Iran Fatwa; Big & Beautiful; Tariffs; Pharma; Billionaires; Xi | Yaron Brook Show
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The radical fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Yaron Brook Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Yaron Brook Show on this, what is it? Sunday. Sunday, June 29th. I fly to Boston tomorrow. Ocon starts on Tuesday. I open it with my talk at 8 p.m.

Uh, it's going to be Monday. Tuesday is going to be a long day. I've got a board meeting the entire day. Then there's an opening reception. And then I speak. Everybody's going to be like with two, three glasses of wine inside of them. Uh, we'll see. We'll see what I can do to keep them entertained and awake. All right. Uh, hopefully I'll see many, many, many of you in Boston. I'm looking forward to that. I, I, I know, I know many of you are coming, so I'll see you. Um,

Oh, Jonathan is going to be, Jonathan Honing is going to be at Ocon. Excellent. Looking forward to seeing you, Jonathan. That's wonderful. Jason says, stay healthy. I'm trying. I'm trying. I've done okay recently. If you can count that. Recently, I've done okay.

I think it's the cold. I think I just hate the cold, and the cold hates me. I think it's kind of a mutual deal there, and I get sick when I go to cold places. That's just it. I should not travel in the winter in the fall, but, of course, that's when universities open, and that's when –

Let's jump in. Let's jump in. We've got a bunch of topics today. Not sure how long this will take, but don't forget, you can ask questions and be involved. All right, ask questions, shape the show. You get to shape the show because I get to answer what you ask. $20 questions go first. $20-plus questions I get answered first, but everybody gets answered. All right, there is a fatwa as of this morning.

There is the Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarim Shirazi. He's a Grand Ayatollah. He's not just any Ayatollah. He's a Grand Ayatollah of Iran, has issued a fatwa, which is basically a legal ruling on a point of law in Islam, but that is considered the law in Islam.

Basically, he's just a fatwa calling for the assassination of U.S. President Donald Trump, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials in Israel, referring to them as enemies of God. I'm doing this, you know. What do you expect? This is what happened. This is what happens when you appease evil. It doesn't—they don't moderate. They don't suddenly become nice. They think, ooh, they're weak.

Let's go kill him. So, you know, in 1989, the Ayatollah Khomeini, the grand Ayatollah Khomeini, I guess he was, issued a fatwa against Solomon Rushdie. A fatwa, by the way, that ultimately resulted in an attack on Solomon Rushdie just a few years ago, where he lost an eye. Somebody came at him with a knife, and the guy admitted that he was inspired by the fatwa.

So now the Iranians are so emboldened by Trump's ceasefire that they basically issue a death warrant, right? Dead or alive for Donald Trump. Yeah, this is what happens. Will anybody learn? Will this result in any kind of serious damage

you know, a serious response. Because believe me, there are people out there who are going to take this seriously. People for years, various Islamists, try to find Salman Rushdie, try to hurt him. So now there's a fatwa against Trump, and we'll see how Trump responds. It's going to be interesting to see if he says anything. This is the text of the fatwa. Anyone who aims to harm the Muslim Ummah

and threatens the supreme leader or other religious leader or Allah forbid, strikes out is hereby declared a Muharram. Muharram is an enemy of Allah. Any collaboration with or assistance to them is haram, forbidden, for Muslims and Islamic states. It is upon all Muslims across the world to make enemies, to make these enemies regret their words and their wrongdoings.

And if harm or hardship befells them, they will be rewarded as Mujahideen or warriors in the path of Allah, if Allah wills it. May Allah protect the Islamic society and hasten the arrival of the Imam Mahdi. This is the, you know, the Imam that we're missing a thousand years ago and is supposed to come back any time now. Less than a thousand years ago. No, over a thousand years ago. 700 something, 700 I think. All right, so...

You know, he's basically referencing a passage from the Quran which states, Yep, these are the people that we have a ceasefire with. Now,

You know, what is going on in Iran right now is basically in Iran, the regime is rounding up people and imprisoning them. They're also executing people really, really fast. In the past 48 hours, you know, according to Fox News, at least, in the past 48 hours, the Iranian regime has executed more of its own citizens than

than were killed in the entire 12-day war with Israel. Now, I don't know if that's true, but it could very well be. They're rounding people up, they're killing them. The small Jewish community in Iran is being targeted. But so anybody who's ever expressed any opposition ideas or stood up for the opposition, people are in the streets and...

You know, they're just arresting anybody who they think, you know, and the excuse is that you're an operative of the Mossad and they execute you quickly. There's no trial, nothing like that. And yeah, it is pretty horrific. This is, you know, people ask, why didn't the Iranians go out into the street? Why wasn't it an uprising? I think it's this. It's the fact that they'd be killed. It's the fact that

These fanatics have no problem just shooting into a crowd, no problem killing whoever they need to kill. And, you know, right now they have this excuse, right? So, you know, they're pressuring people who have done social media, right?

And they're putting a lot of pressure on journalists working for Persian language media outlets outside of Iran. So, for example, if you work for an anti-regime media outlet outside of Iran, they're running up journalist families to try to put pressure on them. People are being tortured, beaten, and again, incarcerated, and in some cases,

uh, uh, being, uh, executed. So, uh, Iran is taking out their frustration at losing the 12 day war, uh, on, uh, on fatwas, right. And on their own people primarily on their own people. So, um, anyway, yep. Uh, let's see, uh, the debate about, uh, Iranian, uh,

refining the uranium enrichment, the ability to enrich the uranium continues. Now the IAEA, this is the International Atomic Energy Agency that supervised or oversaw what the Iranians were doing on behalf of, from the perspective of the sanctions. He now says that Iran could resume uranium enrichment in months.

I don't know why he thinks they have the centrifuges, but maybe he thinks they can buy them or maybe he thinks they have some that weren't destroyed. He says it is clear that there has been severe damage, but it's not total damage. He hasn't been to Iran. We know that. So I assume this is based on what he's hearing from his sources within Iran. So this discussion about how much damage was actually caused, what is actually going on

continues. There's a lot of people upset in the U.S. and a lot of debate going on in the U.S. around this and a lot of discussions in different intelligence agencies. And again, as I said last time, the Israelis are sending out different messages. But the bottom line, I think, is, in my view, the bottom line is that this ceasefire was a massive mistake, that whatever happened in terms of the nuclear program

A few more days would have helped get a little bit more clarity. A few more bombs would have probably secured and guaranteed more damage and therefore more delay. And I think the big mistake was not going after Khamenei and the actual regime, not going after the Iranian leadership. And that could have been done.

You know, when Trump turned back the planes that were flying over Tehran, they were about to launch a major assault on Tehran, and he turned them back because of the ceasefire. He made them come back to Israel. You know, there was a real opportunity there to do a lot more damage. And the fact that the planes were all over Tehran meant that the damage was going to be done to Israel.

You know, the regime, regime installations, regime buildings and bases would have weakened the regime quite a bit, even more than it had already been weakened. I think another, as I said at the time, I think another week or two would have really, really weakened this regime.

and made it possible for real regime change to happen. Instead, you get these nuts being emboldened enough and mystical enough and crazy enough and insane enough to actually issue a fatwa to kill the president of the United States. I mean, that is megalomaniac and insane under any circumstances. But when you've just been whipped the way the Iranians have been whipped in the war, you

It is really crazy. You know, Israel has committed to going back to Iran anytime there's a hint of

that they are working again on developing nuclear weapons. Of course, Israel's been saying that for 20 years. Maybe now it's changed. I'll believe it when I see it. So, you know, that's good. If they're willing to live up to that, that's good. Trump has threatened to bomb the Iranians if they don't come to the negotiating table. The Iranians have now said they won't. And given that there's a fatwa on Trump's life,

It's hard to believe that there would be negotiations unless the Americans decide not to take that seriously. But so it's going to be interesting. Next couple of weeks will be interesting. It could be that the United States and Israel will have to go back to Iran. But it also could be it's still possible, I guess, that a deal could be struck. Trump is really, really eager for a deal, not for the resumption of fighting again, because

a deal would solidify his coalition. Maybe chances in a mobile piece, Nobel peace prize, but more importantly, his coalition, the MAGA coalition, uh, you know, and, and unite both the, I don't know, uh, uh, the, the, the pro taking out the nuclear program and, uh, the, uh, you know, the pacifists who don't want any government involvement in, uh, in anything. So, um,

I think that's what we have with you on. I think we've covered that. I want to remind everybody that this show is a show supported by listeners and viewers like you. This show is funded from, among others, the Super Chat. So please consider making a contribution by asking a question or making a contribution by doing a sticker, but making some kind of contribution in a trade, win-win situation.

you listen and in a sense you pay for the benefit you get, I hope, from listening. All right, let's shift away from foreign policy, from Iran, and let's shift to the big beautiful bill. The big beautiful bill, which is big and beautiful, is passed the first round at the Senate.

So the Senate passed, took this bill and they voted on whether to start debate about the bill. They voted for that. But then the Democrats did this procedural thing where they forced the bill to be read out loud before there would be a discussion and then a vote on the bill, the final bill. Then there's going to be amendments and votes and amendments. And then there'll be the final bill and they'll vote on that. So...

Yesterday and today, for 16 hours, the bill was read at the Senate. And now, you know, I assume now as we speak, people, senators are debating the bill. The reality of this bill is that it is, you know, it would increase, according to CBO, which I think is conservative, it would increase the debt, U.S. debt,

by $3.3 trillion over 10 years. And that is under positive assumptions that certain aspects of the bill don't get renewed. But these things always seem to get renewed, just like this bill is renewing tax cuts from 2017. So they almost always get reduced. In that, if it gets renewed, then it would be $4.2 trillion over the 10 years.

In other words, we're taking a situation where the United States has, you know, an unbelievable amount of debt, that where interest payment on the debt now exceeds the amount of money spent on defense. We're taking a situation where every year we're going to have growing deficits and the deficits are massive and we're going to be taking on more and more and more debt as we mentioned. So this, by the way, this is not...

I want to correct something. This is not that over the next 10 years, the deficit, the U.S. debt will grow by $3.3 trillion. No, no, no, no, no. Wouldn't that be wonderful? That would be amazing if that were true. No. What this is saying is that relative to current spending, relative to the current trend line, this bill...

will increase the debt above and beyond what would already happen. So, for example, if we're running right now a trillion-dollar deficit for 10 years, that's $10 trillion. And then what this is saying is instead of a $10 trillion addition to the debt, we're going to be having $13.3 trillion additional to the debt. So it's insane numbers.

It's already the case that, you know, it's not clear that we can pay off this debt. It's not clear where, you know, where the revenue is going to come from to pay off the debt that exists today, never mind adding to it. The federal government is already massively bloated and way too big. I mean, that's why we had Doge, right? Didn't we have Doge? Wasn't Doge? Weren't we all excited about Doge?

I mean, we were really excited because they were going to cut spending, but not only is there no cutting of spending, there's a massive, massive increase of spending. And by the way, can I say, I told you so. I told you so. I said that Trump, after four years, his government spending would be significantly higher than

than it was when he took office. And that's absolutely the case. This budget guarantees that, it secures that, there's no question about it. This is what's going to happen. Now, if AI generates 10% GDP growth, yeah, great. But really? Is that going to happen? 10%? I mean, massive, above and beyond? Probably not. It takes technology years.

years to actually manifest itself in productivity groups. It took electricity, you know, a couple of decades, I think more than two decades, to actually ultimately get reflected in increased productivity. It took technology, tech, like the invention of the PC and everything that that entailed. It took that until 1994.

before you started to see productivity growth as a consequence of the use of tax. So the chances, and again, they were small relative to what you would need in order to pay off this deficit, what you need from AI in order to pay off this deficit. So you can live in fantasy, or you can actually deal with reality, or even better. The reality is that government spending...

It's not just that it will retard economic growth. It's not just that it will increase interest rates. It's not just that at some point it will require inflation. It's not just that it is a massive burden we're placing on ourselves and our children and grandchildren to pay it all off. It's that this allows the government to do a million things

that the government should not be doing, that it's immoral for the government to do. This means that not that you're paying, you know, the government is taking money from you today, anywhere from, I don't know, 15%, you know, to 40 plus percent, the federal government, taking money from you to redistribute, to regulate business,

to pay off interest on the debt, to do a million different things, a million different things, really, that government shouldn't do. It's not their job to do. It's not what they are allowed to do based on our Constitution. Government is supposed to protect our individual rights. That would require a budget that's about 90% smaller. You literally cut $9 out of every $10.

And then you would get close to a government that's actually doing its job versus doing a bunch of stuff that is fundamentally harmful to your individual rights, like destroying health care with all this government subsidies, Medicare and Medicaid and controlling pharma prices and all of this, building big walls and hiring thousands of

You know, ICE operatives to go and violate your rights and, you know, militarized policing and just, you know, randomly pick up people in the street because their skin color is not just right or their family name sounds like they might be illegal. And you could go on and on and on, a drug war that doesn't actually prevent crime.

Any drug deaths probably increases them. Well, it certainly increases deaths. A prison system that is packed with people who, you know, have not committed any violent crime. You know, just on and on and on in terms of, and then not to mention, the tens of thousands of people employed by the government to control you, to regulate you.

to tell you what you can and cannot do, to intervene in your life. So put aside the bankruptcy, put aside the inflation, put aside the fact that taxes are going to have to go super high in the future to pay off all this nonsense. The rights violation that this budget represents is horrific, it's disgusting, it's immoral. And these are the Republicans who are supposed to be

responsible? They're supposed to care about the Constitution? They're supposed to want to shrink government? How many of them praised Doge and talked about Doge and everybody's excited about Doge and going to cut spending? Wasn't that exciting? And then what did we get? We had a spending bill that's just out of control. It's just out of control. And it's done nothing, nothing.

structurally, significantly to liberate any of you. It doesn't move you one inch towards more freedom. It does exactly the opposite. It moves you against freedom, away from freedom. Now, the one inch it moves towards freedom, you know, is in energy. It basically is ending subsidies to solar and wind. At least it will end by 2027, I think it is.

But that's good and that's great. The Senate was going to, the original version of the bill was not going to end these subsidies in time. So that's good and that's all because of Alex, Alex Epstein. He made this possible. He was literally day and night, I think, over the last couple of weeks,

going from senator to senator to senator to senator and people in the administration talking them into this. So that's great. Good for them. I don't think that compensates for all the horror that is in the rest of this bill. Now, granted, again, to cut spending, you have to make dramatic changes. To cut spending, you have to literally reform things. You have to change things, change priorities, change stuff, etc.

And that's exactly what Republicans refuse to do. It's exactly what Trump refuses to do. So Trump is turning out to be, just as I expected, a massive spender. And I think this is just the beginning. I think there's going to be a lot more spending down the road from this administration, not less, not less. What else did I want to say? Oh, yeah, and the taxes. God, cutting taxes when you're running massive deficits? Yes.

and when you're massively in debt is wrong. It's wrong because somebody has to pay. So you're just shifting the responsibility to pay for this to different groups. And by raising debt, by taking on debt in order to fund the stuff that you're not getting in from taxes, you're sucking money out of the private economy. You're still going.

moving it from potentially productive investments to government consumption, and you're shifting the tax burden or the inflationary burden into the future. And in the meantime, by doing all that, you're retarding the economy. You're making the economy worse. So you're destroying jobs. You're destroying wage levels. You know, you're making everything worse. So it's just...

And remember, this is a Republican bill. Imagine what the Democrats would pass. I still think, I still think, you know, and I say this all the time, but nobody takes me seriously, that the best combination of president and Congress is a Democratic president and a Republican Congress. Because when Republicans are in the opposition, they actually fight for reducing spending.

But Trump doesn't want to reduce spending. When Republicans are in the opposition, they actually propose reforming Medicaid, reforming Social Security, reforming Medicaid. But given that Trump's there, they're not doing that. They're cutting some for Medicaid, but it's not a huge amount. It's not going to make that much difference. They're putting in a work requirement for some people in Medicaid. That's good, but it's just insignificant in the big picture. And

Even what they're acquiring, we talked about this yesterday, I think, they're acquiring certain work that people work in order to get their Medicaid. Their requirements that they're putting in the bill are lower, less work than what, you know, Bill Clinton in his welfare reform that he passed in 1996 with the Republican Congress. And that bill had much, much, much stricter requirements.

work requirements in order to get welfare. So under that bill, people are required to work 30 hours a week for households with at least one working-age parent and 35 hours a week for households with two parents as a condition for receiving benefits under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Family Program. Today, inflation-adjusted federal welfare spending is 2.7 times inflation-adjusted

2.7 times what we spent in 1996. You could cut it by a third. You could cut welfare spending by a third and get back to what welfare spending was in 1996 before welfare reform went into place. Budget deficit today is nine times higher. The federal debt is four times higher. Why not cut welfare? Reduce welfare?

And while we're cutting subsidies to solar and wind, why not cut subsidies to everybody? This bill, by the way, dramatically expands farm subsidies. Huge payouts to farmers. Why? Farmers voted for Trump. They're getting a huge payday. And they take a hit with tariffs because everybody reciprocates by placing tariffs.

a tariff on American farm stuff. So the farmers get hit. So they need a farm bill that is significantly higher than it was in the past. If you take out Social Security and Medicaid, over 75% of all transfer payments, i.e. welfare, in the bottom, 40% of the income distribution, with 44% of the total going to the bottom 20%. So think about that. A lot of people, a lot of this money is not going to the poorest of the poor.

99% of middle-income households with working-age adults have at least one full-time worker. 96% of lower-middle-income households with a work-age adult have at least one worker. It's the bottom 20% of the income distribution that work falls off. Only 26% of households in this bottom quintile with a work-age adult have someone who actually works. Wow. I guess that explains why they're so poor.

Because if you don't work, there's no income, then you're in the bottom 20%. So why won't they cut? Why are Republicans not cutting welfare? Why are they not increasing work requirements? Why are they not making the work requirements more significant? Well, it's pretty straightforward because that's the new voter base. Republican voters now, particularly in a lot of swing districts, a lot of the new voters are voters that...

in the lower middle class to bottom 20%. And therefore, they don't want to alienate them. So it's all politics. Nobody cares about rights, the role of government, the Constitution. Nobody cares about the economy, what deficits do to the economy, what large debt does to the economy. Nobody cares about any of this. Any of this. All right, so...

You know, a lot of people voted for this but weren't very happy with it. But the only two Republicans voted against going forward. Now, it hasn't passed yet, but going forward. And the two Republicans were Rand Paul. And Rand Paul voted for it. He's the only one who voted for it on principle. He voted against it on principle. He voted against it because it raises the debt ceiling, because it increases deficits, because it increases government spending dramatically.

And he's the only one of an entire Senate. There used to be like five, six Republicans that you could count on not to vote for a budget that increased spending significantly. I mean, him, Cruz, Lee, what's his name from Wisconsin, Johnson from Wisconsin. They were like the free market guys. That's all gone. Completely gone because now they're all beholden to Trump. Now Tillis...

was the other senator, he's a Republican from North Carolina. He's the other senator that refused to vote for it, but he refused to vote for it because it cut too much Medicare, Medicaid, Medicaid. It cut too much, and he's afraid that in North Carolina he will lose votes and not be reelected. Trump then went after Tillis and said basically that Trump would fund people to primary Tillis.

And Trump would make sure that Tillis was not the nominee two years from now when he's up for reelection. Anyway, about a few hours after Trump made that threat this afternoon, Tillis basically announced that he's not going to run for another term in the Senate. He basically said that he's not going to seek reelection.

And that, you know, this is what he wrote. Quote, in Washington, over the last few years, it's become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species. So, you know, as a consequence, he's decided to not seek re-election and to leave the Senate.

He said it wasn't a hard choice given what's going on. He said, as many of my colleagues have noticed over the last year and at times even joked about, I haven't exactly been excited about running for another term. So he is leaving the Senate. Yeah.

I mean, Trump just lamb blasted him. He's a talker, a complainer, not a doer, da-da-dum. But that's it. I mean, you either follow Trump's line, you either get in line, or Trump is going to go after you, and Trump is going to ridicule you, and Trump will support somebody to prime you. The same thing is happening to Massey. I don't think Massey has announced that he's retiring yet.

But Massey, who voted against the same bill in the House, Trump is raising money for his – for the people who are going to run against him. You know, so it's become – it's exactly that. It's independent thinking, which is the key. The Republican Party has become a party where you either do what Trump says or you vote. And –

That's pretty horrific. That's pretty horrific. Gone is the ability to think of yourself for yourself. Gone is the ability to propose new things that are different than what the great supreme leader wants. All right, tariffs. A good op-ed. A good op-ed a couple of days ago, a few days ago, actually, in the Wall Street Journal.

by a couple of writers who are really taking on the tariff and trade issue kind of head on, which is really good. Phil Graham, who's the former senator from the state of Texas, was always, relatively speaking, a free market type, exactly the kind of person who could not win a Senate seat from Texas or anywhere else.

today because Donald Trump would be opposed to him. So Phil Graham and Don Boudreau. Don Boudreau is an economics professor at George Mason University who is excellent, excellent, excellent on trade. He's devoted much of his career to writing on trade, and he's very, very good at it. He's terrible on foreign policy. He doesn't like me because of my foreign policy. But on trade, the guy's really good.

Anyway, they've written here about the writing about the steel and aluminum tariffs. Now, what's interesting about the steel and aluminum tariffs is these tariffs are not the ones that Trump is being sued for, that these are not the ones that the plaintiffs are claiming are unconstitutional, because these are not based on

that law that doesn't mention tariffs that Trump is using for reciprocal tariffs. These are non-reciprocal tariffs. They're just 50% now on steel and aluminum tariffs, and they're done under different provision, which maybe Trump could be sued over, but right now I don't think has been, which is more of a national security threat, right? These are essential for national security or something like that, and therefore 50% tariffs are being imposed on it. But

You know, this is what—so this is what they write about these tariffs on steel and aluminum. Because steel and aluminum are crucial in manufacturing, anything close to a 50% tariff will drive up the cost of U.S.-manufactured products dramatically, the products of the U.S. manufacturers. That will harm consumers, make U.S.-manufactured products far less competitive on the world market,

and significantly increase the probability that tariffs will drag the economy into a recession. By making reciprocal trade agreements more difficult to negotiate, Mr. Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs will increase the probability of retaliation against American exports and an all-out trade war. So the idea is a lot of companies are going to say, yeah, we want a reciprocal trade deal, but that should include tariffs. And Trump is basically saying, no, it's not going to include tariffs.

with the possible exception of Mexico, where there seems to be some kind of partial waiver on these tariffs. Certainly, the Canadians are not going to get that waiver. They're gone to sea. But these tariffs will hurt more than the economy. They will harm national security by increasing the cost of two essential components of defense procurement, just as Congress is poised to increase military spending by $100 billion.

The defense industry is already struggling to replace ordnance and equipment sent to Ukraine, and replacing ordnance expended by Israel will add to that burden. While total imports, so think about this, how much of that requires steel? They go on. While total imports compose less than 14% of the U.S. economy, steel imports make up 25% of U.S. steel consumption.

The US imports roughly half of its aluminum consumption. The new 50% tariff will have negative economic effects far larger than the original 25% tariff in 2018. Those had carve-outs for Canada and Mexico, the largest suppliers of steel and aluminum to the US. Brazil and Korea were also exempt. The 2018 tariffs didn't cover derivative products that could be imported as substitutes for raw steel and aluminum. This one does.

This time around, prices of consumer goods such as lawnmowers at Walmart and producer goods such as robots in manufacturing plants will rise as tariffs are imposed on their steel and aluminum content.

So this is going to raise prices. It's going to reduce jobs. Here's what they write. Unsurprisingly, while employment in steel and aluminum production grew by a piddling 2,300 jobs in 2018-2019, employment in manufacturing—this is the 25% tariffs that were only partially implemented back then—employment in manufacturing industries using steel and aluminum in their production—

fell by an estimated 75,000 jobs. The job losses from the new tariffs will be many times greater. The tax on the steel and aluminum content of all imports will affect almost every U.S. trading partner, making it harder to reach reciprocal agreements.

This is their final paragraph. Deliverance from the 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum could come from the court action finding that Congress doesn't have the authority to delegate its constitutionally prescribed powers to lay and collect taxes, duties imposed, and exercises. That's a different lawsuit, not the lawsuit that says this law doesn't cover tariffs.

It could come from extraordinary bipartisan action by Congress to take back its tariff-setting powers and void the Trump levies. You think Congress would do that? Or Mr. Trump might find the political dexterity to escape this protectionist trap he has set for himself and the economy. But the most likely outcome, they write, is a recession. Yeah, pretty sad.

Let's see. By the way, Graham and Boudreaux are authors of a book called The Triumph of Economic Freedom, Debunking the Seven Great Myths of American Capitalism. Sounds like a good book. You should probably buy that.

All right. I probably have already bought it, would be my guess. Oh, no, it's only on hardback. It's coming out. Oh, July 5th, soon. So it's coming out. I think once it comes out, it'll be on Kindle as well. So it's coming out July 8th. So in a few days. So there you go. Craziness on the tariff side. And again, as July 9th approaches, which is when Trump decides on reciprocal tariffs,

We could be having a bunch more craziness as a result of whatever he decides to do at that point. All right, quickly on pharma. So you remember the piece, you remember the executive order that Trump signed that basically requires pharmaceutical companies to sell drugs to Medicare in the United States, the largest buyer of drugs in the U.S., at $1,000?

The lowest global price, at the lowest global price, right? And that's going to go into effect here. I mean, as we talked about it at that time, this is going to destroy R&D. It's going to destroy, you know, innovation. It's going to destroy investment in new drugs. It's going to make it impossible for drug companies to make money.

enough profits to justify the investment in these new drugs unless they stop selling drugs to a lot of very poor countries and therefore don't give discounts to anybody and force drug prices to be much higher everywhere else in the world and create competition from drug companies that overseas that

don't pay attention to IP, and it's just going to create a disaster. And one of the disasters that the Wall Street Journal points out, again, a good editorial in the Wall Street Journal by Richard Burr, is that one of the things that's going to happen is that another country's drug industry, which is already competing strongly with the United States,

is going to overtake us in terms of the design, the production, the testing, and the approval of new drugs. And that is China. Here's what the op-ed says. Meanwhile, China isn't catching up. It's surging ahead. In 2024, Chinese companies launched more clinical trials than U.S. firms. Analysts expect 37% of new licensed compounds this year will come from China.

Once known for copying Western drugs, Chinese companies are now developing their own, especially in areas like oncology and immunology. At the same time, European countries with price controls have seen an exodus of clinical trials and lost their leadership in drug development. So this could mean, he goes on, China could control which types of new pharmaceuticals are developed and who has access.

including targeting drug development for large populations that have financial benefits and leaving drugs that treat rare diseases out of the equation, which is likely what they will do. Currently, 68% of new drugs are approved first in the U.S. If China overtakes our leadership, we're in danger of losing this edge, leaving American patients to wait for China to decide when we can access new medicine. China politicizes everything, although...

We'll talk in a minute about maybe potentially some good news out of China. So, you know, here's what he ends the piece on. We face a choice.

Adopt Europe's failing price controls and bureaucratic health system while watching China gain ground, or stand up for American innovation. Hold our allies accountable, that is, that they need to pay more for their own drugs, and protect the free market engine that powers the next generation of medical breakthroughs. The Chinese are betting we'll choose poorly. Let's prove them wrong. So, again, a good...

You know, the Wall Street Journal has some good editorials. That is a good editorial pointing out more really, really, really bad policies coming out of the Trump administration. So it's just, you know, let's not get excited, too excited about dropping 14 bombs on Iran and then calling a ceasefire when all the economic policies and all the policies related to business are

really horrific, really disastrous. All right, billionaires. I just wanted to mention, you know, Mamdani, you know, I'll be talking a lot about Mamdani. We need to point out the evil of socialism over and over and over and over and over again. Well, Mamdani basically said in an interview in Meet the Press that billionaires shouldn't exist.

We shouldn't have billionaires. I mean, the only reason they should exist now is so we can take their money away from them. But billionaires shouldn't exist. And of course, the only way for billionaires not to exist is to tax steal their wealth from them. I'm sure Mamdani would be happy with a wealth tax. He can't do it while he's just mayor of New York. But, you know, he probably has bigger ambitions. This socialist...

The socialist probably wants more, and his success will invigorate, I think, the far-left portion of the Democratic Party. You know, he wants policies that will basically make billionaires disappear. He can't ban billionaires as mayor of New York City, but, you know, this guy is an enemy of civilization. He's already said he doesn't like capitalism. We know he's an enemy of capitalism, but as I will argue later,

At Ocon, in my talk, civilization is capitalism. Civilization is a place where there are billionaires. Civilization is a place where you can create as much wealth as you can, as you can create. No limits. That's civilized. And what he is promoting is ultimately barbarism. Yeah, all right. I'm not going to talk about that. All right, finally, some good news out of China. China.

I've seen a number of stories in the last few days, all with the same basic theme. And that theme is that Xi is in trouble and maybe on his way out, that there are serious forces within the Chinese Communist Party that are fed up with him and want to get rid of him. Now, there's a lot of stories at the same time about Chinese generals being ousted,

And one interpretation has been that this is Xi continuing to get people in line with his agenda. But this alternative interpretation is saying, no, no, no. What's happening is this is the other people who are trying to get rid of Xi eliminating his support base in the military. So you've got top Chinese general was ousted.

recently, and the Navy chief was ousted, a top nuclear scientist was ousted, and there really seems to be, you know, a rebellion. Now, maybe these people who are ousted are part of the rebellion, or maybe the ouster is the rebellion. It's getting rid of people who have... She's been in power for a long time. He's been in power for over 10 years. These are people he put in place to

And now whoever's trying to replace him is getting rid of them. The actual politics within the Politburo, within the governing entity of the Chinese Communist Party, are very complicated, very weird. It's not, you know, it's not, there's all these power centers. And Xi has seemed to, over the last few years, to solidify his grip on the party.

And yet now, you know, the New York Post had an opinion piece titled, Is Chinese President Xi Jinping on his way out? It starts, over the past few months, unprecedented developments point to the potential and potentially imminent fall of China's chairman, chairman of everything, Xi Jinping,

Chinese Communist Party elders, including Hu Jintao, Xi's immediate predecessor, whom Xi humiliated at the 20th Party Congress in 2022, are now running things behind the scenes. Xi is in poor health and likely to retire at the CCP plenary session this August or take a purely ceremonial position.

Xi's downfall has been rumored before, but never have we seen the recent purges, mysterious deaths, of dozens of People's Liberation Army generals loyal to Xi and replaced by non-Xi loyalists. So, supposedly, Zhang Yu-Xi, whom Xi had a major falling out after helping Xi secure an unprecedented third five-year term,

is now the de facto leader of the PLA. Now, again, I don't know if any of this is accurate. Anyway, this is going on. There was another story that I saw. Is Xi Jinping in political trouble? This one is out of, it's not even in the US, this is out of, I think, India. I think that's right.

And, you know, it says the two-week absence of President Xi Jinping from public view has sparked speculation, including concerns about possible power struggle, social unrest, and his health. You know, the Chinese Communist Party did not hold its monthly Politburo meeting in May, and no official announcement about it was made. This sparked strong rumors about Xi's eroding power, internal rivalry, and growing dissent.

You know, he's also... It was just announced that she is not going to the BRIC summit in Rio de Janeiro. He's missing out. Rio de Janeiro is really, really beautiful. But he's not going. They told the Brazilians he's not coming. And so she seems to be in the outs. And part of that is age and health, supposedly. But I think much more than that is...

The economy, we'll get to that in a second. Again, interviewing some intellectuals in China, quote, he will step down as General Secretary of the CCP and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, retaining only the ceremonial title China's Chairman before fully retiring at the 21st National Congress. So this will be super good news.

Super interesting, super good. It is interesting in the sense that I really, I think the main reason for this is economic. The Chinese economy is really struggling. Real estate market has collapsed. There is a major banking crisis because of the real estate. China has 17% youth unemployment. And now prices are declining.

Exports are declining, partially because of the trade war. But real estate is imploding. That's the main driver. One in six can't find work. Consumers are not spending. Chinese 10-year bond yield is 1.64. America's is 4.26. So, you know, it's suggesting kind of, you know, it's suggesting deflationary pressures in the sense of

Prices coming down because demand is shrinking and supply is exploding, maybe. You know how to tell exactly what's going on there. We don't have certainly don't have monetary numbers on China that we can trust. China's exports to the U.S. are dropping significantly. And, you know, Europe is cutting back on buying from China.

And the hope was Chinese consumers will pick up the slack. But the reality is that Chinese consumers are not picking up the slack. So China's in trouble. And it does indeed look like if they replace Xi, there's a good likelihood that they will replace him with somebody who's much more sympathetic to markets.

So the guy who was the president before Xi was much better. And I think there's been a significant number of people within the Chinese ruling party who

don't like Xi's attack on markets, don't like Xi's move away from market liberalization, which was common in China since the early 1980s and resulted in Chinese massive success. Indeed, what Xi did after the financial crisis, orienting the Chinese economy towards a real estate bubble,

And real estate consumption rather than broad-based consumption or rather than just leaving it to the market is, you know, it's been a disaster. His shutting down of tech. You remember Jack Ma disappearing for a while, regulating tech.

uh and uh discouraging entrepreneurship if you've seen a graph of chinese tech entrepreneurship it's basically gone like that that is the government discouraging it over the last year or so they've tried to revive that they've tried to say oh no no we want entrepreneurship we want more tech but the policies have dictated a complete collapse uh in that uh in that whole uh

In their market. In the market and much more central planning, government control, which is, as we know, a losing strategy. So there's a good chance, I think, that Xi is out. And if Xi is out, China could return to a path of moving towards liberalization economically. And I still believe that a path that moves China towards greater economic liberalization will ultimately result in China...

moving towards political liberalization. And, you know, that would be amazing. I mean, if we could end this stupid Cold War II before it gets too cold or too hot or whatever you want to call it, China ultimately can unite with Taiwan under, you know, a political freedom, political free system. That would be amazing. I mean, that would completely change the dynamics of where the world is heading.

You know, it might be true still that the United States is heading towards a catastrophe, but at least other parts of the world would be heading in a good direction. And maybe the rest of the world could emulate a country like China liberalizing. It still has to happen, though. Right. It's there's no guarantee that it will happen. But I am now hopeful that Xi will be gone.

and we will get an opportunity for somebody much, much better to come in his place and move China in a significantly, dramatically better direction. That is, anyway, that's my hope. And I'm going to be following that story, and I'll keep you updated. One quick China thing. This is just, I saw this, and I thought I had to mention this. Okay, so this is Trump on China.

Maria Bartolomo is interviewing him, and she says about China, she says, they hack our telecom systems. They've been stealing intellectual property, fentanyl, COVID, all of this stuff. And Trump says, you don't think we do that to them? You don't think we do that to them? Bartolomo says, so that's the way the world works? And Trump said, that's the way the world works. It's a nasty world.

This is the great American president that you guys love so much. Basically model equivalency between us and China. They steal IP, we steal IP. They hack, we hack. You know, they do bad stuff, fentanyl, COVID stuff. We do bad stuff, other stuff, maybe not exactly the same thing. It's all the same, all to justify. This is in the context of...

He keeps praising Xi and has this wonderful relationship with Xi and thinks China is amazing. But this is so pathetic. It reminds me, in 2016, when he was running for president, he was asked about the fact that Putin killed journalists, had journalists murdered. And Donald Trump said, you think we don't kill people? We also kill people. This is your guy.

This is a guy who claims America first, but knows nothing about America. Cannot tell the difference between America and China, America and Iran for that matter, America and Russia. It's all the same to him. Their countries were countries. He liked the NATO summit because the people there all love their countries. It's all about nationalism, stupid love of country that is motivated. Not about ideas, not about what kind of country, what about where we're heading towards. No.

It's just about love of country. It's crazy. You know, we're just like the Chinese. There's no difference. Just like the Chinese. All right. All right, guys, that is the news for June 29th. It's a Sunday. I hope everybody's had a fantastic weekend.

Fantastic weekend, but no trading going on here. This is all one way or very little trading. There's some trading. There's some super chats. Not many. You know, we'll run through these and we'll call it a night. But you still have an opportunity to support the show with a sticker. We had a few stickers, like a Tony and let's see, a sticker of any amount just to show your appreciation. Team1275, Eremias.

I'm probably mispronouncing that terribly. Sorry. I know Jonathan Honing did a sticker. I saw that earlier. And let's see who else am I missing. There's Jonathan Honing doing two stickers. Donna. And I think we... Oh, yeah. And I think we're good. So, yeah. Do a sticker. We've got 173 people watching here. Another 200 on Twitter. Come on over.

Just that dollar sign at the bottom there, you click on that and you can do a sticker for a couple of bucks or something. You can ask a question. If you can ask a question for $20 or $50, that'll get us a goal a lot faster. We're about $100 short of our first hour goal. But that would be great if you could all engage with trade, win-win with me.

All right. What did I want to? Yes, I want to remind you three. We now have three sponsors of the show. We have Henderson Wealth Management, Henderson Wealth Management. What would we really the there's a particular product that I'm really excited about that I want you to learn more about. And you can do so by going to YouTube.

and listening to this interview that I did with my former business partner, Robert Hendershot. And I'm putting the link in the chat, but it is also in the description below in the video. You can go watch the video. It's an interview, but it's basically a way for you to completely legally and with very low risk, basically through an investment strategy approach,

reduce to almost eliminate your capital gains taxes, or at least defer them way into the future so that it's not really going to have a big impact. Because if you defer tax into the future, the advantages that you get that money that you would have paid in taxes to the government, you get that money invested. And therefore, you get the advantage of compound interest applied

to the money that would have gone to the government is now applying to you and you get to accumulate that and has a huge impact on how much wealth you can accumulate over the years and how much impact you can accumulate into retirement. So anyway, if you have a lot of capital gains and here we're talking about, we're looking, this is a product that's good for people who have, you know, seven figure capital gains. So a million dollars or above. And, you know, or if you plan to have

Large capital gains, that is, you're going to sell a business in the near future or so on. This is a phenomenal product for you, and I'm putting my stamp of approval on it both as a finance professor, as a finance guy, and as

as a former partner of Hendershot and his wife really runs the business. They're good people. So trustworthy, good people. So I'm putting my stamp both on the product and on the people pitching it and engaging with you. So if you're interested, check out the video. And if you if sounds interesting, it won't convince you won't.

because you have to think about your own particular case, then contact TenderShot. There'll be a website you can go to. And when you go to that website, contact them and get a pop-up presentation from them, a one-on-one pop-up presentation that will describe the product exactly as it applies to your situation and give you a sense of how much money you could save.

All right, second sponsor, as I mentioned, Alex Epstein, doing phenomenal work right now in Washington, taking at least something out of this bill that will be positive. A lot of it is garbage. A lot of it is bad. But the one positive thing in this bill is going to be the elimination, mostly, significant reduction in subsidies to solar and wind.

And, of course, Alex is advocating for eliminating all subsidies to all industries. He's not going to get that. But whatever he can get, good for him. You can follow his work. You can support his work. And you can get educated by Alex about what is going on in Washington, what is going on generally in the field of energy, electricity, fossil fuels, energy.

You know, solar, wind, nuclear, all this stuff. By subscribing to is Substack. I accept Stein. Substack.com. And then finally, the Institute is a sponsor of the show. The Institute right now is selling virtual passes for Ocon. You can watch Ocon from the comfort of your home. You can watch all the talks online.

And there'll even be, you know, you'll be in a Zoom room with a bunch of people. You can socialize a little bit. It's going to be a lot of fun. And I would definitely sign up to do so. You go to einran.org slash start here. einran.org slash start here. And to get a 10% discount, put in 25 YBS 10. And you're getting that discount because you are a listener to Iran Book Show.

All right, do that. Don't forget, because it starts. My talk is Tuesday night. You want to be ready for my talk on Tuesday night. You don't want to miss it. So sign up. Sign up for it. It's a phenomenal talk. Ankar's got a good talk. Greg Salamieri's got a good talk. Jason Rines. And then you've got a bunch of some of our younger intellectuals are giving talks. And it's just going to be an incredibly stimulating, exciting, fun talk.

event and why miss it because you can't be there live when you can and by the way you don't have to watch them live you can watch them at the end of the day right you can watch them a week later they usually give you like a month or so to watch all of them so you can watch all of them

by video. So that is great. Adam, thank you for the sticker. I'm going to see Adam at Ocon. He's coming. I'm excited. I'm going to see him in person. I've only seen him in video. Will, thank you for the sticker. I need to figure out how to change this. It doesn't just give you a handle. It gives you a name. And I don't know how to change that. Somebody pointed out that it's changed recently. But Tim Baskid,

Thank you for the sticker. And then Avila's excited for the virtual Ocon. Excellent. I'm glad you signed up. Thank you for signing up. All right. Let's see. So one more reminder. If you want to support the show and you're not here to do it live, like most of you out there or listening in on a podcast or listening online,

on YouTube after the fact, you can support the show by going to Patreon, patreon.com, and then typing in your own book show and then becoming a monthly supporter of the show. It's brilliant. It's the best way to support the show because that way it's predictable money coming in every month. You can do that at $5 a month, $10 a month, $2 a month, or $500 or $1,000 a month, depending on how much value you get from the show and how much money you have.

So that will determine it. So, yeah, so please sign up on Patreon. It's incredibly valuable to the Iran Book Show so we can plan, so we know what's coming, so we know what is funding this. Tim Beskid is going to be there too. Excellent. Because she signed up for a virtual pass as well. Excellent. You guys should too.

Nicholas, thank you for this sticker. Really appreciate that. All right. We're just 50 bucks basically short of our first hour goal. Let's at least make the first hour, even though we're well into the second hour. Let's at least make the first hour goal. I think we exceeded our goals by so well in the first part of the month that you guys are slacking off a little bit. I see that. I see that.

All right, let's see. Those of you on Twitter, you can go to Patreon and become a supporter through Patreon. That's a great way for you to do it. Same thing with those of you on Facebook. Not a lot of people on Facebook, but a lot of people on Twitter. All right, let's go to your Super Chat questions. You can still ask questions, by the way. Still feel free to ask questions, particularly, again, if they're $20. Two and a half $20 questions, two $20 questions, one $10 question gets us to the first hour goal.

Andrew, Candace Owen has revealed that several rabbis are in a crypto ring, which purpose is to suppress her podcast. You don't like to play psychologist, but then the conspiracy theories get to that level. Are we witnessing psychosis? Look, all conspiracy theories, you know, do this, right? I mean, QAnon started with

There's a pizza joint in Washington, D.C., where a ring of pedophiles that involves the most senior people in the Democratic Party and in the administrative state all coordinate through this pizza place the abuse of children.

Or all kind of mystical, weird things. So, I mean, there's only one direction this goes. It gets weirder and weirder and stupider and stupider and crazier and crazier. I mean, remember when Tucker Carlson was attacked by, what was it, by...

It wasn't spirits, it was something like that, by spirits in the middle of the night, and he actually had scratch marks on himself that it wasn't the dog who slept next to him caused, it was these demons. It wasn't spirits, it was demons. Remember when Tucker Carlson was literally, with a straight face, told his audience that he had been attacked by demons? Nuclear energy was not invented by mankind. Nobody can identify who exactly invented nuclear energy.

So it was by demons? I mean, these people are nuts. And look, irrationality taken to the kind of extremes that we're talking about, taking the kind of conspiracy theory detachment from reality are going to generate bizarre, ridiculous, insane, stupid stuff that

And Candace is just manifesting that. And there's nothing new here. Right. I mean, this is the protocol of protocols of Zion and everything. And by the way, it's it's it's going to be it's going to lead to paranoia. So this is my psychology bit. It's going to lead to paranoia because everybody thinks she's crazy. Everybody thinks these conspiracy theories are weird.

And she's like, you know, they're all against me. They're all trying to stop me. Who's behind it? It must be the Jews. The Jews are behind it. And it's not just any Jews. It's those rabbi Jews, those rabbis. It's very insane. I mean, but yeah, that's what irrationality, irrationality spirals into insanity if you constantly, remember she's also insane.

Every day commenting, she has to say something new every day. She has to, in a sense, keep her audience interested. She has to push the envelope every day. If it's like the conspiracy theory is done, if we've achieved peak conspiracy theory, nobody's going to continue watching her. It's like...

they say about, I don't know, porn, it has to get, you know, rougher and it has to be more and more and more. You get used to a certain level. The same with all the, you know, the conspiracy theories. They have to get crazier and crazier and crazier. Otherwise, you don't get the same whatever satisfaction from the existing conspiracy theory if it's just at the same level. It has to get nuttier to actually get...

you know, get more engagement. So the fact that she's online constantly, all the time, forces her to go crazier and crazier into the, you know, more insane stuff. All right. Jason, ideally, should the power of pardon rest with the judiciary, perhaps a panel of Supreme Court justices?

Is there an objective reason the executive branch might regulate the judiciary rising to the level of granting pardons? You know, I don't think the judiciary should be in that position. No, I mean, I think the executive should do it, but it needs to be, it needs to be delimited. There have to be constraints on who you can pardon, what you can pardon, under what conditions you can pardon. It shouldn't be just an open check.

The days where we could trust our presidents to do the right thing are gone. And it's become completely politicized, completely, you know, horrific. And maybe, you know, the president can propose pardons to a committee and that committee has to make the final decision based on certain parameters that are specified by law. Maybe something like that. I don't know. But I wouldn't want to just put judges aside.

in that position, I think it's not a healthy position for them to be in. Andrew, Rand stated that other people don't have power over you, but even in an exchange society, don't we depend on other acquiescence in order to survive? Thus, others have power over us. How am I missing the essential point? The essential point is, what does power mean? You know, you need to be able to trade with other people.

You need to be able to engage in exchange with other people. And even that, you don't have to. You can become a subsistence farmer and still survive. But, you know, in a society, other people don't have power over you. Apple doesn't have power over me because they sell me an iPhone. We have a voluntary agreement or not, and I can move somewhere else. I can go buy a Samsung. Or I cannot have an iPhone.

So it's not power. Power is associated with force. Now, there is such a thing as economic power, but economic power is not over somebody. It's the power accumulated, because I have a lot of money, by engaging in voluntary transactions. So Amazon doesn't have power over me. I use Amazon. They can stop dealing with me. I can stop dealing with them.

But that is just, you know, a voluntary exchange has to be voluntary. Power is where you have to do what they say. You have to do what they tell you. You have to buy from Amazon. You don't have a choice. And that's just not true. In a free market, people don't have power over you. In a market that allows for force and coercion, they can have it. But she's talking about other people don't have power over you.

She's also talking about epistemologically. They can't make you think. Your thinking is yours. And in free society, they can't make you act. MPE Creates, supporting the show with money for my new job promotion. Congratulations. I'm an operations manager in a manufacturing and business across the industry is slow right now. Well, that's great to get a promotion.

While business is slow is good news because it suggests that the business particularly values you because during periods of slow business, it's much more likely for a business to lay people off than to give promotions. So good for you, MP Creates. I mean, congratulations. Thank you for the support. And yeah, business is slow.

in manufacturing right now because Trump has created a very hostile environment for business. I mean, this was supposed to be the pro-business president, and he is creating a very hostile environment. You know, it's interesting that the stock market is going up as much as it is. Again, it's primarily the big tech companies, but to some extent, it's wider than that. And it's going to be interesting to see

If this all makes sense, if it's justified, if this is rational or not, given that I'm hearing a lot of business is slow. Let's see.

Like numbers. Sorry I misheard the valiant said about since he said that since Kira filed her suit that LP had been in contact with you and others at ARI, but that it was by email. He still used as an example of LP non-isolation. As I said, you know, it's been a long time since I've been in contact with Leonard Picoff.

email or otherwise. Sadly, it's very sad and not because of me and not because I don't want to be in contact. But anyway, and it's not to do with anything about political disagreements, you know, nothing like that. We've, you know, those we've hashed out a long time ago. All right, Brownie, how can there be a regime change in Iran without boots on the ground? Wouldn't there need to be a coordinated effort against the Iranian government military?

No, I mean, if you destroy the leadership, if you make clear to the leadership that they're going to die, if you attack from the air, the military barracks and the military headquarters of the Revolutionary Guard and take out as many of the brutal police who repress, you ultimately create instability within the regime. And yes, ultimately...

The people of Iran are going to have to rise up. But the point is, you make the conditions as favorable as possible for that to happen. You can't actually cause the regime change. That has to happen by the Iranians, by somebody in Iran. But you make it as easy as possible for them to do it.

By the way, I'm not calling anybody a liar. People can forget. They can be mistaken. I'm saying it's not true. That doesn't mean the other person is a liar. You've got to be able to differentiate between that. If I say what you're saying is not true, it doesn't mean I'm saying you're a liar. You could be wrong. You could be mistaken. You could have lapse of memory. There are a lot of possibilities. So I'm not calling anybody a liar.

Right now, I might at some point, but right now I'm not calling anybody a liar. Andrew, I look forward to the day of going to the resort hotel on the moon. Do you think the moon will be used for commercial development or would that take too much rational egoism? Yeah, I think it will. You know, how much...

You know how quickly it will happen, when it will happen, by whom, I don't know. But at some point, yeah, at some point that will happen. But I don't know when. I don't expect that I will ever have that opportunity. I'm not sure I want particularly to go to a resort on the moon. But I understand why most of you would want. And if I was younger, I probably would want to do it. It's not going to happen. I don't know that it's going to happen in my lifetime, but maybe in yours. Fit with...

I don't get to come to Ocon due to holding an Iranian passport. Ugh, disgusting xenophobia and blind discrimination. Can't wait to get my German citizenship. I am really sorry. That is really horrible. It's disgusting what the American immigration system has become. It's been a disgusting system for a long, long time. But it's become a real embarrassment. Become a real embarrassment.

So sorry. And I guess I'll see you in Germany. I'm probably going to be there later this year. Oh, Troy just came in with 500 Australian dollars to finish off June with a bang. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Troy. Really appreciate it. Yes, this does finish off June with a bang. There's no show tomorrow. So this is the last show in June.

Thank you. And it might be a last show for a week. I'm not sure exactly what's going to happen next week at Ocon, whether I'll be able to do shows. I will try, but we will see. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Really appreciate that. Nate says, how much dollar is Marvel to donate? Only you can make that determination. How much value do you get to the show related to how much wealth you have?

If you get a lot of value and you're really rich, then a lot. If you get a lot of value and you don't have a lot of money, then a little. If you get no value in the show, why are you here? Why are you doing something that's not of value to you? All right. Thank you again, Troy. I really, really appreciate it. Are medical cuts significant or just Medicaid cuts significant, just tinkering? I mean, in the big picture, they're just tinkering. It's a few billion dollars.

I can't remember the total number. Maybe it's some tens of billions of dollars. But whatever they're cutting in Medicaid, they're increasing spending other places like the farm bill, for example, like farm subsidies. So it's overall not significant. It's claimed that about 11 million people will lose their insurance because of this.

Again, most of those people will lose it because they'll need to work, which I think is a good thing. So, you know, maybe they should lose their insurance as a consequence. Not your average algorithm. Why is pride comes before the fall an evil saying? Because pride is a virtue, not a vice. Pride does not lead to the fall if you understand what pride really is. Pride, according to Aristotle, was the kind of queen of the virtues, the

The summation of it all, taking your life seriously, that's what pride is. Ayn Rand, you know, striving for moral perfection, taking morality seriously, that is what pride is. And how can that—how does that lead to a fall? How does that generate a fall? So, yeah. Whoops. Let's see.

This seems to be the only transactional relationship in which I'm expected to pay more the more money I have. Well, that's not true. I mean, if you donate to any kind of charity or you donate to any kind of nonprofit, might not be a charity, the donations have a direct correlation with the amount of wealth people have. You know, the amount of money you spend on automobile,

is not always, but typically related to how much money you have. Yes, there is a difference between a Bentley and a Toyota Corolla. But, you know, in terms of transportation, it's not that big of a difference. It's not that big of a difference, right? It is a trade. I'm just saying you determine how much the trade is worth to you. I'm not determining how much the trade is worth to you. You got to determine how much the trade is worth to you.

That's this kind of a trade, right? This is the kind of trade that we're engaged in. We're engaged in a trade where you could free ride, you could pay nothing because I'm giving it away, but I am asking for you to contribute something to express the value it represents for you. You have to decide what that number is. I can't decide for you. And I'm not judging you based on how much that money is. It's completely your choice.

And a lot of you free write and that a lot of you listen for free and don't participate. That's fine. But you have to decide, is it a value? And do you want to reciprocate? So there are kinds of trades in the world, right? You buy a book, you know, the price of the book, it's right there. But you listen to you, you read a sub stack and they're saying, look, you know, if you want to contribute something. Now, I could put all of this behind a firewall and

and only make it available to those who actually pay something to get behind the firewall. I've decided not to do that, right? I could do that. And then that would set a price. I'm saying, you know, you do whatever you want to do. And if you want to just listen for free, just listen for free.

There also are perks associated with higher contribution levels, not so much in the super chat, but I'm patriotic because I can't keep track. But, you know, somebody like Troy, I will make an effort, and I tried when I was in Brisbane, when I'm in the area to go see him.

and sit down, have lunch or have dinner or hang out, right? Because he's such a good supporter. That is an additional perk you get for this. You know, if you contribute on Patreon and you do, you know, $250 a month, then I will Zoom with you for half an hour once every, what is it, three months. If you do $500, I'll Zoom with you for half an hour every month, right?

You know, if you give more than that, then it's negotiable. What kind of book? I'm willing, you know, I'm willing to have dinner with you periodically. So there's a bunch of different, there's a bunch of different things. Is listening to the show not and not reciprocating the equivalent of pirating your book? No, because I'm offering it for free. It's available for free. So I haven't made wares with the book. I've said, don't copy it.

And I haven't said it on the podcast. Don't listen unless you're willing to pay. I haven't said that. So it's not. The contract between us does not require you to pay. With a book, the contract between us requires you not to pirate it. So it's a different contract. Anyway, I'm going to ignore your questions now and go back to Super Chat. You could have asked all those at Super Chats, and that way you could have supported the show. The Doodle Bunny podcast.

The only disability in life is a bad attitude. Well, I don't know. Some people have a real disability where it really hampers their ability to do things, but certainly a bad attitude is one more disability. Don't diminish the fact that people have physical disabilities that really do affect them. That doodle bunny, what does Peterson pay to teach a class for him? Why would I tell you that?

Sorry, I don't necessarily tell people what I've negotiated contractually to teach a class or to lecture or to anything like that. You want to hire me to teach a class? We can discuss how much I'll charge. That dude, O'Bunny, could you retire today if you had to? It just wouldn't be worth it. Yes, if I had to, I could. I had to cut back.

A little bit on my expenses, but yes. Would have to cut back on my expenses. Brian, encouraged by Xi news, but I hate that Trump might take credit. That's true. That is true. Otherwise, all the concerns of Trump's unopposed authoritarianism are coming true, and I'm discouraged about the future of the U.S. Does hope lie elsewhere? Well, you know, I'm also discouraged about the U.S., but the hope lies in the future.

It lies in a post-Trump world. Trump is going to fail magnificently, I think. And then there'll be a real, you know, a moment where America will have to decide, what does that mean? What is the next path? This path has been a failure. What is next? And I hope there's enough American spirit left to be able to get to that point and to make a decent decision as a consequence.

But yeah, I agree with you. I hate that Trump is going to take the credit if Xi leaves. Although it seems like Trump likes Xi, so he might be depressed by it. He might view this as very negative news. And the fact that the system deposed Xi might shatter Trump's illusion about how wonderful it is to be a dictator.

Andrew, don't you think it's a serious mistake for the attacks on Iran to be predicated solely based on their getting a nuclear bomb? Yes, you know, I was for attacking Iran well before it was about a nuclear bomb. But I'll take whatever I can get, right? In the world in which we have right now, this is the only thing that seems to be willing to convince the Israel and the United States to act. So I'll take it. Michael, has Alex Epstein...

being able to have as much influence on the Senate as he does in the House, will we see significant deregulation from this bill? No, there's no deregulation, but there will be a— because it's not a regulatory bill, it's a budget bill. There will be—he basically managed to get the Senate to accept the House. So, yes, he's had success. The Senate didn't want to accept the House's interpretation, but—

And they have now so far still be amendments. So they haven't voted on it yet. But so far, Alex has really shifted the Senate in a and as far as I can tell, he did it. You know, I'm sure there are other people working on this, but he did. He got, I think, Trump to help that other people in the administration to help. But ultimately, they got it done. Lone dissident president.

People to have back on soon. Javier Bensuanga, Ilan Jono, Ben Behr, Scott McDonald, Gina Golan, Alex Epstein, Nikos, Keith Lockett, thanks. The next few interviews I'm doing are all non-objectivists. So the week after O'Connor, it'll be Scott Lincecum. The week after that, it will be Norbert something who's really good on policy stuff, finance particularly.

And the third is going to be George Solzhen the week after that, who's great on, you know, money banking. And he's got a new book out, which I have on my Kindle, on the Great Depression. And we're going to be talking to him about the Great Depression, the causes of the Great Depression. So the next three are going to be non-objectivist. Then I'm going to Europe for two months, and there won't be any interviews. When I get back, October, November, December, I'm

I'll have people like Harry, Elon, Ben, all of those people we'll be back on. Neo, I want America to be the best forever. Well, I don't care about it being the best. I just want it to be good. Actually, I want it to be great forever. Will, hey, now let's not degrade pornography by comparing it with Owen's madness. At least something of value can be found in some porn.

Some porn of some value. I'll acknowledge that. Most of it is worse than crap. Lone Dissenter. How often do you go back and read Ayn Rand? I've reread everything countless times, but I'm aware how often something I'm tied in knots about

It was there the whole time. Yeah, I mean, not enough. I'm way too busy, and I'm trying to read more stuff because I'm trying to do new stuff, but not enough. I try to read something of Ayn Rand's, I don't know, every month or every couple of weeks, but I need to do more of that. I need to do more of that. I haven't read Atlas Shrugged in a long time. I haven't read The Found Head in a long time. I'd like to just take some time and do that. Maybe after this Peterson course, I'll...

I'll listen to Atlas Shrugged. I've never done that. I've never done an audio book. Maybe I'll do that. That could be fun. Andrew.

Good news on Yimby Fund. Berkeley, California has legalized duplexes, fourplexes in small apartments citywide. Yeah, there's a lot of that going on in California. And, well, California is where the biggest crunch in terms of housing is. And there's a lot of that going on. And it's good. And I hope there'll be a lot more. Of course, that's not, you know, legalizing housing.

duplexes, fourplexes. It's not enough, but it's a start and it will ultimately reduce rents and reduce prices. We just need a lot more deregulation of land use so we can build, build, build, build. What happened to that new city in Northern California across the bay from San Francisco? I haven't read anything about that in a year, I think. They're going to build a whole new city on private land,

Tim Biskid, I think it's admirable that you, Yuran, are motivated to make a positive difference. Gail, thank you, Gail. Yes, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. But yes, that's ultimately what motivates me. There are other things I could be doing that I think could make a lot more money than this, but this is fun. And this makes a difference. And this, I hope, in a small way, changes the world and changes some of your lives as

And that is definitely a motivation. I love doing it. I'm a teacher at heart, and that is not altruistic. There's nothing altruistic about it. Rafael, I know it's difficult, but it would be amazing if you could answer Super Chats on the fly when they're related to the topic you're discussing. It would increase engagement and dollar amounts. I mean, I can try. It means I really need to follow along and be able to read them as they're happening.

But I will try to do that. I've thought of that as well, that it would add spice. So definitely on the list of things to get done. All right, guys. Thank you. Thank you, Troy. That was amazing. Thank you to the rest of you. All the super chatters were great. All the stickers were amazing. You guys are incredibly supportive. I thank this month.

This month we did very well. So thank you. I don't know exactly what's going to happen this coming week. I will kind of let you know. Well, I won't let you know. I'll try to do a show, a couple of shows, maybe more than a couple. We'll see. But I'm busy. They've got me. I'm attending the sessions. They've got me doing coffees and breakfasts and dinners and with people and

and the galas and other events. And then I have to play poker. It's my duty, I think, to play poker with some of you guys and give you an opportunity to beat me. And I know some of you have not been doing Super Chats, I've noticed, because you're saving up. You're saving up so you can buy more chips and beat me. But I'm ready for you guys. I'm ready for you in poker. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, let's go at it. All right. Lone Descentus says, avoid the Scott Brick narration of Atlas. It's horrendous. Listen to the Christopher Hurt one. All right. Thank you. I'm going to copy paste that because I need to remember that. That is important. I would hate a horrific one. Whoops. No, that's not what I want. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Lone Dissenter. And thank you, guys. And I will see you, I guess, when I see you. Some of you, some of you, I will see at Ocon. And please, those of you I don't know, I've never met in person, don't be shy. Shyness gets you nowhere in life. And I'm a nice guy. You know, I think. So just come and introduce yourself. Say hello. Feel free.

whenever wherever you know if i'm talking intently with somebody you know don't butt in but generally just be social be social all right i will see you guys either okan or the next show bye everybody have