guys are anything like me and you're always concerned with preparedness, this is a great company to look into. And those cold winter months are coming up. I could already. I don't know where you guys are in the country, but it was nippy this week here. And when it gets cold, people start worrying about certain things, like, what if the power goes out? What if it's really, really cold and you have no way to keep yourself and your family warm? It's not that crazy. This is a real concern to have, and you always want to be in the best situation. You can. That's why I got the Vesta off grid space heater from our friends over at my Patriot Supply. It's a space heater that doesn't use electricity. It runs on something called canned heat, which is an indoor safe fuel. And with a Vesta stashed in your closet, you know, you can keep warm no matter what. And it doubles as a stove to boil water or cook food, which is pretty cool. And the best part is that you can get the Vesta and a bunch of other free gifts when you order the winter prep special from my Patriot Supply. Just go over to my Patriotsupply.com problem to see everything that's included. This offer won't last long and neither will this nice fall weather. So go over to my Patriotsupply.com problem today. All right, let's get back into the show. Yeah, well, it's, it, it's, you know, if you think about even the thing which I did find kind of interesting with like the child care stuff where you're like, well, so what are we really even talking about here? You know, there was, I don't know if you saw this, Rob, but this, this was unrelated national story about the government shutdown. But so I guess there was, what was it, the Agriculture Department, where they're talking about like the food stamp program and they're, you know, it was an attempt to put pressure on Democrats to vote for the Republican spending bill. But they were basically saying, I forget the exact numbers, but they need like $8 billion to meet, like their, their requirement for food stamps. They only have like a few billion dollars in the reserve account. They said, we're not using that billion. So unless there's a spending bill passed, like, people aren't going to get their food stamps or something like that. And they're like, this is, you know, and so of course, every, you know, leftist on Twitter is like, you know, they just threatened 40 million people with food insecurity. And of course it is, you know, as me and you would both agree, it's like the ugly thing about the game of politics, like, yeah, they use the people hostage to try and you can spin this however you want to because they can say, well, hey, Democrats just vote for the Republican spending bill and all those people get their food stamps. So, hey, you're hold, holding them hostage. And then they go, no, you're holding them hostage because we want this other spending bill with more additional spending. You know, your additional spending isn't as much as our additional spending. So you, so they're Playing this whole game and the leftists are sharing it, like, look how awful the Trump administration is. And it's like, does anybody just take a step back and go, hey, but like, at what point can we deal with the central problem here, which is like, why are in America in 2025, why are 40 million people dependent on the government to eat to begin with? Is that the goal? Like, is that, is that ever. Like, nobody wants that if you're raising kids. Nobody wants at the end of that, for your kid to be an adult who's now dependent on the government for food. That is not the goal. And if we've, you know, if we're in this, a modern rich society, the fact that people are even dependent. So why is that, like, what's destroying the economy? What are, what is creating all of these problems? And so like, so just my point being that like, to, to say, okay, we'll keep the, like, even if you say, okay, fine, fund the food stamp program, keep all these 40 million people on food stamps, that's not really solving the heart of the problem now is it? The heart of the problem is they're, they're in this position to begin with. And there never really seems to be any plan or even anyone even address, you know, that stuff. Like, you know, like, again, it's like, it's like the debate over health insurance, but nobody's even talking about how we're the most unhealthy country in the world. Like, okay, fine, but like, isn't it, you know, like, if, if something like 70 something percent of all medical bills are due to preventable illnesses, then like, why don't we get into prevention a little bit at some point? And so again, this, this idea of like, when you need, when you're talking about child care, I mean, what are we talking about here? Like, there are public schools and there are, I think, preschools, like public preschools all over the place at this point. I think, I think like almost every public school has a preschool or every, every district has like a public preschool in New York City. So what are you talking about? You know, kids start preschool at 3. What are we talking about? We're talking about the first three years of their life. We're talking about, oh, his big plan is that the government will raise your baby for you. Not your kid, your baby. That. Now look again, much like the food stamp thing, I'm not suggesting that like, there isn't like a single mom, a single working mom who's got three kids who has no other option than to Put her kids in daycare right now. Like her mom isn't around, her dad isn't around, the, the father took off and she's got these three kids. Someone's got to watch these kids while she goes and, and works a job so she can, you know, take care of them. Okay, I understand that exists, but like, at any point are we going to talk about how, like, that's really not good. Like that's not that the type of society you want isn't one where like single mothers are like dumping their babies off to the government for the government to raise them so they can go out and hustle to barely, you know, die. They also, I guess, need a rent freeze as well because they can't afford the rent and they're living paycheck to paycheck and, and the government is raising the babies. That is not a good system. Why are we here to begin with? Because, anyway, I guess my point is that once you start to go to the root of the problem a little bit and go, hey, like, hey, can't we all kind of agree that it's preferable that babies 6 months old aren't getting dumped in government daycare? Like it'd be preferable if they were raised by their mother or their father or their grandmother or their aunt or their uncle or their like. Like it would be preferable for a single mom to not be completely alone, to have a bit of a support system that maybe the government is never going to quite simulate. As good as a family could be, maybe she needs a little bit more than a government check or her rent freezed or free childcare. I think what, what she needs is like actual support. Because if you start to ask that question, then you start to ask, hey, what undermines that? What contributes to that problem? And then you find like pretty obviously that it's like, oh yeah, the whole welfare state, the whole goddamn welfare state that moved in and became the competition of family and churches and community. Like this is what welfare was before the welfare state. Before that it was mutual aid and churches and communities. That's what took care of people when they were on hard times. And so you, you have these interventionist policies that undermine the, the, a healthy society, cause all of these problems, right? That you could look at that with food stamps, with the price of everything being driven up with hyper regulation that slows down job opportunities and, and you know what I'm saying, like all of these like, policies and that, that hurt the economy, then you get people in a situation where they're dependent and then you go, the only answer here is a, is a socialist government program. Well, it's the same with all of these things. You have these go, these economic policies that undermine prosperity and harmony and community. And then when all of that's undermined, you go, well, here's why the government's got to take over everything. And you know, as bad as things are, they can always get a lot worse. And all of these, all of these prescriptions, just more government intervention into this shit is going to make everything worse.
- [38:28]
C
It's the, I mean, it's what you said at the beginning of the episode, but it's just what drives you so nuts about socialism. And it's what's been driving me nuts about Donald Trump's tariff policy is that you've had previous market interventions of the way that the government has messed up the free markets. And then they come in with, with new solutions to fix it, which is always just going to make it messier. But people fall for the trick. I, I think if, like, if there's just not enough of a, if you distorted the free markets enough that people don't feel like they have a fair chance or opportunity to go out and compete and live a better life, and there's a lot of socialism and just government money that's actually making people successful, then people look at it and they're just like, you know what? I want a piece of that pie. Why is it all going to the billionaires? If you're giving free money to them, then whoever the strongman is that's going to step in and say that they're going to do something that helps me, I'll vote for it. And it just doesn't, it doesn't help. It's free money for, or government loans for college just drives up the cost. It's free money for your health care is going to drive up the cost. When Kamala Harris was proposing free money as collateral to go get a mortgage, what do you think that's going to do to the housing market? It's the devil's trick of free government money is that it just increases the price on you and now you're more indebted or more reliant on and not able to be self sufficient.
- [39:44]
B
You're, you're completely right. And in fact, even like historically this is kind of how it happened. But if you could picture like, if you, if you put like, try to whatever you have in your head of like the progressive error, like the original progressive era in your mind of like how the, the United States, government, like how the American history went in those days, right? But when you had like, like before the welfare state, it. You got like the central bank and the income tax and like, oh, like essentially the, the, the billionaire, like cronies, they got their welfare state first, and then they gave us the Great Depression and then the, the New Deal. The response to that was almost like, okay, look, we'll give the farmers and the workers a little bit of welfare too. Like, it was almost like, so. But instead of, right, like, obviously, if the government rigs the economy on behalf of the powerful and the big banks and the big corporations, and then this screws over the economy so much that you're like, hey, we should get some too. But it's like, no, the answer is, you know, cut their welfare, not also give us more welfare. But again, Rob, it's just such a simpler argument, like, if there's just a check in front of you. That's always more tempting than like, hey, let's get rid of this structure that causes this problem to begin with. With. But I do try to, you know, I think with all of these things, when you think about economics, you really should, you should think from, like, starting kind of from the ground up. This is why I like to use the like, you know, desert island, you know, economic models, because I think it just helps people think about, like, what we're even talking about here. You know, I loved was. It was Bob Murphy who gave the example of, like, if you were teaching geometry. And for whatever. I don't remember much about geometry, but for whatever you guys remember, right? Remember, A squared plus B squared equals C squared. And that's how you calculate the angles of a triangle. Okay? So like, if you, if you told the kid that you explained it to him, like, this is how, you know, look, these are the total amount of angles that you could have in a triangle. And you can move a triangle around, but if this one gets bigger, then this one has to go, you know what I mean? Like, and so it's always going to be A squared plus B squared equals C squared. And that's the formula. And they went, okay, great, great. I'm going to go test this out on a bunch of triangles to see if your theory is right. You'd be like, you're missing the point. You don't have to test this out. You could just think this through. Just think this through and then you're going to know that this applies to every single triangle that's ever existed. And you don't be like, no, I Got to try this out on every triangle to make sure, like, no, no. You can know just from thinking about it that it applies to every triangle. Okay? So in the same sense, you just think, like, you're on a desert island. Right? Right. And so you're on a desert island. Maybe there's like 15 of you. You get stranded on this desert island, and there's no help of being. No hope of being saved. Right now you have to create an economy on this island, and which you would. Right away, you. You could just imagine, like, different people being like, okay, I'm gonna try. I'm gonna build a spear and try to, you know, hunt for fish or go fishing or whatever. And someone else, like, I'm gonna pick berries. Someone else is gonna build shelter. Someone else gonna try to build a fire. We're all gonna kind of, like, build these things. And even you could. Even if there was, like, you want to have some communal idea that people would voluntarily share these things, or perhaps people would produce what they produce and then trade them with others. You know, hey, I got some berries. I'll give you some if you give me some of your fish or whatever. Now, let's just say someone else came along, and they were the government in this model. So then I come along. I'm there. Everybody's doing their work. I just have guns. That's all I have. But I could point the guns at everybody and be like, hey, I'm the law here. No one else has a gun. So I got the power. That's really what makes the government the government that they got all the guns. They got the cops, they got the military. They have the judges, they have. They have the people who will make decisions and enforce them at gunpoint. The other group of people who do that are known as criminals. But so let's say. So I'm the government on this. This island, and everybody's producing. And I just go. I go, hey, while you guys are all working, I just came up with a rule. And the rule is that everybody gets fish for free. Like, have I. Have I added anything to this? Have I made our economic situation any better? Have I. I. Like I just said, that's it. It's free now. It's like, okay, but we still only have as much fish as we produce. We only have as much fish as that guy's able to catch. Like, you didn't add anything to the pile. You're just artificially saying, this is going to be free. Now, this doesn't make any. Anybody richer. In fact, you're not contributing anything to this problem. You're just pointing your gun and barking orders at other people. This is, nothing about this has actually produced anything. And in fact, what you need, whether you like this or not, to actually make people wealthier. What you need is to like, be more productive, catch more fish, build a better shelter, pick more berries. You need more work. And so it's just like this whole mentality that what we need is from us up top to legislate that everybody gets this is just, it's intellectually bankrupt. It doesn't make any sense. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Cali. I've been telling you about them for a while. Kelshi is the first US fully regulated CFTC approved prediction market and it's available in all 50 states. So you can basically bet on anything that has a clear outcome. You can bet on what the inflation rate will be next year, year, next month. You could bet on who's going to be the next mayor, the next governor, the next president. And what's interesting about that is you can also look at those markets and you can see what people are betting on. People are betting on whether we'll get the Epstein files and all types of different stuff. And so anyway, I like it because, you know, betting is fun and I also just like viewing it, you know, and, and looking at these different prediction models. So very interesting site. Go check them out@kalshi.com Dave that's K-A-L-S-H-I.com Dave all right, let's get back into the show anyway. Any thoughts? Rob?
- [45:52]
C
Checks out to me. Government doesn't produce this stuff. How can they promise you more of it? I think that it's reasonable and sound.
- [45:59]
B
And there's also things like, I mean, it just gets a. It, it just becomes, oh, sorry, I just saw that Crowder. Crowder tweeted that I'm coming on the.
- [46:09]
C
It's almost amazing though, the, the faith people have in the pitch for free shit that not one person's like, I don't think we have extra money. Are we paying for the healthcare? Where's the money coming from? Are we going to lose other services? What other services are you going to provide? It just, it's amazing that there's no analytical thinking in people that they just hear, oh, they're going to give me the thing. Great, now I can have the thing. There's no question of, well, you guys have promised me free stuff before and it doesn't seem to be working out all that great. Where's the money coming from? We don't have any money.
- [46:44]
B
Well, it's, I mean, I think part of it is the way we're, we're wired. You know, resources are scarce. We are lot. You know, everything is, is scarce. Essentially. We're all going to die. We are, we're vulnerable creatures who are, you know, get sick and get hurt and die and, and man, for most of human history that was, we were not nearly as comfortable as we are right now. And that was a real, like, if you could get your hands on some food, you got your hands on that food. And so the idea of anything being dangled, like resource being dangled in front of you, it's just like we instinctively, we want to collect those resources. And then on top of that, and this is part of the reason why I use the, the desert island example is because we, you get to a point where we're in such an advanced, complicated economy that people just kind of go, well, I know these resources are out there, so let me get a little bit of them. Let someone get them to me, you know. And you hear leftists say this all the time, right? Like they'll say things. It's the most infuriating, goddamn economically illiterate argument. But you will hear leftists say this quite a lot. Well, they'll be like, ah, they say there's no money for any of this welfare. But I don't know know, they had money for the wars, they had money for. To bail out the big banks. They had money. And by the way, that, that really speaks to your point, Rob. Right? The, the, your original point at the beginning. What a failure of the Republicans. Because right. You see it right there. The left is telling you how are you going to defend free market economics when you supported the goddamn bailouts and the wars. Give me a break about how the government can't spend some money. You spend trillions of dollars blowing up brown countries, right? It. And like, okay, so they have a point. They're calling out the hypocrisy of the right. But just think about how stupid that is. Like the actual. Look like it's a fair rejoinder to George W. Bush or Donald Trump or any Republican who supported all of them. But then like to people like me and you who are like, will you just point out, you go like no, dummy, we didn't have the money for that either. That's why we are where we are. That's why you have this unaffordability crisis, you know, like, think this through, man. You're going, oh, well, we already spent money on a whole bunch of that we didn't have money for. And now we're in such a terrible situation that we got. You know what I mean? Like, you're like, no, that's why, that's the whole point. We couldn't afford those things either. We spent a whole bunch of money that we didn't have. And now, now the country finds itself, you know, 37 or $38 trillion in debt with its currency totally devalued. It's like, right. No, the thing is, we didn't have money for any of it. Obviously. How many? We're, we're in tens of trillions of dollars of debt and that. And we, that's not even enough. So we got to print the money. Obviously, we couldn't afford it. We couldn't afford Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security or the war in Iraq or the war in Afghanistan or any of this, or any of the stimuluses under Obama or Trump or none of it. We can't afford any of it. And so the, the lesson from that isn't, oh, we, we couldn't afford any of that, so let's buy a whole bunch more that we can't afford. I think this through, right? Like, think it through. If you were like, some, you, you were like, buried in credit card debt. Buried in credit card debt. And, you know, I don't know, your wife has been spending on the credit card bill like crazy. And then you come and you're like, hey, hey, I want to put this huge purchase on the credit card bill. And then someone was like, you can't afford that. And you would be like, oh, this. So the people like my wife are going to tell me we couldn't afford that. Well, where was that when she put all this money on that? It's like, oh, okay, yes, you're both implicated here, but the point stands that you can't afford that. And the fact that your wife put a bunch of on the credit card that she couldn't afford just means you can't afford that that much more. That's not actually an argument for why you can spend a bunch of money now. That's a very strong argument for why even more so you can't do it now because, like it or not, we spent all that money on that dumb shit anyway. I do think, like, the, you know, you're right. And obviously, look, there's been, like, there's just been dominant, you know, intellectual Takedowns of socialism. I mean, I highly recommend Mises book. Socialism is phenomenal. All and just really, you know, there, there's so many problems with the real deal socialist models. And, and again, as I said before, which is almost is implied. I'm sorry, if you guys never. If you guys never. And correct me if I'm wrong, somebody explained to me, tell me one time ever where Bernie Sanders or AOC or Zoran, Zoran Mandani or any of these guys ever offer their limiting principle, like where they ever go, we should raise the minimum wage to $25 an hour. Now here's why we can't raise it to 35. 5. You know, like tell me whenever one of them ever said, you know, okay, well here's why we can't just always do that because they make it sound like a given that it's always better to be giving this stuff away. So again, explain to me why we shouldn't just be full on communist then why there just shouldn't be, there should be no private property whatsoever and everything should be free or again, subsidized. Forget free. Pay you for the, for the service. Because if you don't, if you don't do that, then it's just like, well, obviously the implication here is that we should do this with everything. Why wouldn't we? And again, if you have real deal socialism, like straight up government ownership of the means of production, you have no, no market pricing system. Mises already demonstrated clearly how you can't really have a functioning economy without prices. Obviously there's the incentive problems of why the hell would anybody want to work hard? Why would anybody want, you know, like, like all the basic things that we all know, right? Like if, if you're, if you really believe in equality and, and everything, people should be paid the same or whatever. Not saying that Zoron is exactly saying this, but he does call himself a democratic socialist and then just says that means everyone should live with dignity or something like that. But like real deal socialism, if that's what you're talking about. Well, why the hell would someone want to do, why would someone want to take a risk? Why would someone want to do a dirty job? Why would some, you know, people, people start their own businesses all the time and the majority of people who start their own businesses fail? I think the majority of them fail in the first few years. Most businesses go out of business. So why the hell would anybody want to take a job where you could just fail unless there was a huge reward, a potential reward at the End of it. Why would anybody want, like, does anybody really want to. To be a garbage man more than they want to be a painter? Not exactly. I mean, it's like, for the most part, people just go, I don't know. I don't think I can make a living painting. And I know I could make a decent living being a garbage man, so I'll make that sacrifice for my wife and kids or whatever. So, like, if you don't have this incentive structure, how is. But anyway, my point is there's been these, like, intellectual takedowns of socialism because it's really, really weak theory. It just. None of it makes sense. Sense. It's, it's childish and silly, but as you said, Rob, when you hear these guys, in their own words, like, say it, it. It does make you wonder. Like, can't you just see the obvious hole in this right away? Like, just, just from a common sense angle as someone's promising you this. Especially with all of the promises that government has made, you know, to our generation, you don't see that it's like, like, oh, yeah, this just doesn't make any sense. This doesn't make any sense that they. That the answer to my problems is that a politician waves a wand where they all could have done it before, but this guy's just so cool that he decided to do it. And that makes my life better.
- [54:45]
C
Anyway, it's also interesting, like, on all these things, it's. It's amazing how you can just have a reasonable pitch. Hey, the reason why housing got so expensive in this city is zoning laws. And so we're going to change the zoning laws and we're actually going to build a lot more housing. Housing. And there's going to be housing for you. Or, hey, transportation in the city has become a nightmare. And I actually think that our bus system is underutilized. And I actually have sat down with an engineer and figured out how we can revamp the bus lanes so that they're more efficient and that you want to take them. Or, here's how I can fix the subway. Here's the problem with the subways. They overspent on this. And we need the union to finally come down on their wages that we can get blanked done or even on the child care. I mean, I don't know how you fix that one. I'd have to think about it. But I think childcare, if anything, is a ploy to force women into the workplace because they, then they can tax their. Their earnings.
- [55:39]
B
Well, there's, there's A lot to that. But there's def. That's definitely a part of the equation. I mean, no. No question. Look, there. There is no. And that's a topic for another episode. But there is no question that there is. Look, if you just happen to notice that, let's say under. And again, anybody who's, like, a little bit liberal here in this, or anyone who, like, you know, like, I forget any of that, like, whether you think it's. You think it's really, really great that women are in the workforce in the numbers that they are now versus back in the day when they weren't. Like, okay, fine. But the point is that before the 70s, which was really the big, like, jump of women entering the workforce, before that, like in the 1960s and before that, that. The model essentially was that women were. Were at home and men were in the workforce and women were raising. And for, you know, if you go back to, like, the 1920s, 1930s, or stuff like that, like, look, there was just. There was a lot less technology, and you were having a lot more babies. So it just was the way of the world. It was like, there was a lot of real tough housework to do, and women were having, like, six, seven kids. So you were gonna be. It wasn't like the way women have kids now. Now we're like a chick who has, like, one kid, you know that it was nine months of your life, you were pregnant kind of a year, if you really count the kind of recovery afterward. But it's like a year that you were pregnant. But if you had seven kids, that was almost a decade of being pregnant, you know? And, like, anyway. But women were doing work. They were taking care of kids. They were taking care of the house. They're actually working really, really hard. I don't know if you've ever taken care of seven kids before, but it's work. Work. It's quite a bit harder than most jobs that any of us have these days. Almost anyone I know. I don't think there's anyone I know who works as hard as someone who just takes care of seven kids. Like, I got two. I got a gauge of what it would be to take care of seven. It's a lot. But that's not taxable labor. The government doesn't make money off of that. However, if the woman goes into work and then hires someone to watch the kids. Now, the government. In the old system, the government was taxing the man's income and nobody else's. In the new system, the government is taxing the Man's labor, the woman's labor, and a third party's labor. Who's watching the kids? And so just saying it was clearly in the government's incentive for the disintegration of the family unit, for all of this to become taxable labor. And for all the talk that the socialists and the communists have about exploiting labor, somehow the government like, doesn't get like what? They're not exploiting labor. I pay over 50% of what I make to the government. You add up all my taxes. I, my income taxes are insane. My property tax is insane. State taxes insane. The town taxes are crazy. God damn. That's not even starting to get into sales taxes or the taxes you pay on whatever the tolls or anything like that. Okay, but it is an enormous sum of money that. But then you're going to tell me about how the capitalists are exploiting me. What, that doesn't count as exploitation? You know what I get for that? What I get for all of the, the insane amount of money that I pay in taxes. I get wars that I find to be morally abhorrent. I get government policies that are reckless. A huge transfer of money from the working class and the middle class to the billionaire class. This is what I'm forced to subsidize. This is, is to. Is rigging the economy in favor of the powerful. And then I get a government who hates my guts a go. A government whose their values are diametrically opposed to mine. They, they think that anti war activists are, are a danger and that we ought to push transgenderism on your 4 year old. That's what I get for the money I pay, but that's not exploitation. Like what, you know, anyway, so. But the point being, right, just back to the, the thing. All of those guys, right, they all benefit from women being in the workforce and from the disintegration of the family unit. And also all of the biggest, the big government proponents have what been totally for feminism for the last 40 years. That's quite a coincidence. It just, just happens to be that they're really on board with what their incentives are there. But again, that's like, look, it's, and this is to the point I was making before Rob, it's like if you gain, you gain so much goddamn weight that you can't fit out the, the front door of your house anymore. And then you're like, let's have a conversation about the size of that door. And you're like, wait, but on some level, shouldn't we really be having A conversation about what the hell happened here, that you've gained this much weight that you can't fit out the door. Because, like, that is kind of the root cause of the problem. And in this. And, and you can't believe it. You can't believe that people. Look, I mean, there was this whole conversation. If you remember Rob during the Joe Biden years, as depressing as it is to remember, he was, was. He was president once. There was that whole conversation around student debt forgiveness. And they still, they'd be able to have that conversation without even thinking that maybe we should also talk about how the, like, you'd sit here and you'd go, hey, I. I work at Door dash and I'm 200 grand in debt. I'm never going to be able to pay this off. And then the conversation would just stop. And this, this is how shallow and low IQ the conversation would be. It would, like, that debt ought to be forgiven. And then we'd argue about whether or not the debt should be forgiven. And no one would just go, like, can we scratch that stuff just a little bit? I go, wait a minute, it cost 200 grand to get a degree that culminates with you working at Door Dash. Hey, what the. What the. Is up with this entire goddamn system? And like, and so again, like, that's. I guess that's kind of right at the center of this Madani thing too. Do. It's like he's talking about the unaffordability of New York City. But can someone ever show me anything that he's written or said where he has in a serious way grappled with or argued for what the cause of this unaffordability was to begin with? Because it seems that without even saying it, what the commies have is an implied. Because you rich guys are so greedy, you know, and that's about it. Like, I, Again, I've. I've never really heard any of the people who were advocating for forgiving student loan debt to really explain to me how the price of college got so damn expensive. Because I could tell you how. But, like, if you want to know, why is it. Why is it that in my mother's day you could get a summer job and pay your college bills? In fact, that's what a lot of college kids did. They paid their own way. They didn't go. They didn't need their parents to help them. They didn't need to go into debt to do it. They worked as a, as a cashier and paid for college. Same building. Maybe not the Same building. They built a lot of new buildings. Same books, same knowledge, same process of learning. If you're learning, you know, if you're studying the history of the American Revolution, maybe there's been some new books written on it. But it's like really the same goddamn mechanism now, isn't it, Rob, to go and learn about that stuff? So why the hell is the price 1,000 times more than it used to be? Like, that's a pretty big. You want to talk about this topic? That's a really big part of it. Why is that? When do they ever even deal with this? When do they ever even talk about why has New York City gotten so much worse? Why has the price of everything skyrocketed so much? Because, by the way, hey, your boy Jon Stewart seemed to kind of put his finger on it last week, didn't he, Rob? He kind of had it like, it was like inadvertent. And he stumbled upon this at the, at the young age of 70, but he finally. Oh, yeah, was this government interventionist policies? Isn't that the thing, right, Rob? It's like you start with this rejection of, of laissez faire free markets, you know, they produce more wealth than the world has ever seen in. But then little by little, you start convincing, you know, everyone that we need a mixed economy, we need intervention, and then everybody basically just has bought into mixed economies at this point, including the former communist countries. They've obey the only ones who's hanging on. Cuba, maybe. China has embraced business, Russia has embraced business. They're not communist countries anymore. They're mixed economies, essentially. And you know, with varying degrees of authoritarianism. But so what happens is, right, so you have this, this mixed economy and then what again, like I said, back to the desert island thing, right? What can government do, Rob? You know, this all it can do. You know the funny thing, it can't make anything free, but it could make everything more expensive. Everything can be made more expensive. This show is sponsored by Better Help. You know, I got little kids, and one of the things that I love about them is that they're always learning and they're always growing. But as adults, sometimes we lose that curiosity. Well, therapy is a great way to get back in touch with that. And I personally have benefited from therapy in the past. I highly recommend it. I think a lot of people can benefit from it. And if you're thinking about maybe starting therapy, I would suggest you give Better Help a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to Your schedule, You just fill out a brief questionnaire, and then you get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Rediscover your curiosity with better help. Visit betterhelp.com problem today, and you'll get 10 off your first month. That's B-E-T-T-E-R H E-L-P.com problem for 10 off your first month. All right, let's get back into the show. You know, if you like, just. If you imagine, right, if I'm just. Whatever the thing is, I'm. I'm the most simple business you could imagine. I'm selling apples. You know, I got a bunch of apple trees in my yard. I pick them, and then I sell them to people, and that's just my thing. I'm running it out of a little. A little shed. Shed, and I'm just selling apples. And then what can the government do? The government comes along and says, this shed isn't up to code. We are. We're instituting a new rule that everyone's got to have a really nice work environment. You got to have a much nicer shed. You got to have insulation for heating. You got to have electricity. You got to pay that guy more money than you're paying him right now. You got to make this up to code. All they can do is write more rules about what I have to do. And, Rob, what does each one of those rules do to the price of that apple?
- [66:10]
C
Makes it more expensive.
- [66:12]
B
That's it, right? You go, oh, you have to put more money into this and more money into. Well, then what do I have to do? I got to charge more money for each apple. Every single intervention just makes the prices go up and up and up, and then these fucking shallow commies come in and go, I know the answer. Make them all free. All the apples have to be free. Except why the hell would I even be selling them to begin with?
- [66:35]
A
Then?
- [66:36]
B
All right, last word to you, Rob, and then we'll wrap up.
- [66:39]
C
Well, I mean, it's incredible that they. That Cuomo took another stab at politics. And I guess there's something to be nice, something to be said for the fact that people are still so angry about COVID that Mamdami is the. The Zoron character is the more attractive figure.
- [66:57]
B
Yeah.
- [66:57]
C
I mean, because I. Who the hell I wouldn't show up and vote for Cuomo? Doesn't matter who the hell is running against him. So. So it's nice that there's no Chance.
- [67:04]
B
Yeah.
- [67:06]
C
It really is incredible to be stuck with these two choices. But luckily, I don't live in New York City, and hopefully we see these policies fail in such a spectacular way that when the next person comes around and tries to sell them, be like, you're, what are you, like, the Zoran guy? Just offer me free stuff.
- [67:24]
B
Well, I would say, hopefully the policies transparently fail with as little human suffering as possible for people to get the fucking picture that this stuff does not.
- [67:36]
C
You have people standing around. I remember when there were buses in this town.
- [67:39]
B
And it's just, I don't know, it's just, I, I, I guess the thing like. And this will be my last thought. Sorry I said last thought to you, but I'll take it. The last thought. But it's just that, you know, when I said the thing about your limiting principle, you would think that particularly after the 20th century experiments, there would be an onus on somebody calling themselves a socialist to demonstrate what that is. You know, I like, we did, we, we had these experiments that were like. And you know, guys, I'm not exactly an empiricist. I'm kind of a, an Austro, you know, libertarian type. But, like, we did run these experiments. I mean, really, really hard to argue with experiments. Like, literally, the, the north and South Koreans are the same people. They are genetically indistinguishable from each other. They are the same people with the same culture and the same tradition. I mean, not at this point, but when they started the experiment. And, like, I think North Koreans are like, 3 inches shorter than South Koreans on average. Like, we've run the experiment. Like, same culture, same race, same region, same everything. East and West Germany, dude, the commies put up the wall because people were flooding out. It wasn't to stop people from coming in. It was to keep their own people from flooding out. But look at, at that. East Germany and West Germany again, same culture, same language, same history, same everything. They were one country before that, and they went back to being one country after that. And look at the stark difference, dude. And so if you're going to after all of that time, after this experiment has failed so much, and you're just arguing toward going in that direction, isn't the onus kind of on you to at least at some point explain where the, where you'd stop, why you think it is? Those were such disasters. Anyway, that's our episode for today. Catch you guys tomorrow. And then look for. Yes, I'll be on. On Steven Crowder tomorrow. I saw he just tweeted that it's coming out, so I didn't. I didn't spill the beans. The news is. The news is out and some other cool dot com.
- [69:42]
C
Only, like, come hang out. Two more. Two more big runs and then just two shows in December, so. So come out, everybody.
- [69:50]
B
Very good. All right, catch you guys tomorrow. Peace.