Sam:
[0:01]
| Hello, Mr. Bo.
|
Ivan:
[0:02]
| Hello.
|
Sam:
[0:04]
| How you doing?
|
Ivan:
[0:05]
| Good.
|
Sam:
[0:07]
| You ready to jump in?
|
Ivan:
[0:10]
| Jumping. I'm jumping, baby.
|
Sam:
[0:13]
| Should we just start?
|
Ivan:
[0:14]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[0:15]
| Okay. Do you have the list up in front of you, or are you just going to rely on me reading?
|
Ivan:
[0:19]
| No, no, no. I have it right here in front of me. Jeez.
|
Sam:
[0:24]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[0:25]
| Not that lazy.
|
Sam:
[0:29]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[0:30]
| I'm not lazy at all. I've been working my ass off.
|
Sam:
[0:34]
| I thought you took the week off.
|
Ivan:
[0:36]
| Actually, yeah, I took the week off. You know, I've had to work a little bit.
|
Sam:
[0:42]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[0:43]
| Not a lot, not a lot, but I've had to deal with stuff.
I've had to deal with like, hey, that customer in the contract that they sent this week, hey, the PO doesn't match the signed contract.
I'm like, oh, fuck. Oh, damn it.
Stuff like that, you know? Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:05]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:06]
| Hey, the document you said, you said it was signed. The signature space is blank. I'm like, gosh.
|
Sam:
[1:14]
| Gotcha.
|
Ivan:
[1:16]
| I've been dealing with that kind of stuff for the most part.
|
Sam:
[1:18]
| Okay. You can hear me fine, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:20]
| I can hear you perfectly fine. Yes. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:23]
| Let's begin.
|
Ivan:
[1:26]
| Begin. Begin.
|
Sam:
[1:46]
| Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, December 30th, 2023.
It is 3.36 UTC as we're starting to record. I'm Sam Minter and Yvonne Boe is here. Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[2:00]
| Hello.
|
Sam:
[2:02]
| As most of you know, since this is the last show of 2023, this is our traditional annual prediction show.
so we will be predicting things that will happen in the year 2024 in the future in the year 2000, yes yeah in the yeah i can you sing in the year 2000 where's my flashlight in the year 2000, anyway so the way this works is all of these predictions are time limited to 2024 proper So we're not going to make any predictions about the generic future or things that will happen two or three years from now.
We will confer here a year and a week from now, and anything we predict, we need to be able to know definitively, is it true or false?
Did we get it right or not?
|
Ivan:
[3:01]
| Um, that's usually our goal. Yes.
|
Sam:
[3:04]
| So that also means like things are off limits, like, you know, that would still be secret or just there wouldn't be, or the statistics for it won't be out yet or whatever, things like that.
Now for the last month, since Thanksgiving, I've been every week saying everybody should go to our little Google doc.
We set up and nobody did and nobody did and nobody did until they did it.
until this week. Everybody was waiting to the last moment. Everybody who has actually contributed is on our Slack, and they waited until I sent a link on the Slack instead of just mentioning it on the show.
And so we have contributions from Ed, John, and James, as well as myself.
But Ed, John, and James, I believe, are the only people who contributed.
So thank you very much, Ed, john and james and as we go through i'm you know i added in some of my own stuff at the end holy shit how how many well we're gonna we gotta hurry up this is exactly i was gonna say we got lots of questions so we're you know we we you and i not we could not go into detail here yeah we cannot spend like 10 minutes discussing no question no because otherwise that will finish at seven in in the morning.
|
Ivan:
[4:29]
| This will be logging. Well, you don't see 7 in the morning here, local. So, noon UTC. We would be here, yes.
|
Sam:
[4:36]
| So, yes. We have to make the prediction, maybe one sentence or two max, and then move on.
|
Ivan:
[4:43]
| It's like, you know, shit. Okay. The hell?
|
Sam:
[4:47]
| So Ed, John and James put in a bunch of questions and then I added a variety of my own that are, you know, that I didn't think were covered yet.
And so, yeah, we got like a thousand million billion questions here.
And, oh, Alex, Alex added some to Alex added some to Alexa.
|
Ivan:
[5:04]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[5:05]
| Although Alex's are, they may be more difficult. We shall see. Okay. Okay.
So anyway, and you know, instead of randomizing my breaks too, I'm just going to do them in order because they're good. Okay, so it breaks in between whatever. Not that anyone cares about that.
Okay, so now that we have the rules out of the way.
Oh, and by the way, next week, we will go over our 2023 predictions and see how we did.
Okay, so should we take a break and then jump in or just jump in?
|
Ivan:
[5:35]
| No, let's not take a break. Let's jump into politics, which is long, and then we'll take a break after we go through the politics section.
|
Sam:
[5:44]
| Okay, very good. Good. So the first section is politics.
And for convenience, I've also sort of subgrouped these basically because they came in in a random order.
And so rather than just, so I've rationalized them so we can talk about like all the presidential stuff, then all the congressional stuff, whatever. Okay.
Now I have presidential, then congressional, but Yvonne, do you want to do president first or Or should we do Congress first?
|
Ivan:
[6:13]
| No, no, no. Let's go president.
|
Sam:
[6:15]
| Let's just go in order.
|
Ivan:
[6:16]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[6:16]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[6:16]
| Let's just go. Let's go.
|
Sam:
[6:18]
| So first question from James. Will any Republican primary or caucus be won by a candidate other than Trump?
|
Ivan:
[6:28]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[6:29]
| Okay. Since you said yes, specify. No, just at least one.
|
Ivan:
[6:35]
| Yes. Well, hell, there's going to be some. He's not on the ballot. Okay.
|
Sam:
[6:40]
| Well, that may or may not stand.
|
Ivan:
[6:42]
| Well, it may well be. I'm betting that, you know, it's not going to be decided by then.
So now, you see, we're dragging ourselves into this discussion, which will then mean that this will finish like, you know, we will not sleep. So, yes.
|
Sam:
[6:56]
| Okay, I'm going to say no. No primary or caucus will be won by a candidate other than Trump.
|
Ivan:
[7:01]
| Or unless we have a quick time. We got a 10-second timer somewhere here. Okay, here we go.
|
Sam:
[7:06]
| Yeah okay next next up also next up also by james when will desantis drop out assuming he does january i'm gonna say march after super tuesday wow you're okay all right i think he'll stick it out till super tuesday although he could just drop out tomorrow it would have the same result okay next up also by James what share of the vote will Nikki Haley receive in the South Carolina primary because of course she's from South Carolina fuck man okay so I can you and you and plus minus okay all right all right what okay I'll say 20% plus minus 5% I'm gonna say I'm, Between 20 and 30.
|
Ivan:
[7:59]
| Okay, so you're saying between 20...
|
Sam:
[8:01]
| I'm over that.
|
Ivan:
[8:01]
| You're 25 plus minus five. Okay, all right.
|
Sam:
[8:05]
| Yeah, and that's South Carolina, and that's going to be her best state.
There's another prediction.
|
Ivan:
[8:09]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.
|
Sam:
[8:10]
| Okay, next up. This is from me.
What percentage of the Republican delegates will be earned by a candidate other than Trump?
And I specify here, as listed on green papers, election graphs right before the convention.
Because one thing that usually happens, especially if there's a blowout winner, is that all the votes end up going to the winner anyway. Right, almost.
Now, during the course of the primary process, it is also sometimes true that people who get Delegates in the early states who then drop out end up losing some.
|
Ivan:
[8:52]
| Those get reallocated.
|
Sam:
[8:53]
| Some of them get reallocated, and it depends on how they technically, whether they drop out or suspend or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So those kinds of things count, but not the, you know, everybody just.
|
Ivan:
[9:05]
| Well, you're way over on time, like right now.
|
Sam:
[9:07]
| So, okay, you give it. I'm just giving the question.
|
Ivan:
[9:09]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what? I'm going to go with the, because I, I today suggest that chaos is, is going to happen based on what is starting to happen right now. And SCOTUS will not move fast.
I'm going to say that it's going to be more than 50% at this point. And I, yes.
|
Sam:
[9:27]
| Oh, oh, oh, I, I, my jaw has dropped.
|
Ivan:
[9:31]
| I'm going with, I, I, I am seeing that we could have chaos.
|
Sam:
[9:36]
| So you're saying more than 50%, not for Trump. Trump. So which will, will imply there's another question later on, on this, that he does not get 50% on the first ballot.
|
Ivan:
[9:48]
| Correct.
|
Sam:
[9:49]
| Okay. Uh, so let me give mine, I will say percentage earned by a candidate, not other than Trump.
I'm just going to put, uh, between 10 and 30.
|
Ivan:
[10:04]
| Okay. Now Now, the reason I'm saying it is simply because if this momentum of him being knocked off the ballot happens, I don't think that SCOTUS is going to take this up as fast as people expect.
And so, if this keeps happening, then it may mean that off the count, he may not have 50%, even though at the ones that he was on the ballot and voted, he had the majority.
That's the chaos. That's my chaos theory right now, where all of a sudden, whoa, is everybody just going to toss him off the ballot? it?
|
Sam:
[10:44]
| Okay. We've got questions specifically about that later, so I'll save my comments on that for them.
Okay. Next up, same question, but for the Democrats. What percentage of the Democratic delegates will not be Biden?
|
Ivan:
[10:57]
| Less than 10%.
|
Sam:
[10:58]
| I agree. Less than 10%. Actually, I'll go further. Less than 5%.
|
Ivan:
[11:03]
| Okay. I'll go. Okay. All right. There you go.
|
Sam:
[11:08]
| Okay. Next up, question by me, The last two are me as well. Question by me.
Will both Trump and Biden be alive at the end of the year?
|
Ivan:
[11:16]
| Fuck. What a morbid question.
|
Sam:
[11:19]
| Let's separate them. Will Trump be alive at the end of the year?
|
Ivan:
[11:21]
| No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm going to keep it a together question.
Same way you did it. You're asking one or the other. I'm going to go with no.
|
Sam:
[11:29]
| No. They won't both be alive at the end of the year.
|
Ivan:
[11:33]
| And I'm not picking one who's dead.
|
Sam:
[11:35]
| Okay, but one or both of them could be dead.
|
Ivan:
[11:39]
| Yes. okay now that would be interesting if both died i don't want well i i only i you know i don't want biden to die i'm not going to say that about the other person so but just to be clear the only way you are wrong is if both of them live correct okay so either of them is dead, Then I'm correct.
|
Sam:
[12:02]
| Okay. I will predict they will both live through the year.
|
Ivan:
[12:06]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[12:07]
| So, okay. Related question, but not exactly the same from me as well.
Who will be president at the end of the year?
|
Ivan:
[12:16]
| Of course, this is me. I'm going to play both. I'm going to, you know, this is me taking two bets on the same bet.
Are you going to say that? No, no. I'm going to say it's Biden.
|
Sam:
[12:26]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[12:27]
| Because the thing is that I'm like, yeah.
|
Sam:
[12:29]
| Yeah. Okay. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[12:30]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[12:31]
| Well, you see, you could have a non-Biden president without Biden dying.
He could resign or be removed by the 25th Amendment. True.
|
Ivan:
[12:39]
| True. True.
|
Sam:
[12:40]
| I'm going to say Biden will be president at the end of the year as well.
I think he's going to make it through and he's not going to resign or have health issues that require him to resign or be removed, et cetera. Okay.
Then James had asked, will there be a Biden versus Trump rematch?
But I separated that out into two questions.
Who will be the Democratic nominee?
|
Ivan:
[13:02]
| Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee.
|
Sam:
[13:04]
| Biden will be the Democratic nominee. Next up, who will be the Republican nominee?
I'm going to go ahead and say Trump.
You are predicting chaos. So is it going to be Trump?
|
Ivan:
[13:14]
| No, no, no. I could go and make predictions that are not consistent.
|
Sam:
[13:19]
| Consistent.
|
Ivan:
[13:20]
| So I will go ahead and do that. I'll say Trump right now.
|
Sam:
[13:24]
| Well, you can have the chaos and still have Trump come out at the top at the Which that could be it.
|
Ivan:
[13:30]
| Because what I suggested is, well, I mean, they're just going to go on Democratic and just say, well, the states, come on, but we, the party, want them.
|
Sam:
[13:39]
| Okay. Next question from James. And I'll answer it first, and I'm going to add a conditional.
But James asks, how many televised debates will there be between the two presidential candidates?
|
Ivan:
[13:53]
| Zero.
|
Sam:
[13:53]
| Well, I will put it this way. If Trump is the nominee, there will be zero.
|
Ivan:
[13:58]
| If Trump is the nominee, there will be zero debates.
|
Sam:
[14:01]
| I am going to add, if Trump is not the nominee, there will be two.
|
Ivan:
[14:05]
| There'll be two. Two. Yeah. I totally agree with you on that one.
Yeah. If Trump is the nominee, it's zero.
|
Sam:
[14:13]
| Yes. Okay. Next up from me, I forgot to sign it on the Google doc, but it was for me, any additional Trump indictments this year that have not already dropped?
|
Ivan:
[14:24]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[14:25]
| And that would that would include like superseding indictments and stuff.
|
Ivan:
[14:29]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[14:30]
| I'm going to say no, not in 2024. There's certainly more he could be indicted for.
But if anybody wants to, I think they'll wait till 2025 if he loses.
|
Ivan:
[14:41]
| I don't think. Listen, no, I think that if there are indictments that at some point, depending on the case, they're going to be they need to be filed.
They will be filed, period. I don't think that I don't think anybody's putting the brakes on this, given the situation where we're at right now with him already with so much in so much legal jeopardy.
|
Sam:
[14:59]
| Any new Trump world indictments. And so by that, I mean, either his family or all the various people surrounding him.
|
Ivan:
[15:07]
| And yeah, somebody I mean, come on. These guys left the crime.
Oh, what the hell? There's one thing they love.
|
Sam:
[15:15]
| I'll say yes there, too. OK. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[15:19]
| God.
|
Sam:
[15:20]
| Next up is another one by James that I have split up, but the original from James was, will at least one of the Trump criminal trials begin and conclude before election day?
And he said, I think a hung jury or similar result would count, but you decide.
But I want to split it. So So first up, how many of the four criminal trials will start?
|
Ivan:
[15:48]
| Oh, now I got to pick a number? Well, his was more easy. Now I got to say a fucking number of how many of these start?
|
Sam:
[15:56]
| There are four. How many will start? And I will change it from, yeah, we'll leave it at election day. How many will start by election day?
|
Ivan:
[16:03]
| How many will start by election day?
|
Sam:
[16:05]
| Out of four. Out of the four criminal trials. So we're not even counting civil ones. There are four criminal ones that we know about today. day.
And if there are new indictments, they don't count. Out of four that exist right now.
|
Ivan:
[16:18]
| And now we have to be precise on the number based on your question.
|
Sam:
[16:23]
| I mean, I suppose you could give a range. You could say one through four.
|
Ivan:
[16:27]
| I'm going to say at least two.
|
Sam:
[16:29]
| At least two. Yeah. Okay.
I'm going to say two will start. Yeah. The next question, how many will finish before election day?
|
Ivan:
[16:41]
| I say if they start, they will be done by election day. So I'm going to go with two.
|
Sam:
[16:46]
| I'm going to say only one of them will finish.
|
Ivan:
[16:49]
| Yeah. Okay. I would say both, you know, you're going to get at least two at least two that will finish by by then. By election day.
|
Sam:
[16:59]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[16:59]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[17:00]
| Okay. And should I be more specific?
So you have no idea which ones. I think D.C.
and Georgia will start.
|
Ivan:
[17:14]
| I think that is the best bet that D.C. and Georgia are the ones that will start and D.C.
|
Sam:
[17:20]
| Will finish.
|
Ivan:
[17:21]
| Yeah. now.
|
Sam:
[17:23]
| Okay. Next up, there are a series of these questions all by me.
Will there be any Trump criminal trial in progress during primary caucus voting?
|
Ivan:
[17:36]
| Oh yes. Oh, they'll start on something. I mean, a caucus vote ends in June.
|
Sam:
[17:44]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[17:45]
| So the answer is yes. They'll start by June. June.
|
Sam:
[17:48]
| I'm going to say no. I'm going to say they're going to delay.
I think the delay of D.C. will be delayed to like July or something.
|
Ivan:
[17:58]
| So they're going to you think they're going to go. The convention's going to be starting and they're going to be on trial. That's fantastic.
Actually, I love that. I love that scenario.
|
Sam:
[18:09]
| Well, the next question is specifically, will there be any in progress during the Republican convention? And I'm going to say a yes to that one.
|
Ivan:
[18:16]
| I'm going to say yes. There'll probably be one trial going on during the convention. Yes.
|
Sam:
[18:21]
| Although actually I'm going to hesitate because the judge might actually say okay, you can have your convention first. We'll start right when it ends.
|
Ivan:
[18:31]
| They might have to take a continuance in the middle for the convention.
|
Sam:
[18:35]
| Maybe not.
|
Ivan:
[18:36]
| Maybe. Or maybe. Or you know what? Here is something else though. A couple of the judges.
Okay. Not all. Have already said Instead, I don't care. We're not making any allowances.
|
Sam:
[18:46]
| Yeah. No.
|
Ivan:
[18:47]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[18:48]
| Like, that would be beautiful if Trump had to be sitting in D.C.
in a courtroom during the convention.
|
Ivan:
[18:56]
| Yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[18:59]
| So I'm going to say I'm going to stick with my yes for that one.
But I'm I feel uncertain about that, you know, because I could see that going a different way.
But anyway, and by the way, a continuance, like you were saying, counts as in progress. Like if it is started, they pause.
|
Ivan:
[19:18]
| Yeah, so that's one thing. It's in progress, yes.
|
Sam:
[19:21]
| Yeah. Okay. Next up, will there be any Trump criminal trial in progress during general election voting?
So that's not just election day. That's like the month or whatever of early voting that comes before that.
|
Ivan:
[19:35]
| I'm going to guess. Based on where we are, yes.
|
Sam:
[19:37]
| I agree, yes. I think that it's going to be the D.C. trial during the convention, and it's going to be Georgia during general election.
|
Ivan:
[19:46]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[19:49]
| Which I guess all of this implies, by the way, I, there's a question that's not here that should be here, which is will the Supreme court agree with Donald Trump that he's completely immune from criminal activity while he was president.
I'm going to say no, they will not agree with that.
|
Ivan:
[20:11]
| Nobody will. No, no.
|
Sam:
[20:13]
| Okay. Okay. Next up, how many, and this is also me, how many more of Trump's co-defendants in the Georgia case do plea deals?
So not counting the ones that have already done plea deals, new plea deals in 2024.
So they started out with what, 19 and like, I think what, four of them have already done deals, something like that.
|
Ivan:
[20:37]
| I'm going to say at least four more will plea. They're going to be running low on money.
they're going to be like oh fuck I'm going to go to jail for this thing no they're going to yeah I'm going to say at least four I am going to let's go on the high end.
|
Sam:
[21:01]
| More than what the total was 19 for blood so you got 15 so about 15 left let's say, eight plus eight or more eight okay so you're going with it well you're going with eight eight or more okay all right more okay okay next up also criminal charges also by me me will trump be acquitted of any of the charges now remember he's got this is individual charges is there's 91 counts so it's not just out of the four there's 91 counts will he be acquitted of any of them during this year no they're like no i'm gonna agree no acquittals because an acquittal requires a unanimous verdict of not guilty right yeah that is not gonna happen not an Yeah.
Well, there's the next question. Will he hang the jury on any of the 91 charges before the end of the year?
|
Ivan:
[22:04]
| I'm going to say no.
|
Sam:
[22:07]
| I'm going to, well, tying into my previous prediction, I predicted that the DC trial will finish.
I'll say at least one charge will be hung. So I'm going to say yes.
|
Ivan:
[22:19]
| Now you're saying this year will it be?
|
Sam:
[22:21]
| Yeah. Well, I, well, I, I, I I predicted that the DC trial would finish this year.
|
Ivan:
[22:26]
| So you think that at least one of the DC charges will be, ah, oh, you see, you're making it by charge, whether, you know, Hey, he might get convicted on three that acquitted, you know, acquitted on two. Wow. Fuck.
|
Sam:
[22:43]
| But we both already said no actual acquittals. Are you going to go?
|
Ivan:
[22:47]
| I'm going to say no acquittals. I'm going to say no acquittals.
Anyhow, I'm going to say that. I got to say there's a possibility of Sung Hong of Hong once. Yes.
|
Sam:
[22:56]
| So you're going to say yes on that one?
|
Ivan:
[22:58]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[22:59]
| Okay. And then will there be any convictions before the end of the year?
|
Ivan:
[23:07]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[23:09]
| I'm gonna say yes to i think there'll be at least one out of the dc trial okay that's we'll see, next does trump spend any time at all behind bars in 2024 for any reason so it could be defying the judge on something and they slam him in for contempt it could be a conviction he'll be appealing now now no he's not gonna be in jail in 2024 i i agree no i've said he's never gonna going to see a day in jail in his entire life, but certainly not in 2024.
I think given his position, given everything else, they are not actually going to slam him in jail for like violating a gag order or whatever.
They'll find him or whatever first.
And even if he's convicted, I think he'll be out pending appeal.
Worst case scenario, some form of house arrest at Mar-a-Lago or something, but I don't think even that.
I think he'll just be out pending appeal.
|
Ivan:
[24:12]
| How's the rest of Mar-a-Lago? I mean, what the fuck? I mean, he literally is sick and reclusive.
Seems like a recluse there anyway. That's not really a wrestling.
Yeah, those are annoying.
|
Sam:
[24:24]
| Actually, they could probably they would probably even say you don't even need the ankle bracelet because the Secret Service is watching you.
|
Ivan:
[24:30]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[24:31]
| You know what and and and you know like you could have supervised release to go to mcdonald's or whatever as long as the secret service is with you so effectively nothing i mean that's not jail no anyway moving on next up also by me does trump actually pay out a single penny on any of his civil cases in 2024.
Now, he's got all kinds of judgments against him. We expect even more judgments soon out of New York, but all of this stuff is going through appeals.
Does he actually pay a dime in 2024?
|
Ivan:
[25:14]
| I'm gonna say he's gonna wind up having to pay some money in 2024 in one of these, yes because i mean he's already dragged him out for a long time i think you know the money clock is running out on him on some of these he's gonna have to pay something i mean he's he's settled and paid on other shit before so yeah and and and we we probably should specify which things we're not going to but like because there there's some things that are way along in the process there's some things that are earlier right and i mean like the trump you know the the trump organization, you know the proceeding like right now i mean that's you know i mean that's almost i mean right now they're deciding how much they've got to pay and basically liquidating the company if that's right but then he's going to appeal that and that's going to go through but like eugene carroll is a little bit further along.
|
Sam:
[26:05]
| Yeah. And then, of course, there are older things. You can't put those off forever.
He had some sort of cell phone scam.
There was, yeah, he's paid off on Trump University already. There's all, whatever.
The bottom line, he will be paying out some civil damages in 2024 from some of these.
I don't know which ones. And others will still be under appeal.
Okay. Okay, next up, Ed wants to know, will Biden stay in the contest all the way through November?
|
Ivan:
[26:37]
| Oh, yes.
|
Sam:
[26:38]
| Agreed, yes. Ed also wants to know, will his VP nominee still be Harris?
|
Ivan:
[26:44]
| Oh, absolutely.
|
Sam:
[26:45]
| Yes, absolutely. Agreed. Next up from James, who's going to be the Republican VP nominee?
|
Ivan:
[26:54]
| Fuck.
|
Sam:
[26:54]
| And let's do assuming it's trump you know because if it's somebody else it i don't even know i, jesus christ assuming the president is trump vice the presidential nominee is trump i'll go with, michael flynn he'll put fucking four i've been saying flynn for a while and i put that bug in your ear so i know i will continue to say flynn well because i can't come up with i can't come Who the hell? Haley?
|
Ivan:
[27:24]
| Well, I mean, he could do that because he is like that, you know?
|
Sam:
[27:30]
| Like, forgive her. It puts a woman on the ticket. It puts a minority on the ticket. Right.
|
Ivan:
[27:35]
| And one that he would like to have sex with. So, you know, it's perfectly on.
Dude, it's him. It's him.
|
Sam:
[27:43]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[27:44]
| You think, oh, the selection process. Mr. Grab him by the pussy.
What the hell you think goes through that guy's head?
do you think it's the skills do you really think it's the skills and it's why he picked Mike Pence too yes of course that's why, But if he picks a woman, yes, you know, the first thing he's checking out their looks. First thing.
|
Sam:
[28:16]
| Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'll say Flynn. Cause I've been saying Flynn.
You'll say Flynn. I think there definitely are other possibilities too.
I just like, I remember seeing a frontline on Michael Flynn and all of the people following him around and he's got his own cult following.
And I think he's just crazy enough because like loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, and he's going to want somebody as batshit crazy as he is, who's not going to resist anything.
I guess he could pick a family member, too, but I don't think that's going to happen.
|
Ivan:
[28:48]
| I don't think his family, you know, I can't just say something wants to. I'm going to say that.
Do you know who probably will be the happiest people? Trump gets convicted.
|
Sam:
[29:00]
| His family.
|
Ivan:
[29:01]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[29:05]
| Get them out of their hair. Yeah. Give them, give them full control over what's left of the empire after it's liquidated.
|
Ivan:
[29:11]
| Yes. They're all hypocrites.
I'm sure like these guys, they've been trained by the biggest hypocritical bastard on earth.
You know, there are also a bunch of fucking lying hypocrites.
Of course, they're waiting to backstab them the moment they get, they can.
Oh, can we get you out of jail? Oh, Oh, I'm sorry.
Oh, life support. Oh, can we? Well, we have a decision. Do we leave him on life support or we pull the plug?
|
Sam:
[29:43]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[29:44]
| Yeah, exactly. Those guys are pulling the plug immediately.
|
Sam:
[29:50]
| Next up, what you mentioned earlier, will the Supreme Court make a decision that removes Trump from the ballot in any state?
This was by John, but I'm going to split this one up too.
So first off, primaries. Will he be removed from the ballot on any primaries?
|
Ivan:
[30:08]
| Oh, will he be? Well, OK, so will SCOTUS have decided by the time of the primary?
|
Sam:
[30:16]
| Well, in like will. Yes. Will he be off the ballot in any state because?
|
Ivan:
[30:21]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[30:22]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[30:23]
| Yes, he's going to be. I really think at the rate this is going that he will be off a ballot.
|
Sam:
[30:31]
| I think, and I alluded to this last week when we talked about it, but I think SCOTUS will find a way not to do this.
SCOTUS does not want any part of this, I don't think.
SCOTUS will, they will not make a determination on whether or not he supported an insurrection or whatever.
Instead, they will find some reason to say that process wise, this can't apply that, you know, in order for this to apply, there had to have been, you know, supporting legislation by the Congress to define who is affected or they have to have been convicted of some.
They will come up with some reason not to do this for the primaries.
|
Ivan:
[31:15]
| Primaries, you know, and the thing is that I don't think they're going to decide in time for some primaries.
I mean, because it's going to be crazy because if, you know, a number of states, I'm seeing a momentum building for this.
|
Sam:
[31:32]
| I think the fact that there's momentum building will light a fire under SCOTUS and they want to kick it back as soon as possible.
And as much as the fantasy is interesting of them declaring Trump uneligible to be president, I think they are going to determine that, no, this is not it.
Let this be decided by the people.
|
Ivan:
[31:57]
| I don't think it's going to be as simple as that. I think that it may be they just.
Look, I don't know, but there's a whole bunch of great, but there's a whole bunch of options.
One, which is, well, the states can decide, right?
We don't do anything.
|
Sam:
[32:13]
| And, well, and that's the total chaos thing that we talked about a little bit last.
|
Ivan:
[32:17]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[32:18]
| That would lead, that could potentially lead to the house deciding the president and all kinds of nonsense.
|
Ivan:
[32:23]
| Well, worse. I mean, well, no, forget about the house. I'm talking about more health.
|
Sam:
[32:28]
| We're for primaries. Yeah. We're primaries first before. Right.
|
Ivan:
[32:32]
| I'm talking about we're talking primaries. I mean, the thing I'm seeing is is a chaos in terms of heading to counting the delegates.
If states say, shit, man, New York, California and all these big states decide, well, yeah, those other states are right. Trump cannot be on the ballot.
All of a sudden it becomes it becomes a numbers game where all of a sudden, well, how the fuck does Trump even get the majority of the delegates if he's not on the ballot in those states?
|
Sam:
[32:56]
| I will make a prediction right now that if Trump is stripped off the ballot, off the primary ballot in any state that is not rock solid blue, where it doesn't matter anyway, then actually, no, this is I'm still talking primaries.
|
Ivan:
[33:15]
| Primaries, primaries.
|
Sam:
[33:16]
| I keep trying to jump ahead to general. No, I will make this prediction.
If SCOTUS allows this to stand and allows states to take him off the primary ballot, then the RNC will step in and say, we're ignoring the primaries.
We will select our delegates to the convention a different way.
|
Ivan:
[33:36]
| Okay, but you know that that is, that is an even more insane chaos.
Oh, Democratic process? This primary caucus shit? Fuck that.
Ignored. We're going another route.
|
Sam:
[33:56]
| Well, one of the ways to do that is for the state Republican parties to just say, you know, we're going to ignore the primary.
We're going to have a caucus and we'll decide it that way.
Because the state, the government, the fundamental thing here is in America, the political parties are private entities and they can decide on their candidate however the hell they want.
The states put on primaries as a matter of convenience to essentially help the parties out, but the parties can ignore them.
Now, their own rules right now say they don't ignore them, but there are mechanisms to change those rules.
|
Ivan:
[34:38]
| Okay, but understand that it's throwing the entire process.
Okay, you understand that what they would be doing is simply throwing in the garbage the entire process that they have to select the candidate on behalf of Trump. That's it.
|
Sam:
[34:56]
| Yes, yes. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[34:56]
| And the chaos that that will bring to the Republican Party in general, because there's going to be a lot of people that are going to be like, what the fuck is this party about then?
|
Sam:
[35:09]
| Well, this is one of the reasons that my prediction is that SCOTUS does not let this happen.
And they say, no, he's not disqualified.
You know, I don't care. They will find an excuse.
excuse like there are all kinds of people pointed out that the law the the amendment itself seems to be pretty clear and there are all kinds of reasons to think that yeah he should be disqualified regardless of what happens in the elections he should be disqualified from taking office, but i think scotus will find a way to rule the other way we'll see okay we'll see okay so okay Okay, let's keep going.
Okay, okay. So first...
|
Ivan:
[35:52]
| We haven't got the Congress.
|
Sam:
[35:55]
| I know. That was primaries. Same question for general.
|
Ivan:
[36:00]
| I think this will be decided by the primaries, whatever is going to happen.
|
Sam:
[36:05]
| Well, presumably, if SCOTUS decides that they can kick him off the primary, the same thing applies to the general.
|
Ivan:
[36:13]
| Yes, and that's what I'm saying. I mean, this is something that will be decided by the time we get to the conventions.
This is not going to be a general election debate.
|
Sam:
[36:26]
| Debate. Well, they could decide that he's allowed on the primaries, but not the general or something stupid like that. But I think they're going to be consistent.
I think fundamentally, they are going to rule in a way that what I said for the primaries applies everywhere.
They're going to say, we're not going to kick him off the ballot.
There's going to be a normal election.
Donald Trump will be a candidate. So that applies for a general election.
I also will add to that, that if he gets past all that, they're not going to rule that he's ineligible to become president.
Because as we've talked about before, the constitutional amendment actually just says he can't become president, not that he can't run for president.
So he theoretically could run, win, and then get to January 20th and not be allowed to take an oath of office and his VP becomes president.
I don't think any of that's going to happen. I think, Donald.
All right. So moving on. Moving on. Yeah. Are you ready to move on?
|
Ivan:
[37:19]
| Yeah. Yes.
|
Sam:
[37:21]
| Okay. Okay. Oh, since you predicted that, I predicted no, but since you predicted they will remove him from the ballot in some states, will the Republicans retaliate by successfully removing Biden anywhere in response?
No. Like we had DeSantis talking in the last couple of days about, well, if they do that, we're just going to say like Biden has let too many immigrants in.
And so we're going to pull him off the ballot too. No? Okay.
I will say if they actually successfully remove Trump on some ballots somewhere, the Republicans will try to do this, but they will not succeed.
|
Ivan:
[38:04]
| They will not succeed.
|
Sam:
[38:06]
| Okay. Next up goes to your chaos. This is from James. Any contested conventions? conventions.
|
Ivan:
[38:14]
| Contested.
|
Sam:
[38:15]
| And let's define contested as they have to go to a second ballot. Or no.
|
Ivan:
[38:21]
| Okay, I'm going to say no. It's not going to be a second ballot thing.
Whatever the hell is going to happen is going to be decided well before that.
|
Sam:
[38:29]
| Right. So are you predicting the possibility that nobody has a majority officially, but they do backroom deals before the first ballot to resolve it? Correct.
|
Ivan:
[38:42]
| Yes. Okay.
|
Sam:
[38:43]
| So that's what you think is going to happen.
|
Ivan:
[38:44]
| Now, of course, I'm saying that these guys couldn't do that for Congress, right?
|
Sam:
[38:48]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[38:49]
| And so, I mean, they wound up showing up like a bunch of idiots.
But I think there is enough time for them to figure out something.
|
Sam:
[39:02]
| Okay. And, okay. Yeah, fine.
And so I presume you think that it's the Republican convention that's going to be contested, not the Democrats.
|
Ivan:
[39:13]
| Yes, correct.
|
Sam:
[39:15]
| The Democrats are going to have a perfectly normal convention.
|
Ivan:
[39:18]
| Nothing is going to happen on the Democratic side. Biden and Harris will be the nominees.
|
Sam:
[39:26]
| Okay. Next up. Oh, no. With the contested Republican convention, what the... Oh, you just predicted what would happen.
And you think Trump is going to end up the nominee after the deal-making?
Because you already said Trump would be the nominee earlier, I think.
|
Ivan:
[39:44]
| Ah. Well, I mean, I don't have to be consistent.
|
Sam:
[39:46]
| So earlier, you're going to predict over the course of this show, five different people as the Republican nominee and one of them will be right.
|
Ivan:
[39:57]
| What the hell? You know, I'm learning from somebody.
|
Sam:
[40:00]
| Well, I mean, just say Trump is going to come out on top at the end after some chaos.
|
Ivan:
[40:10]
| Trump will get the nomination somehow after it's a complete shit show.
|
Sam:
[40:15]
| Okay, will no labels run a candidate?
|
Ivan:
[40:18]
| No. I don't think so. No. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[40:21]
| You think they're going to back down at the last minute because they they're like talking about it still?
|
Ivan:
[40:26]
| Yeah, they're talking about it. But yeah, I think if they were going to do that, they would have been organized by now. It's pretty late.
|
Sam:
[40:34]
| Well, they're on. They've got ballot access in a whole bunch of states.
|
Ivan:
[40:38]
| I realize that, but it's still I mean, I think just a lot of people are going to be like, look, we got to put our money behind stopping Trump. This isn't working.
They're not. The people who are funding anti-Trump stuff are not going to be wanting to really be piling a lot of money into this.
I mean, there are people that are, but I don't think it's going to be heavy money into this.
|
Sam:
[41:00]
| Well, some of the analysis of no labels in terms of who their donors are is pointing towards them actually intentionally putting a spoiler to help Trump.
Despite their rhetoric about doing something else.
|
Ivan:
[41:14]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but I just don't...
|
Sam:
[41:19]
| Okay, you've made your prediction. Let's move on.
|
Ivan:
[41:21]
| Yeah, already. Yes. Thank you. We want to drag this show out until...
|
Sam:
[41:25]
| I'm going to say no labels. We'll run a candidate and it will be Mansion.
|
Ivan:
[41:31]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[41:32]
| Okay. Next up. Is that you moving around the document, Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[41:37]
| Oh, yes. I'm scrolling down. Yes.
|
Sam:
[41:40]
| You are Anonymous Wombat?
|
Ivan:
[41:42]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[41:43]
| Okay. That name is appropriate for you.
you know if the prediction show did not already have a name the show could be named anonymous the anonymous wall bat there you go yes yes okay moving on which party other than democrat or republican will receive the most votes in the general election and this is from james you mean like which is the party that's going to be having the third number of votes is that yeah now now Now, normally this is easy.
Like the Libertarians are number three and the Greens are number four.
And that's been pretty consistent for a long time.
But this time you've got RFK Jr.
You've got West. You might have Mansion.
So which and that's not even.
|
Ivan:
[42:32]
| I'm going to go with the Greens.
|
Sam:
[42:34]
| You think the Greens are going to be a number number three?
|
Ivan:
[42:37]
| The only reason is I think the Libertarians are in disarray. Right.
So yeah, so yeah, I'm going to go with the greens.
|
Sam:
[42:46]
| I'm going to go. I'm going to go with RFK Jr.
|
Ivan:
[42:49]
| What party is he running on?
|
Sam:
[42:51]
| I don't know. He's independent. The question was what party, but I, which candidate?
|
Ivan:
[42:58]
| Well, okay. So you're going with RFK Jr. I'm going to say whoever the green party candidate is.
|
Sam:
[43:03]
| Okay. They've already had their convention. We can look that up. They have one already.
|
Ivan:
[43:07]
| Okay. All right.
|
Sam:
[43:07]
| Oh, it's Stein. It's Stein again.
|
Ivan:
[43:10]
| Oh, look, Jill.
|
Sam:
[43:12]
| Isn't it?
|
Ivan:
[43:12]
| Great.
|
Sam:
[43:14]
| Maybe I'm wrong. I was looking earlier.
|
Ivan:
[43:16]
| Moscow Jill is back at it again.
|
Sam:
[43:19]
| Wait, hold on.
|
Ivan:
[43:21]
| I think I heard that as well recently.
|
Sam:
[43:25]
| Wait, no, the Greens have not picked their person yet. I was wrong.
I was thinking of some other people. The Socialists have picked somebody.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation has picked somebody. I mean, yeah, anyway, there are all kinds of minor people.
But yeah, no, the Greens have not officially picked someone yet, but Stein is running, so she'll probably win.
And the Libertarian Convention is, oh, that's the typo. I don't know.
Anyway, they'll pick their folks. I'm sticking with RFK Jr.
And you're thinking with whoever the Greens nominate.
|
Ivan:
[44:04]
| I'm looking at, apparently, the person that I interviewed that was presidential candidate for the Socialist Party back when we were at Carnegie Mellon is still around.
|
Sam:
[44:15]
| Yeah, cool.
|
Ivan:
[44:16]
| Joanne Kuniansky. There she is.
|
Sam:
[44:18]
| Wow.
|
Ivan:
[44:20]
| There you go.
|
Sam:
[44:21]
| Okay, moving on. And related to third parties, will the total of all the third party votes be more than the popular vote margin between the Democrat and Republicans?
No, I'm going to say yes.
|
Ivan:
[44:36]
| You're going to say yes. Wow. Yeah. Okay.
|
Sam:
[44:38]
| I'm going to say once again, we're in a situation where all of these people who vote third party, if they picked one of the normal candidates, what normal quote unquote, what if they picked one of the two major candidates would, I think would be able to change the result.
|
Ivan:
[44:54]
| I think that based on the recently, at least in popular vote, that the, we got to go quickly on this and basically the recent information showed that a lot of these people that are saying they're going to vote for these people didn't vote the last two fucking elections so you know what they're not going to fucking show up to vote okay moving on how and this is from james how many states will be flipped compared to the 2020 electoral college oh how many states flip flip i'll say like two i'm gonna say five five wow yeah i i'm gonna say there are a bunch and that it that includes in both directions some that were democratic going republican some are republican going democratic wow five i'm gonna say two i'm gonna say that pretty much everything just gets amplified and just you know yeah i'm gonna say two okay you you're allowed to say two I am.
|
Sam:
[45:54]
| Now, finally, well, Ed had given a question, choice of outcomes.
Will Trump be convicted or elected president?
I didn't think a choice was reasonable because both could happen.
He could be convicted and elected president.
And we already talked about convictions up earlier.
So question number one, who will have the most in the popular vote?
|
Ivan:
[46:22]
| Oh, Biden will have more popular vote.
|
Sam:
[46:25]
| Agreed. Biden. Will anyone have a majority in the Electoral College?
So this is allowing for the possibility of chaos, a second Republican or RFK Jr.
winning some states and throwing it into the House. Will anybody have a majority?
|
Ivan:
[46:40]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[46:42]
| I agree. Someone will have a majority in the Electoral College.
So finally, the big one. Who will have the most Electoral College votes?
|
Ivan:
[46:49]
| Can I go like do this thing again where I pick now I'm going to say Biden.
I'm saying Biden, but I'm like, not even, I hope you are right.
|
Sam:
[47:03]
| My I'm, there's a lot of chaos that can happen in 2024 that I hope will go to Biden's benefit with all the trials and everything else we've been talking about and people not showing up, but I'm going to go with Trump. I'm going to say he wins again.
|
Ivan:
[47:20]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[47:21]
| I think we're going Trump, Biden, Trump. And I hope I am wrong, but right now there's so many things that are looking bad for Biden, but we've got to, we've got almost a year.
We've got almost a year for him to turn that stuff around.
|
Ivan:
[47:39]
| I've said this before. I'll say it again. You're, you know, the, the, most of the numbers that are showing badly for Biden, when you dig deep into what the hell include people who aren't going to show up to vote.
And that's the big thing. And that's the reality.
All the analysis when you've dug in and you go and you find, hey, all of you, you're saying, when you go back to them, here's an example, two things that happened. happened. You take both names off.
You ask, hey, who do you want, a Democrat or a Republican president?
The Democratic president gets a significant majority.
That's one. You still look at the generic ballot for the House.
The Democrats still have a fucking advantage.
You look at when you dig into all these polls, and you go in and you find, hey, all of you guys that say that are independent or whatever, and that you're voting for Trump, that you vote in the last election. Oh, no!
And I'm like, look, bullshit. I'm calling bullshit on all of this right now.
Unfortunately, it's not that the people, the data centers, the pollsters are...
It's just that the scenarios we've had this last.
Eight in this last decade have made it there's so much that has made it difficult to track yeah and and no i agree and it's just i keep saying that when you dig into it it's like look these motherfuckers are saying that it's bullshit they're not showing up to vote and by the way they've consistently not shown up to vote in any of these recent elections yeah well and you've got the whole abortion thing that will potentially turn people out you've got a bunch of people right now who are expressing their dissatisfaction with Donald Trump.
|
Sam:
[49:25]
| No, with Joe Biden, sorry. But when push comes to shove in the end, like right now, people are acting like it's a referendum on Joe Biden because he's the incumbent, like a normal election.
When there's an incumbent, it's a referendum on the incumbent and Joe Biden's not super popular.
But in the the 311 days as we're recording this before the general election, it will become clearer and clearer what the actual contrast is with Donald Trump.
And hopefully that will mean all the things that you are talking about will come true and Biden will pull the sucker out.
But I am still, I'm going to go with Trump because I would rather expect the worst and then be surprised with the positive i like i like your plan i like your thinking you know i i have i did look into uh apparently there is an immigration program that's pretty easy to move to new zealand i i yeah yeah you you looked it up on the show the other day yeah i mean that's one of my plan b's because of like if this is going to be that bad then you know new zealand doesn't look like that unappealing no it's not bad closer to home there apparently if a few of the uh caribbean islands you can pay to get into.
|
Ivan:
[50:44]
| Oh, yeah, that's true. There's a few of those. Yeah, yeah. Now, the thing is, but I need a place that's a little bit bigger, has like health care and services.
|
Sam:
[50:52]
| And nice mountains.
|
Ivan:
[50:53]
| Well, yeah, you know, high, you know, high, you know, you want like.
You don't want to be underwater.
|
Sam:
[51:02]
| Yes. Yes. Okay. So that, that adds, yeah, like that, that ends the presidential part.
And again, like my philosophy on that is, is quite simply expect the worst.
And then if you get something better, you can be pleasantly surprised much better than counting on the positive and then being horribly disappointed.
So, okay. Okay, continuing, continuing. Now it's time for Congress.
|
Ivan:
[51:32]
| Well, we're going to take a break.
|
Sam:
[51:33]
| No, we'll take the break at the end of politics.
|
Ivan:
[51:36]
| I said that. I said before. Okay. All right. That's all right. Fine. Jesus. Yes.
|
Sam:
[51:40]
| At the end of politics. Politics is always the longest.
|
Ivan:
[51:43]
| Go, go, go. Keep going.
|
Sam:
[51:44]
| Keep going.
|
Ivan:
[51:44]
| Go, go, go. You can drink some water. Go, go, go. What? What?
|
Sam:
[51:49]
| Okay. Ed wants to know what month will the Republicans in Congress once again introduce legislation to cripple or remove the ACA?
|
Ivan:
[51:56]
| They're not going to try again.
|
Sam:
[51:57]
| This year they can't pass anything they're gonna try again there's such there's so there's such chaos and also as dumb as they are they know not to do that in an election year yeah yeah they're not gonna try an election year so i'm saying agreed not from me will there be a government shutdown yes yes at least a partial one they did that thing where they split it up into two, yeah bit so but yeah at least at least one of those two halves will fail and maybe both of them, i don't know for how long but yes there'll be a government shutdown because they're idiots uh yes will johnson remain speaker no no i i agree uh he will not be speaker throughout the whole year uh so ed also wants to know if that's the case what month will be his last month i'm saying he doesn't make it through april, Well, does that pick a month, which is going to be his last March?
I'm going to say February and my earlier.
|
Ivan:
[53:00]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[53:01]
| My rationale is that those two tranches that will lead to the shutdowns, there's one that ends in January and one that ends in February.
There will be a shutdown and then Johnson will make some sort of deal with the Democrats in order to end it like they always do.
And then they will retaliate by kicking his ass out, just like they did last year with what's his name, McCarthy.
And so we'll have a repeat. So the next question, how many speakers in 2024?
|
Ivan:
[53:33]
| I'll go with two because I think the Republicans after that, they're going to try to keep it together through the end of the year.
|
Sam:
[53:40]
| Let me ask one important question that was going to come up next week anyway, evaluating 2023.
But did that interim speaker guy count?
|
Ivan:
[53:50]
| No.
|
Sam:
[53:51]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[53:51]
| No, no, no, no. Okay.
|
Sam:
[53:54]
| Then I will agree with you and say two because it would have been three interim speaker.
|
Ivan:
[54:00]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Two, two.
|
Sam:
[54:03]
| Okay. Two. Okay. Next up, will there be an actual vote on impeachment on the floor of the house?
|
Ivan:
[54:13]
| Oh, yes.
|
Sam:
[54:15]
| This is okay. So I will agree. Yes.
Will that impeachment vote succeed? In other words, will Biden be impeached?
|
Ivan:
[54:25]
| I say the answer is no.
|
Sam:
[54:28]
| I'm going to say no, too. So this is predicting that they they will bring the vote to the floor, but they will fall short because a few Republicans won't vote for it.
|
Ivan:
[54:37]
| Right. Correct. Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[54:39]
| Okay. I agree with both of those. So if, if either one of us had predicted an impeachment, there were going to be followup questions about what the charge would be, but I don't know. They'll make some shit up. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[54:53]
| Yeah. Whatever.
|
Sam:
[54:54]
| Well, I, well, I guess even, even if they bring it to a vote, there will be charges. What do you think the charges will be?
Will they be Hunter related? Will they be immigration related? What?
|
Ivan:
[55:05]
| I think that, I think that the only ones that they might be able to cook up is related to Hunter.
That's it. Because immigration related, what are they going to do immigration related?
|
Sam:
[55:18]
| There have been a number of Republicans who have been agitating to impeach him simply for not controlling the border.
|
Ivan:
[55:26]
| I mean, that's just so ludicrous.
|
Sam:
[55:29]
| As like a dereliction of duty kind of thing.
|
Ivan:
[55:32]
| Like, you know, okay, because Trump was doing so many more deportations.
Here's a hint. You know the answer? Guess who's doing more deportations?
No, he wasn't. Biden is. So was Obama.
Fucking morons. So, no, I don't think they're going to be able to do anything with the immigration to turn it into a charge.
But I think that they can cook up something related to Hunter.
|
Sam:
[56:03]
| Okay, I'll agree. They will impeach and it'll be something vaguely Hunter related.
Right. Something blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[56:11]
| The car payments.
|
Sam:
[56:12]
| The car payments. And it'll fail because there are enough Republicans.
And it only takes three or four. Right.
|
Ivan:
[56:20]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[56:20]
| There are enough Republicans who will call bullshit on it and say this is nothing.
You know, so. Yeah. And also there are enough Republicans who realize that every single impeachment effort by either party has backfired, at least since the Clinton impeachment.
So, yeah.
OK, next up from James, will Sinema appear on the ballot in Arizona for Senate?
|
Ivan:
[56:46]
| Wait, huh? What?
|
Sam:
[56:50]
| Sinema on the ballot for Senate. She says she's running.
The question is basically, will she actually run and be on the ballot or will she drop out in time to not be on the ballot?
She's running as an independent, not as a Democrat.
|
Ivan:
[57:03]
| I think she'll try to run.
|
Sam:
[57:05]
| I agree. She'll be on the ballot. So James's follow-up question, what share of the vote will she get? Ranges again.
I'll go first on this one. I will say 10 to 20%.
|
Ivan:
[57:17]
| I was about to say something like that. Yeah, I'd say she gets around 15% plus minus five.
|
Sam:
[57:24]
| So 10 to 20.
|
Ivan:
[57:26]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[57:27]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[57:27]
| So I just think it's different with that. My midpoint number is 15.
|
Sam:
[57:33]
| Okay. Next up, this is from Ed. Will the Democrats take back the House?
|
Ivan:
[57:41]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[57:43]
| I am going to agree the Democrats will take back the House. Ed wants to know by how much.
|
Ivan:
[57:49]
| Oh, it's going to be something like this again. We're going to get like between five to 10 seats.
|
Sam:
[57:55]
| Like the majority will be between. They'll have five to 10 to spare.
|
Ivan:
[57:59]
| Yes, correct.
|
Sam:
[58:00]
| Now, because that will be a bigger majority than the Republicans have right now or than Nancy Pelosi had two sessions ago.
|
Ivan:
[58:08]
| I mean, it's slightly bigger, but not by much.
|
Sam:
[58:11]
| Yeah, like she had four just like what's his name had for right just like he had for yeah, I will say the Democrats will take it, but it will be by less than five.
|
Ivan:
[58:23]
| Okay. All right.
|
Sam:
[58:26]
| Okay. And then he, Ed asked specifically, will Bovert be back in the house?
|
Ivan:
[58:33]
| No, she's not. No, she's just, I think.
|
Sam:
[58:37]
| Well, she just moved into it. She just announced this week that she wasn't running in her current seat. She's going to run it next.
|
Ivan:
[58:44]
| But she's got a primary against somebody else who wants that seat.
I'm thinking she'll lose the primary.
I'm thinking she's not going to be on the ballot for it. I think she's going to wind up losing the primary. Because that's what happens a lot of times when they try to move.
|
Sam:
[58:58]
| Yeah, so you think Boebert will lose the primary so she won't be in the general, so she's not coming back. I'm going to agree with that.
Next, same question. the whole jerking off the boyfriend at the theater you know you know you know probably you know doomed her with with enough people to not get her the republican nomination again which i think is yeah so same question for marjorie taylor green i think she'll get reelected i'll agree so i agreed with you on both of these bobert loses in the primary marjorie taylor green wins re-election yeah good okay next up will the republicans take the senate no i'm gonna say yes and my reasoning is the the the democrats basically have to have a clean sweep of everything everything in order to win with this month's this month, this year's map.
And I think that they will do better than some people expect in all of those competitive races, but they won't get the clean sleeps.
They won't get the clean sweep and they would need that in order to win.
So I think they, the Republicans are going to take back the Senate and, but it's only going to be by like one or two seats max.
But it won't be a 50-50 with...
|
Ivan:
[1:00:26]
| I think we're winding up still with a 50-50 one way or another somehow.
Something will sneak around that will make that happen.
|
Sam:
[1:00:33]
| So if it's 50-50, then who gets the Senate depends on the presidential race.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:39]
| Correct.
|
Sam:
[1:00:40]
| Are you predicting 50-50?
|
Ivan:
[1:00:42]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:00:44]
| No, so because you're changing. Before, you predicted the Democrats are going to keep the House of Republicans.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:49]
| Well, okay. Well, I'm predicting that we're going to have a Democratic president.
So we've got a 50-50. So we've got a 50.
I'm predicting we're going to have 50 votes plus a Democratic president.
|
Sam:
[1:01:03]
| Okay. Vice president specifically. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:05]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:01:08]
| So you are predicting specifically 50-50 House with Vice President Harris breaking the tie. So the Democrats keep- 50-50 Senate.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:16]
| Exactly. Correct. With VP Harris. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:01:19]
| Okay. I'm saying the Republicans take it by one or two seats. Okay.
Which is one of those interesting things. I'm predicting the Democrats will take back the House at the same time the Democrats lose the Senate.
But I think it's one of the things where That's what the map looks like this time around. It's just a really hard map for the Democrats. Okay.
Will Congress approve financial aid for Ukraine? That's from James.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:45]
| I'm going to say yes. They're going to cut some kind of deal, which is a reason why what's his name is going to get his ass kicked out.
|
Sam:
[1:01:52]
| Right. So I was predicting he gets kicked out because of the budget deal.
You think it's going to be because of Ukraine?
|
Ivan:
[1:01:57]
| Well, no, no, whatever. whatever, because then a budget deal, whoever votes and it's because Democrats are going to demand that that's included and so therefore it's going to be included so that gets them kicked out, so yes.
|
Sam:
[1:02:08]
| Okay i'm gonna say no ukraine aid will die and it will not happen um and and and biden will do more creative things to get around that and still make sure money gets to ukraine like and we'll talk in the international section but i'll go ahead and put this here like there's been a lot lot of talk of potentially releasing frozen Russian assets to the Ukrainians.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:36]
| Oh, there you go.
|
Sam:
[1:02:38]
| I could see them doing that kind of thing and just saying, okay, no more money coming out of the reparations.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:44]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:02:45]
| No more money coming directly from the U S however, we're going to make sure you can pull this money directly out of Russian accounts and spend it that way.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:53]
| That's I like, well, okay. But I think they're going to, I think they're going to demand that that's going to be part of a deal. So anyway, okay.
|
Sam:
[1:03:00]
| How about a to Israel?
|
Ivan:
[1:03:01]
| No. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:03:04]
| I'll say that one's going through.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:06]
| Yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:03:07]
| Okay. We agree. Okay. And James asked about two specific Senate races.
Will Sherrod Brown hold on in Ohio?
|
Ivan:
[1:03:16]
| Yes. I'm going to say yes. Oh, I can't make my thing.
|
Sam:
[1:03:21]
| So yes, I'm going to say yes to that one. and then the next one will John Tester hold on in Montana and I'm going to say no.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:31]
| No, I'm not going to hold on. I don't think. No.
|
Sam:
[1:03:35]
| Okay. Other politics. We're done with Congress and we're almost done with politics. Okay.
From Ed given that a number of states will have abortion measures on their ballots.
How many will anti-abortion activists win?
I will start by this saying I don't actually know how many states will have them on their ballots, but I'm going to say on every state where it's on the ballot, the pro-abortion forces will win.
That's been the record so far that matches the polling on the issue.
I think every place they succeed on getting it directly on the ballot, they will win.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:11]
| I'm going to say they're going to go a hundred percent again.
Yeah. They're going to do a sweep of wherever it is. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:04:16]
| Now I think the real battle is getting it on in some Right.
But if they succeed in getting it on, I think they win.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:25]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:04:26]
| Okay, next up, will Biden's net approval rating, according to FiveThirtyEight, rise above negative 7%?
If it does, this would be his highest approval rating for the last two years. That's from James.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:43]
| Games i i'm gonna say yes just because the the biggest thing that he has been like that has been dragging his number that everybody keeps saying is inflation and that's actually getting better all the inflation the inflation data is coming under control and the current expectation is that this year the fed will cut interest rates and so i i think that that combination will favor favor Biden substantially in, in the approval ratings.
|
Sam:
[1:05:12]
| Okay.
Then let's see the same question.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:17]
| What's your, what, what's, what did you answer?
|
Sam:
[1:05:19]
| Oh, did I give one? Oh, no, you're right. I didn't. I will agree.
He will, he will beat that level.
I think that coming into the election, he's going to be on an upswing and, uh, and if he wins, it'll be a boost beyond that.
But I think negative Negative seven. I think he can do that.
He's had all kinds of headwinds. We've talked repeatedly on this show about how a year out from the election is very typically the worst an incumbent president gets to, and then they improve throughout the election year.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:52]
| It's crazy, but it's always the worst. I mean, Jesus. I mean, Reagan battled with it. H.W.
battled with it. He couldn't make up enough ground.
Clinton was, oh my God, Clinton, everybody thought he was going to be a one-termer.
W., my God, with Iraq and everything raging. Yep. Obama.
Everybody feared he wasn't going to get a second term. I mean, everybody was scared to death he was a second term.
I mean, it's been consistent. And Trump had awful numbers.
Yep. heading into, you know, at the end of the year. He had awful numbers.
|
Sam:
[1:06:24]
| So, but yeah, but I think he can beat negative seven because of all that.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:27]
| Yeah, he could beat negative seven, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:06:29]
| Okay, and I'll come back to, so just two more questions on the same as Trump on the civil cases, but for Rudy and Alex Jones.
Will Rudy have to pay out any money on his civil cases in 2024, or is he going to be able to stretch it out with appeals and not actually pay this year?
|
Ivan:
[1:06:48]
| Uh no rudy is gonna wind up having to pay because he doesn't have any money to fucking like keep fighting these people off okay i'll agree with that how about alex jones is he finally going to start paying money he's gonna this year the the bankruptcy they've already filed a reorganization plan they they have the you know there has been well not filed a reorganization plan their, creditors committee has already met the options are on the table everything's been mapped out what the options are.
This usually is now a several months process.
He can't drag it out any more than this year. Something will have to give.
So they will have to decide either they're going to liquidate, Or they're going to take the payment plan to the end. So yes, this year, you will have to start paying some.
|
Sam:
[1:07:38]
| Okay, I'll agree on both Rudy and Alex Jones. They will have to do that.
Okay, last question for politics, and I had to put this in here.
Will my wife win re-election to the Washington State House?
|
Ivan:
[1:07:52]
| Fuck. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:07:55]
| I'm going to say yes, too, because she'd kill me if I didn't.
and also because i think she'll be able to and i think she'll win i think she's gonna win yeah i i think she's actually in a district that's at trending blue they put up her the the best candidate the republicans had in the county ran against her last time and she won we have no idea who's going to run against her at this point nobody's put their name out there as a republican yet.
I'm sure someone will before the end, but yeah, I'm going to predict she wins.
Okay. That's it for politics after more than an hour. Okay. So, or about an hour or something like that. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:37]
| It's more than an hour. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:08:39]
| Now when it gets edited down, it might be less, but we'll see.
Anyway, it's probably somewhere.
Anyway, we're going to take Take a break and then we will come back and do international back after this.
Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:01]
| So just, I'm going to start answering everything with either yes or no.
No, I'm going to go. We know only yes. Or the number four.
|
Sam:
[1:10:13]
| Okay. So I just want to say, since you just heard election graphs, go check it out.
I've added the section for the delegate races. races obviously the first delegates don't get allocated for a couple more weeks yet so everything's pretty much blank but it's there go to electiongraphs.com and click in the navigational menu to the delegate races section okay moving on we're starting with europe first off what will happen in ukraine victory for ukraine victory for russia continued stalemate something else this is going to drag as a stalemate still throughout the throughout this year because Because reason, simple, Putin wants to see what happens in the election in the U.S.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:50]
| So he's going to drag it out.
|
Sam:
[1:10:52]
| Agreed.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:53]
| It's not going to end.
|
Sam:
[1:10:54]
| Agreed. I don't think you'll see serious movement in either direction, at least as measured by amount of territory controlled.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:01]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:11:02]
| There might be some other metrics you could point for, but they're all arguable.
So I think the right metric to look at is territory controlled.
And I think just like we've had for the last year, each month, they're going to be trivial amounts of land going back and forth you know november was the first month in a while that russia gained but the amount they gained was tiny after months and months of the amounts the ukrainian yeah but they they had months and months of losing but they were losing really tiny amounts and so right right right the entire delta for the it's a wash is a wash for the whole year okay agreed, Will U.S. or any other NATO country become directly involved in Ukraine hostilities?
So not supplying equipment, but actual fighting.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:51]
| No. Next.
|
Sam:
[1:11:52]
| I agree. No, at least not in 2024. Who knows after that?
Okay. Will Zelensky still be president of Ukraine at the end of 2024?
|
Ivan:
[1:12:02]
| I'm guessing yes.
|
Sam:
[1:12:03]
| I'm going to guess yes as well. Good job with the yes, no answers.
We're like zooming through these. Will Sweden be admitted to NATO?
|
Ivan:
[1:12:10]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:12:10]
| This is from Ed. Yes. Agreed. Turkey will finally stop being an asshole.
Will the EU admit Ukraine? Also from Ed.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:22]
| I don't think in 2024.
|
Sam:
[1:12:23]
| Agreed. Not in 2024. They've started the process, but it's going to take a while.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:28]
| It's usually a long process. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:12:30]
| Okay. Next up from James, when will the next UK general election be held?
And helpfully, he tells us that legally the latest possible date is January 2025.
So it could be in January 2025.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:48]
| I knew that it was soon.
|
Sam:
[1:12:49]
| But Sunak may call it early. So, you know, I'll say not in 2024.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:57]
| I will say I think that they're in such a screwed position they're going to drag it out until not in 2024.
|
Sam:
[1:13:03]
| They're going to wait until the last possible, until they're legally required to. Not one moment earlier.
okay so that james also asked who will be the next uk prime minister so we are predicting there will not be a new one in 2024 right correct which our prediction is no new one in 2020 which punts that out because we're putting we're putting yes putting putting and uh same next leader of the conservative party if if sunak is replaced uh he says we can skip this one if it's too hard but But given the previous ones, I'm going to say there is not going to be one because Sunak will stay there for the entire year.
No new prime minister, no new general election, because I guess we could have a new prime minister without a general election, like the last couple of them.
But I think Sunak's going to stick it through because they don't want to go through doing this whole cycle again like they did with Boris and what's-her-name that was there for two weeks.
or whatever like a little lettuce head yeah the lettuce head they they're going to do everything they can to resist that and just try to just make it through till january 2025 okay okay will putin still be in charge of russia.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:22]
| Uh, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:14:23]
| I'm, I'm saying yes as well. We, we had that one shot this last year with the little rebellion that lasted 24 hours, but that was it. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:32]
| Guess what? Guess what happened to those guys?
|
Sam:
[1:14:35]
| Yeah. Like they, that was the shot like, and it failed.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:40]
| So, and it failed miserably. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:14:43]
| Okay. Next we're moving on to the middle East. Will Netanyahu still be in office by the end of the year?
|
Ivan:
[1:14:50]
| No i don't think he lasts this year listen right now the and that's from him against him is so bad, that yeah i don't think he makes it through this i don't think he makes it through this year no they they want him out that this time they they really want him out i will agree with that and, because he wants to stretch it out until the quote-unquote war is over but their their Their patience will run out.
|
Sam:
[1:15:15]
| Like, you know. Yeah. Okay. James wants to know then who will replace him.
And I will be honest here. I don't know enough to even.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:23]
| I don't know. I don't know. Because the thing is that, look, one of the other, Gans did this coalition with them again this time right now in this unity government, unity thing that they did right now in the face of the war.
But the reality is that Gans burned himself after the last election when he, when he was in charge. charge and people really turned against them.
And so I don't know who will prop up. I just no idea. Don't know. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:15:50]
| Yeah. I really just don't know enough to even speculate intelligently.
Okay. Next up. And I was careful the way I word this. So the, the, who will replace that was James. The will net and Yahoo be there was ad.
I keep forgetting to mention the name sometimes. Sorry about that. Okay, next up.
This was me, and I worded this somewhat carefully because it's not a question of like, when will the Gaza situation end?
Because the Gaza situation has been going on for decades.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:19]
| Yeah, the situation has been going on for 50 years.
|
Sam:
[1:16:22]
| And I don't see the Gaza situation, quote unquote, ending.
So I'm asking, will the Gaza-Israel conflict be back to pre-october 7th levels of violence no no so no i don't i don't see what is the catalyst right now so the way i'm thinking of it is like we're talking a whole year and like they're gonna run out of people to kill.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:52]
| I mean, come on. Look, the Ukraine thing has been raging now for two fucking years.
They've been dropping bombs on each other. Like, I mean, there was a massive missile barrage. You know what?
No, you know, they've never run out of people to kill. You know, the rage is so deep.
Okay. On both sides right now about this. Nobody wants to back down.
Nobody wants to back down.
|
Sam:
[1:17:14]
| Well, remember, the reason I said pre-October 7th levels of violence was even before October 7th, they were still killing lots of people on both sides, just not as much.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:23]
| Correct. Yeah. Not as much. I just don't think that it gets back down to the level now.
|
Sam:
[1:17:31]
| So your answer is no. I'm going to say yes.
Now, that doesn't mean it's like it doesn't mean I mean, Israel has left Gaza, for instance.
I think they may still be there in an occupation mode or something.
But the actual number of new dead per day is going to drop.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:52]
| So what metric are we using to know whether we're right or not wrong about how many about the level of violence?
|
Sam:
[1:18:00]
| Well, people are updating totals on how many people have died.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:05]
| Okay. All right. So that's what we're going to do. Number of people dead.
Oh, very morbid, but okay. All right. Sure. All right. Fine.
|
Sam:
[1:18:13]
| What we need is a chart of how many people per month are dying.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:18]
| Wonderful.
|
Sam:
[1:18:19]
| And see if it gets back.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:21]
| Wonderful.
|
Sam:
[1:18:23]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:24]
| Oh, God.
|
Sam:
[1:18:26]
| Next, next up. Will the Israel conflict expand to an all out war with any actual countries?
|
Ivan:
[1:18:36]
| I think that the answer is no. Yeah. Yeah.
buddy i'm recording a podcast i thought you were going to go to bed okay all right, come on bye buddy i don't know if you heard him he came but he first thing he said is hey daddy, yeah and then he said uh then he answered the question yes i know yeah he did answer the question it's hilarious i'm like okay good okay let me repeat will the israel conflict expand to an all-out war with any country.
|
Sam:
[1:19:16]
| So a few missiles back and forth across the Lebanese or Syrian borders.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:20]
| That doesn't count.
|
Sam:
[1:19:21]
| It has to be all now. Right now.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:22]
| No, no. Listen, listen, but it's not them avoiding it.
Look, all those countries in that kind of war have gotten their asses collectively kicked by Israel so many times.
They know this. They're not stupid.
|
Sam:
[1:19:41]
| And they remember.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:42]
| And they remember. Remember, they're not going to do this again. No.
|
Sam:
[1:19:48]
| Yeah, I think I will agree.
Everybody involved here does not want an expansion.
They want this to be restricted to where it is.
Like, you know, there is there's no like Iran doesn't want an hour all out war.
None of the Arab countries want an all out war.
Saudi Arabia doesn't want to. No, nobody. Nobody wants an all-out war.
They'd all kind of rather this go away.
Yeah. You know? Yes. Like, they were all...
|
Ivan:
[1:20:19]
| They all. I mean, listen. Like, listen. The reason this happened is because Hamas basically figured that all their...
Aram allies, and I just pronounced that very weirdly. Okay. Arab.
What's wrong with me? Okay. Arab.
Yeah, whatever. Okay. At this point, basically it's just forsaken them.
Just said, fuck it. Whatever. We're all making peace with Israel.
We're all, you know, opening diplomatic relations.
You know, who the fuck gives a shit about, about you? Okay. And this is why this happened. Okay.
And so, hell, they didn't want to do it before. They sure as hell don't want to do it now.
|
Sam:
[1:21:03]
| Agreed. Okay, next up, will there be a significant influx of refugees from Gaza or the West Bank into other countries? This is for me as well.
This is, again, a place where none of them want it.
But, like, Israel is squeezing the Gazans into smaller and smaller corners of Gaza.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:24]
| Yeah, but none of the other countries have ever opened a border.
And this isn't the first time this has happened. I'm saying no.
|
Sam:
[1:21:31]
| Jordan doesn't want them. Egypt doesn't want them. Their number one priority in this conflict is to avoid that.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:40]
| Yeah. Yeah. They have contained them. You know, even like when they sealed, Israelis would seal off their side.
They closed off their borders completely to them.
I don't see them changing that stance anytime. They haven't done it in forever.
Why the fuck are they going to do it now?
|
Sam:
[1:22:00]
| Right. Agreed. Okay. Speaking of them wanting to make peace and stuff, will the whole Saudi recognition of Israel thing happen after all?
It was about to happen when it was derailed by this.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:15]
| Oh, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:22:16]
| Will they get back to that? Yeah. In 2024. In 2024.
I'm going to say no.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:27]
| Maybe not in 20. I'm going to say not in 2024. No, no.
|
Sam:
[1:22:30]
| Because, you know, I think it will happen again, but it has to wait until this whole thing recedes from people's memories a bit.
And that's going to take a while, given how bad the situation has been. Yep.
So, okay, with Iran, will there be progress towards a new deal or understanding between the US and Iran?
|
Ivan:
[1:22:54]
| That shit is dead in 2024. Anything that's going to happen has to be after the election.
|
Sam:
[1:23:00]
| Right now this is dead i would agree like even like behind the scenes things which we wouldn't know about anyway so wouldn't count as a prediction but like because the thing is like if biden tried.
To make a deal with the iranians the republicans would hang it over his head through the whole election yeah there's nothing there's nothing to gain by doing this in 20 in 2024 right the status quo can remain for a while yeah i mean the only way that anything along those changes is if the Iranians actually like try to get a nuke, but then the, and actually like make active overt steps.
But then the response to that is unlikely to be, Oh, let's, let's do that peace deal now, you know?
So, okay. How about Yemen? Will a peace deal happen in Yemen?
Just in the last few, just in the last few weeks, they agreed to like a framework for peace talks.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:56]
| Come on, man. How long has that been raging for?
|
Sam:
[1:23:59]
| I believe it was eight or nine years, something like that. At least.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:01]
| More. More.
|
Sam:
[1:24:03]
| Yeah. No.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:05]
| No. Not happening. No. I read that book recently about that guy that was murdered over there over a ship scam a few years ago.
Reading about how that conflict's been raging. Man, no.
No. Not happening. No. Not happening in 2024.
|
Sam:
[1:24:21]
| I'm going to say yes. I'll be optimistic.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:24]
| Optimistic there there were there were news stories in the last two weeks somewhere we got we're gonna get peace i i mean there were news stories just in the last two weeks about a lot of progress being made in the talk so like let's say yes let's be optimist you know you know the other day i said if you know the crazy thing is that if i were given the power to do anything right now first okay you know and to to do anything which conflict could you settle.
Like fuck you know the first one i would want to settle is israel palestine if i if i if i want to just just just just give me okay i i can i can choose which one and it will be solved i'll pick that one first right before ukraine before yemen before the stuff in the horn of africa because i i think i do i think that in part because that has a domino effect on a lot of other things as well that can help other things okay so i could see that you know it's it's hard to choose those kinds of questions it's very difficult but and and also people have pointed out like there's the ones we pay attention to in the west and the ones we don't as well oh yeah because Because there's all these others that we don't fuck.
Yeah. I mean, you know, everybody gets appalled about all these deaths in one place where regularly so many other people are dying in other places that we don't give a damn.
I mean, look, in Venezuela, there have been years where we're having 50,000 dead a year from violence in Venezuela.
Right near here. Did anybody care?
|
Sam:
[1:26:02]
| No.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:04]
| Nobody gave a shit.
|
Sam:
[1:26:07]
| Yeah okay and we have a question about venezuela coming up soon i saw i noticed that but first, asia what will happen between north and south korea in 2024 nothing next i agree nothing real there might be some of these like noisy things where north korea tries to do like something to be aggravating but not usual but the more of the usual bullshit whatever yes you know which i guess This pre-answers our next question.
Will North Korea actually fire a live missile at anybody as opposed to these ones that just- Like go over, like really hit somebody?
Yeah, and they go over with no explosives or they launch a satellite or they're testing their rockets and they happen to test them by going over Japan, but they're not actually aiming at Tokyo or something.
Will they actually like try to hit somebody with an actual weapon?
|
Ivan:
[1:27:03]
| No.
|
Sam:
[1:27:04]
| I agree, no. know yeah they're they're a bunch of talk they're yeah because i mean look they know like okay you've developed a missile that can hit seattle are you really going to do that are you going to do that, you want to give it a try you want to you you want to give that one a try why don't you you know yeah exactly so see how that turns easy how that turns out exactly okay next this is from ed will japan commit or participate in an active defensive war and by this he means that they have their their armed forces actually engage in combat i'm gonna say no no and then finally for me will china invade taiwan in 2024 no i i no i agree no i i that here's the one thing the taiwan situation is one that is used a lot for politics kind of like the argentinians use the falklands and some other places and whatnot where they claim this right the argentinians did eventually invade the falklands no they they did well they but yeah but that didn't turn out very well that's my point i mean in the end like the the military hunter that that launched it did Did it eventually invade Ukraine, too?
Like, all kinds of people thought it was a bunch of talk, and then they did it.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:29]
| No, that's true. Okay. But like I said, but this has been going on.
Listen, this whole thing with Ukraine was more, you know, I don't know.
|
Sam:
[1:28:43]
| And of course, they did Crimea way earlier.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:46]
| Yeah, exactly. But we did not expect, definitely. We thought he would back down, okay, on Ukraine.
I thought he would eventually. But I think the situation between China and Taiwan going for so long, I think the biggest problem is that China is having a lot of problems right now.
economic problems and other problems that they are dealing with internally.
And I think that while this is good to get some nationalism raised up, they have done a lot of things recently to actually ratchet down tensions with the U.S. and with others.
They actually, she came to San Francisco, met with all the tech leaders.
There were meetings between Biden and And she, I don't know if you've noticed, but the level of saber rattling between China and the U.S. has gone way the hell down the last few months.
|
Sam:
[1:29:40]
| It was reported that at that meeting with Biden, he specifically said, we will take back Taiwan.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:48]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They've said that for how long?
They've said that for 70 years or so around there. So, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:30:00]
| I'll agree. Agree. No invasion in 2024. Maybe 2025. We'll see.
But I'm going to say no for 2024.
Okay, next up, the Americas question, and this is the Venezuela one.
Will Venezuela invade Guyana? And the background for this, because we haven't talked about it a lot on the show, Venezuela has reiterated their territorial claims on Guyana.
They apparently claim two-thirds of it based on some colonial map from like a hundred plus years ago yes and apparently they have they they've had this claim going back that entire time but apparently in the last couple months they've decided to make a deal out of repeating it again well what well what happened is that there was a very large oil and gas discovery in that oh i thought it was a principled thing about About the borders and how they were drawn.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:53]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the other problem that they've got is that in order to take back that territory, they actually have to go through Brazil.
|
Future Sam:
[1:31:04]
| Do, do, do, Sam from the future here. What Ivan just said, I think is wrong.
And a bunch of things he's about to say too. I trusted him because he was sort of an expert in the area during the recording here.
And I'm like, okay, if that's what you say.
But then as I'm editing it, I decided to look at a map.
He just said Venezuela would have to go through Brazil to get to the disputed territory. And that is not correct.
The disputed area does border Venezuela directly.
They don't have to go through Brazil to get to it. The disputed territory does include the coast of Guyana and the associated maritime claims as well.
And that means that if they annex this territory, Venezuela would not be discontiguous at all.
So Ivan got that wrong. And I slacked back and forth with him and sent him a map.
And he realizes that he read the map incorrectly.
And yeah. So yeah, he got that bit wrong. But the predictions are the predictions.
So they are what they are. And I don't think it really would change his predictions that much.
Although he was counting a lot on the fact that Brazil was in the way. And it's not.
Oh, well. Do, do, do.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:31]
| And Brazil has basically said, no, you're not invading Guyana by going through us.
And Brazil has actually reinforced that border militarily substantially since the Sabre Rattling started, okay, in order to prevent that from happening.
So the reality is that there is no way that Venezuela is invading that part of country because it basically entails they have to attack brazil can't they go like go around or through the ocean or something instead well they would have to go through the main part of the of guiana through like the part that they don't have a claim against in order to do so and they can't go by the ocean it's in the south okay actually it's not it's not area that is bordering the ocean this This area is in the south. It's inland.
|
Sam:
[1:33:24]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:25]
| So no ocean approach. The only way really is to go through Brazil.
And through the ocean, Venezuela militarily.
|
Sam:
[1:33:35]
| Wait, I want to understand properly. So you're saying the territory they want does not actually border Venezuela?
|
Ivan:
[1:33:42]
| Not directly, no.
|
Sam:
[1:33:45]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:46]
| Correct.
|
Sam:
[1:33:46]
| So if they got it, they would have a discontinuous territory?
|
Ivan:
[1:33:50]
| Correct, yes. Not like that doesn't happen. I mean, Bangladesh is like that for some other places.
But yes, this territory is not territorially contiguous with Venezuela. Correct.
|
Sam:
[1:34:05]
| Okay, cool. So I will defer to your judgment and say they will not.
So the follow-up question Ed had about if so, how the U.S., Britain, and France would respond is kind of moot. if they did do it how do you think the u.s.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:22]
| Britain and france would respond oh boy i i well i think that well like i said the problem is they gotta invade brazil.
|
Sam:
[1:34:34]
| I will answer the question. Angrily worded letter.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:41]
| No, I actually think because there is a lot of economic interest.
Remember, Guyana still.
Not just the oil, the European Space Agency, that's where they launch their rockets for Arianne.
A whole bunch of other stuff is out there.
Probably, I will say that probably they will get some military assistance in order to repel the attack. because Venezuela right now is also a pariah country at this point. So I don't think the dirt is.
|
Sam:
[1:35:08]
| Isn't the UK already saying they're moving some ships into the area?
|
Ivan:
[1:35:12]
| I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised.
|
Sam:
[1:35:16]
| OK, anyway, moving on. Global thing.
OK, will US forces be fully committed to a war situation anywhere in the world or simply still be on full alert with occasional raids? This is from Ed.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:32]
| I'm going with the full okay full alert with occasional rates I don't think that you know even like all this stuff's happening with the hooties and whatever whatnot where they're launching missiles that that stuff and the U.S.
Navy is having to uh with yeah yeah in the Yemen area that I don't think that that's you know that's gonna create some kind of full military engagement we're just gonna have the usual like drone strikes and attacks and shit stuff and we've We've got presence in a bunch of places like our forces in Iraq were just attacked again in the last couple of weeks and, you know, with some casualties.
|
Sam:
[1:36:06]
| So it's not like a nothing. Yeah. But but basically the same kind of thing as the last few years.
I I do not predict a major U.S.
direct involvement anywhere.
Cross my fingers because that would be bad.
OK, next up. Will there be any major news events in countries that we have not mentioned so far that will be high profile enough in the United States that we devote an entire segment to them here on the podcast?
Wait so they're they're important things happening all over the world every day that we just ignore as yeah yeah i'm trying to think um so so the question is like is it big enough that you and i end up spending an entire segment on the podcast anytime during 2024 talking about some other country that we haven't mentioned so far i mean i talked about the volcano that that is true, there's a couple of things i talked about well but this is prediction for 2024 like i'm sure there's something yeah say yes they talked about a couple of different things in different places yeah you've talked about new zealand they talked about new zealand i think i spoke about a little bit about the stuff in guatemala when i went there the election eu observers and stuff so your Your prediction is at least once during the year, there will be something that happens somewhere else in some country we have not explicitly mentioned.
Like it could be, you know, we haven't mentioned France yet.
Well, I guess now we have, but you know, it could be anywhere.
South Africa, it could be Australia, it could be...
|
Ivan:
[1:37:51]
| We haven't talked about the power outages in South Africa yet.
|
Sam:
[1:37:55]
| Indonesia. Of course, I'm mentioning a whole bunch of countries so that I'm taking, am I taking them off the list by mentioning them now?
I don't think so. No, no, no, no.
Countries we haven't made predictions about. Okay.
And that is it for the international section.
Okay.
I'm going to try again to do a break and then we'll be back with economy. Back up for this.
Okay, we are back. It is time for economy. And for those of you who haven't listened to this in previous years, each segment gets progressively faster than the one before, pretty much. Politics is always a really big one.
And then we have a bunch of much shorter ones, usually. Okay.
First up from Ed, and let's do this specifically, and I've split it up.
In the US, will there be a recession in 2024 and as usual this is one that is verified so like q4 doesn't count because we won't have the numbers from q4 when we do the evaluation so and if if one starts in this q4, then that might count if q4 q1 it's like when the recession is declared and we've defined this before like regardless of the official definitions we're gonna go by two consecutive negative gdp uh four no that's not an answer okay all right well i'm gonna say no, yeah there are no indicators right now that are really pointing towards a recession at the at this moment okay yeah everybody's been talking about it for like it's gonna be inevitable inevitable now everybody's sort of we had the soft landing look at that right so i'll agree no that's for the u.s.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:42]
| How about any g7 country will any g7 country go into recession in 2020, oh god i gotta hold on, i say i'll just go ahead and say no for myself because i don't know and i'm just guessing and it's 50 50 well it's not really 50 50 better odds than that but i'm gonna say oh shit looking at some of the g7 numbers i'm gonna say yes okay which one uh well oh you know i'm not wait that's not part of my oh i i got this is not part of the prediction okay so you're just saying at least one g7 country will go into recession but right now i'm looking euro area right now growth the last quarter was negative okay all right you know germany had negative growth japan had negative growth the last quarter italy had negative growth in the q q4 so i'm saying that yeah it's very possible they'll have a g7 country that will be in a recession you know i'm feeling bad about my no answer now but i'll but i'll stick with it for for the fun of it but you're saying yes at least one.
|
Sam:
[1:43:05]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:06]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:43:07]
| How about a worldwide recession?
|
Ivan:
[1:43:12]
| I don't expect that, no.
|
Sam:
[1:43:14]
| I'll say no as well.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:17]
| The main thing that right now is helping, you know, a couple, you know, the economy, and I know, you know, especially more to develop the world, okay, is lower energy prices. Lower energy prices.
Lower inflation. You know, that's really helping out soften, you know, what people expected a recession.
That's really been a boost. so okay so next up will there be any major and i i put this as fortune 500 but i a will there be a fortune 500 bankruptcy in 2024 okay so let's see uh let's see how many uh okay i'm gonna say say yes this year we had seven fortune 500 companies go bankrupt okay okay so i'm gonna say yes so i guess we should be be more in the over under by the way the seven that went under that went bankrupt this year we work ride aid bed bath and beyond party city smile direct club and lordstown motors so that's your that's your list that i've got right now so i'm gonna say say that you'll get at least three so three or more would be fine so yeah so if 497 go bankrupt you're still correct no no no i mean three bankruptcies not four hundred i'm gonna say you said at least okay yeah should narrow down okay yes okay i'm gonna say somewhere between Between three and, I'm going to say, God, between five and ten.
There is one headwind that these companies have right now, and it's interest rates.
|
Sam:
[1:45:04]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:05]
| Interest rates right now are killing a lot of companies that are a little bit on the edge. So, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:45:11]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:11]
| So, I'm going with, I'm going between five and ten. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:45:16]
| I have no freaking clue, so I am going to say between one and five.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:24]
| Okay all right that's okay any any major fortune 500 mergers coming this year in 2024 ah okay here's one okay i'll make a bold prediction on one let's see let me go out on a limb on something i haven't been going on a limb on stuff okay time warner aol aol that already happened a long time ago, oh they're gonna do it again paramount they want to merge with paramount okay yes well the streaming thing is a mess so i think that right now they're gonna be able to try to pull off some kind of time warner discovery paramount merger thing okay at least they'll be announced maybe they won't close this year but at least they'll announce it they will okay there's your prediction they will announce it are you going to predict they won't close or are you just i think it might I think I'm not predicting it'll close, but I'll predict there'll be a net. At least I'll be announced.
|
Sam:
[1:46:24]
| Okay. I will not per I will. I will predict there will be a fortune 500 merger, but I will not specify because I have no idea.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:31]
| Okay. Yeah, I got very precise. Oh, I forgot to predict that there's going to be pain.
|
Sam:
[1:46:36]
| Yeah. This is the first time you've said that all show you were supposed to just say pain for four hours, but you know, we did actually get suggestions.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:45]
| But I guess people heard that we proposed, that, I guess they decided that that didn't sound like a very good podcast.
|
Sam:
[1:46:53]
| Yeah, okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:53]
| Although, I don't know why we're saying that. That wouldn't sound like a very good podcast.
It might soar to the top of the ratings for all we know. If you get me saying that for four hours.
|
Sam:
[1:47:02]
| Yeah, probably.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:04]
| And actually saying it for four hours. Not just record like a few seconds of me and loop it.
|
Sam:
[1:47:09]
| No, no, loops don't.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:10]
| No, no, no. No, no, no, no. I have to be there. I have to be on video.
I gotta be drinking water once in a while.
|
Sam:
[1:47:16]
| I gotta be like you know i gotta be i gotta be powering through exactly we'll we'll have a special event just for that there'll be a special event we'll go live exactly at every broadcast yes okay next, who will be the forbes richest person at the end of 2024 for reference it's bernard arnold right now or no or no probably or no i'm gonna say that bernard stays at the at the top okay he's got got a decent like head of steam on top of Elon's number two right now.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:51]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:47:52]
| And there's a decent gap between the two of them. Yeah. And from all I can tell, Elon's heading down, not up right now.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:57]
| Correct. Yes. Elon is not doing himself any favors.
|
Sam:
[1:48:02]
| Okay. Next up, you mentioned interest rates. Everybody's saying that the Fed is going to lower rates this coming year.
First of all, do you think they actually will start lowering rates again in 2024 i think rates will go down somewhat in 2024 yes which quarter will they start lowering them oh come on man this is from john shit john you're killing me i'll agree i'll agree that they will start lowering and i will say q2 i'll say q3, okay so flat until q3 yeah yeah and that way you know the perfect you know no there will be no accusations of the fed favoring you know the current incumbent president right okay next come your favorites so we we got bitcoin dow oil unemployment and gdp growth coming up but, But I'll tell you, well, I made an intentional choice earlier today.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:08]
| Yes, which is?
|
Sam:
[1:49:10]
| That I just, I thought about like doing this with the method I have used for the last 10 years or however long it's been.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:19]
| Which has consistently beat me.
|
Sam:
[1:49:22]
| Well, yes, it's consistently beaten you. I have gone for a 70% confidence range based on the last 20 years and blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:30]
| And i was just like i don't feel like it oh wow so for so for all of these i'm just going to say up or down that's all are you going to say up or down that's what you're going to do just predict is it going to be up or down well it's actually exotic okay well you know what i like this method, okay because i mean even still there is a substantial degree of uncertainty i mean you know hey is the market going to be up or down okay all right so let's start with this okay all right Okay, so first of all, James says specifically, will Bitcoin be above or below 40,000?
|
Sam:
[1:50:05]
| Because that's close to where it is now. I'm just going to say year over year, end of 2023 to end of 2024, wherever it ends up, up or down.
I'm going to say Bitcoin is up in 2024.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:16]
| I'm going to say it's down. There you go. I'll be contrarian. There you go.
|
Sam:
[1:50:20]
| Okay. The Dow. The Dow.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:22]
| I'm going to say up.
|
Sam:
[1:50:25]
| Now, you can give ranges. You can still give ranges.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:28]
| No, no, no, no. I like this up-down thing. I'm going to say up. I like this.
|
Sam:
[1:50:33]
| You used to not only give ranges, but specific point numbers.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:38]
| Very, very narrow ranges, which are always wrong.
|
Sam:
[1:50:43]
| Okay, I'm going to say up for down. Did you say up as well?
|
Ivan:
[1:50:46]
| I said up, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:50:48]
| Okay. The price of oil, let's specify Brent crude.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:52]
| Okay, I'm going to say it's going to be down from whatever the price is on December 31st.
|
Sam:
[1:50:58]
| I'm going to say up.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:00]
| Okay. All right, cool. All right.
|
Sam:
[1:51:02]
| Okay, the unemployment rate.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:04]
| I'm going to say it's going to be up from wherever it is at the latest reading that we've got.
|
Sam:
[1:51:09]
| Well, and specifically for unemployment, the latest we have is always the November number.
So I'm going to say November 2024 is greater than November 2023. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:20]
| Yeah, it'll be a slight change, but it's going to be slightly up because it's really, really low right now.
|
Sam:
[1:51:27]
| It's hard to get lower. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:29]
| Exactly. Right. Pretty much. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:51:33]
| And U.S. GDP growth. So this would be comparing 2024 Q3 to 2023 Q3.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:44]
| Okay so basically will the q3 growth be better than the q you know q3 2024 growth be better than the q3 2023 growth is that what we're saying or worse yeah better or worse than 2023 yeah damn, I'm going to say lower.
|
Sam:
[1:52:13]
| I'll say better.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:15]
| Okay. All right.
|
Sam:
[1:52:17]
| Okay. And that is the end of the economy section.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:21]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:52:23]
| And you know, every other year you've bitched at me about my ranges and such.
And I, I didn't not to be clear.
I didn't not do it because you complain about it. Cause it's actually been kind of funny the way you complain about it.
oh yes that's why i'm like you know jesus i mean it's been hard a whole bit i know we we had a whole comedy bit going about it but like i was having i was having lunch with my wife earlier and i was thinking about like i'm gonna come back from lunch and i'm gonna have to like do all these calculations and come up with these ranges and i'm just like i don't like it i don't i don't want to do it you know right i'm gonna probably regret it later and be like well what would they have have predicted but no i'm just not doing it up and down is up and down i like i like up and down okay we're gonna take another break and then we will be back with the technology section.
And you know honestly technology has been rather light the last few years we got a bunch of nice technology suggestions this time around so yeah we will do that okay we will be back after this.
And we are back with tech. So first up, energy.
Ed asks, will there be a sustained fusion reaction, say, lasting for one minute or longer?
Now, before we answer this, I looked this up.
The world record for sustained fusion reaction right now is actually already more than a minute, but it's not an energy positive thing.
They're putting more energy into it than they get out. They can sustain the reaction.
It just takes a lot of energy to do it. And so I think a better formulation of this question is this year we had two or three announcements of major steps forward in fusion technology.
Will we have another major step forward in 2024?
I'm not necessarily saying commercially viable. Let's go. But okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:08]
| I'm going to say no. No, I actually was. Okay, no, I'm not going to.
Okay, no. Okay, I'm saying no. What do you think?
|
Sam:
[1:55:17]
| So I'm going to say that while there's you can always argue like because there's incremental improvements every year, but I'm going to say there's not going to be another major big like it is not going to be one big enough that we're talking about it and seeing major news stories about, oh, my God, big breakthrough in infusion research like they had a couple of them this year.
I think it'll be a couple more years till we have the next round.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:44]
| My i was gonna now i will say my relative who's the one that worked at the well my my well yes that they're my my brother's sister-in-law who worked at the super conducting super collider thing she said that by the way that that is going to work but just not as quickly as some people speculated but that it looks like it will work for sure it's just a question of time when when And we'll, we'll, we will make it that it, that it's like, that it's, you know, properly viable.
|
Sam:
[1:56:15]
| The joke has been nuclear fusion is 30 years away and it always will be.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:20]
| Yeah. No, this time she's saying it's getting, it's, it's a lot more closer.
It's a lot closer to that.
|
Sam:
[1:56:26]
| Okay. But not 2024. No big, not, not 2024.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:31]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:56:32]
| Okay. We agree. Next up. And I specifically asked, this is a me one, will global CO2 emissions actually be less in 2024 than 2023?
I'll state right up front, there's some problems with this question in terms of when we'll know.
Right now, I was able to find some estimates for 2023, but the last official numbers were only in 2022, so there's a bit of a lag.
But as background, the estimate is that 2023 will once again be the highest global CO2 emissions in history.
The only time we've had a down year in recent decades.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:16]
| 2021.
|
Sam:
[1:57:18]
| It is because of the pandemic.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:20]
| Yes, because of the pandemic.
|
Sam:
[1:57:21]
| We were down because of the pandemic, but then we've popped back up and we're once again at a record.
But the last five years or so, even excluding the pandemic, looks like it's finally flattening.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:34]
| It's finally flattening. It's finally flattening.
|
Sam:
[1:57:35]
| Will it actually go down in 2024 is the question. I'm going to say not yet.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:42]
| I'm going to say not yet, no. I'm going to say that's later in the decade. Not yet.
|
Sam:
[1:57:47]
| Okay. next up transportation from ed what percentage of new car sales in the u.s will be full electric hybrid hydrogen or alternate fuel so he's bundling all those together what percentage for all of those together uh let me see where we are right now we're on pace for nine percent this year year which was above the 7.3 last year so i'm going to say they're going to exceed 10 that's combining all of those things yeah so are you giving your ranges somewhere between 10 and 100 or are you going to narrow that a little bit no no i'll say it is it's going to be between 10 and 15 i'm gonna be pessimistic and say between 5 and 10 just to be like yeah yeah you went up to 9 but but I'm going to say you're going to stall out for a little while.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:47]
| Remember, it's percentage.
|
Sam:
[1:58:49]
| Yeah, I know.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:49]
| And the thing is that.
|
Sam:
[1:58:52]
| Okay remember january 1st they're kicking in the cash rebate at purchase point like january i know i i but i i i also i i'm also trying to make it interesting by not predicting the same thing as you okay okay fair enough no that's that that's that's good okay and i'm not gonna go over your estimate okay you know i'm not gonna predict 30 or something okay okay okay we're gonna be over Over 10%, 10% to 15%.
And I'm 5% to 10%. Okay, there we go.
Ed wants to know, will Tesla pull the self-driving technology from its vehicles?
And he says, and have only assisted as other makers. But of course, the problem is all along, it's really only assisted anyway.
It's just all it's been. It's just false advertising.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:41]
| Well, I mean, look, we haven't even talked about this. The stats are finally out.
Tesla's crashed more than any other cars.
period so this thing that well that is that that's just yvonne that's just because their owners are jackasses and can't oh that's what it is yes that the assistive technology makes it better than people no it really what it's making them it's complacent on a technology that is not there yet and they wind up crashing more often okay because they are too fucking confident in it okay but the question here no they're not gonna pull it because elon musk will will not fucking pull it.
I mean, unless they fire him as CEO.
|
Sam:
[2:00:26]
| Agreed. It's not going to be pulled. And even if he does leave as CEO, they will put more protections or they will change the name.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:34]
| Oh, they'll change the name. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:00:36]
| They won't actually like pull it, pull the functionality. Okay.
Next up, any major human spaceflight developments? This is for me.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:45]
| Fuck. Are we going to the...
No, we're not. Well, we're not going to make it to them. They're not going to.
We're not going to make it to the moon this year. We're to Mars. Are we?
|
Sam:
[2:00:56]
| They wanted to, right? But like they wanted to, but I don't think. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:59]
| Well, they haven't been able to get that stupid starship thing to work anyway.
So they need that to work.
|
Sam:
[2:01:06]
| The next the next one was going to be with the Orion capsule, just an orbit, not a landing or anything. OK.
But I also don't think that's going to happen in 2024. when's it even scheduled for what i think it's 2025 i think it's 2025 yeah we should check what was it called artemis artemis yes artemis yes artemis okay let's see when when is artemis 2, is the second scheduled mission it is currently planned for november 2024 oh okay will artemis 2, it was not gonna let's not get man they were they laid that let that one like already by months the first time there's no fucking way they're hitting that that target no okay no i'll agree it's scheduled for november 2024 but it's gonna slip into 2025 but they they've got they've got a crew picked out they've got a date it's supposed to be an an orbit a moon orbit and back no landing but but but people on it but yeah i agree it's it's if it was if their planned date was july or something i'd say okay maybe but their planned date is november there's no freaking way something will go wrong and push that into 2025 yep agreed okay, if they do try to shoot it off will it be successful like if it actually oh yeah yeah Yeah, it's going to be successful.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:35]
| Yeah, if it goes, it's going to work.
|
Sam:
[2:02:37]
| Okay there yeah okay i will i will be optimistic with you on that one you don't want to kill some astronauts okay i i don't i don't want to predict the the death of reed victor christina and jeremy okay so we'll avoid that for now okay next up social media ed wants to know will x close down completely uh not in 2024 now yeah i'm saying no as well and i'll be more specific i'll say however x will have completed its transition into the same space as gab and truth social and all of these things where it is just not something that the mainstream pays attention to anymore i mean it's already lost a lot but you know you still see people talking about their twitter and x accounts on like major news media and celebrities and crap but a lot less than they used to i i think they will complete their transition into one of these irrelevant conservative networks yes i'm sure they will okay will elon still be in charge of x by the end of 2024 that's from James.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:57]
| I don't think he's got much of a choice. I mean, he's going to have this turd like, you know, but wait, is he really in charge?
|
Sam:
[2:04:03]
| Don't they have that CEO lady? She's in charge, right?
|
Ivan:
[2:04:06]
| Ah, yes.
|
Sam:
[2:04:07]
| Linda.
|
Ivan:
[2:04:08]
| Yeah, she's very much in charge. Yes. Never contradicted by her boss anywhere.
Ever. Hey, advertisers, we love you. Whatever, you know, we're going to bring you over. Great.
Are you on the other stage? You can all go fuck yourselves.
|
Sam:
[2:04:26]
| Actual quote actual quote which is the crazy thing is that that's an actual quote you know, okay i agree elon will still be there okay james asked who will the most googled person in 2024 be i don't even did they put this out who was the most googled of 2023 is this something that most most googled person 2023 let's see ah here we go yes top 100 search people on 2023 wait let me guess let me guess taylor swift boom yes got it okay uh number two was messi the soccer player number three the other soccer player ronaldo number four share, Okay.
|
Ivan:
[2:05:13]
| I mean, man, Cher's still on the internet. Wow.
Jeez. I mean, Cher's still getting the traction. Okay, so who's going to be the number one?
|
Sam:
[2:05:23]
| Donald Trump.
|
Ivan:
[2:05:24]
| Oh, shit. Let me see. Where is Trump?
|
Sam:
[2:05:28]
| It's an election year.
|
Ivan:
[2:05:30]
| See, the problem is that that's so local. Donald Trump is 29th.
|
Sam:
[2:05:35]
| Yeah, but this is an election year, and it's going to be crazy all year long.
|
Ivan:
[2:05:40]
| Okay, so let's see. 2021 okay so let's see look i've got the previous years okay the most searched person of on google all time is trump 2019 it was trump 2020 kobe bryant 2021 trump 2022 will smith and 2023 taylor so i it seems like your call is correct that it will be trump in 2024 again fuck are you going to to predict that as well yes fuck you trump okay i hate you fuck you i don't hate people and i hate you i don't i don't i never would say that about anybody else i hate that bastard fuck he's making me hate i don't like it just just love yvonne love i try believe me i try very hard okay i can't with this man okay next up back to threads and x and stuff will threads monthly active users exceed x's monthly active users in 2024 i'm gonna say yes because i i predict yeah yeah yeah because it's been sliding they have been sliding so quickly that yes okay yes will threads quote-unquote fully federate with mastodon in 2024 24.
|
Sam:
[2:07:05]
| I don't think they're planning on fully federal, but I mean, I don't think, I mean, if that's a reciprocal thing, because what, what the guy said was they had a one year timeline, which they started last month to have two way federation all up and running.
|
Ivan:
[2:07:25]
| Then I guess, yes, yes, yes, yes. Because they've met that time. Listen, that guy is met.
What do you, but what do you set so far? So I'm going to say yes.
|
Sam:
[2:07:35]
| I'm going to say yes as well. Although I think I will add right now, he's saying that threads users will have to turn explicitly turn on an option to have their content shared with Mastodon.
|
Ivan:
[2:07:50]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:07:51]
| So, which means a lot of accounts on threads will not be accessible to the Fediverse.
Which I think will be disappointing if he sticks with that, but I can understand why they make it an opt-in.
But I would hope most of the large accounts do, but we'll see.
And I'll also predict that this will create quite a mess over in Mastodon land with a bunch of instances, a bunch of instances, defederating and slicing themselves off, not only from threads, but from other parts of Mastodon that do federate.
but i think most of the big servers on mastodon will be in the threads part of the universe and so the others will just be making themselves irrelevant by cutting themselves off yeah i think so so okay aside from that i well i guess that was my next question was what is the state of mastodon and i think i just said that do you have anything else on that no no i think it's basically where it's at okay consumer tech john wants to know how many units of apple's new headset will sell do do they even release numbers or do we have do we expect to get not a problem is that they don't actually release numbers uh it will be lumped under the other category but will there be estimates that the tech press has that is relatively okay okay let's see estimated shipments of Apple products.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:25]
| Here we go. Okay. Apple Mac unit shipments worldwide.
However, that's a Apple device shipments rise 1.1%.
Man, it's tough.
And you know, yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:09:45]
| Will we at least to be able to tell an order of magnitude like is it hundreds of thousands is it millions is it tens of millions will be will be will we be able to at least guess that i'm gonna say it's gonna be difficult it's gonna be difficult to get accurate information on that on that, Okay. So let's, let's punt on the number for now and then ask when this thing is released, what will the overall impression be once people have it in their actual hands?
Will this be like all kinds of people being, Oh my God, this is the next generation of technology.
It's going to change everything. Or is it going to be, Oh, now that I actually tried it, it's about the same as all the other cheaper versions of VR that people have already been.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:30]
| I think people are going to really like it because as far as i've been able to tell everybody that's actually used it and that most of these people that are reviewers have used the other ones has been wow this is just so different from from the other experience so but it's still even if we can't get 1.0.
|
Sam:
[2:10:48]
| It's 1.0 and it's very expensive compared to anything else in the space it's like it's like it's more like like buying a computer than it is buying one of these headsets that people have had before so instead instead of a few hundred it's a few thousand right and so it's because of that it's not going to sort of break into the mainstream as things that like everybody you know has one but, yeah i agree it's going to get the good wow reviews but i think it's going to have sort of a spike in attention when it first comes out and then it'll sort of disappear from the public consciousness yes i think that at least i agree at least until v2 which won't be in 2024.
Okay i'm not buying you say that now and then you're gonna be like i need one, well let's see you know the one thing i i will say that the one thing right i'm sure it'll have have demo units at the stores right probably because i haven't seen them yet but yeah then i'm gonna try one and then manu's gonna try you know it's gonna happen to be like those beats headphones that i paid like i don't know three five hundred dollars for a pair of fucking headphones okay manu went like tried them he had refused all other headphones tried those liked them and i was like oh fuck shit fine give me the damn headphones you know So Yvonne can see in the picture, but I had I've needed to replace my headphones for a while.
And I waited until Christmas just in case somebody else got me one.
I had it on my wish list. Nobody did.
So I went ahead and ordered the Apple AirPod Max Pro Max Pro Max things.
OK, Java thing. Java.
|
Ivan:
[2:12:40]
| Well, plus whatever.
|
Sam:
[2:12:43]
| Plus Mac Pro. So anyway, the big over-ear headphones, Apple's ones that are even more expensive than the one that Yvonne just mentioned.
And I love them so far. I've had them like 24 hours, but they're great.
|
Ivan:
[2:12:58]
| Have you been wearing them for 24 hours? Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:13:02]
| Mostly. I slept with them last night. Yep.
|
Ivan:
[2:13:05]
| Holy shit.
|
Sam:
[2:13:05]
| And with them on, not like just hugging them or something.
|
Ivan:
[2:13:10]
| Yeah, no, no, no. Like with them on, I kind of, oh God. Okay. No.
AirPods Max. Yes. AirPods Max.
|
Sam:
[2:13:18]
| AirPods plus Max Pro kitten.
|
Ivan:
[2:13:21]
| Something.
|
Sam:
[2:13:22]
| Cow.
|
Ivan:
[2:13:23]
| Did you get them engraved?
|
Sam:
[2:13:24]
| No, I did not.
|
Ivan:
[2:13:26]
| Oh God.
|
Sam:
[2:13:29]
| Anyway next question we're getting kind of giddy here so we got to wrap this up hurry up okay will there be a major generative ai meltdown and and this is a question for me and i want to be specific so far we've had tons and tons of these sort of anecdotal things of generative ai doing stupid shit. Okay.
And, but the reaction has mostly been, ha ha, funny, funny, and they fix it.
So like, you know, Google coming back with answers that say, there's no country that starts with K except the closest is Kenya or something like that.
Or, or the, the AI that the car dealership had that started giving out programming examples and agreed to sell a guy a car for a dollar you know we've had things but the reaction has been mostly funny will we have a meltdown where because of the way some company is using generative ai they end up in major trouble with like a lawsuit or someone gets hurt or dies or or otherwise something that makes them.
Causes major problems for the company who did it well i mean just already like well are we talking from the application not from the development because like for example new york times already suing yeah um that's a i guess that's a separate question like and we can hit it first if you want like will will there be lawsuits and such lawsuits and such against generative ai companies companies that are significant enough to make them stop or roll back what they're doing.
|
Ivan:
[2:15:12]
| I don't think enough to make them stop or roll back. No, but you know, so don't, no, not, not to make a stop or go now, whether a failure at a massive scale at any large company, I don't expect it because I think that man, I keep talking to businesses and companies about this and, you know, you working, I'm Irish company, whatever, you know, involved in a lot of this.
There's a lot of talk, but really, really, truly rolling this out on a mass scale to do something that can create that kind of havoc.
I don't see it yet.
|
Sam:
[2:15:50]
| So far, there are a lot of stupid things out there and a lot of stupid users.
There was just a news story today about Michael Cohen submitting a legal document with made-up references because he had Google Bard write it for him, or at least write part of it for him.
|
Ivan:
[2:16:09]
| But I'll tell you the bit more practical issue for a large company.
All of these require massive, expensive amounts of computing power right now.
They are so compute intensive.
It's difficult to get the resources needed to do so.
And even if you do, they're stupidly expensive because these damn things require so much of them to do shit that is still truly not that complicated.
And so I don't see that there's a lot of ROI yet. There's a lot of cool research on it.
|
Sam:
[2:16:50]
| And like you can show they're setting it up as they're setting it up as a labor saving thing. But right now you could still pay people to do this for a lot cheaper.
|
Ivan:
[2:16:59]
| Exactly. That's the problem. You still pay a lot of people to do this a lot cheaper, more effective, more flexible than having the AI do it right now.
So, yeah, you can do a whole bunch of really cool proofs of concept, but you really still yet can't do something that is really, truly super effective, cost effective to do any significant work.
|
Sam:
[2:17:21]
| Well, and the other thing, getting back to my question about a meltdown, is so far, whenever you hear a story about something stupid, like Michael Cohen submitting the stuff that I just talked about, the general reaction is not, oh, my God, Google screwed up and screwed this man.
It's, ha ha, look, he was so stupid for trusting it.
|
Ivan:
[2:17:47]
| Well, but I think that, I'm sorry, but when you're usually submitting cases as reference, one of the things that whoever the counterparty and the judge does is check, first thing they're going to do is pull the fucking cases you cited.
|
Sam:
[2:18:04]
| Cohen was like, I didn't realize that this was the state of the technology and it would give me made up stuff.
But like, my point is that you're not going to get a meltdown of the kind I described, as long as the public attitude is you were stupid for trusting it, as opposed to, oh, of course you trusted it, the company screwed up.
When that mindset changes, that's when you could have one of these meltdowns where like, you know, someone someone makes a major life decision based on advice from one of these things and goes horribly bad.
And they're and they sue the company for it. Right.
|
Ivan:
[2:18:45]
| They put it they put it out to do. I don't know, psychotherapy or something or whatever.
And the damn thing tells somebody to go kill themselves or something.
|
Sam:
[2:18:54]
| Oh, God, that was already that's already happened. That was in the news.
|
Ivan:
[2:18:57]
| Yeah, I know. I saw that. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:19:02]
| So that's exactly what you want from your psychotherapist, by the way.
|
Ivan:
[2:19:05]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:19:06]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[2:19:07]
| You want them.
|
Sam:
[2:19:07]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[2:19:08]
| You want you want. That's, you know, great.
|
Sam:
[2:19:12]
| OK, any any other major gen AI developments that you want to call out?
|
Ivan:
[2:19:18]
| No, no, we need to hurry up because we're already at the ridiculously time state of online streaming services it's going to be a disaster all year long it's a mess no i think that a few of them i think some will start turning a profit i already saw a time war starting to earn a profit i didn't mean anything about them turning profits i mean as a user it's this is oh it's oh it's a horrible user experience look i mean like right now uh even apple changed the Apple TV interface like right now to try to make it easier.
It did certain things easier, but man, this is still such a mess.
|
Sam:
[2:19:55]
| Yeah, agreed. And like you've got things like and people are adding ads left and right and you have to pay for to get rid of the ads.
And in some cases you can't pay to get rid of them.
Like even the pre-rolls where they're promoting other products, it's just the experience is getting worse. And like a lot of people are talking about like, well, I guess I'm going back to pirating because this sucks now.
And I don't know. And most people didn't.
|
Ivan:
[2:20:23]
| Listen, most people didn't pirate. OK, let's be clear. That's that's clearly the minority.
OK, they were either on cable and they decided to go stream.
OK, that's that's that's the reality. but look I mean the problem is that going to cable cable, I mean, nobody's going back to linear TV. I mean, except for a few things.
|
Sam:
[2:20:50]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[2:20:51]
| Old people use it. I use it sometimes, but most people don't use linear fucking TV.
|
Sam:
[2:20:58]
| The only possible reason is if it's live. That's it. Right.
|
Ivan:
[2:21:02]
| That's it.
|
Sam:
[2:21:03]
| And that's basic. That's basically your news and sports. And that's about it.
|
Ivan:
[2:21:09]
| Maybe you can come up with a couple other scenarios, but if it's not live, there's no no reason to just have a channel that you sit there and watch right you know so maybe maybe maybe they'll go back to i don't know if you recall but there there was like a time way back when when they actually did soap operas that they actually did them live live some episodes yes they would go and they would go and do it live maybe you want to go back to that we're gonna do it live, nice uh what's his name oh god that's idiot fox news guy impersonation uh what's his name oh yeah that guy that o'reilly o'reilly o'reilly yes exactly okay next and you are gonna have no clue about any of these but i'm gonna ask you anyway these are alex's inserts for the category of Teague.
Great. I have no idea about ending.
|
Sam:
[2:22:12]
| So number one in the Teague category, what is the, what is the plot of the Teague comic book going to be?
|
Ivan:
[2:22:21]
| Um, I potato salads.
|
Sam:
[2:22:27]
| Okay. That's a good prediction. My prediction is going to be, and I have inside information here, something about landing on an alien moon.
|
Ivan:
[2:22:38]
| Yeah. It's going to go with aliens for a second. And then I switched.
Fuck. Jeez. Damn it. Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:22:44]
| Okay, next up. How is Teague going to end?
|
Ivan:
[2:22:49]
| Crashing?
|
Sam:
[2:22:51]
| Okay. I am going to say Teague is going to end by all the characters jumping into a portal going into an unknown location.
|
Ivan:
[2:23:02]
| Kind of like crashing.
|
Sam:
[2:23:05]
| Okay. Next up, what are the Teague sequels going to look like?
basketball okay i am going to say the teague sequel is going to be what happens after they go through that portal okay all right and finally in this category what is the teague fish, teague fish clown fish i'm gonna say seahorse okay and that is the end of the tech section We are going to take another break and then come back with our final segment of HodgePodge.
So there comes a break.
Okay, we are back with HodgePodge. Number one from Ed in the medical subcategory.
Will the rate of malaria drop in Africa given the introduction of the two new vaccines recently?
|
Ivan:
[2:25:49]
| I'm going to say no because there's so much problems like right now with this.
|
Sam:
[2:25:55]
| Getting it out.
|
Ivan:
[2:25:56]
| Getting it out. Yeah, that unfortunately, no.
|
Sam:
[2:26:00]
| So I honestly will admit I didn't even know about this, But I'm going to say, yes, I'll be optimistic.
Even with problems getting things out, something is better than nothing.
And so I'm going to say it will drop. I'm not saying by how much.
|
Ivan:
[2:26:15]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:26:16]
| Next up from Ed as well.
How many cases of wild polio will occur in the world due to refusal or lack of availability of vaccines?
I don't know. How many have there been recently? It's really low.
|
Ivan:
[2:26:30]
| I've heard that it's been increasing.
|
Sam:
[2:26:34]
| Yeah, it has been increasing.
|
Ivan:
[2:26:35]
| I don't know the number. I don't know the number, but my prediction is that it's going to increase.
|
Sam:
[2:26:41]
| From whatever it is. Back to up and down.
|
Ivan:
[2:26:44]
| Yes, I'm going with up.
|
Sam:
[2:26:45]
| I will also go with up. Okay, next up. How many deaths from COVID-19 will the U.S. have in 2024?
Now, I'm going to say one thing here before going into any detail.
is i think the real answer is we don't know anymore because they have stopped any meaningful level of tracking like if you don't know about that i'm looking there is there's a covet td tracker at the cdc and it actually says is this right for for i mean the thing is i don't see the time period here trended percent there are all kinds of covet trackers still around but the The problem is they're doing less testing. They're doing this.
And they're undoubtedly underestimating.
|
Ivan:
[2:27:33]
| Well, but the thing is, when people die, they will test for it. Okay?
|
Sam:
[2:27:37]
| All right. I mean, forensic...
|
Ivan:
[2:27:40]
| I mean, and those, you know, have to be reported. You have to put on a death certificate the reason for a death.
You know, I get that it's tougher to figure out in terms of, like, how many people are sick for real infections. Okay. That's an issue.
|
Sam:
[2:28:00]
| I will just do an up or down on this one as well. I will say 2024 will be more than 2023.
|
Ivan:
[2:28:07]
| I'm going to say.
|
Sam:
[2:28:08]
| And I'll say the reason is there's absolutely no precautions going on anymore.
There continue to be evolution of the virus into new variants, et cetera, et cetera.
Even like right now, at the end of December 2023, there are reports all over the place about the number of cases, not deaths, being the second highest peak since the beginning of the pandemic.
and we're not even talking about it. We don't care anymore.
Now, it's less deadly than it was before for a variety of reasons, at least immediately, although there's growing evidence still of how even mild cases increase your chances of heart attack, stroke years down the line.
And the long COVID is a thing, although they're doing some research and have some potential treatments now. But anyway, I'm going to say 2024 is going to be up from 2023.
In the US. I won't hazard a number.
|
Ivan:
[2:29:14]
| I'm going to say it's up from this year. Yes. Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:29:18]
| Okay. Okay. So let me get back to the list because I clicked away from it to look at some COVID numbers.
Lovely noises. Like the thing.
okay next up sports this is all for you yvonne because i know nothing okay i may you know maybe i'll throw in some joke guesses first question from john will someone run a sub two-hour marathon the current hour is two hours and 35 seconds and it was set this year.
|
Ivan:
[2:29:57]
| I'm going to say no.
|
Sam:
[2:29:58]
| I'm going to say yes. 35 seconds is small.
People are talking about things like shoe technology making a difference.
Plus, people are training better. People are generally healthier and blah, blah, blah.
They're getting better at picking out the good people who are really good at it and doing it.
I'll say that this has room to drop yet. And sure, they'll go under two hours. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[2:30:23]
| All right. uh okay next win the super bowl something something super bowl is what i put on the list okay so who will win the super bowl that's a prediction we have to do the bobs and red socks, and okay no you can't you you at least have to pick a team that plays the sport okay you you you believe i know this yes you do know some of them and and the super bowl is like close it's It's like in February, right? It's about a month away.
|
Sam:
[2:30:52]
| So that we already should know. Well, I don't, but you presumably know who's in the.
|
Ivan:
[2:30:57]
| Yeah. You know, I know the possible teams that are likely to win the Super Bowl that are the that are the top contenders.
Like right now, they've got the Baltimore Ravens. You've got the let me give you the let me give you the let me give you a list.
|
Sam:
[2:31:12]
| Give me like four to pick from or something.
|
Ivan:
[2:31:14]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to give you I'm going to give you the top four. in the playoffs, okay?
And here we go. Let me pull that up. Let's play off.
I was going to give you the top four teams right now, which are the Baltimore Ravens, the Miami Dolphins, the San Francisco 49ers, and the Philadelphia Eagles. Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:31:39]
| Okay so pick i don't know you could um what are those okay so i have immediately narrowed it down to either baltimore or philadelphia because i live nearer to those cities than the others okay good all right and i'm trying to think exactly i i'm trying to figure out exactly how close i was to those two cities and which one i was closer to i think it's pretty close close like i think i was about an hour away from either one of those cities that's true, so so you're gonna base it on distance i'm gonna base it on distance but i guess we're closer to philly i i think i i think you're right i think i was slightly closer to philly than i was to baltimore yeah from from when i'm pretty sure because when i i the the two choices like i when When I was closest to Baltimore, when I lived in Frederick, Maryland, and I was closest to Philadelphia when I lived in Yardley, Pennsylvania.
|
Ivan:
[2:32:37]
| Yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:32:38]
| So I, and, and also I'll make the tiebreaker as well.
My wife grew up in a Philadelphia suburb, so I'll go with Philadelphia.
|
Ivan:
[2:32:47]
| Okay. So you're going with Philadelphia. It's not a bad choice, by the way. That's a pretty good choice.
Gosh, this is great. I'm going to go with a 49ers.
san francisco 49ers okay what a super okay next up world series fuck of course the baseball season hasn't even started uh i'm gonna say the los angeles dodgers win the world you actually do you actually pay attention to baseball is it one of the ones i do i mean i do yes i know what's going on in baseball see i i have not the slightest idea i mean look you want me to the yankees the dodgers yeah yeah the red socks you said the red socks why don't you go with the red socks, i'll stick with the red socks okay yeah sure okay they they they broke their curse or whatever like a decade yeah yeah that was like yes yeah you said wow you don't want oh my god chicago broke theirs as well but one year chicago broke theirs one year off from the back to the future thing Yes. Close.
|
Sam:
[2:33:51]
| They couldn't arrange that properly because Back to the Future predicted when they would win and they missed it by a year. Am I right?
|
Ivan:
[2:33:59]
| No.
|
Sam:
[2:33:59]
| They missed it by a year?
|
Ivan:
[2:34:00]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:34:02]
| Okay, next up, something, something Olympics. There's the Summer Olympics in Paris. In Paris.
|
Ivan:
[2:34:08]
| So who will win the most gold medals? Well, this is not really like that much of a drama.
|
Sam:
[2:34:14]
| It's always the host country, right?
|
Ivan:
[2:34:16]
| No. It's been a pretty consistent. Recently the U.S. Thank you.
|
Sam:
[2:34:22]
| Okay i'll go with france to be different all right there we go okay great there you go and and all of these sporting events will go off successfully without like a terrorist attack or something jesus christ knock on wood yes okay okay no terrorist attack at the super bowl world series or olympics you know there was a tom clancy book about a super of terror a nuclear nuclear bomb being placed at the super bowl are you predicting that no no okay yeah some of all fears you guys probably better much better book than the movie the movie was all and then the plane went into the capital that's dead of honor they didn't make that one into a movie oh okay yeah well you know i get them mixed up it's been a long time since i read any of them and i never like finished the series i meant to but i know no well it's in my list of like 3 000 books i should read someday well sometime you'll retire yeah okay moving on we're almost at the end almost at the end moving on to weather and climate how many atlantic hurricanes in 2024 let's see how many do we have this year okay 20 yeah we'll need to know that for next week because we probably Probably predicted that for 2023.
I don't know. Okay. I usually do. Maybe we forgot.
|
Ivan:
[2:35:44]
| We had 20 storm names.
|
Sam:
[2:35:46]
| Not storms. Hurricanes.
|
Ivan:
[2:35:49]
| No, 20 names. Storms.
|
Sam:
[2:35:51]
| And how many were hurricanes? Okay.
|
Ivan:
[2:35:52]
| Okay. Hold on.
|
Sam:
[2:35:54]
| You're just too slow.
|
Ivan:
[2:35:55]
| An average season.
|
Sam:
[2:35:55]
| Trying to hurry.
|
Ivan:
[2:35:56]
| Oh, fuck.
I'd say tropical cyclones. We had 20 named storms.
Hurricane Idalia was the only U.S. landfalling hurricane in 2020.
|
Sam:
[2:36:08]
| Not U.S. landfalling. That's the next question. How many hurricanes? Period first.
And we're and we're asking about 2024, of course. Not and then the hurricanes.
|
Ivan:
[2:36:20]
| So we had 27. We have more or less. I'm going to say we're going to have about the same.
We're going to have to wait. Plus minus two.
|
Sam:
[2:36:31]
| You're making 20 named storms. How many hurricanes?
|
Ivan:
[2:36:34]
| I'm going to go with, again, seven plus minus two.
|
Sam:
[2:36:38]
| Okay. So what's the plus or minus on the 20?
|
Ivan:
[2:36:42]
| Two. Two. I'm going with.
|
Sam:
[2:36:43]
| Okay. So 20 plus or minus.
|
Ivan:
[2:36:45]
| 18 to 22 and five to nine landfalling, which we had U.S. landfall. We only had one.
So I'm going to stick with one.
|
Sam:
[2:36:57]
| Okay. I will, so for named systems, I will go 15 to 18.
|
Ivan:
[2:37:09]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:37:10]
| For hurricanes, I will go a little bit higher. Let's go seven to nine.
And for landfall, I will do one to three.
|
Ivan:
[2:37:24]
| Okay. Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:37:25]
| Okay, next up, is 2024 going to be the hottest year ever?
|
Ivan:
[2:37:29]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:37:30]
| I agree.
|
Ivan:
[2:37:31]
| Actually, no, wait. No.
|
Sam:
[2:37:33]
| No?
|
Ivan:
[2:37:33]
| No. You don't lie?
|
Sam:
[2:37:35]
| Oh, because 2023 is such a big spike.
|
Ivan:
[2:37:38]
| And we got the volcano.
|
Sam:
[2:37:43]
| We did get a volcano but it's not releasing massive amounts of ash listen you know but it's still spewing stuff so you know we got the volcano so i'm gonna say that you know it probably won't be this year i will say no not because the upward trend is not increasing it absolutely is it's just we had a big spike but 2023 like blew away all the previous records they say it's not just the hottest in recent history it's the hottest in like some 250 000 years and it beat the previous record by a decent amount i think there's some tentative evidence that the warming is actually increasing in speed however i feel like 2023 is going to be a spike upward and we're We're going to revert to the mean a little bit and then resume the upward trend.
So I'll say no on the record in 2024, because someone on Mastodon pointed out a while back.
Someone on Mastodon pointed out a few weeks ago, they showed like a graph of like the last 40, 50 years or whatever, and pointed out there was a particular year where things things drop down a bit from the previous year and all the denialists were like, look, global warming is over.
It's really flat, blah, blah, blah. Because they looked at the trend where really they had one outlier year that was much higher than the ones around it.
But really the trend was still very much upward.
It's just there was one outlier year up. I feel like 2023 is going to be that outlier year up, but the upward trend is going to continue overall.
But again, 2024, not record. Okay, next. Pop culture.
John wants to know, will Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey still be dating at the end of 2024?
i'll say no i'll say no oh man it's tough cole i'm gonna say yes okay john also wants to know will another season of ted lasso or a spinoff series be announced in 2024 i'm gonna go with they're gonna announce some kind of spinoff yeah that's the announcement of 2024 not the whatever yes i i am not gonna say anything on this one because i didn't watch the show i haven't followed anything about it okay who will time person of the year be james wants to know this it was taylor Swift this year.
|
Ivan:
[2:40:09]
| I'm going with Taylor Swift again.
|
Sam:
[2:40:11]
| Okay. I, I am not going to do that because it's rare that they repeat, but one thing that they have done is consistently going back.
I think almost forever in presidential election years, the time person of the year is always the winner of the election.
Since I predicted Trump will win. I will predict that Trump is time person of the year okay so i'll predict there'll be joe biden then i thought you were going with taylor swift no no no i changed but you changed my mind i'll go with joe biden okay james also wants to know the oscar winner for best picture so this would be 2023 movies and the oscar winner oh jesus and like i'm like i don't even know so i'm gonna look up top grossing movies of 2023 2023 so i even know list 2023 world box office so let me let me hit this for you i'll list the top 10 for you barbie super mario's movie oppenheimer guardians of the galaxy volume 3 fast x oh fast x spider-man across the spider-verse the little mermaid all right How about if I read you the... Let me finish the top 10.
Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1, Elemental, and Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania. That's the top 10, 2023. All right.
|
Ivan:
[2:41:37]
| The 12 best picture contenders for 2024. I'll read you those instead of that, Parker.
|
Sam:
[2:41:44]
| The nominees haven't been announced yet, right? So this is just somebody speculating on the contenders.
|
Ivan:
[2:41:48]
| All right. These are Tier 1, the presumed frontrunner, Oppenheimer.
Okay, that's what they say. Then there is Killer of the Flower Moon. Barbie is nominated.
Poor Things is a feminist spin on Frankenstein. I have no idea.
There is a movie called Holdovers. Holdovers has been chugging along in the back of critical love.
I don't know what it is about. Another one called Past Lives.
Another one called Maestro. Another one called American Fiction.
Another one called Anatomy of a Fall.
And there is another one called The Color Purple. May-December is another movie. The Zone of Interest.
Okay? So those are the top contenders. So which one out of all those names I gave you?
|
Sam:
[2:42:35]
| So, you know, everybody talked about Barbieheimer, like, quite a lot.
|
Ivan:
[2:42:41]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:42:42]
| So can we do the mashup? No, that's not going to happen. I can't pick Barbieheimer? Barbenheimer.
|
Ivan:
[2:42:50]
| Barbenheimer. Barbenheimer.
|
Sam:
[2:42:53]
| You know, Oppenheimer seems like the obvious choice, so I'm going to go with Barbie.
|
Ivan:
[2:42:58]
| Okay. I'm going to go with Oppenheimer, just to pad my statistics, because I believe that is the...
|
Sam:
[2:43:03]
| Have you seen any of the movies you just listed?
|
Ivan:
[2:43:06]
| Let me see. Have I seen any of these? The answer is no. Not one of them.
|
Sam:
[2:43:10]
| I have not seen any of them. I did see...
|
Ivan:
[2:43:13]
| I'm on the same...
|
Sam:
[2:43:14]
| I did see Gardens of the Galaxy Volume 3. Oh, yes.
|
Ivan:
[2:43:18]
| I did see Gardens of the Galaxy. That was not on yours.
Not on your list. yes and that's the only one that i of the movies that we mentioned that i've seen, meg to the trench no no what else john wick chapter four fuck no transformers rise of the beasts, oh oh paw patrol the mighty movie ah yeah i was i was made i was in line for that early and and that's clearly an oscar contender right yeah of course yeah why didn't we say that i mean I know.
|
Sam:
[2:43:52]
| Anyway, I'm going with Barbie. You're going with Oppenheimer.
Is that where we're ending up?
Yep. Yep. Okay. And then our traditional end of show, we always do this very near the end.
|
Ivan:
[2:44:03]
| Who are we killing?
|
Sam:
[2:44:05]
| Who are we killing? Celebrity deaths in 2024.
|
Ivan:
[2:44:10]
| Fidel.
|
Sam:
[2:44:10]
| You always predict Fidel. You're predicting that he will remain dead.
|
Ivan:
[2:44:15]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:44:16]
| Okay. Cause again, as I note every year, if you are ever wrong about that, we're in a lot of trouble.
|
Ivan:
[2:44:24]
| Yes, we are in a lot of trouble.
Trump.
|
Sam:
[2:44:28]
| Oh, because to be consistent with your previous prediction, that one of Biden and Trump will not make it.
|
Ivan:
[2:44:35]
| Die.
|
Sam:
[2:44:37]
| Queen Elizabeth. Oh, no, wait.
|
Ivan:
[2:44:40]
| She's already dead. But you could say Betty White is also already dead.
Let me see. Maybe there's a list of oldest celebrities living.
|
Sam:
[2:44:56]
| Realistically, Jimmy Carter, he's already been in hospice for nearly a year.
|
Ivan:
[2:45:02]
| Okay. Oldest celebrities alive. There was a nice list I remembered to look up.
Yeah, I found one. Yeah, right. It's still alive, 2023.
Okay, so we've got, look. Oh, God, this list. Bob Barker.
|
Sam:
[2:45:16]
| Oh, wow.
|
Ivan:
[2:45:18]
| Eva Marie Saint. Mel Brooks. Dick Van Dyke. They just did a TV special on him, like, recently.
|
Sam:
[2:45:24]
| Yeah, well, Jimmy Carter, and he danced.
|
Ivan:
[2:45:27]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He actually did that really damn good shape.
I mean, Jesus, I want to be, I want to be in that shape at 98.
Jimmy Carter, Mike Nussbaum, June Lockhart, Norman Lear.
|
Sam:
[2:45:40]
| I'm going to go with David Attenborough. I'll add him to the list. He's 96.
|
Ivan:
[2:45:47]
| Newhart, Gene Hackman, James Earl Jones.
|
Sam:
[2:45:51]
| I, you know, I'll, you know, yeah i i'm not gonna add dick van dyke to my list because like you said he looked pretty good even though he's 97 you look really damn good jesus i mean i i wanna i wanna look like that at that age shit i mean that that's my again a wish is be in that good of shape at that age i already still driving too by the way well so i'm doing i guess jimmy carter david attenborough That's probably enough for me.
Okay. Bob Barker does not look great, on the other hand.
But, you know, he's 99. What can you say?
|
Ivan:
[2:46:29]
| I don't want to put any of these people on the list. I like all these people.
I mean, Jimmy? I mean, you know.
|
Sam:
[2:46:39]
| I know. I know.
|
Ivan:
[2:46:41]
| James Earl Jones? I'll say, listen, the only reason I'm going to say Jimmy is because he's in really bad shape.
so i don't think he's i don't think he's gonna make it past next year so you're agreeing with jimmy yeah he's in really bad shape and i i know he can't be feeling well after are there any surprises like young people, Oh, we're going to figure out.
|
Sam:
[2:47:07]
| We have that guy. We have that guy from Friends this year.
|
Ivan:
[2:47:10]
| Yeah, Matthew Perry. Let's see. So we want to call out some young celebrity that we know lives like a crazy life.
Mike died this year. OK, here I'll throw a name in the hat because he was in the news recently.
I saw Charlie Sheen because that guy is. Jeez.
|
Sam:
[2:47:29]
| Oh.
|
Ivan:
[2:47:31]
| There you go.
|
Sam:
[2:47:32]
| Let's see who. who now I have to do one in that category.
|
Ivan:
[2:47:37]
| Well, you brought it up.
|
Sam:
[2:47:39]
| I know I did. I'm going to look at the, the highest paid celebrities in the world and go.
|
Ivan:
[2:47:46]
| Okay. There you go. Highest paid. Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:47:48]
| Oh, here you go. No. Number two on that list. Another person who seems to be spiraling. Kanye.
|
Ivan:
[2:47:56]
| Kanye West. Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:47:57]
| Kanye West.
|
Ivan:
[2:47:59]
| Man. I tell you what, that's, that's not a, that's not a bad bet. I tell you what.
|
Sam:
[2:48:06]
| Okay with that we are done oh god thank god so some of the stuff at the end first of all i hope you enjoyed our predictions we will be back here in a year and a week to evaluate how we did, next week we will evaluate how we did on our 2023 predictions if you want to refresh yourself on our 2023 predictions, you can go to curmudgeons-corner.com, look at the archives for 2023, scroll all the way down to the end to the last episode of the year and listen to our 2023 prediction show.
And let me just check something.
Just as a comparison, I got screwed up.
Yeah, our 2023 prediction show, which was not at the end of the 2023 archive.
It was at the end of the the 2022 archive, of course.
And that show was...
Two hours, 43 minutes, and 12 seconds long. We have gone over three hours on these prediction shows before.
So we're actually doing pretty good this time.
|
Ivan:
[2:49:18]
| I know. We're on track.
|
Sam:
[2:49:21]
| Okay. All right. Okay. So at curmudgeons-corner.com, you can also find all of the ways to contact us. Facebook, Mastodon, email.
You can also find our Patreon, where you can give us money at various levels.
We will mention you on the show.
We will ring a bell. We will send you a postcard. We will send you a mug.
And of course, at $2 a month or more, oh, and Teague at some, no, Capsule Playground.
At some level or another, we'll give you early access to the game Alex is developing called Capsule Playground.
And importantly, at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask us, we'll invite you to our Slack where we're talking throughout the week and sharing links and stuff.
I will not ask Yvonne for a story. No, please don't.
|
Ivan:
[2:50:09]
| No, no.
|
Sam:
[2:50:10]
| I will mention once again, though, our our our Slack friends, John, James and Ed, thank you very much for contributing a lot of the questions that we did today.
Forgive me if I forgot to mention your name on some of them.
And yeah, that's it. Hey, have a great week, everybody.
And we'll talk to you next time when we do the review of 2020.
our review of our, when the, ah, it's, it's like when, when we do it's later for Yvonne, it's much later.
We will be back here next week to do our review of our 2023 predictions that we did a year ago.
So thank you very much. Have a great week. Stay safe.
Have a happy new year and all that, but don't do anything stupid when you're celebrating new year. Okay.
Ready to say goodbye, Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[2:51:06]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:51:06]
| Goodbye bye bye, Okay, thank you, Yvonne. Goodbye. All right. Hit and stop. Bye.
|
