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Good stretch. Oh, come on, dear. It's good to see you. You're right on time. I love your punctuality. Just one of your many good character traits. Come on in and grab a seat. I'll fire up your comments here so I can see what the locals people are up to. Boom, boom. Boom, boom. Good morning everyone, and welcome to the highlight of human civilization. It's the best time you'll ever have in your whole life. But if you'd like to take a chance on elevating your experience up to levels that no one has ever seen with their tiny, shiny human brains, well, all you need for that is a copper mug or a glass. A tanker Chelsea, A canteen jugger flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dope being the end of the day, the thing that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip. And it happens. Yeah, that's right. Right now. Sublime. So good. Well, according to Eric Dolan, who's writing for Psy Post, if you have a virtual workout partner, or partners, I guess it'll still boost your exercise motivation. So if you put on your virtual reality glasses or, I don't know, maybe if you watch them on the screen, if, if you see recorded images of real people who did the same workout as you so that you're doing it at the same time, that you will feel the social effect of that. So even though you know they're not real people, you'll still be more motivated to work out. Do you think that would work with you? Do you believe that you would be more motivated if other people were working out at the same time, but you knew they were fake people? They're not real people. Well, I don't know if that would work for me, but I can tell you that when I've gone to real gyms, I'm only motivated if there are attractive women also at the gym. Do any of you have that same problem? Any of the guys? If the gym is nothing but middle aged fat men, which, depending when you go, I used to go in the afternoon, there'd be a lot of handicapped people and people who are 80 years old and people who are trying a personal trainer for the first time, it's not going well. It is not motivating. It's not motivating at all. But boy, when you walk in the gym, it's all the young, strong people and even the guys are motivating if they're really in Good shape because you look at them, you go, God, that guy's in such good shape. We're going to have to take it up a level. So it might work. I don't know. But did you know? Separately, according to the Independent, Albert Toth is writing that 4 in 10 Gen Z employees would rather go into work because they feel lonely at home. They feel lonely. I was trying to imagine what kind of hell I would be living in if I were in my early 20s and I had an office job, but I could do it at home in my apartment where I lived alone. You would have no access to the primary social outlet that a young person has, which is whatever the hell you're doing at work for eight hours a day. So I understand that. However, I've got a suggestion for the 4 in 10 employees who for whatever reason are not working in the office but are lonely, they should do virtual workouts. Or better yet, instead of having a virtual workout partner, you have a virtual coworker. And once again, they're based on real video of your actual co workers, but they're just sort of doing their thing, you know, in your general area. I'll bet that would work. I bet you would feel less lonely if you were in a virtual world. Now probably it would have to work that you could interact with them so that maybe they'd have to be at home, but their avatar would be in the office at the same time. Something like that's going to happen. Yeah, I feel like the Gen Z employees are going to be working in the office, but the office will be virtual. Well, right before I got on here, I saw that home prices are in free fall. Somebody said, I think home prices are going down where I live a little bit, but they were so high they need to go down. So is it good news the home prices are going down because then more people can afford them? Or is it bad news because the people on them just got poorer? A little bit of both. But it probably, probably accrues more benefits than people who are just trying to jump on the, you know, home ownership bandwagon. Well, I saw a post on X from Eric Erickson. Most of you probably know him, a well known Republican for a long time, Eric Erickson. And he was, he says he was trying to help a guy I don't know find a job in tech. Reached out to a friend and explained the basics. My friend, senior level at a tech company, said, let me guess, white male, over 40? Yep. My friend was telling me how American tech companies have shut out that group Eric, I hate to tell you, but this News is approximately 45 years old. Now, I do believe that there's a guy who recently could not get a job because he was a white guy over 40. But that started 45 years ago, right? I mean, when 45 years ago we were having the same conversation. White guy over 40 was being, you know, sort of discriminated against. Nothing changed to. But it's shocking to me that anybody would be surprised by it or believe that you don't know what's happening and that you need to know. Oh, I better tell people about this. 45 years, unbroken every year. And it's never been better and it's never been worse. It's always been the same 45 years. So glad you noticed. Well, now, according to the brighter side of news, they can stimulate your brain in very specific places, but in a different way for different people, depending on what that one person needs to keep their concentration. So you know how your brain goes all over the place. It's hard to concentrate on boring stuff. Well, apparently now researchers have figured out how to put a little electrical stimulation to your brain, but make it customized for your brain specifically so it really, really can get in there. And there's a suggestion that they already know how to make you concentrate on better. Now, what does that say about your free will or what I like to call your illusion of free will? Because free will is absurd, but a lot of people think they have it. So if they can put a little electricity into your brain and cause you to act differently, does that mean that free will doesn't exist? Because if you had free will, it wouldn't matter what's happening electrically or chemically in your brain, you'd just be able to override it with your free will. But there is no free will. There is just chemical interactions. And then your impression is that you are part of it. Well, you were more an observer who was trying to explain it to yourself in a way that didn't make you crazy. Crazy. And you didn't have any choice about that either. So that's your, your two state wisdom right there. So apparently the Trump administration is, according to Reuters, is thinking about putting sanctions on officials in the EU who were involved with implementing the, that digital, what's it called, that digital stupid act that they do over there too, the Digital Services Act. So that's the one that would put pressure on our tech companies to, I don't know, have less privacy and less free speech, I guess. And so the Trump administration is fighting back against that. And might restrict the visas from some of their EU officials unless they change their minds. But I don't think that's official yet. I think they're just thinking about it. It would be unprecedented that we sanction the European Union. That would be sort of a new level of, of, I don't know, disagreement. So I don't know what's going to happen, but it might.
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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.
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In other news, the AI company called Perplexity, which I've talked about a bunch of times, it's a really good app. You know, I have to say I got hooked on it because it was really well executed and primarily I used it just as a search app because it just searched better than other things and hallucinated a lot less. It did hallucinate a little bit about me, I'll have to say. But Perplexity now as new program that will pay publishers for being surfaced by their app. So if you went to the app and you said, hey, what's the latest news about this or that and then it found a news article and showed it to you, they would pay the source the news article. Now what's interesting about this is that I don't know if the business model will work, but it might keep them from getting sued and maybe they just have to do that. But I wonder if it'll put pressure on the other AI companies that they'll all have to do some kind of micro payments to all the sources that they're sending traffic or stealing from. I guess you could say, and I feel like it will, if Perplexity is decided that it has a market value. Let let think about it this way. Yeah, it's the sort of thing that always turns into court cases. And if you went into court and you were the publisher, you could now argue that the market value of your product as surfaced by an AI has been established by Perplexity because they're literally paying for it. So that that's what the market value is. The market value is what somebody's willing to pay. So that would suggest that the other AI companies might be forced. I'm no lawyer, so don't believe anything I say about legal stuff, but it feels like it would put pressure on the other ones. So little legal pressure, if not moral pressure. Meanwhile, the X Company is Elon Musk is suing Apple and OpenAI, alleging some kind of antitrust collusion over chat GPT, because, you know, if you have an Apple phone, it's sort of mated with OpenAI. And I guess X believes that maybe they're, they're getting less visibility because of that. So we'll see, see where that goes. I feel like all these big companies are just suing each other all the time. Have you noticed that all the news is about lawsuits now? That's all it is. Or court cases. It's just. And somebody suing somebody, and somebody got arrested and there's a grand jury. It's like everything about the government and everything about AI and big business, it's all sort of somebody suing somebody for something. We're in that permanent lawsuit kind of a world. Apparently, the Coast Guard allegedly just pulled off the most successful, meaning biggest drug bust operation in history. They got 1.3 million kilograms of cocaine, and they said they, they grabbed drugs that had a total value of $45 billion. Now, that can't be true, right? 45 million doesn't sound like it would be maybe the biggest in history. But could they really have one shipment? They had $45 billion of value. Would the cartels put $45 billion of product on one boat? I mean, I don't want to tout or talk up the cartels, but aren't they pretty good at this smuggling stuff? Would you put $45 billion product value on one ship? Would you? That would be a weird choice. So I don't know if there's a typo in this story or what, but let's just say skeptical. There's something about that that doesn't track. Well, J.B. pritzker, governor of Illinois, wanted to make sure that you knew that Chicago is no hellhole. Oh, no, Chicago is no hellhole. In fact, he proved it by taking a walk in one of the safest Chicago neighborhoods early in the morning when all the bad people were still asleep. And he said, look at this. Looks safe to me. Is it my imagination? I think maybe it's entirely based on my own bias. But does anybody else have the feeling that the Democrat governors are sort of clowns? Does anybody have that impression? Now, arguably, you know, John Bolton is kind of a clown, you know, in his own way. But doesn't it seem like the Democrat governors couldn't possibly be serious with half of the stuff they're doing that they just don't seem like they're serious politicians. They seem like they're there for the jester work or the clowning or the attention. I mean, honestly, J.B. pritzker, he doesn't even look like he's trying to be some kind of professional politician. He just looks like he's clowning. Every time I see him, I can't even take him seriously. I don't know any Republican governors who, when you watch them, your impression is, is he even serious? Are you even trying to do your job? You know, is that all on one side? Am I just biased? You know, maybe you could name 10 Republican governors that are just, you know, ridiculous characters. What about Tim Walls? Isn't Tim Walsh a ridiculous character? He just looks like a clown, like a crazy clown. Well, who is the Republican version of that where. Forget about your politics. It's just that you watch them and you go, God, what a character. What a clown. I don't know if there are any. Or they, they stay out of the limelight, which would make sense. Anyway. UC Berkeley is getting sued by Dr. Yale nut native is a woman who tried to get a job there and was told that she wouldn't be hired by UC Berkeley because she's Israeli. They didn't say Jewish, but they said because she's Israeli. And they thought that the, the atmosphere there would be too dangerous and, or, you know, it would cause too much trouble to have an Israeli on their staff. And so she was denied the job, for which apparently she was qualified and would otherwise have had. Can you even imagine that? Now, I don't know how that lawsuit's going to go, but I've got a feeling that the person who got turned down because of their country of origin probably has a pretty good case. Have you heard about. There's a movement called Raise the Colors, and it originated in the uk, But I guess it's in maybe some other places in the European Union. And people are painting, at least in the case of the uk, they're painting a flag in various places, like on the street. You know, it's a patriotic thing. So they're, they're putting up flags and they're painting flags on objects and stuff like that. And the thinking is that it's a far right, you know, you know, those far right people that are behind it. But maybe not. It might be actually organic. It might be just a bunch of people who think. I feel like, yeah, we should express our patriotism now. Of course not. Of course. But just so you know, they're against the immigration rules of the country. So I guess it's like a Red cross is what it is. So that's what they're painting on stuff. I saw Elon Musk boosting that online, so maybe that'll be a thing. I don't know. I don't believe that England has much fight left in it. I think it's kind of going to roll over to just becoming an Islamic country. And a lot of it has to do with the fact that you don't, you don't really kill people just for being different than you, you know, like the old days. So I don't think there's any fight that's going to happen. I mean, I think they'll say things and they'll paint on stuff and they'll wave some flags, but I think things are going to keep going in whatever direction they're already going. According to Rasmussen, 53% of I think they usually do likely voters say that in person voting is more secure than mail in ballots. Can you believe that? Only 53% of adults understand that if you're there in person, it's more likely that you are who you say you are than if there's a mail in ballot. How is that even a subject of disagreement? I would have expected it to be more like 90% understand that mail in ballots are riskier, but a lot of people still think that the convenience is worth a little bit of extra risk. Now, that would be. If I heard that, I'd say, oh, well, those are smart people. They know there's a difference in the security, but maybe they're willing to trade that off for a little convenience and more access to voting. Nope. Only 53% even understand that mail in ballots are just by their nature, harder to police anyway. So Trump is leading the movement to try to get rid of mail in ballots as well as electronic voting machines. And Rasmussen says that 48% approve of this idea. 48%. So roughly half of the country is on board with getting rid of electronic voting machines and mail in ballots. I'm going to assume there's some of those people just like the convenience of voting by mail. I have to admit I voted by mail as well, and I don't know if I would have voted if I had to go in person. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm sort of different because I don't go places too much. It's not my thing, but I don't think I would have voted. Now, I also am in favor of getting rid of mail in voting, except for the special Cases like people in the military and people who are shut ins and stuff. Oh, actually, I could probably, I probably could get some kind of medical exemption and get a mail in vote no matter what. So see what happens there. Usually Trump likes the, you know, 60 or 80% things where he's, he's on that side, but in this case, I think he's willing to push for election integrity because he believes, I believe he believes. I can't read his mind, but it would be reasonable to assume, based on everything we've heard, that he believes that Republicans would win more if the election didn't have mail in ballots. So I don't know about the electronic part. And so just imagine this. You and I have no evidence. I believe, unless you have some, I don't have any. We have no evidence that electronic voting machines have ever been rigged in the United States to the level that it would affect the election. I don't have any evidence of that. But imagine if you're the president and you have access to all the, you know, the classified information. Do you think that Trump is aware? Because he would have the right to know this if he asked. Do you think that he is aware And I don't know that this is the case, but do you think that he knows that electronic voting machines have been rigged in other countries and the reason we would know that is because we're the ones who rigged them. Do you believe that that's a thing, first of all, that it's ever happened and that somebody like Trump or any president would know for sure if they're hackable and you can get away with it? See, that's, that's the part I find interesting because Trump wouldn't be able to tell us because it would be like the most highly classified thing of all time because we would want to keep doing it to other countries if it works. And again, I'm not suggesting, I know that it does. I'm just saying that hypothetically, Trump knows for sure if electronic voting machines can be corrupted by US Intelligence people. I feel like he wouldn't be guessing. I feel like he would know, you know, somebody would know. Well, Trump has attempted someone, say he succeeded in firing for the first time ever, a sitting Federal Reserve governor. That's that Lisa Cook, is that her name? So she was the first black woman to be on the Federal Reserve. So that adds a little spice to the story. But Bill Pulte has told us that she apparently claimed two primary residences, which is illegal form of fraud, I believe, because you would do that to Lower your mortgage rate and fairly common crime, I would imagine. But here's the wrinkle. So Trump basically says, you're fired, and then she says, no, I'm not. You don't have the authority to fire me because you could only fire me for a cause, and your explanation of the cause is bullshit, basically. So I'm not leaving. To which I say, what happens now? Because it's not like Trump can tell the head of the Fed, Powell, to, hey, make sure you clean at her desk. I don't know if they have desks, but make sure you exclude her because she's fired. He doesn't have to do that, does he, because he's independent. So he could just say, yeah, yeah, yeah, you think she's fired, but we're just going to keep on going and keep paying her and she'll still come to work like always. What would happen then? You know, would. Would Trump send some kind of, you know, physical authority, like the police or something? I mean, what do you do to. What do you do then? So this will be an interesting standoff. I don't know who wins this one. This is different than the Texas one where the Democrats left the state so they didn't have to vote on redistricting. You knew how that was going to end. Right? Everybody knew that eventually they'd have to come back. And eventually, because Republicans had the advantage, it was going to pass. But at this one, I don't know. I'm not sure that Trump's firing will stick. Maybe it goes to court, I don't know. But I wouldn't expect her to leave anytime soon. All right, so here's a story that we will all disagree on. We will disagree on what our opinions are about it, but more importantly, we will disagree about what the facts of the story are. And I'm not sure I'm going to be able to help on this one because it's really confusing. And the story is that Trump has signed an executive order about flag burning. Now, do you see how carefully I worded that? I said it was an executive order about flag burning. What I didn't say is that he said it. It is now illegal to burn a flag because he didn't say that. So I would ask you to Google it or AI it and look at the actual wording of the executive order. I believe it was written by somebody who was drunk or stupid. You could barely understand what the executive order is trying to do. So here's what I. Here's what I think is happening. And by the way, I'll withdraw my comment that it was looks like it was written by somebody drunk or somebody stupid because I think there's a explanation in which it is intentionally hard to understand. It looks like it's intentional. So that's why I'm withdrawing my, my insult to the author of it. Obviously Trump doesn't, you know, write the verbiage himself, but it is so confusing that it has the look of trying to make the news, get the wrong story and start reporting that he's going to ban the burning of flags, which didn't happen. That didn't happen. The executive order says things like, oh, you must now really obey the existing laws of the state and federal government. Wasn't that always the case? Weren't we always supposed to obey the existing laws? So that's part of it. Then there's a part where he's encouraging the attorney general to press some legal cases to find out where the borderline is where you can prosecute somebody. So that's more about determining where the line is of existing law. Of existing law. It's not attempting to make a new law. It's attempting to clarify through the court cases, I guess what exactly would be going too far. Now the things that we know are illegal would be inciting violence and stuff like that. So if you were burning your flag in the context of inciting violence, then I guess there would be some clarifications maybe to figure out if it was something you could prosecute. Anyway, do your own reading. You will find that there will be great disagreement on what the executive order says. But what it doesn't do is change the law. So it doesn't change the law. It's the existing law. It might cause some differences. So it's enforced. But I. So I don't even know how to have an opinion on. Looks like my best guess is that most of the purpose of it. That's Gary purring into the microphone. If you hear extra sound there.
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Payment of $45 per three month plan. $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and Fees, Extra cementmobile. Com. It looks like Trump is just doing one of those Trumpian things where he makes the press and all of his enemies talk about something that's not even real and nobody really cares about that much. And if they're talking about the flag burning, it would be more along the lines of, hey, Democrats, what do you think about crime in the cities? Well, you must be in favor of it. Hey, what do you think about that border? Well, you must be in favor of gangs coming across the border. Now, what do you think of burning flags? And basically you'll just get them all worked up and they'll be on the side of burning flags, which I am, I'm on the side of. It should be free speech. But if you're a Democrat and you come out against flags and in favor of crime and open borders, all of it looks like a trap to me. So maybe it's more about that. So the EO says it directs aggressive prosecution of related crimes. Related crimes. You see how weaselly this is? The Executive Order directs aggressive prosecution of related crimes, not burning the flag, because that's still, you know, not illegal. But if there were any related crimes, make sure you press those. There's also something about non citizens. So if a foreign national is doing it, then Homeland Security and the Secretary of State can send them home, I guess. But I feel like that was also something they always could have done. Right. Isn't it true that currently, if the Secretary of State says, whoa, that's a, that's a bad behavior in our country, then he just has to say, that's bad behavior. You're going home. Am I wrong? I don't think they have to break a law. So I don't even know if that part's different. But, but it might be enforced differently if, if a foreign national is burning a flag, maybe that would trigger the deportation. Trump is also signing executive order to eliminate federal funding for any, any place that has cashless bail. Boy, Trump is really using that federal funding thing as quite the weapon between his tariffs to punish other countries and then is eliminating federal funding to punish any states and localities that are disobeying him. Do you think he'll get away with that? Can Trump use federal funding to make the local jurisdictions change their laws? I hope not. So I'd be in favor of ending cashless bail, but I'm not in favor of the federal government being able to tell the states or the cities any fucking thing it wants. I'd like you all to put your heads in a bucket of Ice water. Why? Why would we do that? Well, if you don't, I'm going to cut your federal funding. Now, I'd like you to remove your clothes and run around in the public square while we mock you. Well, why would I do that? Well, you don't have to, but I've got an executive order here that will pull your federal funding if you don't. So I don't know how far you could push this. I will eliminate your federal funding. But I don't like it. I don't like it. I do like it. When, let's say the sanctuary cities are defying the law of the land. If you're defying the law of the land by not letting the federal government do its constitutional duty to protect the borders, then maybe withdrawing your federal funding makes sense. If you're discriminating and you're a college and you're being anti semitic, well, yeah, maybe you lose your federal funding. But the places that have cashless bail, wasn't that decided by the residents? And isn't it totally legal? It's unwise. It's very bad. But isn't it totally legal? So if Trump starts using the threat of federal funding against people who are doing things that are totally legal within their state, I don't know, that feels like a new level. It feels like you wouldn't want that precedent. But like I said, if he's, if he's taking funding away because somebody's breaking the law, they're either discriminating, they're anti Semitic, they're doing, you know, protecting the illegals, that is different. Trump said he's going to file a lawsuit against California for their move to redistrict. Now, he didn't say what would be the, you know, the cause of the lawsuit. Does it bother you at all that the government, because they have unlimited access to other people's money, meaning ours, that they can fight any legal battle they want, any time, so they just fight everything in court. Everything. Doesn't matter who does what. Somebody's going to find some damn reason that the courts should reject it. And I'm thinking that this wouldn't happen if, if they were forced to be in a budget of some kind. You wouldn't take a hundred percent of everything to court and sue over it. If you had a budget you're worried about, but if you're spending somebody else's money, apparently there's no limit to how much you can sue people. Well, CNN's data guy, Harry Enton, he, he made a devastating comparison. He Said the Democratic Party is about as popular as the Cracker Barrel logo rebrand. Ouch. How would you like to be the CEO of Cracker Barrel, who I refer to as the owl wannabe. If you've seen her picture, that's hilarious. Anyway, imagine being the architect of the rebrand that's so bad that CNN casually uses that as an example of the worst you can be. It's not even a conversation. It's not even the left and the right have different opinions. He's presumably closer to the left and he uses that as an example of a gigantic mistake. Like it's not even a question. You know, there's nothing to say. Is obviously a gigantic mistake. Anyway, many points out that voter registration for the GOP is surging in the swing states, which he says is bad, bad for Democrats. There is some organization called Cook Political who does predictions about midterms and they have updated their predictions and they give the Republicans the edge in the House in the midterms. Now, that would be a big deal because it's very unusual for the party that has the presidency to also win the midterms in the House. It's automatic that it goes the other way because the public doesn't like it when one party has too much power, basically. However, this might be the exception because things are going so poorly for Democrats and this Cook Political people. They, they're predicting a Republican victory in the midterms. Now, I don't know. I don't have any insight into midterms, so I don't have a reason to disagree with them. But we'll see. Roger Stone. I'm just going to read what Roger Stone said on X. He said, I was arrested at 6:06am but at 6:22am so just a few minutes later, Sarah Murray of CNN sent my lawyer a draft of my criminal indictment, which was sealed until 10:30 that morning. In the metadata tags where the initials of the man who wrote it and leaked it was was Andrew Weissman, who is one of the legal pundits on cnn. So Roger Stone says, no wonder CNN was there. So if I understand this, he believes that Andrew Weissman wrote he wrote the indictment and also works for or with cnn, and that he's kind of assuming that's where the leak came from. Well, maybe. So apparently a bunch of Epstein survivors, the young women who are the victims, will hold a press conference on Capitol Hill on September 3rd. Now, do you believe that the victims, the survivors, will have something new to say? Because it's starting to look like Jeffrey Epstein was mostly a money laundering expert who was teaching the rich and powerful how to hide their money and, you know, essentially keep it from the government or, I don't know, their spouse or wherever they're keeping it from. And that he was definitely the one who did a lot of the sex crimes. And there might have been a few buddies that were in on it, but so far we're not seeing proof that there's like a client list and it's a blackmail operation. And it might have been. And it might have been like a. A subtle blackmail operation where he. He didn't actually blackmail anybody, but anybody who got into that kind of illegal activity with him would just sort of know it'd be better to keep him happy than not. So it doesn't have to be blackmail. It could just be putting them in sensitive situations so they're more likely to play ball with them in the future. Could be just that. I don't know. So here's what I expect. There will be no new prominent names named at the press conference. Anybody want to take the other side of that bet? I say there will be no new person implicated. Might be a name you've heard before, you know, like Prince Andrew, but I'm going to say no new names will be presented. Just a prediction. Trump's floating idea of renaming the Pentagon back to what it used to be, the Department of War. He says it's because we won World War II and one World War I. Although there might be some disagreement about that from the Russians and maybe some others. But that's Trump's version, that we're winning all these wars and that Pentagon should be called the Department of War. All right, here's why that's a terrible idea, and I'm very surprised that Trump doesn't have the same opinion. I'm going to tell you right now, words matter. You all know, because I talk about it too often, my reframe about alcohol, where I say alcohol is poison, and then people with that one sentence in their head can stop a lifetime of over drinking. Now, maybe it doesn't work for alcoholics, but people who just wanted to, you know, get alcohol out of their life, it works really well. Now, why does it work? It only works because the words in the sentence. Words are how you program a brain. That's why large language models are just combinations of words. And once they figure out the pattern, you've got something that acts artificially. Intelligence. But I would say I'm not sure that's artificial, because the way your own brain is Organized is that the things you think are your logic and your thinking are really just words in the way they fit together and the frequency of them. You just believe that you're doing something that you think is thinking, but you're doing what the large language model is doing. You're just looking for the repetitive, strongest patterns and then just following them. So my point is, if you name your Pentagon the Department of War, the odds of having a war go way up. Now, that's a hypnotist lesson right there. If you said it's the Department of making peace with Everybody, people would just sort of think that's what they do, and then they would organize all their thinking and their budget and their activities around making peace with people. If you call it the Department of War, people will operationalize around that word. The word doesn't just change how cool it sounds or change how you feel about it. Patriotically, it might do that too, but it's going to change how people act. And if you want more of a thing, put it in the title. Let me say that again. If you want more of a thing, whatever the thing is, put it in the name of the department that's in charge and you get more of that. So putting war in the name will buy you more war. The, you know, I mean, it's not guaranteed, but statistically speaking, you're going to sort of, you're going to manage toward that thing. That is the word in your head. That's just how brains work. They work toward words. As you know, Trump administration is taking a 10%, I guess, as an investment because they put money into it ownership stake in Intel. And when asked about that, Trump says he would take on stakes in other businesses. I want to try to get as much as I can, he said. Now, if you don't like fascism, where the government and the big businesses were sort of in bed together, then you probably don't like the government owning a private company, even though it's just 10%, but they're not going to be able to control it with a 10% equity. However, we should look at some examples where government has done this before. If you're old enough, you remember that General Motors, the government invested 50 billion in General Motors and got a 61% equity stake when the company was restructuring and going bankrupt in 2009. But. But eventually the treasury sold its shares and incurring a loss of about 10 billion. So the investment in General Motors didn't work out. But there was also an investment in Chrysler in which the government put in 12 and a half billion, took an 8% equity stake and then sold it later with a loss of approximately 1.3 billion. So that's two examples where the US revived a company and took a loss in doing it. However, if those companies are paying taxes and the people who work there are getting a salary and also paying taxes, it could be that the US government still made money because the US would get the higher tax benefits if. If the economy still has these big companies in it. Then there was aig, big insurance group. They were having problems some years ago, and the government took a 80% equity in it, and eventually they profited 23 billion when they sold their stake. Let's see, what are we at? So they're up 23 billion, but they lost one on Chrysler and 10 on General Motors. All right, so so far, if you look at the average so far, they would be up. And then we're banks and financial institutions in which TARP funds were used to prop up some of the big banks. And the government, I guess, received equity in return for that, and there was a net profit. So, by the way, this is from grok. So if Grok is hallucinating, don't blame me, except blame me for using grok, I guess. So it looks like in some cases, the government just gets in, stays here for several years, and then they sell out and get out of it, and they could make a lot of money. If you look at all the deals collectively, they were solidly positive, although a few of them were negative, but overall, they were positive. So I'm in favor of Trump strategically helping some big industries when there's a chance we can get our money back, either directly or indirectly. So I'm in favor of it. Well, MSNBC had George Conway on, who's sort of only got one thing he ever says, and you wouldn't believe this, but he compared what Trump is doing cleaning up Washington, D.C. to 1933 Nazi Germany. It's all George Conway can do is find ways to compare Trump to Nazis. So he is an analogy thinker. An analogy thinker is someone who is just reminded of something else. It's not thinking, hey, I'm reminded of a thing. It doesn't mean it predicts. It means you're bad at thinking. Analogy thinkers, by the way, are an example of large language models or how we're not really thinking species. We just feel like we are because the words fit together. You know, the words, oh, this reminds me of Nazi Germany. The words fit together. And once it becomes the thing that the People say the most, then everybody believes it's true and they'll say it even more. So there's a lot of that going on. There's a senior Chinese trade negotiator who's coming to Washington to talk to talk to us about our trade deals, according to Reuters. I don't think that necessarily believes means that we're close to a deal with China. It just means we're serious about talking to him. I guess here's a story that there must be more to the story than we know, because it doesn't make sense on the surface. Trump has apparently approved up to 600,000 Chinese college students in America. Now, you might say to yourself, whoa, you mean he's not going to stop Chinese students? I thought he was going to stop them. No, it's not that. Oh, you mean he's going to let it just go to the same level it was at before? No, no, this is way bigger than the level it has ever been. At the moment, there are 270,000 Chinese students in US universities. He would allow that to go up to 600,000, more than double 600,000 Chinese students who by their own law would have to report whatever they know to the Chinese government. Now, the first thing I would ask is, does that apply to every major? Because if that applies to the STEM stuff, you know, the high tech stuff, I'm a little bit worried. If we don't care how many Chinese students take psychology courses or anthropology, you know, and we just say, I don't care, as many as you want, we'll teach you all the anthropology you want because that's not going to hurt us. That would be different, but I haven't seen anything. It would suggest that it would be limited to certain colleges or certain majors. So if it's not, why is he doing that? Because it would seem like the opposite of America. First, it seems like it would be good for the Chinese students and less good for us, perhaps at least in terms of risk. But the counter argument, which is not being made entirely, but you could imagine it that we get a lot of. Well, not we, the universities would get a lot of revenue from those 600,000 students and would be worth over $14 billion. So US would bring in another $14 billion. And so this would be, again, Trump monetizing a problem which, the more you see it, the more impressive it is that every time he's got some big hard to hard to handle problem, he just monetizes it and that it doesn't bother you so much. So I Like the fact that the Chinese students would be paying so much because they're, you know, they're not going to get aid or anything like that, that they would be essentially funding US Colleges. To which I say, could you really get the funding of the US Colleges without really much risk to the country of having all the people from your adversary country and your colleges? I don't know. Because the thing I don't know is, do we end up better off if there are 600,000 Chinese students who have a positive experience in the United States and learn to speak perfect English and learn our system of government and get to compare it to what they had back there? I feel like the more people we educate, again, with the exception of maybe some of the high techs, the more people we educate from any other country, the more likely they're going to be a little bit on our side. You know, not completely, but it seems like it would move them in our direction. And then I guess Secretary Howard Lutnick said that if we don't have that many Chinese students, that the bottom 15% of universities would go out of business. To which I say, shouldn't they? But shouldn't the bottom 15% go out of business? In every other industry, doesn't the bottom 15% always go out of business? Is there any industry that has lots of participants in which the bottom 15% don't predictably go out of business? Why would universities be the ones that we have to protect with what potentially could be some security risk? I don't know. But probably the bigger reason is that Trump's trying to get a trade deal. And it could be that there's some conversations behind the scenes. It could be that we're going to get something, and maybe we'll never know. We could be getting something in return and it might be big. So it's hard to judge this one, because I believe that Trump wouldn't do it unless he knows there's something we're getting that's much bigger than the risk of this. And maybe he can't say it directly because we're still in a sensitive conversations with China. And maybe we can't say it because we just don't want to say it out loud. Because if the answer is, yeah, this is how we propagandize them to make them more pro American, that might be the reason in which, if I heard that argument, I'd probably say, I know. If smart people think that's true, I don't really have a counter argument to that. But I don't Think we can say that out loud? You know, there might be some versions of that. We could, but anyway, we'll probably never know. The president of South Korea was visiting, seemed very friendly with Trump. They got along great. And he said that this is what the president of South Korea said. Sitting next to Trump. He said, I would like to mention that the only remaining divided nation in the world is the Korean Peninsula. Is that true? The only remaining divided nation? Well, maybe Putin would have a different opinion about Russia anyway. But then he goes on, he said, and I would like to ask for your role in establishing peace. He's talking to Trump. Your role in establishing peace on the Korean Peninsula. So I look forward to your meeting with Chairman Kim Jong Un and construction of a Trump Tower in North Korea and playing golf at that place. I believe he will be waiting for you. Now, of course, there's no plans for a Trump Tower in North Korea, but I do like the fact that the South Korean president has studied our situation well enough to know where all the buttons are. And he knows that if he, you know, compliments Trump for his peacemaking skills, that that will be good. So he does. He knows that if he speaks visually. So you're imagining Trump Tower, you're imagining playing golf. That's really good technique. It's Trumpian technique. If he's talking about the future, you know, benefits as opposed to the past. Negative stuff that's very Trump. And. And then the confidence that he's putting in Trump that, you know, sort of he alone could make something good happen on the Korean Peninsula. And then he also mentions he'd like to play golf. He hit every note. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna put up the warning flag for you right now. The South Korean president, and I understand the South Korean presidents don't last very long. A lot of them end up getting deposed and in trouble and whatever. But this guy, he is signaling that he has the entire range of persuasion skills, because this was quite capable. That statement is so cleverly and professionally crafted by somebody who really understands persuasion, that. Keep an eye on that guy. He might be. I'm very early, you know, because I don't know anything about this South Korean president, but just based on this one paragraph, it is so smartly. Persuasion, perfect. Very rare. You don't see stuff like this that I'm going to predict. He might be the most consequential South Korean president that we'll know in our lifetime, at least. So keep an eye on him. He might be a rising international, you know, leader, star, kind of a guy. I've got a good feeling about him. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's all I got for you today. I might have missed a few stories. It's a busy day. But I'm gonna see if I can go private and talk to my beloved subscribers. I just saw a funny meme go by. My beloved subscribers and locals. And the rest of you, thanks for joining. I hope you'll be back tomorrow for more fun. All right, let's see if I can go private in 30 seconds.