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Language: en
think the stakes are higher I mean it's
higher whatever you think about the
rigidity or fragility of our democracy
and and maybe we'll talk about that the
stakes are higher because this is an
inflection point I think for Maga and
trumpism to some degree if Donald Trump
wins in November it probably prolongs
mag's control of the Republican Party
into certainly the midterms in 2026
maybe into to who the Republican Party
selects in 2028 as their nominee whereas
particularly with Trump being close to
80 if he loses in
November that'll be a lot of Maga losses
in a row starting in 2018 or under
performances we can say and it's
probably not only the end of Trump's
political career but but it may sort of
be it for Maga as well so I do think the
stakes are
high and what what is your biggest fear
if Trump gets elected
well I don't want to be hyperbolic so I
would just look at the first term
combined with not having another
election to run and therefore being
completely sort of unrestrained and
unfettered uh in addition to openly
saying that he's interested in replacing
career bureaucrats at so many
departments with partisan Loyalists and
what that would do to the Department of
energy the Department of Education Etc
is scary to someone with my worldview
which is sort of a pluralistic respect
our Democratic institutions in the kind
of mold of of Northern Europe for for my
mindset uh the idea of that is is scary
um you know the the more hyperbolic
stuff uh I think I try not to engage
with in a blanket way you know if
there's a specific issue that we want to
discuss we can you know whether it's
abortion or something else uh but those
those are my concerns you've got a guy
who is um completely UNC and breaks sort
of the social norms of what it's like to
interact with the public uh you have
somebody that lies voraciously and
obviously that in and of itself is
deeply problematic uh you have somebody
that plays pretty loose and loose and
fast with world leaders and that
obviously carries with it a certain
amount of risk you have somebody that
has proven that they um this is where I
want to be very careful about how you
view it but that January 6 was very
meaningful in terms of a legitimate
attempt to undermine maybe the most
gentle word to undermine the traditional
peaceful transfer of power uh and you
put that all together and you have
something that is um certainly
directionally not where you want to see
us end up I agree with all of that and I
think there's of course more to it we it
sounds like we're going to talk about
the economy in more detail but certainly
economically the sort of uh uh blind
tariff idea that he's now pushing which
seems like it would be bad for both
businesses and individuals in the United
States concerns me uh directionally I
don't like the straining of
relationships with our traditional
Western allies that we saw under Trump
and I know that there's a view that it's
good to shake things up and it's good to
keep people guessing on their toes I I
don't know that it's been demonstrated
that generically that that's a good
thing I think under Trump and the way he
executed it it it certainly was not so
yeah I I think what you laid out
certainly reflects my beliefs and I
would even go beyond
it okay what would be the most
meaningful things that you would push
beyond that that raise the stakes of
this particular election I think it's
the the ones I mentioned in including
turning government departments into
partisan political departments when
they're really not supposed to be and I
don't know you know this isn't like the
most viral and click inducing topic but
I don't know that a lot of people
necessarily understand that a lot of the
employees of these government
departments whatever you think about the
missions of the Departments these are
not political actors privately I'm sure
a lot of these employees vote but they
transcend uh administrations they work
under Democratic Administration and
Republican administrations and they're
really career bureaucrats that are doing
so much of the diplomacy work and and
bureaucratic work and it's a good thing
that that's the way it is and so the
idea of turning those departments into
partisan
Endeavors sometimes with the goal of
essentially just ruining them right I
mean Department of Education is one
where it's been overtly stated that many
of these Maga people don't even think
there should be a federal department of
education and just kind of let States
figure it out or even let municipalities
figure it out or when it comes to the US
Postal Service another great example of
politicizing in order to then destroy to
allow private business to fill that role
I think all of that is extraordinarily
dangerous and when you look around the
world at the countries that have gone in
that direction they are not the
countries that Democrats nor Republicans
will often say that's the country we
want to be like and when you look at the
country countries with the strong
business environments uh low
unemployment uh High uh level of uh of
quality of life they aren't doing those
things they kind of respect this
separation with these bureaucratic
departments so I I think that's a huge
deal what do you think about people that
think that there's whether you call it
the managerial class or the Deep state
that that begins to pose its own threat
to
democracy I hesitate to engage with that
without a disclaimer which is that there
are thoughtful realistic ways to engage
with what is in many cases a two-tiered
society or or even multi-tiered
Society usually when your entry point
into it is talking about the Deep State
or the managerial class terms that for
example like VI ramaswami would use half
a dozen times each time would interview
him it starts us off in what in my
opinion is a more sort of conspiratorial
and unproductive Direction I kind of
prefer the language of social democracy
which is that it's not you don't need to
look under rocks or for the Deep State
or the trilateral commission or the
bilderbergs or whatever the case may be
it's sort of all out in the open
Princeton has studied it and the the
desires of the wealthy
are just and corporations are far more
likely to be made law or to be reflected
by lobbyists Etc you don't need to go
into deep State uh to recognize that the
middle class and the lower middle class
the working class however you want to
Define it have disproportionately little
political power in the United States so
that I think is what we really should be
engaging with and for me even raising
deep State as a term in the discussion
doesn't really add anything it certainly
doesn't clarify
anything it's really interesting so
first I will flag myself fully as
somebody who is paranoid about the Deep
state but we can come back to that and
hopefully you can talk some reason into
me um but I I'm really intrigued by this
idea that uh the middle class and
Working Poor in America are
disproportionately powerless compared to
other nations um so certainly social
democracy is something that's on my list
of things that I want to discuss with
you I would not have seen um that
interpretation of that coming so if you
can tie to be clear you might I might
have I might have explained it I didn't
mean disproportionately powerless
relative to other nations I meant
relative to the wealthy and corporations
of the United States I see I see that
may have just been my misunderstanding
okay so uh yeah that seems uh
unassailable
so paint me a vision of what it is that
you want to see as an outcome so when
you think about like who should be
elected whether Harris or anybody else
that obviously elections will come and
go um but there's something that you're
driving towards uh before we met I would
have just said off-handed uh social
democracy is what he wants you often
reference Denmark um if you don't mind
stacks and Bricks for us what what what
is social democracy how is it different
from democratic socialism and what would
it feel like for America to be that for
the average person this is a really good
way to approach it so the first
distinction between social democracy and
Democratic socialism is that social
democracy is capitalism it's it's it's a
form of capitalism if you look at a
place like Denmark which has an as good
or Better Business environment in terms
of what it costs how long it takes
bureaucracy etc for starting a business
when compared to the United States uh it
is a form of capitalism it's a slightly
more regulated form than we have in some
ways in the United States now as we
delve into this I think it's important
to mention that depending on where you
live live in the United States the state
you live in may already be very close
not there but very close to what social
Democrats like myself are kind of
pointing towards and in fact if you look
at the higher standard of living states
in the United States so these are places
like Connecticut Massachusetts
Washington Etc we we could look at the
list What's called the HDI the human
development index which is a kind of
Blended metric that considers uh uh
health and and Longevity a per capita
income education it's sort of like a
blended metric that tells you kind of
like how good are the basic building
blocks of life in the states in the
United States where it's going well
Connecticut Massachusetts Etc it's
almost identical to countries like
Denmark Norway Sweden Etc it's it's very
equivalent so we're very close to what
social Democrats want already in much of
the United States and the difference
between social democracy and what I
think a lot of the center right
Republicans want this is not necessarily
talking about magga now but but a lot of
center right Republicans involves taking
just a little more at the very very top
to ensure that no one drop below a
certain level we're just kind of it's
not equality of outcome it's not
socialism it's certainly not communism
or Marxism it's basically saying here's
the current sort of range of outcomes
what we want to do is set up something a
little closer to equality of opportunity
that no one Falls too low and usually
the way you do that is with a little
more taxation at the very top that all
being said uh I don't think it has to be
that way I mean I'm not someone who goes
around saying we need to pay more in
taxes I to be totally honest I am
frustrated every April with how much I
pay in taxes I I would actually like to
pay less I think it's the distribution
and the use of a lot of the tax money
that that's the problem but now now
we're getting more Nuance but to kind of
step back at the 30,000 foot view we're
not talking about dramatic changes
especially if you're already in States
like Connecticut Massachusetts
Washington Etc
okay uh super helpful so um for anybody
that doesn't know uh what is um
Democratic
socialism you know really a Democratic
Socialist should tell you because one of
one of the things I found is whether
you're explaining what Jordan Peterson
meant or whether you're explaining what
democratic socialism is usually the
adherence to those ideologies will come
back and say you either don't understand
it or didn't explain it correctly so
Democratic soci socialism as best as I
can explain it is actually a form of
Socialism where to different degrees and
in different ways uh the means of
production when it comes to corporations
or the profits from businesses are
socialized the way in which it's done
and implemented depends but I I think it
would be best for for a socialist to
explain it I'm I'm very much not
one yeah fair enough um I get that the
reason that I ask is for any of us to
intelligently navigate the world we have
to have some sense even if it's just a
heuristic about that so let me ask uh
something that will get to the same idea
why don't you want to be why don't you
want America to be a socialist country
well I have seen in looking at the last
500 years of history as well as looking
at the world
today that the best outcomes seem to
happen
when there is no more authoritarianism
from government than what is arguably
necessary for the size of the population
and I'll explain that in in a moment um
and that the countries that have what
might be described in a book like why
Nations fail as extractive
institutions sometimes will do well in
the short term like for example the
Soviet Union had a period during which
you saw economic growth and to a degree
you saw Innovation but you saw it under
fundamentally extractive government
institutions and so it hit a limit and
looking at the Cold War shows you kind
kind of what happens when those limits
are hit so my starting point is and I
know that if you look at the comments on
my YouTube channel this might come as a
shock to some of your listeners I
actually am not about more government
involvement or more government control
than can really be Justified and
demonstrated by what's going to generate
kind of the best outcom so for me I
don't see any reason for a government to
say we're not going to let markets
dictate you know where the mobile phone
market goes for example I I don't I
don't see a big problem with that I
think it's a perfectly fine and great
thing both for Innovation and
competition for Apple and Samsung and
Google and whoever to compete and to let
markets uh dictate the flow of resources
I think that there are some specific
areas where this is not ideal and what's
really interesting is myself and someone
who's on the political right probably
agree on most of them like for example
most Republicans agree we should
socialize the military we shouldn't have
all of these different militaries and if
we need to do X or Y in another country
well these are like kind of private
militaries now there are mercenary
groups that's not really what I mean we
all generally agree yeah the military
should be part of the government that
makes sense we we usually agree
Republicans Democrats Independence that
cities shouldn't have competing police
forces it makes sense to socialize
police and fire uh only like kind of
extreme Libertarians would disagree with
that my view is that there's like a
couple other areas where a little more
socializing makes sense I think
healthcare is one of them although I'm
flexible as to the way we get healthcare
for everybody I think public education
is an area we're socializing a little
more than Republicans want to make sense
but the the point of presenting it this
way is that we're mostly all in the
United States on the same page that
there are some areas where socializing
makes sense and a bunch of areas where
markets make sense we just disagree
about probably a couple of
them okay that I want that to be true
but people are so fiery in their
reactions to each side if we're as as
close as you're saying and you sound
very reasonable Mr Pacman I will give
you that so why then is there so much
collision between the left and the right
right now what is the swing towards
populism all about if we're really close
to the outcome that you're saying we
should be aiming towards well I want to
be clear that I think we're close
ideologically right like if you look at
opinion surveys about abortion or should
taxation be use to make sure no one
drops below a certain standard of living
or does it make sense to provide some
amount of Health Care to everybody
regardless of ability to pay
ideologically in opinion polling we are
closer than we've ever been and kind of
more united than we've ever been the
Electoral outcomes don't reflect that
there there's a bunch of different
reasons why and I'll just tell you a
couple of them number one there is this
thing called the narcissism of small
differences which is that the outcome
when is agreement in a lot of areas but
you still have elections and fundraising
and political fights over who gets to
represent us in Washington DC the
differences by their very nature must be
Amplified if you have two Republicans in
a primary running against each other and
they mostly agree about abortions bad
and tax should be lower right if they
agree on 10 things the race will become
about the two things on which they
disagree so this is just like
standard politics to be expect expected
the the differences must be Amplified in
order to justify vote for me and not for
somebody else so that's number one
number two there are still pretty
significant cultural differences
regionally in the United States and I've
spent a bunch of time in different
conservative areas and life day-to-day
is often really different living in some
of the kind of liberal cities of the
United States as compared to like for
example I spent time in Northern Indiana
where people spend a lot of time at gun
ranges
and in mega churches life culturally is
very different so the environments also
make people believe that our differences
are are maybe greater than they are and
then thirdly as a result of at the
federal level the Electoral College in
terms of how we elect presidents um and
Jerry mandering at the state level also
exacerbates these differences by virtue
of a lot of factors related to how how
we elect candidates and so this is not
me pretending like everything's hunky
everybody basically agrees but there is
this kind of shared moral understanding
that I think covers a bunch of the
United States and the reason that you
see the the kind of vitriol is the
reasons I mentioned I think Amplified by
impersonal communication on social media
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to face with somebody and
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Times uh okay so let me give you a
because that does not match with the way
that I see people interacting with each
other um my take on it is probably not
as well thought out as yours but I'll
give you a rough swag um I think that
naturally humans are divided left and
right I think that from an evolutionary
perspective it is inevitable that you
will end up with tensions between these
two sides that there are people uh For
Whom the default um emotional stance
which I'm sure paints their moral Vision
becomes you can't leave people behind
and that it makes a lot of sense from an
evolutionary perspective why you would
need people in the tribe that are like
that when you think of humans as storing
calories for the future pre-
refrigerators in the bodies of other
people is sort of a weird thing when you
first hear it but when you really think
about it it's like I went on a hunt I
was very productive this time I come
back with the animal you didn't get
anything I'm going to feed you I'm going
to make sure that you don't get left
behind because it could be you next time
that ends up getting the kill and not me
and so I am quite literally storing
future calories in the form of
obligation uh in you so cool we
understand why that becomes a thing but
whenever there is an exploitable Niche
then someone is going to exploit it and
so you get what you call the freeloader
problem and so that's why you need the
people on the right who are about
personal responsibility and no you can't
just eat all of my meat there's going to
be tit fortat I need to see that you're
bringing something to the table as well
so I look at it from that standpoint
you've got this evolutionary bifurcation
between types of people that roughly
fall into left and right that roughly
can be generalized as people that uh
lead with compassion and other people
that lead with responsibility
everybody's on a spectrum of course
these are not binary things but you get
that tension now somewhere in the 90s
something culturally started to happen
I've often heard it put on Rush Limba
I'm G to Guess that he was more a
symptom of something rather than the
cause but that it became really about
entrenching in our tribes now I'm not
familiar enough with that history to
know what he was queuing off of why he
felt like this was the way to go to
begin tearing people down or if it
really was the beginning of Independent
Media with different radio stations
becoming popular and getting syndicated
and maybe social media really is just
the modern um incarnation of that that
certainly is possible um but I think
that divide happened long before social
media so I'd love to know if you have a
take on that and then certainly social
media um exacerbates that a thousandfold
but what do you think about that in
terms of just naturally people are going
to be divided into those two camps and
the tension between them is actually
useful but something has become
pathological recently I'm not sure that
the evolutionary case is is as clear as
you make it out to be in this sense if
we're talking about at the group level
um when humans developed agriculture
and by definition AG one of the big
advantages of Agriculture was the
storing of calories right in a different
not not as obligations but quite
literally we now are going to be able to
start specializing not everybody needs
to find the daily calories that they
need we're going to have some people
specialize and grow way more food than
they need we're going to store it and or
distribute it and now we're going to be
able to start investing other people's
time in different things that they might
be good at arguably for some it was you
know the development of religious
beliefs for others it was starting to
look at medicine Transportation so on
and so forth you already started to have
the freeloader problem there I just
struggle I I've not seen evidence that
the freeloader problem during the
Agricultural Revolution or even now is
really a problem in the sense that I
think it's natural that you will have it
whenever a technology is developed and
advances and opens new doors and if you
look at you know we now know more about
the Agricultural Revolution and there
was a mixed bag in the sense of not
moving around as much did lead to more
contagious disease and right it's not
it's not a Panacea but big picture the
Agricultural Revolution accelerated
technological development and uh uh and
the development of homo sapiens and so
many ways yes there were some
freeloaders who didn't really specialize
in anything but they were still
beneficiaries of the fact that we could
store food but I think that's just part
of a system and it's hard to argue that
Humanity didn't benefit in total from
that Revolution even despite the
freeloaders so I I guess my point to go
back is it's not obvious to me that the
evolutionary case is as clear as you're
making it out to be okay one quick point
on that and then I'll step back and see
what you do think um speaks to it so
agriculture comes around somewhere 10 to
12,000 years ago but we've been
considered humans for roughly 250,000
years so agriculture is still pretty
novel so from a how the brain would
develop standpoint I think there's a
case to be made that you have a much
longer period of time where there is no
way to store food uh than you've had one
where there is now certainly agriculture
has wildly changed our societies and all
of that and we could do a talk on that
but the thing I'm really trying to get
to in your world viiew is just to
understand how you think we end up
dividing on the left and right if we
want to get rid of left and right um are
we just trying to nudge people because
my vision has always been you want left
and right you want the tension between
them but you want them way closer to the
middle than they are now and so um just
curious to get your take on what causes
this Left Right divide and where do we
want to move people we trying to get
everyone to the left we trying to get
everyone in the middle what's that look
like yeah I I think you that laying it
out that way is much more in line with
with My Views and I've said many times
that I would much rather have a
Republican party that goes back to you
know sort of like the John McCain
Republican party where there are
disagreements about foreign policy there
are disagreements about taxation but not
only are the disagreements far more
substantive um they are disagreements
where we are closer to starting with a
shared basis in fact so we say hey okay
here are the facts now we might have
disagreements about where we want to go
and the best kind of way to go there
from a biological standpoint there's
pretty good research that those who end
up being what we in the United States we
describe as politically conservative
tend to have larger fear centers in
their brain in other words the idea of
difference the idea of change does
lights up or I'm not using the right
terminology because I'm not I'm not a
neuroscientist but it sort of sort of
lights up parts of the brain that are
responsible for rejection and sometimes
that rejection comes in the form of fear
sometimes it comes in the form of
disgust as we see with some of the other
social issues so there's probably a
biological aspect to it I do think that
there's a huge Urban rural divide to go
back to the environment that you're kind
of raised in now there's probably a sort
of vicious cycle in the sense that if
you're already for biological reasons
more suspicious of others or more
fearful of different environments you
probably choose to live rurally and
around fewer people so so you know
there's kind of a little bit of a
chicken egg here and we're kind of
talking about the same thing but I think
that that that's another Factor um so we
might call it a geographical factor and
cultural factors as well that probably
date back to how did your family end up
in the United States to begin with
that's interesting I didn't see the
curveball there coming at the end um so
I think we'll both agree that there's a
biological component there's obviously a
very large cultural component the part I
don't yet understand in your worldview
is do you want the tension between the
two or do you want to see people
leverage culture to migrate more either
to the center or to the left I think
that it is healthy not to have everyone
exactly on the same spot in the
political Spectrum so I think we can we
can sign simultaneously say if we think
about the Spectrum as a sort of number
line there's a bunch of stuff way over
here that's not good for Society for a
number of different reasons that we can
identify all the way on the other side
there's also reasons why if if that were
the predominant worldview that would not
be so good I do think that it is better
for you know if I could sort of snap my
fingers and say everybody has the exact
views of David Pacman I think that
that's not ideal because I think it's
clear that history has shown us that we
often make advances when something is
pulling one way or the other and you
don't necessarily know in advance which
direction the right direction is at any
particular moment I think the the
critical part is we need guard rails and
so for example the idea of well here's
an idea to do something different the
person who didn't win the election still
gets to be president that seems beyond
the pale to me of the sort of pull push
that that we need so no I I think that
political disagreement is a healthy
thing um and there's there's many
countries including the countries that I
think of as interesting models you know
my forthcoming book I talk you know
northern Europe is sort of like clich of
course everybody in with my worldview
talks about Northern Europe but I talk
about Uruguay around 2010 I talk about
the social Democrats in Germany in the
2000s I talk about the Carol estate in
India and I think uh these are all
different sort of scenarios but they all
benefited from not everybody being
exactly on the same page I I I hope I'm
answering the question clearly which is
no I I don't think the ideal thing is
everybody matches my personal exact
political
worldview no that makes a lot of sense
um so what now I am taking that
information I'm trying to map it to
where you want to move people to so
we're starting with the base assumption
that uh there's something
uh very meaningful about this particular
election uh the collision between the
two ideas um we went through certainly
what's going on on the right in terms of
um Trump representing a movement to turn
bureaucracies into partisan entities
that really should exist well beyond
that that should be able to work for
either side um that there is a
fundamental undermining of the
democratic process uh that your vision
of the which is obviously where you want
to see us end up we're actually getting
quite close to that um there's just a
few more things um we didn't get into
necessarily deeply about one thing that
you threw off the cuff which was uh
basically we're just trying to even um
make sure that everybody has a
relatively similar starting point um but
that makes a lot of sense and so I if
those are the two visions then it
becomes a question of um do you trust
yourself or does anybody that holds that
position trust themselves enough to say
hey everybody follow me this is where we
want to be or do they say look I want to
put my idea out there I want to argue it
as much as possible but the last thing I
would want is for anybody to just
blindly follow what I'm saying because I
know there will be second and third
order consequences that I cannot predict
um and that probably more than anything
sums up my problem with the current um
political structure everywhere that I
have looked at which is it always boils
down down to um somebody thinking that
they know the path forward rather than
running something I call the physics of
progress where you're holding yourself
accountable to metrics which it does not
seem like we do certainly I uh so couple
different things there if you there is a
certain
egocentrism associated with I I would
argue people who do what you and I do in
the sense of like it occurred to us that
we should be speaking with microphones
and that it's something other people
should listen to right so there's like
on some level there is some ego
associated with that I think for people
who run for elected office it's similar
it's hey of all the people I think I'm
the one that people should vote for and
put me in the position of power to then
go and and and do things one of the
things I always tell my audience is I
don't I do not believe that I am the
ultimate source of Truth everything I
say should be fact checked uh My Views
should change if I'm presented with
contradictory information for example
and it's good to be skeptical of anybody
who says that they are the ultimate
source of Truth this is one of the
things to to kind of get back to the
election Dynamics you know over the last
however many years it's been Donald
Trump has told us he knows more than the
scientists he knows more than the
generals he knows more than the doctors
he knows more than the epidemiologists
he knows more than the Senators he knows
more right that to me
runs very much counter to exactly what
you're talking about which is well hold
on a second before we bring everybody
along with whatever idea we have we
should establish how it is that we're
going to determine what is real and what
is not what works and and what doesn't
work so kind of as like a baseline level
I give my audience my best guess at the
time uh subject to revision based on new
information that's coming forward so so
I think that goes to the first part of
your question which is this idea that
that we just impose here's what we
should do uh without necessarily knowing
if it's the best
thing yeah very much so um to me just by
way of quick heuristic the right way to
run a government is what Lincoln called
A Team of Rivals that you actively Court
people who think differently than you
now whether Lincoln did the following or
not I don't know but this is certainly
my worldview that you the reason you
bring together A Team of Rivals is you
were trying to Red Team blue team ideas
that you can measure the outcome of that
you will have stated ahead of time what
the desired outcome is and then did this
initiative lead us to that or not and I
think there are a couple things that end
up breaking that one is that everything
is just so complicated that it can be
very hard to get a definitive answer uh
and so you would need literally
certainly multiple administrations would
have to share an end goal so that people
would need to State this is where I'm
trying to take us these are the things
we're going to try dear public these are
the outcomes reporting them as honestly
as they can in fact inviting their
Rivals to report on it so that we can
all look at it but then the other thing
is that I to your earlier point I don't
think we any longer have a shared set of
facts now this is a thing that I wrestle
with tremendously because I don't know
that there are facts to share so when I
there obviously is ground truth physics
but we don't even understand physics so
everything that we engage in is
interpretation to some level so then I
ask myself okay what how do we
influence the thing that causes us to
look at something but interpret it a
different way as far as I can tell it's
biology beliefs and values so values
sort of speaks to what you were talking
about did you grow up rural biology
speaks to um do you have the larger fear
centers in the brain and then beliefs
are just outright choices but people
don't realize their choices but you put
those three together and now people can
really distort the lens through which
they look at things and so whether it's
social media a bigger cultural movement
the debt cycle which we haven't talked
about but I think is a huge part of this
or all of it I think the way in which
people are assessing the facts just the
the distorted prisms that the left and
the right are looking at things through
is getting more and more Divergent so
they can look at the same thing and see
something wildly different do you see
one does that make sense to you and if
it does do you see a way to unwind it
the way to so I have an entire chapter
and there's really probably in some way
two or three chapters in my forthcoming
book there's a chapter called what are
facts not what are the facts but what
are facts and there's some very it's
it's good but it's also really scary
um pulp study data from Pew Research
Center where people were presented with
10 statements and they were just asked
indicate whether this is a fact or an
opinion right so like if I tell you
chocolate ice cream is the best ice
cream I think you and I both would say
well that's that's of course an opinion
uh and if I said to you uh based on
current technology humans cannot live
without oxygen we would say okay well
that's that's a fact uh a very high
percentage of people I don't want to
quote it because I don't have it in
front of me but a shockingly high number
of people
misidentified which statements were
opinions and which statements were facts
and this is very much visible in our
politics you know when um someone says
millions of people died from the covid
vaccine that is a statement of fact not
an opinion it's either true or it's not
and we don't have any evidence that
millions of people died from the vaccine
but to really think about vaccine policy
to pick something you have to understand
whether that is a statement of opinion
or fact and whether there is any basis
to make some of these claims so I
completely agree with you that there is
this more Divergent situation I think
where I disagree is there are I I think
it's dangerous to fall too far into I
don't even really know that we have
facts anymore not that that's what you
said but you were sort of saying that
there's this ambiguity for you about
about even kind kind of figuring this
out um so I I think that that is a major
problem now the solution I think is a
combination of we should really be
teaching both critical thinking and
media literacy probably starting at age
10 to everybody that's not partisan
although there are state boards of
Education including Texas that don't
want that taught in in public school I
won't speculate as to why we should ask
some of the people that don't want it
taught but um we know we get to I I
taught a a couple of college courses and
I had 20 year olds in my class where
basic media literacy like hey here's
something here's a message from
media how would you even start
evaluating whether what you just heard
is is true nothing just no basis to even
evaluate media messages so so I think
that the way to push back against it is
critical thinking and media literacy
probably starting at age
10 it's very interesting because yes
ultimately people are going to have to
um understand how to look at something
and determine whether it can be
validated or not uh I think the big
catch is going to be that so many things
are going to be hard to invalidate or
validate or that uh as I say there's
statistics uh lies and damn lies and
that even when you're looking at the
data itself
the conclusions that you draw from it
can be very jarring so for instance yeah
I heard you talk a lot about I heard you
talk a lot about Denmark and okay we wna
that's sort of a quick obviously just
rough sketch of where we want to end up
so I looked up Denmark where are they at
in the um GDP so uh Denmark is 34th I
think I wrote this down they're roughly
34th 32nd to 36th lies 38th they're 38th
okay so nominal GDP Denmark is 38th us
obviously is number one uh but if you
look it up in terms of GDP PPP so
purchasing power parody per capita
Denmark is 52nd but the US is number two
and so I was like wait a second who's
number one and it's China so I was like
wait a second in something that I care
deeply about a communist country
outperforms the US and so then I'm like
hold the phone so now I go from hey GDP
is a great way to just shorthand think
about like what's what is an what is a
kpi that you could look at to say we're
making the right decisions or leading us
in a good direction and then all of a
sudden I was like yeah like go democracy
go America amazing amazing and then the
people that I think are the most not the
most backwards cuz just like brutal
authoritarian uh regimes where people
are starving to death Stalin ma like
those would be way worse but uh a a
place I would not want to be living
under is actually outperforming us on a
metric that I care deeply about so I was
like wow so this is super interesting
there's a bunch of stuff there and
you're getting to I mean this is this is
why the corporate media environment just
is it it just can never really inform
people in any kind of deep and nuanced
way about this stuff so a couple
different things um number one what I
think it makes more sense to look at PPP
the nominal GDP that's a good that's a
good start China being very high to some
degree is because it's a pseudo
communist country although they've
become capitalist in so many of the
industries but that's a different
conversation because by virtue of being
a communist country there are entirely
large swaths of products that are
manufactured in China and are subsidized
by the government which artificially
makes the PPP appear very very high so
like that's a detail where even just
looking at PPP you need to understand
more about it so like okay that's super
interesting Denmark out of roughly out
of close to 200 countries Denmark's
basically at the at the line of the top
quarter right so 50 out of 200 roughly
would be like you're at the line of the
25th percentile what you have to
understand about Denmark is you don't
have to pay for Health Care out of that
PP like you're not buying health care
you can take that completely out you're
also not buying
education because education is paid for
through taxation so that's kind of
interesting because if you were to
disaggregate that in countries whether
that's something that you're paying for
out of pocket versus countries that
you're not that would also kind of
change the numbers and then just to
throw a different metric out you know
earlier I told you about how some of the
blue states in the United States have
very high HDI human development index
which includes life expectancy at Birth
how much schooling do you expect to get
uh PE PPP is is one of those uh Denmark
is number five in the world so the
outcome that they're having as far as as
far as quality of life once you
understand okay 25th percentile with
regard to PPP but you don't have to P
worry about health care costs driving
you to bankruptcy and all these
different things the quality of life
there is fifth out of nearly 200
countries that's pretty
good yeah this to me um so this the
point you made about China is exactly
what I was trying to convey is at the
surface it seems one way but then as you
start to dig in you realize wait there's
all these confounding variables the only
way that they went from Ma's China to
xiin Ping's China is to open up
capitalism and begin to let that thrive
but there still is the Hammer of the
state and so it's like oh God like very
complicated uh and then the HDI that
kind of thing then begins to ask a
question of values so going back to my
notion that your frame of reference that
the distorted lens through which view or
attempt to view facts uh is built up of
biology beliefs and values so now you
value for instance and I'm literally
just thinking of this as you're talking
people may hate me for this but this is
true you value ranking higher on the HDI
whereas I value people being able to
play for the championship team and so
I'm looking at what is the place that
creates the most Innovation that
attracts the best and the brightest from
all over the world and
that's thrilling to me but I also am
self-aware enough to know most people
are not going to enjoy playing that game
and so now you get some of what I think
is happening now which again the plan a
flag is not time to talk about yet I
don't think but the where we're at in
the debt cycle I think speaks to a lot
of the unrest that we're seeing I think
it speaks to a lot of the rise in
populism because all of a sudden kids
are like yo Boomers in their 20s had it
way better than I have in my 20s which
is true and they have access to a
freakish amount of information so they
know that's true and so there's all
kinds of things
from the food that we're taking in
toxins all that stuff which is probably
not a conversation for you and I but
you've got all that happening but then
you also just
have it feels super lame for somebody
coming into their early 20s right now
and they're very aware of it and you now
have them look at a country their own
country sending foreign aid everywhere
and even if it doesn't actually impact
them like a they're not going to realize
that they're just like billions of
dollars are leaving but they're going to
feel some kind of way about that and so
now you throw social media onto the fire
as you mentioned earlier which is
further distorting those lenses that
people are looking at this tribalism
being innate to our sense of being and
you just get these two groups
jettisoning away from each other and
when you you look back historically this
happens like clockwork on that dead
cycle and then It ultimately blows up
and you get really bad things happening
which is why for me I also think that
this election uh is unusually important
what do you do about dumb people that
get to vote and I say that truly with
love knowing that some people just they
fall below an IQ level where they will
be able to parse these very difficult
issues and PS I'm actually perfectly
willing to accept I'm one of the dumb
people that's below the line that can
adequately parse these things I'm
perfectly fine with that but I'm just
saying what do you do with that reality
you know I I think my Approach is
pragmatic I've had so many conversations
with viewers over the years when they
call in and they say David you know
there should be restrictions on who's
allowed to have kids there should be
restrictions on who's allowed to vote
there should be some kind of test where
you have to at least understand you know
you have to understand something or or I
think it's I I I don't think about it
much because that's not how we're going
to improve the country or the world I at
least as far as the United States is
concerned I really try to focus on where
we can make a difference and there is no
path to some kind of intelligence test
to vote
legally uh nor is there any political
will to do it I think either party that
proposed it it would do nothing for them
it would be a political Lo loser so I I
honestly don't think about I think what
you do is you you say how can we make
people less dumb and that's what goes to
to use your term um I think that's what
gets to can we start teaching media
literacy can we start teaching critical
thinking earlier um what can we do about
how should if at all social media be
regulated you know I think these are the
sorts of things I think it's more useful
to think about um because I just don't
think there's a path forward to solving
any problem we identify with figuring
out how how to prevent people from
voting now I will tell you there is a
political party that thinks that they
will do better if they can prevent
people from voting it's the it's the
Republican party now we can argue about
the reasons why and uh what they claim
are the reasons and and you know it'll
they will have their explanations but
over the last I mean it kind of goes
back to Mitt Romney where they started
think about this Mitt Romney state
director in Pennsylvania was talking
about using voter ID as a tool to reduce
Democratic turnout so that Romney would
win Pennsylvania in 2012 and thus the
White House why would that automatically
affect uh Democratic voters the because
all of the proposals that voter ID
specifically or which one are you
talking about voter ID yeah voter ID is
an interesting one the people who want
voter ID will usually say something like
uh well Trump says you need an ID to buy
bread so you should have an ID to vote
it's not true you need an ID to buy
bread so in case I don't know when you
last bought bread but you you don't need
one um but often what's stated is the ID
is free so why would it be an impediment
to anybody um the thing about the IDS is
depending on what state you live in and
the way that it's conceived of uh very
often in order to get the ID you need
subsequent documents that lower income
people are less likely to have and those
documents aren't always free to get for
example birth certificates I know when
when I had to get a copy of my
daughter's birth certificate there was a
cost associated with it and I had to go
to City Hall and it had to be only
during a three-hour window on a Tuesday
during which people who are working May
struggle to be able to to to go uh very
often the documents you need to get the
voter ID or the voter ID itself can only
be done in certain parts of the state
often requiring Transportation which
itself costs money so anyway I think the
idea here is that there's a calculation
that's been made in certain states that
if we put in place a voter ID
requirement in a certain way it will
disproportionately disfavor groups that
we don't think are super likely to vote
for us it's similar to the idea of
reducing the number of polling places in
urban areas which as we know there's an
urban rural divide in Rural America
there's rarely lines to vote in urban
America there are often lines to vote if
you reduce the number of places as you
can vote or reduce early voting hours
you will make the lines even longer it
is disproportionately Democrats
geographically who vote there some of
them say I've got to get to work I don't
have time to stand in this line you you
can depress the Democratic turnout
without hurting the Republican turnout
these are the sorts of
things got it um so on voter ID this is
one of those that I may just not know
enough about to understand why it's
controversial but it seems so
self-evident to me that you should have
to have an ID to vote um just by way of
and I I know the punchline already is
that there isn't any voter fraud but if
people don't have IDs I I haven't looked
at it but it just seems if people don't
have IDs how do you know whether there's
voter fraud or not but um why isn't the
approach to make getting the voter ID
easier rather than just saying you don't
need ID I actually would not be against
a protocol for requiring voter ID if it
included a
guarantee that nothing that you would
need to have in order to get the ID
costs money right so because it's it's
very easy to say the ID is free but if
you have to accumulate expenses to
obtain the documents to get the ID I
think that it's a problem and it's
arguably a pole tax so there's also like
a legal and constitutional argument here
uh if there is a cost to obtain the
documents to get the ID if we could have
a system I don't know if we could but
I'm open to it so I'm not it's you know
I'm not irrationally just like no no ID
I don't have a problem with it if we can
ensure that the cost aspect including
the downstream cost is dealt with and
there is a long enough Runway period
that there is no like a lot of the
problem now is trying to implement with
six weeks to go hey you're going to need
an ID and sometimes actually just lying
that you're going to need an ID and
you're not really going to just to try
to dissuade people from voting because
it sounds confusing or intimidating I'm
not against it like I'm I'm open to a
long Runway path to everyone needs an ID
with some kind of guarantee and that has
to include Transportation so like can
you get the ID by mail well a lot of
Republicans don't like that for the same
reasons they don't like vote by mail
they say that that's ripe for fraud so
I'm not unreasonable in that there there
are paths towards that that I would be
okay with it's just not really the
motivation of the Republicans who are
trying to pass voter ID with 6 weeks to
to go before an
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Theory yeah it's interesting I
definitely haven't thought enough about
it uh but this feels like a very
solvable problem that has been
politicized um for reasons that I'm sure
if I looked at it closely would just be
gross but uh nonetheless is weird uh
we'll get to the Border but first let's
talk about and I say that because
obviously that that is one of the big
things that people talk about that
they're letting illegals come in so that
they can vote uh we'll we'll get to the
Border later but um let's talk about
debt now because uh this is something
that I think plays in the background and
has probably created a lot of the
profound sense of unease does the amount
of debt that we have here in the
US strike you as
problematic oh man that that's a very
loaded way to uh to to ask the question
because there's so so much inbuilt you
know debt first of all I guess I I don't
know exactly your view on this issue but
are we on the same page that national
debt and household debt are not good
analogies for figuring out how to run a
country would you generally agree that
to say hey you know what if you're
spending $200 more each month than what
you earn that's a problem that analogy
doesn't necessarily Translate I have a
feeling that we will agree but for
violently different reasons and so under
the hood we probably still really
disagree but I don't know I actually
don't know your economic take well I
guess I'll take a different approach my
my general view about national debt is
there are stimulative and
unstimulating there there are ways for
the government to deficit spend that
have an economic multiplier that make it
logical to do so uh food stamps for
example one of the absolute highest
economic multiplier effects of any way
that that governments can spend you by
the way you don't have to deficit spend
to pay for food stamps but under the
assumption that we have a deficit and
there is deficit spending food stamps
have a massive economic multiplier very
unlikely that any food stamp money is
going to sort of like be left on the
shelf or in the bank so to speak because
the people receiving that money need it
uh it's spent in local communities
grocery stores which then hire people
it's demand side stimulus because the
grocery employees then have money to go
out and spend it at a restaurant and
okay so so like I think that that makes
a lot more sense than a less stimulative
uh uh way of of deficit spending like
for example just saying let's just cut
taxes for the rich very low marginal
propensity to consume the money will
mostly just sit in savings yes with
fractional lending a portion of that
will then be lent out but it's a lower
multiplier than the food stamp so first
of all I think what your deficit
spending on matters secondly I do think
you always want to be comparing debt to
GDP in the same way that if your
household income is 100k versus a
million ,000 in debt nominally means
something very different um I think we
also want to compare the rate of the
debt changing to the rate that the size
of the economy is changing on a
cumulative basis uh and also to interest
rates because there's this other aspect
where depending on what the interest
rate is on the debt um versus what you
can do in terms of innovation and
economic growth with the deficit
spending that's also important it's sort
of like if you can get a 2% mortgage
versus a 7% mortgage your choice as to
whether you say I'll keep my cash in the
market and get the 2% mortgage it's a
form of of of Arbitrage that also makes
a difference so like where when I zoom
out I think the conversation has to be a
little more nuanced you know some huge
percentage of Americans don't even know
the difference between the national debt
and the national deficit that's like
terrifying and they have opinions as to
what should happen they don't know the
difference between the debt and the
deficit that's terrifying uh and also um
I I do think that uh it's not the sky
falling problem that some have been
arguing for 70 years years where we're
always two years from that's it it's
over the economy is done and then we
have a 100 new stock market highs with
low unemployment reasonable inflation
and pretty good GDP growth and it's like
how many years were we from that and by
the way I would say the same thing if
we're at some point going to talk about
global warming those who 10 years ago
said 10 years from now it's going to be
over Miami Boston and La will be
underwater like I I also am resistant to
that kind of hyperbole
yeah uh I think that that is very wise
this exactly how you end up finding
where the truth lies um so here is why I
think that debt is a screaming problem
um not that collapse is imminent but
that collapse does come if you're not
very thoughtful so uh what I look at is
what are the interest rate payments so
uh the interest rates for sure matter a
lot which is why this has been on
everybody's mind so much right now um
totally understand why you're drawing a
distinction between the debt and the
deficit uh I think that's very wise but
if you look at what's happening right
now we're adding roughly a trillion
dollars to our debt every 100 days and
hopefully that will slow down a little
bit now that we just had the 50 basis
points uh rate cut from the FED I'll be
very curious to see if that if in
actually remains in check which by the
way we have to talk about inflation uh
that will be interesting to um bounce
our takes off each other so uh the
reason that I think ultimately the debt
ends up consuming people is the same
reason that Empires end up collapsing
because what you do is you build this
Empire it gets bigger and bigger it ends
up becoming this huge economic drag in
the beginning it seems like it's just
spoils everywhere everything's flowing
in you're getting tax revenue you're
getting goods from everywhere and then
all of a sudden you're having to build
military and protect and deal with
uprisings and all that stuff and it ends
up getting insanely bloated it drags you
down and they all fall so they they have
just Fallen one after another all
throughout human history not a single
one has ever lasted so now they last for
a long time so while things are going wo
we it can be a lot of fun and I'm not
saying America is going to collapse in
the next two years but will it collapse
in the next 50 it might so that's where
now will it be a controll demolition
will it be one where there there is
blood in the streets these are all great
questions history says statistically
it's more likely that there will be
blood in the streets than not but uh as
you get in these debt Cycles where the
debt is just accumulating and you're
spending more and more of your um your
GDP your all the tax money that you're
bringing in is just going to the
interest payments that's where you begin
to not be able to fund the things you
want to fund whether it's a military
social programs whatever so it's like
you said something early in the
interview that I agree with wildly which
is hey I don't necessarily love the way
the government is spending money but I
also want social programs I want social
programs I am not a Libertarian I'm not
here saying we don't want government uh
but what I am saying is government is
wildly wildly inefficient at spending
the money uh and because we have the
world's Reserve currency and this is why
I was saying I agree with you there's
not a onetoone between uh balancing a
household budget and a government
spending deficit because they can print
money uh but I believe that the
government has has a moral obligation a
moral obligation to not print money and
so when they solve all these problems by
printing money they turn everyone into
gamblers and that I think is a huge
reason why especially young people feel
so much like they can't get ahead
because prices have gone crazy uh when
you're printing money people pour into
assets and anybody that doesn't have
assets gets left behind the wider that
Gap gets the harder it gets to cross the
chasm between
being not necessarily outright poor but
on the lower end of the spectrum getting
into middle class or even upper middle
class or Rich and so that uh deficit
spending racking up a massive debt
having huge outlays into interest and
now playing this weird game of chicken
with inflation you create the situation
that we have now which I think is a very
substantive part of the push towards
populism so let me um let me play
Devil's Advocate a little bit why do you
think that the countries with the lowest
debt to GDP ratios aren't particularly
Dynamic economies or places where we
would look at and say oh that seems
interesting I mean you know some some of
the places that have staved off having a
high higher debt to GDP ratio for
example you know Afghanistan
Turkmenistan Russia's one the Democratic
Republic of Congo is one they you would
love these debt numbers right I mean you
would look at this and say oh my
goodness fiscal restraint in
conservatism but why do you think that
those countries aren't doing well
if the the higher debt to GDP ratio is
so problematic and it can it can be a
rhetorical question or not I don't know
if you want to answer it but like I have
some ideas I'm happy to answer it yeah
I'm sure yours are more well thought out
with those specific Nations but knowing
what I know about the physics of
Economics it's going to be something
along the lines of either things are so
regulated that Innovation just doesn't
happen and people have no uh desire will
or even ability to get things moving it
could also be that there's a sweet spot
which I think you'd probably agree with
where if you're too fiscally
conservative then there's no money
getting into the system uh there's no
way for loans to get out into people's
hands and therefore they might even be a
brilliant um entrepreneur but if they
cannot get any startup Capital they're
just sitting literally in a dirt Hut I
just had somebody on my show I'm going
to punch myself in the mouth for not
remembering uh who said this it was just
recently but they were saying that you
want to um give money to people with
literally no thought of getting anything
back it is not a micro loan that the
best way to do humanitarian Aid is just
go into a village and be like here's
$9,000 equivalent I think it was in real
cash like $900 but you're giving them
the spending power of $99,000 to the
individual person just being like do
whatever you want and that that actually
yields these better outcomes now what I
take that to mean is there's either so
much corruption in the country or their
whole thing was even with good
intentions the NGO that's trying to
distribute that money ends up burning so
much of it trying to make regulations
and how do we give this money out and
checking to see if they do the right
things and all of that stuff that it
eats 90% of the money literally 90% of
the money and so that's like it's just a
different type of economic mismanagement
that doesn't reveal itself in that
number of debt to
GDP there are definitely pieces of that
that make sense and that agree with I
mean I think the The Sweet Spot idea is
an interesting one to me I don't know if
you and I would like land on exactly the
same place necessarily but the truth is
that debt is investment in growth and
and when you see that there are
extremely low debt to GDP ratios often
it's because it's the missed
opportunities that you're talking about
there are ideas here that with access to
debt could actually flourish and
generate growth and there's no access to
debt and therefore they don't um and uh
there's like a dynamism and
and sort of being responsive to demand
that often is seen by there being more
debt at the national level uh there's
this other thing also that I think is
interesting to consider which is that um
sometimes you get these external shocks
economic shocks to a country that can
really damage the economy for pretty
significant periods of time and
sometimes being able to say well we're
going to borrow to kind of weather this
shock over a 10 or 20 year period the
fact that that shock was weathered has a
it's hard to like link it up dollar for
dooll especially when like a crisis
prevented is always less interesting
than oh we had a crisis and and we got
out of it but there's also something to
be said for the effective the ability of
debt to kind of dam in what would
otherwise be a pretty significant
economic shock and and countries with
these super low debt to GDP ratios just
don't even have that ability and so when
there is an economic shock uh th things
don't go well so yeah I mean I think
we're kind of getting to a similar
explanation for why the super low debt
to GDP ratio which might sound appealing
to a deficit Hawk usually is associated
with countries with pretty poor
economies yeah i' I'd make one change to
what you said and I'm curious to see if
we can agree on this you said debt is
investment into growth I would change
that to debt can be growth I agree with
that yeah because I I think a big
problem is that a lot of times the money
just is not spent in an intelligent
fashion um the the base assumption that
I think all of this rests on and the
reason that no one can ever escape this
debt cycle and that it it always hits
this point where you either go to war or
some other traumatic thing happens that
causes what is known as a debt Jubilee
and it sounds wonderful but it's
actually horri horrific when people live
through it but the reason that I think
that that that just keeps happening is
it has the base assumption that things
will always grow and that that certainly
seemed true for
about 50 years after World War II and so
like you could forgive anybody that was
just like oh my God like this works so
well like just keep doing deficit
spending we're really igniting the
economy this is amazing look at us
industrializing rapidly this is
incredible and it really was somewhere
in about the 70s though something
started to break in terms of that and
this is what I think young people today
can feel is that hold on a second wages
are not going up so we're getting a lot
of cool new stuff I have an iPhone and
that's dope and I have the internet and
that's amazing however my wages aren't
going up and Boomers not even my parents
Boomers had more money in their 20s than
I have now and so I feel trapped unable
to get onto the properly ladder for for
other reasons as well there are other
things that are going on that have made
asset prices way too expensive largely
the printing of money but so that's
where that indebted growth obligation
becomes if it works like for instance
right now everybody is like yo bro I
hope AI comes in and Robotics and
they're basically just infinite humans
um because that is effectively how they
could work inside of the economy but if
they don't man I don't don't see
anything on the horizon that's going to
allow our GDP to outpace our debt so
couple different things there couple
different things there over the last
several years wage growth has outpaced
inflation so I think it's important
because you you know you said there's no
wage growth there have been periods of
stagnant wage growth that's true uh but
over over the recent few years actually
wage growth has outpaced inflation that
doesn't mean things have gotten cheaper
because inflation is still more than
zero and we'll we'll will get to
inflation in a little bit your example
about the 70s I think is really
interesting again I would Point people
to the book why Nations fail the you
kind of described exactly what's
described in this comparison of dividing
countries into those with extractive
versus inclusive institutions the Soviet
Union example of initial growth you said
oh it it sort of looked like things were
just going to grow in definitely and
then the 70s happened that's what's
described as happening under extractive
government institutions like what the
Soviet Union has which is initially you
can sort of make the allocation of
resources more efficient because the
government just says here is what what
industry is going to do so initially
there's this very positive shock wow
look like we're we're either
industrializing in the case of the
Soviet Union in the early 20th late 19th
century or for whatever reason you shock
the system in a way and all of a sudden
GDP starts going up but because the
institutions are extractive eventually
it stops because what one example would
be oh there's a new technology that
would make us even more efficient oh
that technology would actually take
power away from the institution to keep
people working in some of these
industries we will lose control of the
economy so often these extractive
institutions will resist creative
destruction when a new technology would
increase efficiency even more the growth
stops which is what you saw in the 70s
exactly as you're describing there was
one other thing I wanted to touch on
which now escapes me but may maybe we'll
come back to
it okay so um one thing I want to say to
what you just said is as an entrepreneur
this is what it felt like I don't have
the data to be able to say for sure I
know this definitively but Co changed
everything for a hot minute and all of a
sudden I had employees that were like
everyone's going to let me work from
home uh I'm getting stimulus checks from
the government so I'm going to go do
what I want and it caused us a massive
bump in what we had to pay
now I'm sure everybody thought oh this
is amazing but it actually put the
company in a far more difficult position
it hemmed our growth in substantially
because now all of a sudden our Capital
outlays just to run the business went up
dramatically and so that was just we
were forced by market conditions to do
that I mean some of the market
conditions were a little false but like
I don't mind that the the Market's going
to do what the Market's going to do I'm
not mad at it I don't expect anybody to
bail me out um but I don't expect that
trend to continue again this is gut
instinct and maybe I'm totally wrong but
as an entrepreneur we've now started
making bigger demands in terms of hey at
first it was you could work from home
exclusively and then it was like three
days uh then four and we will eventually
get back to five days a week in the
office for sure and it I can feel the
tide changing in terms of there are way
more people now looking for jobs
especially for us because we're in the
entertainment space we make video games
as a part of what we do and there's just
been a bloodbath in that industry so now
all of a sudden there's the exact
opposite pressure on wages I'm not going
to have to pay as much because there is
a glut of available people into the
market and so while yes there's no doubt
that was real uh and obviously
beneficial to workers I don't think it
came with a corresponding increase in
output and productivity and therefore
actual GDP in dollars and cents that all
of us as a society can reap the benefits
of so I would again gut instinct I'm
gonna expect that to stagnate I don't
necessarily expect it to go back down
but I don't think that growth is going
to continue and so you're still going to
have that same sense of fancy word time
on WE that people have that like n
things are just not working out for me I
don't know how to crack in which means
that they're pulling back even more
they're not pushing as hard we're not
getting the full weight of the talent
and intelligence of this next generation
and so it's going to leave you in the
situation of like how do you shock the
economy again to get it running and so
far the only thing both Trump and Biden
have done so I assume Harris will run
the same Playbook which is to print
money and you'd say a little bit more
about but so first of all you're making
a very Progressive argument I mean one
one of the one of the reliable left-wing
economic arguments is growth will not
continue forever how do we know that
because the planet only has such a
carrying capacity we may be very far
from getting to that different people
Come Away with different opinions about
how far we are with any particular
resource or space for people or whatever
and either the planet will no longer
support more growth at a physical level
or the declining birth rates will lead
to declining populations and that's also
going to put downward pressure on GDP
but interestingly you're you're actually
very much in line with some of the most
Progressive economists on this issue I
don't know if that surprises you uh as
far as that goes I I care only about
what is true so I consider myself left
or right my thing uh is you should be
pushing towards a known metric I'm
trying to do this and to achieve that
metric I'm going to run some experiments
and then I need to look at and see if
they work so if I mean if communism led
to the most human flourishing then I
would be a communist but looking at it
that doesn't seem to be true so now will
we all agree on what human flourishing
is no but I've literally dedicated my
life to my definition of what human
flourishing is so uh yeah I that doesn't
land weird for me in the slightest but I
what I want to look at
is what works what doesn't and if
something doesn't work even if it sounds
good I'm not going to do it and so I
love the Thomas Soul quote which will
certainly throw uh people's perception
of me to the right but his idea that we
have I think he said the in the last 30
years but this is like 20 years ago the
last 30 years been marked by exchanging
what works for what sounds good and so
my thing is yeah I I don't care what
sounds good I want to know what actually
works and if what works happens to be
Progressive left right up down that I
don't care about I just want to make
sure that things actually work so here's
a question because you talked about
shocking you know a shock to the economy
to get it going again which metrics do
you look at right now and you say here's
the data that tells me the economy is
having a problem right now
uh so debt interest rates inflation GDP
those are both nominal GDP and PPP uh I
suppose the nominal is just because I'm
competitive and I want to see how we
stack up in the world um but yeah those
that is the basket and then the less
easily tracked but something along the
lines of what you're talking about with
with an HDI like thing that measures
whether people feel good or bad like
even even if young people have it better
today than ever before by every metric
they're unhappy they are attempting
suicide more frequently they are
succeeding in suicide more frequently um
death of Despair among men in certain
age groups has gone up so much that it's
actually lowered the entire uh
generation's life expectancy that that
is terrifying something is off so all of
these things are proxies but they're the
closest basket of things um
that I can see to say are we okay or not
that's interesting I think that the
latter ones you mentioned there are kind
of in a different basket because there's
a more cultural Dynamic to it and we can
talk about them too the first ones you
know you we debt we already talked about
so I think we don't have to like go back
to debt but you know you've kind of
stated your view I've stated my view
when I look at the inflation and the GDP
numbers they really seem pretty okay I
mean you know you don't want deflation
because we know that a deflationary
spiral brings with it a number of
different issues Japan side other places
have seen it we now have inflation at
the arguably desirable two to 3% the GDP
growth the numbers seem pretty okay to
me GDP growth is exceeding inflation so
I I just struggle to find like an alarm
in those metrics right now okay so uh
this is where we're going to get into
beliefs and values so I think that we
have a major problem with inflation at 2
to 3% and that is because if you think
of inflation as rising prices then what
I'm about to say won't make any sense
but Rising prices is the symptom of what
inflation actually is which is putting
enough what I'll call fake money into
the system such that it overwhelms the
natural improvements in output so you
can actually put fake money into the
system and as long as the output of the
country meaning the goods and services
that they put out that people are
willing to pay for as long as that's
more than the fake money that you put
into the system you can get away with it
and I think the government literally
counts on that so I'll give you just
fake math this is totally fake but
imagine that we have through Innovation
new companies coming online all of that
we um increase GDP by 5% and you put
fake money into the system at 3% now
you've still your 2% positive so you're
moving in the right direction things
would feel uh nominally better so what
ends up happening though is that we are
putting so much money in the system at
times that we exceed the natural um
advantages we should have gotten from
The Innovation the deflation in costs
right that a phone should cost a lot
less a TV should cost a lot less all
that stuff uh you the government ends up
printing enough money to try to gobble
up a lot of that stuff and so so the
reason they do that I have a a very
simple explanation for why I believe the
government does this they are able to
spend money that they don't have without
having to ask anybody for it so they
just say hey we want to fund a war we
can do that we don't have to ask we can
literally just deflate the currency by
printing more money we did not have to
get the electorates approval to do so uh
but and for anybody that doesn't
understand why I think inflation is
immoral uh I view inflation as theft
because what ends up happening is yes
the government let's say I have $100 in
my bank account the government left all
$100 in my bank account but they put so
much more money into the system without
creating additional outputs that now
those $100 that we all have are fighting
for the same Goods which means that the
cost of the goods is going to go up it's
very simple supply and demand so now
maybe my $100 buys me $95 worth of stuff
and if you're doing that year after year
after year even at 3% it's something
like in 15 years you've lost some
ungodly percentage of your wealth so
because of that we have this economic
system where you have to become an
investor you cannot save your money you
have to invest it in something that will
beat inflation now going back to my
initial thing that these things are very
complicated even I run businesses sold a
company for a billion dollars like I
know my way around money but even I
don't like to invest money that like
it's a whole another game I just want to
be able to save my money I would live my
life very differently if I knew that in
my bank $100 now will buy me $100 worth
of stuff in 10 years 20 years I would
never even think about investing money
because I wouldn't need to I could just
squirrel away enough money for me to
live on but you can't because the cost
of living changes so radically and I
used to think that was a fundamental law
of nature it is not that is money
manipulation on behalf of the fed and
the government and if they didn't do it
then it wouldn't change it it would be
um $100 would be $100 now you could any
one person could get obliterated and
that's obviously what they're trying to
protect against by manipulating it
they're hoping that they can sort of
balance things out nobody Peaks too high
nobody Falls too low all right I'm I'm
gonna be totally honest and I say this
with peace and love there was a lot of
word salad in there and it may just be
that I don't I I may not have the
cognitive capacity to understand all of
it let me see if we can break down a
couple things because a few things you
said just are not making any sense to me
okay so let me if if you can answer this
one with just a number and then I can
just to frame my answer that would be
good what level of inflation would you
like to see Zero Zero not negative but
not positive correct okay I think
there's a couple problems with what
you're talking about so first of all in
a sense if there's growth there's going
to be inflation and what I mean by that
is in an
economy that's not a Communist economy
which you and I are on the same page
like we've gotten this big obstacle
through we've gotten past a big obstacle
which is neither one of us thinks a
Communist economy is is the ideal way to
set things up unless you're in a
Communist economy or Institute price
controls or whatever the case may be if
your population
grows and there's more demand for goods
and services because of a growing
population um you that is going to put
some upward pressure on pricing due to
Market forces the odds that that leaves
you at zero in this perfectly calibrated
system seems essentially impossible
historically in capitalist countries
like when there is growth and when there
is a growing population and when there
is demand for stuff that puts upward
pressure again is that do we age that we
don't so what we're disagreeing about
and this is why I started with if you
believe that inflation is the rising of
prices everything I'm going to say won't
make any sense inflation is not Rising
prices inflation literally ask what's
inflating what's inflating is the money
supply so as you put more money into the
system that's what I want at zero I'm
not saying prices won't go up and prices
won't go down in fact over time
typically prices tend to go down what
I'm saying is don't inflate the money
supply so if you have
uh $20 trillion whatever the M2 money
supply is lock it that's it that's all
you've got spend it wisely because you
can't make more of it but under that
would would you not expect that if what
you are arguing has happened as a result
of the money supply increase if if it
has happened wouldn't we expect PPP to
decline in the United States in other
words you said that in an ideal system
the $100 now buys you the same amount as
100 in the future your concern if I
understood it correctly is that when you
increase the money supply the hundred
now will only buy you $95 in the future
but PPP has gone up over time despite
the increase to the money supply despite
inflation because of all of the other
things that have gone on in the economy
that are do make sense PPP has gone up
consistently in the United States it's
the opposite of what your view would
predict if I understand you correctly so
not quite so what what's happening
certainly right now is that everybody is
printing money and if you think of it as
a game of musical chairs it works until
the Music Stops and so this is why these
debt Cycles end up bursting so Ray
Delio's mapped this out really well
there's six stages of debt so the rough
thing is in the beginning nobody has any
debt because a very bad thing just
happened so if you think of the end of
World War II as the beginning of this
most recent uh large debt Cycle World
War II just wiped the board it changed
everything it made the US dollar the
reserve currency the British pound lost
its status so it was just an absolute
blood bath for all of Europe for England
in particular their empire literally
collapsed so now you get a new start
though and so there aren't all these uh
the US anyway as the new Empire does not
have all these debts in fact they've got
a lot of people that owe them money so
you get like a really awesome period
where everything is going well but to
fuel growth you begin to start taking on
debt you let that debt then begin to
ratch it up ratch it up ratch it up all
the while you're a lot of it to your
earlier Point you're actually fueling
the economy so you're taking on debt but
the economy is continuing to grow when
you're spending it in a stimulative
fashion and it's working out
everything's great and then like we said
you hit the 70s and something starts to
get wonky that's when we break the
association with gold so the dollar is
no longer backed by the gold so now we
have a literal Fe currency and so gold
is tricky because it does technically
inflate by 2% per year but if you think
of that as a um
non-inflationary U monetary system where
you can't spend a dollar that doesn't
exist in Gold then it's like you you
have a break but once you get to a Fiat
system where you can just make more of
it more of it more of it now all of a
sudden you're at risk so how long will
things go up and PPP keeps going up it
could be for a long time man and this is
the high risk of somebody with my
worldview is that you call two of the
last uh 24 or you call 24 of the last
two recessions right it just you're
always like the sky is falling like it's
going to be bad tomorrow it may not it
may go on for a very long time but once
you look backwards at history you
realize at about the 150 to 200 year
mark Empires collapse and so depending
on where you start that clock the US is
either I think 75 years or 100 plus
years into this uh and so will we lose
the dollar Reserve status and suddenly
all of these things that we're working
and PPP is going up and everybody's
happy and fat and loving it and it just
comes crashing down um that's the
question so can
we get out of the debt cycle if we don't
get out of a Fiat system that that is
the
question yeah I think um I think we just
disagree on the facts you know I
think we may not be able to get that
much further with this because I think
if I understand correctly you're you're
sort of saying you know David you you
are actually right about the data you're
presenting what I'm saying is external
to the data based on what I expect to
happen which is totally fine it's just
harder to make a counterfactual a couple
things I will say is I really I like a
lot of Ray Doo's writing but his
long-term debt cycle idea is
contradicted and very much undercut in a
number number of different ways one he
doesn't really account for the fact that
technological disruption and Innovation
on a on a semi-permanent basis can
completely disaggregate the booms and
busts in the kind of next 50 or 75 or
100 years as you're talking about from
just like looking at debt and the other
thing I think that's important to
consider is that we have seen booms and
busts that do not in any way correlate
with significant increases in debt like
for example if you look at the '90s
. boom it was driven by technology there
was a bust neither the boom nor the bust
was connected to debt and like that's a
really good example of where like the
debt was really secondary tertiary or
not even particularly relevant to that
cycle and there's a lot of other really
good economic theory that I think more
accurately maps onto the booms and busts
that we've seen like I get that you're
saying well what you're saying is in the
future and it may or may not happen fine
but we actually do have data about prior
booms and busts and they were totally
decoupled from from the debt so I'm
skeptical of the
argument uh I'm skeptical of that
argument but with appropriate amounts of
humility as I haven't gone back and
studied the specific um uh do bust in
that sense but I will tell you how
businesses go out of business you don't
go out of business if you're not in debt
and then suddenly finding yourself
unable to pay that debt so I'm gonna
guess just knowing how this stuff works
that these guys got way out over their
skis in terms of they went public people
gobbled up a ton of their shares um they
were raising against their shares they
were carrying a ton of debt on the books
and when the um the equity in their
shares plummeted then the banks called
their loans and they weren't able to pay
them back they were riding on the debt
and so this is why uh my advice to
people if you're going to invest never
do it on margin you do not want to be in
a situation where the um value of your
collateral ends up dropping it gets
called and pulled and that's how you end
up with nothing that's why so many
companies went bust they weren't
actually making money they just raised a
ton of debt and they were wildly
unprofitable and so that's where this
all gets cleaned out this is why a
company like Amazon can go through that
and yes their stock price fell to
virtually nothing but they had so much
revenue coming in that they survived and
you get on the other side of this and
this is you know you actually um talked
about creative destruction earlier this
is why you don't want the FED coming in
and doing all of this manipulation yes
you protect people from a stock market
crash like that but everything remains
fake which is why there are very um I
think very educated people right now
calling this the everything bubble that
we're in in this moment because we're
not letting anything fail everything is
too big to fail and so whether it's your
Regional Bank they'll let one or two go
down and then they scramble in to make
sure that nobody loses their money uh
obviously what happened in 2008 they had
to come in and pick up all the pieces
and start putting things in place to
make sure that the whole world just
didn't fall fall off a cliff and I
understand why they want to do it but
part of the reason that people were able
to get into that situation in the first
place is because they were able to take
on absolutely irresponsible levels of
debt and so when and if you look at Rayo
just um I mean a fun statement I guess
nobody has one bigger betting on their
beliefs about global movements than Ray
alio so he's somebody who very much puts
his money where his mouth is in terms of
the outcomes being able to predict not
just thatt that's certainly not the only
thing that he looks at um but taking
that historical view is according to him
what allows him to be so precient in the
moves that he makes yeah I think uh a
lot of what this comes down to is really
about demand side and that's kind of
where I fall and that's I think
something that reinforces my view about
whether a debt is sorry what do you mean
by demand side oh I'm I'm explain in a
moment um when we talk about debt in
proportion to something when it comes to
a company ultimately its survival
longterm is going to depend on demand
for the product or service that they are
offering and so like for example during
the pandemic my business experienced a
significant expansion because people
were home and there was more demand for
stuff to fill time that I used to be
doing something different and now I'm at
home I'm going to listen to stuff I'm
going to watch David or something like
that I could weather a certain amount of
debt if the demand for my product or
service is such that it proportionally
makes the debt something that I can
tolerate if I get out over my skis and
something impacts the demand side then
all of a sudden some nominal amount of
debt that would be tolerable in one
business scenario is no longer tolerable
I guess the point I'm making is when it
comes to your critique or your analysis
of some of the dotom busts it came
exactly to there was no Revenue there
wasn't actually demand built there and
the amount of debt that can be tolerated
is dramatically different based on what
sort of a demand environment we're we're
talking and so my economic perspective
and I think that of social democracy is
that by ensuring that people don't end
up going into a medical bankruptcy for
example I'm giving them the dollars with
which to demand stuff products and
services from me as an entrepreneur or
from you or from whoever else it's that
demand side approach that to me Rings
far more true than the kind of austerity
measure supply side let's cut government
spending side which I don't think
history shows is a way that you can get
to
Prosperity so interesting so here's why
I have beef with that okay um uh if you
were doing it in a balanced budget way
and you were saying hey uh we're going
to marginally increase taxes on the
wealthy this is how we're going to pay
for everything and I had a transparent
budget that I could look at and I
understood that you expect to take in
this much in uh revenue from Taxation
and you're going to spend this much and
there's either a surplus or we're very
close to breaking even but we're
certainly not overspending then I'd be
like word man like we've got this much
coming in in tax like what are we going
to do with it let's make sure it's
awesome let's make sure that we're not
falling prey to the we're spending so
much on all the government departments
that you know 40 cents of every dollar
collected in taxes is all that makes it
to the actual people
but like hey if we can distribute this
well and everybody agrees these are the
programs that we want to fund I think
it's awesome where we get into trouble
and this is going back to your you're uh
you're exactly correct in the analysis
of how it works but you and I differ in
terms of what we think could happen so
if you don't have debt and you do have
Revenue then you're you're in a way
better position you can even lose a fair
amount of Revenue before you potentially
go negative but when you have Revenue a
massive amount of debt and your Revenue
drops you can still get in trouble even
though you have millions of dollars in
revenue and that's what I'm saying is a
very fragile place to be in and that
mimics what we're doing here and by the
way to cover any losses that we have to
operate at a deficit what we do I'm
going to use language you're not going
to be comfortable with but it will help
you understand my frame of reference the
government literally just steals the
buying power from the people they do not
ask they just take that money in form of
inflation and then they pay for whatever
they want and that creates this wildly
undisciplined thing that to your point
it works for a while but then it will in
My View From looking back at history it
does 100% of the time eventually fail
Well it can't be 100% of the time
because it hasn't failed yet here I mean
in other words you're assuming it will
we you can't that's a predictive
statement we just don't know that's fair
up up to America has 100% of the time
every economy that has tried this has
ended up every Empire that has tried
this has ended up failing so when you
failure bias you have to admit because
there there are lots of countries that
are doing okay right now with a high
debt to GDP ratio and so what you're
kind of saying is they will all
eventually fail maybe they will but a
bunch of them seem to be doing okay I
mean Australia has a high debt to to GDP
ratio but I don't you know I don't
follow Australian politics closely
there's probably people there predicting
the the impending demise of the
Australian economy but I I think that
there are a bunch of economies right now
that are doing okay with relatively high
debt to GDP ratios similar to that of
the United States and none of they
haven't failed yet so I think that the
it's it's hard to say that so
unilaterally well so let me be very
clear about what I am saying so um I
agree that you can operate at a uh you
can have a debt compared to your GDP and
as long as at some interval you end up
catching up with that before meaning you
then have a surplus so that you can
actually pay the debt uh the reason it
became so scary in this exact moment is
because interest rates were rising and
getting to the point where the
government was going to have to spend
all of its money uh just paying off the
interest rate um so obviously that's why
that gets troubling but the um operating
at a debt to GDP level that's
sustainable obviously works works all
over the world but it does require that
you eventually have these moments of
catch up or that you're at a point where
you can constantly be making the
payments on your debt and as long as
nothing goes wrong with the interest
rates you're good but again we all just
live through whether it's over or not
it's another question but we just live
through a higher it's not high by
historical standards but a higher
interest rate environment and woo it
made those interest rate payments pretty
nasty and that was money just outgoing
that could have otherwise been going to
projects and I think the programs excuse
me and I think the right way to think
about it is when you are um running with
those kind of Interest levels you are
robbing from your children's future
because that money will have to be paid
back well you're not robbing from your
children's future if the debt is being
used to improve the country in which
your children will live and I think that
that gets to one of the fundamental
points and that it has an economic
return but that's very
let me say your position so you know I
understand and still am banging my drum
uh that if you're using the debt as a
stimulative um format to to get the
economy turning and the economy because
of that debt investment actually outputs
more than it required to get it going
you actually made more GDP you made
everybody's lives better by investing
that debt
yeah yeah so I'm saying even
understanding all of that yeah there's
still other gotas coming yeah that that
may be I think one of the things I would
be curious to hear from you is okay
listen hey you're even though we've not
been able to see examples of cutting our
way to prosperity in any Western
developed Nation before we're going to
give you the keys and you're allowed to
start cut I mean I I assume the way you
would balance would be by cutting
government spending is that right or I
don't want to assume if that's not how
you would do it you only have two levers
you cut and you hope that you make more
so I'd be doing everything I could to
stimulate the economy to get the best
and the brightest to come here to
America to make incredible things that
the whole world wants and yes I would
cut I guess my question is when you
start cutting when you reduce government
spending there's going to be less money
for Education infrastructure projects
Public Services Health Care uh transit
systems hiring a private company to
build the new subway cars which employ
so many people so when you cut that
money um there's fewer jobs because
right this is demand side some of those
companies now they lay people off
because that next project isn't coming
the fact that fewer people are working
is going to reduce GDP because GDP has
been reduced entrepreneurs will say I
don't know that I'm doing this startup
because there's fewer people who can
even afford the product or service that
I'm selling in other words you're
cutting not to Prosperity you're cutting
to the opposite so I'm curious about
that how do you how would you do that
how do you cut to
Prosperity so I think the right way to
look at it is to understand that you
don't want to keep everything alive so
some things really do need to die some
things need to really have pressure on
them to get more efficient and so
looking at the the frame that you put on
it is hey you're going to be taking
money out of all these programs and
that's just less money that you have to
spend that's already true right so we're
not capturing 100% of the economy and
putting it into programs so we're
already accepting that there are
limitations what I'm saying is you want
to do a very difficult game this is
going to be hard as hell and it will
require people to say okay what is the
outcome that we want we're testing
cutting this or U bringing on sectors
here deregulating this to upregulate the
economy and then we're going to take in
the money that we got from those wins
and apply them to these programs and
either you get that outcome that you
desire or you don't but the it may be
the core difference that I'm saying let
the market decide in terms of what is
valuable what's not what programs are
worth keeping what programs aren't but
if you operate from the base assumption
that if I inflate the money supply it
deranges the whole system in the
simplest one is it forces everybody to
become a gambler they have to invest in
order to outpace inflation now if
inflation were a law of nature fine but
it's not it's literally the government
and the FED putting extra money into the
system so yes you have to tighten the
belt yes you want to be extremely
careful about what you cut how you
regulate versus deregulate to make sure
that the economy is growing and there's
no way around having to try to figure
out that dance but my base assumption is
the way that you're presenting it is
guaranteed looking backwards of history
is guaranteed to cause the collapse of
the reserve currency because ultimately
you inflate it so much that other
governments stop using it and it's we're
already seeing it happen now uh and once
people lose faith in that you lose the
ability to print that money anyway
because you're effectively borrowing
from the people so uh it it has
historically broken every time it's been
tried by a reserve
currency you acknowledge though other
than all of the times that it seems to
be going okay enough right now other
than the snapshot that we're living in
that this is the thing that scares me
about the death cycle is that uh
everything seems fine until it shatters
and there's a world war or uh there's a
revolution but the number of times it's
more than 50% of the time it ends in
open Bloodshed in the streets is the
only way to re-regulate the debt
uh I'm I'm it sounds like we're kind of
getting to the Natural end on this topic
but one just one other question on this
is do you have any examples of a country
that cut its way to economic prosperity
in other words things were bad they cut
government spending and all of a sudden
standard of living increases by however
however you want to measure standard of
living so I think it's a wrong question
so I'll just say no let's say that
that's never existed ever in human
history and it's never going to happen
the reason I still think it's the wrong
question is that what what I'm saying
may be just as simple as uh The Jig Is
up and you're not going to be able to
deficit fund any more growth because
we're already in shaky territory and so
now it is how do we manage the um the
decline of the US dollar as the reserve
currency that that may be the punchline
of what I'm saying again whatever is
true is true I'm I'm not worried about
that what I'm focused on is okay if I
know that I can't deficit spend forever
which I understand you don't agree with
but from my worldview you can't deficit
spend forever for reasons of just
looking at history and seeing this
happen over and over and over uh and I
know I'll just take your um assumption
that I cannot cut my way to Prosperity
but what I know I can do is I can cut my
way to a balanced book and so now I may
not be growing as fast as I was and for
sure people are going to be very pissed
off because
nobody likes to live under austerity and
it may be in fact here's here's what I
think is actually going to happen it is
so politically unpalatable to live under
austerity this is going to end in war
that that's what I think is actually
going to happen I just engage with
people in the hopes that somebody sees a
way out of this um but boy oh boy I
don't have the
answer be all right well I guess let's
give it a 100 years and see if you like
this conversation check out this episode
to learn more not just the $35 trillion
in debt or the fact that um that
interest on the debt is now overtaking
the budget but when you really start to
get into like the derivatives and how
much actual debt there is how the dollar
being the world Reserve currency has
kind of been