April 13, 2025
Hanlon's (disposable) Razor
As the old saying goes, “Don’t attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance”. But when actions have consequences, can we really separate the two? Against the backdrop of British comedic philosophy, we look into what makes Trump tick, the beliefs of those around him, and how the “Failed Man Complex” shapes the world we live in. Finally, with a lesson in accounting, we address the misconceptions around global trade and government bookkeeping.
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You know ,
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I sound so pompous, like Apparat , whatever, but apparatus is his .
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People
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Have been asking me to make sense of what's been going on lately. So I invite them down to the studio and we sit down and they get to say, I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions, and I want them answered immediately.
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Give these people air, give
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These people
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Air, come
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On co Hagen , give these people air .
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Good morning. Good afternoon. Yeah.
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Good morning. Bon
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Bon . Right? Today is the 6th of April, and this is our third podcast.
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Yeah. Third discussion.
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Third discussion. When I was heading here, I was listening the news for the last week. Oh, boy. Uh , yes. And I heard about the guy who was speaking 25 hours about Donald .
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Oh, yeah. Cory Booker.
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Yes. Yeah,
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Yeah, yeah.
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I thought that I should have listened to him. Uh , well, I , I just heard about him today. So, . Yeah . I
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Mean , he talked for 25 hours. 25
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Hours. So he could have given quite a lot of food for thought. Yeah.
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I mean, mostly the , uh, on the internet , uh, highlights are there because , uh, they don't usually talk profoundly for 25 hours. Of course, I didn't, obviously I didn't listen to the whole thing, but , uh, the guy who previously did it was reading from the phone book, so they Oh , really ? Were just like , literally going down like a Adam , uh, Alonzo, whatever, , Alexa, whatever.
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So they just wanted to , to make a break the record. Right. That's what they wanted to do.
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Well, yeah. Also, like, you know, stand up to all the
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Bullshittery that's going on . Yeah . So , nothing . Okay. Okay. So to continue our warmup mm-hmm . I have , uh, read , um, the English , uh, writer and lawyer whose name is Neil White . Do you know him? No. So I'll read it. Trump lacks some of the qualities that Britain's traditionally valued. Oh,
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Yeah, I heard about this. Yeah. Okay. Now , but go ahead.
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For example, he has no class, no charm, no composure, no trust, no empathy, no width , no warmth, no wisdom, no delicacy, no sensitivity. I don't want to read it all. But , um, the full story, the full article that a guy has , uh, written is about why Britains do not like Donald Trump. And they don't like him because he's , uh, not charismatic person. He doesn't really know how to make good jokes. Uh , he's very straightforward. No sars , no nothing, just , uh, like a tank. Has he always been like that?
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The British have their own weird sense of humor. So yeah ,
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I totally agree with that. But do you agree with this statement?
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I mean, obviously he's objectively funny. The things that he says is hilarious, but it's just, the problem is that what he says now is he's no longer on a , you know, morning talk show. He's, you know, the president and he has actual power. So the funny things that he says is now terrifying because it has the force of action. Mm-hmm . That's why he's so popular on the memes, because of things that he did is funny. You know, a lot of it's funny at his expense, but
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I've heard that the official politicians, they have courses of how to behave themselves, what to say, what not to say, this kind of stuff. Yeah .
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Well, that's stupid. 'cause that doesn't apply.
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So is he natural? So the way how Trump behaves right now these days is the exact, the same way as he behaved 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, whenever you remember him.
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I mean, nothing's ever like exact, but I mean , yeah. He's basically, I don't really know how to describe that. It's just people have complex personalities. So like trying to answer in a whole, like, broad thing, definitively yes or no, that's like kind of impossible. So,
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No , I want to understand , uh, again, I haven't been , uh, following him for the last , uh, several decades. Mm-hmm . And I don't really know whether in his last , uh, 10 years that we know him, all of us, I mean, all over the world, because again, I didn't know him like 10 years ago. I lost 200 bucks on him, eight years ago. So, yeah. Yeah. I did a bet. I did a bet. And , uh, I put 200 bucks that Trump wouldn't win. And , uh, irony was that I was betting with a Mexican guy who was , uh, betting on him. So he would win. And I was asking him, Diego, why you are doing that? Like, you are putting money on Trump, but he would be building the wall. And he told me like, you know what , uh, if he wins, I'll get my 200 bucks. If he loses, I will give 200 bucks , uh, for the world not to be built.
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It's like hedge fund strategy.
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Exactly. . But I lost 200 bucks , uh, how many 80 years ago or whatever. And I lost it again, last year.
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I don't know if those are actually like Delta neutral strategies, , but , uh, there's definitely, I guess, hedging
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That is funny . Again, that's why I'm saying that , uh, I lost 400 on Trump. And that's why, that's why I am wondering how he evolved as a person, as a public figure during the last , uh, let's say 10 years.
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I mean, he , he's always been like this.
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Okay.
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But , uh, the British have like, their whole concept of the, the hoity to this and like , uh, permanent proper, which, you know, as American, I find kind of annoying. But I think the main point from that article that you were sharing is that the guy doesn't have really any self-awareness, which is true. And that's the main thing. There's like a lack of empathy. So , yeah, he's funny, but usually he's funny because he's like, you know , making fun of someone else, or he is like quick-witted to defend himself or something like that. But , uh, as far as making some like grand profound statements, yeah, he's not really like that. And the British kind of like , uh, you know, they usually like humor that makes you think, and obviously , well , most of us like humor that makes us think. So it's not like a Britain versus America thing, you know, most of our best comedians are great thinkers. Like George Carlin , may you rest in peace . He was like one of the most profound comedians. Totally
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Agree with you, by the way. Yeah.
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Yeah. So , uh, and obviously, I mean, I wanna get a lot of flack from the Brits, but like most Anglo comedians, the ones that are famous are American, not British. .
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Okay. But , uh, anyway, this is not the topic. I ,
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Yeah , yeah. So, like , uh, he's , uh, he's funny in the sense that like, yeah, he's hilarious 'cause he says stupid and , uh, and all . But
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Does he realize that he's saying stupid?
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Uh,
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'cause one interesting thing, and I keep thinking about that in one of the articles, I also read about him . So thanks to those podcast, I , I'm reading quite a lot , uh, and I'm hearing quite a lot about , about him. So there is , um, valli stunning tactics. Well , basically you flood everything with whatever you say. So it doesn't matter what you say, but you flood everything with, with yourself. Yeah .
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It's called G Galloping. Okay,
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Thank you. I translated it as a stunning tactics, but probably , uh, that's called Gish Galloping. Yeah. Okay. So he realizes that no matter what he says, it's whether or not, but he is just saying for the sake of saying without any ,
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Well , yeah, but it's not like some profound media strategy. He doesn't have some like Grant super strategy where he's like playing as people say four D chess. It's just that he's like a ratings guy, like the television, he was really obsessed with , uh, the ratings , uh, before president, you know, he was , uh, you know, the apprentice. So he was always like watching that. And then he'd always look at the ratings of any of the new shows that he would go on. And then he always liked it when people reported that, oh, that audience went up when he was on. So his ratings obsessed , and he knows that the way to be in the constant media attention is to do a lot of things constantly. And then , uh, of course, you know, everyone falls right into it. And , uh, they reporting on him. I mean, even with like Zelensky thing, right? It was like obviously atrocious, but then at the end he's like, oh, this is gonna make for great television, because that's about as far as his mind and , uh, conceived things. So , uh, yeah, he does that. He does , uh, a lot of noteworthy events, but it's not some grand strategy for his administration. It's so that he likes being in the center of the attention. And of course, now that he's, you know, president of the United States, it's very easy to do that. And he just keeps doing that so that the attendance,
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Thinking about ratings, okay, I can understand when you are a businessman and you are featuring on the TV shows, you can check the ratings of these TV shows. Now, if you are president , uh, you have different ratings, right? So the support, again, I don't know how it works in the us but let's say in other countries, there are surveys where people are asked if there are elections tomorrow, would you vote for the candidate X or Y Yeah, yeah. That , those do have the same in the us
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Yeah, of course. But all those surveys are because people always ask that thing. But the thing is, the media apparatus of the parties are all geared towards getting a guy elected. Obviously when it's off election, that media apparatus is not there. So when people are just asking polls like, oh, if election was today, who would you vote for? It's kind of like, you know, the , what's that expression like? I think it's a Russian expression, isn't it? If my grandfather was a , um, was had had wheels, he'd be a bicycle or something like that. I think there's like a more , uh, r-rated version of that, but yeah. Right . Is that the expression?
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Not really, but , uh, originally
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Horse was like, my grandmother had balls. She'd be my grandfather. Exactly.
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Yeah .
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I didn't wanna say it, but yeah,
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, the bicycle stuff comes from the,
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Probably the British
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British, yes. No , Italian cook . Italian cook , yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah . Oh ,
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Oh , was an Italian. Okay. Italian,
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Yeah. Bicycle , you know? Yeah, yeah , yeah , yeah . I , I watched that and , uh, yeah, we , we laughed a lot about that. Yeah ,
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Exactly . So all those things are like, basically those polls are basically. Uh ,
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But what ratings then? Well , seriously speaking, no ,
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He doesn't like Nick care . 'cause even before Trump, the Republicans, there's a famous , uh, league of , uh, MIT Romney who was the , uh, Canada in 2012. And then he was saying, you know, Hey, there's like 40%, it's 47% of the population that's not gonna vote for me, and that's not gonna vote Republican. We don't care about them. He was trying to say something profound, but of course it took the soundbite out and, you know, it leaked and everyone was like , oh my God, he doesn't care about 47% of the America population. Right? So there was like a whole big thing. But that's kind of the , uh, philosophy of most of these political parties, is that yeah, it's gonna be a big portion of your population that's not gonna vote for you no matter what you do. So ignore them and only care about making sure that the other 53% vote. I don't wanna make this like, oh, I'm bashing the Republicans thing. 'cause the Democrats kind of do this too, as well. They just don't say it like that way. Because for example, in the , uh, 2016 elections, right? That was the first time Hillary ran, or, well, the second time after Obama. But yeah , it was between Hillary and Bernie Sanders. And there was , um, a lot of internal talk within the political sphere and ally news . 'cause like, I was in DC so I was listening to all the things during the bar conversations and all the political strategists, because the bars in DC are like full of political operatives. Matter of fact, the funny thing is like, you know , I'd be dating girls and they'd be like saying, oh my God, it's so refreshing to like, you know, having drinks with you because every guy on Tinder, it says, oh , I'm an a to this congressman, or I'm an aide to that congressman, or I'm a lobbyist for this. And like, they hate it because DC is just so politically incestuous. Everyone talks to each other about this. But anyway, they were talking with like during 2016, there's this battle. 'cause obviously everyone normally knows about the battle between Clinton versus Sanders, but there is also a battle for the strategy of the Democratic party where Hillary Clinton's camp wants to specifically focus on the battleground straits , the the battleground states . Right. And , uh, and really focus all their money and effort and the getting out the poll for those , uh, battleground states so that she would get elected. Whereas Bernie Sanders, he's like, I wanna start a movement. Right? So he wanted to have the Democratic Party do outreach for all the 50 states. And uh , obviously with , uh, Hillary Clinton winning the candidacy, her, her camp and her , uh, party apparatus strategy won out. Clinton
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Winning Canada.
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Yeah. 'cause you know, democratic primary was between the Clinton versus , uh, Sanders. Yes. And then she won, and then she went to go face off , uh, against Trump in the general election. Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . So I'm talking about not the general election, but the primary elections. Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . And , uh, the party elections, if you will. So her strategy of only focusing on the battleground states, which is kind of like similar, if you kind of think about why the Republican strategy of not giving a about the 47%. So like both sides that kind of have this thing of , uh, guy , I sound like one of those , uh, you know, nasty bad faith people saying, oh, the both sides. But no , I don't mean like both sides as , no, they're all both equally bad. But I'm just saying there's this , uh, general prevailing , uh, wisdom in the United States that no matter what you do, about 45%, or I guess 47% to quote that Romney said that are not gonna vote for you. So, and then corollary to that, there's 47% that, you know, will vote for you. So basically it's all about fighting for the 6% in the middle.
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Okay.
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So yeah, going back to the original thing with Trump, it's like, yeah, he doesn't care about the polls thing. 'cause a, there are polls because the election's not happening 'cause of the, the Soviet , uh, grandmother quote thing. And then the other thing is that , uh, he doesn't care that people like, even like, you know, the protests that were just happening, what was it they were saying, like , oh, we don't care that they protest. We're gonna do what we're gonna do anyway. That doesn't affect us. Right. So they basically just, they don't give a.
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He went golfing.
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Yeah, yeah , exactly. He was golfing , uh, this weekend, so he doesn't care. But like we were talking about that earlier and like was our last discussion. He's not actually doing any of this stuff. He's basically golfing all the time. 'cause he got what he wanted, which is his immunity from , uh, punishment. And he just lets Musk and all these other morons , uh, this
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Stuff. So he doesn't care about the ratings now. He cares about the noise.
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He just wants to be constantly in the news and Yeah.
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Yeah , yeah , yeah . Okay. That's totally clear. And for that reason, again, I , for the last couple of weeks that we haven't heard each other, there were tremendous amount of news , uh, coming
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By design
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By design. Yes. But I have no idea what's happening inside of the us . So let's forget about what we hear from Paris, for example, from France. What is happening inside of the us . So what is he doing to his fellow citizens?
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That's a really big open-ended question. Like, what do you mean?
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Well, every time we're counting the week since , uh, 20th , uh, of February now it's been probably two and a half months or three. And we know how many papers have been signed , uh, for the external policy. And we more or less understand where he goes in terms of the directions, in terms of the rest of the world. But what he has done so far, like top three things internally, which rest of the world doesn't care, but local fellow Americans do care.
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Can't really answer that. 'cause it's not like there's like a top three thing. Everyone's different have different , uh, pain points or whatever.
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What comes to your mind first?
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It's not even that. 'cause also all these, for all the hoopla around all these executive orders, they don't mean anything functionally as far as , uh, actual actions within the United States government. 'cause the US government doesn't work like this. 'cause the executive branch is actually pretty weak with , uh, being able to do quote new things. So all , there's a lot of like pomp and circumstance and a lot of media attention to all these things. But actually we can only really control what's going on within his department, which is the executive department, actual laws and money and all that stuff. They really can only come from the , uh, legislative branch. Of course, there are real things that are actually going on. He's pulling a lot of the funding. He's refusing to pay that out, which is obviously having disastrous effects. Now, yes, this is illegal because he doesn't have the power to do that, but he is doing that. So I mean, that , that's an issue, right? And of course, there's lawyers and whatnot fighting him. And then also, like all these , um, you know , deportations that are going on those, again, those are not legal. He can't actually do that. And lawyers and judges have been fighting him and he's ignoring that. So there's a constitutional crisis in that. So there's these things and , uh, and obviously a a lot of the , the , the stuff that he's saying as the statesman in chief is really bad for the international audience. So the United States is standing within, the world is diminishing. So there's that. And of course, maybe the average American doesn't really care about what the hell's going on in, you know, Europe or Canada or Asia. But the thing is, again, likely the last time we talked about the quote , American Empire is based off of our relationships and our alliances. So whether the person in Midwest or Midwest , Ohio, or whatever doesn't realize it or not, their , uh, Americanness, their ability, their , their richness of life as an American is slowly being diminished because of that. Because a lot of our richness and our ease of life comes from the fact that we have so much influence globally. So all that, and of course all these, they're all, they're all stitched together and they all like marry up to the point that he's basically tearing up the Constitution, which is the foundation of our country. So that's why I don't really look at this as a top three issue type thing. I understand. Yeah. It's mostly like, there's just one main issue, which is the shredding of the Constitution. Because our country, most other countries have , uh, Brits for example, it's all about the king, right? Or you have your loyalty or a specific country. But in America there is no such loyalty to quote the country. We don't swear an oath to the country. We don't swear an oath to a king. What we do, our country is basically a document, it's a piece of paper, which is the Constitution. So our loyalty is to the Constitution. And everything that we derive ourselves from comes from this piece of paper.
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16,
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No, 17.
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17. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 17 ,
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Uh, 17 92, 93. Okay. I'm sorry . I'm getting , uh,
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Washington.
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Well, yeah , yeah , yeah, exactly. Okay . Yes. Um , 'cause originally we were our confederation and then we scrapped that. So this is actually our second government. But you know, that's, you know , that's not the , that's another
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Story.
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Yeah , that's another story. But basically like, if the US Constitution magically applied to, I mean obviously this is like completely ridiculous statement, what I'm about to say, but reductio a absurdum, you know, that the logical argument, so basically it's the United States Constitution no longer applied to the territory of the United States, but magically, let's say like, you know , a genie came and snapped their fingers. And then all of a sudden the US Constitution now applied to the territory of, I don't know , Sub-Saharan Africa. Then the United States of America as the political physical entity would be Sub-Saharan Africa. Because our loyalties are not tied to the land, our loyalties are tied to this document. So what Trump is doing, what's government's doing, is shredding up that document. So if you shred up that document, like, you know, most normal people outside of United States or even people within the United States will say, well, who cares? We still have the United States of America. But what I would say, especially as a former military or former government official, that no , our country ceases to exist because the whole essence of our country is this document. Without that document, there is no country. It's just like a random piece of land.
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And again, very naive question, does he not understand what he's doing?
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No, of course. A lot of people don't understand that. Or maybe he does understand what he's doing and this is exactly what he wants to do.
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But that's , uh, constitutionally legal first.
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Well , yeah. That's why lawyers and everyone are talking about this is a full blown straight up constitutional crisis. It's not like we didn't have constitutional crises before. We've had tons of constitutional crises , especially in the early on our history. It's just , the problem is now that this is the first constitutional crisis in the age of nuclear weapons. It's also like the first constitutional crisis when United States was basically the undisputed superpower, or I guess that they call it now hyper power . Because it was like us and Soviet Union, we were superpowers. But the collapse of the Soviet Union now, like geopolitical scientists say no , US now is like a hyper power . It's something even beyond superpower. And then , so the constituted crisis now actually does matter even more so, especially 'cause it's not like for, oh, America number one, we're the best. I'm not trying to say that, but like, when something bad happens to the United States, you know, we used to learn in social studies, there was this thing when the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. Well, now it's even more so like that. And you know, when, when bad things happen in the United States, there's gonna be even worse things that happen to the rest of the world.
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We don't see it yet. At least I haven't been able to say anything like that. It's so far. So do you think , uh, America has sneezed already or is just
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Well, from a constitutional crisis standpoint? Yeah, absolutely. Of course, the rule of law right now is currently not being applied. Mm-hmm . The moment Trump raised his hand and sworn oath at that very instant, his presidency was illegal. And it's not something like Q Anon or Blue Anon conspiracy , conspirator, conspiratorial like statement. Mm-hmm . What I'm saying is the fact that he didn't divest himself of his , uh, business dealings. It's a violation of the , uh, all moments clause, which is a clause in the US constitution, which limits corruption, like separates the personal benefits of , uh, of government officials from their , uh, political , uh, benefits, I guess you would say. So . 'cause the whole point is a government official should not personally profit from their, their official capacity other than the salary that's given to them that's authorized by the US Constitution. Right. We even have a clause in the US Constitution where, or I think it's an amendment, I forget what it is, but basically US Congress, they're the ones that who determine government salaries. Right? But the thing is, if they vote for their own salary increase, salary increase cannot hold effect until the very next election. Ah . So it's that ingrained, one of the founding principles of the Constitution is that no government officials should personally benefit.
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Yeah. You cannot use power for yourself, basically. Yeah.
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I mean, sure, if you win the election, obviously it benefits you . Yeah, yeah . But you have to win the election, the next election there benefit .
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Very smart , by the way.
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Yeah. Well of course the US constitution's freaking great. It's , the problem is it's not being followed right now. Okay. So that's what I'm saying. So the moment he signed , he raised his , uh, hand and gave the oath. His administration was constitutionally illegal. And , uh, a lot of people, they don't care about, oh, well these things happen . It's like , no, no. When you excuse these type of things, I feel like this is kinda like a Jean Valon versus Jve situation. Jve is like, no, these are the rules and you gotta follow it. Normally I'm a huge fan of Jean Valon , but in this case, no jve is correct. When it comes to , uh, to us constitutional law , it's like, no, these are the laws and you don't bend it or anything like that. Like the laws are the laws and we follow it . Otherwise, you just normalize this , uh, the corruption.
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I love the way how we how we mix the French and the American stuff. Yeah,
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Absolutely.
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Oh , I really love it. Um, but , uh, coming back to the Constitution, so yeah , yeah . You brought me to the question I wanted to ask. Um, I think it was the first time during the last two or three weeks, or probably first time ever, but at least for me, I heard that Trump was saying that he is serious about thinking of problem making his third term.
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Yeah.
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Do you, do you believe in that?
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Believe in what?
00:23:54.075 --> 00:23:55.565
Believe that he can do that?
00:23:55.914 --> 00:24:00.005
Well, obviously he can't do that. Do I believe that he's gonna try to do that and do that? Yeah, absolutely.
00:24:00.325 --> 00:24:02.483
Uh , he will try. Do you believe he will succeed?
00:24:04.605 --> 00:24:08.805
I, I, I mean , I'm not freaking Nostradamus here now we're mixing Russian stuff into
00:24:09.125 --> 00:24:11.005
. No, but okay, okay. Okay.
00:24:11.684 --> 00:24:28.404
With the way thing I'll say, with the way things are going, yes, he can succeed because we're in full blown constitutional crisis mode and there's nothing checking his power. So if he wants to do it, if he wants to do this type of coup, he has the means to succeed. I'll , I'll say that.
00:24:29.115 --> 00:24:35.884
What could be the most, and if you don't want to answer, please do not. But , uh, what would be the most probable scenario in this case?
00:24:37.944 --> 00:25:46.684
He makes some reason. And his lawyers are already, I think they're already coming up with this type of thing. They're already like making an excuse, like, oh, well technically, because he , uh, lost the first election with Biden. It's, I don't even know the whole arguments because they're so stupid . But , uh, and I don't really follow it, but I think they're like trying to say something like, oh, well, because technically 'cause he lost that one election, they like resets. And then there's like another situation where he is trying to pull a me veev where Vance becomes the president. Right. And then 'cause nothing tech , which this is all , by the way, all of this is. This is not true. I'm just saying, I'm repeating what they're saying. Basically saying that, oh, he's going to be the vice president. Kinda like Putin was with , uh, mid iv . And then unlike what Putin did, where Med Veta was allowed to carry out his full term and then quote , reset, what he plans on doing is Vance is going to, you know, win the election and then immediately resign so that Trump becomes the president now , uh, because he's the vice president. And then because technically he wasn't elected as president, but he can serve this third term. Again, these are all like wrong. And any constitutional lawyer would say, this is all arguments, but these are the rationales that they're trying to cook up here.
00:25:46.964 --> 00:25:55.924
Uh , this might not work because I don't remember the amendment or part of the law, but , uh, one who cannot be elected as a president cannot be elected as a vice president as well. You're
00:25:55.924 --> 00:26:49.204
Right. Exactly. That's why I'm saying all this stuff is, but these are the things that they're like concocting right now. So that Okay . So that he has some random excuse. And again, like it doesn't matter what the document says. If, if no one's check putting in the check and if the people are rabid enough to love Trump, and then they'll just allow it. Okay. Okay . I mean, and for example, just to be fair here, we've done a lot of , uh, unconstitutional things that , uh, people just passed off. Like originally, like back in 1803, Thomas Jefferson went to , uh, Napoleon to buy , uh, new Veil France. Like New France, like the Louisiana purchase. The Constitution did not allow Thomas Jefferson to do that, but then he did it anyway. And not only Congress, but the American people, no one that said like, Hey, that's illegal. You can't do that. 'cause we just basically, we just doubled the size of our country for nothing. So it's not like we haven't done this before, but , you know, stakes are a lot higher now. I
00:26:49.204 --> 00:26:49.724
Understand. I understand.
00:26:49.924 --> 00:26:52.285
'cause back then, 1803, we were just some backwater, I understand country,
00:26:53.164 --> 00:26:57.845
A lot of things that we think cannot be done because they're written on the paper actually can be done.
00:26:58.434 --> 00:26:59.845
Yeah. As long as the people allow it.
00:27:00.243 --> 00:27:17.525
Uh , as long as the people allow it. Speaking about the people we have , uh, spoken about the ratings, what is the current situation with , uh, people's feelings around Trump? Like, people tend to hate him more. People still love him. I mean, those who voted for him.
00:27:18.855 --> 00:29:17.015
Yeah. I mean, you always hear on the news about , uh, people saying, oh my God, I didn't know that he was going to attack us too and I thought these tariffs were gonna be good, or, but now it's hurting my business. Or they're gonna say like, when I thought he was gonna kick out all the legal aliens, he was going to kick out the bad ones. But you know, my wife or my gardener, he's leaving too. And now I'm infected and I'm like mad. And of course, obviously this is the shot and Freud really plays in the media. So these are the things that we hear about. But in reality, I don't really see much of a change with most of the , uh, Trump supporters because the congressmen, the people who are supposed to be , uh, derived their power or their mandate from the people, the congressmen, they're basically ignoring all of this. Even though like people are protesting a bunch of congressmen know with all these protests, people are demanding enough town halls and like, yeah, we don't care about you. I don't have time for this. You guys can protest all you want. 'cause they know that they're safe in their districts and that they have enough supporters that they're untouchable. So despite what the media is trying to make into hoopla from the actual brass tacks of elections and the way things are going, there's enough of a rabid following for Trump and the quote Republican way of doing things that most congressmen don't give a. So again, 'cause none of this stuff, the president, you know, functionally when you look at the paper from the Constitution, is actually pretty weak. Right. It's a by design because we fought a war against one of the most powerful monarchs in the world, right. At the time. So we didn't want another king, right? So we made it so that the president was a very weak, and we made Congress a very powerful and very strong, which is, you know, the opposite of the way things go in Europe. So the only reason why all this stuff is happening is because Congress is allowing it. Like all this stuff could end tomorrow if Congress just gets their act together. But they won't because despite all the hoop law in the media, there's enough of people who don't really follow politics that vote when it comes down to voting. Like, what am I voting for a R ? Whoever has a r next to their name Republican. Boom. Done.
00:29:17.835 --> 00:29:19.775
And when is the next election to the Congress?
00:29:21.115 --> 00:29:21.335
In
00:29:21.634 --> 00:29:23.414
2026? Yeah, next
00:29:23.775 --> 00:29:24.694
November 26. Yeah.
00:29:25.355 --> 00:29:29.335
So basically everything can finish in one year, in one year and a half.
00:29:30.924 --> 00:29:33.734
Yeah. Well, things can finish right now too, if the Republicans
00:29:34.805 --> 00:29:38.855
Okay with the current , um, situation in the current version of the Congress.
00:29:39.285 --> 00:29:50.285
Well, even with the current version of the Congress, I don't think the midterms will do much because in order to impeach, you need, okay , you only need a majority in the house. So that's like what, seven seats I think right now.
00:29:50.484 --> 00:29:53.964
Well , you don't have to impeach Trump. You just need to post him. So no ,
00:29:54.404 --> 00:29:58.454
I'll post him . How, because right now, for example, the tariffs, right? Yes.
00:29:59.825 --> 00:30:01.525
Now that you have spoken about them, yes.
00:30:01.714 --> 00:33:08.605
Okay. The tariffs, the president cannot enact tariffs. 'cause tariffs are essentially attacks . It's annoying that the people, this is another, like remember we're talking about the Spaceballs theory, right? , you know about Democrats are stupid. They keep calling this tariffs when they should be calling this the Trump trade tax. It even has like the alliteration of Shakespeare, you know, the Ts Trump trade tax, triple T. But yeah, so it's a tax. The tariff is a tax just because you name it tariff doesn't mean anything. These are tax . In fact, before the, what was it, 16th amendment, I forget which amendment. I think it's the 16th, where we actually allowed for direct taxes offer on income. 'cause before that, Congress wasn't allowed to impose income taxes directly onto the people. Everything had to be indirect taxes. It's a whole lot of wonky stuff in there about , uh, apportionment of the states and everything like that for people to know. But whatever, just for purpose of conversation, it's basically income taxes were functionally like illegal . So most of the quote taxes that the government raised up until the 16th amendment, which was, I think this was like 1913, I wanna say, when the, that amendment was passed. So it was like, for a long time of our country, the US government raised tax raised money through tariffs. Mm-hmm . Right? So tariffs are , is tax. So the president does not have the power to impose taxes. Congress does. But what the Congress did was, hey, in the case of emergency, it seems like every dictatorship always comes from the emergency , the legisl of emergency, right ? Emergency enabling act, emergency power. Yes. But basically Congress said there's a law that says, Hey, if there's an emergency, then the president has the power to enact 25% taxes. That's why he made this whole , uh, hysteria about , uh, illegals coming through the border and everything. A that was a racist piece of type of story thing to win votes. But also it was the way for him to use an excuse to say, Hey, we have a national emergency. Again, a constitutional lawyer will tell you, this is all, but it doesn't matter whether it's or not. If people, if people buy the story, they buy the story. So I'm just explaining the story, so don't blame me, but basically says, yeah, okay, there's illegals and that's a national emergency. Darren quote , invading the country. And then because of that, because of this law that Congress passed says, okay, we can enable up to 25% taxes. Now, of course, was it two days ago or four days ago, they had the Liberation Day terrorists , which are more than that . So I don't know how that's actually gonna work, because technically that's illegal. Because even this National Emergency Act only limits you up to 25%. So I don't know what type of concoction they , uh, manufactured to justify this, or even if they even bother to do it. But , uh, the point is, technically if you look at that law, he has the ability to enact these 25% tariff or tax, right? So even if the Democrats come into power or in the house, right, and not in the Senate or whatever, you say, oh, well they can oppose him . Well, no, you can't oppose him . 'cause the law is the law. The only way to quote oppose him is to actually pass a new law to get rid of that emergency power. Mm-hmm . So this is why opposition is not enough, because the laws are already there. You've already granted out these laws assuming that you're gonna have a , you know, a stable genius as the president. That's
00:33:08.724 --> 00:33:19.474
Interesting. This very interesting point because , uh, that emergency state, how you call it emergency state, right? Yeah. Do you have any definitions of those?
00:33:20.615 --> 00:33:24.075
No. It's up to the president. If the president declares an emergency.
00:33:24.105 --> 00:33:25.315
This is the back door , basically.
00:33:25.994 --> 00:33:32.234
Yeah . That's literally 1933 enabling act of hi , uh, excuse me, of , of , uh, fricking uh , Adolf Hitler.
00:33:33.315 --> 00:33:34.115
Right ? That's okay. That's okay.
00:33:34.714 --> 00:33:35.875
It's literally the enabling act.
00:33:36.154 --> 00:33:53.795
. But , uh, now you mentioned that , um, and again, i I truly respect that , uh, the constitution of the US which has been being built for the last 300 years is a state of art. And it still, it has back doors like this emergency state. There is, well,
00:33:53.875 --> 00:38:51.485
That wasn't in the Constitution. That was a law that was passed. So the Constitution says Congress writes the laws and also controls the power of the purse, and they can delegate some authority, some of their responsibility to the , uh, to the executive power. Which right now there's , uh, well, not right now, but before Trump got elected, there was some back and forth fighting amongst constitutional lawyers about whether Congress has the power to do that. 'cause for example, the Supreme Court during the Biden administration, they gutted the , uh, EPA, the Clean Water Act, which allowed , uh, president Biden to , uh, control the polluting of the rivers and the water. Mm-hmm . Right ? And then the Republicans, because you know , God knows why, but because I guess they hate humanity. They're like, no, Biden doesn't have the power to use the EPA to clean up the rivers and the water or drinking water. Why? Because Congress does not have the power or the authority to delegate. They cannot delegate their constitutional authority to the president, to the executive branch because the Constitution says only the Congress, only the legislative branch can enact these power. So if, if Congress wants to regulate the drinking water and the clean rivers, they have to pass a specific law to do that. And this was their way of the Supreme Court to basically kill a clean water act. And so now we don't really have like good drinking water, I guess, unless you know you have a democratic , uh, or a pro environment, a state government. So they said that. But of course, now as soon as Trump gets selected, all of a sudden now they're reversed and saying, oh, well, you know, Congress delegated this authority for tariffs. So I guess we're gonna use it to enact these trade taxes. So there you go. This is the , uh, speak with fork tongue situation that under a democratic presidency, they say one thing and then all of a sudden when the Republican's in power, they say the complete opposite. So the hypocrisy is real . Yes. So , so yeah , it's going back to your thing. It's like mm-hmm . And this is also why Republicans easily win because they don't actually govern. The last major law bill that was passed , like consequential bill that the Republicans passed was back in I think like 2002, which was like Medicare Part D or plan D, whatever it is , which I don't really know the basics of that. 'cause it was basically to help , uh, senior citizens , uh, pay for the , offset the cost of their drug prices. And this is like med called Medicare Part D or something. This was under George W. Bush. And it was like a genuinely a big nice thing. But since then, there hasn't been a single Republican bill passed for over like 20, what was it now , almost 23 years now, of where they do , sure. They passed bills of like , uh, keeping the budget going and everything that, but actual something of major consequence that an improved lives or , or not whatever. They haven't passed any laws because the whole point of being conservative is not to actually progress, right? You wanna conserve, you want to keep things going. Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . So it was very easy to be a Republican 'cause all you have to do is basically not do your job, right. If you refuse to vote on anything, it was just , uh, clog up the political grinding machine and never pass laws. Well , technically you're doing what the people have asked you to do as a conservative because nothing's moving along as someone who's not a conservative, because I don't wanna use progressive. 'cause that's not like a loaded term now, meaning for a specific , uh, political philosophy. But in order to actually be a functional legislator, you need to be able to pass laws based on new current events, right? And that's what a responsible, you know , co concealing or responsible legislator does. But if you have conservatives in a majority, or even in a super minority where they can just block progress, well , they're doing their job. And you as someone who's trying to react to the current events of whatever they may be, I'm not trying to make a political point here. I'm just making a functional mm-hmm . Statecraft point is that you cannot do your job as a legislator because you have all these quote conservatives that are just blocking everything. So when a Democrat is in power, the Republicans are doing an awesome job because they can just block everything that Democratic president wants to do. And then the Democrats look weak because they're like, oh, what are the Democrats ever doing for us? 'cause they suck . They're not helping me improve my life and everything like that. Well, yeah, they're not improving your life because they can't improve your life because they have the other part of the Congress. Yeah. They're a minority, but they're gunking up the work. They can't pass the laws that the president wants to pass. Whereas now, with the Trump thing, with Trump, what he's doing, he's co-opting the laws right. To do what he wants to do. And now the Democrats need to fight back, but they can't because again, in order to fight back, you can't just roadblock like Republicans do. Being an obstructionist is not doing anything because he's already taking advantage of the laws there. And even obstructing doesn't mean anything. 'cause he can still just do illegal stuff. You have to actually do action. You have to react, you have to do something. You have to do a counteraction, which requires bare minimum majority of Congress to actually do something. So this is like the fundamental issue with , uh, with I guess progress and civilization versus conservativeness and savagery, if you will.
00:38:52.224 --> 00:38:57.565
So Democrats look like , uh, accelerator and , uh, Republicans like in , uh, brakes .
00:38:58.864 --> 00:39:16.394
Yeah. I guess you could say that. Yeah, exactly. But even that doesn't really work because the Democrats can't just come into power and hit the brakes. Right. Because hitting the brakes doesn't do anything. Because again, the laws are the laws. You have to actually change the laws. Mm-hmm . So in your analogy, the changing of the laws would be again, hitting the gas pedal.
00:39:17.025 --> 00:39:43.375
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I agree. I want to come back to my original question. So one thing that I , I didn't think of , uh, before, and I didn't think from this perspective. So whatever law you have, it doesn't mean anything. And we'll do differently. And then afterwards, retrospectively we will think how we can , uh, you know, change it. So we change the reality and the laws will follow. Let me put it this way. This is how Trump acts.
00:39:44.755 --> 00:39:46.085
Okay. I'll follow with you.
00:39:46.844 --> 00:39:52.965
I was thinking, and again, maybe it is a bit naive, but I was thinking that , uh, he's still playing by the rules.
00:39:53.425 --> 00:39:55.485
No, no. He's , he's definitely not playing by the rules. Okay.
00:39:55.644 --> 00:40:23.695
Okay . Okay . That's what I didn't, again, how I thought about him, and I'm coming back to my original question from the beginning. You were growing up with, sorry, I don't want to mean that, but like , uh, you are growing up with him and you listen, and this is where, this is the baggage that I want to get a lot from. That's why I'm asking these questions. Yeah. So, okay. He's not playing by the rules and uh, he has always been like that. But , um, he has some ideas to change stuff and he's doing all of that.
00:40:25.175 --> 00:41:19.344
Uh , it's not, he has specific ideas. 'cause again, he just cares about golfing. Yeah , yeah . And doing that and being left alone. And then the people around him have their ideas and they basically just write everything up. And then he just signs whatever it is so that all he cares about is being able to golf and being in a national spotlight. 'cause that gives him an ego boost. But , you know, you bring a good point here is that what he cares about is his , uh, he has this image of being a businessman, right ? Yes. So he wants to project that and he wants to prove it, I guess, to himself. And also the people around him that he's a quote , successful businessman. It's kinda like the, the psychological report that I think the Brits released on , uh, Putin, right? Is that Putin was a failed , um, KGB agent. He was just some like minor guy in the periphery of East Germany. And he wasn't really good at his job. And , uh, by the way , tuff
00:41:19.344 --> 00:41:23.545
Just recently told absolutely different thing. Like who Tuff , you know him.
00:41:24.585 --> 00:41:25.065
Wait , who is he?
00:41:25.465 --> 00:41:32.945
I might lie with his official , uh, role, but he's a special representative of Trump. Oh,
00:41:33.164 --> 00:41:37.284
Oh , oh , Witkoff , right? Yeah . Witf Witf . I thought you were talking about someone within the Putin , uh, administration .
00:41:37.885 --> 00:41:43.405
Administration . No , but he made a comment recently, I think to Mr. Carlson. Yeah .
00:41:44.085 --> 00:41:45.324
What would you talk about Tucker Carlson?
00:41:46.125 --> 00:41:51.405
Um , only smart and clever people were part of the KGB back in the day. So
00:41:51.844 --> 00:43:09.005
Oh yeah, then , then why did we win ? But , but basically it's kind of like known, especially amongst people within the KGB back then, which I guess now is the FSB, right? But back then it was that he wasn't that good of a spy. But , uh, when he came under Yeltsin's , uh, administration, he wanted to project this image that, oh yeah, I was a really good spy and I could do this thing. And when he finally became president, he wanted to validate his own insecurities of being a spy to make the Russian Federation political apparatus into this , uh, supra KGB political apparatus to kind of prove to himself that no, he actually really is a good spy. So that's Putin's thing. That's his psychological profile. It's the same thing with Trump is that Trump is not a good businessman. I mean, he bankrupted his own casino. Casino is like the most easy . You're literally like, you're basically printing money. How can you bankrupt the casino? It's the easiest thing to make money off of. Yet he did that. His real estate empire failed. He had bad business deals with his real estate, and that's why he never released his taxes because he was constantly losing money. But he also had this obsession to be considered like a billionaire and to be on the Forbes top billionaire list. So he always inflate his net worth there, but also had problems with the IRS as well with , uh,
00:43:09.744 --> 00:43:12.565
But he cannot object that he has been successful hijacking the
00:43:12.905 --> 00:46:09.974
No, no, absolutely. And then this is the point that once he became president, just like when Putin, once Putin became president, he wanted to prove all the critics Ron , that no, he really is a good spy. And look at all this hybrid warfare that I'm doing. And sure enough, I mean, to Putin's credit, the hybrid warfare that Russia has been committing on the West has been topnotch. Partly is because Europe and America doesn't fight back. But that's a different story. And it's the same thing with Trump is that he's not a good businessman. But now that he's present , he's trying to prove that he's a good businessman. But things with businessmen is that the CEO is the ultimate person who's in power. And he's trying to act like that where, okay, I'm the CEO , I'm in power, so whatever I do goes, but the United States is not set up like that purposely. Whereas in other European countries, yes, the president of the Prime Minister may have the big power, but in the United States, because we fought against the king, we didn't want that. The ultimate power comes from Congress. So he's trying to act like a big boy, like, oh yeah, I'm a big man, CEO , and I look at all these executive orders. I'm signing all this stuff is because he can't do that. United States is not physically, is not set up like that. Only Congress can do these things. So he can only ask and beg and plead and work with Congress to make these things happen. But of course, because we're in a constitutional crisis, him acting like trying to massage his CEO credentials and basically show that, oh yeah, I'm actually really am a good CEO , I'm not a failed businessman. Congress has allowed this to happen. The Supreme Court has allowed this to happen again. It's all a hundred percent illegal. The moment he raised his hand to swore his oath, it was already a illegal presidency. But because people are allowing this to happen, it looks like now he can look to himself and say , yeah, you know, I prove all my critics wrong. I'm actually a really good businessman, even with these trade taxes, right? The tariffs, the Trump trade taxes for all the hoopla that's going around on all those things don't be wrong . I don't wanna like minimize it. It's not like this is not a bad thing. This is a very bad thing, . But if you look at the, the Department of Treasury every day at , I think at 1630, at 4:30 PM they release their daily financial transactions. This is a very like wonkish thing. So unless you're really going into weeds on a lot of these things, or if you actually encounter accountants at the Treasury Department, you don't actually look at these things. But it's there. It's the public records. Every day at 1630, you can go to Department of Treasury and they'll say, these are all the money that we receive , and this is all the money that we sent out. And there's a byline in there for , and it's public. Yeah, it's public every day . That's 1630. Just Google Treasury daily statement. It's all there. And then there's one line, I forget what it's called, but I think it's like customs duties or customs uh, flows or whatever it is . Basically there's a line in there and the treasury statement, every single day, it shows how much money the United States has collected from tariffs. Mm-hmm . And there hasn't been a noticeable increase in that line since Trump took office. So despite all this hoopla of like all these executive wars and things that he's doing, he hasn't actually implemented any of these trade taxes because if he did, you would see it at 1630 on the daily treasury statement.
00:46:10.034 --> 00:46:14.175
No, but I believe if he imposed these taxes when just recently or just a couple days ?
00:46:14.175 --> 00:46:15.215
Well, yeah, sure. Two or
00:46:15.215 --> 00:46:15.655
Three days
00:46:15.655 --> 00:47:27.335
Ago. Right? So I'm , again, I'm not trying to minimize this to say that this is not a bad thing and it's very bad thing become a bad thing if this happens. But the thing is, they're just causing chaos to stay in the spotlight and tank the market. Because also if this thing does get enacted, this just shows you like how bonkers this is . Because when you do a policy as a statesman, as a government official, you have to take into account how is this mechanically going to work? How is this functionally going to work? And clearly they haven't thought it through because, okay, let's just assume we're like hardcore Trumpists, like we're really in his administration and we're gonna enact these trade taxes. Right. Okay. I'm gonna ask you, you Mr. Bean counter , congratulations, you're now an accountant in the basement in the Department of Treasury or in the Customs in ice, and you're in charge of now enacting this executive order. How exactly are you going to do this when for example , we'll take, I mean obviously we're in France now, we'll take this. So we have European Union taxes , according to his big beautiful sheet that he really 20 20%. Right. So that means France is 20% tariffs. Right. Okay. But ion , right, ion is ion not a part of
00:47:27.855 --> 00:47:28.894
34 or 36 ?
00:47:29.385 --> 00:47:35.204
No, what's that? Which one was the It was low was like 10%. Was it Martinique was 10%. I don't remember. I thought Reunion
00:47:35.684 --> 00:47:35.925
Was 34 .
00:47:36.005 --> 00:48:29.204
Oh yeah , sorry. Yeah . Ion was 34. Yes. But uh , Ian French Guiana was 10%. I think I forget . But the point is for people who don't know this, rayon and French Guiana or Mayos , these are wholly integrated parts of France. It's like basically Hawaii to the United States. Yes. Right. , there's no difference between French Guiana and France Constitution. Just like there's no difference between Hawaii and the United States. So Mr. Bean counter , who's sitting in the basement of the Treasury Department, what are the mechanical implementations? Because again, in order to collect taxes, there has to be some sort of mechanism, right? The very boring stuff. But what is the mechanical way that you're going to implement the tax on French Guyana or Reunion when they are actually a part of the European Union when they're actually part of France and there's no mechanical way to actually implement these taxes that he's proposing?
00:48:29.585 --> 00:48:32.284
That's fine. So the taxes are not that bad then? No,
00:48:32.284 --> 00:49:16.605
No, no. Of course they're bad because they're still going to enact something. And just like with this DEI stuff, they said , oh, we want to get rid of the DEI things, which is again, another bonkers thing. What they start doing, they erased from the archives of the US Air Force at the Enola Gay , a little plane that dropped the first bomb on , uh, on Hiroshima, the first atomic bomb. Why? Because they flagged gay in the name of the airplane. So there's gonna be chaotic implementations of this batt insane declaration. 'cause it's not even a policy, this declaration that there's no rhyme or reason to what he wrote. But there's gonna be even less rhyme or reason to the implementation of it. So people don't know how to react to it because there's no correct way to mechanically implement the policies that he's trying to implement.
00:49:18.644 --> 00:49:38.585
And I'm repeating that probably it's not that bad because , uh, there will be cows in implementation and the actual implementation of those taxes will be, well, I don't want to say that they will be neglected, but uh, if you don't know how to implement the stupid taxes, you will be doing that the most productive. So no ,
00:49:38.585 --> 00:50:38.804
You'd think so, but obviously they're not doing that. I mean, other things like this in Nola gay example is one thing. This whole ice deportations, that's a scary version of application of it. And even, okay, you're saying that it's not so bad because maybe they're gonna be forced to not implement it. But the thing is, already from the American Empire standpoint, we're already losing credibility with our trade partners, right? Forget about our allies, right? Just in general, our trade partners now people are talking about, oh, let's do our own trade unions and our trade organizations and leave America out of it. America, since its foundation has been based off of free trade in the us We're going back to the US Constitution. I always like to make fun of my , uh, army buddies because you know, the Air Force, we were born from the Army in , uh, 1947 'cause we originally were the Army Air Forces . But anyway, whatever. So we're always like the junior kid on the pluck. But it's always make fun of the , uh, the army guys. 'cause the thing is, the army has no right to exist in the United States in the constitution. Every two years, Congress has to re authorize the US Army.
00:50:39.264 --> 00:50:39.724
Why is that?
00:50:39.755 --> 00:52:03.605
Because we were so afraid of a standing army because again, the British army was the one that basically trampled on our right hand . Oh , okay . So basically in the Constitution, there is no provision for the US Army. What the Constitution says is Congress has the power to raise an army, but as far as a standing army, that's completely illegal. So every two years there's a line, you know, it's against a throwaway line that's been going on since forever. It's basically Congress re authorizes the US Army because that I making fun of them. They're not a legitimate military organization. , of course , they can go say same thing about the Air Force 'cause we're not even in the Constitution regardless. But , but again, important is that US Army. There's no such thing as a standing army in the United States. Do you have to re-up it? Whereas the Navy, that is constitutionally mandated, whereas Congress has the power to raise an army, Congress shall furnish and provide for a Navy because the framers of the Constitution, the founding father said we need a strong and powerful Navy to protect our interests so that we can have trade with other countries. Because the way we're gonna grow as a country is with free trade. So whereas the Navy is mandated by the US Constitution, the army isn't, it's because free trade is essential. And now all this, what's going on here is the destruction of the free trade global apparatus, if you will, with the United States at the lead. And that's, that's a very real effect irrespective of how the mechanical operations of these trade taxes are going to be implemented.
00:52:04.764 --> 00:52:19.485
I think, again, I'm trying to be devil's advocate here, during the last several years, since 2000, I believe, since Obama, when he decided to move out all of the production outta the us . Right.
00:52:20.155 --> 00:52:20.925
What production,
00:52:21.094 --> 00:52:37.114
Maybe I'm wrong here. So you'll correct me. Basically, you just consume and you , the only thing that us produces are the debts, I believe, which it sells outside the what debts? The EBTS . Oh , okay .
00:52:37.715 --> 00:52:38.195
That's , yeah . Alright .
00:52:39.175 --> 00:53:25.525
Now, what Trumps wants to do, he's not against to trade as such, per se, I would say, again, I remind you I'm being his advocate for a second. He's not against trade as such. He wants to bring manufacturing back to the US so, you know, make quite a lot of things cheaper and so on and forth. I do understand though, that we're living in a global world where you cannot produce an airplane alone. Nobody can. Yeah. There are from five to 17 countries, each of which produce some parts of the future airplane, including software, including systems, including the leaders, including whatever. But he's trying to, and I can read it like that. He's trying to bring that manufacturer back to the us
00:53:27.715 --> 00:53:30.355
Okay . I'm following with your devil's advocacy. So
00:53:31.324 --> 00:53:39.405
Question is, okay, maybe he's doing it a bit iCal , a bit clumsy, but he's trying to do that. So his intention bad ?
00:53:41.175 --> 00:59:08.005
No. Well, I mean, doesn't matter what his intention is because it's just wrong. There's no way to , there's no way to spin around it. What you just say to Yes, that's what he's thinking. But it's an incorrect thought trade. The best way I can explain this is, I have to say this again. The space balls theory . Democrats are stupid that they keep comparing him to fascists as if , uh, people are going to care about that and that's gonna get them to win votes. When Trump and, you know, literally did a sig , he and Aaron was like, yeah, Musk, you know, and he got like more popular, at least amongst his base, despite the outcry. They keep calling him a fascist when he is actually a communist. Because you remember this probably from your school , uh, school education, what the Soviet Union did, what was the trade policy of the Soviet Union? There was tariffs and there was Stalin, right? 'cause there was the whole thing between Lenin and Stalin about the philosophy of how to spread communism. Lenin wanted to spread communism all across the , uh, yes. Yeah. Like a global Soviet establishment where Stalin was like, no, no, no, I guess it's not really so much Lenin versus Stalin. It was more like Trotsky versus Stalin because Lenin died and then Trotsky was supposed to be the main guy. But anyway, whatever, we'll get back to that . It's a different story. But the point is, yeah, Lenin and then through Lenin, Trotsky was like, no, we need to spread communism throughout for have global Soviets, right? And that's how we bring communism where Stalin's like, no, we need to focus on the Russian Soviets or the, the Russian controlled Soviets and make communism strong there. And only there can we defeat the evil powers of , uh, the capitalists pig dogs , right? So the way obviously Stalin won out, so the way he did it was they basically closed off the trade so that there was only trade within the Soviet Union, right? As well as within the Soviet aligned countries, you know, Warsaw Pact and also, what was the acronym for like Cuba, Vietnam, and some other, it was like co cova covo , I , I forget what the, there was some Russian acronym, but whatever. But the point is there was only trade amongst these things and there was no trade anywhere else. So there was like mm-hmm . There was very strict movements of goods. And what Trump is doing right now is essentially is the exact same thing with these trade barriers. He's restricting trade . He wants to bring the manufacturing back, right? Because again, what Stalin did was he didn't want to be reliant on the capitalist imperialists for their manufacturing capacity . They had to be developed locally, right? It doesn't matter if what the wellbeing of the Soviet citizen was, but the manufacturing had to be done in the Soviet Union and you know, everyone else. And that's exactly what, what Trump is doing, his trade policies right now, and this is not an exaggeration. Maybe communists might object to me calling it communist, but at the very least, let's call it, it's a very stalinist approach to trade by bringing this stuff back. And again, as a capitalist, someone who understands the concept of capitalism, capitalism is not some, despite what communists like to say, capitalism came as a economic philosophy to counteract the mercantilistic , uh, philosophies of the absolute monarchies. Like Adam Smith for example, what he did was, hey, look at the capitalistic , uh, manufacturers in Britain, which was operating under a , an essentially a constitutional monarchy versus the decadent , uh, mercantilist policies of Louis . The , uh, well back then, I guess it was Louis the 16th , but basically under the , uh, Louis the 14th absolute monarchy on CN regime , uh, system. And then look how England's, or, well, back then, I guess it was Great Britain. Look how great Great Britain is compared to the Ian regime, France. So this was a critique of that type of mercantilist policies to say that the best way to elevate the standards of your city , of your subjects is to have free trade and encourage, you know, is it like , it's not from the benevolence of the baker and the butcher that we have bread and meat on our table. It's for their own greed. So use the greed as a force of, as an engine of good to increase the overall wealth of the citizens, right? That's the whole point of that. And then of course, after Adam Smith wrote that, then like, you know , uh, Ricardo, he wrote the , his whole concept of comparative advantage, everyone to enjoy the maximum benefits of economic prosperity. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it if someone else can do it comparatively better, right? Not absolutely better, but comparatively better. So the whole concept of comparative advantage came and that was integrated with into capitalism. And that's the concept of free trade is that hey, just because the United States can do manufacturing, that's not gonna make us richer. Well , we'll make us richer as we'll. Let these other countries build it, manufacture it, and then we'll buy it from them. And then we get richer and they get richer and everyone gets richer. And that , that's the essence of capitalism, is that we do this type of trade and then erases everyone's , um, wellbeing. So what he's doing by going against comparative advantage and putting all these barriers, it's not only from an academic, but from the core essence of what capitalism is. By no means of exaggeration, this is very anticapitalistic. And, and if anything, like we said, it's Stalin istic . And I would even go further and say, this is communistic. The Trump administration is the communist administration. And it made me , some communists are listening to this and they're like angry at me for saying this. But like, lemme just put it this way, even to the Trump people, they don't understand the concept of what a trade deficit is. Because for example, right now, do you have a farm or no? Yeah. Where do you get your milk and your beef and your eggs and you know, whatever it is else that you eat.
00:59:08.264 --> 00:59:13.605
Of course I go to the butchery, I go to the Yeah . To the shop to buy everything.
00:59:13.885 --> 00:59:47.324
Yeah , you go to the shop, right? Yes . So what do you do to do that? You take money, you take your own money, and then you give it to the Yeah . To the market. And they give you all the stuff that you consume and fill your refrigerator with, right? Yes. So, okay, from an economic standpoint, right, you have a trade balance. Excuse me, you have a trade deficit with the supermarket, correct? Right. Now are you mad and say, oh, this is. The supermarket should buy meat and then eggs and bread from me because we need to balance things out. And I'm getting screwed here because I'm giving money to these guys and these guys are giving me real things that I can eat.
00:59:47.594 --> 00:59:57.804
I've seen this comparison already. I thought about that. It's not very correct because when you are country, you also have meats and milk with others who have meat and milk.
00:59:58.125 --> 01:00:08.644
Well , okay, well let's stick with them before, if we're going back to countries, let's talk about like manufacturing. 'cause obviously food is different 'cause it's perishable. So to avoid that, especially 'cause they're focused on manufacturing capacity. But anyway, yeah, go back to your point. Uhhuh, .
01:00:09.465 --> 01:00:27.585
So what I want to say is that countries, again, what he was saying, what Trump is saying that he's doing that, because quite a lot of countries are getting richer because of the us where us could have been richer along with them. That's why.
01:00:28.184 --> 01:01:39.485
But see, but how is that sentence make sense? Richness. It's not a eco , I mean, yeah , sure, of course is economic, but the thing is, how do you define richness? Most people think of richness is about ease of life, quality of life and things like that, right? And the fact is, when you're rich, you have lots of money so that you can basically, it's not like you're scrooge McDuck where you can like jump into the , the pool of gold coins. And that makes you awesome. I mean, although, yeah, as a kid, I thought that was awesome, . But the point is, is that with the money that you have, you can buy stuff and use it. So you can buy like high quality foods, you can buy fancy cars, bring in aired bags for the ladies, right? You can buy a bunch of awesome, luxurious things. And so your life is improved, right? Yes . That's what richness is. So this is what he just, him and his people don't understand the amazing deal that the United States has because the United States, what we do is we print money, right? We have money. Like we print these like pieces of paper that have our name on it, and then we give it to these other countries, which we can just basically make an Ian Unlimit supply of. And they give us real things, real steel, real luxury bags, real maybe food too. But
01:01:40.085 --> 01:01:41.125
Uh , real iPhones, yes.
01:01:41.235 --> 01:03:36.594
Yeah, real iPhones, right? And these are the things that products that we consume, and all we're doing is just giving them useless pieces of paper. So we have an amazing deal where all these other countries are doing all the backbreaking work of building all this stuff, and then we get to enjoy them. You've seen those , uh, like the Foxconn videos, like the underground videos of the Foxconn plant in China where like, it's basically like slavery almost, well, not almost put this, but basically modern day slavery and then building the iPhones. And here like everyone around is consuming iPhones, right? That's what a trade deficit is. You're giving money, which mm-hmm
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