“They’re Stealing From Us!” Adam Carolla Exposes Who’s REALLY Destroying The Middle Class

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Iced Coffee Hour

Episode: “They’re Stealing From Us!” Adam Carolla Exposes Who’s REALLY Destroying The Middle Class

Hosts: Graham Stephan, Jack Selby (with guest: Adam Carolla)
Release Date: May 31, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features Adam Carolla, comedian, podcaster, and social commentator, in a wide-ranging, no-holds-barred discussion about the decline of the middle class in America. Carolla shares his provocative takes on government policy, wealth inequality, the role of regulation, social and cultural decline, real estate, investing, and personal accountability. The conversation is sharp, irreverent, and laced with Carolla’s signature blend of practicality, pragmatism, and dark humor.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Battle for America’s Soul: Safe Spaces vs. Octagons

• Carolla’s division of America (02:22–04:37):
  • Society is splitting into two camps: one obsessed with safety and government protections (“safe spaces”), and another that wants personal freedom and minimal government interference (“octagons”).
  • “So, we're going to just self-segregate into safe spaces and octagons and then at some point the safe spaces are going to start falling apart and they're going to have to go to the octagons and go, we need your protection or we need your money...” (03:55)

2. California, Regulation, and the Death of Affordability

• Housing price explosion and generational comparison (04:42–07:23):
  • Carolla laments that homeownership for average earners is a “fantasy” in today’s California.
  • “My dad bought a house in the early 70s, crappy house, but it was like $13,000. And he bought a house for $13,000 when he made $22,000 a year… People make $65k and the house is two [hundred thousand]—if it's anywhere you'd want to live.” (05:30)
• Who thrives in California (07:34–10:40):
  • Primarily the “tech rich,” NGOs, and politicians; the rest are getting squeezed.
  • “It's really sorta tech guys and sort of ultra billionaire types... there's a kind of a level of wealth where things don't really matter that much.”

3. Over-Regulation and Bureaucratic ‘Safety’

• Regulatory culture & ‘chick think’ (10:45–15:55):
  • Carolla blames layers of regulation, especially those “under the guise of safety,” for stifling growth and making basic activities more difficult and expensive.
  • Memorable moment: Carolla’s appraisal story—where new safety regulations prevent an appraisal from being completed—exemplifies bureaucratic overreach. (11:59–14:28)
  • “They're overregulated. It's mostly chick think and they're fucking up the city and the state.” (15:43)

4. “Safety” as a Mechanism for Control

• Lowering of NYC speed limits and motivations behind safety laws (17:14–18:35):
  • Suggests politicians use “safety” as a cover for revenue generation and increased control.
  • “They want control, but they do it under the umbrella of safety. So no one goes, listen, I'm a maniacal dictator, and all I want is control. They go, 'I'm just looking out for you and safety.' But the safety costs you, and it gives them more control.” (18:17)

5. Navigating Rules: Breaking Dumb Laws and the Rise of Nanny-State Society

• Left turn arrows and street regulations (19:25–27:45):
  • Spirited debate over whether some traffic laws are dumb and should be ignored if they defy common sense.
  • Carolla: “Everyone is capable of turning left when it's safe. Because that's what you do all day, every day. And that's all we ever did. All these arrows are like 10 minutes…” (22:12)

6. Personal Philosophy: Extreme Pragmatism & Understanding Motivation

• Carolla’s approach to risk, theft, and problem-solving (28:06–34:27):
  • Shares practical stories: not locking gym lockers in “safe” places; painting a car stereo brown to avoid theft; using a hidden fuel switch on his old truck.
  • “You have to understand what people are, what motivates them... you can solve a lot of problems. But you have to think about motivation.” (33:50)

7. On Wealth Taxes & Policy Naivete

• Critique of tax policy & politicians (36:33–39:16):
  • Asserts that politicians naively try to extract money from ultra-wealthy people who are far shrewder.
  • “You're trying to get one over on people that are much shrewder than you and smarter than you because they work in the private sector… Those guys are all 10 times smarter than Karen Bass or Mondami or any of these idiots.” (37:19)
• Wealth taxes don’t work; wealthy people just move (41:59–44:43):
  • “Those who qualify for the wealth tax are going to be smart enough to figure out ways around it. And that's the way they always do it.” (42:13)

8. The Real Drivers of Decline: Cultural, Not Just Economic

• Societal and character erosion (44:49–49:55):
  • The lack of religion, discipline, and character-building is fueling a sense of grievance, entrenching wealth inequality, and undermining social cohesion.
  • “We instilled values like parents parented. A lot of it is religion. We had a religion, we had, you know, discipline and golden rules and all that kind of stuff.” (45:01)

9. Loss of Delayed Gratification & The Buy-Now, Pay-Later Culture

• Comparison of layaway to instant credit (75:44–77:33):
  • Condemns modern buy-now, pay-later schemes for undermining work ethic and incentivizing instant gratification.
  • “Now we get the wagon. Day one, we're done with the wagon, but we still have payments to make on it.” (76:44)

10. Dignity and The Decline of Trust

• Handshake deals and dignity’s disappearance (81:53–84:28):
  • Reflects on a time when word was bond and dignity kept agreements honest—now replaced by legalese and suspicion.
  • “Dignity prevented that. In the past, you had a word, you had a bond, you had a handshake. You were an adult, you were a male. You didn't engage in that kind of stuff.” (81:55)

11. The Machine: Why Cities Don’t Change

• Explanation of the 'machine' in big city politics (86:23–87:59):
  • Unions, NGOs, and entrenched bureaucracies keep Democratic power locked in, regardless of practical outcomes.
  • “There's a Democratic machine in Los Angeles and in California, and that machine always wins.” (86:25)

12. Predictions for the Future

• Social bifurcation and the ‘Return to Analog’ (90:40–93:23):
  • Forecasts an even sharper division between a high-functioning, self-improvement-obsessed elite and a growing underclass—alongside a potential cultural return to old-fashioned values and hands-on practicality.
  • “I think we're gonna create a sort of super class... and then there's just to be another class which is this like Calcutta poor streets, you know, teeth falling out... I think there's going to be a return hopefully to values in kind of old school… analog world…” (90:55–92:40)

13. On Investing & Real Wealth

• Carolla's unique approach to wealth accumulation (56:35–71:06):
  • Eschews stock market investing; instead, buys real estate and collectible/race cars for utility and appreciation.
  • “I never put it in the stock market. I have got retirement accounts and stuff like that. But no, my... my net worth is tied up in my properties and in my cars.” (65:16)

14. Carolla’s Prescription for Young People & The Human Condition

• What young people need is not therapy but challenge (53:21–55:15):
  • “They need ordinary misery... tough things to do that don't feel that good, where they would much rather be playing a video game and ordering grubhub, but, sorry, you gotta get out and chop some wood and it's hot outside.” (53:23)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “You are trying to get one over on people that are much shrewder than you and smarter than you because they work in the private sector… They couldn't run a taco stand without ruining it in 20 minutes.” – Adam Carolla (37:19)
• “It's mostly chick think and they're fucking up the city and the state.” – Adam Carolla on overregulation (15:43)
• “Safety is kind of the slow cancer killer of society…” – Adam Carolla (10:49)
• “If you don't own property, you're not really completely invested in America. You're just kind of floating around.” – Adam Carolla (44:44 and 71:06)
• “We need ordinary misery.” – Adam Carolla on the problem with young people’s expectations (53:24)
• “Dignity prevented that. In the past, you had a word, you had a bond... now that's out the window.” – Adam Carolla (81:55)
• “The ones that are hurting—The grievance politicians that are basically trying to convince women, blacks, Hispanics that they're not wanted here… Those people are causing the most damage in this country...” – Adam Carolla (95:05)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:22 — Safe spaces vs. octagons: Carolla’s social division
• 04:42 — California’s affordability crisis and generational comparison
• 07:34 — Who thrives (and who doesn’t) in California
• 10:45 — Overregulation, bureaucracy, and “chick think”
• 14:28 — Example of regulatory overreach in home appraisal
• 18:17 — Safety as a pretext for control
• 19:44 — Breaking dumb laws (traffic discussion)
• 28:06 — Carolla’s pragmatic approach to property, theft-proofing
• 36:33 — Wealth taxes and financial naivete of politicians
• 44:49 — Wealth inequality, loss of values, and the “M&M” metaphor
• 75:44 — Modern credit culture vs. old-school “layaway”
• 81:55 — The disappearance of dignity in business/personal trust
• 86:23 — Political “machine” in California
• 90:55 — Carolla’s predictions for class division and a return to analog/old school values
• 95:05 — The “real villains”: grievance politicians

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Tone and Language

The episode is candid, irreverent, and conversational, featuring Adam Carolla’s unmistakably direct, occasionally abrasive take on modern societal issues. He leverages personal anecdotes and a blue-collar, plainspoken pragmatism to critique both macroeconomic trends and day-to-day policymaking, peppered with humor and the occasional explicit remark.

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This summary captures the episode’s most important discussions, perspectives, and takeaways—providing a clear sense of its themes, arguments, and the entertaining voice of Adam Carolla.

Transcript

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[Adam Carolla]

the people that pay taxes go to work every day, create, build, have employees. We want freedom. We want to be left alone. But the people who want what we have, they want control. But they do it under the umbrella of safety. It starts foundationally with public safety. Where we're heading as a nation is safe spaces and octagons. So the new rules are aimed at making roads and communities safer.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Who's responsible?

[Adam Carolla]

All politicians do is kind of lick their finger and just sort of put it in the air.

[New York Mayor Eric Adams]

When I ran for mayor, I said I was gonna tax the rich they

[Adam Carolla]

keep coming up with to extract more money from people that are 10 times smarter than they are. And the people that are 10 times smarter than they are figure out a way to not give it to them. Or they just move.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

What do you think is going to

[Adam Carolla]

happen if you don't own property? You're not really completely invested in America. You're just kind of floating around. It's impossible that you ever own a home. I don't know how that's sustainable.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Adam Carolla, thank you so much for coming on the Iced Coffee Hour.

[Adam Carolla]

My pleasure.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

So I want to get your take on this. Ray Dalio just warned that the US Is entering years of turbulence driven by large deficits, widening wealth gaps, political divisions, and AI disruption. You're known for being the practical guy. What does this mean for the average person?

[Adam Carolla]

I think what I told Dr. Drew many years ago and not many, but I don't know, 10 years ago, and Dr. Drew's always sort of come to me and said, like, what's next? Where are we heading? What's going on? Because I've Always predicted things with him. I said, where we're heading as a nation is safe spaces and octagons. And he said, what does that mean? And I said, there's a group of people that are interested in safety and they're interested in the government and they're interested in all the social programs and the safety nets. You know, 10 months off paid vacations for childbirth and all this kind of nonsense. And they're gonna live in the safe spaces. And then there's the other group that likes mixed martial arts and doesn't wanna drive an electric car and likes owning a gun and doesn't wanna be taxed and doesn't like big government. And those are gonna be the octagon people. And so we are going to just segregate or it's gonna naturally happen, which it's already sort of happening now. People who live in go, I don't like any of this crap, I'm moving to Texas. And they just go to Texas. And then they get to Texas and they go, I like it here because I like driving my truck. And I wanted to build something. The permitting process was easy and so on and so forth. So they like the freedom. The people that are producers like freedom. Like the people that pay taxes, go to work every day, create, build, have employees. We want freedom, we want to be left alone. But the people who want what we have don't want freedom. They want the government to get involved and give them what we're earning, essentially. So we're going to just self segregate into safe spaces and octagons and then at some point the safe spaces are going to start falling apart and they're going to have to go to the octagons and go, we need your protection or we need your money. It's basically like Hochul, Hochul's going to drive everyone out of New York and then they're going to go to Miami and then she's going to go, hey, come back and help support all our, our, our generous systems that you don't benefit from. Yeah, and those people are never coming back.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Now, you mentioned California. Has that become unlivable for the average person?

[Adam Carolla]

It's unlivable for the average person in that I, I was looking at a stat the other day, just online. It just popped up and it said, in 1970, the average home. It didn't say in California, it just said, in the United States the average home was $23,000 and the average income was about $10,000. So it was like, you know, a little less than Half of what the home would cost California, you know, where I'm at, or in Los Angeles area, average home's like 1 8, and the average income's probably $63,000, you know, so what used to be half is now, you know, 20th or 25th or something. Like, I don't know how that's sustainable, you know, Like, I have and always had have people that work for me, young people, sometimes people starting families or new families and stuff like that. And it's like, I know what I pay you and I know what houses cost around here. It's impossible that you ever own a home. I grew up in the San Fernando Valley. My grandparents bought a house in the 50s for 10,000, and they bought another house in the San Fernando, like a nicer part of what is now a nicer part. Back then I was like, who cared? But they bought one house for 10, one house for 12. My dad bought a house in the early 70s, crappy house, but it was like $13,000. And he bought a house for $13,000 when he made $22,000 a year, you know what I mean? Like, he was making more. He was like school teacher kind of thing. He wasn't making big bucks. But now people make 65 and the house is two. Two, like if it's anywhere you'd want to live that was safe or what have you.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

No, it's crazy. Reminded me my grandparents, my grandpa was in the army and then he sold appliances and he bought his house in 1952 in Culver City for $35,000. It's probably worth 1, 350 to 1, 4.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, yeah. And that was the nicest house back then.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

It was a trapped house. I mean, they're all they he picked from of five floor plans in this little area in Culver City, and he got one of those houses and that's it.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

And.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

And at the time, I think it was 1100 square feet. And they enclosed a patio space.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, yeah.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

As part of like the living area. That was it.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

One house.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. So we're going to have a lot of unhappy campers and then a lot of people that are flourishing and the politicians are just kind of stoking it

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

on who are the people that are flourishing in California. I'm curious, because a few years ago, they had a net MiG. Their population grew, but more people left this state than the amount of people that were new residents of the state. I imagine that they're still going to continue growing because of birth rates, but this trend is going to continue. And who are the people that are winning by living in California?

[Adam Carolla]

I mean, it's really sort of tech guys and sort of ultra billionaire types. I mean, why are they estimation at my estimate? Well, you know, there, there, I mean, there's a kind of a level of wealth where things don't really matter that much. Like when people go gas is 7.85 a gallon. Well, you know, if you make $70 million a year, that's what's the difference between $4 and $7. You know, a lot of, you know, so look, when they talk about a lot of that stuff, a lot of those guys just don't care. Like, I think in the past they were willing to kind of suck it with the wealth tax and other things. Like they're floating. These guys are starting to get nervous and starting to realize they can move. And also, you know, it wasn't when I was growing up in California, the idea of moving somewhere else was kind of absurd. Like people move to California. Like, you know, if someone had said, you think, how about you move to Nashville? And people are like, what, ride a horse? What am I going to do in Nashville? I don't even know what's, I don't know what Nashville is really seeing something on tv. Like when you're from California, you didn't even know. Like Montana, Nashville, these kind of places, even Arizona, it's like, why go live in the desert? That's not gonna work. So you get this kind of mentality of people just come to you. And it was true. Most of the people I knew once I got outta high school and once I started in doing comedy, every single person my comedy troupe was from Pittsburgh and that guy was from Beaver Falls and that guy's from Wisconsin and that guy's from Chicago. Like there was nobody in an improv troupe that was from la. It literally. I can, you know how I know it? Because whenever football season would come around, no one ever liked the same team. Like we literally go, let's go watch the Rams. And they'd be like, rams? I don't like the Rams. I'm a Patriots fan from Boston. You know, everybody had their team and you know, LA doesn't have a sports, doesn't have a Rams sports bar. They have two Steeler sports bars because everyone just came here from somewhere else. So now I think the elite and I mean whoever, the only people flourishing in California are probably like NGOs and politicians and stuff that just keeps stealing money and then the ultra tech kind of rich who don't care. I Guess.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

So who's responsible for destroying California?

[Adam Carolla]

It's the regulatory system and it's bureaucrats and it's gyno fascism, which is just tons of women worried about safety. Like, everything is just safety. And so safety is kind of the slow cancer killer of society in a city. So people, the thing about safety, and this is the thing about all their ideas, they sort of sneak them in the door under the veneer of something positive like safety. Like, okay, so every single one of these groups, whether it's Somalians in Minnesota or whether it's hospice care in Los Angeles, first off, all their names are like, first step forward. You know what I mean? Angels. Angels. And, you know, everything is all this euphemistic bullshit, right, about children first, youth first first, and then they're just ripping off everyone's money, right? So California became a very safety oriented place. We want the hardest on Covid. We're the safest place. And now what happens is we have a lot of women in politics and their priority is safety. And the thing about safety is it's stifling to growth because every regulation that they add on is in the guise of safety. Like, I just. I'll give you an example. I have owned houses and done property in the. In the area for, I don't know, 30 years probably. And I've done dozens of houses and warehouses and back and forth and, and all that. And I have a new house that I was working on and it needs to be appraised. So I said, all right, send the appraiser over. And I've done this a million times. I just walk around and make notes. And then they give you an appraisal. Well, I got the guy coming out and it comes back as I can't appraise it. And I said, why not? He said, well, it needs to have the smoke detectors up and the deck's built, but it doesn't have a railing on it, so it needs the railing. I said, we'll just appraise it without the smoke detectors. Why don't you back off? 80 bucks for the smoke detectors? No, the house has to have the smoke detectors in place. And then we need the railing on the. I go, just appraise the house like you would appraise a house if it didn't have a deck or it was incomplete. No. And they had to keep coming back.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Ever did he want money? Because I posted a similar story and everyone, everybody was just like, give the guy $100. That's what he's getting at. He just Wants a hundred.

[Adam Carolla]

This is all. I didn't even talk to him. He just went back to the office and said, no appraisal. Appraisal. The whole point is I used to do this all the time. It was five pages and we're done. Now it's a whole bunch of rules. It's a whole bunch of rules. And you go, all right, well, safety, all right. But this guy's now come back and forth five times in my house. I still don't have my appraisal and the bank isn't getting to refinance and it's all just regulation. And when I bought, I was saying the other day, I bought my first house. The paperwork was like seven pages. And I bought this house a year ago. It was 157.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Well, every time there's a lawsuit now you have to add in a different section.

[Adam Carolla]

This had three different sections on was I discriminated against racially on the loan. It wasn't just once. It was like 17 separate pages about discrimination differently each time it would just come up again and I'd be like, no. And so anyway, what happened? So women are safety oriented. Safety oriented. People don't really think about downstream consequences of their safety. When Covid comes around, shut the schools, wear them at. Stay inside, don't go to work. We need to work. You don't need to work. Stay home. We are totally safety driven in California to an insane amount. If you go online, it'll go ships to 49 states except for California. And you go, what's the difference? I tried to buy glass railings and it was like the laminated stuff is cheaper than the non laminated or whatever, whatever. It was tempered or something. And I go, all right, well give me the laminated stuff. And I go, yeah, we don't ship to California. And it's why you ship everywhere. Every state. And it's fine. They got a rule in California. They don't let us use the laminated stuff. And it's like, all right, so then you got to use the safety glass, which is more. And then the building costs that much more. They're over regulated. It's mostly chick think and they're fucking up the city and the state. And that's basically what's going on.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

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[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

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[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Again, that is code [e-mail] ICED and it's completely risk free with a 30 day money back guarantee. Did you see that video of Zoran Mamdani saying he wants to decrease the speed limit to 20 miles an hour in New York?

[Adam Carolla]

No, I did not.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Okay. I mean this.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Is that real?

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

It looked real. I mean you can't really tell with AI these days.

[New York Mayor Eric Adams]

It is a goal of our administration to lower the speed limit across the city to 20 miles an hour. That however, is something that can only be done with a local law change to the city administration of code. And we do support the city council taking those efforts.

[Adam Carolla]

How new or old is this?

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

I just saw this last night.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, okay. Because it's got to be.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

It was on Twitter and I was scrolling and I saw a video of Zoramdani saying, yeah, like we're going to try to decrease the speed.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

What's the point of that?

[Adam Carolla]

Make it more safe.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

But then I, I read, I read through the comments and a lot of people were speculating that they have these like traffic light cameras and apparently they can detect if you're going above the speed limit so they can collect more tax revenue from people speed.

[Adam Carolla]

They want control, but they do it under the umbrella of safety. So no one Goes, listen, I'm a maniacal dictator, and all I want is control. They go, all, I'm looking out for you and safety. But the safety costs you, and it gives them more control.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

I gotta show you this. Speaking of safety, Los Angeles City Council passed a motion unanimously restricting LAPD traffic stops from minor violations, including expired registration, non functioning tail lights, cracked windshields, broken mirrors, illegal tint, loud exhaust, missing plates, because they say it's discriminatory against people who can't afford those fixes. And so the people who can't afford it get the most violations driving their car. And so this is real. This just passed.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, they're. They're really saying it affects black and brown people at a higher rate because they. They decriminalize jaywalking because it affects black and brown people. Whatever. It affects black and brown people.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

They just go, granted, jaywalking. I don't even know why that's a law. And here's another thing. I don't know if I'm allowed to say this and just cut me off if I'm not, but apparently on the drive over here, Graham came to a red arrow to turn left, and you just.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Allegedly.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Yeah, allegedly. And you said, just run it. I run every single one. Have been for 25 years. Never gotten a ticket.

[Adam Carolla]

Yes.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

I told Jack, that's going to change my life.

[Adam Carolla]

Where's my camera? Is it that one? Yeah, run them. Run them all, baby. You'll never get a ticket.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Now, let me say this. I do not necessarily endorse this. However, I started doing it, coincidentally, about three months ago in order to get to our new studio. There is a left red arrow. I run it every single time. It saves me. And it's weird because I'm going down the main road, and you have these cross streets, and one has a yield on left, one has a red arrow on left, one has a yo. And it's like. It's just random.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

If they want to let you yield or if they just randomly will have a red arrow, there's no. There's no method to.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

I'm going to tell you the problem with this of what you just said.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Okay. The problem is that we're common sense guys. We could see a car coming and say, that's not safe to do. I'm not. I'm not going to make this left. We could all agree we're going to do it safely, but the problem is when you tell a few hundred thousand people now it's okay to run the light in a.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

It's Average person running it's treating it as a yield as opposed to okay,

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

but the average person is probably not good enough to be able to do that.

[Adam Carolla]

That's an insane point. Making an insane point.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Why do we have Yield on the 1000%? Why do we have yields?

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Okay, the average person who trusts the

[Adam Carolla]

average coindex or what percentage of intersections have a red arrow?

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

I don't know.

[Adam Carolla]

I'm just saying I don't think less than 20%.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

I just think the average driver on the road is probably not that good.

[Adam Carolla]

Hold on. You're making two arguments. Your argument is insane. Because that person safely turned left in intersections that had no arrow all day before they got to the one with the red arrow. So they're able to discern when it's safe to turn left. Because that's what we all do. Because you're acting as if the intersection with the arrow is the norm. It's not the norm. It's probably way less than 50% now. Some areas are newer and they have more. Whatever. You grew up. I grew up. I never saw a red arrow until I was 40. And neither did our parents. They turned left when it was safe to turn left.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Green light right and then you just inch out. Also, if you don't inch out when you're in the left hand turn lane and you have a green circular light, I hate you. I'm so sorry.

[Adam Carolla]

No, I agree. I totally agree.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Because you're ruining it for the people behind me.

[Adam Carolla]

We need to deconstruct this. Everyone is capable of turning left when it's safe. Because that's what you do all day, every day. And that's all we ever did. All these arrows are like 10 minutes.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

I would say there's a percentage of arrows out there that are there for a reason. Because maybe there's not good visibility.

[Adam Carolla]

Now that's another problem.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

There's like.

[Adam Carolla]

That is another problem because it exists.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

It must be for. For a reason.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

I would say some of them.

[Adam Carolla]

I would say some big government guy.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Some of them. I would agree with that.

[New York Mayor Eric Adams]

You.

[Adam Carolla]

Okay, so let's, let's, let's, let's get granular here. Okay, you are correct. Some of those arrows are there because there's a hill and you can't see the person coming over the hill. And people come at a high rate and all that. And that, once again, is what you're going to have to figure out when you're driving. Look, look. When you're driving on the freeway, every time you change lanes, you're making A decision. You're looking to see if there are cars around. You're putting your blinker on, you're checking your mirrors. Every second you're behind the wheel, you're making a decision that could involve you making contact with another car or a brick wall. So that's part of driving, that's fine. And there are some arrows that are there for safety, legitimate safety reasons. Like there was a bunch of accidents at this intersection because the car. There's a blind hill, I get it. But they started spreading out to all intersections. And the intersection that we're talking about is a straight line for as far it starts. The earth starts to curve and eventually the horizon dips down and you cannot see, you can't see anymore. But this line is a straight multi mile line. And you sit there and I'll put it to you this way. Do a little experiment. That's what I told. If you don't want to. If you're a little freaked out about going against the red arrow, take your sun visor and put it down. Take the sun visor, put it down, it'll block the arrow out and then you'll just see a green light and zero cars and then you just turn. It's part of it is a psyche problem now. I now expended. I expanded my repertoire to driving through red, red lights. I drive through red lights now because.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

So I haven't quite got there yet. I've done it only a couple of times when it's like ridiculous. Like for example, if you're south in Vegas, you're by South Point and it's just like open road like you said, for miles there, there will be a light when there should just be a stop or a yield.

[Adam Carolla]

No, I'll go through there. But civilized societies, and you have this. I'm trying to think if it's in like Henderson or something. But you drive around and you will find civilized cities that just blink. So the arrow is either green or it just blinks yellow. Which means turn when it's safe. But it never turns red. Like Pasadena, California does that. It should never turn red. If you think about it, what it should do is go green or it should just go blink yellow. Hey, if it's safe, if it's four in the morning on Sunday night, why are you sitting there at a red? There's nobody out. Like it should just blink. And there are certain societies that are evolved enough to do that. But I want you guys to understand it's a human, It's a foible sort Of a human foible thing. So listen to me. I now drive through red lights, mainly in Malibu because everything's a kind of T. And I just go down PCH and there's no. Check your rear view. There's no cops. Go ahead.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

What other things do you do? Like this, that like maybe break the law a little bit, but are convenient.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, I'll tell you what I do and I'll try to expand this a little. Yes, okay, so let me try to expand this. I tell people go through that red arrow and they go, not gonna do it. And I go, why not? I don't wanna get a ticket. I go, there's no cops anywhere. They don't camp out there and have ticket riding parties. Cause nobody does it. There's nobody look in your rear view. You didn't look in your rear view.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

I did.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, you did look in your rear view. If there's no cop behind you, then turn. Who cares? All right, but hold on. So people go, no, I'm not going to do it. I go, okay, you drive to Vegas. Yeah. Do you just go 65 the entire time? No, probably like 80, 85. All right, you're speeding. Yeah. You're going to get a ticket. It's not. You'll go from LA to 80, you'll go to LA to Vegas. You'll be speeding the whole way. There's planes in the air, there's cops all over the place, there's radar guns. And you'll do that, which is breaking the law the entire time. And you don't really think about getting a ticket. Although you have gotten tickets, everyone's gotten pulled over. But you won't go through the arrow where you never get a ticket. That's human nature and that's the problem. And you have to overcome that. And for me, I race race cars. I have six way. When you get a race car, you have a six way harness. It's not like a shoulder, whatever. You got straps, head stuff, fire suits. Like you got everything in a race car. I absolutely do it. I would never. I mean, they wouldn't let you do it, but I would never get in a race car without like flame proof everything. So.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

But your, your general idea is that just because a rule exists doesn't mean it's a good rule. And you should think on your own and break a rule if it's a dumb one. And don't just assume that something is fine because everyone's doing it, because everyone speeds. No one does the left turn. But they're both probably of less threat to do.

[Adam Carolla]

That intersection existed for years before somebody put an arrow. Everyone who lived here 30 years ago just drove through that interview.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

I wasn't as busy 30 years ago.

[Adam Carolla]

Every I know it's not as busy. We sat there, there was no cars coming, right? You could see no cars. So I said, turn.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

So how do you apply this philosophy to other areas of your life?

[Adam Carolla]

Well, for me it's a kind of an ultimate pragmatism. And for instance, I was like, I was doing shows in Phoenix and I was staying at a very nice resort with a very nice spa. Expensive, like a bunch of well heeled, skinny white people staying there with me. And I went down to the workout room, I went down to the locker room and the lockers. I'm really bad with any tech, whatever. And I also got to realize I have some sort of disability because the thing will say, like, put your contents in the locker, then hit pound, then make a four digit number, then hit pound. And then when you come back, hit pound and do the four digit. I've tried it twice in my life. It's always like, I gotta go get the, I gotta go get the janitor. I lock my shit in the lock. I can't get my locker open right, okay? So I look around, I go, this is a five star resort. Bunch of rich people here getting super expensive massages. And I just put all my crap in the locker and I just shut the door. Door. And I never lock it. I put cell phones, wallets, shoes, everything, everything. I just shut it and I go, first off, there's not that many people here. Secondly, if somebody opens this locker and just sees shorts and a cell phone and stuff, they're just going to shut the door and walk to the next locker. That's who these people are. Now I'm not doing this everywhere, but look at your environment, assess it and then go, well, how about you take a little extra time to lock your locker or learn how to lock your locker? And I go, it's not worth it. It's such a low percentage that anyone here would ever touch any of this stuff. And so I never lock my locker and I've never had a problem.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

I agree with that. It's kind of like people locking or not locking their front doors in like a more affluent neighborhood as opposed to a more poor neighborhood. The same way that I feel because I'm a member at two gyms, I go to Planet Fitness and I go to a Lifetime Fitness at Lifetime, I don't feel compelled to lock my Stuff up in a locker at Planet Fitness. I do, yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. You have to assess that. And you also have to know how people and what motivates people. Like, story I've told a few times, but it sort of goes way back in the human motivation department. I was about 25, maybe 26, and I was moving into my girlfriend's apartment in Hollywood. And Hollywood was pretty dicey at the time. It is now it's dicey again. But it was dicey then. We didn't have garage parking. We only had street parking. And I knew I was gonna have to park my truck on the street. And the only thing I had to my name was really that truck. It was a, you know, it was a Nissan standard bed, whatever little mini pickup truck from the 80s, but it was still all I had and I needed it for work as a carpenter, and I didn't have it. I didn't have enough money for insurance, so it was uninsured. And everyone used to break into everyone's car and steal their stereos. And there was a lot of stealing of mini trucks in LA back then. So I knew this truck wasn't going to make it two weeks in front of this place in Hollywood without getting the stereo stolen or the truck stolen. So I thought, well, what can I do about this? Because I don't have covered parking and I don't have insurance, I am going to have to park on the street. So the first thing I did is I was like, who wants a car stereo? I was like, well, junkies want car stereos. Like, people don't steal car stereos to listen to car stereos. They steal them to fence them immediately and get drugs. And like, you take like a $300 car stereo and just get 40 bucks. You know, this car had a digital Sony car stereo, which was pretty cool back in the day. And I knew it was gone immediately. So I was like, I'll tell you what I'm going to do with this car stereo. I'm going to paint it brown. So I put a piece of tape over the little digital readout and I just painted brown. And then everyone goes, why did you paint your car stereo brown? I go, you can't sell a brown car stereo. No one's going to steal it. So I desecrated my car stereo, essentially. I wasn't selling it, I only listened to it. And painting it didn't stop me from listening to it, but. But it would stop you from fencing it, right? So then the second thing I did was I was like, I'm Just gonna do a fuel cutoff switch in this car. And I just figured out fuel pump was in the back. I just clipped a wire and ran it under the seat, just put a toggle switch under it, and I just, I just shut the fuel pump off when I got back into the house. And the thing that was also funny is the thing had carburetors which had float bowls in em, which meant it would run without the fuel pump for like three blocks. So because it had a little fuel sitting in the float bowl and it would run off of that. So I started finding out where it would start cutting off. And I'd be two stop signs away from my apartment. I'd reach down and flick the pump off and kind of ride it in on the float bowl so it would be empty. So the car was stolen two times. And each time I was just like, which direction was I facing? I was facing this way and I just started walking and I found it like 100ft down. And next time it got stolen again, I said, what direction was it facing? I found it. And the stereo was left in it each time it was stolen. So they never stole the stereo and they tried to steal the car. So for literally for like under $10, I theft proofed my truck. But you have to understand what people are, what motivates them, like, what are they doing? And if you can get into that mindset, you can solve a lot of problems. But you have to think about motivation.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

I genuinely love running a business. I think it's one of the most rewarding and exciting things that you can do in life. But unfortunately, of course, there comes a lot of unrelated tasks and just things you gotta do when you run a business that take a bunch of time and effort.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

As we've grown the iced coffee hour, we have poured hours into things like billing and writing contracts. And believe it or not, those are not my favorite things to do.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

And that's why we are so excited to partner with Claude. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at just good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that actually matter.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

In all seriousness, Claude is so much more than just another AI. It's literally another member of your team.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

So we personally use Claude to generate every single invoice we send out. In fact, when we send out anthropic, the invoice for this ad read we're going to use Claude. This used to take a ton of time just inputting all of the little details for every single invoice we sent out. Gavin really did not like doing this, but now with Claude, all Gavin has to do is type go, and boom. An entire month's worth of invoices are automatically generated.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

And it doesn't stop there. Once Claude creates an invoice, it automatically drafts an email to send out. And you can connect Claude with tools that you already use. We're talking GitHub, HubSpot Notion, Google Workplace, and more. In all seriousness, it has never been easier to save time on your business.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

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[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

That's Claude AI slash Iced Coffee. And make sure to check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all the features mentioned in today's episode. Again, that's Claude AI slash iced coffee. Thanks again to Claude for sponsoring the podcast. And now let's get back to the episode you mentioned.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Looking at people's motivation to be able to apply corrective behavioral things, or whatever you want to call it, I'm curious, what do you think someone like Zoran Mamdani's motivation is when they make a video like this? Knowing that things like a mansion tax in California have been economically not productive, and yet they still talk like this

[New York Mayor Eric Adams]

today, we're taxing with it. I'm thrilled to announce we've secured a pied a terre tax, the first in New York's history. This is an annual fee on luxury properties worth more than $5 million whose owners do not live full time in the city. Like for this penthouse, which hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin bought for $238 million. This pied a terror tax is specifically designed for the richest of the rich, those who store their wealth in New York City real estate, but who don't actually live here. But even so, they're able to reap the huge financial rewards of owning property in, dare I say, the greatest city in the world. And most of the time, these units are sitting empty, since, again, they don't actually live here. This is a fundamentally unfair system that hurts working New Yorkers. Now it's coming to an end. This tax will raise at least 5,500 million dollars directly for the city. It'll help fund things like free childcare, cleaner streets, and safer neighborhoods. As mayor, I believe everyone has a role to play in contributing to our city. And some a little bit more than others. Happy tax day, New York.

[Adam Carolla]

Happy tax Day. Yeah, well, it's never going to work because it can't work. I mean, there's a couple of things that I don't think politicians understand, but I've been saying it for a long time. You are trying to get one over on people that are much shrewder than you and smarter than you because they work in the private sector. So there's like a big issue where you go, this guy's a politician, this girl's a politician. They're kind of career politicians, and then they're going to try to outwit billionaires who hung their own shingle, worked their way up and. And crushed it in the private sector. Those guys are all 10 times smarter than Karen Bass or Mondami or any of these idiots who have no experience. They couldn't run a taco stand without ruining it in 20 minutes, right? So they keep coming up with ways to extract more money from people that are 10 times smarter than they are. And the people that are 10 times smarter than they are figure out a way to not give it to him, or they just move to Florida, which is what he's going to do. But it never works because there's a kind of. You're playing chess with people that are chess grandmasters and you're kind of dim, and they think they're going to beat them every time, but they can't beat them because the other person's so much more evolved, you know, and they're dimwits. Like, they're dopes. Like, Villaragosa in LA was the mayor for eight years. People run la, One of the biggest cities in the world, one of the most important cities in the world. We elect mayors, and when they term out and they leave, we never hear from them again. They don't start super successful businesses. They can. They're dopes.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Who do you think has the highest iq Between Zoran Mamdami, Nithya Raman and Karen Bass.

[Adam Carolla]

It's kind of weird because Nithya Raman went to Harvard and mit, which is insane, but she has a huge logic problem in that she was the one that was blaming Toyota for making their catalytic converter so easy to steal. I don't know. Have you guys ever seen this?

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

I saw that.

[Adam Carolla]

That's the greatest. It's the greatest plan. So I guess what it would be is first if we have to make a distinction. So you go. My IQ might be fair to Midland, I would guess. I don't look at myself. I don't think of myself as a high IQ person. But if you're insanely pragmatic, you can have strokes of genius like painting your car stereo that those people would never have. So there's people that have IQ points that are 20 points higher than mine, but they wouldn't figure out how to save their mini pickup truck in the middle of Hollywood, right? So. So she may have a high iq, which may have gotten her to MIT and Harvard, but then she blames Toyota for catalytic converter theft. So it means she's kind of a baseline dope. So IQ is kind of bragging points, I guess. I mean, it's sort of like we're stranded on a desert island, and there's a guy who goes, I got a perfect score on my SATs. And I'm like, I'd rather have that guy dropped out of the 9th grade build A. A shelter because he can actually do something. You're just talking about your SAT scores. So Nithya Raman is kind of dangerously dopey, and I don't know about her iq, but she's wildly impractical. Mandami's sort of got a kind of Far east newsome. Like, he's kind of a slick dude who can string words together and kind of put together stuff that sounds good. That'll. It'll never work. None of it works. But he's got a lot of sort of, like, newsome in him. He's kind of a swarthy newsome, like, good looking, knows how to talk, has a lot of confidence, and certitude, ruins cities and states. But. But sounds good. And the ladies love him. You know, Karen Bass is dumb. She's just kind of of, you know, she doesn't really make sense when she. When she talks. I mean, that's why Spencer Pratt was able to mop the floor with him. It's not that Spencer Pratt's a master debater. It's that these women are dumb and they have. They have horrible, horrible policies.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

So what is your thoughts on a wealth tax?

[Adam Carolla]

I don't like any taxes, although there's obviously a. A baseline of tax that people need to pay because we all are protected by our military and use our streets with their super expensive red turn arrows that we need to pay for. So, first off, by the time they get to the wealth tax, that dollar's been taxed five times before it even gets to the part where they're going to tax it again. For the wealth tax, it gets taxed on the way in, it gets taxed when you make it, and then it goes somewhere and then they tax it again. It is absolutely none of their money and none of their business is the way I feel. And they're going to ruin their cities. And the guys who are wealthy enough to be the recipient, or I should be, I guess the recipient is the right word. I mean, those who qualify for the wealth tax are going to be smart enough to figure out ways around it. And that's the way they always do it.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Like.

[Adam Carolla]

Like. Like in LA, they started doing a. If your house is $5 million, you're gonna have to pay 4% on the sale. Well, everyone starts selling their house for 400, you know, $4,999,000, because that's what business. What else would a business person do? I'll sell it to you for 5 million and $1 so I can pay 4% into a bunch of incompetent idiots are gonna waste my money. So they intentionally create that. And now it's just getting to the point, I think, where people are, like, when it comes to Manhattan, people are gonna leave. But also, you can live anywhere now. It didn't used to be that way, you know, like, there is. I would say to everybody, you know, they go, where are you gonna move? I go, if you have Pf Chang, a topgolf and a Spearmint Rhino, I can. I can move there. And then people go, you like golfing, Chinese food and strip clubs. I'm like, not really. But that just means they're on the map, you know what I mean? Like, they got a civilization there. I might swing by, get some Chinese food in a hooker. But I'm saying. I'm saying that means they're there. Everybody listen. I play every city in this country. I go everywhere. And the first thing you say, because you think you're going to Oklahoma City, like, oh, man, we're going out to the sticks. I hope they have running water and stuff. You go to all these cities, you look around, you go, not too shabby, Pretty nice, clean nice. I could live here like you can live anywhere now. I don't think it was that way 25 years ago.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

So what's your strongest argument for why wealth inequality is becoming a problem? Problem?

[Adam Carolla]

Wealth inequality is becoming a problem because of human nature and character and a lack of religion, a lack of character, lack of golden rules, a lack of sort of biblical standards and Ten Commandments and things of that nature. So what it is, is kids are all born into a situation where we lack character, and that needs to be instilled. So you go, when you're a kid, you go, well, look at Johnny over there. He's got all his M and Ms. I want some of Johnny's MMs. And then someone goes, Johnny mowed Mr. Johnson's lawn over there. And he got paid $2 and he bought those M and Ms. Those are his M&Ms. Because he mowed the lawn. And you go, okay. And kids are like, like, I want those M and Ms. And they go, well, then go mow the lawn. I don't want to mow the lawn. I want the M and M's. And then you basically teach them. You say, sorry, he worked hard, those are his. But you can mow a lawn and get some M and Ms. Too, all right? And that's the way we rolled. And we instilled values like parents parented. A lot of it is religion. We had a religion. We had, you know, discipline and golden rules and all that kind of stuff. All the good stuff. We used to preach, you know, all the good character kind of issues. And then at some point we decided that it was being mean to the person that didn't want to do any work. And then we started electing people that went, hey, Johnny, I'm gonna tell you to give him half your M and Ms, otherwise I'm gonna lock you up. And he's like, well, why is that fair? And then this guy went, yeah, I'm gonna vote for this guy. Cause I'm gonna vote for the guy who gives me M&MS. And I don't have to mow lawns. And then the politicians really got involved. And the politicians, all politicians do is kind of lick their finger and just sort of put it in the air, you know what I mean? Like, you go, barack Obama, he's against gay marriage, okay? He's for gay marriage. What changed from age 47 and a half to 53? You know what I mean? Like, you think about Joe Biden. Joe Biden was against and for a whole bunch of stuff. Stuff in his 60s, in his 70s, and now he's 80 and he's changed his mind. You think you're going to flip flop on anything from age 65 to 81? No, they're just doing whatever they want. You know, Kamala Harris, she was against fracking, now she's for fracking. She doesn't even know what fracking is. She doesn't care. Politicians figured out there's a lot more dumb people who don't want to mow lawns than there are motivated guys who will mow lawns. And it just. They Stoke the fire of these people. And they basically, they tell them like, these guys have everything. It's like as if he has all the M and M's and he took your M and M's. There's an infinite number of MMs. Go get some M and Ms. Has

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

it always been that way though? Have we always had more people that are too lazy to put in the work and yet they want the reward? Or has it been getting closer to that side of the spectrum?

[Adam Carolla]

Everybody wants it every, everybody wants it like. But we created guardrails and scaffolding in our society and we wouldn't let it happen. When I was a student in junior high and high school, I literally had like fantasies about the records room burning down because my grades were so subpar that I was kind of like hoping there'd be a fire in the school or something and that any records would be erased of my scholastic disability. And I remember having those fantasies. And I wrote in a book and written a few books and I don't know if this was in 50 years we all be chicks or president me or something like that, but this is more than a decade ago and I wrote in it, I said, look, in the old days in this country, a father and son might be walking in their neighborhood and a big long Mercedes would drive by and in the past the father would say, there goes Mr. Johnson and that's a beautiful car. And hey son, you work hard, you study, you eat your Wheaties and you, you get out there and make hey while the sun shines. And one day you're going to have that car. And now the guy in the big Mercedes pulls by the father and the son and the father says to the son, let's go find a rock so we can throw it at that car. And that's basically where we're at. Somehow the message of you work hard and you can get that car too has been lost to. Let's go throw a rock at that car.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

When you say somehow, how would you say that's happened?

[Adam Carolla]

It's a lack of religion. Religion kind of keeps people in line and they have values, you know what I mean? It's a lack of values, it's a lack of discipline and it's a lot of politicians enabling lazy people and meaning it's this, okay, everybody wants to go. By the way, it all goes back to whatever a 9 year old thinks, you know, so you know, there's a running race and nine year old Tim came in last and he has to feel shame and somebody should say to him, you got to practice harder. You got to stop eating so much junk food. You got to work harder. Except point somebody steps in and goes, you know, those other guys only beat you because they're mean. And doesn't your ankle hurt? And he goes, yeah, my ankle does kind of hurt. They go, just sit down, I'll get you a trophy too. And they go, thank you. And then we vote for that guy. And politicians have figured that out.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

That's interesting. So you said that we've put these guardrails in to, to curb how most humans by nature want the reward without putting in the work. And so we created capitalism or whatever boundaries we wanted in order to curb all of those parts about humans that make them non productive. So you would argue then that culture is downstream from politics. It actually starts with the policy, and then that is what then determines the way, way that the, the people behave.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, yeah, I always use this example, which is dogs at the airport. So I traveled extensively all through, you know, the 90s, late 90s, and I've been traveling my pretty much the last 30 years, pretty much non stop. And for the first 10 years I traveled. 15 years I traveled, I never saw a dog at the airport. There were like two dogs you saw at the airport. There was the police dog and then there was the seeing eye dog, like a dog with a handle on it. And then at some point somebody said there's such a thing as an emotional support dog. And if you get a note from your doctor, you can then travel with your dog. And then I started seeing Little Pomeranians on 18 foot, Bedazzled leashes out in front of the nutty broad who was walking behind it. Now, now what happened? She wants to travel with her dog, but we didn't let people travel with their dog because it had to be a seeing eye dog. And not that many Americans are blind who travel. But then we opened it up and we said, it's on the honor system. Like, look, if you really need a dog to fly, by the way, if you need a dog to fly emotionally, you're nut and you need therapy. You don't need your dog. But, but they said, and all of a sudden a whole bunch of people, not criminals, none of these people are criminals. People pay their taxes, they love their country, they love their kids, but they want to fly free with their dog. And now the airport's filled with dogs and that's who we are. So if you want to open it up, people will come in.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Do you think people need therapy? Like do guys need therapy or do you think they need to read some Dostoevsky like, like, you know, old classic tales of like, struggle and like, grinding through things? Like watching David Goggins. What is it the young people need in order to become a self actualized, hard working, disciplined guy?

[Adam Carolla]

No, I don't think they need therapy. And they sure don't need pharmaceuticals and SSRIs and things like that. Like, they do not need any of that. They need, they need ordinary misery. They need tough things to do that don't feel that good, where they would much rather be playing a video game and ordering grubhub, but, sorry, you got to get out and chop some wood and it's hot outside. Like, you got to go. It's like a little ordinary misery. And a lot of it is just like, you need to take hikes, you need to sweat, like, you need to move. Like, a lot of it is a physical thing. You know, it is not about sitting in air conditioning and talking it out. It's about physically getting on your feet and like trucking through the desert, like, and breaking a sweat. You know, you need that, like, that. That's gonna solve a lot of what's going on with everybody in their heads. And then there's gonna be a lot of like, self discipline. Like we have to start bringing back, like, hey, man, I know you want that donut, but there, you eat that apple and you get that donut after the hike or whatever it is we need to do. It's all real basic stuff. I always tell people, diet and exercise. And I'm not talking about losing weight. I'm just talking about life. You know what I mean? Everyone's on Ozempic. Everyone's looking for some life hack. Everyone's doing some bullshit. First off, what do you need Ozempic for? Don't eat junk. Exercise you don't need. What is it for? It's to get me to not want to do this thing. How about you control your own self? How about you have some agency over your own behavior? How about that?

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

What do you think is the biggest risk in today's economy?

[Adam Carolla]

The biggest risk in today's economy? I don't know. I haven't really thought about.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

What about the Henta virus?

[Adam Carolla]

No, it's a Honda.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Is it Hanta?

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

He literally asked me.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

I keep calling it the Hentai.

[Adam Carolla]

I know. Drew does that too. I listen, I, I now will. Will not believe anything that comes out of the, the, you know, medical establishment or the, or the, you know what's funny?

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Yeah, the World Health Organization.

[Adam Carolla]

They all lied through Covid.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Yeah. This is interesting. In January 14, 2020, the World Health Organization tweeted, investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human to human transmission of the novel coronavirus.

[Adam Carolla]

Right. All right. So here's the moral story.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

They're saying the same thing now about the hantavirus, Right?

[Adam Carolla]

So here's the moral story. Whether this exists or not, if you're going to be the WHO and you're going to lie all through Covid, or you're going to be Rochelle Walensky, or you're going to be Fauci, or you're going to be Sanjay Gupta on CNN and you're going to lie all through Covid, then I'm not going to listen to you when the next thing comes around the bend. And that's not on me, that's on you. You shouldn't have lied all through Covid.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

How are you investing your money in 2026?

[Adam Carolla]

I don't have any experience in that world and I don't have any history in that world. I have things that I sort of like and know about, and I have, like, property and cars and I make. I don't even know if they're called investments, but I have cars that are worth a substantial amount of money, but I also race them and use them. So I like sort of being tangible with them. Like, I guess if I was to think about it, you go, well, if you bought this stock or that stock 10 years ago, you'd be up this much. And then I go, well, I didn't buy that stock and that stock, but I bought a warehouse and I bought a couple of old race cars, and those are up the same amount, except for I've been racing and wrenching on them in the warehouse. So I'm really not good at that. I just sort of know what I like. And I also know that I have enough experience to go that warehouse or that house or. Or that car will be worth quite a bit more in the future. And people kind of go, that's like an old race car. Like, how does that work? And I'll give you a quick example. Nick Mason, who's the drummer for Pink Floyd, still is. Original drummer for Pink Floyd is Nick Mason. Nick Mason has a pretty substantial car collection. Nick Mason bought a 63, could be 62 Ferrari GTO in 1976 for $60,000, which was a lot for a car in 1976. That car is $85 million today. He still owns it. So there is a Way to make money off of, of things like cars.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Was that luck?

[Adam Carolla]

Pokemon cars.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Was that luck or skill?

[Adam Carolla]

You know, when I look at his collection, I go, this guy's picking the right cars. You know, there's a version of this where people just buy a brand new Rolls Royce and put rims on it and they paid 350 for it. It's going to be worth a buck 75 in nine years and you're going to lose on it. But there are cars. I could tell you what cars to buy that would have, have upside.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Oh, we got to know about this. I have my own cars that I think are going to be worth a lot. I think the SLS, AMG, all my favorites. I think the Z8s are underappreciated. And I think.

[Adam Carolla]

Stock BMW.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

And I think the stock Honda S2000s,

[Adam Carolla]

the Japanese stuff's going up a lot. The Z8s were like, you know, 150 new. But they put a premium on them, the dealer premium. They were selling them for like 225 or something like that. They've always kind of trickled up, but not really. And maybe they're about 240 or 250 now. And they're, they're cool car, V8, you know, BMW. But they're not, you know, they're not that. They're just kind of. If you bought one for 250 today, it'd be worth three in six years, you know, and that's like, okay. But I bought, bought a lamborghini Miura for 300k and it's worth 2,5 now. I, I sold it to buy another race car. But I mean, there are cars you can buy that'll go.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

What do you think of the Ford GT, the original one, the 2005?

[Adam Carolla]

Those cars are good. They're about a buck 65 new. And they, they, they went up and they kind of trickled up and then they shot up and they got to like 550, maybe 600, maybe 700 was a gulf heritage. And then they just kind and kind of settled into like the 5475 to 550 range and they just kind of stayed there. They're kind of like the BMW. If you bought one for 500 and hung onto it, you're not going to lose. But it's not a hot stock.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

So what would you buy? What do you think right now is a good car? If someone says money's no object, I just want to make money on a car.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, it's kind of like, do you have $4 million to spend on a car or do you have 125k? Ferrari 550s from the late 90s, early 2000s stick shift. Those are nicely kind of trickling up. Also sort of from the same era. Ferrari 355s are been a pretty steady climber. I'll give you a hot ticket. It. It has never popped and it's a ton of car, but they just won't move past like $550,000. But I swear they're gonna, which is a Jag 220, which is their supercar from the later 90s. Those, I think are gonna start to move.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

So do you own no stock?

[Adam Carolla]

I don't know if I own stock.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Who would know?

[Adam Carolla]

When I got into this business, I immediately got a money manager because I was like, like, I don't know anything about this world and I don't want to be responsible for it. And I'm going to end up being arrested by the IRS if I put myself, like, in charge of this. And I don't want to deal with any of it. And so I got a money manager, pays all the bills, pays all the taxes, does all the stuff, and all I do is just work.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

That's how. When did you get the money manager?

[Adam Carolla]

Literally, like day one in show business.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

So he has to have invested stock.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Do you have any idea where you're at financially?

[Adam Carolla]

Like, no, I only know. Well, yeah, I mean, I know what my warehouses are worth, but you don't

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

know what your net worth is. I would say this episode is in partnership with Airbnb. Graham and I are always traveling for the podcast. We were just in Nashville filming a few episodes there. And let me tell you, the food was incredible. I had the absolute best appetizers I've ever had. There was this. This dough ball and these steak skin potatoes. It was incredible. But let me ask you this. Do you ever think about your place back home when you travel, when you're gone for days or even weeks at a time, you can list your space on Airbnb so it works for you instead of just sitting empty.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

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[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

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[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

If you have upcoming travel, you probably don't think twice about your home sitting empty, but you could bring in some extra cash while you're away.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

I kid you not. A couple years ago, before I had all of the rooms in my house filled up with roommates, I actually listed a room on Airbnb and the entire process was genuinely so easy. The extra cash was amazing and I was genuinely just so surprised at the simplicity of the entire process. If you're trying to it make take some extra cash on the side, I couldn't recommend Airbnb more. If you're ready to host but need a little bit of help, find a co [e-mail] host a quick thanks to Ethos for sponsoring this episode. Most of us work to take care of the people we love, and when you're the one that they depend on, that's a responsibility you don't take lightly. For example, I have two mortgages and payments like that add up really quickly and it's a big burden. If something were to, you know, happen to me, I don't want to place that burden on my family.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

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[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

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[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

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[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

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[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

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[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

vary, but you don't know what your net worth is.

[Adam Carolla]

I would say my net worth is tied up in my properties and in my cars. I always, whenever I made money, I just got Another warehouse or got another car and I never put it in the stock market. He have got retirement accounts and stuff like that. But no, my. I can. If I want to figure out my net worth, we would have to go to my warehouse and go, what is this warehouse worth? And then go to another warehouse and go, what is that worth? And then go to a house and go, what is this worth? And then go, walk every car and go.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

But that's assuming they have smoke detectors.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. And I can get up a phrase,

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

but are these income producing assets?

[Adam Carolla]

I have a warehouse that I'm currently renting out, so I do get income from that warehouse. The other stuff just kind of goes up. Like, I don't know what, you know, you go in. What's income producing? You go, well, I. I bought a miura Lamborghini for 325 and I sold it for a million bucks. You know, I bought a Lamborghini 402 plus two 60s, 67 probably. I bought on eBay for like 117,000. I called the guy, I went, what's it gonna take to get the auction shut? He's like, give me 117,000 bucks. I said, I'll do it. I bought that car. I sold that car like six years later for like 785 or something. Something like that. Now that's a happy story.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Sometimes whenever you get these windfalls from selling these assets, you immediately parlay that into a new car warehouse or real estate or whatever.

[Adam Carolla]

Whatever. Yeah. I mean, some generally. Generally the money goes into something else like that.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

So what's the best investment you've ever made?

[Adam Carolla]

You know, I bought my first house for like 350. Put a lot fixer upper, but a lot of sweat equity. Had to do a lot of work on it. But I think it sold for like two, two or something. Something like that. That's probably good. I mean, percentage wise, something like the Lamborghini 400 went up like a hundred. You know, I mean, I walked away. I didn't walk away with millions of dollars, but from a percentage wise and a time wise, that was probably pretty good. Some of the warehouse. I bought a warehouse for like one nine and a half. I put a lot of sweat equity in it, but just like this, you know, paint and scrubbing stuff and, you know, I used to build. So it was that not, not a ton of dough. And I think it sold for like 7 million bucks or something like that. So it's okay with just sticking with kind of the warehousey and the, you know, properties and Cars. The cars. It's hard to tell the value of a lot of them. Cause there's no comps. You know, we can figure out a comp on a Ford GT in O5. Yeah. I mean, I can. I don't even own one. And I don't even. I shouldn't say I don't like it, but it's not my car. I mean, I don't.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

That's his.

[Adam Carolla]

I know. I don't. I don't dabble with them. Never bought one. I've never traded one. I've never done anything. But I just told you what those cars are worth.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Yes.

[Adam Carolla]

And you're pretty accurate because that's what those cars are worth. But you can't tell what an old paul newman race car is worth because they don't. They don't trade.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

But when you buy those cars, is it ever with the intention of saying, I'm going to make money with this, or is it. I like this car. I don't care what it's worth. This is cool.

[Adam Carolla]

I buy them to. Because I like them. And I buy them to race them, and I buy them for, you know, pretty pure mo. You know, the motivation is good. You know, like, I like it. I want to be a custodian of this car. I want to get in this car. I want to drive this car. I want to race it. You know, that's all good. But there have been cars like I own. Paul newman won four national championships. I own three of those cars. And there's a guy who always owned the fourth car who was kind of nuts and a little bit of a douche. And he used to come at me all the time and go, I'll sell you this car for $3 million. And I'd just go, that's not a $3 million car. It's not worth that much. And he'd go, do it now, or I'm sending it to dubai or whatever. And I'd go, I, I. It's, you know, I can't tell you exactly what it's worth, but it's not worth that much money, so I'm not going to buy it. And then I'd tell him, put it up. Take it to pebble beach. Put it up on auction. I'll bid on it, and we'll find out what it's worth. And he's like, he never did it because he's an idiot. But the point is, is I. No, I'm not going to just sort of blindly go, I'll give you way too much Money for a car.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

But would you say most of your net worth, then, is in cars?

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, I would say that's a safe thing. Wow.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

That's incredible. Most of the people we bring on this podcast, they're all, like, buying stocks and. I don't know.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Or running business, like, very.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Yeah, it's very rare that, like, they're just. They've completely negated that area of life, because we're more actually of a finance podcast where we discuss stuff like that. So that's. That's really interesting to note that, like, you've actually done quite well for yourself, but you've invested in a completely alternative way to most people we have on the show.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. Because I don't really look at it as investment. I just go. I worked, I swung a hammer. I was on a job site. I wanted to make money so I could get myself some race cars and go racing. And I got in the show business and I made some money, and I bought race cars and I went racing.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

How important do you think it is for the average person out there to invest in property?

[Adam Carolla]

I think it's real important. I think it's real important for generational wealth as well. But also, if you don't own property, you're not really completely invested in America. You're just kind of floating around. And that's where the Mandamis of the world take seats. Because they're talking to those people. They're not talking to owners, they're talking to renters, and they're talking about controlling the rent and lowering the rent. And you have to have some skin in the game. And when you own property, you have skin in. In the game.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Yeah. There is something about owning a house where all of a sudden, you care about what your neighbor is doing too.

[Adam Carolla]

Right.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Like, if they don't upkeep the landscape or they have some trash in the front yard, it looks bad on you.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. And also, like, what percentage of violent crime is committed by property owners?

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

That's a good question.

[Adam Carolla]

Close to zero.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Yeah, but is that. But is that the property itself, or is that the fact that the people who are making money don't need to resort to crime and petty theft?

[Adam Carolla]

Well, a lot. A lot of people commit crime like, they don't have anything to lose. Like, you've been arrested 17 times in four years. Like, yeah, who cares? You know what I mean? But when you own something or you're invested in something, you're like, I can't. I'm gonna get sued.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

How much of that, though, is circumstantial? Versus a personal choice. Like if you, if you're growing up in an area and all you've seen your entire life is people just stealing and that's your only reality of life is like, ah, that's normal. Like people run in the, the red left arrows normal.

[Adam Carolla]

At a certain point, yeah, there's a lot of environmental stuff. There needs to be interventions. Obviously. I would argue that all of those people do understand the difference between right and wrong, though. They have stuff they don't want stolen. You know what I mean? Like, they get it. You know, we go like, oh, that guy's claiming insanity. Well, he did try to get to Mexico after he murdered the guy. I'd say he knew what he was doing because he's trying to get. We caught him trying to get into Mexico, like, yeah, but he's insane. Well, not so insane that he didn't know what he did because he's trying to get to Mexico. You know, these people all have stuff they keep, all have stuff they want while stealing other people's stuff. So they get it. I mean, most of it is just not having a dad in the house. And no politician wants to talk about that, but that's really the big problem. There needs to be like a disciplinarian in the house. I grew up amongst these kind of people. Not street thugs, but kind of poor, downtrodden people. And most all the people I grew up with, including their parents, they all did it to themselves. I was saying to somebody when I was driving here today to work yet another weekend. I said, no one I ever knew worked a weekend. My dad never worked a weekend. My mom never worked a weekend. None of my friends, parents, whoever worked on a Saturday back then. And it's like the answer is nobody. Well, they weren't that motivated they then, you know, I mean, they weren't getting their side hustle on. They weren't trying to better their position. And they knew, they knew that studying harder and getting good grades and going to college, if they knew that was a way out, they just didn't want to do it. None of no one I grew up with, they just, they wanted to go the reservoir and drink beer and cut glass and they knew what it took. They just weren't, they weren't going to do it and they weren't going to put in the time and they weren't going to put in the work. It's not like they didn't have the information. And it's the same way, you know, when you say these people you know, these poor people, they're fat. They don't have the information. They have the information. They know the difference between an apple and a McDonald's hamburger. They do. But they don't have the discipline to eat the apple and not have the McDonald's burger because they want it. And delayed gratification is a big problem. They can't push off the gratification they need to it right now. And we made it real easy for them to get it right now. And it has weakened them and they're not going to flourish. And somebody has to start telling these people the truth instead of making excuses about lack of information or food deserts or school to prison pipelines or whatever bullshit they're cooking up this week.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Did you know more than 50% of the people that bought tickets to Coachella did it on crash credit?

[Adam Carolla]

Did it on credit. Not like credit card a lot.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Was klarna the buy now, pay later or affirm?

[Adam Carolla]

It's interesting because we back in the day had layaway. You guys are too young to remember layaway, but layaway was an interesting. You guys don't know what a layaway is?

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

I've heard the term. It's so funny.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Yeah, I've heard the term.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, you've heard the term, right? Layaway would be you would go to like Sears and you would see a bicycle or a wagon or something you liked. And what we're going to do is we're going to make payments every week or every two or any period, whatever. You're going to mow lawns and you're going to babysit. And when you get $8, we'll give it to Sears and we'll be that much closer to paying for that wagon. And then when we pay for that wagon, you're going to get a new wagon. But you don't get the wagon until we pay the wagon. And you were then motivated to go out and mow lawns every weekend because you wanted your wagon. And that instills a great work ethic in people. Now we get the wagon. Day one, we're done with the wagon, but we still have payments to make on it.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

That is really interesting. I wonder if a company like that could succeed in today's environment. If they kind of put it behind the veneer of being like, psychologically more healthy than like, you know what I mean?

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

There's no way. There's no way, no way that would work. Well, you have, you have the two options.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Well, the whole Ramsey thing is like upon being psychologically healthy, it's like, you pay on debit. You know, who would want that? It's. It's kind of like bucketing your money and then paying with cash.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

I like anyone would take it. I think they would go under.

[Adam Carolla]

No, what you would have to do is you could get the wagon today and then pay it off for credit for 50 bucks, but for 40 bucks, I'll do it on layaway.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Yeah, that's interesting.

[Adam Carolla]

You'd have to give them some incentive to go, all right, I'm going to save 10 bucks and do it on layaway way.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

What other policies like that have you seen that have changed over the last few decades?

[Adam Carolla]

I mean, there was a general civility. There was a general trust in people to kind of be responsible and kind of do the right things. It was like when I was a kid, if you went to the beach, there wasn't a sign with 15 things on it that you couldn't do on the beach. You just kind of. You were trusted to go there. If you wanted to drink a beer, you could drink a beer, but clean up the bottle with you. If you want to start a little campfire and roast some marshmallows, you could, but put it out when you leave. You were just kind of trusted to do. Now it's a long list of no Frisbee and no football and no dogs and no cigarettes and no whatever. So we're, like, trying to police everybody now, but back in the day, people just kind of to police themselves.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

What are we supposed to do with the people that are overweight, that want to buy now, pay later, door dash, their. Their meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and they just. They just don't care about. Or maybe they don't have the motivation to be productive in society. The people that are quietly destroying it and bringing us back, what do we do with those people?

[Adam Carolla]

Well, you have to incentivize them to do the right thing. You can't just say, here's some. You're on snap. You get free food. You don't have to work, everything's gotta be carrot and stick and motivation and incentivizing. And people do the right thing pretty fast when they get motivated. But if we don't motivate them and we basically just say, look, is your kid on the spectrum? And they go, I don't know. I think he's fine. What if I said, I'll give you 1,600 bucks a month for every kid you have? Who's on the spectrum? I go, okay, I got three kids on the spectrum. We Can't. We can't incentivize people to do that. That's what we're running into now. You're gonna have to take care of your own shit. And by the way, there's no way you're gonna. First off, you're poor and you're fat, so you're figuring out a way to get a lot of calories while simultaneously being poor. You know what I tell people? I tell everyone, you wanna run a little experiment? It's always called my $10,000 RO rule, where I say to people like, I. I had a guy who was sharing my warehouse many years ago, like an old flunky friend, and he had his old piece of crap Ford Bronco gone up in value. But it was a husk of a car. It was just a roller. And it was sitting in my warehouse, and I had to, like, climb around it to get everywhere. And it been there for five years or something. And I just said, don, what's it going to take to get this. Wear this Bronco out of this warehouse and, like, into the parking lot? You know, I gotta move some stuff and do some stuff. I said, all right, I'll tell you what. You tell me when is this gonna be outta here? I'm not gonna set the date. You set the date. He goes, two weeks. You gimme two weeks, I'll have this thing outta here. I said, I'm not gonna bug you. I'm not gonna bother you. I'm not gonna keep coming up going, hey, what's going on with the Bronco? You got two weeks. You got two weeks. Got it? Got it. Okay, here we go. Two weeks came and went. Bronco hadn't been touched. I said to him, what? What? I thought we had a deal. What went on? Well, you know, it's pretty busy, and I had a bunch of stuff come up, so I didn't move it. I go, what if I said to you, when we're having our initial conversation, if that warehouse, if that Bronco isn't out of the way, if it's out, I'll give you $10,000. He goes, I would have moved it. I said, okay. Well, we now figured out it could have been moved if you'd got $10,000, which, by the way, just means you could have moved it. It'll work both ways. You owe me $10,000. If this Bronco's still here in two weeks, it's moved, you get $10,000. If it's moved, it's moved. So don't tell me people can't do stuff. They can do whatever they want. But he wasn't incentivized to move the Bronco one way or the other. In the past, dignity would have incentivized him. He gave me his word he would move it, but that's out the window now, so he doesn't care.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

What do you mean, dignity is out the window now?

[Adam Carolla]

Every third billboard is for some lawyer wanting to know if you're discriminated against at the workplace or whatever. Everyone's just cashing in. Dignity prevented that. In the past, you had a word, you had a bond, you had a handshake. You were an adult, you were a male. You didn't engage in that kind of stuff. The warehouse that my studio's in, when I bought it, there was a tenant in there, and he had nine months left on the lease or something. And I was anxious to get in there and start making it into a wood shop or car shop. And so I said to the guy who was the tenant, I go, you got nine months left on your lease? He goes, yeah. I go, I'm ready to move in whenever you're ready to move out. So if you want to cut out early, you can cut out early. And he said, I'm actually looking for a place, and I would like to get out of the lease early. I said, well, whenever you're ready, I'm ready to cut you loose. Came to me, I don't know, three weeks later, said, I found a place. I said, that's good. You're free to leave. He said, I'm going to need you to sign some paperwork to get me out of the lease. I said, we don't need paperwork. I said, you could leave. You can leave. Leave. I'm not going to circle back and sue you for past rent or anything. Go ahead and leave. I'm not leaving without the paperwork. Because I said, look, I looked you in the eye, shook your hand, I said, you can leave. You can leave. I'm not leaving until we sign the agreement. I said, well, I'm not signing an agreement. So you can either leave or you can stay for another nine months and pay me rent, but I'm not signing anything. And he left. And that was that. And that's how we kind of used to roll, but we don't anymore, because dignity prevents all that stuff. I told you this. That's my word.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

But the issue is that we don't have that level of dignity anymore. And yet you almost have to protect yourself. There are so many deals in real estate, so Many that I would love to say, hey, if we put this in writing, it's gonna maybe create some. Why don't we just shake on it? And this is what it is. But you have to trust the other person with your life. They could easily turn around and just get you right back.

[Adam Carolla]

That's where we're at now. We didn't. We didn't used to be there, but now we're there. This was totally unnecessary in the past, and now we're there. You know, my word is my bond. You know what I mean? I look a man in the eye and I shake his hand, and that's that.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

But see, the issue, too, is that they could mean it in the moment. And then they turn around to talk to their buddy who says, hey, wait a second, you know, he actually did this.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, but that's where the dignity part comes in. It, like, you know, you go, well, I don't feel that way anymore. But I did tell him that, and I got to stand by my word, you know?

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Well, in terms of policies like this, what's something that you feel like he could improve on? And what do you think his chances are of winning in Los Angeles?

[Adam Carolla]

You know, it's insane about, you know, Los Angeles because they always vote Democrat. No matter how bad it gets, and no matter how far we keep going into the abyss, they always vote Democrat. So there's a part of your head that goes. They just always do, like, no matter how. How much you think this is going to help or be better, this Rick Caruso is better than Karen Bass. They still vote for Karen Bass. They just. They don't care. They're kind of dumb. And it's a kind of gad. Sad, suicidal empathy kind of thing they got going on over there. Spencer's. Yeah, all we need is someone who's half pragmatic and semi normal, not a socialist. And, you know, the other two are kind of socialists who just have some sort of pie in the sky thoughts, insane thoughts about everything. So all wouldn't. All we need is somebody normal to just be mayor. It wouldn't take. You could take a farmer from the 30s and just make him the mayor of Los Angeles, and it would work out fine. It would be completely fine. Literally, guys never even been inside downtown Los Angeles. Pull up a guy from Iowa off a farm and from 1933, and he'd come in and run Los Angeles a lot better because he'd just go, whatever's pragmatic, you know, he'd go, how much you paying for the homeless people, you know, 110,000 a year. What's your average income in it? 63.

[New York Mayor Eric Adams]

You're.

[Adam Carolla]

Wait, you're paying more for a homeless guy than the average income of people are working. And he. That's all it would take. Yeah. That's just a pragmatist.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

What do you think his chances are of winning?

[Adam Carolla]

He seems to have all the momentum, and he's running against two dangerous dopes. But there is a Democratic machine in Los Angeles and in California, and that machine always wins. And it's kind of weird. Like, you go, is it all mail in or is it voter fraud? Or, like, what's going on that they just always win, even though everyone seems to think the other person's gonna be better for the state or the city. So there's a part of me that goes, I love the guy. He's got all the momentum. Everyone seems to be pumped up about him. On the other hand, the machine always wins, you know, and so I have to kind of balance those two thoughts.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

I think it's going to be different now. What's interesting is I'm looking at.

[Adam Carolla]

I hope he wins.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

I'm looking at the polls, and when I see Nithya Raman at the top leading, I just tend to think that is manipulation. That is someone on her side that's placing a big bet, moving the odds. She gets way more than. Let's just say if that bet were a $50,000 bet to move the needle. She gets way more than that with free exposure. Everyone says she's leading. Everyone's. Oh, let me look into her.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, you're. But you're. What you're talking about is part of the machine that I'm talking about. It's not all just fake votes. It's like part of the entire gestalt of the Democratic machine in California.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

I think he has a really good shot of winning, and I think he's going to. To upset a lot of people who think he doesn't have a chance.

[Adam Carolla]

I believe you just as a person. It's like, you know, it's 2007 and your team's playing the Patriots, and it's the fourth quarter and you're up by 11 points, and you go, I think we got this one. No, you don't. You know, you don't. You think you do, but you don't do. Because what happens every time. You know what I mean? And there's a little bit of that. That with the machine in California. So I hope and I pray you're right. And I thought that way about Caruso, and I thought that way about Larry Elder and Gavin Newsom. And the machine kicked in, and they just got blown out.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Who is the machine?

[Adam Carolla]

I think at this point, it's teachers unions, labor unions, all the unions, all the NGOs and all. I mean, you think about the teachers unions, get the governor elected, then Covid comes around, then the governor shuts the schools down, and then the teachers don't want to go back and do their job, so they tell the governor, no opening schools. Meanwhile, the parents want the schools open, and the governor may want the school open, but the union that controls it, him, is calling the shots. And that's kind of the machine, if you think about it, should be legal.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

That's interesting. Now, I have noticed because I was back in Venice a few months ago. I was surprised to see that some areas were beginning to clean up. I was surprised. It's the nicest I've seen it in six years.

[Adam Carolla]

When it gets to critical mass at some point, there's enough outcry and outrage where, like, somebody. Somebody does something, sometimes temporarily, they clean up a park. They just go, all right, we're going to clean up MacArthur Park. And then they do it in one day, by the way. It's like the funny part is when they do it, you go, well, why didn't you just do that five years ago? It only took you a day to come in there and clean the whole park out. And you just did it and it worked. So why not just do that? They do little dribs and drabs of

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

sort of just to show they're doing something.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Look what happens. Also, whenever the Olympics goes to a specific town.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Then they clean up the entire town beforehand. And then every resident is wondering, hey, why was this not done beforehand? But this is, like, a common theme. Like, it's happened several times.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

So we need the Olympics every year, basically.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. Or the. Or the, you know, president of China needs to swing by San Francisco, and they'll clean it up. You know, they. They will clean it up. If a dignitary is coming in.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

Or World cup or whatever.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

If you were to make some predictions of the future, because you have a tendency to be right with your predictions. What do you think is going to happen? Just crazy, ludicrous, maybe moonshot ideas that you think have a higher likelihood than most would think of coming true.

[Adam Carolla]

I think we're gonna create a sort of super class of sort of dudes who are doing, like, lots of hacks and cold plunges and Lots of supplements and anti aging stuff and all the routines that go along with that and like people like really living their life like space tourism and stuff like that. And then there's just to be another class which is this like Calcutta poor streets, you know, teeth falling out. Like this chasm between the haves and the have nots is going to like get grow you know, by the day. And then I think we'll have some sort of return to nature where like people will start to understand the kind of. Grandpa was right that all the sup all all the Ozempic and video games and grubhub and streamers, it was all the sort of the digital world was just sort of a dream that was being sold that turned out to be a nightmare and that it's the analog world that we need to get back to, you know, and there's like more people are going to grow their own vegetables. You know, it's like people used to grow vegetables and they had victory gardens and then at some point supermarkets populated every corner and they went, you'd be a fool to grow your own tomatoes. And everyone went and bought everything and then they got kind of miserable because they were like indoors and they're buying tomatoes that had pesticides on or something. And then there was some sort of return to you, the mom and the four year old girl in the garden, you know, together in the soil getting their hands dirty. You know, the dad's building a tree house house with the sun, you know, versus ordering it from IKEA and having the tech, you know, the guy from Nerd Wallet or wherever the Task Task rabbit come put it up for you. You know, I think there's going to be the dad going no, I'm going to do it with my son. I think there's going to be a return hopefully to values in kind of old school, you know, like son, let me show you how to handle these tools and let's build a tree house together. And then there's gonna be ones who go off further. There's more tattoos, fatter and dumber.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

But you're generally optimistic.

[Adam Carolla]

I am. In that if you would like to just work hard, it's a pretty good time to be alive. Like you can get a lot done but there's always going to be a group that just does not have enough agency or self discipline for that.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

What about AI? People speculate that robots, humanoid AI robots are going to get so cheap everyone will have access to one. Then you'll have people that are the, you know, very poor. Can have access to the nicest meals, daily massages that, that they will put up whatever TaskRabbit was gonna put up. Like, humans will not have to do jobs like TaskRabbit because labor will become so inex.

[Adam Carolla]

You know, there's always been technology and it's always, you know, there's always a cry of, oh, we're going to put these saddle makers out of work if we start driving cars around. And there's always that and then there's always progression. Now in this case, it's kind of about speed. You know, to go from a horse to a car may have taken 35 years. This is going to happen in three and a half years. You know, so the speed is the sort of the wild card in this. This in general, if you are adaptive and kind of willing to work hard, I think there's going to be a place for you in our society. And I don't think self driving trucks are going to mean that we're going to have millions of people that are living in squalor because they used to drive a diesel.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

That's very positive. And finally, to end on a negative note, who are the top villains that are hurting humanity the most right now?

[Adam Carolla]

The ones that are hurting. The grievance politicians that are telling young black people, you know, we live in a systemically racist society and essentially they're not wanted here. The grievance politicians that are basically trying to convince women, blacks, Hispanics that they're not wanted here and they're never gonna be able to really achieve anything because. Because the playing field is tilted and it's not in their direction. Those people are causing the most damage in this country, I'd agree.

[Podcast Co-host (possibly Graham or another co-host)]

Thank you.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Really appreciate you coming on the podcast. We'll link all of your information down below in the description and for the members, thank you so much for supporting the channel. You get early access to the entire episode before we post it. No ads, no sponsorships. Thank you so much for joining. Thank you.

[Adam Carolla]

Thanks for having me, guys.

[Podcast Host (possibly Brian or a co-host)]

Till time.

[Adam Carolla]

Next time.