Death Toll Rises in Iran, DHS Sends More Officers To Minnesota, & Fed Chair Powell Threatened By DOJ

Key Takeaway

This episode unpacks the complex geopolitical moment we're living through—from Iran's destabilization to Trump's pressure on the Federal Reserve. The key insight: We're witnessing the collision of nation-state power plays with fiscal dominance, where the US must lower interest rates to refinance mounting debt, regardless of who's president. Your action: Understand that inflation, interest rates, and government debt aren't abstract—they directly impact your purchasing power and asset values. Start learning basic economics to protect yourself from these macro forces.

Episode Overview

Tom and Drew analyze current geopolitical tensions including Trump's threats regarding Greenland, protests in Iran with over 500 dead and 10,000 detained, and the escalating conflict between Trump's DOJ and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The episode focuses heavily on the economic implications of fiscal dominance—the reality that the US government must lower interest rates to refinance its massive debt wall coming due in 2026, regardless of political posturing. They discuss how both Trump and Powell are engaged in political theater while the mathematical reality of debt refinancing makes rate cuts inevitable. The conversation explores the nature of power, tyranny, and how nations navigate between stability and freedom.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Death Toll Rises in Iran, DHS Sends More Officers To Minnesota, & Fed Chair Powell Threatened By DOJ from Impact Theory. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Good morning everybody. Welcome to another rousing edition of the Tom Billy Show live. Thank you guys so much for joining us. Uh this is such a pivotal moment in human history. It is wild to live in such transitional times and we are honored that you guys are joining us as we try to make sense of everything that is happening. And speaking of everything that is happening, Trump has made it clear the US is getting control of Greenland. and he said, "This is a paraphrase, but it's pretty close to a direct quote.

We'll do it the easy way or the hard way." The hard way presumably being military intervention. Reports, however, are flying that while Trump wants a plan for a military move on Greenland. His generals have said no, that it would be illegal. So, we'll see how that one plays out. Trump's DOJ has threatened a criminal indictment [clears throat] of Fed Chair Jerome Powell related to his June 2025 testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. Uh I think largely centering around the renovations that they're doing. So, is it really about that?

Probably not. Uh but sometimes the process is the punishment. The debate continues to rage over the ICE shooting of Renee Good. According to reports, the Minnesota fraud is totaling near the fraud total is nearing 20 billion dollar. Elon and other officials close to the matter claim that annual nationwide fraud is well over $500 billion, billion, billion, which is insane. And despite that, federal judge, a federal judge has blocked Trump from denying funds for child care despite all of these allegations of fraud. And Trump says that a red line is being crossed as we speak in Iran as over 500 have been reported dead and an additional 10,000 detained as massive protests continue to rock the country.

Shout out to everybody in Iran that is standing up. Man, right now I can't fathom it. As people are getting snatched off the se streets, seen footage of people roaming with guns just firing at people. It's wild. Uh may we never live through anything like that, Drew. that, Drew. that, Drew. Yeah. Yeah. And as he reported, more than 538 people have been confirmed dead. Another 10,600 have been detained. There have been some fringe reports and tweets that the death toll is actually closer to the thousands.

They just haven't been verified yet. But it seems like in their third week, Iran is speeding up and not slowing down. The internet is still cut down, is still cut off, and phone lines are still down. But there were even reports from um Kamani's leadership that yeah, we have it all under control. Nothing to worry about here. But it seems like they're just trying to avoid the world stage and becoming the focus of Trump. You don't shut the internet down. You don't turn off international calls if you're like, "No, we have nothing to hide." It's like they literally have everything to hide.

This is crazy. So here's the [snorts] uh the uncomfortable truth. So Steven Miller had said something directly. I forget who he was talking to, but he said, "Listen, we live in a world that is governed by power, and that is the reality. and governments start as uh basically weak men getting together and saying we need a way to come together to fight off invading hordes, roving bands. I mean, if you go back far enough in history, this isn't organized armies and things like that. It's just they there's a guy with more weapons than you, stronger than you, better fighter than you, whatever.

Uh and they will just come in, kill you, take your stuff and governments begin to form as a way to um give credibility to a certain use of violence to make sure that violence is only used by certain people to defend uh your group and over time they tend towards tyranny. And it is that human proclivity. This is not something that's being forced upon us from the outside. This is just wired into the human psyche. The proclivity to tend towards tyranny is absolute and history is just a neverending spiral of people getting crushed down by tyranny only to finally overcome it only to find that it comes back around.

And so we're living through one of these moments where uh the sort of subtle tyranny of globalism that led us to the position that we're in now where you're being molested by bankers is probably the right way to think about it. uh is now falling apart and we're realizing once again that there are nation states that are fighting for power and in the midst of all of this is just this incredible moment of destabilization destabilization destabilization uh which is wild. And so if any of you guys are having trouble sleeping uh unsure of what the future brings, boy do I have some empathy for you.

It is a truly wild time. And I think the goal here is to be completely cleareyed about the nature of man. Uh to understand how I cover this stuff, you really have to understand I'm trying to present what it is with a gallows humor twist. Uh it's just how my mind works. So I try to find some humor in all of the insanity. Uh but ultimately I think that looking at humans the way that they really are is necessary, not sugar coating understanding um all of the complexities of what's at play.

So anyway, we're doing our best to bring things in that fashion. Um, and that's exactly what you're seeing play out in Iran. You, um, religious extremism mixing with a grand desire for sovereignty, individual sovereignty at the level of the actual people of Iran. But the destabilization does not automatically mean that on the other side of this is something wonderful that's going to have to be fought for. Uh you've got China throwing their hat in the ring and saying that they don't like to see anybody interfere with um a nation's domestic issues.

So uh I don't know what death toll they consider acceptable before somebody steps in, but it might be infinite given their history. So anyway, that's the moment we're living in. Good morning. I hope you guys are doing great. China's like, "Mind your business. Don't got nothing to do with you. Let them do their thing. Don't need nobody other people's countries." people's countries." people's countries." Put out that video. Yeah. But it bled over to the US. I don't know if you seen the video from the U-Haul in Brentwood.

Um, a guy tried to drive through a protest with signs talking about, "We don't want to no shy, no regime, US don't repeat 1953." Um, and he was clearly met by a riot. So, his front window was smashed. Police had to escort him out. He is detained. No charges have been uh taken and the FBI is investigating. Um, but it seemed like somebody that was just trying to say, "Hey, don't do a regime change." And protesters weren't trying to hear that. Yeah, I'm surprised that he's being detained.

This is a guy with a political message. Now, is he being detained? Because I know at one point he um sort of lurches forward over and over and over with the vehicle to clear the space in front of him. Uh but man, anybody that was around for Rodney King, like my car getting surrounded is a non-starter. They took that guy out of his car. Uh who was the guy that got beat within an inch of his life? Oh man. Oh man. Oh man. Wasn't Rodney King.

Well, Rodney King got beat by the police, but there was a guy just trying to drive through during the protest in a semi and they pull him out. Ah, somebody in the chat's going to remember his name. Uh, but they pull him out and cave his head in with a rock. Now, he ends up living, but uh, if memory serves, he was not fully uh, back to normal after that. So, anyway, it is super dangerous when people start doing this as they will uh, drag you out of the car.

Yeah. And that's literally what they were trying to do. Um, two people were evaluated, but their injuries were minor. No deaths reported so far specifically from this. Regginald Denny, thank you. Shout out. Uh he was killed. Are we sure about that? Seem to remember. It could be a mismemory. So anyway, Reginald Denny, that is correct. Uh is this just another case of just suicidal Western empathy? The fact that we're protesting it's kind of bleeding over to the US soil. Um the Iranian protest or protest or protest or No.

So on this one, we're going to have to be very careful to tease out all the different things that are at play. So, uh, I think it is a very reasonable concern to have to say, um, I don't just want to go back to having a king. Uh, I think it's a very reasonable concern to say, yeah, the US created a power vacuum in Iran and, uh, they tried to put like a puppet in place. Hey, Venezuela, how you doing? Uh, and that didn't go well.

So, all of that, like, those feel like legitimate concerns. And so if this guy is just trying to get people to understand that this is not going to be a simple transition uh and that if you're not incredibly careful, you're going to get um meet the new boss same as the old boss. And so I think all of that is legitimate. And becoming a democratic nation, especially after almost 50 years of uh repressive religious rule, is not going to be an easy thing. And when you look at how long it even took America to um ratify the Constitution, dude, there was almost 10 years between the signing of the Declaration of Independence and when we became America as people know it now.

So this stuff is incredibly difficult. Do you have those people um in the country willing to fight and die that have the intellectual capacity, the humility, the um ego? Yes, I understand the contradiction of those to like come together and make some sort of uh constitution that people will actually abide by. Do you have people that have enough credibility in their hometown to like get this stuff to stick? And in the age of social media where everybody has a voice and everybody's pulling in a different direction, is it even possible to refound a nation without the strong arm of the law?

Like I don't know how to say it without like a lot of forcefulness. I don't know. And so we're going to watch all this play out, but I had all my hopes dashed during the um the uprisings that happened in the Arab Spring that ended up not really going anywhere. And it's just getting a country pointed in the same direction and getting a culture that for almost 50 years has been going in one direction whether through repression or not going in a direction to suddenly be unified in the way that they're moving forward is crazy.

It's crazy difficult. And the way that humans will fight over minutia is ridiculous. Look at um Northern Ireland versus Ireland and the way that they killed each other over the most minor [ __ ] The 30 Years Wars, same thing. like really minor interpretations, what we would as a modern audience consider very minor interpretations um different interpretations of the Bible and they start slaughtering each other killing 20% of some areas of Europe. I mean just absolutely wild and so you can get people that in theory should be pulling in the same direction and they don't and they go to war with each other.

So how's this going to play out? So anyway, you're seeing a little bit of that here in these um conflicts here in the US, just people not necessarily agreeing on how to move forward, but you also have uh the deep complexities of uh narrative control. So, you're going to see people spinning. You're going to see bots going crazy on social media, um, trying to make it seem like their side has all the momentum, which just a teaser, one of the things we have in conspiracy corner is that the global population may be dramatically less less less conspiracy, conspiracy, conspiracy.

I do not know, but it may be dramatically less than people um would have you believe because there's narrative power in saying as a country, we have a lot more people than we do. or in the US it could be that we have a bigger population than we think because of a lot of illegal immigration that people just sort of tried to be hush- hush about. So anyway, narrative control is a real thing. It is extremely effective and so we're going to be seeing an information war play out which goes back to why this stuff is being locked down.

So suicidal empathy is real. This just doesn't strike me as an example of that. Copy that. And then if we're going to the other side of the world, China's response to the Iranian that you cued to earlier. This is uh the foreign uh China's foreign ministry chiming in on the Iranian protest situation. Pause it for a sec. So it it's very hard to hear uh the person under her translating. So translating. So translating. So uh we'll we'll let this play just so you guys can hear it for yourself.

You have to listen for that second voice in English. But it it's basically goes something like this. Uh these are domestic affairs. Other people should keep their nose out. China has long believed that you've got to let countries like deal with their own stuff. All right, with that now, hopefully you can hear the translator. Pause it. Someone's asking, "Can we turn on subs?" Can we turn on subs? Not available on this video. Yeah, sorry guys. Yeah, I feel like the mixing is wrong. Like why do I hear the person louder than the translator?

It's like either I need the translation or I don't. Uh yeah. But all in all, do you think that China has the right tone of this that some countries need to be left alone and let them kind of figure it out? Okay. So everybody needs to be aware that they are drenched in their own biases. [clears throat] I am drenched in anti- uh communist, anti- athoritarian bias. So when China puts forward a um like hey you need to let like people determine their own thing and then ops by the way um we starved 45 million people to death in Tom Billy's lifetime sort of I was at the tail end of it but anyway um that's where I'm like ah like that that one's hard for me because you guys have a history of saying that no almost no matter how many people you have to kill to keep stability.

It's better to do that. And I just have an absolute philosophical disagreement. It is far better for your country to spiral into madness. But people have um their own freedoms than the other way around. I I don't expect that to be popular. I just just just if you look at America and Americans willing to fight and die for that right, you can put me in that camp. Like I individual freedom for me is everything. It comes at a cost. There is no doubt. Uh, but I am far more willing to pay the cost of, "Oh man, we do dumb [ __ ] and it bites us in the ass" than I'm willing to pay the cost of I'm not going to let you do something that I perceive to be dumb [ __ ] and I will kill literally 45 million people uh to make sure that you don't do it.

Like that that to me is just a a hard line in my value set. Um, so I hear this through the lens of that. I know that Xi is swinging way back in the Mao direction. Mao was the guy that starved everybody. So yeah, I am extremely skeptical. So China is not like Trump. Trump just pops off at the mouth. And I think Trump has authoritarian tendencies. I think a lot of what he's doing right now is just ridiculous in the extreme. And we'll get to that later.

But nonetheless, I'm very grateful that he cannot help but reveal himself every time he opens his mouth. And so this is the exact opposite of that. this is hyperc controlled. Every word has been chosen very specifically for a certain psychological impact to frame things exactly the way they want it framed. Uh and so I my distrust of Chinese um statements being propaganda is basically 100%. Yeah, I think it's interesting. Uh Martin Moldon in the um chat said that's MAGO 101, Drew, that it's supposed to be America first.

Let's not intervene in any uh interventions. Let's keep let's get America right before we start going to other countries and all these other things. things. things. That's not what Trump means when he says America first. America first. America first. America first is uh you have resources that we need. We're going to have to take them. Um you're critical to our national defense. We are going to control your country. We are going to rob you of your sovereignty. Uh because it matters to America. it. So, America First is taking on some like Cythian Darth Lordy uh like man, shame that we just found a bunch of oil in your country.

You guys were fine until then. Shame that we've got the national debt that we've got cuz we're going to have to come and take some of your [ __ ] So, uh that this is one of those where you've got to be able to look at what America is actually doing with eyes wide open and either say, "Yeah, cool. I'm willing to do that because the consequences of not are so dire. Um, namely that theidities trap says China's on the rise. America's on the decline. China will make a move.

China has told the world it's going to move on uh I'll say it this way. China has said very publicly that by 2027 they're going to make a move on controlling our way our advanced technology and aka we're going to move in on Taiwan. Um, they've also made it very clear that they would never uh attack America. Like they're not trying to take over other countries. And to be honest, I believe them. I think the way that they plan to take over is administrative. They plan to use debt in the same way that America did.

So if you're like, "Nah, I'm not prepared to be number two." Okay. Well, then you might be clapping for uh Trump saying that we're going to take over Greenland and all that stuff, but um I for one am trying to retain a very clear eye about what we're doing, the parts that I like, the parts that I'm terrified by, uh and what the second and third order consequences will be over the next 10 to 20 years. So, um everything has a consequence. Everything is a trade-off.

And so, the way that Trump is behaving right now is going to have massive trade-offs, good and bad. But But But they're going to be trade-offs, good and bad. Yeah. Um, speaking of the way Trump is behaving, Trump's DOJ has threatened to investigate Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell. Um, and this was his statement being transparent in bringing this story to life. Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public rather than following the preferences of the president.

the president. the president. This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation. I have served at the Federal Reserve under four administrations, Republicans and Democrats alike. In every case, I have carried out my duties without political fear or favor, focused solely on our mandate of price stability and maximum employment. maximum employment. maximum employment. Public service sometimes requires standing firm in the face of threats.

I will continue to do the job the Senate confirmed me to do with integrity and a commitment to serving the American people. Thank you. All right, let me give you guys a full rundown of what's going on. Uh so if we can cue that one up, Eric, that would be wonderful. This is So first of all, Jerome Powell is also spinning. So keep that in mind. uh as he has lowered interest rates right before midterms before for Democratic uh candidates. So also remember we're in fiscal dominance.

So he doesn't even really have a choice. But the long and the short of what's going on right now is that Trump's DOJ is threatening a criminal indictment against Fed Chair Jerome Powell as tensions clearly between the Trump admin and the Fed are continuing to escalate. Powell revealed in what we just watched. Pal revealed Sunday evening that the Department of Justice served the central bank with a grand jury subpoena and explicitly threatening a criminal indictment related to his June 2025 testimony before the Senate Banking Committee.

The probe centers on alleged misleading statements about the scope and features of the Fed's ongoing $2.5 billion renovation of its historic headquarter buildings uh in Washington DC. It also includes claims of perjury and false statements to Congress. Now, I think that Jerome Powell is right that this is a political game being played. They have not passed down the indictments yet, so this is just a threat. Um, threat. Um, threat. Um, I don't think mathematically there's any way that we don't end up lowering rates more throughout 2026.

Uh, we're going to be covering this um later. In fact, we might as well get into it now. So, um the the the uh what [snorts] cell is this? Um our interest rate payments have gone up 5% this year. In the last four years alone, um we have I think doubled our interest payments. Like it is completely wild. So yeah, US government payments uh US government interest payments are now up to uh an annualized record of $1.47 trillion. This comes as federal interest payments rose 5% year-over-year to 1.2 trillion which is an all-time high.

Federal interest costs have doubled over the last four years. So fiscal dominance we are in a position where Powell doesn't have an option. The debt is growing so rapidly, it is going to consume an ungodly amount of the federal budget. If we don't lower the rates so that we can refinance the wall of debt that is coming due in 2026, this is a thing that a lot of people aren't paying attention to is that 2026 is a unique year. Like if you look at the graph of how much debt has to be refinanced in 2026, it is massive.

So if we don't lower rates, we have to refinance that at the higher rates and it will escalate rapidly or accelerate I should say the race towards insolvency of the US government. So we're not going to do that. It's one of those like they'll bluster, they'll posture, but in the end no matter who is president, you have to lower rates. Now that's a trade-off and it will have consequences for sure and I've done a deep dive on that and you should go watch it. But the reality is that all of this is political theater.

And so I think it's good that Jerome Powell has stood strong for as long as he could because raising the rates is a trade-off, a massive trade-off. We should be sorry, lowering the rates is a massive trade-off. We should be raising the rates. It would also be a trade-off, but for the reasons that I just explained, we're not going to be able to do it. But getting into all this tit fortat, the two of them should just be working together to do this in as thoughtful a way as possible.

But I think both of them are playing a political game. Trump obviously has midterms to worry about. He obviously wants to drive the rates down, not just to refinance the debt, but to make him look great because it will burn the economy extremely hot, which in the short term will feel awesome. But the bad news is that over time it creates the K-shaped economic horror show that is people with assets get wealthy and people without end up struggling because inflation is just eating away at them.

So anyway, would I love to see the two of them just say listen we're in a very difficult position. Uh fiscal dominance is a brutal place to be but here we find ourselves and so we are going to do this as definitely as humanly possible. Yes, I would love to see that. Are we going to see it? No, we are not. It is not Trump's style. Uh Trump, we got to come up with an abbreviation for this. Grab them in the whatever those letters are. Uh that's his method of doing everything.

So that is precisely what he's doing here with the Fed. It needs to be done, but it doesn't need to be done like this. So you said both of them. What's Jerome Pal's motivation? Pal's motivation? Pal's motivation? I don't know, man. I don't know if he is uh just Democrat by nature, but the fact that he lowered rates at the midterms when he didn't need to however many years ago uh to ensure that the Democrats look good in the midterms. I know this guy will move rates.

I mean, I I feel like we're projecting a a motive on something. Not we me. Well, yeah, you're projecting a motive. Call me out. You're projecting a votive on something that's not quite there cuz he just lowered rates in ahead of midterms now and it's going to go down another basis point. So isn't he doing what you just said he did for the Democrats? Democrats? Democrats? Yes, that's what I'm saying. He Well, so we're too far out from the midterms for him to be doing it specifically for that.

What he's doing it for, I believe, is that he understands that 2026 so much debt is coming due. It isn't possible to hold the line. Mhm. So, here I've got a guy who cuz I I'm more on Jerome Powell's side than I am on Trump's side. Trump, in my opinion, is just being reckless. It has to get done, but not in a reckless fashion. I think Trump wants it more for what it will do for um Wall Street and how it will create all this investment, create all these jobs, hopefully drive wages in the short term.

I think he's doing it for that reason. I think Powell is being more sensible in terms of we have to hold off, but the hold off, we have to hold off, but the two have allowed this to become a pissing contest politically. So instead of them, and look, I get it. The Fed has to be so careful with every word out of their mouth. But in my fantasy land, like these two would get together and they would just say, "Look, we understand what's going on. We may not be able to message it publicly.

I understand what's going on. the rate cuts are going to be coming barring, you know, whatever unforeseen thing happening. Uh, but we need to hold off as long as we can because this is what's going to happen to the economy if we don't. Now, I have a feeling privately Bessant would agree with that. Maybe not. We'll see. But Bessant understands the economy and he understands that the rates have to come down for us to refinance the debt, but it also runs the economy hot. It is essentially inevitable that it's going to drive inflation.

And so the card that Trump and maybe Bessant are keeping in their back pocket is no, no, no. If you let me run the economy hot like that, I'm going to grow our way out of this. And it it's you're playing a game of chicken. And so that's where I'm like, it this does not feel like two rational adults who are like, hey, uh, I want this, you want that, we disagree. This feels like two people where it's like we both know the rates are coming down and so still like we're going to privately remain so antagonistic towards each other that we can't even like give each other the wink to be like bro chill like this is coming.

Um, so anyway, that's where my read of this situation is. And I am not a mind readader, so I don't know that that's true. But when the way that I approach the world is always as a writer and I say, "What would need to be true for this character to be acting like this and for Powell to not be back channeling to the Trump admin and saying, "We understand that that debt can't be refinanced at those levels. We understand that. So, you guys have to give us breathing room.

You have to let us drive this decision-m uh in terms of timing and things like that because we have an insanely difficult job to do. Um and then Trump obviously is not prone to being reasonable. He's prone to just pushing until he gets what he wants. Uh ought to be saying, "Yeah, I get it." And Bessant should be whispering in Trump's ear saying, "Listen, you need to hold off on this as long as we can." Um, it's possible, again, as a writer, it's possible that both Trump and Besson are in the just, well, we'll grow away way out of it and their behavior would remain consistent.

Pal's behavior though only makes sense when I'm like, this is a guy who's mad and so he's just going to be stubborn. He's going to delay. He's going to push it off. He's not going to signal. Are you thinking that Pal should have lowered rates sooner? I think Powell should be communicating to the Trump administration that he's obviously going to lower rates and that they don't need to keep hammering him. We don't know that he's not doing that though. We just know that Trump isn't excited is Trump isn't happy about the pace in which he's doing it.

I have a base assumption that there would be signaling to the public that those conversations are happening and there's not. There's no signaling of any kind. So now he may again what could be true he may be thinking I can't even signal that because that's going to signal something to um the the the traders for lack of a better word not traitors traders traitors traders traitors traders uh who are then going to move in the stock market too rapidly. Yeah, but when I look at how these two interface with each other, it isn't that.

All right, let's start at the beginning cuz we came in on this through DOJ threatening an investigation based off of the renovations. Do you think there's any any any We came into this long long ago when Trump was saying you need to lower rates and they were saying we're not going to lower rates. Inflation is fine even though inflation was 50% over uh what they want. Sorry, that's Trump banging that drum. Inflation is fine even though it's 50% over. Um, but Powell having made the move for the Democrats to lower interest rates when he shouldn't have, coming into the midterms, locked in Trump's mind that this is a guy that does this stuff for political reasons.

They start battering each other, I'm sure, publicly and privately. Then over time, Trump has been just like pressure, pressure, pressure. Powell has, in my opinion, rightly been slow to do it, but now obviously has to his hand is forced because of fiscal dominance. He's going to have to lower the rates. So the fact that these guys are getting in this big of a pissing contest is my only read is that either Powell is signaling it to him privately and Trump is just like, "Fuck you. Either do it now or I'm just going to keep smashing you." which is all too possible or they're continuing to have a pissing match.

So, we're now up against what are my uh biases? What are my proclivities to how have I mapped the human mind? How have I mapped Jerome Powell? Jerome Powell is a political animal. Uh Jerome Powell, like so many people, just has a blanket disdain for Trump. And even though it is self-evident that he's have he's going to have to lower the rates, he's going to make this as um difficult and drawn out in terms of the um comments that he makes about Trump publicly so that tensions between the two remain as high as humanly possible.

I understand that this is incredibly complex and I hope that I have sufficiently confessed that we're now just up against how I map the world and how I map Powell. But if I were in this situation, given that I know I have to lower rates, I'm not going to make this a political pissing match. I'm gonna say things like, um, I understand Trump's drive to want the rates to come down because we have a wall of debt coming at us at the Fed. We're obviously looking at that.

We're going to be very thoughtful. We're going to be very careful. We have a balancing act to do. I'm certainly uh I want to work with the administration on it. Like none of those words are being said. Now, please understand, Trump speaks like a lunatic. If I've not made that clearly enough, the grab him in the [ __ ] methodology of everything I [ __ ] hate. hate. hate. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. But nonetheless, But nonetheless, But nonetheless, that's where Trump's at. So, I admittedly have written off Trump. He's never going to be reasonable.

So, my only hope is that I can get some reasonleness out of Powell. I I think that's a crazy assertion. I think at the beginning, first and foremost, can we throw this up, J? Uh, Trump appointed Jerome Powell. So, this is his appointee. Barack Hussein Obama was the first time Jerome Pal was hired. Donald Trump hired him again. Joe Biden renewed him and then now Trump is his four. So, that's the four administrations he's talking about. Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump. Um, in 2022 when he was uh presiding for the um rep when Democrats were in power, that was when he was hiking rates.

That's not when rates were dropping. So this the narrative that you're saying that he dropped rates for Democrats but wouldn't do it for Republicans makes it seem like he's like cutting political favors. But in 2022, in 2022, in 2022, pause. Let's take this one step at a time. time. time. Uh he hiked rates. Do you know what our inflation rate was? 25% over the 40 years. Yeah. Do you do you know how economically devastating that is? That that's like unprecedented. Uh you are spiraling out of control.

We have done untold damage to the economy. Uh Trump is horrific at spending. Biden was horrific at spending. Call them equal. I'm not signal singling out either one. I don't think Trump is good with money at all in terms of he has an absolute willingness to spend. But you've got Powell raising rates in a moment where if you don't, you go off a catastrophic cliff immediately. It it just you absolutely cannot do that. So, of course, now honestly, we should have raised rates even further. Biden was never going to do that.

So, he was all too happy to just let inflation keep running. Trump came in and while he isn't doing it through fiscal responsibility, he is doing anything and everything that he can to reduce inflation in other ways. But, yeah, Biden or Trump don't have power to reduce or increase inflation because the Fed Yeah. Confed. Of course, they do. So this is where you have to think of the economy as a biological organism. So yes, the Fed is hugely influential in terms of what they do with the interest rates.

Are we still talking about inflation as a as defined by the percentage of the money supply? money supply? money supply? Uh inflation is definitionally inflation of the money supply. Yeah. So if that's the case, the Fed is the only people that control the money supply, right? supply, right? supply, right? Thank you for making me be very precise with my words. So when people think of inflation, they think of it as prices going up. Technically, those are two separate phenomena. Inflation is, as you just said, increasing the money supply, prices going up.

That is a thing that can be influenced by other means other than just uh economic policy. [clears throat] [clears throat] [clears throat] So you've got Trump doing a whole bunch of things trying to get the cost of things down, including invading Venezuela. Mhm. Venezuela. Mhm. Venezuela. Mhm. So there are all kinds of things that he can do to make the average person at home go ah inflation as I the average person think of it as prices going up. He has had a tremendous impact on that.

So Trump is doing other things to try to drive that down. Powell is only responsible for responsible for responsible for the actual monetary policy of the government. And so Powell is going to go in and pull his levers. Now again, to be abundantly clear, I think it's good that Powell has held off as long as he can, I have a feeling that the reason that this is escalating in the public as much as it is and getting down to the indictments is a uh Trump is unhinged and just bullies everybody.

And so he's just trying to bully Powell to do it faster because that suits his whims. That's being a little unfair, but nonetheless, if you read the situation like that, yeah, I think that's completely reasonable. completely reasonable. completely reasonable. So, in terms of my read on Powell, it's pretty minor. I'm more in Powell's camp than I am Trump. If you were going to force me to pick who's your champion in this fight, Pal. Powell is handling himself far better than Trump. So, I don't want this to seem like anything other than a very simple statement.

If you strip the politics out of this, this situation doesn't look like this. I don't think you have this situation the way that you're having it without ego. This is um political theater. This is ego of two extraordinarily powerful men that just don't want to seem weak. They both want to seem like it's like when God, this has been in countless movies. Um, somebody is desperately tired and they want to sit down and their boss tells them to sit and they keep standing long past when they want to stand because they don't want to look like they're just doing what their boss tells them.

So then finally they'll sit down and they'll say, "Hey, I'm not sitting down because you told me to. I'm sitting down because I want to." And it's like Jesus Christ. Sure. Look, we've all fallen into that trap. So I'm just saying that trap is real. I think that uh Powell is in that trap. Powell is by far the less of the uh my problem is far less with Powell than it is with Trump. But seeing this level of dysfunction makes me very sad. Full stop. Now I think you've made your position.

You think I'm misreading Pal. You think I some variation of this is exactly what he should be doing and Trump is bullying him and he needs to stand up. stand up. stand up. Yes. Because I think charges being thrown at the Fed chair because they're not raising the interest rates as fast as you like isn't okay. And I think that Trump just trying to bully everybody, including a federally Senate confirmed appointed like government official. There should be a line somewhere. What do you think my stance is on that?

I think that you don't like it, but I think that there's a lot of they both need to and they both need to. And I think Trump is the one that is kind of pushing Pal to this position. I don't think Pal releases that statement that he's being investigated if Trump doesn't threaten the DOJ over him. I don't think Pal even says anything about the administration or politics if Trump isn't calling him too slow. uh Fed pal. So So So now, what did you hear me say in the last 10 minutes about Trump's current strategy strategy strategy that Trump is the grab by the [ __ ] strategy?

You don't condone it. You think it's terrible. And although that that makes you sad you gave a pope on him, you're hoping that pal could be the one that signals that he's trying to work with the administration. Very very close. Okay. So yeah, I think that what in terms of policy, you push off the lowering the rates as long as you can, Trump should absolutely stop pushing. And I would like to see I if I map why this is being escalatory in the way that it is, it's a pissing contest.

And I'm just saying I'd really like to stop seeing pissing contests everywhere I turn. Agreed. Agreed. Agreed. So full stop. from the chat. People are asking why you're playing both sides so much. Uh, is there a reason that you don't just directly say this person's right, this person's wrong in my view? Yes. And I really hope for your guys' sake that you don't live in that world. Eric, could we get three? You want to be in a position where you understand the fullness of how people end up in the traps that they end up in precisely so you can avoid being in that trap.

I will often once it gets down to decision-making time, I will speak in binaries. I will speak in this is [ __ ] or this is amazing. Even though nothing is ever [ __ ] or amazing, it's usually just a whole bunch of trade-offs and you're trying to figure out which one has less of a trade-off. But when I'm trying to map a situation, I'm trying to lay out all of the things that are at play. So I don't become, this is going to be old language, but I don't become a mimograph of a mimograph where you're just constantly thinking in these binaries all the way down and you don't actually understand what's happening.

And I think most people do that. I think most people steer by emotion and they make really [ __ ] stupid decisions as a result of that. To understand how I parse the world, I am constantly looking at where I in my own life am getting trapped in my emotions. I am extraordinarily distrustful that other people aren't trapped in their emotions. I think they all are. And so when I'm looking at a situation like this where there is such obvious exit ramps from the uh political bickering, then I start going, okay, what are the emotions that these guys are tied up in?

Now, if you want to come after my position, the obvious answer is, okay, hold on. because Trump acts the more lunatic, you just give him a pass and now you're focusing your energy on Powell. And I will say to that, that certainly isn't what I was uh attempting to do. I think Drew hated my framing. And so we ended up zooming in on something that made it sound like I was defending defending defending uh or saying that Pal was the one to blame here, which I'm very much not saying.

Um what I'm saying is this is human nature. This is how humans collide. They get in these emotional states and they cannot pull themselves out of it. Uh but it would be ve a very fair critique of my stance to be that I am so hopeless that Trump will ever act in any way other than the way that he does. Uh that I'm often just like, okay, yeah, well Trump's doing that thing. Is there please an adult somewhere in the room that can um deescalate this?

So anyway, that would be certainly a fair criticism. Uh beyond that, I have said all the words. Pal should be as slow as humanly possible to lower rates. In the real world, we need to be raising rates. Trump is being a bully. He absolutely should not be pursuing Powell with a federal indictment. That is [ __ ] insane. Um, and at the same time, this is what happens when people get stuck in their feels. feels. feels. I'm going to call a quick fractal because this reminded me of this weekend.

Um, I was babysitting my godson. He's three, terrible threes. He's at like level 10. I'm with one of my college friends I haven't seen in two decades, a high school friend I haven't seen in two decades, and one of my best friends I haven't seen since last year. For some reason, all of us are in Phoenix at this weekend, so we all kind of got up and hang out and stuff like that. My godson, I love him to death. My sister was going through it. I was like, "Let me get him.

You You need You need a break." I could tell. Let me have him. So, he's bouncing up. He's jumping up. Everybody's kind of laughing and it's cute. He like slams a fork. Food flies up. And I could tell that everybody kind of starts sitting up in their desk in their chairs like, "Okay, like we're uncomfortable because this kid is acting this way, but okay, I think Drew has him. He's not acting this way toward me, so we're good." One of my friends even joked like, "Oh, Drew, you're a great brother." Like, I would never do that for my sister.

He's crazy. I can tell he's a him. So, but I'm bringing this up because I feel like in this sense, Trump is kind of like the kid at the table where everybody's kind of looking out the corner of their eye like, "Wait a second. Uh, should I engage?" And if somebody would have snapped at him and say, "Hey, sit down. You're not supposed to play with forks and like that." We would then look at this person. Why are you yelling at a kid? And he would have got So, I I bring this analogy to the forefront to say that because Trump is acting like a lunatic in certain regards in certain situations.

Love what he's doing with housing. Love what he's doing with no tax on tip. hate what he's doing with foreign policy. So, when I can zone in on the things that I hate that he's doing, it's like, should we then try to yell back at him? Should we just ignore the kid that's having a tantrum? How do you think other political people should navigate Trump so that way they don't have the same problem that Jerome Powell is going through right now? You and I have a very different view of what's happening in the world right now.

And so this conversation risks being two ships passing in the night. But I'll try to lay out my growing developing naent view of what's happening. I've reserved the right to realize that I should have been wearing a tinfoil hat when I say everything that I'm about to say. Uh but it will, I think, help people understand my mental model of Trump in context. Okay, we've got a three-year-old at the table. He's smashing the fork and food is flying everywhere. Everybody's taking notice and they're looking at you like, "Shouldn't you have said something?" Mhm.

Mhm. Mhm. Um I'm observing the everyone at the table and I know that they're all ops and they're acting like he's not been pushed into acting like this crazy three-year-old crazy three-year-old crazy three-year-old precisely because it's a globalist bankerdriven conspiracy to um probably conspiracy might be the wrong word. It's the incentive structure of financializing the world creates incentives where you realize that you can get on the right side of the K-shaped economy that you can bleed the middle and working class dry. Which, by the way, people think that billionaires have a ton of money.

Billionaires I I don't know if this is a stat about California or the US, but billionaires, let's say it's California, have $6 trillion in assets. The middle class is like 170 trillion. you know, it's going the scale is so different and people confuse themselves because you can say crazy numbers like uh four families control 30% of the wealth or whatever. Um not realizing that yeah, in terms of dollars and cents, they are just absolutely dwarfed by the middle and working class in terms of raw economic dollars.

So the manipulation game is always going to be to pilfer from the middle and working class. And so you see it all over the world. You can think of some countries as like the middle and working class of countries. And so the elite countries like the US, like China, um they're going to go into those countries like England, they're going to go into those countries and they're going to try to get a hold of their resources. Um, bankers are going to do the same thing and they're going to try to get a hold of everybody's resources.

Trump is the first guy to come in and say, "I'm not a Republican. I'm not a Democrat. I am opposed to all this elite bullshit." bullshit." bullshit." Now, my deepest fear, Drew, is that grabbing the [ __ ] is the only thing that will work in this moment. I don't know that. I don't know. The populist moment of it all. Yes. Got it. Populists are always like this. Mhm. this. Mhm. this. Mhm. And populist leaders are the unsophisticated unsophisticated unsophisticated um non- elites going, "You guys have pushed me to the point where I know there's a problem.

I can't tell you that it has to do with interest rates or any of that [ __ ] All I can tell you is I can't pay for my groceries. Um I'm scared about my kids' future. Uh my wife and I are fighting all the time because we can't make ends meet. We're both working jobs. I know all that. And so, um, [ __ ] you. I'm going to send a toddler in there and they are going to shake [ __ ] up. So, I'm looking at this going, I didn't grow up in this like populist moment.

I caught the like last bit of like the boomer juice of like you could be anything you want. Like, you can grow and like buy a house and everything's going to be wonderful. And so, my whole life has been optimism. Mh. [clears throat] And so I'm looking at this now and seeing the pessimism, seeing the financial system break, the more that I dig into it, the more like the next layer of the dungeon opens up and I'm like, "Oh my god." Like there's just nefarious layer after nefarious layer, uh you find yourself all the way back in 1913 with the founding of the Federal Bank, uh the central bank, and I'm just like, "Huh?

like, "Huh? like, "Huh? If you really have a system, I if the architecture of the human mind is such that there is always going to be a ruling elite, ruling elite, ruling elite, it doesn't matter what you do. If you uh overturn the tables and you're like, we're literally going to kill all the intellectual elite. Hi, Russia. Um, hi China. Like, we're going to kill them all. Okay, cool. You starve a bunch of people to death. You still end up with a ruling elite. Mhm. Doesn't matter that they're less sophisticated or maybe dumber.

They just know blunt force trauma of um kill kill to keep people silent, but nonetheless, you are going to have a ruling elite. Okay, so we live in a world where the architecture of the human mind is such that there is going to be a ruling elite no matter what. So now I'm like, well then that means that there's a ruling elite. Now, what message have we been getting for I don't know how long Claus Schwab has been doing his thing, but a very long time.

Let's round it to roughly 50 years. Mh. And Claus Schwab is saying you need a one world government. Okay. Uh so I know now that we have an elite that run the entire world. Do you know why America is so powerful? Because we have 50 states that can check the federal authority. And we're now saying we want to move away from that. We don't even want countries that can check each other and hold each other in balance of power. We want a secret cabal behind the scenes.

let's round it to Brussels that are going to through essentially money, green policy, things like that. We're going to get control of the world and we're going to make people do what we want and we literally don't give a [ __ ] what the trade-offs are as long as we're in power. And I'm like, again, I'm sort of saying this with a tinfoil hat on. I don't know that this is where this is all going to terminate, but damn, man. Like, every layer of the dungeon I open up just it's another ruling elite that knows exactly what they're doing.

Uh, and they are staffed with a mix of wildly incompetent people, which is why I can show you the clip of the guy that is, uh, the adviser to Biden, uh, who knows [ __ ] all about the economy. And that tells you he's not running the economy. Someone else is running the economy. Somebody that actually knows. So then you start going, well, who the [ __ ] is that? Because it's not Biden. He was scenile. So now it's like, okay, well, it's not his advisers. It's not him himself.

Who the [ __ ] is it? Trump is saying it's the global elite. Now, not enough names are being named, so I don't know who they all are, but there's someone and they're doing something very weird because we are in the most globally K-shaped economy ever. This is some wild ass [ __ ] And so, you can point to bankers. So, all of this is like sitting in the back of my head. And so, while I will say, yeah, Trump looks like the toddler at the table who's smashing the fork and food is flying everywhere, but I'm also like all these [ __ ] that are pretending to be your friends, not in real life in this scenario.

They're ops and they are like some shadow banky [ __ ] And I'm just like, nah. Like, this kid needs to throw some [ __ ] around the table. And the more they get tense, the more I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Throw some more of those [ __ ] mashed potatoes. And I'm like, at the same time, I'm like, uh, I hate [ __ ] kids throwing a tantrum at the table. But god damn, can we not admit something is really [ __ ] up? And if we can't admit that something is really [ __ ] up, I'm going to seem very confusing to you.

Because remember, I got rich as [ __ ] and I COVID hits and I'm just like, "Oh [ __ ] because of the nature of physical manufacturing, I've got a bunch of people that I love and care about that like came up really hard. They don't understand money. They understand money even less than I do." And so I'm like, I'm going to help them balance their [ __ ] checkbook. Like that was literally I was just like, yo, I've got to help these guys figure out how to survive. They're probably going to go without a job for like six months.

I would not have thought longer than that in the beginning of all this. So imagine naive little Tom being like, "Oh, I like helping people just like I helped my mom, my sister, and people that look like my mom and my sister through food. I'm going to help these guys that I know and people that are like them." Oh, there's going to be a ton of people. And I am like for if you look at the first financial content that I do, it's all like how do you like make sure that you're uh like should you buy a house?

Like how do you save enough money? Everybody should have six months of savings. It's like the most innocent [ __ ] ever. And then I'm like, "Oh, wait. Interest or uh inflation isn't a law of nature? What do you mean?" And you just start like going down and as you open these rooms, if you have you seen The Shining? Shining? Shining? Uh, yes. Uh, yes. Uh, yes. Okay. Every time I open a room, if you can put your fingers on this clip fast enough where the uh I think it's either the kid or Shelley Duval, I can't remember who's going down the hall.

And it's like the guy going giving a [ __ ] to the pigman. That's what this [ __ ] feels like. Please pull this up fast because yes, that right between getting things done. things done. things done. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. That's what I did. That's how I did. Hold on. I got my password. God. Okay. This This is lit. Please. Okay. When I when when I am writing a deep dive, that is what I feel like. I'm like, what is happening? So maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there aren't.

Maybe you can have a society without elites. I don't buy it. There's nothing that gives evidence to it. And either the elites just could not be more incompetent or there's like that really small group of bankers, government leaders, like the people on the inside inside that Yeah. They know how this all works and they're just going to as they have done time in memorial they're going to extract resources. resources. resources. Now Now Now I grow I'm sure even more confusing to people because the only system that works is capitalism.

Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. And so you get moments like this where you get a collision of collision of collision of we have to find a way to actually get back to real capitalism which lets people fail, which lets banks go under, which lets people 1929 themselves. Mhm. Um and if we don't, then you let a small group of people control everything through regulation, bureaucracy, etc., etc. It it's just I don't know what the punchline is going to be. That was me sharing my deep fears, but because my deep fears color my reaction to Trump, um there's the confession.

That's not going to help me in a social media age of like you could even just the last 20 minutes you could clip any three minute segment out and I'm going to look schizophrenic. So, um, but that is real and I really invite all of my success brought to you by my willingness to do what I just did where I'm like, I've got to look at every piece of this. I've got to look at my own uh likelihood to fool myself. I've got to look at um the real things that I don't want to look at.

Um including my own uncertainty. I think that clip showed us most importantly that Cubrick was a freak. Cubrick almost certainly was a freak. He that between that and eyes wide shut, he was had to be a furry or something or or did he know things? Yeah, he had something going on that we don't know. That's possible. Uh appreciate the fractal. Thank you for giving me that second additional context. Um, let's jump over to Minnesota, which this video is crazy. Um, and I think is going to start like a much larger pro uh problem.

This is a tweet from Nick Sor. Holy crap. A Somali mob just rushed ICE agents in St. Cloud, Minnesota. These guys are way outnumbered. They need National Guard support now. The terrorists cannot win. Um, the the audio isn't really important. important. important. Really fast before you play that. So, um, just to continue down this fractal, can we look at how much framing and ideology is in a single tweet? Now, this video, I hate everything about this video. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. It is very unnerving. Um, we'll talk more later about some of why, but okay.

Holy crap. A Somali mob. Mob, very choice word. Just rushed. Another choice word. And by the way, I do this as well. I'm not saying I'm not guilty of this, but this is how people frame things. Uh rushed ICE agents in St. Cloud, Minnesota. These guys are way outnumbered. outnumbered. outnumbered. They need National Guard support. The terrorists cannot win. That's that's a lot of propaganda packed into one punch. So anyway, just remember everybody, we all spin. We do it. It's impossible to escape. We're all in a frame of reference.

Uh but just don't get sucked. Um, by all means agree with his read, but just don't forget every word out of somebody's mouth is uh choice. choice. choice. That's real. Um, so it starts off with a com It's really just kind of a lot of yelling, so I'll kind of narrate through it, but it starts with two people talking. talking. talking. Well, hold on. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You have to play this because part of what is what is going to matter. I won't even give you my take on which direction.

Part of what is going to matter is what's being yelled is not in English or at least a lot of it is not in English. in English. in English. Part of the emotional conflict that will be stirred up in all of this is the notion of are we losing our country? And so part of what made this so like uh-oh like this to your point is going to get worse before it gets better is that. So let's play it once with all the full shouting and then we can um give commentary.

Copy. If you're not looking at your screen, by the way, you've got what looked to be just two ICE agents in a parking lot of the strip mall in Minnesota, presumably. Uh and there are you going to give me 25 30 people surrounding them telling them to leave. Uh Uh Uh so yeah and you hear a lot of I presume Somalian but I can't confirm that. Um and then get in the car and drive away. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So So So yeah, yeah, yeah, level set us.

What's happening in uh St. Cloud, Minnesota? Cloud, Minnesota? Cloud, Minnesota? All right. On Saturday, things really started to pop off in St. Cloud, Minnesota, as tensions skyrocketed between locals and ICE. Locals mobbed a small group of agents during an ICE operation, which was captured on video. ICE was severely outnumbered, and while thankfully the whole incident ended without any injuries, it shows just how much anger and willingness to push back there is in Minnesota. Now, I doubt we have seen the peak of this as there are reports of left-wing anti-ICE protesters who are now saying they plan to bring guns to upcoming demonstrations to fight back against ICE.

As deeply uncomfortable, as a deeply uncomfortable reminder of why the Second Amendment exists, uh it is for well reggulated militias to push back against a government that they believe is tyrannical. There's no doubt that we're going to debate whether what's going on in Minnesota qualifies as that, but it is happening. It's deeply distressing and it is the kind of fault lines that can escalate very rapidly into something even wilder. Now, I'm starting to get 20 summer of 2020 like summer of love vibes from all of this.

It is so weird to me that Minnesota keeps being at the epicenter of all this. But the good news is that things ran their course, return to normal back then, and I am really hoping that they do so again now. But if anti-ICE people start showing up with guns, things are likely to escalate before they settle down. Now, if you have not been paying attention to the shifting narratives around the ICE shooting of Renee Good, make sure you do. There's new footage that's come out that shows her intentionally trying to disrupt IC's attempts to uh run their operation, refusing to get out of the vehicle when she's instructed to do so, and dancing to the rhythm of her car horn as she was incessantly honking it, which are not, in my opinion, the actions of somebody who was terrified.

Also, I've started seeing more and more legal experts saying that with all of the new footage coming out showing that Good does indeed strike the officer before he shoots, the odds of him getting convicted of a wrongful shooting are effectively zero. Uh, yeah, this one is not going to soothe anybody. This is going to have people lit up on both sides and I will be um I'll be very curious to see how far the escalation goes. goes. goes. We got a lot happening in Minnesota. I'm trying to see where you want to go first with it.

You want to jump into the Renee Good uh video or do you want to jump into the Somali welfare outrage? Well, let's start at the beginning. So, let's show the um footage. If people haven't seen the new footage, it's pretty clear uh that she does indeed. Oh, yeah. So, this is if you go to the time marker that I put in the thing. So, the horn honking you hear is her. Um, and she at one point starts honking the horn rhythmically. Uh, and then they pan to her.

Is this it? Yeah. So, if you're looking at your screen, you'll see she's honking and dancing like doing a shimmy in her car uh to the rhythm of the honking horn. Um all while you can hear like the um tear gas grenades or it's not it's like pepper spray bursts. Yeah. I don't know how to explain it. If you see it, it's like a cloud gets poofed very aggressively in somebody's face over and over and over. They're doing it to a bunch of different people. So that's the popping that you hear.

hear. hear. Uh so later in the video, the um ICE agents are going to walk up to her and instruct her to get out of the car, which she does not do. You'd have to skip forward. It's just a bunch of Hong Kong honking for several minutes. Um, but they walk up, they tell her to get out of the car. I think this video ends like right as she's about to pull off, so you don't actually see the confrontation, but um, you do see them walk up, tell her to get out, so on and so forth.

But, um, yeah, that so you're never going to get people to agree on whether or not this was justified. So, let the debate rage there. What I think becomes the next thing to talk about is if the legal experts are right and that regardless of sort of popular opinion uh because my opinion has not changed, he should not have fired. Uh the question is legally will it be considered a bad shoot or not? And legally legally legally I'm not the guy to turn to for anything other than uh an assessment of aggregating like what legal experts are saying.

The legal experts that I have heard speak are saying, "Yeah." Okay. So, first of all, the car a car is considered a deadly weapon. Uh, a car hit him before he fired the shot. It's very clear from the video. Uh, and historically, things like this, the person has gotten off. It's not considered a bad shoot. So now it becomes a question of okay the populace is going to debate this till the end of time. But how do they react if this guy there's just Yeah. legally it's perfectly fine perfectly fine perfectly fine if he gets off.

Yeah. Um do you have a take? What do you think's going to happen? Uh he's going to get off. Um a 12-year-old got shot by police and he got off. So at that point But do you think because what I see going on in Minnesota is it is ratcheting up like M I don't know how much um the mobs showing up uh around these ICE raids represent Minnesota as a whole. I literally have no sense and I know better than to believe just because the footage makes it seem like oh my god it was so tense.

You zoom out and it could be like no no no is that one scene. Yeah, they needed to back up like a hundred yards and then there's like a huge uh ice presence. I have no idea. So, I certainly don't want to just get sucked into the way that anyone video makes something look. Um, but it does seem like there's an escalation of um anti-ICE sentiment in Minnesota where people are willing to take action. I'll be very curious to see if people actually do make good on their threats and start showing up with guns.

It would not be the first time in recent memory that people show up with guns um to protests like this. Um who's the guy that shot that shot that shot Kyle Written House who written house got off and he uh tweeted should I go to Minnesota and it was him. Did he really? He did with his AK-47. Um but he got off so it didn't matter right cuz well so well so well so but now it's like this is why I say be careful with your policy.

So now it's like yeah if you're in the anti- ice camp and you believe this is this is where the government has crossed the line. This is where a well uh regulated militia with weapons needs to stand up. I want to be very clear, individual Americans are already making that decision on their own as to how far they're willing to go to um step across the law. So, there was a guy who he was a little too outragey, swary um so I didn't pull the clip, but I'll summarize it here.

A guy that claims to have uh gone to hundreds of protests, to have been arrested, he may have said thousands, but to have been arrested dozens and dozens of times. And he says, "The reason I'm still here and I don't have any taser marks, I don't have any scars from being beaten with a baton. I haven't been killed is because I comply immediately." He said, "When you're a protester, you're stepping across a line, a legal line. You are violating the law. And you understand I'm doing this because I believe that it's righteous to violate the law.

And we as Americans um have the ability to do that." And so, but it comes with consequences. And he says, "I get arrested routinely. Uh but I comply immediately and I do what I need. I go for my day in court and I make my case there. I do not try to make my case on the street. Right now, we've got a lot of people that are making that decision that this is the time where I need to resist a tyrannical government, but they're trying to bring the court of law right there.

And they're putting themselves in this in from my position this insanely dangerous situation where you're saying, "Nope, I'm going to resist arrest. I'm going to uh I really hope it doesn't get to this, but in some cases, we've seen attacks on ICE that are violent. I'm going to resist violently." And people need to understand you'll be met with deadly force. So it's like you better really believe in the thing that you're doing because um it is so dangerous. But I feel pure emotion. I feel like this is escalating towards that.

You've got an administration that is not going to back down. ICE is obviously being told not to back down. Uh the people in Minnesota, at least in these videos, clearly are not backing down. people popping off on social media. That's always very different than real life, but popping off saying, "We're gonna bring weapons to this." You've got Kyle Writtenhouse who's already done it and would be a total [ __ ] to do it again. But nonetheless, nonetheless, nonetheless, um having that energy that this feels like it's going to um escalate into something that will be tragic.

tragic. tragic. Chrissy Gnome said they're sending more DHS officers there. More ICE officers will be there to back them up. And I'm sure the National Guard is on high alert. So, it's only a matter of time. There's going to be a lot more of military, a lot more guns, and a lot more bulletproof vests. Let's see how many more protesters uh pop up. So, yeah. Yeah. So, going to be distressing. All right. Staying in Minnesota, um the fraud keeps frauding. Um so, on one side, a federal judge has admitted that the Trump administration cannot block federal money for child care and other social service funding to five states for now.

Um, this is an ongoing story. People are having mixed reviews about this. Trump, for those who need catching up, was trying to cut off funding to California, Minnesota, and three other, I think, uh, Illinois, I don't know what the other two states are, um, but five blue states in order to block alleged fraud. fraud. fraud. Yep. Here we go. US District Judge Arun Subramian, Subramian, Subramian, not the easiest name to say, issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration's attempt to freeze or block federal funding for child care and related social service programs in certain states, at least for now.

Now, to be very specific, the US Department of Health and Human Services, the HHS, announced it would pause roughly $10 billion in federal funding for child care subsidies and social services in five states, partly in response to the apparent massive fraud in Minnesota that went hyperviral when Nick Shirley posted his expose. HHS said it had reason to believe the funds were being misused, including by people in the country illegally, but apparently they've not shown sufficient evidence as to why only those states are being targeted. And that seems to have created this legal weakness.

In response, five Democratic le states, California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York, filed a lawsuit right away arguing that the freeze was not legally justified. It disrupted essential services for low-income families. The government lacks authority to withhold funds Congress has appropriated without valid legal reason or due process. The judge in the case granted a temporary restraining order requiring the administration to continue releasing the funds while the legal challenge plays out in court. Now, he did not decide on the ultimate legality yet, but found the states likely met the initial legal requirements to maintain the status quo.

why arguments continue. It's important to note that this is not a final ruling on whether Trump ultimately can or cannot permanently withhold these funds. It's also not a broad constitutional decision. It's just a temporary order to keep the funding flowing while the case is being litigated. It doesn't resolve whether fraud allegations have merit or not. And for any of you thinking that the Supreme Court recently ruled that the federal judges can't stop the executive branch with injunctions like this, you are incorrect. What the Supreme Court said should not happen is where a single district judge is able to block a nationwide federal policy for the entire country.

The injunction in this case is a case-pecific temporary restraining order that like I said I think becomes possible because uh Trump targeted individual states. If he had put a moratorum, I guess on the entire nationwide thing, which of course he's never going to do, then he at least it would have gone all the way to the Supreme Court and a federal judge wouldn't have been able to stop it. But because he singled them out, at least this is my read of the situation, they were able to get the injunction as that has not been ruled on, at least as far as I know, in the Supreme Court yet.

So, we'll see how all of this plays out. Um, I think that it is very distressing in the age of social media to feel like you have evidence, all the evidence that you need, that the case is settled, that the fraud is happening. Uh, however, as a uh, I guess old person at this point, I beseech you to remember that we have three branches of government for a reason and that you actually want these kinds of judicial slowdowns so that we can actually figure out what's going on.

I totally understand the frustration that people have when you feel like, oh my god, like we're hemorrhaging all this money and nobody has banged the drum harder than I for budget deficits. However, However, However, letting the legal process letting the legal process play out is the right thing to do in my opinion. So, let's hope that it happens quickly, but it should happen. should happen. should happen. Do you think that this first off are you aligned with blocking of funds due to allegations? Because I was going to get have a next question, but I want to level set.

level set. level set. So if you want to know what I Tom Dillu, want to see happen a thousand%. Blocking based on allegations for sure. for sure. for sure. So I'm going to stop everything, then I'll get the full story, then we can turn this. turn this. turn this. Yep. It's got to be credible. It's got to be something that um a reasonable person would look at and go, "We have essentially the equivalent of probable cause." However, as I've said many times in this program, uh I'm prepared to abide by the structure of the United States.

And so, if the setup that we have right now says that a federal district court judge can go, "No, you can't do that." Cool. That's the system. Go ahead and try and change the system as we did with the Supreme Court ruling that you can't do a nationwide injunction. Awesome. Love it. Uh, but yes, I still want to use the setup that the founding fathers put in place. I think it was very shrewd. I think that we are we are we are the system that is best designed to protect against tyranny.

I think that no matter what you think about Trump right now, I think that ambition grows in the Eden and the more success he has acting dictatorial, he'll just keep going. And so if he isn't ultimately checked by something, then that will become a problem. And so again, do I think that some of the toddler um behavior is useful for disrupting a potential uh corrupt world order? Yes. Do I also have tremendous fears that America could become the next uh contestant on let's get a dictator in power?

Yes, I do. So, um I understand that humans tend towards tyranny. I understand that governments are problematic by their very nature. And so I for one am very okay with things getting slowed down like this. So even though I want it and I feel like I completely see and I understand and yeah like I we are I would make a terrible dictator because I do not trust myself nearly enough. I know how likely I am to get caught up in my own emotions. I know how likely I am to be wrong.

So, um, yes, I while I do have a strong opinion that fraud is just happening all over the place, not just in Minnesota, uh, I also don't want to sidestep the structure of the United States. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see kind of what comes out of this. Um, because it's supposed to be a statewide legislature. Scott Bessent, Elon Musk both estimated up to 500 billion in fraud federalally. to be clear said that it's well over well over that. Okay. Okay. Y Y Y uh so it's one of those things it's hopefully we can find those numbers just like he found him in Doge or 10% of it.

Like he got ran out of office so I I may have started speaking too soon because you may have been taking a dig at Doge. Were you digging at Doge? I was digging at Doge. Okay. What's your thought on that? Do you want to see people? Um, I thought Doge was awesome, but then when it became that he was chased out by politicians and not by the people who were actually Now, I was going to say the people actually committing fraud because they are politicians obviously are the one committing the fraud, but they were firebombing Teslas and that wasn't politicians.

Like people were mad. mad. mad. Yes. But I don't think he stopped because they were firebombing Teslas. I think he stopped for a whole lot of reasons, including a deteriorating relationship with Trump. But uh the stock market hammering that he took during all of that is obviously going to have played a massive role. But he had a limited window of time that he could do it anyway. I don't think that's why he stopped when he stopped. But nonetheless, he was going to have to stop no matter what.

But uh Okay. So, we're both on the same page. We love anybody who's trying to make the government spend money more efficiently. Perfect. Okay. So yeah, I am I just hope that we keep that same energy. I seen him with his defense contractors tweet. You can't just be spending money endlessly. So maybe he shuts down the Pentagon's budget because you know they failed to audit for seven times in a row. Never going to do that and you know that. So I know just just the Somali and the Democrat states who are frauds and everybody else is just upstanding citizens.

Yes, that is certainly. So okay, let's let us remember how all this stuff plays out. People will do whatever they need to do to gain and retain power. So you're not going to be pointing fingers at your own team unless they're voting against you. So if Trump has a Republican that starts going against him, then all of a sudden they'll be investigated just as hard for fraud as anybody else. Until that point, he's obviously going to ignore them. Sweep, sweep, sweep under the rug. And so now let's really look at the gross picture.

Can you stay in power if you don't do that, that, that, bro? The See, this is where fashion. My team is America. I'm I'm on team America. No, team red or blue. Both. I wish you weren't saying that uh in a funny way. I'm with you. I'm with you. But alas, uh I think probably all of that was us being young and naive. And the reality is it's always been this way. Uh God, how do we get back to virtue? That's a really interesting question. Was virtue ever real at anything other than the individual level?

You have Marcus Aurelius who's writing to himself. He's not thinking this is going to be published, at least not as far as I know. and he's saying you got to be a good dude. So, I don't know, maybe virtue is a real thing. Maybe somehow we can beat that back into the mind of the populace. Um, but man, we're living in a wild time. this my Gen Xers are going to be remembered as having depending on how all this plays out, but we're going to be one of those wild timelines where people go imagine going from like the Berlin Wallf falls and America is the most just nation on earth and everything is going to be great and you could buy a house and raise a family.

like you you got to do all of that and then AI came along and just wiped out all of human meaning and governments went hyper corrupt and you're uh attacking countries with sound weapons and like all this [ __ ] Yeah. Yeah. So, it's wild. wild. wild. It's it's a crazy timeline indeed. Um and it's things like this that just make it even more funny because the Trump Greenland thing is not going away, bro. In fact, I can't believe we're at an hour and 24. We're just getting to Greenland.

Like, this is crazy. EU is really drawing that line. Um, so I I'll te it up to you. I'll get some of these uh clips ready, but it seems like Trump is very much not letting this Greenland thing go, and the EU is not having it themselves. So, not at all. Tensions continue to escalate over Trump's insane push to acquire control of Greenland, the easy way or the hard way. That's essentially a direct quote. Trump says the US needs to own Greenland because you defend ownership, you don't defend leases.

These again almost direct quotes. Greenland is strategically vital due to its location in the Arctic, its inclusion of vast mineral resources including rare earth elements critical for technology and defense as well. And and this I think is one of the biggest ones, a melting ice or a bunch of melting ice is revealing new potential shipping routes amid climate change. So for anybody that thinks that's not real, Trump also maintains that if we don't take over Greenland, China or Russia is going to do it. Now, it's important to note that the US already maintains the Thu Arab base there under the 1951 defense treaty with Denmark, which allows American military presence, but not sovereign control.

As Trump has called out, both Russia and China have increased Arctic activities, including military exercises and resource exploration. And all of this comes in the middle of hypertense broader geopolitical strain, including a recent lightning invasion of Venezuela, threats against Cuba and Mexico, and a promise to hit Iran where it hurts if they continue to slaughter civilians. All of this has dialed up global concerns about aggressive American unilateralism that Trump says is only constrained by his own morality. NATO's unity is obviously under strain already, and an attack on Greenland, which is Danish territory for those keeping score, would technically trigger Article 5 collective defense responsibilities, potentially pitting the US against its European allies.

And you've certainly got pundits in Europe saying that they need to be prepared to take on the US militarily. That's known as war, boys and girls. Now, I get the energy, but [ __ ] please. Europe does not want smoke with the US. Not while they're already dealing with Russia. But it has to be said, Trump's blunt force trauma diplomacy is rapidly alienating the US from traditional allies. Maybe it's a stroke of genius, or maybe it's just as unhinged as it seems. Let's ask Greenland. Greenland's government, led by Prime Minister Moot B.

Aetti, forgive me if that is just wrong on every conceivable way. Uh, but he has firmly rejected any transfer, emphasizing self-determination and stating American, no. Local parties stressed they do not want US oversight, citing environmental and cultural concerns. The island's economy relies on fishing, mining, and Danish subsidies. Maybe something that nobody wants to talk about. They basically just pay them to be a country. But independence aspirations have started growing in Greenland. No formal US offer has been made public, but Trump has suggested compensating residents uh or Denmark financially could be in the future, but he has also said he's not thinking about the money right now.

He's just thinking about doing this the easy way or the hard way. Wild. Do you really think he's going to go after Greenland? after Greenland? after Greenland? Yes. Yes. Yes. Do I think he's going to invade militarily? Yeah, militarily? Yeah, militarily? Yeah, I think he's going to um God, what do I really think he's going to do? It may be a failure of my imagination because I have a very hard time believing that he would do something like a strike. I could certainly see him just like Thu Air Base suddenly becomes like Grand Central Station and he's just got like everything going through there.

Um, I can certainly see him like constantly threatening, threatening, threatening, but not actually making a move and um, increasing the diplomatic pressure over and over and over and over. Um, I could definitely see that. So, yeah, I just really can't see a strike, man. Not not with what it would do to your allies. Like, that is so wild. I also think he's really gonna lose a lot of at home support because listen, how do you boil a frog slowly? Uh, Trump went from I'm the president of peace to I'm the president of lightning strikes.

Now, for anybody keeping score, I use the word lightning on purpose. Fans of history will know exactly why I use the word lightning. Uh, so I just I just don't want to see it. And because I don't want to see it, I am maybe removing an option that he's being sincere about off the table, but I don't think he is. I think it's bluster. Please Jesus, let it be bluster. Um, now he may know things about Russia and China that I just have no clue about.

And maybe if I was in his position, I'd be like, "Holy shit." Like, we really got to move on this. Um, so I want to leave that on the table. But with the current things that I know, this level of aggression is whether he intends it to be or not is going to accelerate the um the um the um not global hegemony but the global cooperation that we've seen. Now, everybody heard, anybody that was here, I guess, at the time, heard my spiel on maybe we need to, maybe all of that global government [ __ ] is super corrupt and we need to back out of it.

But he's ejected out of, I think, 66 international treaties, organizations, whatever. whatever. whatever. Uh, he clearly is not afraid to bully verbally verbally verbally longstanding allies. Mhm. And when you go in and snatch up, dictator or not, you go in and snatch them up, you violate Venezuela's sovereignty. If he does on the ground strikes in Mexico to stop drugs or otherwise, he will have violated their sovereignty. Um, so this is and then obviously if he makes a move on Greenland, it's like it becomes a unignorable pattern that will force people to hunker down and go the world's policemen that made all of this possible is now the one raiding coffers.

And so we've got to at a minimum be cooperative. We've got to, you know, maybe it's most favored nation deals. Colombia certainly has changed their tune after Maduro got snatched. So, it's um um um yeah, this this sends you into an era of nationalism. Maybe that's a great thing. Maybe him accelerating it is wonderful. I don't feel like I see clearly enough um what's happening at the global level to call whether this is good or horrific. horrific. horrific. Uh but I do know that it feels acting the bully doesn't feel good for me.

So, if you have my temperament, don't love. So, uh I'm a fan of put the incentives in the right place. um get people on your side. Seduction, it's just yeah, I um with what I know now even though this is to the advantage of my country, I think that it will have trade-offs in the long term that will be a less enjoyable world. Mhm. And when I think about, okay, wait, we need to need to need to we have to undo the K-shaped economy. We have to make it such that you don't have to be any more clever than saving your money and getting your kids educated to be class mobile.

That that is a must for me. me. me. Um, do we have to destroy the entire world order to get there? So, if your base assumption is yes, we do, then yeah, this cool, he's accelerating that. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. If your basic assumption is no, we don't, then it's like, bro, you've got to calm the [ __ ] down. And so, again, ambition grows in the Eden. So, every one of these that goes well, he's emboldened. Um, and then you boil a frog slowly by first saying, "I'm the president of peace." And then it's like you just keep like dipping your toe into more and more militaristic stuff.

So, yeah, we're going to see. We're gonna see. see. see. Um, with Eve driving such a hard line about this though, I feel like that should have been the deterrent. Like, it's one thing when he was like, "Yeah, can Canada's going to be a 51st state." It was him and, you know, a couple of the Canadian PMs going back and forth. But when you have EU and NATO and Maccron and people in France really standing up and saying, "If Trump makes this move, we're going to take this as an act of war.

You're alien alienating NATO. NATO will essentially not exist anymore if Trump moves there." And to your point, those second and third order consequences would be dire, especially when it deals with the Ukraine Russia situation. Um, is this not worth the blowback or blowback or blowback or let me paint a picture for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's say that you're in a relationship with your girlfriend. It's been bad for a while, but you're still like your Facebook page still says you're in a relationship. It's the oldest [ __ ] ever.

In a relationship with I remember that. and uh she boils your bunny and your daughter's in tears because your bunny got boiled and you know she's crazy, but it hasn't come out yet that she boiled the bunny or people aren't taking it seriously for whatever reason. But that like changed how you look at your girlfriend your girlfriend your girlfriend and you're like, "Yeah, look, I don't give a [ __ ] what my status says. Uh you're dead to me. You boiled my daughter's bunny. That is the craziest [ __ ] ever.

And by the way, Iran on I'm gonna protect this bunny. I'm gonna get this bunny out of harm's way on day one, maybe even before I take office. That bunny's going to be safe. If I'm right and Trump maps Europe as wanting the war in Ukraine to continue and that he's got a Putin Europe problem, um then it's entirely possible that to him he's already like whatever, Europe's dead to me and they've already done the crazy thing. Boris Johnson stopped this from going through. He's out.

I thought we were gonna be able to get this done. I realize these [ __ ] [ __ ] want this to keep going. I don't know that this is what he thinks. I just know he's made comments that make me think he might think that. Uh so if he's looking at that situation and going, "Oh, damn." Like these fools actually want to keep fighting. Um then whatever. [ __ ] them. And but that means NATO, get the [ __ ] out of here. Like I can't be a part of that. you guys are acting like lunatics.

Uh I've got Russia and China encircling my safe zone of Greenland. Uh can't have it. Um and so yeah, we're still the world's most powerful military and China's been racing ahead of us. Can't have that. So America is under my leadership going to get strong again. And he really believes, [ __ ] all y'all, I'm going to hit the gym and uh show these [ __ ] what it's about. And he he doesn't think of it as getting strong. I don't think he thinks of it as we are strong.

But you don't have to look farther than oh PS 2027 $1.5 trillion dollars in military. I guarantee he's sitting in that room watching all this [ __ ] happen and they're like [ __ ] coming in with like uh COD heads up display [ __ ] taking people out using sound waves and all that [ __ ] And he's like that's what I do with 900 billion. What could I do with 1.5 trillion? Y'all [ __ ] are in trouble. That I guarantee that's what's going on. That's ambition growing in the Eden. That's somebody who's like, "Oo, I don't need anybody, man.

I got this." So, So, So, yeah. So, that is one possibility. I do not know that I have accurately mapped his thinking on that, but oo, it's got internal consistency with the behavior that I see. From the chat, somebody said, "This is how the Japanese Empire fell. They needed resources, alienated their allies to get those resources, and poked the wrong bear. We're about to rhyme with history. history. history. There you go, Scuba Derber with the banger. banger. banger. Yeah. I mean, so we are not Japan in that Japan is a tiny ass little island.

Um, that had a history that told them we are the baddest military around. And if you know that they thwarted the Mongols who did not meet a country they couldn't take, they thwarted them twice. They were like, "You guys can get the [ __ ] out." So, out." So, out." So, and then they just ran over China. So, Japan thought, "All right, we're the toughest people ever. Like, we got this. No problem." But they didn't have resources. They're a tiny [ __ ] island. Look at the map. When you look at how powerful Japan is, and you're like, "Wait, what?" So uh that one they were in a far weaker position.

So America is not in said same position. Um so on that front we are far better off than Japan was. If you want to liken us to anything it would probably be more like the British Empire where your empire is just so [ __ ] expensive. And so you're thinking well we're going to get all the resources but you just can never quite make it work because they styy you all the time. They won't stop fighting you. [ __ ] Gandhi's everywhere. And so it just becomes this nightmare pain in the ass where the colonies won't just do what they're told.

And now the world's watching. You can't just [ __ ] chop hands off anymore. And [ __ ] like that. Like you know the Spanish sending [ __ ] um what's his name? Columbus over here was like, "You're going to get me some gold or you're going to be without hands." Homeboy was ruthless. Ruthless. Ruthless. Ruthless. Hands, feet, son. So like chop chop. God damn. Like when you got cameras everywhere, you can't run the world like that. And so now it just empires are expensive. So debt, debt, money printing, these are your problems.

This is how empires collapse. Uh so yes, will we put ourselves in that position because we want to go control everybody's resources. We want the petro dollar to stay in place. Maybe. Um but just being overextended. Um all right, let's go into conspiracy corner. Backed by popular demand allegedly. allegedly. allegedly. Um, Um, Um, by the way, I love that you guys love Conspiracy Corner. Let's keep this [ __ ] fun, right? This is way too tense of a time to not have at least a little bit of fun.

So, there are not 8 billion people living today in this world. A laughable and unserious belief. Truly, most of humanity's unbirth. Most online accounts are ghost bots. I love that. That's a reference on the lo larger population of the world. Census data has been severely embellished outside the West to claim more resources. Peacock and make their people feel small and inconsequential. China. Hundreds of unexplained ghost towns. People's phone companies reported over 100 million plus are no longer in service or not used at all without explanation.

Claimed 500 million in 1950s and somehow boomed after the CCP to 1.2 billion by 2000, which was would require every woman to have five surviving babies on average. Except there was a strict one child policy for almost four decades, which only became this two child policy in 2015. And a famine. Stop reporting COVID deaths out of shame. then secretly built mass funeral cemeteries at an alarming rate. India most recent official census data for India shows population in tier one in two cities to be 300 minimum 300 million maximum.

If that is true then almost 900 million people live in rural Indian villages lol. Does this sound correct at all? Can it be said confidently by someone with a sense? No. The womb of the world is barren and there's hardly anybody here. And this started on the back of a Chinese dissident claiming that China's population is actually under 500, not 1.4 4 billion. All right. Yeah. Play this clip. This is very interesting. very interesting. very interesting. You are ready for the number? Yes. Yes. Yes. At one point I projected under 400.

Under 400 million. What? What? What? 500 million. 500 million. 500 million. Under 500 million. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. So you think that they have a very similar population to the United States and China? and China? and China? Yes. Yes. Yes. Wow. Wow. Wow. There's 1 billion people missing. And this goes back to what we were saying in the beginning or earlier in the podcast with all of the fake IDs and all of this stuff being found out. Yeah, there's possibly one billion people missing. It's not a demographic question, Danny.

It's a mathematical question. question. question. Let me ask you, it takes a couple to have two children to replace themselves, right? right? right? Think about it. Yes. Yes. Two children. If every if every couple produces two children, your the population distincts level, right? So, do you know how many children does every woman needs to have in her lifetime in order to triple its population in 50 years? To triple its population in 50 years, you need to have what? Uh, let me guess. I'm terrible at math.

I I I I I give you I'll give you the answer because I ask AI. It's it's a a crazy mathematical. If I if a country needs to triple or or grow its population by two point two and a half times, let's just say two and a half times, half times, half times, okay? okay? okay? Over a span of 50 years, five kids five kids five kids each woman. You're right. Each woman needs to give birth on average between four and a half to five and a half children.

children. children. I'll be interested to see how this plays out. Listen, I don't know if this is true. This is conspiracy corner for a reason. But it is a They did have a one child policy for Yeah. It's one of those where you're like, "Huh?" Like, how do we get that many kids? Like that's a lot of kids. And they said the demographic was shifted and COVID older population, they're more susceptible. So, you start to tilt your head, close your eyes, you kind of start seeing it.

It could be one of those where, yeah, when you don't know the actual data or whatever, you're tilting your head and all that, but uh once you start looking at you're like, "Oh, yeah, no, it really is true." So, I want to be very clear. This is not us saying this is true, but this is me saying certainly. Well, I'm going to have to put some time into starting to research that. For people asking if we are familiar with Peter Zhan's work, we are and have invited him on the show many times.

And so, if you guys want to start a pressure campaign uh to get him to say yes, please do. Uh obviously gentle and sweet and kind, but um yeah, we've not been able to get him on the show, but hyper aware of his work. work. work. What would be the ramifications of this? So let's say instead of the 8 billion that we think it is, what if it's closer to six, six and a half, maybe 6.2 or something like that. So well, so now it's do you contextualize this as a part of the grand uh conspiracy of the elites trying to get control of the populace and using the green movement as a way to do that.

Um again, not that the climate isn't changing, the climate is changing, but um to try to hammer people, to get them to have less children, to make people feel guilty about having kids. Um, that's where this all starts to get weird. And I've never understood why they would want less kids anyway. That's something I'd really have to stop and think about. But if you put it back in that context of I certainly get why China would want to lie about it because if you can seem bigger than you are, people are going to be more intimidated by you.

Now, let's be very clear, China's economy is massive. So, um, now they lie about their economy all the time. Nobody doubts that. But even just I think they look at like satellite imagery of the number of ships and stuff that go in and out. So this is not me quoting CCP stats. This is like the world looks at how much they ship out and they come up with a rough estimate. Their their economy is gigantic. So they clearly aren't small. The question is though, are they whatever three or four times bigger than the US?

Uh maybe not. So um the ramifications of it are effectively nothing because you are living in the world that exists. So, if the data reporting is that, oh, that isn't true. Um, well, then this is what the world looks like. This is how I respond when people are like, but no, what do you mean? Like, how could this all be a simulation? It's like, well, this is what a simulation feels like. It feels like real life. So, like ultimately, it doesn't really matter. It's just a metaphor, a way to like think about your own behavior, to step outside of your own frame of reference.

Doesn't change anything. So, it would be the same there. the world that we are living in is the world that has the number of people that it has. It may rob people of certain arguments that like we're hitting Malthusian limits as they call it where we're actually going to run out of resources. Uh that just doesn't end up being true. Uh it certainly hasn't yet. And even if the world had the full 8 billion, if you condense everyone standing shouldertoshoulder, I'm still shocked by this. If you condense eight billion people billion people billion people into just standing on the ground shouldertosh shoulder, they fill up an area that's five times the size of Manhattan.

Manhattan. Manhattan. It's nothing. It is absolutely tiny. So that is already like yo humans just don't take up that much space. Um now when we go and build farms and things like that that's where we start eating up a lot of the ecosystem but even that the world is still largely just empty. Yeah. Say another way, the entire population of the world could fit inside of Texas. of Texas. of Texas. That would have to be true because five Manhattans is a minor fraction of Texas. Something like that's crazy.

Um, over under the possibility of it being I'm not going to ask you if it's true or not, but what are the odds? Would you take take take I wouldn't bet money on it because I don't trust myself. So full disclosure on that, but if just as a theoretical thought experiment, thought experiment, thought experiment, um I think that the the incentive in China for sure to over report is very high. So my guess there is that we're over. Could I see us being over by that much?

That seems a little far-fetched. far-fetched. far-fetched. Like we're overestimating. Yeah. That that we're saying there's more people than there actually are. That seems more likely to be true. Um, but I can't fathom that it's that there are less than 500 million. That just seems impossible to hide twothirds of your population. Like you could be off by, I don't know, 20% but that much. that much. that much. Yeah, that's Yeah, that's Yeah, that's But that's just emotion. So, who knows? Welcome to Conspiracy Corner. Like Drew said, backed by popular demand.

Hope that you guys enjoy that. That one's not necessarily fun funny, but uh certainly conspiracy. We we got to get some more like uh we got to get culture back in. Like I was I was literally looking this morning. I have one for Gen Z queued up. But um the boy versus girl stuff isn't as funny anymore. Oh my god. Yeah, true. This is hilarious. hilarious. hilarious. Whimo Tesla be on the lookout. China's coming for you. All right. This isn't conspiracy corner though. This is like real footage.

This is like dude autonomous drivers. Like if you don't want autonomous drivers, what are you talking about? They stop for nothing. Look at your screen. These [ __ ] go all the way off-road. I got you. No worries, dude. My favorite. You're really gonna want to look at your screen for this. There's one in a minute. This is great. Driving off-road. Yep. Yep. Love it. Uh, in a minute we're going to see one that is dragging mopeds with it and it's just going. This is good. I don't know if that's cement, snow, what it is, but it's not going to let itself be slowed down.

I think it's the next one that is dragging the mopeds. Yeah. Yeah. We stopped for nothing, man. This is getting delivered. That is wild. I am a little shocked. As a frequent Whimo cutter offer, um I love cutting off Whimos cuz they have to stop. Um it's awesome. Hilarious. Drew's bullying a it's coming back for you, Drew. When they they roll up on your door, just remember that you enjoyed cutting them off. Is is there is there a fraction of maybe they did overestimate it? So, we're see we're laughing at this one in China, but what if we don't get that AGI takeoff?

Is there a percentage of possibility that we don't quite figure out how to map the world? We don't quite figure it out or is this just China trying to do something a little bit too soon and didn't just data test it as stringently as they should have? Yeah, that that's my gut instinct. So, there's nothing that you can point to right now that says intelligence is going to asmtote. So, um, Yan Lakun, who really led that charge for a long time, was just like, "No, no, no.

It's not going to work. LLMs are not the way. We've got to find some totally new method." Uh, he ended up getting relegated at Facebook. If you can believe, um, some of the AI people that I've had on that directly said, he got relegated because he would make a statement and literally before the podcast would drop, that thing would be done. And so, he just ended up looking ridiculous. So, again, that doesn't mean that there won't be an asmtote. just means that right now there's nothing that you can point to that shows that that is going to happen.

So far the more chips that you put together, the more efficient you make the algorithms, the um smarter they get. So it does still seem like Ray Kerszswhile is um on point to say that somewhere around 2030 you're going to get artificial general intelligence that you will have machines that are um better than humans at everything. And then it just becomes a question of once they're able to um fix themselves then do you get rapid takeoff. So does that mean essentially that um call it AGI is three years away and super intelligence is three years one day away.

Um that we don't know. So we'll see. But this feels like to me this is going to happen. Uh the roads are going to be in fact do we uh did I pull the clip? Elon said that um I think he says in the next three years so again 2030ish robots. 2030ish robots. 2030ish robots. Um that Yeah, the surgical robots. Let's let's hear this out of Elon's mouth. When do you think Optimus would be a better surgeon better surgeon better surgeon than the best surgeons? How long for that?

that? that? Three years. Three years. Okay. Yeah. And by the way, three years at at scale. Yes. Yes. Yes. There will be more there probably be more Optimus robots that are great surgeons than there are all surgeons on Earth. and the cost of that. But that's an important statement in three years time. So now listen, Elon is notoriously wrong about timelines. about timelines. about timelines. So but even if you double it six years, let's say you triple it nine years, the odds that he's that this is more than a decade out is basically zero.

That means I won't even be 60 years old and surgeons are just non-existent. So, if you're literally in college right now studying premed to become a surgeon, by the time you finish your residency, Optis Robot's already taking your job. Correct. Correct. Correct. What does that person do? What does that surgeon go and do that? No. The person in college right now to be a surgeon. Oh god. Like, look at you. Like, you're coming in hot. Uh, okay. So, the real God, am I actually about to say this?

Okay. Well, uh, it depends on what your goals are. Let's always start with that. But if I were back at that point, I would go into finance the whole world is going to be the whole world already is financialized. It is going to accelerate and the people that are going to win even in a world one of the things I guarantee that happens in a world where it's like universal basic services and everybody just gets whatever they want for free. Okay? Even in that world, there will be elites that want to signal that they're different and better than other people.

So there will become some variant of an economy that being able to win at that game is still going to be incredibly valuable. That's architecture of the human mind. And so given how much it's changed my life, my thinking, my approach, my very assessment of what the world is and what humans are uh to understand economics and I wouldn't go into economics. I would go into finance because economics tends to get philosophical because if Carl the idiot Marx can walk away going you know we should do uh we should do socialism as a bridge to communism that's full [ __ ] So on that like that's economics.

Finance is like no for real where do you put your money right now today and you've got to come out better off than you went in. It is a a hyper competitive game. So anyway, understanding that you understand something so fundamental. If you truly are good at um the way that markets work, the odds that you ever go hungry, if you have restraint and discipline is zero. So um I really don't like that that is the only honest answer because everything else is going to be like follow your dreams, your passion, what do you love?

It's like if you just want to be I I don't know where the world is going, so I need to be like maximally safe, finance is the game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But now that's going to be miserable for a lot of people. Continuing that trend, Gen Z has eased efforts among home ownership frustrations. So there are multiple reports that saying that gener Gen Z has cut down on their effort at work because they don't think it's worth it because they can't afford their long-term financial goals.

One of the stats that they use, there's currently no states in the US where a full-time worker earning the minimum wage can afford a modest two-bedroom apartment. Um, you know, then it goes back to the baby boomers hold 54% of the stocks worth of 25 trillion. Millennials only 8% of the stocks worth of 3.9 trillion. And don't get me started on the Gen Z numbers and things like that. So, um, to kind of continue that question that Mason had, what do we do to motivate Gen Z?

What do we do to get them excited? Because the grind culture, hustle, you could do anything, that doesn't work for them anymore. Um the no sleep till you rich, that doesn't work for them anymore. How do we incentivize this next generation of people? I have only the blackest of black pills for you. for you. for you. You don't. You don't. You don't. Here, here is the reality of the human condition. condition. condition. Plug them into a computer. No. No. No. Uh the reality of the human condition is once somebody's an adult, the die is cast.

And while they could change, they never will change. Gen Z is already done. done. done. So the real question becomes, how do you raise Gen Alpha? And And And um um um the fact that we don't teach people that grind culture has nothing to do with your boss. It has everything to do with controlling your own life. Skills have utility. The reason you grind is so that you can outperform somebody else. so you can't be stopped. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. You get so good at something so you're uncontrollable.

uncontrollable. uncontrollable. And people mistake it as I'm grinding away from my boss. No, you're not. You're grinding away so your boss is terrified of losing you. That puts you in a position of control. If your boss is not afraid of losing you, they're in control. They decide how much you get paid. If your boss is afraid of losing you, you control how much you get paid within reason because you'll charge so much. You'll hit a point where the boss is like, "Well, for that money, I'm no longer afraid of losing you." Mhm.

But nonetheless, that's the whole point of grind culture. And we have so brainwashed ourselves and other people to not understand how human adaptation works. How um leverage works in in a human life that you only have leverage when you can do something that somebody else finds valuable. If you can do something somebody else finds valuable, you always have leverage. And we've metastasized this moronic idea that you shouldn't be trying to win. You should be trying to get as good as you can. You should be trying to become truly unstoppable through your ability to perform.

But there are going to be some people that are going to get left behind. They're going to get left behind because they're dumb. Uh because they are undisiplined. And some people really, it's through no fault of their own. Remember, I think we're all automata anyway. So, we just got lucky if you've got the ability to pull ahead. But the reality is God saw fit to make us this way. So, it is what it is. And the second you let yourself death spiral into I can't let anybody be left behind and therefore I'm not even going to try because the system is corrupt and I just want to make sure that, you know, we all rise together.

It's like you're trying to fight from a position of weakness. If you want to help other people rise, become extraordinarily strong so that you can help them rise. Uh so you can carry them when they're weak. That is the position you should be trying to work yourself into. So how do we motivate Gen Z? You don't. The people in Gen Z, and there are some that are already motivated, will simply eat the lunch of the unmotivated. or if we get a really brutal period, what will happen is um you'll get socialism, communism, and the tyrants will rule um not because they are better, but because they're prepared to be more violent and hey, the rest of us need to figure out how to outperform them.

And that just is. And so, um, just like skills have utility from a finance perspective, a business perspective, a whatever perspective, not letting yourself get overrun by, uh, the tyrannical majority, you can allow that. You've got to figure out how to make sure that that does not happen. So, happen. So, happen. So, yeah, that that is the game that you're playing. And all of the peace and kumbaya is an illusion. We've got a super chat. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Yeah. Super chat. Super chat grew glow G.

Uh, I listen to the lives in the car every week. Truly appreciate the dynam dynamic between Drew and Tom in opinion diversity and the different way they approach the world. Might not be massive, but keeps it interesting and useful to me. Keep up the great show. Thank you, man. Appreciate that. That is very kind. Especially coming in as a uh super chat. Really, really generous with the praise, generous with the uh the super chat money. Thank you. Very kind. What's on your radar for this week?

Some of the things that are coming down the pike. I know the Supreme Court tariff decision is coming down. That's huge. I There are a few things that are bigger than that, but also what's going on in Iran. I want to see uh uh uh man, I my gut is entirely wanting to see them overthrow the government. Like I just religious authoritarianism grates on every nerve that I have. Uh but it's a very dangerous time. But I do hope that happens. Uh I hope it happens without America needing to get involved at all.

Um, so shout out to everybody in Iran. I hope that that comes together well. Um, and and and that's the biggest Greenland, like if he makes a move, I cannot fathom that that would happen this week or even this month. Um, so I think that one's a longer, slower burn. So yeah, looking at um what happens with the uh the Supreme Court and then um what happens in Iran, those are the two big ones for me. Nice. Um team people, man. I just I'm excited to actually see people overthrow um the government.

Any government will do. I don't want it to be Americans government, but I can root for the people over there because I don't know what happens after you overthrow a government. I've seen it in Haiti. It doesn't always revolution is cool until you get the hangover the next morning and then it's like, "Oh snap, now I have a whole country to run." It It is [clears throat] rough getting everybody pointed in the same direction is tough. is tough. is tough. Okay. One battle after another, sweeping the globes, though.

Oh, did it? Yeah, it did. I didn't see anything. Anyways, that was a great movie. Revolution. Revolution. Revolution. It was very interesting. A lot of people were calling it Antifa the movie. A lot of people wanted to like really sort of peg it as being like a super left leaning thing. I It's definitely lefting. There's no doubt about that. But I thought that Paul Thomas Anderson by making the main character sort of a dumbass dumbass dumbass um kept it very interesting. It was also the first time I realized that's become um DiCaprio's brand.

He plays the character that's in over his head who is both likable but like a little bit too dumb to be in the position that he's in. It's fascinating um brand to build. So anyway, there you have it. All right everybody, that's time. Thank you guys so much for joining us. We understand this is a wild time. We appreciate you joining us. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe if you would. Uh it really does grow go a long way. And we are here Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 7 a.m.

Pacific time. Uh thank you for joining us and we will see you on Wednesday. Take care. Peace.