Podcasts about because america

Trade Deals and Trump be DAMNED, tonight we're looking at some OTHER nonsense. It's David Beckham's 50th Birthday and there appears to be some beef between his sons. Apparently that's worthy of a front page or five. Meanwhile the CIA, FBI and NCA would like access to your private, personal messages because WHAT IF A CHILD BOTHERS TO GO ON FACEBOOK THESE DAYS. The Morons who cut down the Sycamore Tree should be hanged in the Town Square and FINALLY: A Raccoon Is Busted Smoking Meth. Because America. Here are some links i really hope you click: Patreon

What if the secret to extraordinary wealth isn't about betting on the next big thing, but buying something tried-and-true—like a plumbing business, a car wash, or a cleaning company? What if the future of entrepreneurship isn't on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley, but on Main Street—if only we knew how to seize it?My guest today is Codie Sanchez, founder and CEO of Contrarian Thinking, a digital education platform and media company with over 6 million followersIn her new book, Main Street Millionaire: How to Make Extraordinary Wealth Buying Ordinary Businesses, Codie lays out her bold argument: that buying profitable, established, cash-flowing businesses is the most underrated path to building wealth—and that now is the time to act. Why? Because America is facing a generational handoff. Over 40 million Americans are hitting retirement age, and baby boomers—who currently own nearly two-thirds of small businesses with employees—are poised to sell. Codie calls it a “silver tsunami,” and for those who know how to navigate it, it could mean once-in-a-generation opportunity.In our conversation, Codie opens up about her own unlikely journey from journalism to Wall Street to Main Street. We talk about how she made the leap, the psychological hurdles to entrepreneurship, and how she thinks about power, relationships, and the future of work in an AI-driven world.

Japan's PM Ishiba wanted to visit Pres. Trump soon after Nov. 5. But President-elect Trump didn't grant him an audience until last week. Back in 2016, Japan PM Abe visited President-elect Trump at the Trump Tower. But why have Japanese leaders rushed to meet with Mr. Trump? Because America is important to Japan's economy and security. And vice versa. . In this interview, we discuss the following: ►Japan's longest running political party and its loss of power►How Japan's government structure compares to America's ►How protectionism and restrictive business practices helped Japan's economy►1980s' anti-Japanese sentiments in America ►Populism in Japan (and perhaps its lessons for America) ►Japan's formidable bureaucracy and how it shaped Japan's economic planning (and at times political landscape) ►Japan's constitution and America's role in writing it ►Japan's challenge with its constitutional limits on increasing its military power ►Japan military: from pacificism to realism ►An Asian NATO?

Because America is the Real Survival Horror

Jan Markell spends the hour with Tom Hughes. Because America's November election went in a preferred direction, will the world relax to a business as usual mentality? Nothing will stop the rush towards Revelation 13, or the globalists 2030 agenda. Don't be fooled. Tom and Jan review top Bible prophecy stories of 2024. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/407/29

Jan Markell spends the hour with Tom Hughes. Because America's November election went in a preferred direction, will the world relax to a business as usual mentality? Nothing will stop the rush towards Revelation 13, or the globalists 2030 agenda. Don't be fooled. Tom and Jan review top Bible prophecy stories of 2024. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/407/29

Jan Markell spends the hour with Tom Hughes. Because America's November election went in a preferred direction, will the world relax to a business as usual mentality? Nothing will stop the rush towards Revelation 13, or the globalists 2030 agenda. Don't be fooled. Tom and Jan review top Bible prophecy stories of 2024. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.lightsource.com/donate/1472/29

Jan Markell spends the hour with Tom Hughes. Because America's November election went in a preferred direction, will the world relax to a business as usual mentality? Nothing will stop the rush towards Revelation 13, or the globalists 2030 agenda. Don't be fooled. Tom and Jan review top Bible prophecy stories of 2024. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.lightsource.com/donate/1472/29

Let's talk about Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell. After seeing Sean Grayson's record with other departments along with his discharge from the military, Jack here saw him as a good fit to fill an open position. He hired him on a purppose as an aware adult who knows what he's doing. Well now that Sean got caught on camera being what he was hired to be: Doing what he was hired to do, Jacky The Campbell is out here speaking to crowds to like foster trust and sh**. I have a post from Yesterday about William Donigan and him being lynched in 1908. The mob that eventually dragged him from his home was originally targeting the Union Baptist Church. This is the location Sheriff Jack chose to deliver his remarks. Because America. Blah Blah Blah "I ask your forgiveness". Blah Blah Blah "I can't imagine the pain". Blah Blah Blah "I will (CRINGE) say her name (CRINGE). Obviously. I don't buy it. I don't think I'm woker than thou. I think that the police collectively and individually don't care about our trust. They have no incentive to. They have immunity. They have authority. They have weaponry. They have bipartisan propaganda on their side. They have conventional wisdom and belief in the "bad apples" myth on their side. This is just a side quest for them. Stroll up in the old negro church like it's a "colored sorority" to tell them that you beg for "forgiveness", you'll "say her name" and that HECK TO THE NO, you aren't about to resign. In closing. I do not think that he knows the history of that church or of Sonya Massey's ancestor. He just happened to be there Because America.

Today's episode is about the Type 3 Achiever, which is a type that almost everyone resonates with. Because America is the land of the three, the land of chasing success. Almost everyone, including myself has fallen into the  comparison trap and found themselves feeling inadequate or like they aren't enough. Is your to do list a mile long? Do you have a hard time relaxing? Type 2, 3 and 4 are all in the heart center, focused on receiving attention and presenting a certain image. A Type 2 wants to be seen as likable and helpful and a type 3 wants to be seen as charming and successful. Failure for a type 3 brings crushing shame and often denial. In the world of likes and followers, a type 3 can be on quite an emotional rollercoaster by placing their self-worth in the hands of their achievements and abilities. Many parents, without realizing it, are feeding this achievement cycle. Tune in to this episode to discover the 5 major thought patterns of a type 3, the emotions and actions those thoughts produce and how a Type 3 can reframe those thoughts to feel better and discover their true identity. Be sure to listen to episode 18 on how to transform your thoughts because it is the foundation of the entire enneagram system and the absolute best way to change your life for the better!   Website: Wendy Gossett.com Get FREE resources on my website: https://wendygossett.com/category/resources/ or email me at WendyGossett.com Get a FREE Child Temperament Test when you join my Not So Normal Parenting Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/notsonormalparenting Book: Your Child's Inner Drive:Parenting by Personality from Toddlers to Teens on Amazon or  https://wendygossett.com/product/your-childs-inner-drive-parenting-by-personality-for-toddlers-to-teens/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaaOCjoDyOk4_gS1KCncLvQ Instagram is Wendy.Gossett

Are you aware of what is really going on in America currently?  If you haven't noticed we are in a fight over the REALITY of HEAVEN vs. the REALITY of HELL through Jezebel.  So unless you stand up to this demon LEADER, you won't enter into Heaven's reality but instead will enter difficulty.  Because America is under one of the HUGEST EXPERIMENTS in the history of mankind where the deep state is trying to see if they can alter our CONSCIOUSNESS.  DEF OF CONSCIOUSNESS: the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings.Ever heard of Apples reality gadgets called “APPLE VISION PRO?”  The enemy has been mass producing gadgets like these to indoctrinate man/ready you so they can control you. OR YOUR REALITY. Support the show

7:20 a.m. - Delbert Hosemann - MS Lt. Governor Topic: The Lt. Governor

America is badly polarized. It's a fact so pervasively acknowledged that pointing it out starts to feel like saying the sky is blue. Unlike a blue sky, however, growing polarization in America presents a difficult challenge. Because America is both incredibly diverse and a vibrant democracy, polarization starts to eat away at our politics.Many attempts have been made to deal with polarization. A lot of it has to do with putting people with diverging perspectives face-to-face in an attempt to try to find common ground. Here at Wisdom of Crowds, we have tackled the problem by taking only half of this approach: we insist that people in disagreement confront each other, but with no expectation of common ground emerging. We frequently talk about “deep difference.” We believe it's naive to think that through reasoned discourse we can reach compromise positions. That does violence to the power of ideas and the strength of belief. We think it's both healthier and more realistic to acknowledge that certain differences can't be reconciled, and to instead direct the conversation toward respectful mutual interrogation — where the discussants push each other to excavate why they believe what they believe.Jen Murtazashvili is one person who is profoundly aligned with what we're doing. She first came on the Wisdom of Crowds podcast in August of 2021 to talk about America's withdrawal from Afghanistan. But both Shadi and Damir had gotten to know her almost a year earlier, during the start of COVID, when she kindly invited them both to participate in an online seminar about modus vivendi liberalism. Jen's extensive work on Afghanistan had given her cause to be suspicious of top-down thinking that nation-building requires. She understands that societies are built from the bottom-up, from local insights, from particularism. Difference can't be papered over.We have been planning to collaborate more with Jen's Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh for some time. Today, we're pleased to announce that collaboration is kicking off. In the coming months, you will see podcast episodes and essays that will carry the CGM logo, featuring guests and writers and thinkers that the three of us have decided we need to engage with. First principles and the spirit of modus vivendi will animate all of it.To launch the collaboration, we wanted to have Jen on the podcast. We didn't explicitly set out to model exactly what we hope to achieve with the collaboration. But with the Gaza War in the background, it was impossible that we wouldn't get to discussing it. As you'll hear below, the conversation is deeply felt and argued — and remains unresolved. That's as it should be. (The paywall is down on this one, so everyone can give it a listen.)We walked away from it energized to do more. We hope, dear listeners, you feel the same way. And you join us as we continue our Governing Deep Differences project.Required Reading (and Listening):* “Community Before Politics,” by Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili (Discourse Magazine).* “Two Friends — One Jewish, One Muslim — Have an Answer to Campus Conflict, by Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili and Abdesalam Soudi (Tablet).* “All Aboard the Compassion Bus — with Jen Murtazashvili,” on Ask a Jew Podcast (Apple).* A tweet by Senator Fetterman (X).* “The U.S. has more in common with South America than Europe,” by Samuel Goldman (The Week).* “Hamas' Bid for Revolutionary Legitimacy,” by Damir Marusic (WoC). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

Corruption at the highest levels EXPOSED.

Show Notes and Transcript Retired CIA officer Sam Faddis is a regular security expert on War Room and he joins Hearts of Oak to look at the terror threat within the US.  His Substack goes in depth on the many hazards that we face externally and we pick up on some of his recent articles.  We start by looking at open borders and why the establishment won't cut off illegal immigration.  The US have endured an onslaught of unknown individuals, when a country is not able to know who is within its borders then it has no idea what perils it faces internally.  It is a dangerous situation that America finds itself in.  Sam shows us why and how the FBI has spent its time focusing on groups like Moms for Liberty which seems like political targeting and is quite simply illegal.  Then we move onto looking at how the situation in Israel could affect the US before finishing on how China has imbedded itself into the establishment and throughout the system. Sam Faddis is a Retired CIA Operations Officer. Served in Near East and South Asia. Author, commentator. Senior Editor AND Magazine. Public Speaker. Host of Ground Truth. Connect with Sam... X                   https://x.com/RealSamFaddis?s=20 GETTR          https://gettr.com/user/samfaddis SUBSTACK   https://substack.com/profile/28080362-sam-faddis                       https://andmagazine.substack.com/                       https://andmagazine.substack.com/s/ground-truth Interview recorded 28.11.23 Audio Podcast version available on Podbean and all major podcast directories...  ⁣https://heartsofoak.podbean.com/ Transcript available on our Substack...https://heartsofoak.substack.com/ To sign up for our weekly email, find our social media, podcasts, video, livestreaming platforms and more... https://heartsofoak.org/connect/ Support Hearts of Oak by purchasing one of our fancy T-Shirts.... https://heartsofoak.org/shop/ Transcript (Hearts of Oak) It's wonderful to have you with us. Thank you so much for your time today. (Sam Faddis) Thank you for having me, appreciate it.  Not all, I've enjoyed your many times on War Room and maybe we'll touch on that before we get on to everything else. But obviously people can find you @RealSamFaddis on Twitter, @ANDMagazine also. And I think Substack certainly, what I enjoy is andmagazine.substack.com. Everything is in the description. And I think that's where you put a lot of your longer pieces. So if people enjoy the Twitter, they can jump on and look at the Substack. And of course, Sam, you're a retired CIA officer, served in Near East and South Asia, author, commentator, and of course, senior editor of AND Magazine. And certainly for me, as maybe for many others, what often happens, people coming on Steve Bannon's War Room, it opens a window. Maybe we can just touch on that. It's always fun to ask people how they ended up being on War Room and they will jump on, I think, a lot of the threats, the terror threats currently inside the US. So, what about yourself? How did you end up being on War Room? Yeah, I don't... I think my contact with Steve goes back to when he and Jack Maxey were still working together. And we got particularly deeply involved regarding the Hunter Biden laptop story, because when they got a hold of a copy of the hard drive, one of the first things they wanted to do was make sure that they weren't being played, that this was in fact, something real, they weren't going to run with it. And, you know, they were more than happy to run with it if it was real and authentic, which it is, but they wanted to do their homework first. So they called me in as an old, CIA operator to take a look at this thing and say, Hey, do you think this thing's real? Or is there anything to this accusation that it's Russian disinformation? And after about, I mean, I spent the whole night down, I showed up in DC one night and spent the whole night down in a townhouse in Capitol Hill with those guys going through it. But I can tell you that it took me about five minutes to be able to tell them. It is impossible for somebody to have faked this thing. That's completely ludicrous. If you came to me when I was operating and said, do this to somebody else, I would have said. No can do, man. I mean, can I make up a fake laptop? Yeah. Will it stand more than about five minutes scrutiny from an adversary who knows what they're doing? No, it will not. It will be obvious for a million reasons. And we've obviously delved into that with Miranda Devine, laptop from hell, Garrett Ziegler on a number of times and and as a huge and you wonder why the media don't wake up to that fact. But that and many, many others. But of course your background, CIA background, that intelligence side, and on your Substack lots of really interesting articles and I think for me it's the concern about the terror threat within the U.S. We talk a lot about what's happening externally. But really the big concern I have looking across the water and we have in the UK, having open borders is the terror threat within here in the UK, as you're concerned over there in the States. And maybe look at the border, because one of your recent Substack posts was the trade in asylum seekers, why the establishment won't cut off illegal immigration. And the issue of open border means the opposite of a purpose of government, isn't it? A government should be closing the borders, protecting its citizens, and this administration seems to want the opposite. So, what are your thoughts as you look on that open border policy? Well, as you well know, given your trade, you know, language can either be used to illuminate or obfuscate. We spend a lot of time listening to this administration use language to obfuscate, to dance around, to pretend, let's just be clear. This administration's policy is open borders. That's the Biden administration's policy is we don't have a border. So nobody in Congress changed the law. Nobody legislated that. The American people didn't decide that. These guys just basically decided, without ever admitting so, that they will not enforce the existing law. If you show up at the border, you're processed, you're handed a notice to appear for a hearing, which may be five to 10 years in the future, and you're cut loose. Actually, you're probably transported onto your onward destination like Chicago or New York. Once you have that hearing notice in hand, by the way, if anybody stops you, you just tell them you're waiting for your hearing. It in fact functions as a permit. In fact, the illegals refer to it as a permit. So that's our policy and we don't, there's no magic database to check these people. We have no idea who they are. We have no idea if the documents they're carrying, if any, are real. So anybody and everybody can walk into the United States. So why? Well, I mean, ideologically, a lot of these people frankly don't believe we have a right to control our borders. But there's also just a lot of money here, right? I mean, there's a huge garment industry as an example in Southern, California around Los Angeles, actually a large number of clothes a large amount of clothing that's made in the United States. It's all made by illegals. I mean if you walked into a shop and there's 300 people in the room and you found one of them who actually had legal documentation to be in the United States. You'd probably die of shock. Everybody knows that. You go to Alabama chicken processing plants for folks to stand on their feet for 10 or 12 hours a day and they gut and pluck chickens not exactly pleasant work. I've done a little bit of it once upon a time. Okay Who does that? Again, if there's 600 people in the plant and you found one that actually has permission to be in the United States and be working. You'd be stunned. So what we have I could go on obviously, I mean you get the point, there's a lot of folks here who are pretending like somehow they're welcoming the poor of the planet and doing something philanthropic. That's not what's happening. They're making a boatload of money. In the article that you referenced, we talked about how, for instance, in New York State, they actually run a state website where employers can go on the website and advertise jobs and that's specifically marketed to illegals. Now, they don't use that terminology, illegals, but that's what it is. It is a state-run website to match up employers with folks who will, again, when it's all said and done, they will work off the books for less than minimum wage. And none of these guys are gonna complain about workplace safety. I mean, if you think about it, it's kind of sick. Here's the Democratic Party pushes this, supposedly the party of the working man. This is a war on American working men and women. It's none of these pesky unions, man. We're gonna deal with folks that are about one step above slaves. Yeah and I get that and that was a conversation I had in the Brexit debate in the UK talking to voters and you talk to small businesses and they wanted cheap labour, they want a free movement of people and I get the economic argument on that but then you move over on to the security issue and just because you let someone in for, they can cheap labour, if you're not checking who that person is, then you have no idea who is in the country. And it surprises me why, you're on a scale well above what the UK is on, but it surprises me why the media and politicians don't really call this out for what it is, which is a massive security risk for the US. Without question. I mean, first of all, people talk in terms of checking names against databases. Okay, so first of all, let's just assume that happens. What database? I mean, a database consists is only as good as the data that goes into it. What's the premise there? We have a magic database with the names of all the members of Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and Hamas in it. There is no such database. The guy's name is the name of John Smith, something generic. Born in some village nobody ever heard of in Pakistan, okay? You know what you're gonna find? You're gonna find there's no data in your laptop. Does that mean that he's good? It doesn't mean anything. That's, by the way, assuming he's actually telling you his real name. Hezbollah is an example. Hezbollah has a longstanding relationship with Venezuela. They are very serious boys. I've worked against them all over the planet. They plan years and years in advance, they're very meticulous. They don't show up one day and say, let's blow something up. They flip a switch on and off that they've been working for five years. Pre-positioned explosives, case targets, all this. They have a relationship with Venezuela. Venezuela gives them full sets of false identity documents, passport, driver's license, etc., backstopped by the Venezuelan government. Meaning if you ask the Venezuelans, is this guy Jose one of yours? They'll say yes because they gave him the docks as part of their deal. Number one group of people coming out of Central and South America into the United States right now Venezuelans. That is not me saying obviously that every Venezuelan walking into the United States is a terrorist, I'm just saying when you have a flood of people like that and you know you have this capability. It's the simplest thing in the world to insert into that stream guys who are operatives and we have no capacity for detecting them and we have caught them on U.S. soil before. Where they have been here for years and years and years working targets, New York City, Washington DC, Chicago. So yeah, there's a clock ticking out there someplace. Isn't there? It's just you know I mean, when stuff starts to blow up, is there really anybody with a straight face is going to turn around and say, wow, that was unforeseeable, I'm shocked. We're just waiting for it now.  Well, I mean, your time working abroad with the CIA and you're dealing with, countries and individuals and situations which you wouldn't expect to find at home, and I've talked to other people working in the field at different ops. And I think the assumption was, and I assume the assumption is that the intelligence services abroad for the US that, you know, there is trust in what happens back home. There is trust in the borders, in the systems, and you're doing what you do abroad because you know you've got the backing of the US, but also, you know, there's protection there in the US and that's not even touching on the military. Is just touching on the institutions and the border. And if that's no longer there, then kind of you wonder, what is the point of intelligence abroad whenever there's no kind of backstop there back in the US? Yeah, there is no point. I mean, again, this is what I think people need to understand, and they don't, and maybe on some level, they don't want to, right? Because the enormity, first of all, it's staggering and hard to get your head around. But also, you kind of just don't want to face this reality because it's very unpleasant. We don't have a border in the United States functionally. I mean, we have guys that process illegals and then put them on buses and send them to Chicago. We've turned border patrol into welcome wagon, but we don't, we don't, our defences are down. I mean, you're living in a house in a bad neighbourhood and the doors are unlocked and the windows are open and nobody's paying attention. So is it hard to predict what will happen? It will not right now, look at what's happening in the middle East. I mean, you could send intelligence message after intelligence message out of the Middle East from a CIA station, saying everybody and his brother is planning on blowing stuff up all across the United States. Nobody's gonna react to it, nobody's gonna do anything about it. They have politically decided to ignore it. And God willing, somehow miraculously, this will not happen, but I don't see how we will avoid it. People are going to die. We are going to get hit again. And people should keep in mind that when 9-11 happened. Al-Qaeda, just as an example, they never conceived of that as the end of anything, nor did they conceive of that as the worst they could do. So they have never, and many of the other groups, never given up their ambitions for biological, chemical, nuclear, radiological attacks. So as horrible as 9-11 was, what you could see would potentially be much, much worse than that. What do you think as someone who is working abroad on the field, seeing obviously what's happened with not only Afghanistan, but then you mentioned the threat of Iran not being neutralised and that being left to fester and grow and continue to be a threat. And I guess, and it's not, it is one way pointing the finger at the Democrats because of what has happened, but maybe other administrations haven't maybe dealt with that threat either. Does that make any sense or is that on the ball? No, it makes no sense at all. And again, yeah, I'm not going to try to lay all of the issues here squarely and purely at the foot of the Biden administration. Not that they don't. Not that they are working overtime to mess things up. But yeah, we've made mistakes in regard to Iran as an example for a really long time. I mean, look, I've worked with a lot of Iranians, Iranian patriots over the years who are fighting for freedom in their country. I got nothing but respect for the Iranian people, Persian culture, Persian history. But the boys that are in charge in Tehran the IRGC and the ayatollahs are psychos. I mean they they they have an expressly apocalyptic view of history. They believe these are the end times literally in the way, somebody who's a true believer in the literal word of the Bible might believe these are the end times. That's a reality. That's not, that's not a metaphor. These are the end times. The Mahdi, who they regard as an Islamic superman prophet, is about to come back. And there's going to be a giant, fiery end to the world, and they emerge as the winners, and you're all either with them or you're gone. So that's the way they look at the world. Now, these guys have been on a course to acquire nuclear weapons for decades now. Their nuclear program exists for one purpose, for nuclear weapons. Everything else is garbage, just dispense with the nonsense. We keep reading things like, you know, the latest I read was an assessment that's now seven months old that said we think the Iranians are 12 days from having a nuke. Okay, so I'm not a math genius, but I'm pretty sure that if it's been seven months and you told me they were 12 days away. That by this point you should assume they have a nuclear weapon and anybody who thinks that our intelligence collection is so good, that we will know for sure in advance. That they're about to acquire it is living in dreamland. Not true but nobody will know that. Even the Israelis who have a really robust, they basically, you live in a world right now where you could wake up tomorrow and realize not just that they just got the bomb, but they have had the bomb for some period of time. So, I mean, a nuclear Iran that can actually vaporize Tel Aviv, that's the end of peace in the Middle East. You just set that whole region on fire. The Israelis will not live with that. What are we doing? We're shipping billions of dollars to the Ayatollahs. That's what we've been doing under this administration. We've been ransoming hostages. Look at the situation in Afghanistan. I mean, Biden wants everybody to forget about it because politically it's a disaster. All right, let's get down to the real implications. It's a terrorist super state. It's a safe haven for Al Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is at least as strong as they've ever been, and now they have a much more powerful, secure foundation. The Taliban is waging war to topple the government in Islamabad next door. Maybe you don't care about the Pakistanis. They happen to have about 200 functional nuclear weapons, plus the means to deliver them. So if Islamabad falls, that means all of a sudden Al-Qaeda and Taliban are one of the top nuclear powers on the planet. That's kind of a big deal. Somebody ought to be paying attention to that. We can't let that happen, yet we are doing nothing to stop it. I mean tell, because one of the other articles was standby for another intelligence failure. I think it's the most recent one. Joe does not in his terror threat here at home escalates. And on that you touch on what's happening in Israel and you touch on Iran. I mean, how does that affect? Because America has never been weaker militarily and from a completely civilian point of view seems to never have been at a weaker place in regards to intelligence. Where does that leave America with what is currently happening in the Middle East? Well, it leaves us functionally blind, and I think there are probably two sides to that coin. One is the part where you give warning to the policy makers, to the politicians, and it doesn't happen to fit with their agenda, so they ignore you. We did a lot of this in the run-up to 9-11, which is not to say we had specific information on that plot, but it wasn't exactly a secret to anybody working the target that they're serious and they're coming for us. By the way, they already blew up two of our embassies, tried to take down the World Trade Center once before, and almost sank the USS Cole in Yemen. So for real, guys, they're coming. That didn't fit with Bill Clinton's peace dividend agenda. And we're now at the end of times, and it's every kinder, gentler planet. And the Bush administration didn't seem particularly focused on it before 9-11. So I did a lot of that. I was involved with a lot of that, and as was my wife, who's also a retired agency officer, as were any number of our friends. It's not just me. A whole bunch of guys over a whole bunch of years saying, we better go take care of this Bin Laden guy before something really catastrophic happens and it's ignored. And the second part is just a decrease in collection capability. And we absolutely do not have the collection capability we need. Anybody, Afghanistan is under the control of the Taliban and they got billions of dollars worth of our gear and the international community, including the United States keeps sending them money, calling it humanitarian funding. Anybody who thinks they're using that to buy baby formula is on drugs. So, and you've got every group in the world, including Al-Qaeda back there with, training camps and a completely safe platform from which to plan, train, and launch attack. What if, I don't under anybody who thinks we have any collection capability on the ground in Afghanistan at this point that's worth anything. Again is in dreamland. I mean you can take pictures of it from space and you can listen to, you can surf the internet and intercept email messages. You know, it took us ten years to find Bin Laden because he didn't use the internet and he didn't use a cell phone He recognized the capacity. He ran an entire worldwide outfit for 10 years after we took Afghanistan. Took us 10 years to find him. Why? Because he understood our technical capability, and he knew we didn't have the sources we needed to find him. So we don't have robust, we have essentially no capability in Afghanistan. We have no idea what they're plotting, what they're planning, how many attacks are being hatched over there.  And when I've talked to friends, background intelligence, it's all about assets and having people on the ground and that information. Is it simply with the move, the technological move? Is it that the focus is we can now do everything with technology and the hard work on the ground is simply ignored? Is that maybe the focus of politicians? The focus of politicians is also, unfortunately, the focus of too many people inside the intelligence community, right? I mean, one of the things the United States, just to stick with us as an example, that we do pretty well is allocate money, buy stuff, build buildings, fill them with people looking at flat screen computer monitors, doing PowerPoint presentations, generate a lot of this stuff, build a machine that flies around in space and sucks up signals. Okay, now espionage is not at all like that. Espionage is weird, arcane, old art, really realistically probably hasn't changed for thousands of years, meaningfully, because it's all about human nature. So as long as people are people, it's going to be the same thing. You need this very eclectic group of individuals, often drawn from a whole bunch of very disparate backgrounds, kind of people who in another lifetime would be stealing the crown jewels, who aren't very comfortable colouring within the lines all the time, but they have enough self-control to not go totally off the reservation, if you will. In other words, they'll do it for a good cause. And then you got to train them really well, and then you got to season them really well. Like you got, I mean, when I showed up at my first field station, it was more or less an attitude like, yeah, you go make like 500 asset meetings, and then we might let you talk in the morning meeting when we all get together. Because right now, you know so little, you don't even know what you don't know. And then you got to trust instincts. It's got to be a very flat, nimble organization. If I'm talking to a source in Turkey, and I got an opportunity to do something inside Iran, we need to exploit that opportunity really fast. I don't mean like I should have carte blanche to just do whatever the hell I want, but I just, we got to move. We got a window of opportunity. We got, let's go. I can't send that message back to headquarters and wait six months while they go through 27 levels of review and committees of people who've never been overseas discuss whether or not this is a good idea, right? The really good organizations in history. Have had that capacity, I mean, one, I've done a lot of study over the years of the American OSS in the Second World War, but also SOE, the Special Operations Executive, the British equivalent that was, predates OSS and obviously was the template for OSS. Read the history of that, man, it's a, you know, a bunch of guys like Patrick Leigh Fairmoor that walked across Europe sleeping in barns before the war and, spoke classical Greek and, just this weird combination of things who the next thing you know, they're on Crete and they're dreaming up operations to kidnap Nazi generals. And they actually pull it off like two guys and a handful of Greeks do this. Good lord, if you sent that proposal to Langley these days. You know, you would have no chance on earth of that thing ever being approved. They would come back with nine million reasons why that won't work, and you'd get tired of trying to explain it to them. You'd just be, okay, whatever, too much trouble, leave it alone. Now, I want to ask you about to the domestic side. It seems, again, as someone looking from the outside in, it seems the role of the FBI is now no longer about catching real threats within the US and is more focused on, I mean, whenever Moms for Liberty was declared an extremist organization and those who want to stand up for common sense and basically values of life and liberty and freedom, those are now the ones in the crosshairs. I mean, how has that change happened? Is that just because it's easier to focus on those type of people because they don't push back, they're not a threat. Has there been an active decision to see those people standing up for American values as a threat as opposed to others, maybe the Islamist type? Tell us how that change has happened and what that means for the fabric of the U.S. Well, first of all, it's catastrophic for the United States, right? I mean, intelligence agencies. Intelligence agencies shouldn't be within 10 miles of American domestic politics. It's illegal, it's unconstitutional, it's immoral, and they should never be, even when they've got to deal with domestic things like the FBI, they should never, never should be partisan. Again, that's illegal and unconstitutional and so forth. I think you have you have like two problems that are affecting both the FBI the CIA and a bunch of other agencies one is bureaucratization which kind of bureaucratic hardening of the arteries the organizations go soft. You stop having guys at the top who made their bones running operations, whether we're talking about the Bureau or CIA now, you got guys who have played political games. And then we have politicization in the sense of American domestic politics. We have outfits that should not have come anywhere near this, that at least at the senior levels have become very politicized. I mean, the Moms with Liberty thing is a great example. I have a, where I live in the state of Pennsylvania, I have a lot of contact with Moms of Liberty because of other things that we do, my wife and I. You know, you're talking about an organization, the centre of gravity is a 55 to 60 year old grandmother. And Moms for Liberty's primary focus is things like, why is this book filled with sexually explicit drawings in an elementary school library accessible to my eight-year-old? I'm not trying to ban the book, burn the book, demonize the person who wrote it. It's just age-inappropriate. It shouldn't be available to kids. It's not exactly incendiary. It's certainly not domestic violent extremism. So, it's insane that the Bureau would label these guys as an organization like that, as being a danger to anything. Not a danger. They're people involved in a political process expressing actually what are really common sense things. So, hugely dangerous. You know, and I think the problem is primarily at the senior levels, but I'm honest enough to say, and I've had this discussion with many old colleagues, you know, I'm still waiting for the day when somebody comes to an FBI SWAT team leader and says, I want you to go at five o'clock in the morning with 25 guys, all gunned up and arrest this 75-year-old guy for praying silently outside an abortion clinic. I think it would be nice to see the day where the guy would say, that's a really interesting idea, man, but I'm not doing that. I'm not the Gestapo, I'm not your secret police. It's not happening, my guys aren't going, you want my badge? Take my badge, but I'm not doing that. When they went to arrest Roger Stone, okay? On what, if you believe there was a crime, would have been at most a white collar crime. So what's the procedure in the United States, you contact the guy's lawyer and you ask him to come down to the courthouse? He shows up you charge him and then typically he's released and he walks out the door, happens all day every day all over America. That's the m.o. Nobody sends a gunboat and an armoured car and a squad of guys, with machine guns to arrest a man who's what 80 years old and by the way stands about 5'3 and, at that towers over his wife who has heart trouble and you're gonna go show up at his doorstep at 4.35 o'clock in the morning I mean come, on that's you are utilizing the law enforcement power of the United States government to intimidate political opponents. Straight up. Not okay. And I guess that infiltration, that change of thinking, that doesn't change just with administration. Something is deeper than that and there is no necessary quick fix for it. Well, I mean, let me let me focus on the CIA, but we could be talking about several organizations in addition to the FBI. Is it fixable? Yeah, I think it's fixable. I mean, first you have, but you need somebody who understands the outfit, because if you send somebody from the outside to CIA, they will be led around by the nose and played by the guys inside, and they will have no idea what's going on. But the key factor is really you have to have a president of the United States who says, go there, break as much China as you have to, fire as many people as you have to, get it back on track and get it back to work. Now, I've said this many times. I believe if you did that, and you went to CIA as an example, and tossed out folks who have clearly crossed the line on political considerations as an example, and just said, we're going back to work, We're going back to business, we're doing the people's business. I think you'd actually honestly have people standing in the halls cheering. I think the rank and file would be, thank God. Like, you don't go to CIA for the pay check. I mean, you don't starve, but you don't get rich. And you make a tremendous number of sacrifices, and you do a lot of interesting stuff, but you also live some places that are hard. And you certainly put your family through a lot of hell along the way. So really people come there for a reason and because they, as hokey as it may sound, they believe in the mission and they can see when they're not being allowed to do the job. They can see when a guy's getting promoted that has never done anything, but he laughs at the boss's jokes. They're not stupid. And tell me, some of the threat we talked about earlier, the Middle East, you've got that Islamic threat, you've got a completely different way of life and a different viewpoint on how things should end. But another article you wrote recently in the Substack, was looking at China and that threat, Biden meets Xi for talking's sake. And we've certainly had massive concerns here in the UK of that Chinese influence in our education system and much wider. You've probably had similar in education in the political system. That's another threat which is there internally and no one seems to want to deal with it. We've just had David Cameron coming back in the UK as the Foreign Secretary, one of the most pro-China political leaders in a generation. You probably have the same. So tell us about that. That article of Xi coming over and Biden being his lapdog, basically, being summoned to San Francisco. What's your concern of the Chinese influence and where that can take America? Yeah, well, let me state up front, you know, I was a case officer for the Central Intelligence Agency, which is what any normal person would refer to as a spy or a spook. CIA doesn't. Those terms are used differently at CIA. Anyway, what was my job? Well, my job is to do a whole bunch of stuff, but the guts of what you get paid to do as an ops officer, as a case officer, is recruit sources inside target organizations. So in other words, my job to do to the enemy what they're trying to do to us. It is my job to get the Chinese intelligence officer to work for us, the Russian SVR guy to work for us, to get a guy inside Al Qaeda to work for us. So when I say that, not like a hooray for me speech, but as a, when I'm talking about people being recruited and how this works, it's not because I read a book about it one time, it's because this is what I did for a very, very long time, with I think some significant effect. What the Chinese do on an industrial scale is they engage in what's called elite capture, their term. That means they come in and they recruit, they gain control of, they buy, whatever verbiage resonates with you. Influential people in target countries. So that's politicians, could be military officers, corporate leaders, whoever they think has power in that country and can further their interest, they buy them and they gain control over them. They don't do them a favour and then hope later they'll do them a favour. That's what diplomats do. They gain control over them. They stick their, they, you know, they push the buttons in your head, whatever it takes, man. They stroke your ego, feed you money, produce attractive young female agents. Whatever floats your boat, whatever is the key that unlocks you, that's what they do. That's how spies work. Okay, we know that. There's no controversy about this, not a conspiracy theory. It's done worldwide on industrial scale. Not surprisingly, target number one for the Chinese Communist Party Intel guys would be the United States of America. They do this all over the United States. God knows how many guys in Congress they have turned. God knows how many corporate leaders. Look at Joe Biden, right? I mean, again, let's stop beating around the bush and playing games. This is a guy who's taken, I think Miranda Devine's best estimate is at least $31 million flowed to the Biden's from China, from individuals who are directly connected to Chinese intelligence. So let's just take the ambiguity out. Chinese spies funnelled at least $31 million to the Biden's. They didn't give it to Hunter for his good looks, or because of his cocaine user. I mean, there's only one product that Biden's had to sell and that was Joe. The Chinese communists are a lot of things, they're not idiots and they just don't throw money away. So we know all that money flowed to him and we know it came from folks directly connected Chinese Communist Party and Chinese Intel. There's only one question left to ask, what did they get and are they getting in return? You might hand a chunk of change to Hunter one time because he claimed he could do something and then it turned out he couldn't produce and you think okay, nothing ventured nothing gained. We lost the bucks move on, you would not continue to hand millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars to these guys unless something was coming back the other way. So when you put Xi and Joe in a room together and people seriously talk as if Joe is representing the interests of the United States of America. I'm just shaking my head. I'm like, really? Because he's sitting in a room with a guy that, as far as I can tell, bought him years ago. He owns the man. And if you really internalize that, the implications for American national security and the entire free world are terrifying, because it doesn't matter how many carrier battle groups you have, or nuclear weapons. Look, I'm kind of a history nerd. Once upon a time, the British East India Company took over India. They fought a battle at Plessy, I believe, and they defeated a vastly superior Indian army. Now, taking nothing away from the British army, who did a superb job. Number one reason they won the battle, because they bought off the commander of the Indian army, who sat on the side-lines with something like 80%, of the Indian forces and watched while his master and the rest of them were destroyed. Like they just, simple solution, we'll buy this guy off and they'll sit on their hands and watch. So I mean, if the Chinese move on Taiwan tomorrow and you're counting on Joe Biden to be the guy that gives the order to the 7th Fleet to save the day. Good luck, man. What's your, just so we finish off, what is your big concern with the life you've led, with your experience, seen so much and how foreign agencies work, foreign governments work, that ongoing battle, to fight for, I guess, the freedom in the US. What are your kind of big concerns when you look at the US and what has happened? Because obviously a lot of what's happened has been enabled politically, but it's also been enabled in the media, in many, economically, that's been a way in for China. But what to you is probably your major concern of where America currently is? See, here's the way I would sum it up. I think since 1945, the American people have taken for granted the fact that the United States is the preeminent political, military, and economic power on the planet. That's just sort of bedrock, and it's almost like a law of nature now. So things are good sometimes and less good other times, and occasionally we get dragged into a war, and then after a while, we get tired of the war and we go home. Well, we don't think we actually lost our status as the number one power. And even when we leave Afghanistan, we don't think we don't really think of it as we got beat. We think of it as maybe we shouldn't have been there and we got tired of it and we went home. Nobody's dictating articles of surrender on a battleship like we did to the Japanese in 1945. And we sort of assume that, again, that that's, you know, U.S. Military's the most powerful, our economy's the biggest, yada yada. There are no, of course, laws of physics that says that is true. And we've touched on some of the reasons, but we could go on probably all day talking about there's a lot of really catastrophic stuff happening around the planet. Between the Chinese, the possibility the Iranians are going to get nuclear weapons, Pakistan falls and all of a sudden the Taliban has 200 nuclear weapons. Terror attacks inside the United States. I hate this word because it gets overused, but you're actually beginning to talk about things that are existential when it comes to the United States. You're actually, I've said this to numerous people, you could realize that the Chinese could move on Taiwan and a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier could go to the bottom of the Pacific and you realize you don't have one west of San Diego. And all of a sudden right there the status quo that has existed since 1945 where the Pacific is an American Lake ceased to exist guys but the Chinese aren't in San Francisco yet, but, you are no longer everybody in the entire all of East Asia now lives with a new reality, Nope, the South Koreans the Japanese. What are they going to do just fend for themselves? That kind of stuff is already starting to happen all over the planet, and we're either facilitating it or just blissfully ignorant to it, but we're not doing anything to stop it. What happens if the Iranians wake up? What happens if the Iranians detonate a nuclear weapon in the desert and say, we have 12 more? And guess what? But we already moved half of them to places like Lebanon, under the control of Hezbollah, to locations you don't know about and where you can't stop us from launching them. So you Israelis knock yourselves out bombing sites in Iran. We didn't tell you this until we had already taken steps. Now you live in a world where the Iranians can wink the state of Israel out of existence, literally, because Israel's a tiny place, right? Two or three nuclear weapons and Israel doesn't exist anymore. It is that danger. It's that like we're teetering on the edge of a cliff and yet we're not, don't seem to actually be doing anything about it. Well Sam I appreciate you coming on. I think it is so important for the public to understand the perilous situation which we do face and I've thoroughly enjoyed your many times on War Room. So thank you so much for giving us your time today in sharing some of those insights. Thank you. Appreciate it.

“The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why?” That's the question that underscores Pulitzer Prize-winning sociologist Matthew Desmond's new book, “Poverty, by America.” America is a country that purports equality as one of its highest values. Economic opportunity and the long touted American dream have driven millions to emigrate and settle here for centuries. In reality, however, gross economic inequality undergirds every facet of American life: education, the criminal legal system, health care, and housing. Affordable housing is foundational to American life. Because America is rife with poverty, it's also rife with housing inequality. This is Desmond's focus of study. Desmond's work at Princeton University's “Eviction Lab” and his 2016 book, “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City,” continue to shape the conversation about housing and poverty today. His new book takes his exploration one step further, seeking to examine and address the roots and responses to housing insecurity and its threat to American life. Today, we are running a conversation between Desmond and the ACLU's Sandra Park, senior staff attorney for the Women's Rights Project, who also works on these issues. Together, they'll break down the complexities of American poverty and how poverty as a societal force threatens the accessibility of our civil rights and civil liberties.

Freedom in America rings even louder today on TWC! Andy Albright and Mike Lewantowicz are here to share their game-changing strategies for constructing a business that generates FREEDOM BENJAMINS! Let the fireworks of the 4th extend to the 5th as you gain precious knowledge from Albright and Lewantowicz. Because America's freedom isn't just about life and liberty - it's about the pursuit of prosperity too! Let's get you there.

#IndependentAmericans WILL determine the 2024 presidential election. Especially in swing states. We are the largest, fastest-growing and most powerful group of voters in America. 50% of vets are independents. 60% of young people. We are free agents—and every candidate will have to earn our votes. But beyond the race for President, the independent movement is real, diverse and growing fast. Fueled by disgust with the two parties, generational change, #OpenPrimaries and other election reform, and a new generation of truly, authentically independent leaders, the future of American politics is independent. Independent doesn't mean the middle. It means none of the above. It's not a new party. It's no party. Because America is not a party. It's a mission.  #IndependentAmericans are rising up. We may not be ready to win the White House yet. But more and more independent leaders are emerging and winning at every other level of American politics.  And our guest coming up is the best and most powerful recent example. He's a man who is more than a breath of fresh air. He's a hurricane of it. A hurricane of hope. A storm of positivity that has hit Colorado Springs, Colorado, and will soon spread nationwide.  He's the newly-elected independent Mayor of Colorado Springs. He is Mayor Yemi Mobolade (@yemiformayor).  Yemi joins our host, national security and political analyst, 9/11 First Responder and Army veteran Paul Rieckhoff (@PaulRieckhoff), for another fun and fiery episode of the best independent politics, news and culture show in America.  Every episode of Independent Americans is independent light to contrast the heat of other politics and news shows. It's content for the 49% of Americans that call themselves independent. And delivers the Righteous Media 5 Is: independence, integrity, information, inspiration and impact. Always with a unique focus on national security, foreign affairs and military and vets issues. This is another pod to help you stay vigilant. Because vigilance is the price of democracy. In these trying times especially, Independent Americans is your trusted place for independent news, politics and inspiration.  -Get extra content, connect with guests, events, merch discounts and support this show that speaks truth to power by joining us on Patreon.  -WATCH video of Paul and Yemi's conversation. -Check #LookForTheHelpers on Twitter. And share yours.  -Find us on social media or www.IndependentAmericans.us. -See Paul's most recent segment on MSNBC's Deadline: White House with Nicolle Wallace. He breaks down the threat posed by the American Insurgency and MAGA extremists.. -Hear other Righteous pods like The Firefighters Podcast with Rob Serra, Uncle Montel - The OG of Weed and B Dorm.  Independent Americans is powered by Righteous Media. America's next great independent media company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Why don't they care? Because they are a cult. And he is their cult leaders. Cult leaders are often sexual predators, but their followers just shape their morality and ethics around the abuse of their leader. They dismiss it. They justify it. Yesterday a jury of Donald Trump's peers found him civilly responsible for the sexual abuse and defamation of one of his many victims. It should absolutely mean the end of his public life. But it won't. Because America has ALWAYS been willing to look the other way as far as sexual abuse is concerned. Let me unpack and explain it. To listen to today's FULL EPISODE of The Breakdown go now to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and search for “The Breakdown with Shaun King.” Subscribe there for FREE and listen to the whole podcast. If you are already on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please subscribe, listen, share, leave reviews, and listen daily to the entire episode. The more of it you listen to, the better it is for us. PLEASE BECOME A MEMBER of The North Star now @ TheNorthStar.com. Love and appreciate you all .Shaun Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the help of cryptids let's make geography fun! Because America is full of them and there's nowhere to run! Every state out there has its own monster! You cannot escape them, so don't even bother! ... Also... Go Follow Christina on Instagram ⁠@thecrescenthare⁠ ====================== Send us suggestions and comments to ⁠tracingowlspodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow us on Instagram ⁠@tracingowls⁠ or Twitter ⁠@TracingOwls⁠ Check our Linktree: ⁠linktr.ee/tracingowls⁠ Intro sampled from "⁠Something strange lurks in the shadows⁠" by Francisco Sánchez (⁠@fanchisanchez⁠) Outro sampled from "Sequence (Mystery and Terror) 3" by Francisco Sánchez (@fanchisanchez) at ⁠pixabay.com⁠ Sound effects obtained from ⁠https://www.zapsplat.com

Show Summary: Are you lonely?  Do the people in your life appear to be more lonely than before?  The chances are you answered yes to both of these questions.  Why?  Because America is in the midst of a loneliness crisis.  In today's episode of The Fat & Broke Podcast, we discuss the rise of loneliness and some possible solutions to help us all feel more connected.Leave A Voice Memo | Review The Show | Follow | Subscribe | NewsletterIntro:We are recording during an arctic blast with temperatures dipping to minus 40 degrees.  Headline Of The Week:Amazon Launches A Subscription Prescription Drug ServiceAmerica's Loneliness Crisis:Stats:29% of households are one person36% of Americans feel lonely61% of young adults feel lonely51% of moms with young kids feel lonelyLoneliness increased with CovidEffects of Loneliness:Earl DeathDepressionAnxietyHeart DiseaseSubstance AbuseEquivalent To Smoking 15 Cigarettes A DayLoneliness Defined:A Gap between the level of connectedness that you want and what you haveCauses:CovidTechnology/InternetWork From HomeSocial MediaJob Changes/RelocationSolutions:CounselingHobbiesReaching OutCommunity EventsReligionVolunteeringResources:Rx Pass–Amazon Pharmacy

Garett Jones is an economist at George Mason University and the author of The Cultural Transplant, Hive Mind, and 10% Less Democracy.This episode was fun and interesting throughout!He explains:* Why national IQ matters* How migrants bring their values to their new countries* Why we should have less democracy* How the Chinese are an unstoppable global force for free marketsWatch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Timestamps(00:00:00) - Intro(00:01:08) - Migrants Change Countries with Culture or Votes?(00:09:15) - Impact of Immigrants on Markets & Corruption(00:12:02) - 50% Open Borders?(00:16:54) - Chinese are Unstoppable Capitalists (00:21:39) - Innovation & Immigrants (00:24:53) - Open Borders for Migrants Equivalent to Americans?(00:28:54) - Let's Ignore Side Effects?(00:30:25) - Are Poor Countries Stuck?(00:32:26) - How Can Effective Altruists Increase National IQ(00:39:13) - Clone a million John von Neumann?(00:44:39) - Genetic Selection for IQ(00:47:02) - Democracy, Fed, FDA, & Presidential Power(00:49:42) - EU is a force for good?(00:55:12) - Why is America More Libertarian Than Median Voter?(00:56:19) - Is Ethnic Conflict a Short Run Problem?(00:59:38) - Bond Holder Democracy(01:04:57) - Mormonism(01:08:52) - Garett Jones's Immigration System(01:10:12) - Interviewing SBFTranscriptThis transcript was autogenerated and thus may contain errors.[00:00:41] Dwarkesh Patel: Okay. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Garrett Jones, who is an economist at George Mason University. . He's most recently the author of the Cultural Trans. How migrants make the economies. They move to a lot like the ones they left, but he's also the author of 10% Less Democracy and Hive Mind. We'll get into all three of those books. Garrett, welcome to the podcast. [00:01:06] Garett Jones: Glad to be here.Thanks for having me.[00:01:08] Migrants Change Countries with Culture or Votes?[00:01:08] Garett Jones: Um, [00:01:09] Dwarkesh Patel: first question is, isn't the cultural transplant still a continuation of your argument against democracy? Because the isn't one of the reasons we care about the values of migrants, the fact that we eliminate democracy. So should review this book as part of your critique against democracy rather than against migration specifically.[00:01:27] Garett Jones: Um, well, I do think that, uh, governments and productivity are shaped by the citizens in a nation in, in almost any event. Um, I think that even as we've seen recently in China, even in a very strong authoritarian dictatorship, which some would call totalitarian, even there, the government has to listen to the masses.So the government can only get so far away from the masses on average, even in, uh, an autocracy. If you had [00:01:57] Dwarkesh Patel: to split apart the contribution though, um, the, the impact of migrants on, let's say the culture versus the impact that migrants have on a country by voting in their political system, um, uh, how, how would you split that apart?Is, is the, is mainly the impact we, the cultural impact we see for migration due to the ability of migrants to vote or because they're just influencing the culture just by being [00:02:19] Garett Jones: there? I'll cheat a little bit because we don't get to run experiments on this, so I just have to kind of guess, uh, make an informed guess.I, I'm gonna call it 50 50. Um, so the way people, uh, the way citizens influence a country through formal democracy is important. Uh, but citizens end up placing some kind of limits on the government anyway. And the people in the country are the, they're the folks who are gonna work in the firms and be able to either establish or not establish.Those complicated networks of exchange that are crucial to high productivity. . ,[00:02:52] Mean vs Elite IQ[00:02:52] Dwarkesh Patel: I wanna linger on hive mind a little bit before we talk about the cultural transplant. Um, if you had to guess, does, do the benefits of National IQ come from having a right tail of elites that is smarter or is it from not having that strong of a left tail of people who are, you know, lower productivity, more like markedly to commit crimes and things like that?In other words? Uh, yeah, go ahead. [00:03:14] Garett Jones: Yeah. Yeah. I, I think, uh, the upper tail is gonna matter more than the lower tail, um, in, in the normal range of variation. Uh, and I think part of that is because, uh, nations, at least moderately prosperous nations have found tools for basically reducing the influence of the least informed voters.And for. Uh, basically being able to keep productivity up even when there are folks who are sort of disrupting the whole process. Um, you know, the, the, the risks of crime from the lower end is basically like a probabilistic risk. It's not like it's, it's not like some, uh, zero to one switch or anything. So we're talking about something probabilistic.And I think that, uh, it's the, the median versus the elite is the, is the contrast that I find more interesting. Um, uh, median voter theorem, you know, normal, the way we often think about democracy says that the median should be matter more for determining productivity and for shaping institutions. Um, and I tend to think that that's more important in democracies for sure.So when we look at countries, if you just look at a scatter plot, just look at the raw data of a scatter plot. If you look at the few countries that are exceptions to the rule, where the mean is the mean, IQ is the best predictor of productivity compared to elite iq. Um, . The exceptions are non democracies and South Africa.So you see a few, uh, places in the Gulf where there are large migrant communities who are exceptionally well educated, exceptionally cognitively talented. Um, and that's associated with high productivity. Those are a couple of Gulf states. It's probably cutter, the UAE might be Bahrain in there, I'm not sure.Um, and then you've got South Africa. Those are the, those are the countries where the average test score, it doesn't have to be iq, it could be just Pisa, Tim's type stuff. Um, those are the exceptions to the rule that the average iq, the mean IQ is the best predictor of national productivity. [00:05:14] Dwarkesh Patel: Hmm. Uh, interesting.Um, does that imply the fact that the, um, at least in certain contexts, the elite IQ matters more than the left tail. Does that imply that we should want a greater deviation of IQ in a country? That you could just push a button and increase that deviation? Would that be good? [00:05:33] Garett Jones: No. No, I don't think so. Uh oh.If you could just increase the deviation, um, holding the mean constant. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. In the normal range of variation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, mm-hmm. , um, is it, and I think that it has more effects. It, no, it's people at the top who are, um, tend to be coming up with, uh, the big breakthroughs, the big scientific breakthroughs, the big intellectual breakthroughs that end up spilling over to the whole world.Basically the, the positive externalities of innovation. This is a very, almost Pollyanna-ish, uh, Paul Roamer new endogenous, new, uh, new growth theory thing, right? Which is the innovations of the elite, a swamp, uh, the negatives of the low skilled among. , [00:06:14] Dwarkesh Patel: can we just apply this line of reasoning to low skilled immigration as well?Then that maybe the average goes down, the average IQ of your country goes down if the, if you just let in, you know, millions of low skilled immigration immigrants, and maybe there's some cultural effects to that too. But, you know, you're also going to the, that the elite IQ will still be preserved and more elites will come in through the borders, along with the low scale migrants.So then, you know, since we're caring about the devi deviation anyways, uh, more immigration might increase the deviation. Uh, and then, you know, the, we just, uh, that's a good [00:06:46] Garett Jones: thing. So notice what you did there is you, you did something that didn't just, uh, increase the variance. You simultaneously increase the variance and lowered the mean Yeah.Yeah. And median, right? And so I think that, uh, hurting the mean and median is actually a big cost, especially in democracies. And so that is very likely to swamp, uh, the benefits of, um, the small, the small probability of getting. Hire elite folks in as part of a low-skilled immigration policy. Mm-hmm. , so pulling down the mean or the median is that that's a, that's that swamps that swamps the benefits of increasing variants there.Yeah. Yes. [00:07:26] Dwarkesh Patel: But if you get rid of their migrant's ability to vote, and I guess you can't do that, but let assume you could do that. Yeah. What exactly is, like, what is the exec mechanism by which the, the, the cultural values or the lower median is impacting the elite's ability to produce these valuable externalities?You know, like there's a standard compared to advantage story that, you know, they'll, they'll do the housework and the cooking for the elites and they can do the more productive [00:07:52] Garett Jones: Yeah. Taking all the institutions as given, which is what a lot of open borders optimists do. They take institutions as given they take cultural norms as given.Um, all that micro stuff works out just fine. I'm totally, I'm totally on board with all that sort of Adam Smith division of labor. Blah, blah, blah. Um, but, institutions are downstream of culture and, uh, cultural norms will be changing partly because of what I call spaghetti theory, right?We meet in the middle when new folks come to a country. There's some kind of convergence, some part where people meet in the middle, um, between the, the values, uh, that were previously existing and the values that have shown up, uh, that migrants have brought with them. So, you know, like I I call it spaghetti theory because, um, when Italians moved to America, that got Americans eating more spaghetti, right?And if you just did a simple assimilation analysis, you'd say, wow, everybody in America eats the same now, like the burgers and spaghetti. So look, the Italians assimilated, but migrants assimilate us. Um, uh, native Americans certainly changed in response to the movement of Europeans. Um, English Americans certainly changed in response to the migration of German and Irish Americans.So this meeting in the middle is something that happens all the time, and not just through Democratic channels, just through the sort of soft contact of cultural norms that sociologists and social psychologists would understand. [00:09:15] Impact of Immigrants on Markets & Corruption[00:09:15] Garett Jones: Um, no, I'm sure you saw the book that was released, I think in 2020 titled, uh, retro Refuse, uh, where they showed, uh, slight positive relationship between, uh, immigration and, you know, pro-market, uh, laws.[00:09:27] Dwarkesh Patel: And I guess the idea behind that is there's selection effects in terms of who would come to a country like America in [00:09:32] Garett Jones: the first place. Well, they never ran the statistical analysis that would be most useful. I think they said that. Uh, so this is Powell and Na Roth Day. Yeah. They ran a statistical analysis that said, and they said, in all of the statistical analysis we've ever run, we've never found negative relationship between low-skilled migration, any measure of it, and changes in economic freedom.And, um, I actually borrowed another one of Powell's data sets, and I thought, well, how would I check this theory out? The idea that changes in migration have an effect on economic freedom? And I just used the normal economist tool. I thought about how do economists check to see if changes in money, changes in the money supply, change the price level.That's what we call the quantity theory, right? Mm-hmm. , the way you do that is on the x-axis. You, you show the change in the money supply On the y axis, you show the change in prices, right? This Milton Friedman's idea. Money's always everywhere. Yeah. Inflation's always neverwhere Montessori phenomenon. So that's what I did.Uh, I did this with a, with a, um, a student. Uh, we co-authored a paper doing this. And the very first statistical analysis we ran, we looked at migrants who came from countries that were substantially more, uh, corrupt than the country's average. And we looked at the, the different, the relationship between cha, an increase in migrants from corrupt countries, and subsequent changes in economic freedom.Every single statistical analysis we found had a negative relationship. , we ran the simplest estimate you could run. Right? Change on change. Change in one thing, predicts change in another. They somehow never got around to running that very simple statistical analysis. CH one change predicts another change.Hmm. We found negative relationships every time. Sometimes statistically significant, sometimes not always negative. Somehow they never found that. I just don't know how . But [00:11:21] Dwarkesh Patel: what about the anecdotal evidence that in the US for example, the, in the periods of the greatest expansion of the welfare state or of governed power during the New Deal or great society, the levels of foreign-born people were at like historical lows.Uh, is that just a coincidence or what, what do you think of? I'm [00:11:38] Garett Jones: not really interested in, uh, migration per se. Right. My story is never that, like migration per se, does this bad thing. Migrants are bad. That's never my story, right? Mm-hmm. , as you know, right? Yeah. Yeah. So my story is that migrants bring, uh, cultural values from their old country to their new country.And sometimes those cultural norms are better than what you've got, and sometimes they're worse than what you've got. And sometimes it's just up for debate. [00:12:02] 50% Open Borders?[00:12:02] Dwarkesh Patel: So if you had to guess what percentage of the world has cultural values that are equivalent to or better than the average of Americas? [00:12:11] Garett Jones: Uh oh.Equivalent to or better then? Yeah. Uh, I mean, just off the top of my head, maybe 20%. I dunno, 30%. I'll just throw something out there like that. Yeah. So I mean, like for country averages, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, [00:12:25] Dwarkesh Patel: currently we probably don't have, uh, it would probably be hard for like 20% of the rest of the world to get into the us.Um, w w would you support some, uh, PO policy that would make it easy for people from those countries specifically to get to the us? Just, uh, have radical immigration liberalization from those places? [00:12:44] Garett Jones: Um, that's really not my comparative advantage to have opinions about that, but like, substantial increases of people who pass multiple tests, like, let's take the low hanging fruit and then move down from there.Right? So people from, uh, countries, uh, that ha um, on average have say higher savings rates, um, higher, uh, education levels. Higher s what I call s a t, deep root scores and, um, countries that are, say half a standard deviation above the US level on all three, [00:13:18] Dwarkesh Patel: right? Why do they have to be higher? Why not just equivalent, like, uh, you get all the gains from trade and plus it can't be, you know, equivalent.So it's, there's no [00:13:27] Garett Jones: trade. Part of the reason is because the entire world depends on US innovation. So we should make America as good as possible, not just slightly better than it is. So very few firms would find that their optimal hiring policy would be hire anyone who's better than your current stock of employees.Would you agree with that? [00:13:42] Dwarkesh Patel: Yeah. But you, uh, have to pay them a salary. If you're just, uh, if it's just somebody just comes to the us, you don't have to like pay them a salary, right? So if somebody is better, that, if somebody's producing more value for a firm than the salary would pay them, I think [00:13:52] Garett Jones: like is is a firm's job to maximize its profits or to just make a little bit more than it's making right?Maximize profits. But yeah, there you go. So you pack, you find the best people you can, you know, sports teams that are hiring don't just say, we wanna hire people who are better than what we got. They say, let's get the best people we can get. Why not get the best? That was Jim Jimmy Carter's, that was Jimmy Carter's, uh, biography.Why not the best. But you, [00:14:16] Dwarkesh Patel: you can do that along with getting people who are, you know, unexpected, uh, terms as good as the existing Americans. Why gives [00:14:24] Garett Jones: y'all like, I don't care what you, why you want this? This seems like crazy, right? What are you talking about? But [00:14:29] Dwarkesh Patel: I, I'm not sure why not the best what the trade out there, huh?No, I'm not saying you don't get the best, but I, I'm saying once you've gotten the best, what is the harm in getting the people who have equivalent s a t scores and, and the rest of the things you [00:14:41] Garett Jones: mentioned. I think part of the reason would be you'd wanna find out, I mean, if you really wanna do something super hardcore, you'd have to find out what's best for the planet as a whole.What's the trade off between, um, Having the very best, uh, most innovative, talented, frugal people in America doing innovating that has benefits for the whole world, versus having an America that's like 40% better, but we're the median's a little bit, the median of skills a little bit lower. Right. Uh, because the median's shaping the productivity of the whole team.Right? Yeah. This is what you, you know what it means when you believe in externalities, right? [00:15:14] Dwarkesh Patel: But if you have somebody who's equivalent by definition, they're not moving the median down. [00:15:19] Garett Jones: That's, you're, you're totally right about that. Yeah. But like, why wouldn't I want the best thing possible? Right. Okay.I'm still trying to figure out why you wouldn't want the best thing possible. You're trying to go, why? I don't want the best thing possible. I'm like, why not? [00:15:31] Dwarkesh Patel: I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just, I'm a little bit confused about why that that precludes you from also getting the second best thing possible.At the same time you're, because you're not limited to just the best. [00:15:42] Garett Jones: Right. Well, uh, because the second best is going to have a negative externality on the first best. Everything's externalities. This is my worldview, right? Everything's externalities. You bring in the second best, you're like, you're not, that person's gonna make things on average a little worse for the first best person.[00:16:00] Dwarkesh Patel: But it seems like you were explaining earlier that the negative externalities are coming from people from countries with, uh, low s a t scores. And by the way, s a t you can explain what that means just for the audience who's not familiar with how you're using that term. [00:16:11] Garett Jones: Oh yeah. So, um, there, there are three prominent, uh, measures in what's known as the deep roots literature and, uh, that are widely used.Uh, two are s n a, that state history and agricultural history. That's how many thousands of years your ancestors have had experience living under organized states or living unsettled agriculture. And then the T-score is the tech history score. I used the measure from 1500. It's basically what fraction of the world's technology were your ancestors using in 1500 before, uh, Columbus and his expansive conquest ended up upending the entire world.Uh, the world map. So s a and T are all predictors of modern prosperity, but especially when you adjust for migration. [00:16:54] Chinese are Unstoppable Capitalists [00:16:54] Garett Jones: Gotcha. [00:16:55] Dwarkesh Patel: We can come back to this later, but one of the interesting things I think from the book was you have this chapter on China and the Chinese people as a sort of unstoppable force for free market capitalism.Mm-hmm. . Um, and it's interesting, as you mentioned in the book, that China is a poorest majority Chinese country. Um, what do you think explains why China is a poorest, uh, majority Chinese country? Maybe are there like non-linear dynamics here where, uh, if you go from 90 40 to 90% Chinese, there's positive effects, but if you go from 90 to 95% Chinese, there's too much?[00:17:26] Garett Jones: No, I think it's just, I think just communism is dumb and it has terrible, like sometimes decades long effects on institutional quality. I don't really quite understand. So I'd say North Korea, if we had good data on North Korea, North Korea would be even a bigger sort of deep roots outlier than China is.Right? It's like, don't, don't have a communist dictatorship in your country. Seems to be pretty, a robust lesson for a national prosperity. China's still stuck with a sort of crummy version of that mistakes still. North Korea, of course, is stuck with an even worse version. So I think that's, I, my hunch is that that's, you know, the overwhelming issue there.Um, it's, it's something that, it's, it's sort of a China's stuck in an ins. Currently China's stuck in an institutional cul-de-sac and they just don't quite know how to get out of it. And it's, uh, bad for a lot of, for the people who live there. On average, if the other side had won the Chinese Civil War, things would probably be a lot, lot better off in China today.Yeah. [00:18:22] Dwarkesh Patel: Um, but what, what is that suggestion about the deep roots literature? If the three biggest countries in the world, China, India, and America, Um, it, it, it under predicts their performance, or sorry, in the case of China and India, it, uh, it, it over predicts their performance. And in the case of America, it under predicts maybe the, how, how reliable is this if like the three biggest countries in the world are not, uh, adequately accounted for?[00:18:45] Garett Jones: Uh, well, you know, communism's a really big mistake. I, I think that's totally accounted for right there. Um, I think India's underperformance isn't that huge. Um, the US is a miracle along many ways. Um, it's, we should draw our lessons from the typical country, and I think, uh, population weighted estimates, I don't think that basically one third of the knowledge about the wealth of nations comes from the current GDP per capita of China, India, and the us, right?I think much less than one third of the story of the wealth of nations comes from those three. And, uh, again, in, in all three cases though, if you look at the economic trajectories of all three of those people, oh, all three of those countries, uh, they're all, uh, China and India growing faster than you'd expect.And also, I wanna point out. This is the most important point actually. Um, when we look at, uh, when Kaplan made this claim, right? Brian Kaplan has made this claim, right? Yeah. That the SATs, that the ancestry scores, the deep root scores don't predict, um, the prosperity of, uh, the, the low performance of Indian China.He only checked the S and the A and the s a T scores. Okay. Which letter did he not predict? Which letter did he never test out? He never tested the T. What do you think happens when he tests the T? Does it predict, uh, China [00:20:02] Dwarkesh Patel: and India and America, [00:20:03] Garett Jones: Hey, start, they t goes back to being statistically significant again, UhhuhSo with T, which we've always known is the best of the deep root scores, somehow Kaplan never managed to measure that one. Just as Powell Naste never managed to run the simplest test change in, uh, migrant corruption versus change in economic institutions somehow, like the simplest test just never get run.[00:20:26] Dwarkesh Patel: Okay. And then what is the impact if you include t. If you, [00:20:29] Garett Jones: if you, if you look at tea, then, um, then, uh, contrary to what Kaplan says, uh, the deep roots, that deep roots measure is sig statistically significant. [00:20:38] Dwarkesh Patel: Okay. Um, yeah, I, [00:20:40] Garett Jones: interesting. The puzzle goes away, [00:20:42] Dwarkesh Patel: interesting. [00:20:43] Garett Jones: Um, yeah. So somehow these guys just never seem to run like the simple things, the transparent things.I don't know [00:20:49] Dwarkesh Patel: why the, um, the weird, huh? The, the, the one you mentioned from, what was it Nassa, the name of the guy who wrote the Richard at re refuse [00:20:57] Garett Jones: the Yeah, yeah. Powell Naste. [00:20:59] Dwarkesh Patel: Yeah. Yeah. That you said you did the regression on institutional corruption, uh, and from the countries to come from. Is that, was that right?I, [00:21:06] Garett Jones: and so yeah. The, the measure they use, I just took, I took Powell's dataset from another study, and it was the percent. Of it was basically, um, the percentage of your nation's population, the percentage increase in your nation's population from relatively poor or corrupt countries. They had multiple measures, UhhuhSo, and what is on the y axis there? Y axis is change in economic freedom. That's my preferred one. Gotcha. There's also a change in corruption one, which is a noisier indicator. Um, you get much clearer results with change in economic freedom, so. Gotcha, [00:21:38] Dwarkesh Patel: gotcha. [00:21:39] Innovation & Immigrants [00:21:39] Dwarkesh Patel: Um, now does the ideas getting harder to find stuff and great stagnation, does that imply we should be less worried about impinging on the innovation engine in these, uh, countries that people might wanna migrate to?Because worse comes to worst. It's not like there are a whole bunch of great new theories that were gonna come out anyways. [00:21:58] Garett Jones: Uh, no. I think that, I think that it's always good to have great things, um, and new ideas. Yes, new ideas are getting harder to find, but, um, that, but that the awesome ideas that we're still getting are still worth so much.Right. If we're still increasing lifespan a month, a year, uh, for every year of research we're doing, like, that just seems great. Right? A decade that adds a year to life, so, mm-hmm. , just to use a rough, uh, ballpark measure there. But, so we [00:22:25] Dwarkesh Patel: have a lot of these countries where a lot of innovation is happening.So let's say we kept, uh, one or two of them as, you know, immigrate, uh, havens from any potential, uh, downsides, from radical changes. You know, we already had this in the case of Japan or South Korea, there's not that much of migration there. Mm-hmm. . What is, what is a harm in then using the other ones to decrease global poverty by immigration or something like [00:22:48] Garett Jones: that?Well, um, it's obviously better to create a couple of innovation powerhouses, um, rather than none. Right? So obviously that's, that's nice. But instead, I would prefer to have, um, open borders for Iceland if the Open borders advocates are right and open borders. , we'll have no noticeable effect on institutional quality, then it's great to move, , to have our open borders experiment run in a country that's lightly populated, has a lot of open land, and, um, has good institutional quality.And Iceland fits the bill perfectly for that. So we could preserve the institutional innovation skill, uh, the institutional quality of the, the what I call the I seven. Uh, that's, you know, China, Japan, South Korea, the us, Germany, uk, France, and choose any country out of the a hundred, out of the couple of dozen countries that have good institutional quality.Just pick one of the others that aren't one of those seven, pick one that's not an innovation powerhouse and turn that into your open borders, uh, country. Um, you could, uh, if you wanted to get basically Singapore levels of population density in Iceland, that'd be about 300 million people, I think. I think I, that's about what the numbers end up looking like.Something like that. But [00:24:00] Dwarkesh Patel: the, so you can put entire, but, but the value of open borders comes from the fact that you're coming to a country with high conglomerations of talent and capital and other things, which is, uh, not true of Iceland. Right. So isn't the entire [00:24:13] Garett Jones: No, no. I thought the whole point of open borders, that there's institutional quality and there's some exogenous institutions that make that place more productive than other places.Mm-hmm. . And so by move, I, I, that's my version of what I've been exposed to as open borders, the, is that institutions exogenously exist. There's some places have, uh, moderately laissez, fairer institutions in their country and moving a lot more people there will not reduce the productivity of the people who are currently there, and they'll become much more productive.And so, like the institu, you know, the institutional quality's crucial. So, I mean, if you're a real geography guy, you'd be excited about the fact that Iceland is so far, so close to the north. because latitude is a predictor of prosperity. [00:24:53] Open Borders for Migrants Equivalent to Americans?[00:24:53] Dwarkesh Patel: Um, I want to go back to the thing about, well, should we have open border for that 20% of the Popula global world's population that comes from Yeah.Um, equivalent, s a t and other sort of cultural traits as America. Mm-hmm. , because I feel like this is important enough to dwell on it. You know, it seems similar to saying that once picked up a hundred dollars bill on the floor, you wouldn't pick up a $20 bill on the floor cuz you only won the best bill.Uh, the $20 bills is right there. Why not pick it up? Um, [00:25:18] Garett Jones: so what if you have, yeah. What if the $20 bill makes your, turns, your, uh, a hundred dollars bill into like an $80 bill and turns all of your 80 a hundred dollars bills and $80 bills. [00:25:27] Dwarkesh Patel: But is it, aren't your controlling for that by saying that they have equivalent scores along all those cultural tests that you're.[00:25:34] Garett Jones: No, because, um, the median, so, so take the simple version of my story, which is the median of the population ends up shaping the productivity of everybody in the country. Right? Or the mean, right? The mean skill level ends up shaping the productivity of the entire population. Right? So that means we end up, I mean, I, I try not to math this up.I don't wanna math this up for the, you know, in a popular book, but it means we face a trade off between being small, a small country with super awesome, uh, positive externalities for all the workers by just selecting the best people. And every time we lower the average skill level in the country, we're lowering the average productivity of everyone else we're creating.We didn't, [00:26:11] Dwarkesh Patel: what? We didn't lower it. So you have to have skills that are lower compared to, than the median of a median American. You, [00:26:18] Garett Jones: so this is, this is a c Paraba story, right? Like if you could suppose the US is at 80 now on a zero to a hundred scale, right? Just, just saying it's 80. Yeah. Yeah. And you have a choice between being hundred and being 99.if you're at 99, the 99 is making, all compared to the world of average of a hundred, the world of an average 99 is making, reducing the productivity of all those hundreds. Okay. So if we chose 90, we're reducing the productivity of all those hundreds. [00:26:48] Dwarkesh Patel: Yes. Okay. So let's say we admit all the smartest people in the world, and that gets us from 80 to 85.That's a new, that's a new media in America. Yeah. At that point. And, but this is because we've admitted a whole bunch of like 90 nines that have just increased our average. Yeah, yeah. Um, at that point, open borders for everybody who's ever been 85, [00:27:08] Garett Jones: like I, this is, this is, ends up being a math problem. It's a little hard to solve on a podcast, right?Because it's the, it's the question of do I want a smaller country with super high average productivity? Or a bigger country with lower average productivity. And by average productivity, I don't just mean, uh, uh, a compositional effect. I mean negative external, I mean relatively fewer positive externalities.So I'll use the term relatively fewer positive externalities rather than negative externalities, right? So like, I don't exactly know where this is. Trade off's gonna pan out, but, um, there is a case for a sort of Manhattan when people talk about a Manhattan project, right? They're talking about putting all like a small number of the smartest people in a room.And part of the reason you don't want like the 20th, smartest person in the room. Cause, cuz that person's gonna ruin the ruin stuff for our, for the other smart people. I, it's amazing how your worldview changes when you see everybody as an external. I, [00:28:02] Dwarkesh Patel: I'm kind of confused about this because just having, at some point you're gonna run outta the smartest people, the remainder of the smartest people in the world.If you've admitted all the brilliant people. Yeah. And given how big the US population is to begin with, you're not gonna change the median that much by doing that. Right. So it's, it's almost a global end to just having more births from the average American. Like if, if the average American just had more kids, the population would still grow.Mm-hmm. and the relative effect of the brightest people might dilute a little bit. Um, but I I, [00:28:33] Garett Jones: and that maybe that's a huge tragedy. We don't know without a bunch of extra math and a bunch of weird assumptions. We don't know. So like I'm, there's a point at which I have to say like, I don't know. Right. Okay.Yeah. Uh, yeah. Is diluting the power of the smartest person in America, like keeping us from having wondrous miracles all around us all the time? I mean, probably not, but. I don't know, [00:28:53] Dwarkesh Patel: but, [00:28:54] Let's Ignore Side Effects?[00:28:54] Dwarkesh Patel: but I guess the sort of the meta question you can ask about this entire debate is, listen, there's so much literature here and it's hard to tell what exactly will happen.You know, it's possible that culture will become worse. It's possible, it'll become better. It's possible to stay the same, given the fact that there's this ambiguity. Why not just do the thing that on the first order of effect seems good? And, you know, just like moving somebody who's like in a poor country to a rich country, first order effect seems good.I don't know how the third and fourth order effect shapes out. Let's just, you know, let's just do the simple obvious thing. [00:29:22] Garett Jones: I, I thought that the, one of the great ideas of economics is that we have to worry about secondary and tertiary consequences. Right? [00:29:28] Dwarkesh Patel: But if, if we, if we can't even figure out what they are exactly, why not just do the thing that at the first order seems, uh, good.[00:29:35] Garett Jones: Um, because if you have a compelling reason to think that the, uh, direction of strength of the second and third and fourth order things are negative and the variances are really wide, then you're just adding a lot more uncertainty to your outcomes. So, And adding uncertainty or outcomes that has sizable negative tail, especially for the whole planet.Isn't that great? Go ahead and run your experiments in Iceland. Let's run that for 50 years and see what happens. It's weird how everybody's obsessed with it running the experiment in America, right? Why not running in Iceland first? Because America's [00:30:05] Dwarkesh Patel: got a great, a lot of great institutions right there.We can check and see what [00:30:08] Garett Jones: Iceland Iceland's a great place too. Um, and I use Iceland as a metaphor, right? Like it's, people are obsessed with running it in America. Like there's some kind of need. I don't know why. So let's try in France. Um, let's try, let's try Northern Ireland. , [00:30:24] Dwarkesh Patel: uh, are,[00:30:25] Are Poor Countries Stuck?[00:30:25] Dwarkesh Patel: are places with low s a t scores and again, s a t we're not talking about the, uh, in case you're skipping to the timestamp, we're not talking about the college test.Um, the deep roots. [00:30:35] Garett Jones: S a t Exactly. Uh, state history, agricultural history, tech history. [00:30:38] Dwarkesh Patel: Right. Exactly. Are, are those places with, uh, low scores on, um, on that test? Are they stuck there forever? Or, uh, is there something that can be done if you are a country that has had a short or not significant history of, um, technology or agriculture?[00:30:56] Garett Jones: Well, the, I start off the book with this, which I really think that, uh, one thing they could do is, uh, create a welcoming environment for large numbers of Chinese migrants to move there persistently. I don't think that's of course the only thing that could ever work, but I think it's something that's within the range of policy for at least some poor countries.I don't know which ones, but, uh, some poor countries could follow the. Approach that many countries in Southeast Asia followed, which has created an environment that's welcoming, welcoming enough to Chinese migrants. Um, it's the one country in the world with large numbers of high s a t score, uh, with alar, with a high s a T score culture, large population.It's enough of an economic failure, so for at least a little longer that, uh, folks can, might be able to be interested in moving to a poor country with lower s a t scores. In a better world, you can do this with North Korea too, but the population of North Korea isn't big enough to make a big dent in the world, right?Mm-hmm. , uh, China's population is big enough. Yeah. [00:31:54] Dwarkesh Patel: Another thing you're worried have to worry about in those cases though though, is the risk that if you do become successful in that country, there's just gonna be a huge backlash and your resources will. AppD, like what happened famously. [00:32:05] Garett Jones: So in, in Indonesia, right?Yeah. There have been many Oh, yeah, yeah. Times across Southeast Asia where anti-Chinese pogroms have been, um, uh, unfortunately a fact of life. So, yeah. Yeah. [00:32:15] Dwarkesh Patel: Or Indians in Uganda under, uh, IDI. I, I mean, yeah. Yep. Um, yeah. Yeah. Uh, okay. So actually I, I'm curious how you would think about this given the impact of National iq.[00:32:26] How Can Effective Altruists Increase National IQ[00:32:26] Dwarkesh Patel: Um, if you're an effective altruist, what, uh, are you just, uh, handing out iodine tablets, uh, across, across the world? What, what are you doing to increase national [00:32:34] Garett Jones: iq? Yeah. This is places, this is something that I, yes. Uh, finding ways I, this is what I call a, a Flynn cycle. Like I wish, I'm hoping for a world where there are enough public health interventions and probably K through six education interventions.to boost test scores in the world's poorest countries. And I think that ha ends up having, um, uh, a virtuous cycle to it, right? As people get more productive, then they can afford more public health, which makes them more productive, which means they can afford more public health. I think brain health is an important and neglected part of child development.Um, fortunately we've done a fair amount to reduce the amount of environmental lead, um, in a lot of poor countries. That's probably having a good effect right now as we speak in a lot of the world's poorest countries. You're right. Um, iodine, basic childhood nutrition, uh, reliable healthcare, uh, to, you know, prevent the worst kinds of just mild childhood infections that are probably, uh, creating what the, what they, what economists sometimes call health.Things that end up just hurting you in a way that causes, uh, an ill-defined long-term cost. A lot of that's gonna have to show up in the, in the brain. Um, I'm a big fan of the, of the view that part of the Flynn Effect is, uh, basically nutrition and health. Mm-hmm. , uh, Flynn wasn't a huge believer in that, but I think that's, um, certainly important in the poorest countries.Yeah. [00:33:57] Dwarkesh Patel: Um, I, I think Brian showed an open voters that if you look at , the, um, IQ of adoptees from poor countries, um, who go, uh, Sweden is the only country that collects data, but if you get adopted by a parent in, um, uh, Sweden, uh, the, the half the gap between the averages of two countries, half gap, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.Goes away. So, I mean, is one of the ways we can increase global IQ just by moving kids to, uh, countries with good health outcomes that, uh, will nourish their [00:34:27] Garett Jones: intelligence. Well, that's a classic short run versus long run effect, right? So, uh, libertarians and open borders advocates tend to be focused on the short run, static effects.So, um, and so you're right, moving kids from poor countries to richer countries is probably gonna raise their test scores quite a lot. And, uh, then the question is, in over the longer run, are those, uh, lower skilled folks, the folks with lower test scores, uh, going to degrade the institutional quality? of the places they move to, right?So if you close half the gap between the poor country and the rich country, half the gap is still there. Right? And if I'm right, , that IQ has big externalities then, , moving people from a, uh, lower scoring country to a richer scoring country and closing half the IQ gap still means on net you're creating a negative externality in the country the kids are moving to.[00:35:17] Dwarkesh Patel: Um, yeah, yeah. Uh, we can come back to that, but yeah. Yeah. So [00:35:23] Garett Jones: it, it's, it's basically, you just look at the question, is this lowering the mean test scores in your country? And if it's lowering the mean test scores in the long run, it's on average gonna lower institutional quality productivity savings rates, those.Um, it's hard to avoid that. It's hard to avoid that outcome. So, uh, I don't [00:35:38] Dwarkesh Patel: remember the exact figures, but didn't Brian address this in the book, um, in the Open Borders book as well, that you can, even if there's a, the, a national iq, uh, lowers on average, if you're just, uh, if you're still raising the global iq, that, that it's still nets out positive, or am I [00:35:54] Garett Jones: remembering that wrong?Well, that, notice what he's, he, what he does is he attributes, uh, he says there's some productivity that's just in the land, that's just geographic factors. Yeah. So basically being close for, and so that, so basically moving people away from the equator boost productivity substantially. And again, that's, uh, a static result.Um, the reason I, uh, I mentioned that ignores all the I seven stuff that I'm talking about where anything that lowers. Um, level of innovation in the world's most innovative countries has negative costs for the entire planet in the long run, but that's something you'd only see over the course of 20, 30, 50 years.And libertarians and open border advocates are very rarely interested in that kind of [00:36:33] Dwarkesh Patel: timeframe. Is there any evidence about, uh, the impact of migration on innovation specifically? So not on the average institutional quality or on, you know, uh, the, the corruption or whatever, but like, just directly the amount of innovation that happens or maybe the Noble Prizes won or things [00:36:48] Garett Jones: like that?Um, no. I mean, I would presume, I think a lot of us would presume that, uh, the European invasion of North America ended up having, uh, positive effects for global innovation. It's not an invasion that I'm in favor of, but if you wanna talk crudely about Yeah, yeah. Whether migrations had an effect on innovation, uh, you'd probably have to include that as any kind of analysis.[00:37:07] Dwarkesh Patel: Yep. Yep. , do you think that the people who are currently Americans, but , their ancestry, traces back to countries with low s a t scores? I i, is it possible that US GDP per capita would be higher, without that contribution?Or how do you think about that? [00:37:21] Garett Jones: I mean, that it follows from thinking through the fact that we are all externalities positive or negative, right? I don't know what in, in any particular, any one particular country could turn out to be some exciting exception to the rules, some interesting anomaly. Um, but on average, we should presume that the average skill level of voters, the average, uh, traits that we're bringing from, uh, the nations, that the nations of our, of our ancestors are as having an effect on our current productivity for gut ori.So just following through the reasoning, I'd have to say on average, that's most likely. Uh, but it, there could always be exceptions to the rule. [00:37:56] Dwarkesh Patel: I guess we see large disparities in income between different ethnic groups across the world, not just in the United States. Yeah. Doesn't that suggest that some of the gains can be privatized from whatever the cultural or other traits there are? Cuz if these, if over decades and centuries these sorts of, uh, these sorts of gaps continue, [00:38:18] Garett Jones: I don't see why that would follow.Right. Um, [00:38:21] Dwarkesh Patel: uh, if everything is being, if all the externalities are just being averaged out over time, what did you expect that these GA gaps would [00:38:29] Garett Jones: narrow? Well, I mean, I'm being a little rhetorical when I'm saying everything's literally an externality, right. I don't literally believe that's true. Um, for instance, people with higher education levels do actually earn more than people with lower education levels.So that's literally not an externality. Right. So some of these other cultural traits that people are bringing with them from their, um, ancestors, nations of origin, um, could be one or one likely one source of these income differences. I mean, if you think about differences in frugality, uh, differences in personal responsibility, which show up in the surveys, uh, that are persistent across generations, those are likely to have an effect on long run productivity for you, yourself and your family.So, mm-hmm. , let alone the hive mind stuff, where you find that there's a positive relationship between test scores and, and product. [00:39:13] Clone a million John von Neumann?[00:39:13] Garett Jones: There was a [00:39:14] Dwarkesh Patel: blogger who took a look at your 2004 paper about the, um, impact of National IQ on, um, on G uh, G D P. Um, and they calculated, so they were just speculating. Let's say you cloned a million John Mond Nomans, and as assume that John Mond Noman had an IQ of 180, then you could, uh, let me just pull up the exact numbers.You could, um, you could raise the average IQ of the United States by 0.21 points, um, and if it's true that one IQ point contributes 6% to, uh, G increasing G, then this proposal would increase U US GDP by, uh, 1.2, uh, six two 6%. Do you buy these kinds of extrapolations or 1.26%? Yeah. Yeah, because you're only cloning a million, [00:39:58] Garett Jones: Jon.Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this is about 1 million Jon. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds. I mean, that's the kind of thing where I wouldn't expect it to happen overnight. Right. I tend to think of that, uh, the IQ externalities as being two, three generations. I, I lump it in with what economists call organizational capital.That sounds about right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I can't remember where I saw this. I think I, I stumbled across it myself at some point too, so. [00:40:19] Dwarkesh Patel: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, by the way, his name is Avaro Dam Bernard, if you wanna [00:40:22] Garett Jones: find it. Oh, okay. Yes, yes. Okay. Yeah, it's, I mean, in, in, it's in that ballpark, right? It's just this idea that, and, and more importantly, um, a million John Bon Nomans would be a gift to the entire planet, right?Yep. Yep, yep. So, yeah, if you had a, if you had a choice of which country to have the John Vno, the million John Von Nomans, uh, it's probably gonna be one of the I seven maybe there's, maybe there's a, maybe Switzerland would be a good alternative. [00:40:46] Dwarkesh Patel: What is the optimal allocation of intelligence across the country?Because one answer, and I guess this is the default answer in our society, is you just send them where they can get paid the most, because that's a good enough proxy for how much they're contributing. Yeah. And so you have these high glomeration of talent and intelligence in places like Silicon Valley or New York.Um, and, you know, because their contributions there can scale to the rest of the world. This is actually where they're producing the most value. Another is, you know, you actually, you should disperse them throughout the country so that they're helping out communities. They're, you know, teachers in their local community.Um, I think there was, uh, A result. There was an interesting anecdotal evidence that during the Great Depression, the crime in New York went down a ton, and that was because the cops in New York were able to hire the, you know, they had like a hundred applications for every cop they hired. And so they were able to hire the best and the brightest, and there were just a whole bunch of new police tactics and every that were pioneered at the time anyways.So, is the market allocation of intelligence correct? Or do you think there should be more distribution of intelligence across the country? How do you think about that? [00:41:50] Garett Jones: Yeah, I mean, the mar the, the market signals aren't terrible. Uh, but, uh, this is my, my Interpol Roamer kicks in and says, uh, innovation is all about externalities.And there's market failures everywhere when it comes to, in the fields of innovation. Mm-hmm. . And so, you know, I, I personally, I mean, I, I like the idea of finding ways to allocate them to, to stem style, stem style technical fields, and. , we do a fair amount of that, and maybe we do the, maybe the US does a pretty good job of that.I don't have any huge complaints at that, at the, at the crudes 50,000 foot level, um, for the, you know, the fact that people know that there's, uh, status games they can play within academia that are perhaps more satisfying or at least as satisfying as the sort of corporate hierarchy stuff. So, yeah. Yeah. I I You don't want 'em all just, I wouldn't encourage them to solely follow market signals.Right. I'd, I'd encourage them to be more HandsOn and, uh, play a variety of status games because the academic, um, and intellectual status game is worth a lot, both personally and than it leads to positive spillovers for. [00:42:58] Dwarkesh Patel: But how about the geographic distribution? Do you think that it's fine that there's people leave, uh, smart people leave Kentucky and go to San Francisco or, yeah, [00:43:08] Garett Jones: I'm a big glomeration guy.Yeah. I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm a big glomeration guy. Yeah. I mean, the internet makes it easier, but then like, still being close to people's, being in the room's important. Um, there, there's, there's something, uh, both HandsOn and Gerard in here about, like, we need to find role models to imitate, and that's probably important for productivity.[00:43:30] Dwarkesh Patel: Um, are there increasing or decreasing returns to National iq?No, [00:43:38] Garett Jones: I think, um, you know, my findings were that it was all basically log linear. And so log linear looks crudely, like increasing returns. . So yeah, it looks exponential, right? So yeah, there's increasing returns to National iq. Yeah. Are are you? But, but this is, this is a commonplace finding in a sense because so many, uh, like human, all the human capital relationships I'm familiar with end up having something like a log linear form, which is exponential.So why is that? Um, yeah, there's something multiplicative that that's how, what I have, that's all I have to say is like it's something. Somehow this all taps into Adam Smith's pin factory, and we have multiplicative not additive effects when we are increasing brain power.Um, I have, I suspect it does have something to do with, uh, a, a better organization of the division of labor between people, which ends up happening something close to e to, uh, exponential effects on productivity. [00:44:39] Genetic Selection for IQ[00:44:39] Garett Jones: A are, uh, are you a fan of genetic selection for intelligence, uh, as a means of increasing national iq or do you think that's too much playing at the margins if it's voluntary?I mean, people should be able to do what they want and, um, after a couple day decades of experimentation, I think people would end up finding a path to, uh, government subsidies or tax credits or something like that. I think people voluntarily deciding what kind of kids they want to have. is a, a, a good thing.And so by genetic selection, I assume you're meaning at the most elementary level people testing their embryos the way they do now, right? Yeah. So I mean, we, we already do a lot of genetic selection for intelligence. Um, anybody, you know, who's, uh, in their mid thirties or beyond who's had amniocentesis, they've been doing a form of genetic selection for intelligence.So it's a widespread practice already in our culture. Um, and, uh, welcoming that in a voluntary way is probably going to have good effects for our future. What [00:45:40] Dwarkesh Patel: do you make of the fact that G B T three, or I think it was Chad g p t, had, uh, measured IQ of 85? Yeah, [00:45:47] Garett Jones: I've seen a few different measures of this, right?You might have seen multiple measures. Um, yeah, I think it's, I think it's a sign that basically, and, and when you see people using non IQ tests to sort of assess the outputs of G P T on, um, long essays, it does does seem to fit into that sort of, not quite a hundred, but not, not off by a lot. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, I think it's a sign that a lot of, uh, uh, mundane, even fairly complex, moderately complex human interactions can be simulated by a large, uh, language learning model.Mm-hmm. . And I think that's, that's, uh, gonna be rough news for a lot of, uh, people whose life was in the realm of words and dispensing simple advice and solving simple problems. That's pretty bad news for their careers. I'm, I'm disappointed hearing that, so [00:46:36] Dwarkesh Patel: Yeah. Yeah. [00:46:37] Garett Jones: Um, at least for the transition. I dunno what the, I dunno what's gonna happen after the transition, but [00:46:41] Dwarkesh Patel: Yeah.I'm hoping that's not true of programmers or economists. I like you. I mean, [00:46:46] Garett Jones: it might be right. I mean, it's, if that's the way it is, I mean, I, the, I mean, the car put a lot of, uh, people who took care of horses right out of outta work too, so. [00:46:55] Dwarkesh Patel: Yep. Um, even, okay, so let's talk about democracy that I thought this was also one of your really interesting books.No, thanks. Yeah. [00:47:02] Democracy, Fed, FDA, & Presidential Power[00:47:02] Dwarkesh Patel: even controlling for how much democratic oversight there is of institutions in the government. There seems to be a wide discrepancy of how well they work. Like the Fed seems to work reasonably well. I, I, I don't know enough about macroeconomics to know how the object level decisions they make, but mm-hmm.you know, it seems to be a non-corrupt, like, uh, technocratic organization. Um, enough, but yeah. Yeah. Uh, if you look at something like the fda, it's also somewhat insulated from democratic processes. It seems to not work as well. Mm-hmm. , what determines controlling food democracy? What controls, what, what determines how well an institution in the government works?[00:47:38] Garett Jones: Well, I, I think, um, in the case, the Fed, it really does matter that they, uh, the people who run it have guaranteed long terms and they print their own money to spend mm-hmm. . So that means that they're basically, Congress has to really. Make an effort to change anything of the Fed. So they really have the kind of independence that matters.Right. You know, they have a room of their own. And, uh, the FDA has to come to Congress for money more or less every year. And the fda, uh, heads do not have any kind of security of appointment. Their appoint, they serve at the pleasure of the president. Mm-hmm. . So I do think that they don't have real independence.Uh, I do think that they're basically, um, they're living in this slack, this area of slack to use this sort of mcno gas PolySci jargon. They're living in this realm of slack between the fact that the president doesn't wanna me, uh, muddle with them, uh, metal with them, excuse me. And the fact that Congress doesn't really wanna medal with them.But on the other hand, , I really think that that the f d A and the C d C are doing what Congress more or less wanted them to do. They reflect, they reflect the muddled disarray that Congress was in over the period of say, COVID. Hmm. Uh, that I think that's a first order importance. I mean, I do think the fact, it's the fact that, uh, f d A and c d C don't ha, uh, seem to have that culture of, um, raw technocracy the way the Fed does that, I think that has to be important on its own.But I think behind that, some of that is just like F D A C D C creatures of Congress much more than the Fed is. Should the [00:49:17] Dwarkesh Patel: power of the president be increased? [00:49:20] Garett Jones: Uh, no. No. Like the power of independent committees should be increased. Like more Congress should be like the Fed. If, uh, my plan for a Fed re for an FDA or CDC reorganization would be.Making them more like the Fed, where they have appointed experts who have long terms and they have enough of a long term that they can basically feel like they can blow off Congress and build their own culture. [00:49:42] EU is a force for good?[00:49:42] Dwarkesh Patel: Mm-hmm. , , so the European Union is an interesting example here because they also have these appointed technocrats, but they seem more interested in creating anno annoying popups on your websites than with dealing with econo, the, you know, the end of economic growth on the continent.Is this a story where more democracy would've helped, or how do you think about the European Union in this context? [00:50:04] Garett Jones: No. And the eu, like, uh, the European, European voters just aren't that excited about democracy. I, excuse me, aren't that excited about markets overall. The EU is gonna reflect that, right? Um, what little evidence we have suggests that, uh, countries that are getting ready to join the eu, they improve their economic freedom scores, their sort of laissez fairness.Hmm. Uh, on the path to getting ready for. , uh, join an eu. So, and then they may increase it a little bit afterwards once they join. But basically it's like, it's like, uh, when you're deciding to join the eu, it's like you decided you have your rocky training montage and get more laissez-faire. And so EU on net is a mess at polls in the direction of markets compared to where, uh, Europe would be otherwise.I mean, just look at the nations that are in the EU now, right? A lot of them are, um, east of Germany, right? And so those are countries that don't have this great, you know, uh, history of being market friendly. And a lot of parties aren't that market friendly, and yet the EU sort of nags them into their version, like as much markets as they can handle.So [00:51:05] Dwarkesh Patel: what do you think explains the fact that the Europe, uh, Europe as a whole and the voters in there are less market friendly than Americans? I mean, if you look at the sort of deep roots analysis of Europe, you would think that they should be the most. Uh, most in favor of, I don't know if the deep roots, uh, actually maybe they apply that, but Yeah, [00:51:23] Garett Jones: compared to the planet as a whole, they're pretty good.Right? So, um, I, I'm, I never get that excited about like, the small little distinctions between the US and Europe, like these 30% GDP differences, which are very exciting to pundits and bloggers and whatever. I'm like 30% doesn't matter very much. That's not really my bailiwick. What I'm really interested in is the 3000% between the poorest countries and the richest countries.So, like I can speculate about Europe, I, I don't really have a great answer. I mean, I, I think there's something to the, the naive view that, um, the Europeans with the most, uh, what my dad would call gumption are those who left and came to America. Some openness, some adventurousness. Uh, and maybe that's part of what trans, uh, made we, so basically there's a lot of selection working, uh, on the migration side to, uh, make America more open to laissez fair than Europe would be.[00:52:14] Dwarkesh Patel: Does that overall make you more optimistic about migration to the US from anywhere? Like, you know, the same story [00:52:20] Garett Jones: of Yeah. Center is perab us like America, America gets people who are really great, right? I went with you there. Yeah. [00:52:26] Dwarkesh Patel: Does, um, elite technocratic control work best in only in high IQ countries?Because otherwise you don't have these high IQ elites who can make good policies for you, but you also don't get the democratic protections against famine and war and things like that. [00:52:43] Garett Jones: Oh, I mean, I don't know. I think, I think the case for, for, uh, handing things over to elites is pretty strong in anything that's moderately democratic, right?Um, I don't have to be. Anything that's substantially more democratic than the official measure of Singapore, for instance. I mean, that's why my book 10% Less Democracy, really is targeted at the rich, rich democracies. Once we get too far below, uh, the rich democracies, I figure once you put elites in charge, they really are just gonna be old-fashioned Gordon to rent seekers and steer everything Jordan themselves and not give a darn about the masses at all.So that's, you know, uh, elite control in a democracy, a a lot of elite control in any kind of democracy, I think is gonna have good effect. If it's re you're really looking at something that is, uh, that meets a Mar Sen's definition of a democracy competitive market. Competitive party's free press. [00:53:38] Dwarkesh Patel: Mm-hmm.does Singapore meet that criteria? [00:53:41] Garett Jones: No. Because their parties aren't really allowed to compete. I mean, that's pretty obvious. Yeah. The, the pa the People's Action Party really controls, uh, party competition there. [00:53:52] Dwarkesh Patel: So, but it, I guess Singapore is one of the great examples of technocratic, um, technocratic control, and [00:53:59] Garett Jones: they're just an exception of the rule.Most countries that try to pull off that lower level democracy wind up much [00:54:03] Dwarkesh Patel: worse. So what is your, uh, what is your opinion of Neoreactionaries? I guess they're not in favor of 10% less democracy. They're more in favor of a hundred percent less democracy. [00:54:12] Garett Jones: But yeah, I think they're like kind of too much LARPing, too much romanticizing about the roheim, I guess.I don't know. What is rheum? Yeah. The, these guys in the Lord of the Rings, you know? . , romanticizing Monarch is a mistake. Um, it's worth noting that, uh, as my colleague Gordon Tok pointed out, as along as many others, uh, in Equilibrium Kings are almost always king and council, right.and so it's worth thinking through why King and Council is the equilibrium. Something more like a corporate board and less like, um, either the libertarian ideal of the entrepreneur who, who owns the firm, or the monarch who has the long-term interest in being a stationary bandit in real life. There's this sort of muddled thing in between that works out as the equilibrium, even in the successful so-called monarchies.So it's worth thinking through why it is that the successful so-called monarchies aren't really monarchies, right? They're really oligarchies. [00:55:12] Dwarkesh Patel: Yep. Yep. Um, if you look at the median voter in terms of their preferences on academic policies, it seems like they're probably more, um, in favor of government involvement than the actual policies of the United States, for example.Yeah. What explains this? Shouldn't the media voter theorem that we should be much less libertarian as a country than? Yeah, that's a great [00:55:35] Garett Jones: point from, um, Brian Kaplan's excellent. Bill Smith of the rational voter. Right? Yeah. I think part of it, I mean, I think his stories are right, which is that, uh, politicians facing reelection have this tradeoff between giving voters what the voters say they want and giving the voters the economic growth that will help the politicians get reelected, right?Mm-hmm. Um, so it's, uh, it's a version of saying like, you know, I don't want you to p

Rep. Ben Cline, new chairman of the Republican Study Committee's Budget and Spending Task Force, discusses current plans for reducing government spending. The Virginia Congressman also discusses Biden's first trip “near the Border,” saying Biden “needs to stay down there until he actually gets to see for himself the horrors that are happening at the border when it comes to the drugs that are being trafficked, the human trafficking that's occurring, the abuse that's occurring to children and to women, it is a tragedy of immense proportions.” Commenting, “I'm glad the political pressure has gotten so intense that he actually had to check the box to actually say, well, I've been near the border, that's more than his ‘Border Czar' has been able to do for for many months. But now we really do need to take that trip and actually turn it into action.” The Congressman says that one of the most immediate reforms that can be done is to the United States “asylum laws.” Saying, recently the Biden “administration actually had a glimmer of some recognition when they said, instead of making the journey,” we want [Migrants] to be able to have asylum claim adjudicated back in their home country. Cline remarking, “that's the type of reform that I think you could get some agreement, to try and open up embassies to receiving these types of requests for asylum, but then also reforming our asylum laws. Because America is the richest country in the world, trying to get to America simply to have a better life is not grounds for asylum. And so we need to firm up those asylum laws to prevent uncertainty about those types of claims, to prevent the type of journey that's occurring, and maybe if it happens from the country of origin, you might be able to keep them from making that journey in the first place.”See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

One of my best episodes ever. Lars Doucet is the author of Land is a Big Deal, a book about Georgism which has been praised by Vitalik Buterin, Scott Alexander, and Noah Smith. Sam Altman is the lead investor in his new startup, ValueBase.Talking with Lars completely changed how I think about who creates value in the world and who leeches off it.We go deep into the weeds on Georgism:* Why do even the wealthiest places in the world have poverty and homelessness, and why do rents increase as fast as wages?* Why are land-owners able to extract the profits that rightly belong to labor and capital?* How would taxing the value of land alleviate speculation, NIMBYism, and income and sales taxes?Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here.Follow Lars on Twitter. Follow me on Twitter.Timestamps(00:00:00) - Intro(00:01:11) - Georgism(00:03:16) - Metaverse Housing Crises(00:07:10) - Tax Leisure?(00:13:53) - Speculation & Frontiers(00:24:33) - Social Value of Search (00:33:13) - Will Georgism Destroy The Economy?(00:38:51) - The Economics of San Francisco(00:43:31) - Transfer from Landowners to Google?(00:46:47) - Asian Tigers and Land Reform(00:51:19) - Libertarian Georgism(00:55:42) - Crypto(00:57:16) - Transitioning to Georgism(01:02:56) - Lars's Startup & Land Assessment (01:15:12) - Big Tech(01:20:50) - Space(01:23:05) - Copyright(01:25:02) - Politics of Georgism(01:33:10) - Someone Is Always Collecting RentsTranscriptThis transcript was partially autogenerated and thus may contain errors.Lars Doucet - 00:00:00: Over the last century, we've had this huge conflict. All the oxygen's been sucked up by capitalism and socialism duking it out. We have this assumption that you either have to be pro worker or pro business that you can't be both. I have noticed a lot of crypto people get into Georgism, so not the least of which is Vitalik Buterin and you endorse my book. If you earn $100,000 in San Francisco as a family of four, you are below the poverty line. Let's start with just taxing the things nobody has made and that people are gatekeeping access to. Let's tax essentially monopolies and rent seeking. The income tax needs to do this full anal probe on everyone in the country and then audits the poor at a higher rate than the rich. And it's just this horrible burden we have. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:00:39: Okay, today I have the pleasure of speaking with Lars Doucet, who developed the highly acclaimed Defender's Quest game and part two is coming out next year, but now he's working on a new startup. But the reason we're talking is that he wrote a review of Henry George's progress and poverty that won Scott Alexander's Book Review Contest and now it has been turned into an expanded into this book Land is a Big Deal. So Lars, welcome to the podcast. New Speaker: Great to be here, Dwarkesh . Okay, so let's just get into it. What is Georgism? Lars Doucet - 00:01:12: Okay, so the book is based off of the philosophy of a 19th century American economist by the name of Henry George from once we get George's and basically George's thesis is kind of the title of my book that land is a big deal. Georgism is often reduced to its main policy prescription that we should have a land value tax, which is a tax on the unimproved value of land, but not a tax on any buildings or infrastructure on top of the land, anything humans add. But the basic insight of it is that it's kind of reflected in the aphorisms you hear from real estate agents when they say things like the three laws of real estate or location location location and buy land, it's the one thing they're not making any more of. It's basically this insight that land has this hidden role in the economy that is really underrated. But if you look at history through the right lens, control over land is the oldest struggle of human history. It goes beyond human history. Animals have been fighting over land forever. That's what they're fighting over in Ukraine and Russia right now, right? And basically the fundamental insight of Georgism is that over the last century, we've had this huge conflict. All the oxygen's been sucked up by capitalism and socialism duking it out. We have this assumption that you either have to be pro worker or pro business that you can't be both. And Georgism is genuinely pro pro worker and pro business. But what it's against is is land speculation. And if we can find a way to share the earth, then we can solve the paradox that is the title of George's book, progress and poverty, why does poverty advance even when progress advances? Why do we have all this industrialized technology and new methods and it in George's time it was industrial technology in our time its computers and everything else? We have all this good stuff. We can make more than we've ever made before. There's enough wealth for everybody. And yet we still have inequality. Where does it come from? And George answers that question in his book. And I expand on it in mine. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:03:15: Yep. OK, so yeah, I'm excited to get into the theory of all of it in a second. But first I'm curious how much of your interest in the subject has been inspired with the fact that as a game developer, you're constantly dealing with decentralized rent seekers, like Steve or iOS app store. Is that part of the inspiration behind your interest in Georgism or is that separate? Lars Doucet - 00:03:38: It's interesting. I wouldn't say that's what clued me into it in the first place. But I have become very interested in all forms of rent seeking. In this general category of things we call land-like assets that come to first mover advantages in these large platform economies. I've started to think a lot about it basically. But the essence of land speculation is you have this entire class of people who are able to basically gatekeep access to a scarce resource that everybody needs, which is land, that you can't opt out of needing. And because of that, everyone basically has to pay them rent. And those people don't necessarily do anything. They just got there first and tell everyone else, it's like, well, if you want to participate in the world, you need to pay me. And so we're actually the actual connection with game development, actually clued me into Georgism. And I'd heard about Georgism before. I'd read about it. I thought it was interesting. But then I started noticing this weird phenomenon in online multiplayer games going back 30 years repeatedly of virtual housing crises, which is the most bizarre concept in the world to me, like basically a housingcrisis in the Metaverse and predecessors to the Metaverse. And as early as the Alt Online (?)online when I was 19, this is this online game that you could play. And you could build houses in the game and put them down somewhere. And so what I found was that houses were actually fairly cheap. You could work long enough in a game to be afford to buy blueprints for a house, which will be put it somewhere. But there was no land to put it on. And at the time, I thought, oh, well, I guess the server failed up. I didn't really think much about it. I was like, this stinks. I didn't join the game early enough. I'm screwed out of housing. And then I kind of forgot about it. And then 20 years later, I checked back in. And that housing crisis is still ongoing in that game. That game is still running a good 25 years later. And that housing crisis remains unsolved. And you have this entire black market for housing. And then I noticed that that trend was repeated in other online games, like Final Fantasy 14. And then recently in 2022, with all this huge wave of crypto games, like Axi Infinity, and that's Decentral Land and the Sandbox. And then Yuga Labs' Board-Ape Yacht Club, the other side, had all these big land sales. And at the time, I was working as an analyst for a video game consulting firm called Novik. And I told my employers, it's like, we are going to see all the same problems happen. We are going to see virtual land speculation. They're going to hit virtual. They're going to reproduce the conditions of housing crisis in the real world. And it's going to be a disaster. And I called it, and it turns out I was right. And we've now seen that whole cycle kind of work itself out. And it just kind of blew my mind that we could reproduce the problems of the real world so articulately in the virtual world without anyone trying to do it. It just happened. And that is kind of the actual connection between my background in game design and kind of getting George Pilled as the internet kids call it these days. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:06:43: There was a hilarious clip. Some comedian was on Joe Rogan's podcast. I think it was like Tim Dillon. And they're talking about, I think, Decentraland, where if you want to be Snoop Dogg's neighbor in the Metaverse, it costs like a couple million dollars or something. And Joe Rogan was like, so you think you can afford to live there. And then Tim Dillon's like, no, but I'm going to start another Metaverse and I'm going to work hard. But OK, so let's go into Georgism himself. So Tyler Cohen had a blog post a long time ago who was comparing taxing land to taxing unimproved labor or unimproved capital. And it's an interesting concept, right? Should I, so I have a CS degree, right? Should I be taxed at the same level as an entry level software engineer instead of a podcast or because I'm not using my time as efficiently as possible. And so leisure in another way is the labor equivalent of having an unimproved parking lot in the middle of San Francisco or capital. If I'm just keeping my capital out of the economy and therefore making it not useful, maybe I should have that capital taxed at the rate of the capital gains on T-Bill. And this way, you're not punishing people for having profitable investments, which you're kind of doing with a capital gains, right? What would you think of that comparison? Lars Doucet - 00:08:07: Yeah, so really, before you can even answer that question, you've got to go back to ground moral principles you're operating on. Like, is your moral operating principle like we just want to increase efficiency? So we're going to tax everyone in a way to basically account for the wasted opportunity cost, which brings up a lot of other questions of like, well, who decides what that is. But I think the Georgist argument is a little different. We're not necessarily like it is efficient, the tax we propose, but it actually stems kind of from a more, from a different place, a more kind of fundamental aspect of justice, you know? And from our perspective, if you work and you produce value, your work produced that value, right? And if you save money and accumulate capital in order to put that capital to work to receive a return, you've also provided something valuable to society, you know? You saved money so a factory could exist, right? You saved money so that a shipping company could get off off the ground. You know, those are valuable, contributed things, but nobody made the earth. The earth pre-exists all of us. And so someone who provides land actually does the opposite of providing land. They unprovide land, and then they charge you for opening the gate. And so the argument for charging people on the unimproved value of land is that we want to tax unproductive rent seeking. We want to tax non-produced assets because we think we want to encourage people to produce assets. We want to encourage people to produce labor, to produce capital. We want more of those things. And there's that aphorism that if you want less of something, you should tax it. So I mean, maybe there is a case for some kind of galaxy brain take of, you know, taxing unrealized opportunity costs or whatever, but I'm less interested in that. And my moral principles are more about, let's start with just taxing the things nobody has made and that people are gatekeeping access to. Let's tax essentially monopolies and rent seeking. And then if we still need to raise more taxes, we can talk about that later. But let's start with, let's start with just taxing the worst things in society and then stop taxing things we actually want more of because we have this mentality right now where everything's a trade off and we have to accept the downsides of income taxes, of sales taxes, of capital taxes because we just need the revenue and it has to come from somewhere. And my argument is it's like, it can come from a much better somewhere. So let's start with that.Dwarkesh Patel - 00:10:39: Yeah, yeah. So I guess if it was the case that we've implemented a land value tax and we're still having a revenue shortfall and we need another kind of tax and we're going to have to keep income taxes or capital gains taxes. Would you in that situation prefer a sort of tax where you're basically taxed on the opportunity costs of your time rather than the actual income you generated or the returns you would interest your generate in your capital? Lars Doucet - 00:11:04: No, I think probably not. I think you would probably want to go with some other just like simpler tax for the sake of it there's too many degrees of freedom in there. And it's like, we can talk about why I will defend the Georgist case for property tax assessments, you know, for land value tax. But I think it gets different when you start like judging what is the most valuable use of your time because that's a much more subjective question. Like you're like, okay, are you providing more value to society as being a podcaster or being a CS computer science person or creating a startup? It's like that may not be evident for some time. You know what I mean? Like I can't think of an example, but like think of people who were never successful during their lifetimes. I think the guy who invented what was it? FM radio, right? He threw himself out a window because he never got it really adopted during his lifetime but it went on to change everything, you know? So if we were taxing him during his lifetime based off of what he was doing of being a failure, like if Van Gogh was taxed of his like wasting his life as an artist as he thought he was, which ultimately led to his suicide, you know, a lot of these things are not necessarily realized at the time. And so I think that's, and you know, it would need a much bigger kind of bureaucracy to like figure that all out. So I think you should go with a more modest. I mean, I think after land value tax, you should do things like severance tax on natural resources and other taxes on other monopolies and rents. And so I think the next move after land value tax is not immediately to capital and income taxes and sales taxes, but to other taxes on other rents seeking and other land like assets that aren't literally physically land. And then only after you've done all of those, if you still, you know, absolutely then, then move on to, you know, the bad taxes. What is this, severance tax? Severance tax is a tax on the extraction of natural resources. Is what Norway does with their oil industry that has been massively successful and a key reason that Norway has avoided the resource curse? Yeah. Basically, it's, Georgist purist will say it's essentially a land value tax but of a different kind. A land value tax like you can't normally like extracts just like land like on this, in this house you're living on, you're like, you're not using up this land, but non-renewable resources you can use up. Yeah. You know, and so a severance tax is basically, Nestle should be charged a severance tax for the water they're using, for instance, you know, because all they're doing is enclosing a pre-existing natural resource that used to belong to the people that they've essentially enclosed and now they're just putting it in bottles and selling it to people. You know, they should be able to realize the value of the value add they give to that water, but not to just taking that resource away. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:13:53: No that makes sense. Okay, so let's go deep into the actual theory and logic of Georgism. Okay. One thing I was confused by is why property owners who have land in places that are really desirable are not already incentivized to make the most productive use of that land. So even without a property, sorry, a land tax, if you have some property in San Francisco incentives, let's go, why are you not incentivized to construct it to the fullest extent possible by the law, to, you know, collect rents anyways, you know what I mean? Like why are you keeping it that as a parking lot? Lars Doucet - 00:14:28: Right, right, right. So there's a lot of reasons. And one of them has to do with, there's an image in the book that this guy put together for me. I'll show it to you later. But what it does is that it shows the rate of return. What a land speculator is actually optimizing for is their rate of return, right? And so if land appreciates by 10% a year, you know, you're actually incentivized to invest in vacant land or a tear down property because the building of a tear down property is like worth negative value. So the land's cheaper because there's garbage on it, you know? Then you are to necessarily invest in a property and you're basically your marginal dollar is better spent on more land than it is on building up. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:15:16: But eventually shouldn't this be priced into the price of land so that the returns are no longer 10% or they're just like basically what you could get for any other asset. And at that point, then the rate of return is similar for building thingson top of your existing land than buying a new land because like the new land is like the, you know, that return has been priced into other land. Lars Doucet - 00:15:38: Well, I mean, arguably, empirically, we just don't see that, you know, and we see rising land prices as long as productivity and population increases. Those productivity and population gains get soaked into the price of the land. It's because of this phenomenon called Ricardo's Law of Rent and it's been pretty empirically demonstrated that basically, and it has to do with the negotiation power. But like why some people do of course, build and invest, you know, there's a lot of local laws that restrict people's ability to build. But another reason is just like, it also has to do with the existing part of it. It part of the effect is partially the existing property tax regime actively incentivizes empty lots because you have a higher tax burden if you build, right? So what actually happens is a phenomenon that's similar to oil wells, right? You have, it's not just because of property taxes, those do encourage you to keep it empty. But there's this phenomenon called land banking and waiting for the land to ripen, right? Sure, I could build it now, but I might have a lot of land parcels I've got. And I don't need to build it now because I think the prices might go up later and it would be better to build on it later than it is now. And it's not costing me anything to keep it vacant now. If I build now, I'm gonna have to pay a little bit more property taxes. And I know in three years that the price is gonna be even better. So maybe I'll wait to incur those construction costs then and right now I'm gonna focus more on building over here. And like I've got a lot of things to do, so I'm just gonna squat on it here. It's the same way I have, I'm squatting like, you know, I bought to my shame, like about 30 domain names, you know, most of them bought before I kind of got ontoGeorgism. And it's like, yeah, I'll pay 15 bucks a year to just hold it, why not? You know what I mean? I might use that someday. Right. And it's like, I should probably release all the ones I have no intent of using because I was looking for a domain for my startup the other day and every single two word.com is taken. Right, right. And it has been for like 10 years, you know, and it's a similar phenomenon. It's just like some of it is economic, rational following of incentives. And some of it is just it's like, well, this is a good asset. I'm just gonna hold on to it because why not? And no one is, and I don't have any pressure to build right now. And this happens on the upswing and on the downswing of cities. So while the population's growing and while the population's declining, people will just buy a lot of land and hold it out of use. Cause it's also just a great place to park money because it's an asset that you know if the population ever starts growing, it's gonna keep its value better than almost any other hard asset you have. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:18:16: Yep yep. I guess another like broader criticism of this way of thinking is, listen, this is all, and sorry for using these like podcast lingo of scarcity mindset, but this is all like scarcity mindset of, you know, land is limited. Well, why don't we just focus on the possibility of expanding the amount of usable land? I mean, there's like not really a shortage of land in you. Maybe there's a shortage of land in urban areas. But you know, why don't we like expand into the seas? And why don't we expand into the air and space? Why are we thinking in this sort of scarce mindset? Lars Doucet - 00:18:48: Right. Okay, so I love this question because actually our current status quo mindset is the scarcity mindset. And Georgism is the abundance mindset, right? And we can have that abundance if we learn to share the land. Because right now, you know, why don't we expand? And the answer is we've tried that. We've done it twice. And it's the story of America's frontier, right? And so like right now there's plenty of empty land in Nevada, but nobody wants it. And you have to ask why, right? You also have to ask the question of how did we have virtual housing crises in the Metaverse where they could infinitely expand all they want? Like how is that even possible, you know? And the answer has to do with what we call the urban agglomeration effect. What's really valuable is human relationships, proximity to other human beings, those dense networks of human beings. And so the idea is not necessarily that like, in a certain sense, the issue is that land is not an indistinguishable, fungible commodity. Location really matters. Or America has a finite amount of land, but it might as well be an infinite plane. We're not going to fill up every square inch of America for probably thousands of years if we ever do, right? But what is scarce is specific locations. They're non-fungible, you know? And to a certain extent, it's like, okay, if you don't want to live in New York, you can live in San Francisco or any other like big city. But what makes New York New York is non-fungible What makes San Francisco San Francisco is non-fungible That particular cluster of VCs in San Francisco until or unless that city completely explodes and that moves somewhere else to Austin or whatever, you know, at which point, Austin will be non-fungible. I mean, Austin is non-fungible right now. And so the point is that the way Georgism unlocks the abundance of it, let me talk about the frontier. We have done frontier expansion. That is why immigrants came over from Europe, you know, and then eventually the rest of the world, to America to, you know, settle the frontier. And the losers of that equation were, of course, the Indians who were already here and got kicked out. But that was theoriginal idea of America. And I like to say that America's tragedy, America's problem is that America is a country that has the mindset of being a frontier state, but is in fact a state which has lost its frontier. And that is why you have these conversations with people like boomers who are like, why can't the next generation just pull itself up by its bootstraps? Because America has had at least, I would say two major periods of frontier expansion. The first was the actual frontier, the West, the Oregon Trail, the covered wagons, you know, the displacement of the Indians. And so that was a massive time, that was the time in which Henry George was writing, was right when that frontier was closing, right? When all that land, that free land was being taken, and the advantages of that land was now being fully priced in. That is what it means for a frontier to close, is that now the good productive land, the value of it is fully priced in. But when the frontier is open, you can just go out there and take it, and you can get productive land and realize the gains of that. And the second frontier expansion was after Henry George's death, was the invention of the automobile, the ability to have a job in the city, but not have to live in the city. The fact that you could quickly travel in, like I commuted in to visit you here, right? That is because of the automobile frontier opening that has allowed me to live in some other city, but be able to do productive work like this podcast by driving in. But the problem is, sprawl can only take you so far, before that frontier as well closes, and by closes I don't mean suburban expansion stops. What I mean is that now, suburban homes, you fully price in the value of the benefits are able to accrue by having that proximity to a city, but still being able to live over here, through of course, for Ricardo's Law for it. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:22:37: Yeah, but I feel like this is still compatible with the story of, we should just focus on increased in technology and abundance, rather than trying to estimate how much rent is available now, given current status quo technologies. I mean, the car is a great example of this, but imagine if there were like flying cars, right? Like there's a, where's my flying car? There's like a whole analysis in that book about, you know, if you could, if people are still commuting like 20 minutes a day, you know, a lot more land is actually in the same travel distance as was before, and now all this land would be worth as much, even in terms of relationships that you could accommodate, right? So why not just build like flying cars instead of focusing on land rent? Lars Doucet - 00:23:21: Well, because these things have a cost, right? The cost of frontier expansion was murdering all the Indians and the cost of automobile expansion was climate change. You know, there has to be a price for that. And then eventually, the problem is you eventually, when you get to the end of that frontier expansion, you wind up with the same problem we had in the first place. Eventually, the problem is the first generation will make out like gangbusters if we ever invent flying cars, even better like Star Trek matter teleporters. You know, that'll really do it. Then you can really live in Nevada and have a job in New York. Yeah. There are some people who claim that Zoom is this, but it's not, you know, we've seen the empirical effects of that and it's like, it's the weakest like semi-frontier we've had and it's already closed. Because, because of Zoom, houses like this over in Austin have gone up in value because there is demand for them and there's demand for people to telecommute. And so anyone who, so the increased demand for living out in the suburbs is now basically priced in because of the Zoom economy. And so the thing is the first people who did that, who got there really quick, the first people to log in to the ultimate online server were able to claim that pace of the frontier and capture that value. But the next generation has to pay more in rent and more in home prices to get that. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:24:34: Actually, that raises another interesting criticism ofGeorgism, this is actually a paper from Zachary Gouchanar and Brian Kaplan, where it was titled the Cerseioretic critique of Georgism, and the point they made was one of these, like one way of thinking about the improvement to land is actually identifying that this land is valuable. Maybe because you realize it has like an oil well in it and maybe you realize that it's like the perfect proximity to these like Chinese restaurants and this mall and whatever. And then just finding which land is valuable is actually something that takes capital and also takes, you know, like you deciding to upend your life and go somewhere, you know, like all kinds of effort. And that is not factored into the way you would conventionally think of the improvements to land that would not be taxed, right? So in some sense, you getting that land is like a subsidy for you identifying that the land is valuable and can be used to productive ends. Lars Doucet - 00:25:30:Right, yeah, I know. So I've read that paper. So first of all, the first author of that Zachary Gouchanar yeah, I'm not been able to pin him down on what exactly meant on this, but he's made some public statements where he's revised his opinion since writing that paper and that he's much more friendly to the arguments ofGeorgism now than when he first wrote that paper. So I'd like to pin him down and see exactly what he meant by that because it was just a passing comment. But as regards Kaplan's critique, Kaplan's critique only applies to a 100% LVT where you fully capture all of the land value tax. And the most extreme Georgists I know are only advocating for like an 85% land value tax. That would still leave. And Kaplan doesn't account at all for the negative effects of speculation. He's making a speculation is good actually argument. And even if we grant his argument, he still needs to grapple with all the absolutely empirically observed problems of land speculation. And if we want to make some kind of compromise between maybe speculation could have this good discovery effect, there's two really good answers to that. First, just don't do 100% LVT, which we probably can't practically do anyway because of natural limitations just empirically, you know, in the signal. It's like you don't want to do 115% land value tax. That drives people off the land. So we want to make sure that we like have a high land value tax but make sure not to go over. And so that would leave a sliver of land rent that would still presumably incentivize this sort of thing. There's no argument for why 100% of the land rent is necessary to incentivize the good things that Kaplan was talking about. The second argument is when he talks about oil, well, we have the empirical evidence from the Norwegian massively successful petroleum model that shows in the case of natural resources how you should deal with this. And what Norway does is that they have a massive, massively huge severance tax on oil extraction. And according to Kaplan's argument, this should massively destroy the incentive for companies to go out there and discover the oil. And empirically, it doesn't. Now what Norway does is that they figured out, okay, so the oil companies, their argument is that we need the oil rents, right? We need these oil rents where we will not be incentivized for the massive capital cost of offshore oil drilling. Well, Norway's like, well, if you just need to cover the cost of offshore oil drilling, we'll subsidize that. We'll just pay you. We'll just pay you to go discover the oil. But when you find the oil, that oil belongs to the Norwegian people. Now you may keep some of the rents but most of it goes to the Norwegian people. But hey, all your R&D is free. All your discovery is free. If the problem is discovery, we just subsidize discovery. And then the oil companies are like, okay, that sounds like a great deal. We don't have to, because without that, what the oil companies do is that they're like, okay, we're taking all these risks. So I'm gonna sit on all these oil wells like people sitting on domain names because I might use them later and the price might go up later. But now because there's a huge severance tax, you're forced to drill now and you're actually, you're actual costs of discovery and R&D and all those capital costs are just taken care of. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:28:26: But isn't there a flip side to that where I mean, one of the economic benefits of speculation, obviously there's drawbacks. But one of the benefits is that it gets rid of the volatility and prices where our speculator will buy when it's cheap and sell when the price is high. And in doing so, they're kind of making the asset less volatile over time. And if you're basically going to tell people who have oil on their land, like we're gonna keep taxing you. If you don't take it out, you're gonna keep getting taxed. You're encouraging this massive glut of a finite resource to be produced immediately, which is bad. If you think we might need that reserve in the ground 20 years from now or 30 years from now, you know, went oil reserves were running low. Lars Doucet - 00:29:10: Not necessarily, you know? And so the problem is that speculation in the sense you're talking about if like encouraging people to do arbitrage is good for capital because we can make more capital. But we can't make more land and we can't make more non-renewable natural resources. And the issue in peer, and I just think the evidence just doesn't support that empirically because if anything, land speculation has causes land values to just constantly increase, not to find some natural part, especially with how easy it is to finance two thirds of bank loans just chase real estate up. And that's just like, if you just look at the history of the prices of, you know, of residential real estate in America, it's like, it's not this cyclical graph where it like keeps going back down. It keeps going back down, but it keeps going up and up and up, just on a straight line along with productivity. And it underlines and undergirds, major issues, everything that's driving our housing crisis, which then undergirds so much of inequality and pollution and climate change issues. And so with regards to speculations, like even if I just bite that bull and it's like, okay, speculation is good actually, I don't think anyone's made the case that speculators need to capture a hundred percent of the rents to be properly incentivized to do anything good that comes out of speculation. I think at some small reasonable percentage, you know, five to 10 percent of the rents, maybe 15 if I'm feeling generous, but I don't think anyone's empirically made the case that it should be a hundred percent, which is more or less a status quo. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:30:31:I mean, with regards to that pattern of the fact that the values tend to keep going up implies that there's nothing cyclical that the speculators are dampening. Lars Doucet - 00:30:41: Well, there are cycles to be sure, but it's not like, it's something that resets to zero. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:30:45: Yeah, but that's also true of like the stock market, right? Over time that goes up, but speculators are still have like an economic role to play in a stock market of making sure prices are, Lars Doucet - 00:30:55: I mean, the difference is that people are now paying an ever increasing portion of their incomes to the land sector. And that didn't used to be the case. And if it keeps going, it's going to be, I mean, you have people are now paying 50% of their income just for rent. And that's not sustainable in the long term. You're going to have the cycle you have there is revolution. You know, you, you know, Dwarkesh Patel - 00:31:16: (laughing) Lars Doucet - 00:31:17: I'm serious. like what happens is like you look through history, you either have land reform or you have revolution. And you know, it's, it's either like either you have a never ending cycle of, of, of transfers of income from the unlanded to the landed. And eventually the, the unlanded will not put up with that. You know, there was a real chance in the 19th century, at the end of the 19th century of America going full on socialist or communist and the only thing that saved us. What, and George's argument was like, it's either Georgism or communism. And if you want to save capitalism and not go toTotalitarian, we need Georgismand then what George failed to anticipate was, you, of course, the automobile. And the automobile kicked the can down another generation, another couple generations, right? And it came at the cost of sprawl. And that made everyone feel like we had solved the issue. But basically we just, and the cost of sprawl are enormous in terms of pollution and poor land use. Just look at Houston right now, right? But now we've come at the end of that frontier and now we're at the same question. And it's like, you see this research in interest in leftism in America and that's not a coincidence, right? Because the rent is too damn high and poor people and poor people and young people feel really, really shoved out of the promise and social contract that was given to their parents and they're jealous of it and they're wondering where it went. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:32:36: Yeah, yeah. Actually, you just mentioned that a lot of bank loans are given basically so you can like get a mortgage and get a house that's like towards land. There was an interesting question on Twitter that I thought was actually pretty interesting about this. I can't find the name of the person who asked it. So sorry, I can't give you credit, but they basically asked if that's the case and if most bank loans are going towards helping you buy land that's like artificially more expensive, but now you implement a land value tax and all these property values crash. Oh yeah. Well, when we see just, and then all these mortgages are obviously they can't pay them back. Lars Doucet - 00:33:13: Right, right, right. Are we gonna destroy the banking sector? Dwarkesh Patel - 00:33:15: Exactly. We'll have like a great, great depression.Lars Doucet - 00:33:17: Well, I mean, if you, okay, so like this is, this is kind of like, I mean, I'm not, I'm not trying to compare landlords to slave owners or something, but it's like, it's like the South had an entire economy based off of slavery. This thing that like we now agree was bad, right? And it's like we shouldn't have kept slavery because the, the South, the, like it really disrupted the Southern Economy when we got rid of slavery, but it was still the right thing to do. And so I mean, there is no magic button I could push as much as I might like to do so that will give us 100% land value tax everywhere in America tomorrow. So I think the actual path towards a Georgist Future is gonna have to be incremental. There'll be enough time to unwind all those investments and get to a more sane banking sector. So I mean, like if we were to go overnight, yeah, I think there would be some shocks in the banking sector and I can't predict what those would be, but I also don't think that's a risk that's actually gonna happen. Because like we just, we just cannot make a radical change like that on all levels overnight. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:34:13: Yeah yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's get back to some of these theoretical questions. One I had was, I guess I don't fully understand the theoretical reason for thinking that you can collect arbitrarily large rents. Why doesn't the same economic principle of competition, I get that there's not infinite landowners, but there are multiple landowners in any region, right? So if for the same reason that profit is competed away in any other enterprise, you know, if one landowner is extracting like $50 a profit a month, and another landowner is extracting, you know, like whatever, right? Like a similar amount of $50. One of them, and they're both competing for the same tenant. One of them will decrease their rent so that the tenant will come to them and the other one will do the same and the bidding process continues until all the profits are, you know,bidded away. Lars Doucet - 00:35:04: Right, so this is Ricardo's law front, right? And there's a section on in the book with a bunch of illustrations you can show. And so the issue is that we can't make more land, right? And so you might be like, well, there's plenty of land in Nevada, but the point is there's only so much land in Manhattan. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:35:19: But the people who have land inManhattan, why aren't they competing against themselves or each other? Lars Doucet - 00:35:23: Right, well, what they do is because the nature of the scarcity of there's only so many locations in Manhattan and there's so many people who want to live there, right? And so all the people who want to live there have to outbid each other. And so basically, so like, let me give a simple agricultural example model. And then I will explain how the agricultural model translates to a residential model. Basically, when you are paying to live in an urban area, or even a suburban area like here in Austin, what you're actually paying for is the right to have proximity to realize the productive capacity of that location. IE, I want to live in Austin because I can have access to a good job, you know what I mean? Or whatever is cool about Austin, a good school, those amenities. And the problem is you have to pay for those and you have to outbid other people who are willing to pay for those. And Ricardo's Rolf Rent says that the value of the amenities and the productivity of an area, as it goes up, that gets soaked into the land prices. And the mechanism by that is that it's like, okay, say I want to buy a watermelon, right? And there's only one watermelon left out bid that guy. But the watermelon growers can be like, oh, a lot of people want watermelon. So next season, there's going to be more watermelons because he's going to produce more watermelons. But because there's only so many locations in Austin, you know, within the natural limits of our transportation network, basically it forces the competition on the side of the people who are, essentially the tenants, right? It forces us into one side of competition with each other. And that, and so there's an example of like, a simple agricultural example is like, okay, say there is a common field that anyone can work on and you can make 100 units of wealth if you work on it, right? So, and there's another field that you can also learn 100 units of wealth in, but it's owned by a landowner. Why would you, why would you go and work on the landowners when you're going to have to pay them rent? You wouldn't pay them any rent at all. You would work on the field that's free, but if the landowner buys that field and now your best opportunity is a field that's only worth a free field that will produce 10 units of wealth, now he can charge you 90 units of wealth becauseyou have no opportunity to go anywhere else. And so basically as more land gets bought and subject to private ownership in an area, landowners over time get to increase the rent, not to a maximum level, there are limits to it. And the limits is what's called the margin of production, which is basically you can charge up to, and this is where the competition comes in, the best basic like free alternative, you know, and that's usually, you can realize that geographically, like out on the margins of Austin, there's marginal land that basically is available for quite cheap, you know, and it might be quite far away, and it used to be not so quite far away 20, 30 years ago, you know, and so as that margin slowly gets privatized, landowners can charge up to that margin. The other limit is subsistence, that can't charge more than you're actually able to pay, but the basic example is that, so this is why this is how frontier expansion works. When the entire continent's free, the first settler comes in, strikes a pick in the ground, keeps all of their wealth, but as more and more of it gets consolidated, then landowners are able to charge proportionately more until they're charging essentially up to subsistence. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:38:51: Yeah, does that explain property values in San Francisco? I mean, they are obviously very high, but I don't feel like they're that high where this offer engineers were working at Google or living as subsistence levels, neither are they at the margin of reduction where it's like, this is what it would cost to live out in the middle of California, and then commute like three hours to work or something. Lars Doucet - 00:39:13: Right, well, so it has to do with two things. So first of all, it's over the long run, and so it's like, you've had a lot of productivity booms in San Francisco, right? And so it takes some time for that to be priced in, you know, and it can be over a while, but given a long enough time period it'll eventually get there. And then when we're talking about stuff, it's also based off of the average productivity. The average resident of San Francisco is maybe not as productive as a high, and like basically doesn't earn as high an income necessarily as a high income product worker. And so this means that if you are a higher than productive, higher than average productivity person, it's worth it to live in the expensive town because you're being paid more than the average productivity that's captured in rent, right? But if you're a low, if you're lower than average productivity, you flee high productive areas. You go to more marginal areas because those are the only places you can basically afford to make a living. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:40:06: Okay, that's very interesting. That's actually one of the questions I was really curious about. So I'm glad to hear an answer on that. Another one is, so the idea is, you know, land is soaking up the profits that capitalists and laborers are entitled to in the form of rent. But when I look at the wealthiest people in America, yeah, there's people who own a lot of land, but they bought that land after they became wealthy from doing things that were capital or labor, depending on how you define starting a company. Like sure, Bill Gates owns a lot of land in Montana or whatever, but like the reason he has all that wealth to begin with is because he started a company, you know, that's like basically labor or capital,however you define it? Right. So how do you explain the fact that all the wealthy people are, you know, capitalists or laborers? Lars Doucet - 00:40:47: Well, so the thing is, one of the big missed apprehensions people have is that, when they think of billionaires, they think of people like Bill Gates and Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, those are actually the minority billionaires, most billionaires or hedge funds are people involved in hedge funds. You know, bankers and what are bankers, most what are two thirds of banks? It's real estate, you know? And so, but more to your point, like if I, if it is like point that directly into it, it's like, I don't necessarily have a problem with the billionaire existing. You know what I mean? If someone like genuinely like bring something new into the world and like, you know, I don't necessarily buy the narrative that like billionaires are solely responsible for everything that comes out of their company, you know, I think they like to present that image. But I don't necessarily have a problem with a billionaire existing. I have a problem with, you know, working class people not being able to feed their families, you know, and so like the greater issue is the fact that the rent is too high rather than that Jeff Bezos is obscenely rich. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:41:45:No, no, I guess my point was in that, like, I'm not complaining that your solution would not fix the fact that billionaires are this. I also like that there's billionaires. What I'm pointing out is it's weird that, if you're theory of, like, where all the sort of plus in our society is getting, you know, given away is that it's going to landowners. And yet the most wealthy people in our society are not landowners. Doesn't that kind of contradict your theory? Lars Doucet - 00:42:11: Well, a lot of the wealthy people in our society are landowners, right? And it's just like, it's not the, so the, so the thing is is that basically making wealth off land is a way to make wealth without being productive, right? And so my point is is that, so like you said in your interview with Glazer that it's like, okay, the Googleplex, like the value of that real estate is probably not, you know, compared that to like the market cap of Google. But now compare the value of all the real estate in San Francisco to the market caps to some of those companies in there, you know, look at the people who are charging rent to people who work for Google. That's where the money's actually going, is that, and, and, you know, investors talk about this is that it's like, I have to, like, if you earn $100,000 in San Francisco as a family of four, you are below the poverty line, right? You know, the money is going to basically upper middle class Americans and upper class Americans who own tons of residential land and are basically, and also the old and the wealthy, especially, are essentially this entire class of kind of hidden landed gentry that are extracting wealth from the most productive people in America and young people, especially. And, and it is creates really weird patterns, especially with like service workers who can't afford to live in the cities where their work is demanded. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:43:30: Yeah. Okay. So what do you think of this take? This might be economically efficient. In fact, I think it probably is economically efficient, but the effect of the land value tax would be to shift, to basically shift our sort of societal subsidy away from upper middle class people who own, happen to own land in urban areas and shift that to the super wealthy and also super productive people who will like control the half acre that Google owns and like mountain view. So it's kind of like a subsidy, not subsidy, but it's easing the burden on super productive companies like Google and so that they can make even cooler products in the future. But it is in some sense that's a little aggressive, you're going from upper middle class to like, you know, tech billionaire, right? But it's still be economically efficient to do that. Lars Doucet - 00:44:18: Well, no, I don't quite agree with that because it's like, although there are a lot of upper middle class Americans who own a lot of the land wealth, it's not the case that they own where the majority of the land wealth is. The majority of the land wealth in urban areas is actually in commercial real estate. Is the central business district, if you, and I work in mass appraisal, so I've seen this myself in the models we build is that if you look at the transactions in cities and then you plot where the land value is and like a graph, it looks like this. And this is the city center and that's not a residential district. So the residential districts are sucking up a lot of land value and the rent is toodamn high. But the central business district and this even holds even in the age of Zoom, it's taken a tumble, but it's starting from a very high level. That central residential, I'm not residential, but commercial real estate is super valuable. Like orders, like an order of magnitude more valuable than a lot of the other stuff. And a lot of it is very poorly used.In Houston especially, it's incredibly poorly used. We have all these central parking lots downtown. That is incredibly valuable real estate. And just a couple of speculators are just sitting on it, doing nothing with it. And that could be housing, that could be offices, that could be amenities, that could be a million sorts of things. And so when you're talking about a land value tax, those are the people who are going to get hit first. And those are people who are neither nice, nice, friendly upper middle class Americans, nor are they hardworking industrialists making cool stuff. They're people who are doing literally nothing. Now, if you do a full land value tax, yeah, it's going to shift the burden in society somewhat. But I feel that most analyses of property taxes and land value taxes that conclude that they are regressive, I think that's mostly done on the basis of our current assessments. And I feel like our assessments could be massively approved and that if we improve the assessments, we can show where most of our land values actually concentrated. And then we can make decisions about exactly, are we comfortable with these tax shifts? Dwarkesh Patel - 00:46:18: Yeah, yeah. Hey guys, I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. If you are, I would really, really appreciate it if you could share the episode with other people who you think might like it. Put the episode in a group chat you have with your friends, post it on Twitter, send it to somebody who think might like it. All of those things helps that a ton. Anyways, back to the conversation. So a while back I read this book, how Asia works. You know,Lars Doucet - 00:46:45: I'm a fan. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:46:47: Yeah, and one of the things, I think Joseph Steadwell was going out there, what are the things he talks about is he's trying to explain why some Asian economies grew, gangbusters in the last 20th century. And one of the things he points to is that these economies implemented land reform were basically, I guess they were distributed land away from, I guess the existing aristocracy and gentry towards the people who are like working the land. And while I was reading the book at the time, I was kind of confused because, you know, we've like, there's something called like the Kostian. The Kostian, I forget the name of the argument. Basically, the idea is, regardless of who initially starts off with a resource, the incentive of that person will be to, for him to like give that resource, lend out that resource to be worked by that person who can make most productive use of it. And instead of what was pointing out that these like small, you know, like these peasant farmers basically, they will pay attention to detail of crop rotation and making the maximum use of this land to get like the maximum produce. Whereas if you're like a big landowner, you will just like try to do something mechanized. It's not nearly as effective. And in a poor country, what you have is a shitton of labor. So you want something that's like labor intensive. Anyways, backing up a bit, I was confused while I was reading the book because I was like, well, wouldn't the, wouldn't, what you would expect to happen in a market that basically the peasants get alone from the bank to work to, I guess, rent out that land. And then they are able to make that land work more productively than the original landowner. Therefore, they are able to like make a profit and everybody benefits basically. Why isn't there a co-scient solution to that? Lars Doucet - 00:48:24: Because any improvement that the peasants make to the land will be a signal to the landowner to increase the rent because of Ricardo's law of rent. Yep. And that's exactly what happened in Ireland when, and George talks about this in progress and poverty, is that a lot of people were like, why was there famine in Ireland? It's because the Irish are bad people. Why didn't they, they're lazy? Why didn't they improve? And it's like because if you improve the land, all that happens is you still are forced into one side of competition and the rent goes out. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:48:50: Yep. OK. That makes sense. Is the goal that the taxes you would collect with the land value tax? Are they meant to replace existing taxes or are they meant to give us more services like UBI? Because they probably can't do both, right? Like you either have to choose getting rid of existing taxes or getting more.. Lars Doucet - 00:49:08: Well, it depends how much UBI you want. You know what I mean? It's like you can, you know, it's a sliding skill. It's like how many taxes do you want to replace versus how much? Like, I mean, you can have a budget there. It's like if you can raise, you know, I show in the book the exact figures of how much I think land value tax could raise. And I forget the exact figures, but like you can pull up a graph and overlay it here of, you know, whether you're talking about the federal level or federal local and state, you know, there's $44 trillion of land value in America. And I believe we can raise about $4 trillion in land rents annually with 100% land value tax. And we would probably do less than that in practice. But even on the low end, I forget what figure I quote for the low end, like you could fully pay for any one of social security, Medicare plus Medicaid together, so the second one is healthcare or defense. Entirely with the lowest estimate of what I think land rents could raise. And then I think you can actually raise more than that because I think, and I give an argument in the book for why I think it's closer to like $4 trillion. And that could pay for all three and have room over for a little bit of extra. And so I mean, it's up to you, like, that's a policy decision of whether you want to spend it on spending, whether you want to spend it on offsetting taxes or whether you want to spend it on UBI. I think the best political solution, because like if I bite the bullet that there might be some regressivity issues left over, you want to do what's called a UBI or what, you know, in George's time was called a citizen's dividend, right? You know, this will smooth over any remaining regressivity issues. And then, but I very much am in favor of getting rid of some of these worst taxes, you know, not just because they have dead weight loss and land value tax doesn't, but also because there's this tantalizing theory called ATCORE- All taxes come out of rent, which suggests that if you reduce other taxes, it increases land values, which means that if it's true in the strongest sense, it means the single tax,right? Land value tax replaced all taxes would always work. And I'm not sure if I buy that, I want to see some empirical evidence, but I think at least some weak form of it holds, so that when you offset other worst taxes, not only do you get rid of the dead weight loss from those, but you also wind up raising at least a little bit more in land value tax revenue. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:51:20: Yes, yeah. I mean, as a libertarian, or I guess somebody who has like libertarian tendencies, my concern would basically be like, this obviously seems better than our current regime of taxing things that are good, basically capital income. But my concern is the way I'm guessing something like this would be implemented is it would be added on top of rather than repealing those taxes. And then, yeah, I guess like we would want to ensure. Lars Doucet - 00:51:44: I get this one a lot. Yeah, no. And so I have, you know, I've been a libertarian in my past, and I have a soft spot for libertarianism. I used to be a Ron Paul guy, I went back in the day for a hot minute. And so I think the thing to suede your concerns there is what is land value tax? It's property tax without a tax on buildings. Yep. So the natural path to actually getting land value tax comes from reforming existing property tax regimes by reducing an entire category of taxation, which is the tax on buildings. And so that's what I think is the most plausible way to get a land value tax, like in Texas here, if we were to start by just capture the same, like what I actually proposed for our first step is not 100% land value tax federally. I don't know, even know how you get to there. I think what you actually do is you start in places like Texas and like here, legalized split-rate property tax, thus, re-tax buildings and land at separate rates, set the rate on buildings to zero, collect the same dollar amount of taxes. Let's start there. There's proposals to do this in various cities around the nation right now. I think there's one in Virginia. There's a proposal to do in Detroit. I think there's some talk of it in Pennsylvania and some places. And I'd like to see those experiments run and observe what happens there. I think we should do it in Texas. And that would be something that I think would be very friendly to the libertarian mindset, because very clearly we're no new revenue, right? And we're exempting an entire category of taxation. Most people are gonna see savings on their tax bill and the people who own those parking lots downtown in Houston are gonna be paying most of the bill. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:53:14: Yeah, by the way, what do you make of, is there a good, Georgist's critique of government itself? In a sense that government is basically the original land squatter and it's basically charging the rest of us rents or staying on rent that. It's neither productively improving. As much as at least it's getting rents or must work. Like if you think about, even your landlord usually is not charging you 40%, which is what the income tax rate is in America, right? And it's like almost, you can view the land lord of America. Lars Doucet - 00:53:46: Well, I mean, it's like, I mean, if you wanna take the full, like if you're asking is Georgism compatible with full anarcho capitalist libertarianism, probably not 100%, I think we can have a little government as a treat. But I think it's not a coincidence that if you look throughout America's founding, I don't think it's a coincidence that originally, like people talk about it's like, oh, it used to be only white men who could vote. White land-owning men could vote. Like a government by the landowners for the landowners of the landowners, right? And that's very much kind of the traditional English system of government, just neo-feudalism, right? And so I think Georgism certainly has a critique of that, that it's like government is often instituted to protect the interests of landowners. But what's interesting is that if you look throughout history, I'm very much a fan of democracy, rule of the people. And it's like, I think we, you know, I kind of sympathize with Milton Friedman here, where he's like, you know, he might want to have less government than we have now, but he doesn't believe we can have no government. And then he goes on to endorse, you know, the land value taxes, the least worse tax, because income tax especially, I feel like is a gateway drug to the surveillance state, you know, one of the advantages of land value taxes you don't even care necessarily who owns the land. You're just like, hey, 4732 Apple Street, make sure the check shows up in the mail. I don't care how many shell companies in the Bahamas, you've like obscured your identity with, just put the check in the mail, Mr. Address, you know, whereas the income tax needs to do this full anal probe on everyone in the country, and then audits the poor at a higher rate than the rich, and it's just this horrible burden we have, and then it'll, it gives the government this kind of presumed right to know what you're doing about everything you're doing in this massive invasion of privacy.Dwarkesh Patel - 00:55:42: Yeah, no, that's fascinating. I speak to you, I have shell companies in the Bahamas, by the way. Yes. There's an interesting speculation about what would happen if crypto really managed to divorce and private, I guess, make private your log of transactions or whatever. And then, I guess the idea is the only legible thing left to the government is land, right? So it would like force the government to institute a land value tax, because like you can't tax income or capital gains anymore, that's all on like the blockchain and the right, right? It's cured in some way. And yeah, yeah, so that, I mean, it's like crypto the gateway drug to George's own, because it'll just move income and capital to the other realm. Lars Doucet - 00:56:20: Yeah, it's just so weird. I've gone on record as being a pretty big crypto skeptic. But I have noticed a lot of crypto people get into Georgism home. I mean, not the least of which is Vitalik Buterin and you endorse my book, who's a huge fan of Georgism home. It's like, I'll take fans from anywhere, even from people I've had sparring contests with. I'm generally pretty skeptical that crypto can fulfill all its promises. I am excited by those promises, and if they can prove me wrong, that would be great. And I think there's some logic to what you're saying is that if we literally couldn't track transactions, then I mean, I guess we don't have much the tracks accept land. I don't think that'll actually come to pass just based off of recent events. You know, and that's basically my position on it. But I have noticed a lot of crypto people, just they're some of the easiest people to convince about George's home, which was completely surprising to me. But I've learned a lot by talking to them. It's very interesting and weird. Yeah, yeah. Dwarkesh Patel - 00:57:16: So there was some other interesting questions from Twitter. Ramon Dario Iglesias asks, how do you transition from a world today where many Americans have homes where it really starts sparring to have homes to a world where, I mean, obviously, it would be like a different regime. They might still have homes, but who knows? Like, their property will be just be like, think I thought I'm going to complete a different way. How do you transition to that? Like, what would that transition look like for most Americans? Lars Doucet - 00

The Federal Reserve in America came out late last week and said they would aggressively use interest rates to try and get on top of inflation. Since then stocks have been all over the place - Wall Street and the Dow Jones have gone south - and in the space of a couple of trading days US markets closed down around 4%. Why does this matter? Because America is the world's biggest economy and all of us, virtually every country, follows behind. Dominic Chu is a senior markets correspondent with CNBC.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why we may need to think about things we can make once this Shit Show called America's Economic System collapses. Because America has outsourced everything we might ever have needed, I feel that this is a great time to re-imagine our Manufacturing and Industrial Paradigms.

Why we may need to think about things we can make once this Shit Show called America's Economic System collapses. Because America has outsourced everything we might ever have needed, I feel that this is a great time to re-imagine our Manufacturing and Industrial Paradigms. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/contra-radio-network/support

Why we may need to think about things we can make once this Shit Show called America's Economic System collapses. Because America has outsourced everything we might ever have needed, I feel that this is a great time to re-imagine our Manufacturing and Industrial Paradigms. Video Version on PrepperGuy.com

Featured on https://howdoihomeschool.com "There are so many homeschooling programs on the market today! Every website recommends its favorite. So, how do you know a top-rated popular homeschool curriculum when you see it? Sometimes a recommendation from a friend is helpful, but their experience with a curriculum might be narrow. You can also look at websites that tell you what curricula they think are best. But, I think a more accurate way to check out the top homeschooling curriculum programs today is to look at their search volume. It's not fool-proof, but it gives you an idea of what's out there. I do this by listing the most googled curriculum terms and then recording the search volume in America per month. Then, if relevant, I've added the second most relevant googled term related to home education programs in brackets." Because America has the highest number of homeschoolers, we use American statistics. However, readers should be aware that different countries favor different homeschooling curricula in differing volumes.Learn more at Waldorfessentials.com

Live from the No Panic Zone—I'm Steve Gruber—I am America's Voice—God Bless America—God Bless You and let's do this! This is the Steve Gruber show— I am just an overgrown Zygote in search of humanity and leadership in a nation—that seems desperately in need of both—   Here are three big things you need to know right now—   ONE— General Motors is recalling hundreds of thousands of SUV's for repairs but the problem is—they don't have the parts to get them fixed—so that's a problem—   TWO— In San Francisco the woke crowd that claimed to need school funding to fight Covid—instead spent a half million dollars—to paint over a mural of George Washington—who is clearly too much for their weak hearts to handle— THREE— The Biden Crash is here—and it happened just as I told you it would—with the Presidents approval rating in a brand new national poll falling below 30%-- And the reason for the crash is very simple—Joe Biden's political vision is about as sharp as the vision of any 79-year old man—and as you can imagine—that's not too good—and in Joe's case—well it's far below average—he needs to get his political eyes checked— Joe Biden has never had good political instincts—nor has he been very smart—but he was a good choice for those that wanted to call the shots—I cannot even fathom how he was ever elected to any office—let alone the US Senate— But for those that wanted an easy target to manipulate—he was the man of their dreams—compromised in a variety of ways—BUT we will get to that another day soon— First the reality on the ground in the summer of 2022 in the most important nation in world history— The latest poll released on Monday by Civiqs, a left leaning liberal polling company—shows Joe Biden with a paltry 29% approval rating and a 58% disapproval rating—for an incredible 29 point deficit—a brand new New York Times poll—has Old Joe at 33% approve and 60% disapprove—a gap of just 27 points—and the Democrats are actually thinking they can win in this environment?  Spoiler alert: they can't! And they won't! In fact, more races are being put into the toss up category daily—and its not just that the left and socialism will lose in a remarkable landslide defeat—it will be the worst defeat for a party in power in a midterm election ever—it will restore America to the nation it was before the Great Depression and the Great Socialist takeover began led by the legendary leftist Franklin Roosevelt—a President who dismissed precedent—dared to threaten the Supreme Court in an unprecedented way to get his way—remember a switch in time saves 9— Yeah—todays leftists aren't the first to threaten packing the court to ram through their radical agenda—BUT they will be the last—Because America is all done with their insane demands—and foolish pursuits—like destroying American Energy—opening the border and flooding trillions into the economy—any of which could have been extremely dangerous BUT taken together could be lethal this experiment in self government— BUT the Supreme Court this past term—began to reclaim the Republic as it was intended—and the rejection of these demonstrably stupid ideas at the polls in November—will send this new Democrat Socialist Frankenstein—back to the failed political laboratories in which the monster was created— We don't care about the community organizers—or the teachers lounges—or the union bosses getting fat off the backs of the Middle Class—we are taking back America—and its at a point where you can feel it— The latest Civiqs Poll has Joe Biden all the way down at 29% and there is no recovery in sight— The assault on liberty that began when FDR took office in March of 1933 is over— The truth is—we all should have listened to Winston Churchill—but FDR—was much more enamored with Josef Stalin—and gave him half of Europe as a down payment on destroying America someday— And it almost worked—But for 2 men—Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump—they were the ones that stepped in at critical times—and bought us just enough time to right the ship and sail unapologetic into an American future— Far fetched? Prove me wrong- the fact is you cannot. FDR was weak on Russia and denied George Patton the chance to crush the whole RED Army in 1945—Truman blocked MacArthur from doing the same to Chinese Communist Party in 1953—well thankfully enough of us have read the Constitution, including 6 members of the Supreme Court and we are starting to correct decades of bad behavior on the inside— The Democrats or more accurately—the Communists parading as Democrats biggest mistake in 2020—is they got greedy—they over played their hand—and its all coming down now like the House of Cards I discussed here a couple of days ago— There is nothing that can save them now from their own bad deeds—from the choices they have made—and we will save this country together you and me— Will it be easy? No. Neither was the battle of Lexington or Concord—the days in July at Gettysburg—or the beaches of Normandy—BUT America prevailed—because we always do—we will shed the shackles of socialism before they can handcuff us—and we will prevail—trust me—we've got this— for a whole host of reasons—and NUMBER ONE IS FREEDOM

With the help of cryptids let's make geography fun! Because America is full of them and there's nowhere to run! Every state out there has its own monster! You cannot escape them, so don't even bother! ... Also... Go Follow Christina on Instagram @thecrescenthare Follow Christina's new project: The Celestial Alien Oracle Deck, on Instagram @celestialalienoracle ...or on Kickstarter at: www.kickstarter.com/projects/thecrescenthare/the-celestial-alien-oracle-deck ====================== Send us suggestions and comments to tracingowlspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram @tracingowls Intro sampled from "Something strange lurks in the shadows" by Francisco Sánchez (@fanchisanchez) Outro sampled from "Sequence (Mystery and Terror) 3" by Francisco Sánchez (@fanchisanchez) at pixabay.com Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com

Episode Notes:This episode's guest is David Rennie, the Beijing bureau chief for The Economist and author of the weekly Chaguan column. Our topic is online discourse, nationalism, the intensifying contest for global discourse power and US-China relations.Excerpts:I spoke to some very serious NGO people who've been in China a long time, Chinese and foreigners who said that this was the worst time for NGOs since 1989, and the kind of mentions of espionage and national security was a very serious thing. So then I had to make a decision, was I going to try and speak to someone like Sai Lei. Clearly he is an extremely aggressive nationalist, some would call him a troll and there are risks involved in talking to someone like him. But I felt, I'm one of the few English language media still in China, if I'm going to add value, I need to speak to these people.I had a very interesting conversation with a CGTN commentator…He said, I can't tell you how many Western diplomats, or Western journalists they whine. And they moan. And they say, how aggressive China is now and how upset all this Wolf warrior stuff is and how China is doing itself damage. And he goes, we're not, it's working. You in the Western media, used to routinely say that the national people's Congress was a rubber stamp parliament. And because we went after you again and again, you see news organizations no longer as quick to use that. Because we went after you calling us a dictatorship, you're now slower to use that term because we went after you about human rights and how it has different meanings in different countries. We think it's having an effect…One of the things I think is a value of being here is you have these conversations where the fact that we in the West think that China is inevitably making a mistake by being much more aggressive. I don't think that's how a big part of the machine here sees it. I think they think it worked….To simplify and exaggerate a bit, I think that China, and this is not just a guess, this is based on off the record conversations with some pretty senior Chinese figures, they believe that the Western world, but in particular, the United States is too ignorant and unimaginative and Western centric, and probably too racist to understand that China is going to succeed, that China is winning and that the West is in really decadent decline…I think that what they believe they are doing is delivering an educational dose of pain and I'm quoting a Chinese official with the word pain. And it is to shock us because we are too mule headed and thick to understand that China is winning and we are losing. And so they're going to keep delivering educational doses of pain until we get it…The fundamental message and I'm quoting a smart friend of mine in Beijing here is China's rise is inevitable. Resistance is futile…And if you accommodate us, we'll make it worth your while. It's the key message. And they think that some people are proving dimmer and slower and more reluctant to pick that message up and above all Americans and Anglo-Saxons.On US-China relations:The general trend of U.S. China relations. to be of optimistic about the trend of U.S. China relations I'd have to be more optimistic than I currently am about the state of U.S. Politics. And there's a kind of general observation, which is that I think that American democracy is in very bad shape right now. And I wish that some of the China hawks in Congress, particularly on the Republican side, who are also willing to imply, for example, that the 2020 election was stolen, that there was massive fraud every time they say that stuff, they're making an in-kind contribution to the budget of the Chinese propaganda department…You cannot be a patriotic American political leader and tell lies about the state of American democracy. And then say that you are concerned about China's rise…..their message about Joe Biden is that he is weak and old and lacks control of Congress. And that he is, this is from scholars rather than officials, I should say, but their view is, why would China spend political capital on the guy who's going to lose the next election?…The one thing that I will say about the U.S. China relationship, and I'm very, very pessimistic about the fact that the two sides, they don't share a vision of how this ends well.Links:China’s online nationalists turn paranoia into clickbait | The Economist 赛雷：我接受了英国《经济学人》采访，切身体验了深深的恶意 David Rennie on Twitter @DSORennieTranscript:You may notice a couple of choppy spots. We had some Beijing-VPN issues and so had to restart the discussion three times. Bill:Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the `Sinocism podcast. It's been a bit of a break, but we are back and we will continue going forward on a fairly regular schedule today. For the fourth episode, I'm really happy to be able to chat with David Rennie, the Beijing bureau chief for The Economist and author of the weekly Chaguan column. Our topic today is online discourse, nationalism, and the intensifying contest for global discourse power.Bill:I've long been a fan of David's work and the approximate cause for inviting him to join the podcast today was an article on the January 8th issue of The Economist on online nationalism. Welcome David.David:Hello.Bill:So just to start, could you tell us how you got to where you are today?David:I've been a foreign correspondent for frighteningly long time, 24 years. And it's my second China posting. I've been out there so long. I've done two Chinas, two Washingtons, five years in Brussels. I was here in the '90s and then I went off, spent a total of nine years in Washington, DC. And then I came back here in 2018 and I was asked to launch a new column about China called Chaguan, because previously I wrote our Lexington column and our Bagehot column about Britain and our Charlemagne column about Europe. They all have strange names, but that's what we do. And so this is my fourth column for The Economist.Bill:We last met, I think in 2018 in Beijing in what seems like before times in many ways at The Opposite House, I believe.David:And the days when we had visitors, people came from the outside world, all of those things.Bill:Yes. You are quite the survivor, as they say. Although there are advantages to not worry about walking outside and getting sick all the time. Although it's better here in DC now.David:It's a very safe bubble. It's a very large bubble, but it's a bubble.Bill:So let's talk about your article, the January 8th issue. It was titled “China's online nationalist turned paranoia into click bait”. And I thought it was a very good distillation of the surge in nationalists and anti foreign content that is really flooding or was flooded the internet in China. And you interviewed one of the people who's profiting from it because it turns out that not only is it good from a sort of a sentiment perspective, but it's also good from a business perspective.Bill:And that person Sai Lei, interestingly enough, then recorded your conversation and turned it into a whole new post and video about the whole experience of talking to a foreign correspondent. Can you tell us a little about the story and why you chose to write it and just to add the links to David's article and the Sai Lei article will be in the podcast notes.David:So I heard from friends and colleagues, a couple of things in two directions. One was that in the world of private sector media, a couple of reasonably well known explainer sites, popular science video companies had been taken out of business by nationalist attacks. One was called Paperclip, the other called Elephant Union. And their crime in the eyes of online nationalists had been to talk about things which are fairly uncontroversial in Western media, that eating beef from the Amazon or eating beef that is fed soy grown in the Amazon is potentially bad for the rainforest and maybe we should eat less meat.David:But because this was in the Chinese context, that China is the biggest buyer of soybeans, this explainer video was attacked as a plot to deny the Chinese people the protein that they need to be strong, that this was a race traitor attack on the Chinese. And it was outrageous because the West eats so much more meat than China. And so that was one element of it. And I heard that these companies had been shut down. The other was that I'd been picking up that this was an extremely bad time for NGOs, particularly Chinese NGOs that get money from overseas. And we'd seen some really nasty attacks, not just on the idea that they were getting money from overseas, but that they were somehow guilty of espionage.David:And there was an NGO that did incredibly benign work. Tracking maritime and Marine trash, as it floats around the coasts of China based in Shanghai, Rendu Ocean. I'd done a column on them the year before I'd been out with their volunteers. It was a bunch of pensioners and retirees and school kids picking up styrofoam and trash off beaches, weighing it, tracking where it came from and then uploading this data to try and track the fact that China is a big generator of the plastic and other trash in the oceans. They were accused of espionage and taking foreign money to track ocean currents that would help foreign militaries, attack China, that they were guilty of grave national security crimes.David:And they were attacked in a press conference, including at the national defense ministry. And they're basically now in a world of pain. They're still just about clinging on. And so these two things, you have these NGOs under really serious attack, and you also have this attack on online explainer videos. The common theme was that the nationalist attack, they were somehow portraying the country and its national security was a weird combination of not just the security forces, but also private sector, Chinese online nationalists. And in particularly I was told there was a guy called Sai Lei. That's his non to plume who was one of the people making videos taking on these people. He went after celebrities who talked about China should be more careful about eating seafood.David:This was again, sort of race traitors. And he was using this really horrible language about these celebrities who talked about eating more sustainable seafood that they were ‘er guizi”, which is this time about the collaborationist police officers who worked with the Japanese during the World War II. He calls them Hanjian, the s-called traitors to the Chinese race. Very, very loaded language. Went after a group that’s working with Africans down in the south of China, talking about how they faced discrimination. This got them attacked. They had talked also about the role of Chinese merchants in the illegal ivory trade that got them attacked by the nationalists.David:So I thought this question of whether the government is behind this or whether this is a private sector attack on that. There's the profits to be made from this online nationalism struck me something I should write about. So I talked to some of the people whose organizations and companies had been taken down, they were very clear that they thought that was a unholy nexus of profit, clickbait and things like the communist youth league really liking the way that they can turbocharge some of these attacks-Bill:Especially on bilibili, they use that a lot.David:Especially on... Yeah. And so there's this weird sort of sense that, and I spoke to some very serious NGO people who've been in China a long time, Chinese and foreigners who said that this was the worst time for NGOs since 1989, and the kind of mentions of espionage and national security was a very serious thing. So then I had to make a decision, was I going to try and speak to someone like Sai Lei. Clearly he is an extremely aggressive nationalist, some would call him a troll and there are risks involved in talking to someone like him. But I felt, I'm one of the few English language media still in China, if I'm going to add value, I need to speak to these people.David:Yes. And so I reached out to the founder of a big, well known nationalist website who I happen to know. And I said, do you know this guy Sai Lei? And he said, I do, I'll get in touch with him. Sai Lei was very, very anxious about speaking to the Western media. Thought I was going to misquote him. And so eventually we did this deal that he was going to record the whole thing. And that if he thought I had misquoted him, that he was going to run the entire transcript on full on this other very well known nationalist website that had made the introduction. So I said, okay, fine. I have nothing to hide. That's all good. I wrote the column. I quoted Sai Lei. I didn't quote a tremendous amount of Sai Lei because what he said was not especially revealing.David:He was just an extremely paranoid guy. And there was a lot of whataboutism and he was saying, well, how would the American public react if they were told that what they eat damages the Amazon rainforest? And I said, well, they're told that all the time-Bill:All the time.David:It was an incredibly familiar argument. It's on the front page of America newspapers all the time. And so he wasn't willing to engage. And so, I ran this. He then put out this attack on me. It's fair. Look, I make a living handing out my opinions. I knew he was recording me, was it a bit disappointing that he cut and edited it to make me sound as bad as possible rather than running the full transcript. I mean, I interviewed a troll and that was the thing. He attacked me on the basis of my family, which then triggered a whole bunch of stuff that was pretty familiar to me, a lot of wet and journalists get a lot of attacks and it was an unpleasant experience, but I feel that the added value of being here is to talk to people, who The Economist does not agree with.David:And his fundamental problem was that I was using online as a disapproving time. But my line with people like him, or with some of the very prominent nationalists online academics, media entrepreneurs, also with the Chinese foreign ministry, when I'm called in is my job in China is to try to explain how China sees the world. To speak to people in China to let their voices be heard in The Economist. And I absolutely undertake to try and reflect their views faithfully, but I do not promise to agree with them, because The Economist does not hide the fact that we are a Western liberal newspaper. We're not anti-China, we are liberal. And so, if we see illiberall things happening in Abu Ghraib or in Guantanamo Bay or-Bill:DC.David:Being done by Donald Trump or being done by Boris Johnson or Brexit, or Viktor Orbán or in China, we will criticize them because we are what we say we are. We are a liberal newspaper. We have been since 1843. And what's interesting is that online, the reaction was... For a while, I was trending on Bilibili. And that was new. And I take that on the chin. I mean, I'm here, I'm attacking nationalists. They're going to attack back. I think what's interesting is that the online of nationalist attacks were, I hope that the ministry of state security arrest this guy, he should be thrown out of China. Why is he in China? They should be expelled. This guy has no right to be in China.David:I think that at some level, some parts of the central government machinery do still see a value to having newspapers like The Economist, reasonably well read Western media in China. And it's this conversation I've had a lot with the foreign ministry, with the State Council Information Office, which is as you know, it's the front name plate for the propaganda bureau. And I say to them, we are liberals.David:We are not anti-China any more than we're anti-American because we criticize Donald Trump, but you know where we're coming from, but I do believe that if China is concerned about how it's covered, if they throw all of us out, they're not going to get better coverage. I mean, some of the most aggressive coverage about China in the states comes from journalists who never go to China and economists who never go to China. And I think that, that argument resonates with some parts of the machine, to the people whose job is to deal with people like me.David:What I worry about is that there are other parts of the machine, whether it's the Communist Youth League or whether it's the ministry of state security or some other elements in the machine who do also see a tremendous value in delegitimizing Western media full stop, because if you're being criticized and you don't enjoy it. Tactic number one, whether you are Donald Trump talking about fake news, or Vladimir Putin talking about hostile foreign forces, or the Chinese is to delegitimize your critics.David:And I do think that that is going on in a way that in the four years that I've been here this time. And if, I think back to my time here 20 years ago, I do think the attempts to go after and intimidate and delegitimize the Western media they're getting more aggressive and they're trying new tactics, which are pretty concerning.Bill:So that's a great segue into the next question. But first, I just want to ask the nationalist website that you said ran Sai Lei's piece that was Guancha.cn?David:Yeah. And so it's probably not secret, but so I know a bit, Eric Li, Li Shimo, the co-founder Guancha.Bill:Eric actually famous for his TED Talk, went to Stanford business school, venture capitalist. And now, I guess he's affiliated with Fudan, And is quite an active funder of all sorts of online discourse it seems among other things.David:That's right. And I would point out that The Economist, we have this by invitation online debate platform and we invite people to contribute. And we did in fact, run a piece by Eric Li, the co-founder of Guancha, the nationalist website a couple of weeks before this attack, that Guancha ran. And I actually had debate with some colleagues about this, about whether as liberals, we're the suckers that allow people who attack us to write, he wrote a very cogent, but fairly familiar argument about the performance legitimacy, the communist party and how that was superior to Western liberal democracy.David:And I think that it's the price of being a liberal newspaper. If we take that seriously, then we occasionally have to give a platform to people who will then turn around and attack us. And if I'm going to live in China and not see of my family for a very long period of time, and it's a privilege to live in China, but there are costs. If you are an expert, then I'm not ready to give up on the idea of talking to people who we strongly disagree with. If I'm going to commit to living here to me the only reason to do that is so you talk to people, not just liberals who we agree with, but people who strongly disagree with us.Bill:No. And I think that's right. And I think that also ties in for many years, predating Xi Jinping there's been this long stated goal for China to increase its global discourse power as they call it. And to spread more the tell the truth, tell the real story, spread more positive energy about China globally instead of having foreign and especially Western, or I think, and this ties into some of the national stuff increasing what we hear is called the Anglo-Saxons media dominate the global discourse about China. And to be fair, China has a point. I mean, there should be more Chinese voices talking about China globally.Bill:That's not an unreasonable desire, or request from a country as big and powerful as China is. One thing that seems like a problem is on the one hand you've got, the policy makers are pushing to improve and better control discourse about China globally. At the same time, they're increasing their control over the domestic discourse inside the PRC about the rest of the world. And so in some ways, yes, there's an imbalance globally, but there's also a massive imbalance domestically, which seems to fit into what you just went through with Sai Lei and where the trends are. I don't know. I mean, how does China tell a more convincing story to the world in a way that isn't just a constant struggle to use the term they actually use, but more of an actual fact based honest discussion, or is that something that we're just not going to see anytime soon?David:I think there's a couple of elements to that. I mean, you are absolutely right that China like any country has the right to want to draw the attention of the world to stuff that China does. That's impressive. And I do think, one of my arguments when I talk to Chinese officials as to why they should keep giving out visas to people like me is, when I think back to the beginning of the COVID pandemic, I've not left China for more than two years. I've not left since the pandemic began, you had a lot of media writing that this incredibly ferocious crackdown was going to be very unpopular with the Chinese public. And that's because of the very beginning you had people, there lots of stuff on Chinese social media, little videos of people being beaten up by some [inaudible 00:16:26] in a village or tied to a tree, or their doors being welded shot.David:And it did look unbelievably thuggish. And people playing Majiang being arrested. But actually about three weeks into the pandemic, and I was traveling outside Beijing and going to villages and then coming back and doing the quarantine, you'd go into these villages in the middle of Henan or Hunan. And you'd have the earth bomb at the entrance to the village and all the old guys in the red arm bands. And the pitchforks and the school desk, or the entrance to the village with a piece of paper, because you got to have paperwork as well. And you've realized that this incredibly strict grassroots control system that they'd put in motion, the grid management, the fact that the village loud speakers were back up and running and broadcasting propaganda was actually a source of comfort.David:That it gave people a sense that they could do something to keep this frightening disease at bay. And I think to me, that's an absolute example that it's in China's interest to have Western journalists in China because it was only being in China that made me realize that this strictness was actually welcomed by a lot of Chinese people. It made them feel safe and it made them feel that they were contributing to a national course by locking themselves indoors and obeying these sometimes very strange and arbitrary rules. In addition, I think you are absolutely right, China has the right to want the foreign media to report that stuff.David:Instead of looking at China through a Western lens and saying, this is draconian, this is ferocious, this is abuse of human rights. It's absolutely appropriate for China to say no, if you're doing your job properly, you will try and understand this place on China's own terms. You will allow Chinese voices into your reporting and let them tell the world that they're actually comforted by this extremely strict zero COVID policy, which is tremendously popular with the majority of the Chinese public. That is a completely legitimate ambition. And I never failed to take the chance to tell officials that's why they should give visas to have journalists in the country, because if you're not in the country, you can't think that stuff up.David:What I think is much more problematic is that there is alongside that legitimate desire to have China understood on China's own terms, there is a very conscious strategy underway, which is talked about by some of the academics at Fudan who work for Eric Li at Guancha as a discourse war, a narrative war, or to redefine certain key terms.Bill:And the term and the term is really is like struggle. I mean, they see it as a public opinion war globally. I mean, that the language is very martial in Chinese.David:Absolutely. Yeah. And do not say that we are not a democracy. If you say that we are not a democracy, you are ignoring our tremendous success in handling COVID. We are a whole society democracy, which it's basically a performance legitimacy argument, or a collective utilitarian, the maximizing the benefits for the largest number of argument. It's not particularly new, but the aggression with which it's being pushed is new and the extraordinary resources they put into going after Western media for the language that we use of our China. And I had a very interesting conversation with a CGTN commentator who attacked me online, on Twitter and said that I was a... It was sort of like you scratch an English when you'll find a drug dealer or a pirate.David:Now there's a lot of Opium War rhetoric around if you're a British journalist in China. You're never too far from Opium War reference. And for the record, I don't approve of the war, but it was also before my time. So I actually, the guy attacked me fairly aggressively on Twitter. So I said, can you try and be professional? I'm being professional here why won't you be professional. He invited me with coffee. So we had coffee. And we talked about his work for CGTN and for Chaguan and his view of his interactions to Western media. And he said, this very revealing thing. He said, the reason we do this stuff is because it works.David:He said, I can't tell you how many Western diplomats, or Western journalists they whine. And they moan. And they say, how aggressive China is now and how upset all this Wolf warrior stuff is and how China is doing itself damage. And he goes, we're not, it's working. You in the Western media, used to routinely say that the national people's Congress was a rubber stamp parliament. And because we went after you again and again, you see news organizations no longer as quick to use that. Because we went after you calling us a dictatorship, you're now slower to use that term because we went after you about human rights and how it has different meanings in different countries. We think it's having an effect.David:And so I think that this attempt to grind us down is working, although in their view, it's working. And I think that, that ties in with a broader conversation that I have a lot in Beijing with foreign ambassadors or foreign diplomats who they get called into the foreign ministry, treated politically aggressively and shouted at and humiliated. And they say, how does the Chinese side not see that this causes them problems? And I think that in this moment of, as you say, an era of struggle, this phrase that we see from speeches, from leaders, including Xi, about an era of change, not seen in 100 years.David:They really do feel that as the West, particularly America is in decline and as China is rising, that it's almost like there's a turbulence in the sky where these two the two axis are crossing. And that China has to just push through that turbulence. To use a story that I had kept secret for a long time, that I put in a column when Michael Kovrig was released. So, listeners will remember Michael Kovrig was one of the two Canadians who was held cover couple of years, basically as a hostage by the Chinese state security. And fairly early on, I had heard from some diplomats in Beijing from another Western embassy, not the UK, I should say, that the fact that Michael Kovrig in detention was being questioned, not just about his work for an NGO, the international crisis group that he was doing when he was picked up.David:But he was also being questioned about work he'd been doing for the Canadian embassy when he had diplomatic immunity. The fact that that was going on was frightening to Western diplomats in Beijing. And soon after that conversation, I was sitting there talking to this guy, reasonably senior official. And I said to him, I explained this conversation to him. And I said, I've just been having a conversation with these diplomats. And they said, the word that they used was frightened about what you are doing to Michael Kovrig. And I said, how does it help China to frighten people from that country?David:And he'd been pretty cheerful up till then. He switched to English so that he could be sure that I understood everything he wanted to say to me. And he said, this absolute glacial tone. He said, Canada needs to feel pain. So that the next time America asks an ally to help attack China, that ally will think twice. And that's it.Bill:That's it. And it probably works.David:It works. And yeah. So I think that, again, one of the things I think is a value of being here is you have these conversations where the fact that we in the West think that China is inevitably making a mistake by being much more aggressive. I don't think that's how a big part of the machine here sees it. I think they think it worked.Bill:No. I agree. And I'm not actually sure that they're making a mistake because if you look at so far, what have the cost been? As you said, I mean, behavior is shift, but I think it's definitely open for question. I mean, it's like the assumptions you still see this week, multiple columns about how China's COVID policy is inevitably going to fail. And I'm sitting here in DC, we're about to cross a million people dead in this country, and I'm thinking what's failure. It's a very interesting time.Bill:I mean, to that point about this attitude and the way that there seem to be prosecuting a very top down or top level design communication strategy, Zhang Weiwei, who's at Fudan University. And also I think Eric Li is a closer associate of his, he actually was the, discussant at a Politburo study session. One of the monthly study sessions a few months ago, where I think the theme was on improving international communication. And talking about, again, how to better tell China's story, how to increase the global discourse power.Bill:Some people saw that as, oh, they're going to be nicer because they want to have a more lovable China image. I’m very skeptical because I think that this more aggressive tone, the shorthand is “Wolf warriors. wolf-warriorism”, I think really that seems to me to be more of a fundamental tenant of Xi Jinping being thought on diplomacy, about how China communicates to the world. I mean, how do you see it and how does this get better, or does it not get better for a while?David:It's a really important question. So I think, what do they think they're up to? To simplify and exaggerate a bit, I think that China, and this is not just a guess, this is based on off the record conversations with some pretty senior Chinese figures, they believe that the Western world, but in particular, the United States is too ignorant and unimaginative and Western centric, and probably too racist to understand that China is going to succeed, that China is winning and that the West is in really decadent decline.David:And so I think that these aggressive acts like detaining the two Michaels or their diplomatic an economic coercion of countries like Australia or Lithuania. They hear all the Pearl clutching dismay from high officials in Brussels, or in Washington DC-Bill:And the op-eds in big papers about how awful this is and-David:And the op-eds and yeah, self-defeating, and all those things. But I think that what they believe they are doing is delivering an educational dose of pain and I'm quoting a Chinese official with the word pain. And it is to shock us because we are too mule headed and thick to understand that China is winning and we are losing. And so they're going to keep delivering educational doses of pain until we get it. I think they think that's what they're up to-Bill:And by getting it basically stepping a side in certain areas and letting the Chinese pursue some of their key goals, the core interests, whatever you want to call it, that we, yeah.David:That we accommodate. Yeah. The fundamental message I'm quoting a smart friend of mine in Beijing here is China's rise is inevitable. Resistance is futile.Bill:Right. Resistance is futile.David:And if you accommodate us, we'll make it worth your while. It's the key message. And they think that some people are proving dimer and slower and more reluctant to pick that message up and above all Americans and Anglo Saxons. And so they're giving us the touch, the whip. Now, do I think that, that is inevitably going to be great for them? And you ask how does this end well? I mean, I guess my reason for thinking that they may yet pay some price, not a total price, is that they are engaged in a giant experiment. The Chinese government and party are engaged in a giant experiment, that it didn't matter that much, that the Western world was permissive and open to engagement with China.David:That, That wasn't really integral to their economic rise for the last 40 years that China basically did it by itself. And that if the Western world becomes more suspicious and more hostile, that China will not pay a very substantial price because its market power and its own manufacturing, industrial strength, we'll push on through. And so there'll be a period of turbulence and then we'll realized that we have to accommodate. And I think that in many cases they will be right. There will be sectors where industries don't leave China. They in fact, double down and reinvest and we're seeing that right now, but I do worry that there are going to be real costs paid.David:I mean, when I think back to... I did a special report for The Economists in May, 2019 about us generations. And one of the parts of that was the extraordinary number of Chinese students in us colleges. And I went to the University of Iowa and I spoke to Chinese students and you know that now, the levels of nationalism and hostility on both sides and the fear in American campuses, that's a real cost. I mean, I think if you imagine China's relationship with the Western world, particularly the U.S. as a fork in the road with two forks, one total engagement, one total decoupling, then absolutely China is right. There's not going to be total decoupling because we are as dependent as we were on China's, it's just-Bill:Right. Not realistic.David:China is an enormous market and also the best place to get a lot of stuff made. But I wonder, and it's an image I've used in a column, I think. I think that the relationship is not a fork in the road with two forks. It's a tree with a million branches. And each of those branches is a decision. Does this Western university sign a partnership with that Chinese university? Does this Western company get bought by a Chinese company? Does the government approve of that? Does this Western media organization sign a partnership with a Chinese media organization?David:Does this Western country buy a 5g network or an airline or a data cloud service or autonomous vehicles from China that are products and services with very high value added where China wants to be a dominant player. And that's an entirely reasonable ambition, because China's a big high tech power now. But a lot of these very high value added services or these relationships between universities, or businesses, or governments in the absence of trust, they don't make a bunch of sense because if you don't trust the company, who's cloud is holding your data or the company who's made you the autonomous car, which is filled with microphones and sensors and knows where you were last night and what you said in your car last night, if you don't trust that company or the country that made that, none of that makes sense.David:And I think that China's willingness to show its teeth and to use economic coercion and to go to European governments and say, if you don't take a fine Chinese 5g network we're going to hurt you. If you boil that down to a bumper sticker, that's China saying to the world, or certainly to the Western world stay open to China, or China will hurt you. Trust China or China will hurt you. That's the core message for a lot of these Wolf warrior ambassadors. And that's the core message to people like me, a guy who writes a column living in Beijing. And a lot of the time China's market power will make that okay. But I think that's, if you look at that tree with a million decisions, maybe more of those than China was expecting will click from a yes to a no.David:If you're a Western university, do you now open that campus in Shanghai? Do you trust your local Chinese partner when they say that your academics are going to have freedom of speech? And what's heartbreaking about that is that the victims of that are not going to be the politic bureau it's going to be people on the ground, it's going to be researchers and students and consumers and-Bill:On both sides. I mean, that's-David:On both sides. Yeah.Bill:Yeah. That's the problem.David:Yeah.Bill:So that's uplifting. No, I mean, I-David:I've got worse.Bill:Wait until the next question. I think I really appreciate your time and it'd be respective but I just have two more questions. One is really about just being a foreign correspondent in China and the Foreign correspondents' Club of China put out its annual report, I think earlier this week. And it's depressing you read as it's been in years and every year is extremely depressing, but one of the backdrops is really the first foreign ministry press conference of the last year of 2021. It really struck me that Hua Chunying, who is... She's now I think assistant foreign minister, vice foreign minister at the time, she was the head of the information office in I think the one of the spokespeople, she made a statement about how it was kicking off the 100th anniversary year.Bill:And I'm just going to read her couple sentences to get a sense of the language. So she said, and this was on the, I think it was January 4th, 2021, "In the 1930s and 1940s when the Guangdong government sealed off Yunnan and spared, no efforts to demonize the CPC foreign journalists like Americans, Edgar Snow, Anna Louise Strong and Agnes Smedley, curious about who and what the CPC is, chose to blend in with the CPC members in Yunnan and wrote many objective reports as well as works like the famous Red star over China, giving the world, the first clip of the CPC and its endeavor in uniting and leading the Chinese people in pursuing national independence and liberation."Bill:And then went on with more stuff about how basically wanting foreign correspondents to be like Snow, Strong or Smedley. How did that go over? And I mean, is that just part of the, your welcome as long as you're telling the right story message?David:So there was a certain amount of... Yeah. I mean, we also got this from our handlers at the MFA, why couldn't it be more like Edgar Snow? And I fear the first time I had that line in the meeting, I was like, well, he was a communist, if that's the bar, then I'm probably going to meet that one. Edgar Snow went to Yan’an he spent a tremendous amount of time in Mao hours interviewing Mao. If Xi Jinping wants to let me interview him for hours, I'd be up for that. But I would point out that Edgar Snow, after interviewing Mao for hours, then handed the transcripts over to Mao and had them edited and then handed back to him. And that probably would not be-Bill:But doesn't work at The Economist.David:That wouldn't fly with my editors. No. So I think we may have an inseparable problem there. Look, isn't it the phrase that Trump people used to talk about working the refs? I mean, what government doesn't want to work the refs. So, that's part of it. And I'm a big boy, I've been at Trump rallies and had people scream at me and tell me, I'm fake news. And it was still a good thing to meet. I've interviewed Afghan warlords who had happily killed me, but at that precise moment, they wanted the Americans to drop a bomb on the mountain opposite.David:And so they were willing to have me in their encampment. So, the worker of being a journalist, you need to go and talk to people who don't necessarily agree with you or like you and that's the deal. So I'm not particularly upset by that. What is worrying and I think this is shown in the FCC annual server, which is based on asking journalists in China how their job goes at the moment is there is a sense that the Chinese machine and in particular things like the communist youth league have been very effective at whipping up low public opinion.David:So when we saw the floods in Hunan Province in the summer of 2021, where in fact, we recently just found out that central government punished a whole bunch of officials who had covered up the death doll there, journalists who went down there to report this perfectly legitimate, large news story, the communist youth league among other organizations put out notices on their social media feeds telling people they're a hostile foreign journalists trying to make China look bad, to not talk to them, if you see them, tell us where they are. And you've got these very angry crowds chasing journalists around Hunan in a fairly worry way.David:And again, if you're a foreign correspondent in another country, we are guests in China. So, the Chinese people, they don't have to love me. I hope that they will answer my questions, because I think I'm trying to report this place fairly, but I'm not demanding red carpet treatment, but there is a sense that the very powerful propaganda machine here is whipping up very deliberately something that goes beyond just be careful about talking to foreign journalists. And I think in particular, one thing that I should say is that as a middle aged English guy with gray hair, I still have an easier time of it by far because some of the nastiest attacks, including from  the nastiest online nationalist trolls.David:They're not just nationalists, but they're also sexist and chauvinist and the people who I think really deserve far more sympathy than some like me is Chinese American, or Chinese Australian, or Chinese Canadian journalists, particularly young women journalists.Bill:I know Emily Feng at NPR was just the subject of a really nasty spate of attacks online about some of her reporting.David:And it's not just Emily, there's a whole-Bill:Right. There's a whole bunch.David:There's a whole bunch of them. And they get called you know er guizi all sorts of [crosstalk 00:37:15]. And this idea and all this horrible stuff about being race traitors and again, one of the conversations I've had with Chinese officials is, if you keep this up, someone is going to get physically hurt. And I don't think that's what you want. David:And again, I fall back on the fact that I'm a Western liberal. What I say to them is if you tell me that a Chinese-British journalist is not as British as me, then you are to my mind, that's racial prejudice. And if some right wing Western white politician said to me that a Chinese immigrant wasn't fully American, or wasn't fully British, that's racism, right?Bill:That's racism. Yeah.David:And I think that is the really troubling element to this level of nationalism. China is a very big country that does some very impressive things that does some less impressive things and does some very wicked things, but we have every reason to give it credit for the things it does well. And it is not that surprising when any government tries to work the refs.David:And get the best coverage they can by intimidating us and calling us out. I've interviewed Donald Trump and he asked me, when are you going to write something nice about me? I mean, we're grownups, this is how it works, but if they are making it toxic for young women journalists to work in China, or if they are driving foreign correspondent out of China, because their families they're under such intimidation that they can't even go on holiday without their children being followed around by secret police. I think there will be a cost.Bill:But that may be a what the Chinese side sees as a benefit, because then it opens the field for them controlling how the story's told. And then you can bring in a bunch of people or pull a bunch of people out of the foreigners working for state media, hey, the new Edgar Snow, the new Agnes Smedley. I mean, that is one of the things that I think potentially is what they're trying to do, which seems self-defeating, but as we've been discussing, what we think is self-defeating the policy makers, or some of them may see as a success.David:So what I think they're confident of is that being aggressive and making us much more jumpy is a win, but throwing all of us out, I think the people at the top get that, that's not a win because the New York times and the BBC and the Washington post, they're still going to cover China, even if they can't have people in China. And a bunch of that coverage is not going to be stuff that China likes, North Korea doesn't have any resident foreign correspondent, but it doesn't get a great press.Bill:And the other group, of course, but beyond the foreign journalists is all the PRC national journalists working for the foreign correspondent as researchers and, I mean, many of them journalists in all but name because they can't legally be that I've certainly, been hearing some pretty distressing stories about how much pressure they're under. And I think they're in almost an impossible situation it seems like right now.David:Now they're amazingly brave people. They're completely integral to our coverage. And many of them, as you say, they're journalists who in any other country, we would be getting to write stuff with their own bylines. I mean, in incredibly cautious about what we have our Chinese colleagues do now, because they are under tremendous pressure. I mean, not naming news organizations, but the just the level of harassment of them and their families and is really bad. And it's the most cynical attempt to make it difficult for us to do our jobs and to divide Chinese people from the Western media.David:But fundamentally at some level, this does not end well because, and this is not me just talking up the role of the Western media, because I think we're magnificently important people, but at some level there's a big problem under way with this level of nationalism in modern China. I was in China in the '90s, you were in China in the '90s, I think. We remember it was-Bill:'80s, '90s, 2000s. Yeah.David:Yeah. You were there before me, but it was not a Jeffersonian democracy. It was a dictatorship, but this level of nationalism is much more serious now. Why does that matter? Well, because I think that for a lot of particularly young Chinese, the gap between their self perception and the outside world's perception of China has become unbearably wide. They think this country has never been so impressive and admirable. And yet I keep seeing foreign media questioning us and criticizing us. And that just enrages them. They can't conceive of any sincere principle on our part that would make us criticize China that way.David:And going back to my conversation with the online nationalist Sai Lei, when he was saying, well, how would the Americans take it if they were told that eating avocados was bad for the environment? When I said to him, but they are told that. There are lots of environmental NGOs that talk about sustainable fisheries, or the cost, the carbon footprint of crops and things in the West. The two countries are pulling apart and the pandemic has just accelerated that process. And so if you are a Chinese nationalist, not only are you angry about being criticized, but you don't believe that the West is ever critical about itself. You think that the West is only bent on criticizing China. And that gap in perceptions is just really dangerously wide.Bill:And widening, it seems like. I mean, I'm not there now, but it certainly, from everything I can see outside of China, it feels like that's what's happening too.David:Yeah. We need to know more about China.Bill:I agree.David:And report more about China. And I don't just say that because that's how I earn my living. I think it's really, really dangerous for us to think that the solution is less reporting about China.Bill:Well, and certainly, I mean, and all sorts of avenues, not just media, but all sorts of avenues, we're seeing a constriction of information getting out of China. And on the one hand China's growing in importance globally and power globally. And on the other hand, our ability to understand the place seems to be getting harder. And it goes back to, I mean, we just, I think it'll be a mistake if we just get forced into accepting the official version of what China is. That's disseminated through the officially allowed and sanctioned outlets in China. Maybe that'll help China, but I'm not sure it helps the rest of the world.David:And it's not compatible with China's ambitions to be a high tech superpower. China wants to be a country that doesn't just-Bill:That's a very fundamental contradiction.David:Yeah. China wants to sell us vaccines and wants the Western world to buy Chinese vaccines and approve Chinese vaccines. Why has the FDA not yet approved Chinese vaccines? Well, one reason is because China hasn't released the data. You can't play this secretive defensive hermit state and be a global high tech superpower. And China is a very, very big country with a lot of good universities, a lot of smart people. It has every right to compete at the highest levels in global high tech. But you can't do that, if you are not willing to earn trust by sharing the data, or by letting your companies be audited, when they list overseas. They need to decide.Bill:Or being able to handle legitimate criticism. I mean, certainly there has been illegitimate criticism and the attacks on the Western media, I mean, I know the BBC was a frequent target last year. And I think they were able to pull out some errors of the reporting and then magnify it. I mean, it is a struggle. And I think one of the things I think is on the Chinese side, they're very much geared up for this ongoing global opinion struggle. And we're not and we're never going to be, because it's just not how our systems are structured. So it's going to be an interesting few years.David:It is. And it's a tremendous privilege to still be here. And as long as I'm allowed, I'm going to keep letting Chinese people, letting their voices be heard in my column. That's what I think I'm here for.Bill:Okay. Last question. Just given your experience in living in DC and writing for The Economist from here, where do you see us, China relations going? And there is a one direct connection to what we just talked about, the foreign journalists where there theoretically has been some sort of an improvement or a deal around allowing more journalists from each side to go to other country. Although what I've heard is that the Chinese side was been very clear that some of the folks who were forced to leave or were experienced are not going to be welcome back. It's going to have to be a whole new crop of people who go in for these places, which again, seems to be, we don't want people who have priors or longer time on the ground, potentially.David:We think that each of the big American news organizations just going to get at least one visa, initially. And that Is going to be this deal done and it's high time. And you're right, as far as we can tell the people who were expelled or forced to leave are not going to come back. And that's a real tragedy because I have Chinese officials say to me, we wish that the Western media sent people who speak good Chinese and who understand China. And I was like Ian Johnson and Chris Buckley, these people lived for, their depth of knowledge and their love for China was absolutely unrivaled. So, if you're going to throw those people out, you can't complain about journalists who don't like China.Bill:Exactly.David:The general trend of U.S. China relations. to be of optimistic about the trend of U.S. China relations I'd have to be more optimistic than I currently am about the state of U.S. Politics. And there's a kind of general observation, which is that I think that American democracy is in very bad shape right now. And I wish that some of the China hawks in Congress, particularly on the Republican side, who are also willing to imply, for example, that the 2020 election was stolen, that there was massive fraud every time they say that stuff, they're making an in-kind contribution to the budget of the Chinese propaganda department.Bill:I agree completely there. It's not a joke because it's too serious, but it's just ludicrous, hypocrisy and shortsightedness. It's disgusting.David:You cannot be a patriotic American political leader and tell lies about the state of American democracy. And then say that you are concerned about China's rise. So there's a general observation about, if dysfunction continues at this level, then-Bill:No wonder the Chinese are so confident.David:Yeah. I mean, the Chinese line on president Biden is interesting. One of the big things about my first couple of years here when president Trump was still in office was, I'd any number of people in the states saying confidently that Donald Trump was a tremendous China hawk. I never believed. And I've interviewed Trump a few times and spoken to him about China and spoken to his China people. I never believed that Donald Trump himself was a China hawk. If you define a China hawk, as someone who has principled objections to the way that China runs itself. I think that Donald Trump couldn't care less about the Uighurs and Xinjiang. In fact, we know he approved to what they were doing.David:Couldn't care less about Hong Kong couldn't care less frankly, about Taiwan. His objection to the China relationship was that I think he thinks the American economy is the big piece of real estate, and you should pay rent to access it. And he thought China wasn't paying enough rent. So he was having a rent review. I mean, that's what the guy. It was about, they needed to pay more and then he was going to be happy. So he was not a China hawk. What was really interesting was that here in China, officials would be pretty open by the end, took them time to get their heads around Trump. For a long time they thought he was New York business guy. Then they realized that was, he wasn't actually like the other New York business guy they knew.David:And then they thought he was like a super China hawk. And then they realized that that wasn't true. By the end, they had a nail. They thought he was a very transactional guy. And the deal that they could do with him was one that they were happy to do, because it didn't really involve structural change on the Chinese side. Then their message about Joe Biden is that he is weak and old and lacks control of Congress. And that he is, this is from scholars rather than officials, I should say, but their view is, why would China spend political capital on the guy who's going to lose the next election?Bill:And not only the next election but is probably going to lose control of the House, at least in nine, what is it? Nine months or 10 months. So why worry? And that they do and I think, I mean, one of the big milestones will be the national security strategy, the national defense strategy, which in the Trump administration they came out in the December of the first year and then January for the NDS. It's February, we still haven't seen those here. I think certainly as you said, but certainly from Chinese interlock is the sense of, is that they can't come to an agreement on what it should be, the U.S. China policy.David:Yeah. And China has some legitimate concerns. I mean, for example, if you are Xi Jinping and you're trying to work out how ambitious your climate change timetables going to be. How much pain are you going to ask co-producing provinces in the Northeast to take to get out to carbon neutrality as quickly as say, the Europeans are pushing you to do. And part of the equation is America going to take some pain too, or are we going to end up being uncompetitive? Because America's not actually going to do the right thing? Well, Joe Biden can talk a good game on climate as an area for cooperation with China. But if he loses the next election and Donald Trump or someone like Donald Trump wins the White House then if you're shooting pink, why would you kind of strike a painful deal with America if you don't think it's going to last beyond 2024?Bill:Right. You'll do what makes sense for your country and not offer anything up to America because we already have a record of backing out of these deals. That's the problem.David:So that has real world consequences. The one thing that I will say about the U.S. China relationship, and I'm very, very pessimistic about the fact that the two sides, they don't share a vision of how this ends well. There is no end game that I think makes both sides happy, because I think the Chinese vision is America sucks it up and accommodates.Bill:Right. Resistance is futile.David:Yeah, exactly. And the American vision, I think, is that China stumbles, that China is making mistakes, that the state is getting involved in the economy too much. That Xi Jinping is centralizing power too much. And that somehow China's going to make so many mistakes that it ends up to feed defeating itself. I think that's one of the arguments you here in DC.Bill:Yes. It's wishful thinking it's not necessarily based on a rigid rigorous analysis. It seems like it's much more wishful thinking.David:So, that is a reason to be pessimistic about the medium and the long-term. The one thing that I will say based here in China is that when I write really specific color about things like what does China think of the idea of Russia invading Ukraine? And I talk to really serious scholars who spent their lives studying things like Russia policy or foreign policy or international relations, or if I talk to really senior tech people, Chinese tech companies, they do take America's power very seriously. Even though there is absolutely sincere disdain for American political dysfunction.David:I think that America's innovation power, the areas of technology, whether it's semiconductors or some forms of AI algorithms where America just really is still ahead by a long way, the really serious people, when you talk to them off the record, they still take America seriously. And on that Ukraine example, what was really interesting, the prompt for that was seeing commentators in the U.S. saying that Xi Jinping would like Putin to invade Ukraine because this was going to be a test that Biden was going to fail and America was going to look weak. And maybe that would lead Xi Jinping to then invade Taiwan.David:And when I spoke to Chinese scholars, really serious Chinese scholars of Russia, their Irish, it's like, no, no, no. Russia is an economy, the size of Guangdong and they sell us oil and gas, which is nice. But our trade to them is not enough to sacrifice our relationship with America.Bill:Thank you, David Rennie. That was a really good conversation. I think very useful, very illuminating. The links, some of the articles we talked about, the links will be in the show notes. And just a note on the schedule for the sinocism podcast. It is not, I think going to be weekly or biweekly as I thought originally, I'm still working it out, but it will be every, at least once a month. I hope it's the plan, if not, a little more frequent depending on the guests.Bill:So thanks for your patience and look forward to hearing from you. I love your feedback. The transcript will be on the website when it goes live. So please let me know what you think. And as always, you can sign up for sinocism at sinocism.com, S-I-N-O-C-I-S-M.com. Thank you. Get full access to Sinocism at sinocism.com/subscribe

Because America's part of the agreement was kept secret, Khrushchev appeared to have ‘lost'. The reality is that both sides made ...

Welcome to Surviving Tomorrow, a podcast, newsletter, and publication that helps you navigate life in an age of democratic destruction, ecological collapse, and economic irrelevance, available for FREE on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Facebook, and Youtube.Superpowers aren't impressive.Italy, Greece, Ethiopia, Egypt, Britain, Spain, Portugal; they've all ruled the world for a time before sliding back to just regular-ol'-nation status.Now it's America's turn.The United States is going to collapse.This isn't a fear-mongering statement.Just a fact.Everyone knows it.Whether in five years or fifty, the days of America-as-global-superpower are numbered.In the same way that Rome pulled back its troops from Alexandria in Egypt and the Scottish borders in Britain, the American military-industrial complex will continue the work started in Afghanistan and eventually withdraw its 800 global military bases in order to make a last-ditch effort to enslave its own people in a soft-totalitarian panopticon surveillance state.And then it will collapse.Diehard nationalists insist it could never happen, but the signs of American collapse are obvious:1. Wealth inequalityAmerican income inequality is growing, too.Higher than the Roman Empire's, in fact.The stats on wealth inequality are crazy. Please read them all.Nevermind the Gilded Age of corporate tyrants like Vanderbilt and Carnegie and Rockefeller — today's billionaires control more wealth and political power than the monopolists of the past could ever have dreamed.And while extreme right-wingers are quick to shout “Communism! Socialism!” they fail to realize we're not advocating central ownership or central control of the economy. That's what billionaires are working on.2. DebtThe numbers are staggering:America has nearly $29 trillion in federal debt.Total consumer debt sits at $14.9 trillion.Half a million American families are systemically forced into bankruptcy every year.Don't listen to those nutty Modern Monetary Theory boosters who think we can pile up debt forever and it will never destroy our society.The bell will toll, and it will toll for us.Don't get me wrong, the MMTers are technically right — we can print money forever. But every unbacked printed dollar erodes trust and purchasing power.When society is built on a literal lie, it's only a matter of time before it falls.3. Economic InstabilityBecause of how hyper-elites have structured the economy, we're stuck with permanent economic instability — insane asset bubbles, followed by massive crashes that hurt those who a.) didn't benefit in the good times, and b.) suffer most in the bad times.While it's never occurred to the corporations who control our countries, people want to live in economically stable places.Because America refuses to deliver on true, long-term economic stability for the majority, it's no wonder we're currently seeing a national strike, and why many of us with the power to do so have already moved overseas.4. Homeownership in CrisisRentership, too.I've been sounding the alarm on this one for a while — people have no idea the tidal wave that's about to shatter the American middle class once and for all.House prices are going to $10 million in our lifetime, and if we don't ban for-profit residential real estate investment and overthrow the corrupt zoning boards that keep young families from building homes they can afford, we will see a houselessness crisis never witnessed before in human history.5. Crony Corporate PoliticsDemocracy, of course, has never existed in America, but the corporate oligarchy now owns Congress lock, stock, and barrel.There's honestly no point in voting unless it's with your money.6. Environmental InstabilityWhen I was younger, my wife and I visited Tikal in Guatemala, the New York City of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization.They destroyed their environment, and then it destroyed them.It's really simple: Nations that don't protect people, wildlife, soil, water, and air eventually go extinct.It's not personal, it's science.As commenter Nikos Papakonstantinou put it:You can't eat, drink, or breathe money.It takes 1,000 years for nature to grow 3cm of topsoil, and America has managed to burn through several feet in the past century.Now, America only has sixty harvests left.(An excellent book on the topic is Empires of Food: Feast, Famine, and the Rise and Fall of Civilization.)7. The Vampire EconomyLet's face it, the American productive economy is dead.Most of the major brands are zombie companies that burn cash and have never been profitable a day in their short-lived corporate lives.Rather than producing products and services of real value, corporate America is just a giant game of extractivism, a dung pile of rent-seeking skimmers who blood-suck time and wealth from the productive poor while contributing nothing of real value:LandlordsBankersStock investorsCrypto speculators who would rather treat Bitcoin as a Ponzi scheme instead of freedom money to stave off abhorrent central bank surveillance currencies.When a nation stops creating real value and starts eating itself like a snake, its days are mathematically numbered.8. Mass HysteriaLooking at you, anti-vaxxers.And Q-Anoners.And cancel culturists.And people who vote for Republicans and Democrats.America is now filled with conspiracy theorists and people who draw the line and refuse to dialogue with people outside of their own box. This signals a total breakdown in personal understanding, civic goodwill, institutional trust, and national unity.9. Screen AddictionThe invention of the smartphone will surely go down in history as one of the most destructive pieces of technology ever invented.Homo sapiens are in no way adapted for the super-stimulus of digital outputs.Between social media, streaming, porn, gaming, and shopping addictions, we're breaking our necks, frying our eyes, and shattering any sense of offline meaning or belonging.Just wait until Gen Z and Gen Alpha are in charge.10. IndividualismAmerica is a culture (from the Latin cultus, where we derive the word “cult”) built on the myth of rugged individualism, of “one for me, and all for me.”It's a dog-eat-dog, survival-of-the-fittest, winner-take-all, loser-dies-in-poverty cult where the rich prey on the poor and the masses suffer so the elites can live a little better a little longer.America is a piece of glass that has been shattered into 331 million shards, each stabbing the next in a frantic fight for survival.Only a hard fire can forge the pieces back together.There are those who believe a Canadian living in Europe shouldn't have the right to comment on America at all, but of course, those people are usually nationalists who fail to see we live in a hyper-connected world where everyone's choices affect everyone else. The failure to understand this is yet another symptom of hyper-individualism.America is a fractured, atomized nation, with each member so hell-bent on self-actualization, obsessed with concocting a singularly unique identity, and blinded by the idea that autonomy and freedom are the same thing.Because the nation cannot fathom it shares one common freedom, it simply cannot surrender any amount of selfhood to the collective, despite the fact that human togetherness is the #1 thing correlated to human happiness.The end isn't the endAll empires fall. It's a non-negotiable. It's just a matter of when, how, and how hard.Collapse doesn't mean disappearance.And it doesn't necessarily mean a total dystopian hellscape like the Book of Eli.But it does mean a loss of global superpower status and all the unfair advantages that came along with it, like currency supremacy and cheap goods. It means a country seriously diminished, greatly impoverished, wracked with crime and disease and exploitation, and subject to the whims of foreign corporatists hell-bent on extraction.You know, like much of the rest of the world.Normally, my articles outline a challenge facing society and offer some proposals for how to fix it. This is one of those rare posts that just points out the macro factors that will lead to the inevitable fall of America.Collapse shouldn't sit well with readers.Everyone needs to be working on solutions. (And yes, peacefully turning the American landmass into a dozen or so new nations is highly preferable to a bloody second civil war.)The goal, of course, shouldn't be to maintain a hyper-violent military empire and coercive global economic grasp on others. It's time for new ideas, and ancient ideas, and real servant-hearted leadership, and working together.We shouldn't mourn the loss of corporate-controlled America as the global superpower. It's a monstrous menace to global freedom and widest-spread wellbeing.Now, does that mean this is China's century?Maybe.They already own America's largest pork producer, and Canada's largest dairy farm, but a third of their domestic economy is a giant real estate bubble that could seriously slow their growth.China's rise to global super-power will all depend on their continued colonization of Africa and their ability to debt-trap the world via their Belt and Road Initiative — practicing capitalism abroad to enforce fake communism at home.Clearly, the world doesn't need or want a conformist culture to dictate global policy. People often say that America is still the world's “best hope for freedom.” But as billions of people who've endured the heavy hammer of the American military-industrial complex can attest, it's simply not true.Modern corporate America doesn't equal hope. No self-centered human institution can ever deliver the freedom that people truly need.Don't worry, America itself isn't going anywhereAfter all, Rome's as gorgeous as ever.And Athens is amazing, albeit under-maintained.America the superpower is waning, but that doesn't mean Concord won't always be a gorgeous place to visit.Texas will probably always be the BBQ capital of the world (or at least until the radical left bans meat or the radical right makes beef-raising an environmental impossibility.)Maybe Canada or Mexico will annex America and finally provide free healthcare to the poor?And if the fifty states decide to split up, which they almost certainly will in time, you never know if a united Maine and New Hampshire might rule a world in desperate need of lumber and freshwater.Or maybe we just don't need superpowers anymore.Maybe it's time for Tinyism and a million little democracies.Either way, the United States of America won't be around to see it happen. Get full access to Surviving Tomorrow at www.surviving-tomorrow.com/subscribe

Hello brothers and sisters, welcome to Future Faith, a podcast, newsletter, and publication about living faithfully in an age of democratic destruction, ecological collapse, and economic irrelevance, available for free on Substack, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. I'm your host, Jared Brock, and today we're going to discuss ten signs that America is headed for certain collapse.Superpowers aren't impressive.Italy, Greece, Ethiopia, Egypt, Britain, Spain, Portugal; they've all ruled the world for a time before sliding back to just regular-ol'-nation status.Now it's America's turn.The United States is going to collapse.This isn't a fear-mongering statement.Just a fact.Everyone knows it.Whether in five years or fifty, the days of America-as-global-superpower are numbered.In the same way that Rome pulled back its troops from Alexandria in Egypt and the Scottish borders in Britain, the American military-industrial complex will continue the work started in Afghanistan and eventually withdraw its 800 global military bases in order to make a last-ditch effort to enslave its own people in a soft-totalitarian panopticon surveillance state.And then it will collapse.Diehard nationalists insist it could never happen, but the signs of American collapse are obvious:1. Wealth inequalityAmerican income inequality is growing, too.Higher than the Roman Empire's, in fact.The stats on wealth inequality are crazy. Please read them all.Nevermind the Gilded Age of corporate tyrants like Vanderbilt and Carnegie and Rockefeller — today's billionaires control more wealth and political power than the monopolists of the past could ever have dreamed.Christians, of course, live by a different economic policy: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.And while extreme right-wingers are quick to shout “Communism! Socialism!” they fail to realize we're not advocating central ownership or central control of the economy. That's what billionaires are working on.2. DebtThe numbers are staggering:* America has nearly $29 trillion in federal debt.* Total consumer debt sits at $14.9 trillion.* Half a million American families are systemically forced into bankruptcy every year.Don't listen to those nutty Modern Monetary Theory boosters who think we can pile up debt forever and it will never destroy our society.The bell will toll, and it will toll for us.Don't get me wrong, the MMTers are technically right — we can print money forever. But every unbacked printed dollar erodes trust and purchasing power.When society is built on a literal lie, it's only a matter of time before it falls.Because only the truth can set us free.3. Economic InstabilityBecause of how hyper-elites have structured the economy, we're stuck with permanent economic instability — insane asset bubbles, followed by massive crashes that hurt those who a.) didn't benefit in the good times, and b.) suffer most in the bad times.While it's never occurred to the corporations who control our countries, people want to live in economically stable places.Because America refuses to deliver on true, long-term economic stability for the majority, it's no wonder we're currently seeing a national strike, and why many of us with the power to do so have already moved overseas.4. Homeownership in CrisisRentership, too.I've been sounding the alarm on this one for a while — people have no idea the tidal wave that's about to shatter the American middle class once and for all.House prices are going to $10 million in our lifetime, and if we don't ban for-profit residential real estate investment and overthrow the corrupt zoning boards that keep young families from building homes they can afford, we will see a houselessness crisis never witnessed before in human history. There is a massive opportunity for the real-estate-rich Western church to become a global leader on affordable homeownership, but sadly, the church is asleep at the wheel.5. Crony Corporate PoliticsDemocracy, of course, has never existed in America, but the corporate oligarchy now owns Congress lock, stock, and barrel, including the Federal Reserve which is in charge of the economy.There's honestly no point in voting unless it's with your money.6. Environmental InstabilityWhen I was younger, my wife and I visited Tikal in Guatemala, the New York City of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization.They destroyed their environment, and then it destroyed them.It's really simple: Nations that don't protect people, wildlife, soil, water, and air eventually go extinct.It's not personal, it's science.As commenter Nikos Papakonstantinou put it:You can't eat, drink, or breathe money.It takes 1,000 years for nature to grow 3cm of topsoil, and America has managed to burn through several feet in the past century.Now, America only has sixty harvests left.(An excellent book on the topic is Empires of Food: Feast, Famine, and the Rise and Fall of Civilization.)Some Christians are starting to realize the importance of creation care and the huge opportunities it could afford us to connect with people on their way to God, but sadly, strong leadership has yet to emerge on this front.7. The Vampire EconomyLet's face it, the American productive economy is dead.Most of the major brands are zombie companies that burn cash and have never been profitable a day in their short-lived corporate lives.Rather than producing products and services of real value, corporate America is just a giant game of extractivism, a dung pile of rent-seeking skimmers who blood-suck time and wealth from the productive poor while contributing nothing of real value:* Landlords* Bankers* Stock investors* Crypto speculators who would rather treat Bitcoin as a Ponzi scheme instead of freedom money to stave off abhorrent central bank surveillance currencies.When a nation stops creating real value and starts eating itself like a snake, its days are mathematically numbered.There have been several seasons in history where Christian businesspeople have practiced nobless oblige — the obligation to help those in need, and we certainly need a renaissance of that holy task.8. Mass HysteriaLooking at you, anti-vaxxers.And Q-Anoners.And cancel culturists.And people who vote for Republicans and Democrats.America is now filled with conspiracy theorists and people who draw the line and refuse to dialogue with people outside of their own box. This signals a total breakdown in personal understanding, civic goodwill, institutional trust, and national unity.9. Screen AddictionThe invention of the smartphone will surely go down in history as one of the most destructive pieces of technology ever invented.Homo sapiens are in no way adapted for the super-stimulus of digital outputs.Between social media, streaming, porn, gaming, and shopping addictions, we're breaking our necks, frying our eyes, and shattering any sense of offline meaning or belonging.Just wait until Gen Z and Gen Alpha are in charge.10. IndividualismAmerica is a culture (from the Latin cultus, where we derive the word “cult”) built on the myth of rugged individualism, of “one for me, and all for me.”It's a dog-eat-dog, survival-of-the-fittest, winner-take-all, loser-dies-in-poverty cult where the rich prey on the poor and the masses suffer so the elites can live a little better a little longer.America is a piece of glass that has been shattered into 331 million shards, each stabbing the next in a frantic fight for survival.Only a hard fire can forge the pieces back together.It's quite telling that the period of largest church attendance in history — and the greatest period of peace and wealth and democracy — came out of the ashes of World War II.Naturally, there are those who believe a Canadian living in Europe shouldn't have the right to comment on America at all, but of course, those people are usually nationalists who fail to see we live in a hyper-connected world where everyone's choices affect everyone else. The failure to understand this is yet another symptom of hyper-individualism.America is a fractured, atomized nation, with each member so hell-bent on self-actualization, obsessed with concocting a singularly unique identity, and blinded by the idea that autonomy and freedom are the same thing.Because the nation cannot fathom it shares one common freedom, it simply cannot surrender any amount of selfhood to the collective, despite the fact that human togetherness is the #1 thing correlated to human happiness.God made us for each other.The end isn't the endAll empires fall. It's a non-negotiable. It's just a matter of when, how, and how hard.Collapse doesn't mean disappearance.And it doesn't necessarily mean a total dystopian hellscape like the movie The Book of Eli.But it does mean a loss of global superpower status and all the unfair advantages that came along with it, like currency supremacy and cheap goods. It means a country seriously diminished, greatly impoverished, wracked with crime and disease and exploitation, and subject to the whims of foreign corporatists hell-bent on extraction.You know, like much of the rest of the world.Normally, my articles outline a challenge facing society and offer some proposals for how to fix it. This is one of those rare posts that just points out the macro factors that will lead to the inevitable fall of America, and how Christians simply aren't rising to the task at hand.Collapse shouldn't sit well with Christians, because human beings who are made in the image of God will suffer.Everyone needs to be working on solutions for challenges big and small. (And yes, peacefully turning the American landmass into a dozen or so new nations is highly preferable to a bloody second civil war.)The goal, of course, isn't to maintain a hyper-violent military empire and coercive global economic grasp on others. It's time for new ideas, and extremely ancient ideas, and real servant-hearted leadership, and working together.We shouldn't mourn the loss of corporate-controlled America as the global superpower. It's a monstrous menace to global freedom and widest-spread wellbeing.I remember attending the Catalyst Conference many years ago. Dave Ramsey was speaking, and in a moment of passion he declared, “our allegiance is to the cross, not the flag!” Our small group of Canadians cheered — and we were the only ones in an audience of ten thousand Christian leaders.To Christ-centered people, nation-states are irrelevant. Jesus couldn't have cared less about a legal fiction called Rome. All he cared about was people, and we should do the same.Now, does that mean this is China's century?Maybe.They already own America's largest pork producer, and Canada's largest dairy farm, but a third of their domestic economy is a giant real estate bubble that could seriously slow their growth.China's rise to global super-power will all depend on their continued colonization of Africa and their ability to debt-trap the world via their Belt and Road Initiative — practicing capitalism abroad to enforce fake communism at home.Clearly, the world doesn't need or want a conformist culture to dictate global policy. People often say that America is still the world's “best hope for freedom.” But as billions of people who've endured the heavy hammer of the American military-industrial complex can attest, it's simply not true.Modern corporate America doesn't equal hope. No self-centered human institution can ever deliver the freedom that people truly need. That's why the church of Jesus Christ still is and always will be the hope of the world. 1 Peter 1:25 says that “The word of the Lord will endure forever.” Do you believe it? I certainly do. As Peter said to Jesus, “To whom else shall we go? Only you have the keys to eternal life.”This world belongs to God. America is just a temporary guest in His house.But don't worry, America itself isn't going anywhereAfter all, Rome's as gorgeous as ever.And Athens is amazing, albeit under-maintained.America the superpower is waning, but that doesn't mean Concord Massachusetts won't always be a gorgeous place to visit.And Texas will probably always be the BBQ capital of the world (or at least until the radical left bans meat or the radical right makes beef-raising an environmental impossibility.)And maybe Canada or Mexico will annex America and finally provide free healthcare to the poor?And if the fifty states decide to split up, which they almost certainly will in time, you never know if a united Maine and New Hampshire might rule a world in desperate need of lumber and freshwater.Or maybe we just don't need superpowers anymore.Maybe it's time for Tinyism and a million little democracies. It's certainly time for Christians to start building alternative societies by the thousands, like we did for 1,700 years, places that can give the world a glimpse of the life that is truly life, and the kingdom that is and is to come.Either way, the United States of America won't be around to see it happen.Thanks for listening to Future Faith. If you think this episode is important, please email the link to your friends or share it on social media.We are 100% follower-supported, so if you'd like to help us grow this community, please visit jaredbrock.com. Get full access to Future Faith at jaredbrock.substack.com/subscribe

Non-wealth-backed, debt-based, government-printed paper money is the greatest scam of all time.America's central bank, the Federal Reserve, is owned by private banks including Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs; predatory corporations who actually pay some of their bankers to go work for the Fed. Additionally, the major banks sponsor political candidates and lobby them hard once they're in Congress, leading to a dangerous political situation called regulatory capture. It's the same in most countries — essentially, rabid foxes now rule our global henhouse.Because America is bank-captured, the richest people in history get to monopolize legal tender and pillage your wealth whenever they please. And they do. If you haven't noticed, they're absolutely out of control right now, having printing 80% of all American M1 money stock in existence in the past 18 months alone:All this debt-based money printing has created a tidal wave of negative consequences in our lives, and we haven't even felt the effects of the past two years of crazy printing yet:They've dangerously inflated house prices.They've wildly inflated stock prices.They've put the world $300 trillion in debt.They've devalued our purchasing power by debasing our legal tender. Not only does this straight-up steal money from everyone holding cash, but it discourages savings — making people less antifragile and more dependent on the state while creating an instant-gratification culture instead of one that plans for tomorrow.They've locked us in an unsustainable debt+interest death spiral that requires all of us to compete against each other, and by pure mathematical necessity, heartbreakingly bankrupts more than 3,000 families per day for thirty years straight.They use their money power to set the agenda for the whole nation, spending on unending wars, toppling foreign governments, extracting wealth from poorer nations and sacrifice from their own citizens, stealing trillions of hours of human life. In total, this crime against humanity has pillaged several quadrillion dollars in real wealth from active societal contributors.Let's not mince words: The corporate-controlled central banking money-printing scam is the biggest sin and crime in human history.Challenger moneyGiven the utterly corrupt state of modern money, you can see why smart people who actually care about the sustainable long-term wellbeing of humanity started looking for a solution.One such person was Satoshi Nakamoto.We don't know if Satoshi is a man, woman, group, or an AI, and we don't know if he/she/they/it is even still alive.Satoshi invented a new form of digital currency that could be sent peer-to-peer, even anonymously. The system can be trusted because all transactions are automatically verified by its decentralized network and recorded in a blockchain, which is essentially a giant decentralized cryptographic spreadsheet.On January 9th, 2009, Bitcoin was born.And then greed set inOur total global wealth is currently valued at around USD$400 trillion.There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoins.In early 2017, savvy speculators did the math.If Bitcoin eventually became the global currency, each Bitcoin would be worth twenty million bucks.That's when things went crazy.People started buying and hoarding coins.As supply constricted, the coin price rose.More people saw what was happening and jumped on board, bidding coin prices higher and higher and higher.Other people wanted to get in on the goldrush, and started making their own inferior versions of Bitcoin. Today, there are over 12,000 cryptocurrencies on the market.Then the pandemic hit and corrupt elites sent the money-printer into overdrive. As house and stock prices ballooned outrageously high, people like Michael Saylor realized they needed to get rid of their rapidly-devaluing $USD, but couldn't rationally buy wildly overpriced assets either.So they turned to Bitcoin as a speculative asset, further jacking the price, attracting more speculators in search of a quick buck in hard times. As greed and FOMO set in — and all those government stimulus checks arrived — prices soared even higher.Today, Bitcoins that cost a few cents worth of electricity are now “worth” around $50,000. The total Bitcoin market cap now hovers around $1 trillion.So… should we invest?As my newsletter disclaimer makes crystal clear, nothing I write is financial, legal, or tax advice. Blah blah blah, you're an adult, do what you want to do.But I don't think anyone should invest in Bitcoin for four major reasons:First:It has no intrinsic value. You can't eat it, wear it, or heat your house with it.It is not a productive asset. It isn't a factory that produces an item. It's not a field that produces a crop. It's not a firm that offers a service.It has zero underlying value. It's not backed by land or commodities or any other form of real useable wealth.Bitcoin is just a bunch of computer files.Its value is derived solely from the trust that people place in it — namely, that the price will continue to rise indefinitely and that there will always be new investors to buy out the old ones. On that standard of belief, the evidence is crystal clear (and don't trust any online bitboy who tells you otherwise): Bitcoin is currently being treated like a Ponzi scheme.So if your motivation for buying Bitcoin is to buy and hoard it until the price goes up, this is deeply unethical, because someone will eventually get hurt. Currency is meant to be spent, given, or invested in producing real wealth for the world. Not hoarded.Second: Speculating in Bitcoin is a massive risk right now. Just remember what you're actually doing when you decide to “invest” in crypto: You're betting against the established powers. A bet on crypto is a bet against centralized violence-backed money. It's a noble act, but an extremely risky investment strategy.There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that many governments will make crypto illegal once they introduce their own totalitarian surveillance coins. (See last week's Panopticoin episode for more.)Third: We shouldn't seek to passively skim profits off the backs of others without contributing anything of real value to the world.I have a friend who owns 36 full Bitcoins. He fully expects them to be worth $10 million apiece within a decade or two. But has he contributed $360 million in value to the world? Not at all. All he did was buy a few thousand dollars worth of digital files and waited for other people's greed and fear to pad his bank account. Shouldn't we want to use our money to make a real contribution?Four: When (not if) the next recession comes — when house prices plummet, the stock market crashes, and millions lose their jobs — people will need to pull money out of assets in order to fund fiat liabilities like mortgage payments and daily expenses. What's the most liquid asset most people have? Crypto. When millions of crypto holders desperately need fiat cash to stay afloat, expect them to reluctantly pull tens of billions from the exchanges and sink prices, if not crash questionable coins like Tether and house-of-cards operations like the DeFi and NFT markets. Wouldn't it just be better to be generous to the poor instead of gambling in an online casino?All told, it seems to me that investing in Bitcoin is an extremely unwise and likely unethical thing to do.That said, it doesn't mean we still shouldn't buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.After much research and deep introspection, I have come to the conclusion that if the only two realistic options are an unfortunately hyper-individualist libertarian currency called Bitcoin versus the dystopian nightmare that is totalitarian surveillance currency, the inevitable decision for rational people is to side with the former. Humanity stands a better chance of achieving widest-spread well-being when we the people create our own money.So what should we do with crypto?Satoshi Nakamoto made a huge mistake when launching Bitcoin.He mined about one million coins — which would sell for about $50 billion today — but he never used them. Just like the bitboy Ponzi speculators in the current market who dream of the day when Bitcoin is the world currency and they all get rich for doing nothing, Satoshi hoarded his coins instead. He just sat on them back in 2009, and all these years later, they're still just sitting there to this very day.So what should we do with cryptocurrency?I think we should do the same thing we do with every other currency:1. We should spend it.We need to spend crypto like crazy. Every day we treat it like a Ponzi scheme brings the whole thing nearer to the end, as corrupt governments rapidly build their own Orwellian competitor coins.We need widespread global crypto adoption as fast as possible; where every man, woman, and child on earth is spending crypto daily, and businesses are transacting in hundreds of trust-based coins, ridding the economy of trillions in toxic debt-based money.Crypto needs to be so widespread that governments should be absolutely terrified to take it away from us. That's why we need to make crypto cheap and plentiful, spreading those satoshis as far and wide as digitally possible.2. We should create our own cryptocurrenciesWe have the opportunity to create sound money that can be a blessing to the planet and the poor, but most people are just interested in buying coins that are “going to the moon.”We could create coins that are stable, free from thieving inflation, backed by real value, that are fair and trust-based instead of violence-backed, that can serve as a secure means of payment even when governments try to exclude us from the global economy.On a personal note, if you know any technologists or investors, please send them this episode and get them to contact me via jaredbrock.com, as there's a group of us who would love to get a pro-human coin off the ground.3. We should give it away.Imagine, if instead of hoarding his coins, Satoshi had sent the following text to millions of people:Hey,Here's a free Bitcoin.Spend it.Smooches,Satoshi.You would've heard about crypto ten years ago if millions of people had immediately started using it in 2009.We would've had a ten-year jump on corrupt governments to reach global crypto adoption.Just look at El Salvador. When they made Bitcoin legal tender, they gave everyone $30 in free Bitcoin to get started, and 25% of the population jumped on board in the first two weeks.(On the sinister flipside, China is doing the exact same thing to induce people into using its horrific social credit system-linked surveillance currency.)We need to be generous with our money, be it dollars, pounds, euros, pesos, or Bitcoin.We need to be very wise with our wealth. That's why I encourage all my listeners not to invest in any currency. Currency is meant to be spent, invested, and given. And when it comes to cryptocurrency, we need to do it now, before money is out of our control forever.If you think the Surviving Tomorrow conversation is important, the best thing you can do is email this podcast to your friends right now.I publish more than 150,000 words of free content each year, and it's the radical generosity of supporters like you who keep it free. Get full access to Surviving Tomorrow at www.surviving-tomorrow.com/subscribe

Hello brothers and sisters, welcome to Future Faith, a podcast, newsletter, and publication about living faithfully in an age of democratic destruction, ecological collapse, and economic irrelevance. If you're a visual learner, head over to jaredbrock.substack.com to follow along in print. I'm your host, Jared Brock, and today we're going to discuss whether or not Christians should invest in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.I'm in a good mood today. My freshly pressed apples are happily fermenting themselves into cider, my very pregnant wife is four days past her due-date, and my mother has just landed on the continent after nearly two years without seeing her. So it's a good day, and I appreciate your prayers in the weeks and eighteen-or-so years ahead.I'm going to try to get a few episodes out this week, but with baby due at any moment, it's not so much a promise as a hope.Let's dive in, shall we?Non-wealth-backed, debt-based, government-printed paper money is the greatest scam of all time.America's central bank, the Federal Reserve, is owned by private banks including Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs; predatory corporations who actually pay some of their bankers to go work for the Fed. Additionally, the major banks sponsor political candidates and lobby them hard once they're in Congress, leading to a dangerous political situation called regulatory capture. It's the same in most countries — essentially, rabid foxes now rule our global henhouse.Because America is bank-captured, the richest people in history get to monopolize legal tender and pillage your wealth whenever they please. And they do. If you haven't noticed, they're absolutely out of control right now, having printing 80% of all American M1 money stock in existence in the past 18 months alone:All this debt-based money printing has created a tidal wave of negative consequences in our lives, and we haven't even felt the effects of the past two years of crazy printing yet:* They've dangerously inflated house prices.* They've wildly inflated stock prices.* They've put the world $300 trillion in debt.* They've devalued our purchasing power by debasing our legal tender. Not only does this straight-up steal money from everyone holding cash, but it discourages savings — making people less antifragile and more dependent on the state while creating an instant-gratification culture instead of one that plans for tomorrow.* They've locked us in an unsustainable debt+interest death spiral that requires all of us to compete against each other, and by pure mathematical necessity, heartbreakingly bankrupts more than 3,000 families per day for thirty years straight.* They use their money power to set the agenda for the whole nation, spending on unending wars, toppling foreign governments, extracting wealth from poorer nations and sacrifice from their own citizens, stealing trillions of hours of human life. In total, this crime against humanity has pillaged several quadrillion dollars in real wealth from active societal contributors.Let's not mince words: The corporate-controlled central banking money-printing scam is the biggest sin and crime in human history.Enter challenger moneyGiven the utterly corrupt state of modern money, you can see why smart people who actually care about the sustainable long-term wellbeing of humanity started looking for a solution.One such person was Satoshi Nakamoto.We don't know if Satoshi is a man, woman, group, or an AI, and we don't know if he/she/they/it is even still alive.Satoshi invented a new form of digital currency that could be sent peer-to-peer, even anonymously. The system can be trusted because all transactions are automatically verified by its decentralized network and recorded in a blockchain, which is essentially a giant decentralized cryptographic spreadsheet.On January 9th, 2009, Bitcoin was born.And then greed set inOur total global wealth is currently valued at around USD$400 trillion.There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoins.In early 2017, savvy speculators did the math.If Bitcoin eventually became the global currency, each Bitcoin would be worth twenty million bucks.That's when things went crazy.People started buying and hoarding coins.As supply constricted, the coin price rose.More people saw what was happening and jumped on board, bidding coin prices higher and higher and higher.Other people wanted to get in on the goldrush, and started making their own inferior versions of Bitcoin. Today, there are over 12,000 cryptocurrencies on the market.Then the pandemic hit and corrupt elites sent the money-printer into overdrive. As house and stock prices ballooned outrageously high, people like Michael Saylor realized they needed to get rid of their rapidly-devaluing $USD, but couldn't rationally buy wildly overpriced assets either.So they turned to Bitcoin as a speculative asset, further jacking the price, attracting more speculators in search of a quick buck in hard times. As greed and FOMO set in — and all those government stimulus checks arrived — prices soared even higher.Today, Bitcoins that cost a few cents worth of electricity are now “worth” around $50,000. The total Bitcoin market cap now hovers around $1 trillion.So… should Christian invest?As my newsletter disclaimer makes crystal clear, nothing I write is financial, legal, or tax advice. Blah blah blah, you're an adult, do what you want to do.But I don't think anyone should invest in Bitcoin for four major reasons:First:* It has no intrinsic value. You can't eat it, wear it, or heat your house with it.* It is not a productive asset. It isn't a factory that produces an item. It's not a field that produces a crop. It's not a firm that offers a service.* It has zero underlying value. It's not backed by land or commodities or any other form of real useable wealth.Bitcoin is just a bunch of computer files. It's just a distributed ledger, a fancy Excel spreadsheet.Its value is derived solely from the trust that people place in it — namely, that the price will continue to rise indefinitely and that there will always be new investors to buy out the old ones. On that standard of belief, the evidence is crystal clear (and don't trust any online bitboy who tells you otherwise): Bitcoin is currently being treated like a Ponzi scheme.So if your motivation for buying Bitcoin is to buy and hoard it until the price goes up, this is deeply unethical, because someone will eventually get hurt. Currency is meant to be spent, given, or invested in producing real wealth for the world. Not hoarded.Second: God calls Christians to be good stewards of our money, and speculating in Bitcoin is a massive risk right now. Just remember what you're actually doing when you decide to “invest” in crypto: You're betting against the established powers. A bet on crypto is a bet against centralized violence-backed money. It's a noble act, but an extremely risky investment strategy.There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that many governments will make crypto illegal once they introduce their own totalitarian surveillance coins. (See last week's Panopticoin episode for more.)Third: Christians are called to work with their hands and enjoy the fruits of their labor, not passively skim profits off the backs of others without contributing anything of real value to the world. For the same reason that gambling on the stock market isn't moral, Christians hold themselves to a higher standard when it comes to stewarding God's money. I have a friend who owns 36 full Bitcoins. He fully expects them to be worth $10 million apiece within a decade or two. But has he contributed $360 million in value to the world? Not at all. All he did was buy a few thousand dollars worth of digital files and waited for other people's greed and fear to pad his bank account. Is this a God-honoring way for a Christian to amass wealth?Four: When (not if) the next recession comes — when house prices plummet, the stock market crashes, and millions lose their jobs — people will need to pull money out of assets in order to fund fiat liabilities like mortgage payments and daily expenses. What's the most liquid asset most people have? Crypto. When millions of crypto holders desperately need fiat cash to stay afloat, expect them to reluctantly pull tens of billions from the exchanges and sink prices, if not crash questionable coins like Tether and house-of-cards operations like the DeFi and NFT markets. Wouldn't it just be better to be generous to the poor instead of gambling in an online casino?All told, it seems to me that investing in Bitcoin is an extremely unwise and likely unethical thing to do.That said, it doesn't mean we still shouldn't buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.After much research and deep introspection, I have come to the conclusion that if the only two realistic options are an unfortunately hyper-individualist libertarian currency called Bitcoin versus the dystopian nightmare that is totalitarian surveillance currency, the inevitable decision for rational people is to side with the former. Humanity stands a better chance of achieving widest-spread well-being when we the people create our own money.So… what should we do with crypto?Satoshi Nakamoto made a huge mistake when launching Bitcoin.He mined about one million coins — which would sell for about $50 billion today — but he never used them. Just like the bitboy Ponzi speculators in the current market who dream of the day when Bitcoin is the world currency and they all get rich for doing nothing, Satoshi hoarded his coins instead. He just sat on them back in 2009, and all these years later, they're still just sitting there to this very day.So what should we do with cryptocurrency?I think we should do the same thing we do with every other currency:1. We should spend it.We need to spend crypto like crazy. Every day we treat it like a Ponzi scheme brings the whole thing nearer to the end, as corrupt governments rapidly build their own Orwellian competitor coins.We need widespread global crypto adoption as fast as possible; where every man, woman, and child on earth is spending crypto daily, and businesses are transacting in hundreds of trust-based coins, ridding the economy of trillions in toxic debt-based money.Crypto needs to be so widespread that governments should be absolutely terrified to take it away from us. That's why we need to make crypto cheap and plentiful, spreading those satoshis as far and wide as digitally possible.2. We should create our own cryptocurrenciesI cannot believe that there aren't any Christian cryptocurrencies out there yet!We are the largest and most networked family on the planet, and we don't have our own micro-economies up and running? It's insane.We have the opportunity to create sound money that can be a blessing to the planet and the poor, but when was the last time your church or denomination talked about investing in world-changing projects like this?We could create coins that are stable, free from thieving inflation, backed by real value, that are fair and trust-based instead of violence-backed, that can serve as a secure means of payment even when governments try to exclude Christians from the global economy.On a personal note, if you know any Christian technologists or investors, please send them this episode and get them to contact me via jaredbrock.com, as there's a group of us who would love to get a God-honoring coin off the ground.3. We should give it away.Imagine, if instead of hoarding his coins, Satoshi had sent the following text to millions of people:Hey,Here's a free Bitcoin.Spend it.Smooches,Satoshi.You would've heard about crypto ten years ago if millions of people had immediately started using it in 2009.We would've had a ten-year jump on corrupt governments to reach global crypto adoption.Just look at El Salvador. When they made Bitcoin legal tender, they gave everyone $30 in free Bitcoin to get started, and 25% of the population jumped on board in the first two weeks.(On the sinister flipside, China is doing the exact same thing to induce people into using its horrific social credit system-linked surveillance currency.)Imagine if we, as Christians, were radically generous with our coins. If the poor widow can give the very last of her wealth, just two copper pennies, then surely we can give a little more of our wealth today.We need to be generous with our money, be it dollars, pounds, euros, pesos, or Bitcoin. And our time, our possession, and our homes.As for Bitcoin, the Bible tells us to honor God with our wealth. That's why I encourage all my listeners not to invest in any currency. Currency is supposed to be a means of payment. Currency isn't supposed to be an investment. It's meant to be spent, invested, and given. When it comes to cryptocurrency, we need to do that now, before money is out of our control forever.Luckily, our ultimate treasure is one that can never be vanquished. Governments can't inflate it, thieves can't steal, moths can't eat it. My friend Andrew likes to say that his life's work is to convert temporary money into eternal worth. That's our ultimate call as Christians, no matter what currency we choose.If you think the Future Faith conversation is important, the best thing you can do is email this podcast to your friends right now.I publish more than 150,000 words of free content each year, and it's radically generous supporters like you who keep it free. If you'd like to become a gospel patron, please visit jaredbrock.com. Get full access to Future Faith at jaredbrock.substack.com/subscribe

As we continue to walk through the book of Joshua, we come today to a story about systemic sin. Because America is a very individualistic culture, we tend to think of sin as something that individuals do. But, it's worse than that. Sin can become embedded in the families, systems, cultures, and organizations in which we live. When that happens, it becomes harder to eliminate. So, what do we do? In this message, we look at the nature of systemic and what we can do about it. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/clark-cowden/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/clark-cowden/support

向林威老師學 新聞英文 Economist 托福,多益,雅思,就業後充實,金融相關知識 9年的解說功力, 一年250篇文章, 累積講解2060篇的資源 Economist 導讀 United States 精選故事 America's love of free markets extends to its fertility clinics https://youtu.be/5CdzVDMdxk8 Swimming freestyle. America's love of free markets extends to its fertility clinics. 美國對自由市場的熱愛擴展到了生育診所。 Thanks to an absence of regulation, America is a notable exporter of human sperm. 由於缺乏法規，美國是精子的重要出口國。 BBC, NY Times, Match (詞組搭配) 每月開班！ 請私訊林威老師 lineID: linwayet 各位同學好，我是林威老師， 英文教學已達27年 講解BBC 720篇文章(3年)， 經濟學人2100篇文章 (8年) 花了三年的時間整理的終極片語， 豐富的例句中英對照 本書前面有53個重要的字根， 以及字首字尾整理 本書本的最後還整理了 兩個動詞make和take的慣用語的比較 只要購買字根200回影片講解 (雲端分享)，贈送本書, 歡迎點選demo影片 ! 
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我有個商品要賣『林威老師親編終極片語+影片講解200個字根』，售價$6,000！快到我的店鋪看看吧！https://shopee.tw/product/18811006/6072162816?smtt=0.18812342-1609723528.4 #蝦皮購物 United States, WASHINGTON, DC. Every time one of America's genetic-testing companies advertises a deal on dna kits, Michael (not his real name) braces himself for what may follow: a message from one of his hitherto unknown offspring. Three decades ago, as a student at the University of Houston, Michael became a sperm donor; the clinic would “pull me out of retirement”, he says, every time a customer wanted to expand their family. So far, the 55-year-old knows of around 60 children (and a dozen grandchildren) he has sired in addition to the four teenagers he shares with his wife; he suspects the true number is closer to 100. “I could write a book,” he says, about the lifelong consequences of what had seemed, at the time, like an easy buck and an incentive to live healthily (he steered clear of heavy drinking and drugs to preserve his sperm's motility). Several children contact him regularly. He has been surprised by how many had been led to believe the father who brought them up was their biological parent: “Sometimes they're very angry they've been lied to all their lives”. He is aware of some offspring who know his identity but have not made contact, and of a Facebook group he is not part of “so they can compare notes”. He gets a lot of cards on Father's Day. An ever-increasing number of men (and women who donate eggs) will have similar experiences. Because America's sperm- and egg-donor industry is largely unregulated, no one knows how many children have been conceived this way.

Because America rules, it's another episode of The Deucecast Movie Show!  Last week, Dave, Mikey, and #TwitterlessDrEarl, with special guest Lil G Ryfun, the pride of South TyTy Georgia, gave their lists of the most patriotic roles in movies... and a funny thing happened -- they all seemed to be dudes. So what better way to reconcile this blunder than to do an all female list of patriotic roles, which, like last week, is really just a list of awesome American characters in films that all the guys decided to dub "patriotic", but #Merica anyway. First up, though, a rousing game of Ryan Phillippe, with everyone from Sigourney Weaver to one Christopher Pratt being called out.  Then, the list, which includes Mikey's total misunderstanding (and defense of Padme)... #TwitterlessDrEarl goes old school again... who won what award in Hidden Figures and The Help... Lil G Ryfun squeezes in a Nolan... Emily Blunt gets double action... an Amy Adams discussion and it's not from d$... and much more. Where the movies discussed on this episode are streaming at the time of this recording: The American President (Hulu) Broadcast News (DirecTV) Edge of Tomorrow (Live.Die.Repeat) (USA Network) Erin Brockovich (fubo; DirecTV) The Girl in White (1952) (fubo) The Fast & Furious (fubo; Pluto TV) Foxy Brown (The Criterion Channel) Harriet (HBO Max) Hidden Figures (FX Now) Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of This Movie Sucks (Netflix) Interstellar (FX Now) League of Their Own (rental) Lethal Weapon 3 (fubo) Lethal Weapon 4 (fubo) Live.Die.Repeat (Edge of Tomorrow) (USA Network) Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (Starz) Raiders of the Lost Ark (Netflix)   Sicario (FX Now) Silence of the Lambs (Amazon Prime) Something the Lord Made (HBO Max) Terminator 2: Judgement Day (fubo; Showtime) Working Girl (DirecTV) Zero Dark Thirty (IMDb TV)

Currently everywhere, in all the headlines, an innocent man killed by the police, George Floyd. Why? Because America. We try to understand this issue and expand it to a greater scale. Lastly we talk about the girl I went to a date with - the fruit salad girl. Subscribe to careerenders bitch

It's easy to see from where America has fallen as a nation if you've lived a bit on the planet. And I believe the longer one lives we can see how far we've fallen as a nation. Because America was founded on Biblical principles I am convinced that we can return to our foundation, and God will restore our land, if we just will. That can only happen as revival brings us back. In this teaching we'll look at how God can restore fruitfulness to our land through His church. Be encouraged, and get ready!

How could comedian Sarah Silverman say that pro-life laws make her want to “eat an aborted fetus” and still have millions of followers that love her and follow everything she does?! Because… America worships Baal. How is it that a dentist in 2016 killed a lion and America became outraged and a zoo killed a gorilla in order to save a 4 year old child's life and America became outraged, yet, 3,000 babies are killed everyday and 90% of Americans are silent? Because… America worships Baal How can destroying eggs of sea turtles land you a $100,000 fine and a year in prison, but murdering the unborn child is fine? Because… America worships Baal How can Baal Worshiping Pro-choice choice supporters advocate for more gun control laws to “save lives”? Because it has nothing to do with saving lives, but pushing their evil agenda. How about when Bernie Sanders tweeted that “Cutting carbon pollution emissions by 32% by 2030 would prevent up to 3,600 premature deaths each year”? We know it has nothing to do with saving lives, but pushing their agenda. If he wanted to save lives, why not push for cutting abortions by 32% in America alone? That would save over 350,000 lives every year. But... America worships Baal. Did you know that if you assault a pregnant woman and cause a miscarriage you are charged with manslaughter, but if you kill a baby after MONTHS in its mother's womb it's legal? Baal worship. And let's not forget the article that was released this week that revealed that, unsurprisingly, Google experienced an absolute meltdown after an executive used the word “Family” at a presentation seemingly forgetting that they have already sacrificed the God ordained “family unit”. The action resulted in employees going bananas. Follow the Zach Drew show at ZachDrewShow.com Please consider partnering with us! Visit www.zachdrewshow.com/donate/ You can also write to us at IGBY PO box 797 Decatur IL 62525 You can also write to us at IGBY PO box 797 Decatur IL 62525

Summary Once upon a time, most of us rooted for the loveable underdog. You know, the Little League baseball team from Nowhere, USA that was up against the team from a big city; the team that had won the championship two of the last three years. These kids and their parents had been selling candy door-to-door for almost a year to fund the trip to the big game. Or the personable but nondescript singer on a major TV talent show who was competing against well-trained and attractive contestants. The scrappy, work hard, never-give-up, refuse to accept failure, person or team or country caught our imaginations. Today, the trend has nothing to do with underdogs; the clear push is to be against the successful, characterized as the overdog. Not because this person or group was mean or arrogant in their success. Not because they cheated. Not because they took themselves way too seriously. But simply because they succeeded, and succeeded big time. That is enough to make them not only disliked, but it makes them the enemy. Yes, succeed and you become the enemy. Links and References Resenting Success Columbus Day Contact Please do reach out with comments or questions.  You can email me at will@revolution2-0.org, or connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And you can subscribe to the podcast on your favorite device through Apple Podcasts, Google, or Stitcher. Transcript Once upon a time, most of us rooted for the loveable underdog. You know, the Little League baseball team from Nowhere USA that was up against the team from a big city; the team that had won the championship two of the last three years. These kids and their parents had been selling candy door-to-door for almost a year to fund the trip to the big game. Or the personable but nondescript singer on a major TV talent show who was competing against well-trained and attractive contestants. The scrappy, work hard, never-give-up, refuse to accept failure, person or team or country caught our imaginations. Today, the trend has nothing to do with underdogs; the clear push is to be against the successful, characterized as the overdog. Not because this person or group was mean or arrogant in their success. Not because they cheated. Not because they took themselves way too seriously. But simply because they succeeded, and succeeded big time. That is enough to make them not only disliked, but it makes them the enemy. Yes, succeed and you become the enemy. Let’s go back to the 1776 Revolution, Revolution 1.0 (the first revolution) in the US. Who doesn’t look back with fondness and pride at the ragtag Continental Army that wintered in Valley Forge in ‘77-’78? "Naked and starving as they are, we cannot enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiery." General George Washington, February 16, 1778. This soldiery came back and defeated the strongest military the world had ever seen. Now let’s go part way around the world and forward in time to the newly-birthed nation of Israel. Who didn’t root for that scrappy band of refugees, homesteaders and holocaust survivors to defeat the combined might of its neighbors and other nearby enemies who were dedicated to its eradication? Their enemies refused to accept the UN partition and fought to eliminate Israel in ‘48. And again in ‘67 and ‘73 when Israel once again had to fight for its survival? Today, the anti-big, anti-successful crowd sees these two nations, the US and Israel, as linked together as examples of international evil. Yes, both countries got bigger and stronger after their shaky starts. Israel out of a desire to exist. The US, initially, as part of a drive to expand its territory and economy to support a growing population--population growth stemming from children born here along with massive immigration. Immigration spurred in the main because America was the land of opportunity. Because America was free, growing and successful, it attracted millions who were looking for a better life for them...

Because America is historically Christian, the preaching of “the gospel” is very common, and a huge percentage of Americans even claim to believe its message. But despite the fact that many Americans claim an affinity with the message, something is terribly wrong. In this message, Pastor Steve Gallagher challenges us to take a closer look at the foundations to see if we have really embraced the message of the gospel.

Because America has the memory of a man who wakes up every morning and has a person named Dolph from a World's Strongest Man competition drop a boulder on his head, Donald Trump Jr. is now saying a meeting with a woman described as a “Russian government lawyer” during the campaign wasn't that big of a deal! Or it was a setup by the Democrats! Or she didn't describe herself as a Russian lawyer! Or it was about adoption! Which is even weirder but who cares! All that matters is that Donald Trump Jr. did nothing wrong, according to the far-right, who have all embraced different and equally impossible conspiracies since proof of his collusion has been released by the president's son himself. Erin Gloria Ryan, Gideon Resnick and Ben Collins talk about all of that in the new episode of Truther. Recorded July 12, 2017. Edited by Elizabeth Brockway.

Because America has the dumbest motherfuckers in it, Bill Cosby's first trial ended with a hung jury. Jesus.

Elizabeth Harris visits Michael Salmon's studio in Kooyong, Melbourne, and learns from the children's author, illustrator, and entertainer of school children, what 50 years in the arts has taught him about -  Learning to trust your instincts about what early readers find funny. The importance of branching out and diversifying if you want to thrive as an author and illustrator in the long term. How your personality and people skills (or lack thereof) can influence your success in the arts. The pleasure of giving back to the community when you've attained a measure of professional success. How did a beloved children's book make it to the centre page of a newspaper, and its main character become 600 kilos of bronze outside a public library in the nation's capital? What's the connection between Michael, Healthy Harold (the Life Education giraffe that visits schools), and the Alannah and Madeline Foundation? Follow Michael as he travels around Australia visiting Indigenous schools and schools with students of diverse ethnicities, backgrounds, and levels of English fluency. Find out more about Michael Salmon's work at MichaelSalmon.com.au. Notes:Robyn Payne is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and audio engineer of 25 years’ experience in the album, film, TV and advertising industries. She composed the music for the theme song 'Victoria Dances', which is featured in host Elizabeth Harris' children's book, Chantelle's Wish, available for sale on Elizabeth's website at ElizabethHarris.net.au. The lyrics for 'Victoria Dances' were written by Elizabeth Harris. FULL TRANSCRIPT  Elizabeth:        Welcome to Writers’ Tête-à-Tête with Elizabeth Harris, the global show that connects authors, songwriters and poets with their global audience. So I can continue to bring you high-calibre guests, I invite you to go to iTunes, click Subscribe, leave a review, and share this podcast with your friends. Today I’m delighted to introduce the highly creative and entertaining children’s author and illustrator, Michael Salmon. Michael Salmon has been involved in graphics, children’s literature, TV and theatre since 1967. He started his career with surfing cartoons, and exhibitions of his psychedelic art, and then joined the famous marionette troupe – The Tintookies – as a trainee set designer stage manager in 1968 (the Elizabethan Theatre Trust, Sydney). Since then his work has been solely for young people, both here in Australia and overseas. His many credits include his Alexander Bunyip Show (ABC TV 1978-1988), pantomimes, fabric and merchandise design, toy and board game invention, writing and illustrating of 176 picture story books – which Michael I’m absolutely flabbergasted and astonished and in wonderment at, and everybody’s laughing at that, or maybe he’s laughing at me, I don’t know. (Laughter) I’ll say it again – 176 picture story books for young readers. Several million copies of his titles have been sold worldwide. Michael has been visiting Australian primary schools for over 40 years. His hour-long sessions are interesting, fun, humorous and entertaining, with the focus on students developing their own creativity, which is just fantastic. Suitable for all years, many of these school visits can be seen on Michael’s website, which I will ask you to repeat later. Michael:          Okay. Elizabeth:        Several trips have been up to the Gulf of Carpentaria Savannah Schools and to the remote Aboriginal community Schools on Cape York Peninsula, as a guest of EDU. EDU – what is that? Michael:          Education Department, Queensland. Elizabeth:        The Australian Government honoured his work in 2004 by printing a 32nd Centenary, special edition of his first book The Monster that ate Canberra – I like that - as a Commonwealth publication … for both residents and visitors to our Capital. Every Federal Politician received a copy. Michael:          Even if they didn’t want it, they got one. (Laughter) Elizabeth: Michael was also the designer of ‘Buddy Bear’ for the Alannah and Madeline Foundation (Port Arthur 1996). The Foundation financially supports Children/Families who are victims of violence/violent crime; they are currently running an anti-bullying campaign in Australian Schools. In 2010 the ACT Government further recognized his work by commissioning a bronze statue of his first book character ‘Alexander Bunyip’. Unveiled in April 2011, it stands next to the new – and I’ll get you to say this, Michael … Michael:          GUN-GAH-LIN. Elizabeth:        Gungahlin Library in our Federal Capital. Thank you for saying that. Michael has presented ‘Bunyip-themed history sessions’ for audiences of School Children at the National Library of Australia since 2011. School touring and book titles continue, which I’m blown away by, because you’ve written and illustrated 176 books! Michael:          Some of those were activity books, to be fair, but they were necessitated – writing, the requirements of children, and illustrations, so they were all lumped in together, basically. Elizabeth:        So Michael Salmon, welcome to Writers’ Tête-à-Tête with Elizabeth Harris. Michael: Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure, and thank you for visiting my studio here in downtown Kooyong, Melbourne. Elizabeth:        We are delighted to be here – Serena Low and I, everybody – Serena being my wonderful tech support. Michael, we have been Facebook friends for some time now, which is a wonderful way to keep in contact with people. But do you think social media has affected children adversely, and stopped them from reading and enjoying children’s literature? Michael:          Do you know, in order to answer some of the questions you asked, I probably pondered this one the most. It’s strange times. I’m 67 years old now. If I go back to when I was a teenager … Elizabeth:        Looking very dapper, I may say. Michael:          Yes, thank you, thank you. (Laughter) It’s amazing what no exercise will do. (Laughter) Things have changed so much. If you go back to the fifties and sixties – which both you ladies will have to look at the old films and see reruns of Gidget and all that kind of stuff – however, the main communication of young people several, several decades ago, socially, would have been the telephone. Invariably, houses only had one line that mums and dads would need. But the girls mostly – and perhaps the boys too – would be on the line talking to their friends and all this kind of stuff. And that was the only direction of communication. Perhaps letters and whatever, but certainly the telephone was the main thing. Now how things have changed these days. Having 12 grandchildren ranging from – what are they now, 2 to 24 – I’ve seen a whole gamut, and I see daily just how much social media – the iPads, tablets and things – are taking up their time and the manners in which they take up their time. Elizabeth:        What a wonderful family to have! Michael:          Well, it’s certainly a bit like a zoo (laughter) – I hope they don’t mind me saying that – and I’m the head monkey, but that’s about it. That’s true. But if you think of a child – and one of the main loves in life is visiting schools, and over the many years in Australia I’ve visited many, many schools – and just see what the teachers are up against these days. And often the teachers are – it’s well-known – surrogate parents on many occasions. Often it’s left to teachers, whether it be librarians or very kind teachers … Elizabeth:        Challenging job. Michael:          … To instill in the children a love of literature and how important reading is. But I think of going back to my youth and my toy soldier collection and making and making balsa wood castles and Ormond keeps and whatever it may be, playing in my room with this fantasy world I had grown up in. Elizabeth:        What an imagination! Michael:          Well, my father read to me – when it first came out, back in the fifties, and I was quite young, but – The Hobbit, C.S. Lewis and the Narnian … – beautiful. I was brought up in those kind of – and he also read most of Dickens to me, as well as Kipling. Quite incredible stuff. So my father was a major player in my love of literature. And I’m not sure that it happens hugely these days, but I grew up in a world of imagination. And it wasn’t any great surprise to my parents that I entered the world I’m in, which is the fantasy world of children, because I never got out of it, basically. 67 years we’re looking at at the moment. I would say mental age is about 8 or 9. (Laughter) Elizabeth:        But you make very good coffee for a 9-year-old, Michael. Michael:          But it did eventuate that sitting in my studio in the early hours of the morning, if I start laughing at a concept or whatever, I know full well through the passage of time that preppies or Grade Ones or Twos or kinders will start laughing at it too. So you get to trust your judgement after a while in the arts. You get to know where your strengths are. But going back to your original question, I have a couple of grandchildren who are absolute whizzes on their tablets. They’ve gone through the Minecraft thing; they’ve gone this, they’ve gone that. Almost an obsessive kind of stuff there. Elizabeth:        It’s an addiction, I think. Michael:          Sometimes, you must take time away from the use of imagination. Because let’s face it, in using our imagination, our creativity – and creativity can be cooking a magnificent meal, it can be keeping a well-balanced house. There’s all kinds of creativity, or it could be the artist creativity, but that’s such an important thing, of finding who we are. Elizabeth:        Yes. Michael:          And to have children taken away to a certain extent Magic Land which is absolutely fine until they become obsessive or addictive, as some of these things are, there’s a great danger that children are – shall we say – not able to evaluate or to progress their natural talents etcetera coming through, especially in the arts. Elizabeth:        I totally agree with you. Michael, you’ve written and illustrated so many books. As I’ve mentioned a couple of times, 176. How do you decide what to write about? Michael:          Well, it’s probably – I’ve always written from a cover idea. There’s a book of mine going way back. It’s one of my old favourites, a very simple one, which is called The Pirate Who Wouldn’t Wash. And when I talk to children and they say where do you get your ideas from, I say sometimes you get two ideas that are unrelated and you put them together, and because hopefully my books are rather funny and I was brought up in the fifties on things like The Fabulous Goon Show, Peter Sellers, and Spike Milligan. I loved Monty Python which was a direct sort of baby from The Goon Show. So my love of comedy has always been UK-based. And so that strange juxtaposition of whatever, so I thought, okay, a pirate, and perhaps a person who doesn’t like to wash. And you put them together and you have the pirate who wouldn’t wash. And then you simply – it’s easy if you have a vivid imagination – you list a whole lot of encounters or what could happen to a pirate who wouldn’t wash. Elizabeth:        Could we talk about that? I’d love to talk about that. Michael:          A monster, and then someone who doesn’t like vegetables. Which was one of my stepsons, William, and he was ‘Grunt the Monster’, which was one of my early characters. Refused to eat his vegetables. His teachers went to great lengths to find out how he could eat them, disguise them in milkshakes or whatever it may be. So it was William I was writing about, one of my younger stepsons at that stage. And at university when he went through Architectural course, he was called Grunt, because they knew full well the book was based on him. So it’s good sometimes to disguise – but nonetheless feature things you see around you. Elizabeth:        How did he cope with it? Michael:          He loved it, he loved it, he loved it. Elizabeth:        He got attention? Michael:          He got attention, all that kind of stuff, and he had one of his best mates who let everyone know that he was called ‘Grunt’ – that was sort of his name. But at some stage, I think he uses that – he lectures in Architecture around the country these days. He’s gone and done very well, dear William, and he will sometimes use that as a joke. Elizabeth:        Yes. Icebreaker. Michael:          Icebreaker, exactly. Elizabeth:        Was there a pivotal person who influenced your career? And if so, can you tell us how they inspired you? Michael:          Probably apart from the people I’ve mentioned previously, the Tolkiens and the Hobbits and the Lord of the Rings and the C.S. Lewises and that sort of thing, I’ve always loved the classic British thing like Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons. These are very famous books that everyone read at one stage. Back in those early fifties, my father was at Cambridge University so we were hoisted out of New Zealand; we went to live in the UK, and it was such a great time for a child to be in the UK. It’s still suffering war damage from Second World War, and London still roped off sections of it - the Doodlebugs, the flying bombs that the Germans sent over to hit London. So it was a rather strange place, but the television was brilliant. I was a Enid Blyton fan, a foundation member of the Secret Seven Club. Elizabeth:        Were you really. Michael:          Even though based in Cambridge, we looked forward to every month of the Enid Blyton magazines, so I grew up on The Faraway Tree and the Secret Seven and the Famous Five. I had my badges, I had all the merchandise. But also on the television in those days was a show we never got to hear in Australia – Muffin the Mule. There was also Sooty the Sweep, Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men. Andy Pandy was another one. Most of those were for kindies and little bubs. Basil Brush was a little bit later on. And British television was always superb, especially for children. Blue Peter and some of those famous shows was a little bit later on. I mention this because I had ten years of my own show on ABC which you’ll learn later on, and used puppets and things which I’d seen being used on British television. Elizabeth:        Can you tell us about that show please? Michael:          The show itself … When Alexander first became a character, it was a Michael 'Smartypants book', a little book I had published in 1972. This is The Monster That Ate Canberra. And this basically the genesis of the television show. I thought I would do a – I wasn’t a university student but it was like a smartypants university student publication, because the bunyip himself was not the Kangaroo – was in fact an oversized pink bunyip, more like a Chinese dragon. However, the monster was the public service, and so it was like a joke about the public service. Because back in those seventies and late sixties, large departments were being taken from Melbourne and Sydney and relocated in Canberra, Melbourne Commonwealth finance and other things, so Canberra was being flooded with the public service. And that was why Canberra was being set up, but anyway, as a youngster back in 1972 when I first wrote that book, I envisaged this large King Kong kind of character over Civic, which was the main principal shopping centre, the oldest shopping centre, going on Northbourne Avenue as you come in from Sydney. There’s this large monster devouring things, but this monster has a problem: he is short-sighted. Anyway, he saw the buildings – the famous, iconic buildings of Canberra as objects of food. So put them into – like the Academy of Science, a gigantic apple pie; the National Library, which was recently built, at that stage and still looks like a gigantic birthday cake; and I had the Carillon looking like a Paddle Pop or something like that, which are all to do with objects of food. And the bunyip devoured them. And the Prime Minister – the original Prime Minister back then was (William) “Billy” McMahon, and when he chucked, we had then changed to Gough Whitlam. So Prime Minsters changed within the reprints of this book. The best thing about this … way way back when Gough Whitlam became our Prime Minister, one of the first things he did was institute an office that had never been there before, called the Department of Women. It was there specially to consider and to aid passage of women in Australia into jobs and a whole range of things that had never been heard before in a male-dominated kind of world. Elizabeth:        I’ve always been a fan of Gough, so I must say … (Laughter) Michael:          Well, Gough appointed a single mum called Elizabeth Reid – Liz Reid – and she was a very famous lady and she really championed the cause of women, you know, equal rights, and these ridiculous things that should have been fixed a long time but hadn’t. So Liz Reid was pictured in the centre page of the Woman’s Weekly, soon after Gough – this was one of his first appointments, Liz Reid. And there was Liz with her little bub – so she was a brand new single mum. Elizabeth:        Oh wow. Which in those days would have been scandalous, wouldn’t it. Michael:          Oh yes, but Gough was famous for that. He already went out specially with the arts. Regardless of how he was considered as a Prime Minister, he was certainly a great patron of the arts, Gough Whitlam. Elizabeth:        As I said, I’m a fan. Michael:          In this picture, centre pages of Woman’s Weekly, double spread, was little bubba. And in little bubba’s hands, supported by his mother, was a copy of The Monster That Ate Canberra. Elizabeth:        Wow! How did you feel? Michael:          I thought, “Fantastic!” I got a call within a week from one of the biggest educational publishers in the world, called McGraw-Hill, asking “Can you tell us a little bit about this? And I was described as this is probably not how I would think, and I said “No, but thank you very much for calling.” So the most unusual thing sort of kicked up, and we were reprinting this book again and again for Canberra, because Canberra was laughing its head off. Elizabeth:        Good on you Ms Reid – and baby. Michael:          So we had a theatrical presentation, pantomimes based on it with the local Canberra youth theatre. ABC then serialized it on radio, and then came to me – this was about 1977 or so – saying, “Would you consider having Alexander Bunyip on television?” Elizabeth:        Wow. Michael:          And I said “Yes please, thank you very much.” And it was through a mate of mine, quite a well-known scriptwriter for Australian films called John Stevens, and also director of plays and whatever around Australia, and he was one of the directors of the young people’s programs in ABC, who were based at that stage in Sydney. Anyway, Alexander got on television through this rather, uh, strange path he led, entertaining the people of Canberra. Elizabeth:        Can I ask you with that, and throughout your life, you have enjoyed such great success, and certainly rightly so. Have you found that there’s been what has been seen as insignificant moments, turn into huge, huge achievements for you? Michael:          Well, (I) try to step away from cliché but sometimes it’s hard to, when I say you make your own luck. But the fact that that for example, one of my main – I love it – the statue of Alexander Bunyip, 600 kilograms of bronze outside the library. Elizabeth:        In that place I can’t pronounce. Michael:          Gungahlin, that’s right, Gungahlin. Elizabeth:        I’ll practise it. Michael:          I’ll tell you how that happened. Sometimes on Google if you’re an artistic person and you’re an author or illustrator, if you just put your name in and see what’s the latest thing, are there any new entries. Sometimes schools put in things in comments or whatever. Sometimes odd things about your life come up – business life, work life. And there was a situation that occurred, when Gungahlin Community Council had discussed whether – because John Stanhope, who was the chief minister of the ACT at that stage was putting up statues left right and centre, because he wanted a lot of edifices in Canberra to entertain people. Elizabeth:        He was a visual. Michael:          Yeah, visual person. And someone said, “Why don’t we have Alexander Bunyip?” and there was general laughter. But that was supported in the Council vote of Hansard, you know, the documented notes taken in that particular Council session, and I saw this online. And so I merely wrote to this person, sent them one of the more recent copies of The Monster That Ate Canberra, and said “That sounds great. Let me know if I can help.” Elizabeth:        Absolutely! Michael:          Gosh, one thing after another happened, and the head of the Council Alan Kirlin, with John Stanhope, got it organized, and within a year there was a brand new statue being launched by John Stanhope, one of the last things he did before he resigned. He’d done some magnificent work in Canberra. So new ministers were appointed etcetera, so John – the statue was launched, and I made a speech which was dedicated to my mum, who had died the year before. She was a Canberra girl, and I thought that would be nice to dedicate, at least mention her. I’m sure if she were around - in ethereal style - she wouldn’t miss out on that one, I can assure you. Elizabeth:        I’m sure. Michael:          But when the statue was dedicated – the statue stands there – Elizabeth:        Can we go back, because I would like to talk about that speech about your mum. Can we talk about that? Michael:          Yes. Well, my mother Judy, as I said who passed on in 2010 – the statue was put up in 2011 – was a very … went bush Port Douglas many years ago, before Christopher Skase was up there. (Laughter) So I used to go up there and visit her. A hurricane holiday house, which is simply a house in Port Douglas without any windows. It was up in the hills towards the Mosman River valley. Elizabeth:        For those who don’t know Christoper Skase, can you please touch on him briefly. Michael:          Christopher Skase was one of our major financial entrepreneurs who died over in a Spanish location owing millions of dollars to many people. He was like a younger brother of Alan Bond. That’s where Christopher Skase fitted in. I don’t think New York or Spain ever really sort of – Elizabeth:        Recovered. Michael:          Recovered from the Australian paparazzi to see whether Skase was in fact dying or whether he was in a wheelchair with breathing apparatus, wheeled out by his ever-loving wife Pixie, who is back safely in the country now. But that’s by the by. (Laughter) Michael:          My mother was a fairly gregarious character. Elizabeth:        Bit like yourself. Michael:          (Laughter) Pushy. Elizabeth:        No, no, no. Delightful, and entertaining. Michael:          Judy was one of the younger daughters of her father, my grandfather, Canon W. Edwards – Bill Edwards. He was a young Anglican curate who’d been badly gassed on the fields of Flanders and the Somme in the First World War. Elizabeth:        Oh dear. Michael:          But he was an educationalist, as well as a very strong Anglican within the church. So he was sent on his return out to Grammar School looking after that in Cooma. When Canberra was designated as the place to have our new capital, the Anglican Church from Sydney said, “Please harness up one of the buggies, and take six of your seniors and go look at four different venues in Canberra that we are looking at to have a brand new school.” Elizabeth:        Wow. Michael:          And they chose the most beautiful place, in a road called Mugga Way just at the bottom of Red Hill, which is Canberra Boys’ Grammar. He was their founding Headmaster. Elizabeth:        Was he! Michael:          But the fact was that they settled on that because they pitched their tents under the gum trees. They woke up with the sound of intense kookaburra noise, and thought this was perfect for a grammar school, or any other school for that matter. Elizabeth:        Oh, beautiful. Michael:          They were all talking and whatever it was. Elizabeth:        Bit like sounding the bell, you know. Michael:          (Laughter) So going back to those days, that was the start of Canberra and my family going back there to the thirties of last century. However, back in those days in the Second World War, my father had graduated from school in New Zealand, and was sent across as one of those New Zealand young soldiers to become an officer at Duntroon, the training college. The Defence Academy they call it now, but good old Duntroon. So when he graduated, it was the end of World War Two, and he was sent up to war crimes trials in Japan, as one of his first things the Aus-New Zealand ANZAC forces when they went up there to look after things for a while. But my mother was quite a brilliant lady, and she would always be the one painting and decorating and doing all this kind of stuff. Always a dynamic kind of person. And apart from loving her very much as a mum, she instilled in me this gregarious, rather exhibitionist kind of thing. Elizabeth:        (Laughter) Thank you Judy. It’s Judy, isn’t it. Thank you Judy. I know you’re here. Michael:          So Judy was responsible for – in younger, thinner days, long hair, beads, not necessarily hippie stuff but just total exhibitionist kind of stuff. Elizabeth:        Oh I’ve seen photographs of this man, everybody. My goodness, what a heartthrob. Michael:          I looked like I could have been another guitarist in Led Zeppelin or something. Elizabeth:        I’m actually just fanning myself with my paper. (Laughter) Michael:          But anyway, it’s all a bit of fun. Elizabeth:        Did you ever sing? Michael:          No, no, no. I was actually a drummer at one of the schools I attended. Elizabeth:        Were you? I like drummers. Michael:          Yes, but not this kind of drummer. In the pipe bands at Scotch College, Sydney. I was a tenor drummer. Elizabeth:        Okay. Michael:          So they have the big, the double bass drum or whatever and the tenor drums and the drumsticks - I forget the name – like the Poi they have in New Zealand. And the tenor drums – you have to have coordination if you want to play the tenor drums as you march along in your dress: the Black Watch dress. Elizabeth:        Isn’t learning music so important, which reflects in other areas? Michael:          It is, it is. Elizabeth:        Can we talk about that? Michael:          Well, I think that – not being musical but having written lyrics in my pantomimes – and down at a very amateur level worked out what a bunyip would sing about, or go back to an early blues song or doo-wop kind of song when Alexander is stuck in a zoo in the pantomime. So I had great fun. So my musical experience – I was lucky to have some very clever people, including one gentleman who until a few years ago was one of the Heads of Tutors at Canberra School of Music called Jim Cotter. Now Jim Cotter and I – he wrote my first music for me, for the pantomimes I used to do way back in the early days. And then Peter Scriven – he was the head of the Tintookies Marionette Theatre, who were all under the auspices of the Elizabethan Theatre Trust in Sydney at Potts Point. And Peter had engaged him to do – I was doing some sets – it was the first show, our first children’s show at the Opera House – and I did the costumes for Tintookies. It was a revamp of what Peter Scriven had been doing back in the fifties. And Jim had some brand new music, and so my musical experience was purely admiring music and talented people who did that, realizing that it was not my forte. Elizabeth:        Aren’t they clever. Michael:          Nonetheless, by writing lyrics and giving some vague, vague “rock ‘n roll and I like it” -like, you know. Not exactly “Stairway to Heaven”, you know what I’m saying? Elizabeth:        (Laughter) Who was your favourite band at that stage? Michael:          Ahh, I grew up in the Sixties. I got myself a hearing aid the other day. You can hardly see it – one of these new things. But essentially, I’ve had to, because I spent a lot of my younger life surfing in the eastern beaches of Sydney. The promotion of bone growth over the ear – there’s some kind of term for it – and they had to cut away the bone if I were to hear properly. And I thought, I don’t want my ear cut, so I’ll just leave it as it is at 67. But also too, I do attribute some of those early groups to my lack of hearing these days, because I did study for my exams with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones. Pretty much one of my favourite groups of all time was a group that spread, with different members going to different other groups, were The Byrds in America. Dylan songs. “Mr Tambourine”. Elizabeth:        Yes. Was it Eric – Eric somebody? Or did I get the wrong group. Michael:          We’re talking about David Crosby, Gene Clark, Jim McGuinn who changed his name and became Roger, or was it the other way round. But they had the Dylan. They came out with “Mr. Tambourine Man”. Elizabeth:        Yes, I know that song. Michael:          Their next one was ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’. Then they went into more Dylan of, “All I Really Want to Do”. And these are hits of the Sixties. Elizabeth:        You could sing a few bars. Michael:          No I couldn’t. Not even Dylan-style. (Laughter) But I love those songs, mainly because - Elizabeth:        They’re great. Michael:          Jim McGuinn had a 12-string guitar, and it was this jingly-jangly feel to their songs that I loved dearly. But another group which I must tell you, because I met up with them in real life, which is one of my favourite groups, is The Seekers. Elizabeth:        Oh! Miss Judith! Michael:          Now Keith Potger is a good mate of mine. We go for gentlemen’s clubs like Savage Club; he’s a member of Savage, enjoy long lunches, and often with some other guests. Elizabeth:        Athol Guy? Michael:          Yes. And Judith Durham – where you’re sitting there – came and sat down there with her manager a few years ago. Elizabeth:        My goodness! Michael:          She’d seen a presentation – Elizabeth:        She’s beautiful. Michael:          Oh, magnificent. And her voice! Elizabeth:        Angel. Michael:          Judith had seen a production by Garry Ginivan, who is one of the principal Australian children’s entrepreneurs for theatrics, theatres. He’s just finished doing Hazel E.’s Hippopotamus on the Roof kind of stuff, and I’m not sure if he’s doing Leigh Hobbs’ Horrible Harriet. Now that’s going to the Opera House. I’m not sure if Garry Ginivan’s doing that for Leigh. He did for Graeme Base. He did My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch, and also brought packaged stuff like Noddy and Toyland, Enid Blyton and other stuff like The Faraway Tree. So anyway he was presenting Puff the Magic Dragon – and I’m just looking around the room to find a graphic of the poster, because I’d designed Puff the Magic Dragon. Elizabeth:        Did you? Michael:          And they used that for all the promotional material and stuff there, but it was the puppet that I designed. And Judith went along to see – it was at The Athenaum Theatre here in Melbourne, a few years ago now. Elizabeth:        Lovely theatre. Michael:          And she liked the whole idea of the dragon, and she rang me. And so here was this most beautiful angel on the other line … Anyway, she was round a couple of days with her management. She was at that time – this was before The Seekers got back together and did all that magnificent tours they did over the last five or six years, Andre Rieu included. Judith is a honky-tonk girl; she loves the music of spiritual and going across to honky-tonk, like Scott Joplin, the ragtime, and all this sort of stuff. Elizabeth:        Oh, fun! Michael:          And she had written several things that she wanted the sheet music to be illustrated to sell, as part of the Judith Durham empire. And she did the ‘Banana Rag’. So immediately I did the illustration for her. I didn’t take any payment. I said, “Look, Judith, might I be impertinent and ask you to come to one of my clubs and sing – come to dinner?” She was a very strict vegetarian and looked after herself incredibly well after a terrible accident where she had to look after her whole system and she’s done that magnificently. So there she was singing, and this was when The Seekers had just released one of their LP’s, called “Morning Town Ride to Christmas”, which was for children’s songs, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house of these senior gentlemen at the club I was talking about, one of these good old Melbourne clubs, when she sang “The Carnival’s Over”. Elizabeth:        Oh yes. Michael:          Absolutely superb, so that was more than enough payment for doing some artwork. But since then, I continued … and met the desperate Keith Potger. Elizabeth:        Weren’t you lucky. Weren’t you lucky. Weren’t you lucky to have that gorgeous woman. Michael:          I was lucky. I was lucky. But I had to tell you, Judith - they had an article on her website, and she’s on Facebook as well - had at that time recorded with The Lord Mayor’s Orchestra here in Melbourne. It was called “The Australian Cities Suite”, and she had written a song for every major city in Australia. And I remember she and I were trying to do a book together, a book based on a song that her husband – who passed on through, oh gosh, what was it – the wasting disease, muscular disease … Elizabeth:        MS? Muscular Dystrophy? Michael:          Muscular Dystrophy. I’m sure that must be it. He put in a song called “Billy the Bug and Sylvia Slug”, and so we put that into a book. And I took Judith along to see some of the heads of various publishing firms in Sydney as well as the head of ABC merchandising in their ivory tower down in Haymarket area. Beautiful beautiful premises they have there, ABC Studios. And so Judith was much heralded in both places when I took her as my guest to introduce this book to her. The book didn’t work unfortunately, but she did start singing in the car as we’d arrived early in the carpark of the ABC citadel in Haymarket. She started singing. And we were all sitting there. And she started singing songs again from The Seekers. Elizabeth:        I don’t think I’m ever going to stand up again. Michael:          So here we are in Kooyong, and there’s the beautiful strains of Judith Durham singing songs, and I thought, “It doesn’t get much better than this.” Elizabeth:        Oh wow. Michael:          I don’t think Deborah Harry could have done the same. Elizabeth:        Do you think Judith Durham would speak with me on this podcast? Michael:          Judith is a very accommodating person, and I’m sure that if you ask through her management, Graham her manager would – I’m sure - she would look at that favourably. Elizabeth:        Would I have to wear a ball gown? I have a couple. To meet the Queen. Michael:          Meet the Queen. (Laughter) But anyway, I suppose too, in my business – and Australia is not a huge place really, when it comes to who knows what and we talked before about the degrees of separation. Elizabeth:        Absolutely. Michael:          And so, a lot of my stuff has been … involved with, because of my work, a lot of singers and whatever via The Hat Books. I remember Russell Morris, not in this place but a previous place. Elizabeth:        “The Real Thing”? Michael:          “The Real Thing” Russell Morris. Brilliant, brilliant, and had the two LP’s as well. Elizabeth:        And Molly, Molly is attached to that – he produced it, didn’t he. Michael:          Yeah, but Russell Morris had this concept that he came up with his wife 30 years ago. It was about a toy that was pre-broken and you had to fix it. The whole idea of the toy was that you had to re-glue this broken toy. Elizabeth:        Right. Michael:          It was ceramic, and he was so keen on it, but I just didn’t think it was going to work. He was a man with an incredible imagination – Elizabeth:        Russell Morris? Michael:          Russell Morris. He had this toy concept, but it didn’t work, because I don’t think kids want to sit around re-gluing a toy that has been broken. I don’t know what he was on. Elizabeth:        He was quite resourceful. Michael:          Ah, he is. Look at the way Russell Morris has revived in recent times. And he’ll have to excuse me. I don’t remember, but I’ve certainly listened to his two LP’s – albums as we used to call them, back in the old days – that he did. All bluesy and whatever, and he’s still got a magnificent voice. Elizabeth:        You know, there are so many Australians that are not – what should I say – recognized as they should be, I think. And such talent. Michael:          Ah, yeah. Elizabeth:        And do you think we need to go overseas, like in the old day. I was listening to a program last night, actually, and Brian Cadd was on it. Love Brian Cadd. Beautiful, beautiful music. And he said you know, back in the day you had to go to London. Michael:          Yes, yes. Well, look at Easybeats and stuff like that. Elizabeth:        Do you think people need to go? Michael:          Brian Cadd and The (Bootleg) Family (Band), that’s what he calls his group, they are reappearing at – they are doing an Australian tour this month in February – I saw it on Facebook, actually. Elizabeth:        You know, a friend of mine who’s a pastel artist, highly acclaimed – we were talking about this, and she said in this country, she’s just not recognized and she really needs … She’s working in a boutique! Michael:          It is a problem. You know on Facebook, which is one of the loves of my life, you see a good deal of Australian up-and-coming authors and illustrators, and ones that you dearly wish would … And I do believe that you if you earn it, you deserve a place in the sun – your ten minutes, twelve minutes of fame, all that kind of stuff. And if you’re smart enough, after your time has been, you then start doing things which reinvent yourself. I’m not talking about Madonna-style, but I’m talking about coming up with new things, being aware of new trends and seeing whether you can adapt your talents. Elizabeth:        Being a survivor. Michael:          Being a survivor, absolutely. Because let’s face it, and I’m very grateful – for example, the schools around Australia – 45 years… Elizabeth:        I’m sure they’re grateful to you too. Michael:          I go into the schools and there are teachers there that say, “Look, the last time I saw you Michael, was when I was in Prep or Grade One, and I loved your books then and I still love them." I’m just so thankful. Elizabeth:        How do you feel, other than gratitude? Michael:          Well, this is one of those major things, of feedback you get. And some of them come up and say “I started drawing because of you drawing”. Elizabeth:        You’re inspirational! Michael:          There are just those things there that I … and also entertaining. Doing a bit of stand-up comedy, giving out very silly prizes like Barbie books to Grade Six boys for good behaviour. I know Preppies will never forget those things. Elizabeth:        Can you talk us through – when you present to the school, how do you do that? Michael:          This year I’ve got a ‘Michael Salmon’s Monster Show’ which is talking about more or less the same thing, but some different pictures to ones I’ve been doing before. Essentially what I realized right at the start is if I do some speed cartooning, right in the very first picture I draw there, and do it so quickly in a great show-off manner, you get the kids hooked.  Elizabeth:        It’s magic; it’s in front of us. Michael:          Because the little ones, they say “Look what he did! Look how fast he drew!” And I always knew that that particular facet, if you did it correctly, the little Preppies in the front – because we do try to get mixed grades, with the Grade Sixes at the back – is that you would have their attention if you kept on. So I sort of talked about the way I invented characters and how it happened. Bobo my dog who is not here today – dear Bobo in the book I wrote called Bobo My Super Dog, where I sort of – he saves the world a bit. Elizabeth:        Of course he would. (Laughter) Michael:          Oh, I don’t know. Let’s just go back to the bit about Australia and the people who are trying to make it, and they are doing their very best and you see their brilliant talent. And it’s very evident on Facebook – it’s one of my major purveyors of talent – the ideas that people come up with and all that sort of stuff. I mean, you’ve got some brilliant people here in Australia. You look at Leigh Hobbs for a start. Now he belongs to the Savage Club as I do, so I catch up with him for lunch on occasions. And there he is with his two-year tenure in his position championing children’s books and children’s literature around Australia. His cartoons are very much like Ronald Searle, the famous British cartoonist, who did the original cartoons that accompanied the original published books and also the film versions of St Trinian’s movies, of schoolgirls and things like that – the naughty schoolgirls. And Ronald Searle was a brilliant, brilliant artist, and he had the kind of nuttiness in his cartooning that Leigh Hobbs had. You look at Leigh Hobbs’ stuff – they are very, very sparse, great placement of colour, they are done in a very slapdash manner. It all works together beautifully – from Horrible Harriet, to Old Tom and whatever. And if you’ve got other people – what’s that book by Aaron Blabey – something or other Pug? (Pig the Pug) I bought some books for my very young grandchildren for Christmas, and I thought, “I haven’t seen these books before.” And here he is winning awards and YABBA (Young Australians Best Book Awards) Awards and all this kind of stuff. And so much talent around. And it’s hard in Australia to make a living as an author, because the royalties and stuff, even if you are one of the top ones, may suffice for a while but aren’t continuing. Elizabeth:        And yet Michael you’ve done that – for 50 years – haven’t you. Michael:          Only because of schools. 45 years in schools and 50 years in the arts. But mainly because I branched out and did things like theatre – the television show. You saw when you first entered the merchandise for 'Alexander Bunyip'. Spotlight stores were behind me for fabrics for a decade, and they finished not a huge many years ago. And that had nothing to do with 'Alexander Bunyip'. But the fact of really, of diversifying. Elizabeth:        Okay. Michael:          And the books for me lay a platform. When Mum or Dad read a book at night to their children, and it happens to be one of yours, and it’s something they like, and they happen to be one of the lead buyers of Spotlight stores and they say “We must do something about this guy”, and they came round and sat where you’re sitting, and they said “We’d like to offer you a deal.” And I thought, “Oh thank you. That’s great!” Elizabeth:        But can I interject? The vital part of that is certainly that there is talent and diversification, but it’s also the ability to connect with people - which you are very skilled at. And the warmth that you have … Michael:          Well, thanks to my mother, because she was a people person. Yes, you’re quite right – it does help to be a people person if you’re an artistic person. Of course sometimes it doesn’t flow. Some of the best children’s authors are not people persons. So you can’t expect to do anything. I learned long ago of creating an impact on your audience – start and hold them if you can from then on, and then you can impart any message you want. And the only message I really impart to the children is about developing their creativity, for them to start working on the things they’re good at, or keep drawing or singing or whatever it may be. Elizabeth:        I really want to segue into something from those comments about your work for the Alannah and Madeline Foundation. That is so, so pivotal. Can we talk about that? Michael:          Yes. Do you know, in general terms, it’s really good if you’ve had success, I’ve found, especially in the arts, to find venues and areas and avenues to give back to society. I hope that doesn’t sound too corny. Elizabeth:        It sounds beautiful. Michael:          Up here, I’ve got some – when I was one of the patrons of “Life Be In It” for the Victorian – Elizabeth:        Oh yes! Michael:          And I designed – not the vans, those large pantechnicon vans that went around and advertised anti-drugs and – Elizabeth:        It was Norm, wasn’t it. Norm. Michael:          Norm was “Life Be In It”. This was the Life Education Centre, the one started up by Ted Knox at King’s Cross Chapel, but they went to a huge thing. Large pantechnicon trailers filled with the latest kind of things, and all round Australia, but particularly in Victoria – because that’s where my expertise was, helping them design big wheels to go on, painted by local mums and dads. And I also do it to do some fundraising. But Life Education had a Harold Giraffe as their logo, and it’s still going gangbusters. So these things would go to schools, and like the dental van they locked you in that, and they would see these incredible digital displays of bodies and drugs and anti-drugs, things like that. Magnificent, magnificent. That was one thing I was involved in. A good mate of mine, a school librarian called Marie Stanley, who’s since not a school teacher anymore – a school librarian – she rang up soon after 1996 when the horrific Port Arthur thing had occurred. She had been seconded – Walter Mikac, whose wife Nanette and two daughters Alannah and Madeline were shot dead – he knew he had to do something. So he went to see the Victorian Premier at that stage, Steve Bracks, and also saw John Howard. And between them he got funding to set up a St Kilda Road office and start the Alannah and Madeline Foundation which is purely there to help the victims of violent crime – the families, the children – provide them with some kind of accommodation or support or clothing, needs, or toiletries – a whole range of stuff there. So they seconded Marie Stanley from Williamstown North Primary School. Because I’d visited her school many times, she rang me up and said, “Look, Michael, I’m doing this, I’m on salary, but I need your help. Could you help me invent a character?” So I came on board with Alannah and Madeline (Foundation) on a purely voluntary basis, which is my pleasure, and we invented a character called Buddy Bear as a very safe little bear and a spokes figure, whereby – and there are behind me as we speak in this interview – there are Buddy Bear chocolates up there. And they did something like five million chocolates with my name and my design on it through Coles stores and Target stores … Elizabeth:        You know Michael, next time we meet I need a camera. (Laughter) Michael:          That’s just 'Buddy Bear' stuff. And 'Buddy Bear' has gone on strongly and it’s now part of the Alannah and Madeline Foundation. But they got involved in a very important … the main focus of anti-bullying. And I was the person – I want to say one thing, because it’s true – I suggested that they should go – violence and all this stuff for families was terrible enough – but if they wanted to go to the bully, they really should get into the heart of the matter. And to me, I said to them once, “Look, please. I’ve seen what we’re doing. We’ve got Buddy Bear as the spokes figure for violence in the home. But we really should be hitting schools and things with something that centers around bullying and have an anti-bullying campaign. And you know, it is one of those things which is said at the right time and the right place. And now we’ve got Princess Mary of Denmark who is the international head of 'Buddy Bear' and they’ve got their own thing over there because of her Australian connection with Tasmania. We have the National Bank who are the sponsors of the 'Buddy Bear' program of the Alannah and Madeline (Foundation), so we have a fully-fledged charity. But the early days of inventing 'Buddy Bear', and a lot of people who gave their time and effort for no cost as I did, and pleasure to get the whole thing going. But it was all through initially Walter Mikac, thinking that with his deceased wife and two little girls, he had to do something. He was a pharmacist by trade and he was a smart man – he is a smart man – and he set the wheels in motion. And so it was a - ‘pleasure’ is not the right word. It was satisfying to be involved with a program that was ultimately going to help children feel better and safe and especially with this bullying thing, of being able to … Elizabeth:        Personally, I love fundraising and I do a lot of it. And actually we have on the agenda this year a fundraiser for another children’s author: Pat Guest. His son Noah, and Noah has Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy, and the family need a wheelchair-accessible vehicle. Michael:          Yes, yes, yes. Elizabeth:        Pat’s a wonderful person. He’s published five books and counting, and has written one about Noah called That’s What Wings Are For. He has actually podcasted with me. So I’m going to put you on the spot now and ask you if you would like to create something – Michael:          Absolutely! Let me know … Elizabeth:        I haven’t even finished my sentence! Michael:          No, no, no, the answer’s yes. The answer’s yes. Elizabeth:        The generosity! Thank you. Michael:          No, no, my pleasure. You talk about the – do you pronounce it ‘Duchenne’? There was a very famous fundraiser with that society up in Cairns several years ago, where various artists and musicians and illustrators were asked to provide – and they said a ukulele – so you had very famous artists and musicians and illustrators creating and painting their own version on this practical ukulele that was sent back to Cairns and auctioned off for charity and raised a whole lot of money. Elizabeth:        You know Pat, I think, would love to meet you. And I know Noah – the whole family are just beautiful people. Michael:          But I’ll have you know, only because of that connection where they contacted me saying “Would you like to …” and I had no knowledge whatever of the disease and the toll it took. Elizabeth:        I’ve nursed a couple of boys with it. Michael:          From my recollection, would it be quite correct to say it’s quite gender-specific? It hits boys more than girls? Elizabeth:        Yes. The two children that I nursed were brothers, and they passed. So we want to focus on the positive side, and this Saturday, actually there’s a trivia night which is sold out – Michael:          Oh good! Good, good. Elizabeth:        And it’s Eighties music which is my thing – I love that – so hopefully I will win, everybody. Don’t bet on me, Michael, but if there was a ticket, I’d invite you. But we’re looking at later in the year and we have some great people. Dave O’Neil wants to do a spot – Michael:          Oh yeah, good, good, good. Elizabeth:        And he podcasted with me. And like yourself, pretty much before I got my sentence out, he said 'yes'. Robyn Payne whom I wrote my song with for my children’s book – she wants to write a song. So we’ve got many … and Robyn Payne was in Hey Hey, It’s Saturday for many years. She was in that band, and Robyn’s incredible – she plays eight instruments. Michael:          Right, right, yes, yes. Elizabeth:        She’s performed at the Grand Final; incredibly talented lady. I just ran into her the other night with Neil, her husband, and Steph who’s a good friend of mine and recently performed with her on stage as well, they’re looking at writing a song for Noah. So it’s taking off. Michael:          One of the best fundraisers I’ve been to is a yearly event – still going – the Alannah and Madeline (Foundation) did. I don’t keep in contact with them directly; it was just a pleasure to work in, but what they did at the Palladium Ballroom – have 'Starry Starry Night'. Now 'Starry Starry Night' would have almost anyone who’s anyone in show business, on television and the media, would be there, from the jockeys at Melbourne Cup who would be singing Village People and whatever. Quite brilliant. And they had a huge host. We’re talking about – and I’m not exaggerating – 50 or so celebrities attended that. Black Night night and it really was a “starry starry night”. I haven’t attended for a long time, but I did my duty and it was a great pleasure to be there and part of it. But that was a brilliant fundraiser, and still continues as a fundraiser for the Alannah and Madeline Foundation. Elizabeth:        Oh, I’m so honoured that you said yes to me before I even finished my sentence. Thank you so much! Talking about stars, I’d like to go to my signature question, and then we’ll say adieu to you. Michael, this is a signature question I ask all my guests: what do you wish for, for the world, and most importantly for yourself? Michael:          Well, as we’re sitting here in early February of 2017, because of all these incredible events that are going on every quarter of the day from the United States there, where the world order seems to be rapidly changing, and oddities occurring there and without going into it too heavily we all know what we’re talking about, I have a hope that the situation in America remedies itself, and that the situations change rapidly, and that America gets back, because as the biggest country in the world for what it is and known as, because we need the stability of America etcetera, so it’s a fairly direct sort of wish that America gets its act together again soon, and maintains something that we can trust in. Because America really is being that main country in the world. Elizabeth:        Do you see a way – does that start one person at a time? Is that how things start to change? Michael:          Gosh, as we’ve evidenced with the Women’s March and a whole range of stuff now that the immigration – oh dear – it just goes on, goes on. And without going into a full-scale discussion of that, my wish is that America gets back together quickly, and maintains and gets someone new in charge. I don’t know how that’s going to happen – impeachment or … but something has to happen, so that the world can feel stable again. And that’s not grandiose, but that’s probably affecting a lot of people in the world. As every new edict or special signatory thing is signed in the White House, the ripples it sends across for instability is quite amazing. We’ve never seen it before, unless you were there during Chamberlain days when Neville Chamberlain was talking to Hitler, and some of those – not grandiose or high-flying stuff, but it does affect especially Aussies who love America dearly, and America loves us. Elizabeth:        But to me your books so beautifully reflect history. Michael:          Some of them do, some of them do. It’s like a Facebook page – I really do love entertaining people and making them laugh. And that’s probably the last part of your question – I really would like every child in the mass audiences I encounter, we’re talking about 500 or so -  I would like to think that every child had an opportunity – not because of anything to do with my talk that may be instrumental , it doesn’t really matter – the children of today can reach their potential, and the energy and the talents they have are recognized. Not squashed, quashed, forgotten, put to one side by society or families, issues, whatever it may be. Elizabeth:        You know, that reminds me of a good friend of mine, Andrew Eggelton. So Andrew Eggelton is an interesting man – he’s a New Zealander actually; he’s a Kiwi – and he believes in the Art of Play. So his wish is that everybody gets to use their God-given talents. Michael:          Ditto, ditto, absolutely. Because you do see the children out there. Just to give you an example: I spoke to close to 12,000 children during a tour that I organized myself – I do have some other agents organizing other states … Elizabeth:        How do you look after your throat? Michael:          Thank goodness I’ve always had a voice that can throw – a loud voice – I was captain of a rugby team in my machismo days. I was in New Zealand, and as a front row forward you don’t usually have a shy, retiring kind of personality. When you go out to tour, and on that tour we toured everything around the Riverina, we did places like West Wyalong, places you normally drive through as you are going up the back roads to Dubbo or some place like that. Then we went to Sydney, the western suburbs schools, and even this morning I had a phone call from one of the agents for a school near Loganlea. The school called and they want a couple of sessions. Most of their students are refugees with English ESL, so English Second Language. I would say English third or fourth language. Elizabeth:        How many children at that school? Michael:          Seven hundred. She said – the agent who rang me – and this is the first one in the tour that’s coming up late July for southeastern Queensland – “The reason no doubt that you’ve been invited to this particular school” which I know well, is because my act is highly visual. You don’t need a lot of language to understand it, because I draw all the cartoons. Or I’m caricaturing children, or getting them to caricature me. It’s almost like – ‘international language’ is not the right phrase – but it’s almost like a human comedy or whatever you call it. Elizabeth:        It’s like smiling. Michael:          It’s like smiling, and the more the merrier. So up there you’ve got the refugee children. You’ve got a lot of – and I really enjoy going to the Tongan or Samoan or Fijian or Maori schools or New Zealand, because I used to play rugby and I played with so many Islanders over the years and I’ve got some good mates there. And especially up there in southern parts of Brisbane, before you hit the Gold Coast, it’s always challenging, and I love to go up there, so it’s great to hear that. And the same thing applies to Indigenous schools up on the Gulf of Carpentaria, they call them, the Gulf Savannah schools up in Cape York, where you go to places like Weipa and stuff like that. And some of the notorious – notorious because of the troubles that have occurred – there’s a couple of places along the Peninsula there – they are trouble spots and have been for many years. Elizabeth:        You know Michael, that just says so much about you, because so many people would not go within cooee of those places, and it reflects your beautiful generosity. So I want to thank you very much for guesting on Writers’ Tête-à-Tête with Elizabeth Harris. And I think we need a Part Two. It’s been an absolute delight and thank you so much. Michael:          Thank you very much, and thank you Serena too. I babbled on a bit, but fifty years – fifty years of working in this country – there’s been a lot of water under the bridge. A lot of people, a lot of children, and I’m just very lucky. I consider myself very lucky to be in that position, to have that rapport with kids, and to just get on with them and entertain them and enjoy them. Elizabeth:        I consider those children and us very, very lucky to have met you today. Thank you so much. Michael:          Thank you guys. Thank you. [END OF TRANSCRIPT]

Although President Obama should be praised for his efforts to reform America's Criminal Justice System and provide some form of relief for those stained with a criminal record, it will take a major shift in America's willingness to forgive before any real progress can be made for ex-offenders. Because America descended into an unforgiving revenge driven consciousness decades ago, the odds of someone getting a true fresh start after breaking the law is rather rather low. America neither forgives or forgets anything anymore.

Although President Obama should be praised for his efforts to reform America's Criminal Justice System and provide some form of relief for those stained with a criminal record, it will take a major shift in America's willingness to forgive before any real progress can be made for ex-offenders. Because America descended into an unforgiving revenge driven consciousness decades ago, the odds of someone getting a true fresh start after breaking the law is rather rather low. America neither forgives or forgets anything anymore.

In this political season, we've been lead to believe that there are only two options for change. That change happens when we vote for a certain candidate. When we vote for a certain political party. But true change—and the potential for change—doesn't just happen in Washington. True, lasting change doesn't begin in the White House, but in your house. America's best hope for the future doesn't depend upon Democrats or Republicans—America's best hope for the future is you and I and Christians everywhere taking a stand and not just voting—but living differently. Living in this world and living like Christ followers. Because America's best kept secret isn't Republican or Democrat, Elephants or Donkeys. America's hope isn't about elephants and donkeys—America and the world's best hope is you living a godly life in a dark place.