Sam:
[0:00]
| You're on speaker instead of on my headphones. Hold on.
|
Ivan:
[0:03]
| That's right.
|
Sam:
[0:04]
| I fix you. Okay, there we go.
|
Ivan:
[0:07]
| There's no fixing me. I don't know what you're talking about. I mean, this is what you get. I mean, there's just no software updates. There's no, you know. Right now, it's, you know, as far as I can tell from how much more supplements and medicines I take now, I'm not improving. Okay? Definitely not improving.
|
Sam:
[0:41]
| Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
|
Ivan:
[0:42]
| Okay?
|
Sam:
[0:43]
| Well, you know, those things give you superpowers, right? Isn't that how it works?
|
Ivan:
[0:46]
| Right. Of course. Yes.
|
Sam:
[0:50]
| Okay. Start. Start, start, start. Here we go. Kaboom! Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Wednesday, December 31st, 2025. It is just about 18.30 UTC as we are starting to record. I'm Sam Minter and Yvonne Bow is here. Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:39]
| Hello.
|
Sam:
[1:41]
| So now, this is our prediction show for 2026. It is the last show we were recording in 2026. It won't be out. No, it's the last show we're recording in 2025. It won't be out until 2026 because I'm not going to like turn it around in just a few hours or whatever. It'll be out in the next day or two. And so it will be the first show out in 2026, but the last show recorded in 2025 because that's how we always do this. We are going to do our predictions and we won't have a but first or anything like that. We're going to jump straight into it in just a second because this is always one of our longest shows of the year, so we just need to get into it. Just for those of you who have not listened to one of these before, here is how it works. We have some major segments, politics, international, economy, technology, and hodgepodge. Each of those will be a section. Within each of those, we have subcategories as well. And, And we have a whole bunch of questions that we're going to make predictions on.
|
Sam:
[2:55]
| Those predictions have to be things that the first week of 2027, we will be able to definitively say, were we right or were we wrong? So they are time limited to 2026. So it's not questions like, you know, will humans land on Mars sometime this century? you know it has to be will humans land on mars in 2026 is this like.
|
Ivan:
[3:24]
| The price is right.
|
Sam:
[3:25]
| It is are we like closest you can get without going over going over yeah exactly and so we'll have a bunch of these and for the last few weeks i've been pushing a google doc where listeners could add questions they wanted us to answer as usual people sort of jumped in just in the last couple of days. It was very slow. And then the last couple of days, people filled things in. I will say we had a decent number of suggestions this time around. And so I added very few of my own. I added a couple, but not very many. Yvonne didn't add any at all. So, you know, we're going to go through this list and jump through it. So anything you want to say before we start off on the first section even.
|
Ivan:
[4:13]
| Oh, it's cold, Sam.
|
Sam:
[4:16]
| It's cold.
|
Ivan:
[4:17]
| I'm freezing.
|
Sam:
[4:19]
| Because what? It's like 50 degrees there or something?
|
Ivan:
[4:22]
| Yeah. Well, it was... Right now, it says it's 62, but I...
|
Sam:
[4:31]
| I mean, every once in a while we do this thing where Yvonne is like, oh, my God, it's freezing. And it turns out it was 42.
|
Ivan:
[4:40]
| It was 42 degrees last night.
|
Sam:
[4:43]
| Oh, my God. That's so horrible.
|
Ivan:
[4:46]
| Look, I have been. It was. Look, it got in Orlando yesterday. It got it was. It felt like in the high 40s, low 50s. is we were out and about.
|
Sam:
[5:02]
| Uh-huh.
|
Ivan:
[5:03]
| I, you know, since we got into buildings, I was tolerating it, but I wasn't liking it. But, oh, my God. I mean, my wife, you know, look, she had a scarf, she had a jacket, she had a raincoat, she had a sweater, and then she had a shirt. I mean...
|
Sam:
[5:24]
| You damn Florida people. And gloves.
|
Ivan:
[5:26]
| And gloves!
|
Sam:
[5:27]
| If I'm going to be outside for less than 10 minutes, I don't even bother putting on anything other than like a t-shirt in the forties. Like it's different. Like if I'm going to be out for a couple hours or something, but like if I'm just going out for a couple of minutes and coming back, why bother? You know, it's fine. You know? And, and even then it's like, unless it's below 30, I'm in a light jacket, you know? So.
|
Ivan:
[5:53]
| I mean, I not, no, this is look. I must admit that my cold weather resistance has been in a downward, has been on a, like my health, it's been on a decline.
|
Sam:
[6:09]
| A long decline ever since, like, you actually lived, you lived in Pittsburgh for a while. You lived in Northern Indiana for a while. And those places are cold.
|
Ivan:
[6:20]
| Yes. And I, look, that was not my, there is a reason I moved to Florida. I mean, part of it was, like in Indiana, for example, I went, you know, for several months of the year, I stared out at a lake that was frozen. You know what? No. I said, no, never again am I going to live like this.
|
Sam:
[6:45]
| You know, one of the reasons I actually like the Pacific Northwest is to me, like, most of the year is what I consider mild, which is highs in the 60s and 70s, which is perfect for me. like i hate it when the temperature gets in the 80s and i don't mind it that much when it's in the 50s or 40s but like 60s or 70s is like a perfect zone for me and like that's you know most of the year we're in the 60s or 70s let me say right right now right now like i like.
|
Ivan:
[7:16]
| My 80s music i like my 80s temperature.
|
Sam:
[7:19]
| Low 80s is great if it's in the outdoors if it's in the low 80s I'm like staying inside into air conditioning because it's too damn hot.
|
Ivan:
[7:27]
| Low 80s is great outdoors. I love low 80s. Low 80s is me rolling down the windows weather. Okay. You know, I'm driving with the AC off. Okay. And that's not sleep weather, but it's nice because usually if it gets during the day in the low 80s, it means that during the day sunrise, it was in the high 60s. So we'll average like 70s during the day. you'll get to a low 80s you know it's a nice day it's a nice day I love it it's fantastic but this shit fuck this shit 42 degrees this morning you fucking kidding me.
|
Sam:
[8:10]
| At this very moment outside here where I am in Everett, Washington, it's 36 degrees. We have highs in the 40s predicted for the next 10 days, basically. And that to me, like if I had to pick ideal outdoor weather, I'd be up a little bit. I'd be like 65, 65 to 70. But like this weather, I throw in a light jacket. It's no big deal. Now, of course, honestly, the reality is 95% of the time plus, I am inside. So the outdoor temperature just doesn't matter. I have my thermostat inside the house set to keep the house at 70 degrees no matter what. Hot or cold outside, it's 70 degrees inside, and that's perfect. Although every once in a while, you know, depending on what I am physically doing and how I am feeling at the moment, I might feel like I need to change it to, yeah, somewhere from 68 to 72. But normally I just keep it pegged at 70.
|
Ivan:
[9:11]
| Well, I mean, anyway, we've dragged on long enough for the weather.
|
Sam:
[9:17]
| Let's make some predictions.
|
Ivan:
[9:18]
| Sam.
|
Sam:
[9:18]
| Can we start?
|
Ivan:
[9:19]
| Okay. Let's make some predictions.
|
Sam:
[9:21]
| So each of, we're going to do the politics section first, and this is usually the longest of the segments. And it is subdivided. We didn't used to always subdivide, but now we now we subdivide. And and so the first subdivision of politics is presidential. And the first batch of questions here is from our loyal listener, Ed. So starting out strong, will President Trump still be president at the end of 2026?
|
Ivan:
[9:54]
| Fuck me. I'm going to go.
|
Sam:
[9:59]
| Yes, I, you know, that, that is the safe answer. I'm going to go with no.
|
Ivan:
[10:06]
| Whoa.
|
Sam:
[10:07]
| And, and, and I, I recognize this is the risky answer. And, and his follow-up question is if not what will cause his loss of position. And he offers, uh, he offers four choices, death or five, death, disabling illness, impeachment, resignation, or assassination. I will start out by saying...
|
Ivan:
[10:30]
| Let's not predict assassination, shall we?
|
Sam:
[10:33]
| Well, I was going to...
|
Ivan:
[10:34]
| We'll get into trouble with...
|
Sam:
[10:36]
| Yes. Yes, I'm not going to predict those. And I feel like resignation is really unlikely, given his ego.
|
Ivan:
[10:46]
| Oh, God, he would never resign. I mean, unless... Here is my unless.
|
Sam:
[10:53]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[10:53]
| He would never resign unless he loses his marbles so much that he gets convinced into resigning somehow. You understand what I'm saying? You know, something happens with his head and somebody just convinces him to resign.
|
Sam:
[11:08]
| Somehow that's the way to win.
|
Ivan:
[11:10]
| What?
|
Sam:
[11:11]
| Yes. I think impeachment is nearly impossible as well. Like, you know, we've been through this game twice. Well, no, they impeached him twice. They impeached him twice.
|
Ivan:
[11:26]
| They haven't convicted him. Well, no, they haven't convicted him.
|
Sam:
[11:29]
| You know, now, now, is it possible that we get a third impeachment?
|
Ivan:
[11:35]
| It's I just don't.
|
Sam:
[11:36]
| Not this year. I would say not this year. Maybe next year.
|
Ivan:
[11:40]
| I mean, next. I mean, well, you're listening.
|
Sam:
[11:43]
| 2027.
|
Ivan:
[11:44]
| 2027. Yeah. You're listening to this.
|
Sam:
[11:46]
| If the Democrats take the House and we have like live video of him with Epstein girls or something.
|
Ivan:
[11:54]
| Then I think that they will rationalize that, too.
|
Sam:
[11:59]
| Yeah yeah um i mean they've.
|
Ivan:
[12:02]
| Rationalized everything so far i mean why won't they rationalize that too.
|
Sam:
[12:07]
| No i i but anyway my prediction and again i recognize this one is out on a limb a little bit i will say he will be gone at the end of 2026 and it will be health reasons i won't say for sure like he's going to be dead. Maybe he'll be dead. Maybe it'll be some serious. But I feel like his health is declining and declining more rapidly as time goes on. And he was never particularly healthy to begin with. You predicted he's good. You predicted that he's going to die of a heart attack every year for the last 10 years.
|
Ivan:
[12:40]
| Well, by the way, if we talk about every prediction this long, this show will be the longest show in the history of Curbudge's Corner.
|
Sam:
[12:49]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[12:50]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[12:50]
| Our longest show ever was like six or seven hours, so that would be hard to top.
|
Ivan:
[12:55]
| At the rate we are going, we couldn't be approaching that.
|
Sam:
[12:59]
| So therefore, these shows are typically three hours, the prediction shows.
|
Ivan:
[13:04]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. But let's try not to, you know, break records. Okay, all right. Let's, okay.
|
Sam:
[13:10]
| Yvonne is impatient. Okay, fine. He will not be president at the end of 2026, and the reason will be something health-related. Okay, and Yvonne says he will be. Okay, next, Yvonne. What will the DJT stock be at at the end of 2026?
|
Ivan:
[13:30]
| Oh, fuck me. Do I have to give a precise number? Well, it was somewhere in the 12s.
|
Sam:
[13:38]
| I haven't even looked at this thing in forever.
|
Ivan:
[13:41]
| Last time I looked at it, which was a few weeks ago, somewhere in the 12s. It's at 13.45, so it wasn't that far off. I will say that the price will be somewhere between 5 and 15. There we go. How's that?
|
Sam:
[13:54]
| Between 12 and 15?
|
Ivan:
[13:56]
| Five and 15. Five.
|
Sam:
[13:58]
| Oh, five and 15. Oh, you're going with the nice, like, Abel Smey-style ranges this year.
|
Ivan:
[14:02]
| Well, fuck yeah. I mean, otherwise I'm going to get this wrong again.
|
Sam:
[14:05]
| Well, you know, I used to do all these ranges, and, like, the last couple years I've just done up or down. So I'm going to say down over the course of the year.
|
Ivan:
[14:14]
| I'm going to keep the range. Between five and 15. There we go.
|
Sam:
[14:18]
| Okay. There you go. Okay. Next up, will the courts... presumably going all the way up to SCOTUS, Ed says, require the Kennedy Center to remove the Donald Trump signs on the outside. I'm going to say no. This will not even...
|
Ivan:
[14:37]
| Well, okay, I don't think it will get to a point of a decision in like just during 2025. So I'm going to say no, but simply because it will still be tied up in the court.
|
Sam:
[14:50]
| So has somebody already done a lawsuit over this?
|
Ivan:
[14:52]
| I don't know. It's just because, you know, I'm going to say no because either somebody hasn't filed a lawsuit or it's just, you know, it is illegal. I mean, the law is pretty clear.
|
Sam:
[15:03]
| Well, here's the weirdness on this, right? Like, the law is about what its official name is. Does the law specify you can't put extra words on the building? Does the law specify you can't put extra words on programs and paper documents? As long as you use the official name in legal documents, it's probably fine.
|
Ivan:
[15:25]
| I, no.
|
Sam:
[15:27]
| No?
|
Ivan:
[15:27]
| I don't think that that, I mean, I could see how that argument might be made, especially by Trump's- I mean.
|
Sam:
[15:33]
| Because you got the same thing of the Department of War versus the Department of Defense. It's the same kind of thing.
|
Ivan:
[15:38]
| True, but I haven't seen anybody also sue properly about that either.
|
Sam:
[15:43]
| Well, here's the thing.
|
Ivan:
[15:44]
| And nobody's got standing. Now, I could say that I don't know who would have standing in the stupid Kennedy Center thing. either i don't know.
|
Sam:
[15:52]
| Yeah that's the thing i think this is the kind of issue that it's just not going to go anywhere like even if somebody makes the lawsuits that it can get and certainly not in this certainly not to resolution i don't think you get this coming year anywhere.
|
Ivan:
[16:06]
| This year however this year no but with a new congress maybe because they would have standing, As has been shown in the past in these issues. But I don't think that this is something that will change during 2026.
|
Sam:
[16:24]
| Okay. Now, let me ask. The next couple of things that Ed suggested are, will Trump do various things internationally? Should those be in the international section or should they be here?
|
Ivan:
[16:37]
| Yes. They should be in the international section.
|
Sam:
[16:39]
| I'm going to move them down then. Okay. And, uh, wait, wait, I'm noticing other things in the wrong sections. I should, I thought I'd fixed all these like a couple hours ago, but apparently not.
|
Ivan:
[17:01]
| Just a sheer display of your continued incompetence at this job. We need to cut your pay.
|
Sam:
[17:08]
| I know it's, it's, it's horrible. I, you know, I make too much from this thing.
|
Ivan:
[17:17]
| Yes. You know, yes, you're definitely making way too much from this damn thing.
|
Sam:
[17:21]
| Okay. Continuing. Okay. That's international too. People, people, when you add things into the categories, like, you know, if, if you're asking about other countries, even if it's Trump, it's international okay so i i'm moving this down and yeah okay and again my i i i went through all of these questions like two hours ago and moved a bunch so like my fault for missing some okay, will scotus rule against potus on tariffs this is from bruce now the all of the others so far from that. This is from Bruce.
|
Ivan:
[18:01]
| I think that in the case that the lower courts.
|
Sam:
[18:05]
| There's one that's at SCOTUS right now.
|
Ivan:
[18:08]
| The one that is at SCOTUS, I think that the answer is yes, that they're going to rule against them on the tariffs. However, it doesn't mean that the tariffs will go away because they have been using other different authorities in order to impose the tariffs. So, therefore, I think that they will rule against them on that specific case.
|
Sam:
[18:29]
| Yeah. And so, like, what you said, I was going to say, I think they're going to find some way to split the baby. and the way you described, like, I think lines up, actually. They say that this particular authority that's going through the courts right now was not the right authority to use. And Donald Trump immediately, like you said, they've already started using other authorities, too. They just immediately reenact the same tariff under another authority and it resets going through the courts. And so, effectively, they rule against Donald Trump, but without actually affecting the policy on the ground in any way.
|
Ivan:
[19:10]
| That's right.
|
Sam:
[19:11]
| Okay. Yes. I think that's possible. Yes, that's my prediction too. Will Trump get to nominate a new SCOTUS justice from Bruce? And we've got, there have been rumors for a while that both Alito and Thomas are essentially ready to retire and they're going to want to do so while Trump is president. And they're probably going to want to do so while Trump is president and has a strong position in the Senate. So the question is, do they do it this year? Or does at least one of them do it this year?
|
Ivan:
[19:46]
| How old is Alito? He's 75.
|
Sam:
[19:52]
| And of course, any of the others could like, yeah. Yeah. Have a health issue or retire for some other reason.
|
Ivan:
[19:59]
| I'm going to say no, not this year.
|
Sam:
[20:02]
| I'm going to say yes.
|
Ivan:
[20:06]
| You think that they throw it? You think Alita or Thomas? Because they're age 75 and 77.
|
Sam:
[20:13]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[20:14]
| I don't think that either of these guys will either. They will.
|
Sam:
[20:20]
| You think they're going to die in office?
|
Ivan:
[20:22]
| Yeah. I think they will. Yeah. These guys love holding on to power like this. Come on. No way.
|
Sam:
[20:32]
| You know, honestly, I feel like, and I forget, I have not listened to last year's prediction show, but we had this question last year, too. And I think I predicted that there would be a SCOTUS vacancy already. And so I'm a little bit surprised. Maybe I'm wrong. I haven't listened. I don't remember. But I think I'm a little surprised it hasn't happened already, because you'd think these two would want to lock in that conservative position for another X number of years. Now, I guess they may just be counting on their locking in the presidency. And so they don't have to worry about that. There's not going to be another Democratic president anytime soon anyway.
|
Ivan:
[21:08]
| It so now i don't i think you're you're overly complicated their thought process i mean there is listen alito and thomas have shown that that job has an unlimited amount of, perks and trappings that they have availed themselves to that no other job would have and these people like that shit too much to just go and give it up.
|
Sam:
[21:33]
| I can see your argument. I can see your argument for sure. On the other hand, you know, you have the counter arguments of, you know, Scalia died early and unexpectedly. And, of course.
|
Ivan:
[21:50]
| On the other side— But he was also of the same thought. Look, l'état c'est moi, baby, as it used to be said. Okay, you know, après moi, le déluge. you know after me the deluge listen these guys they don't you think they're thinking of the of the greater good of the conservative cause blah blah blah have you not seen that all these people are all just in the end selfish pricks yes yes yes so there you go i.
|
Sam:
[22:27]
| I mean you you do also have the Ruth Bader Ginsburg precedent that they've got to be worried about where she was like, oh, no problem. We know Hillary's going to win, so I can wait. And then, you know, that didn't happen. Yeah. So anyway. Okay. Next up, I was yes, you were no. Blah, blah, blah. Okay. Another from Ed. What additional Washington structure will Trump rename in his honor in 2026. We know we did the Kennedy Center and new structures he's building doesn't count because he wants to build the ballroom. He wants to build that arch. It's like renaming existing things. What do you think? Any more?
|
Ivan:
[23:12]
| I, you know.
|
Sam:
[23:13]
| The Trump Washington Monument?
|
Ivan:
[23:15]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[23:17]
| Ed had suggested, I believe that.
|
Ivan:
[23:19]
| Somebody actually already did, did like a Photoshop, like showing like the letters Trump, like written on the side of the Washington Monument that I saw like last week. I mean, I, that, that, that's right up his alley. I, I, I, I, yeah, sure. He'll try to rename. I'm going to say he's going to try to rename something else.
|
Sam:
[23:37]
| Yeah. Yeah. But which? The question.
|
Ivan:
[23:40]
| I don't know which. I'm just going to say that he's going to try to rename something else. That's my prediction.
|
Sam:
[23:45]
| Now, Ed had suggested Dulles, which is not technically in Washington, D.C., of course, but is in the Washington metropolitan area. If we're not naming which thing, I will also say yes. He will try to rename something else after himself, but not specify what. But I don't think it's going to be like, you know, the Trump Jefferson Memorial, the Trump Washington.
|
Ivan:
[24:13]
| But I'm going to say this. I don't know why they're saying Dulles. If he's going to go for an airport, why not go for the gold? Trump Reagan.
|
Sam:
[24:20]
| Trump Reagan?
|
Ivan:
[24:21]
| Yeah. I mean, he already went for Trump Kennedy Center. Why the fuck not Trump Reagan?
|
Sam:
[24:27]
| Yeah, I could see that. And remember, this is 2026 specifically. So, like, his ballroom ain't going to be ready. So that doesn't count. And that would be a new thing anyway. I'm talking renaming. What else? The Trump Smithsonian?
|
Ivan:
[24:42]
| The Trump Smithsonian.
|
Sam:
[24:44]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[24:44]
| The Trump Jefferson Memorial. The Trump Lincoln Memorial.
|
Sam:
[24:48]
| Yeah, I don't know. I'm just going to say yes without specifying.
|
Ivan:
[24:53]
| Trump Pennsylvania Avenue.
|
Sam:
[24:54]
| Because I figure it's not going to be one of the big ones. I mean, even he would have issues with, like, those. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[25:04]
| I mean, Trump, Pennsylvania Avenue, I don't know what else.
|
Sam:
[25:09]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[25:10]
| Anyway.
|
Sam:
[25:11]
| Now, next up, and this one was one I added, because I was surprised nobody else had put anything related to this anywhere in here. But any additional impact on Trump himself from the Epstein files?
|
Ivan:
[25:28]
| Oh, God, yes. This thing is like a trip, trip, trip of fucking, I mean.
|
Sam:
[25:37]
| I mean, we're not doing a real show. this week or we'd be talking about the allegations in there of like additional rapes.
|
Ivan:
[25:44]
| Murders, murders of a baby. Listen, the answer is yes. The answer is, the answer is he's not getting away. He has not, you know, he has managed to get away, you know, make other stuff go away. He's not making this go away.
|
Sam:
[26:01]
| And see, the thing is, you know, and we're not going to do like a segment on it, like if we were doing a real show but like the we got more allegations we don't have more proof which is why most of the mainstream media outlets are like holding off on this stuff with like a 10-foot pole and not even mentioning most of the stuff that you see on social media because yes there's an allegation of something really insane in the documents but there's no proof of it beyond And, okay, somebody called in and made the allegation, but we also don't yet know, because there are still millions of documents, apparently, that are still unreleased. We don't know if these claims were investigated at all. Did somebody look into it and determine it was false? Did no one look into it? We just don't know. You know?
|
Ivan:
[26:56]
| Yeah. I do think that given the volume of allegations and the fact that he died, Epstein died, which in most cases, look, prosecutions end with the death of the person. Okay. So that is something that's happened. Hell, if you're not even convicted, let's say you go to a trial and you're convicted, but not sentenced. And you die before sentencing. Everything goes away. But so this happened. The reason I always remember this was Ken Lay, the CEO of Enron. That happened. He was prosecuted, convicted and died before sentencing. And basically it's like he was never convicted because he died before sentencing. So in the Epstein case, I do think that because of Epstein's death, a lot in those voluminous files basically just wasn't following up anymore. Now, Glaine Maxwell was investigated, you know, was investigated and prosecuted and convicted her.
|
Sam:
[28:02]
| Well, and a lot of it wasn't investigated earlier either. A lot of these claims that are coming out are like 15, 20, some of them 30 years old, you know, and are coming out into files now.
|
Ivan:
[28:14]
| Still, you have to remember that, you know, one of the records that came out this week was related to travel records of the Miami Herald reporter. Actually.
|
Sam:
[28:24]
| And that was not that old.
|
Ivan:
[28:26]
| Right. That actually, you know, really made the Seppstein case happen. That's the reality. Cold, you know, she went and dug through everything and made a series on the Herald that literally, the SDNY looked at it. And when they read it, they said, what the fuck? And they reopened, they opened that case again. So what I'm saying is that I think it's entirely possible that, you know, we go back through all of this again. And it's just, it's just that nobody, it's so big that nobody's touched some of this stuff.
|
Sam:
[29:14]
| Yeah, well, it's so big that nobody's touched some of it. And people were intimidated away from it.
|
Ivan:
[29:22]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[29:24]
| People who were investigators were told not to touch it.
|
Ivan:
[29:28]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[29:28]
| People who were victims were told that bad things would happen to them or their families if they pursued it. Some of them were paid off. There's a lot of history of apparently Epstein just handing out money for people to shut the hell up and go away. Anyway, yes, without doing a segment on Epstein, we both agree there will be more related to Donald Trump that continues to come out. Yes. But you don't think it'll cause a resignation or impeachment or whatever, you know, and I think even if he disappears, it won't be that.
|
Ivan:
[30:06]
| Donald Trump is not leaving the White House, I think, unless it's in a body bag right now at this point.
|
Sam:
[30:13]
| Okay. Okay, that's it for presidential. Moving on to Congress. Number one from Ed, what will be the makeup of Congress after the election? He wants no majority and number of seats. I'm not going to do number of seats this year.
|
Ivan:
[30:27]
| But I will say- I will clearly say the Democrats are taking the House this year. Doesn't matter what the hell happens.
|
Sam:
[30:34]
| Yes, I was going to say Democrats take the House, but not the Senate. That was my prediction.
|
Ivan:
[30:38]
| Very tough. I mean, even though, you know, it's just the map is very tough for the Senate. There's just no, there's just not enough seats.
|
Sam:
[30:47]
| The only thing I'll say on that is if these numbers that we've been having from special elections end up even close next November, then the Senate is actually in play, even though it's a really tough year.
|
Ivan:
[31:03]
| The Senate is maybe in play, but I just...
|
Sam:
[31:07]
| It's still a stretch.
|
Ivan:
[31:08]
| Yeah. Yeah, I'm not going on a limb on the Senate, but I do think definitely the House is, I mean, you want the best sign of how bad it is in the House? Look at the people leaving now. And they're heading for the exits early because the following grift gets a lot more difficult if you've got a lot of people heading for the exits at the same time. So you want to be first there. Okay. All right. To be doing that.
|
Sam:
[31:43]
| Well, somebody mentioned, like, the reason you want to be first, especially if you're a Republican leaving right now in the House where it's so narrow, you don't want to be the one person who leaves who hands the majority to the Democrats.
|
Ivan:
[31:57]
| Right. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[31:58]
| So you only got a room for a couple of people to go.
|
Ivan:
[32:01]
| You've got, you know, you've got only a couple of, like, medical emergencies away from that right now anyway.
|
Sam:
[32:08]
| Right. Okay, so just to be clear, my prediction is Democrats take the House, but Republicans stay in the Senate. Is yours the same? Because so far you haven't actually made a prediction one way or another.
|
Ivan:
[32:19]
| No, no, no. No, no, no. The Democrats think the House, the Senate doesn't change hands. Okay.
|
Sam:
[32:25]
| Okay, we're in agreement. Next up, also from Ed, will Congress direct reversal of any tariffs emplaced by Trump?
|
Ivan:
[32:34]
| Not 2026.
|
Sam:
[32:36]
| Yeah, I'm going to say no. No. It's just, Congress is going to do nothing.
|
Ivan:
[32:46]
| Mike Johnson is Sorry.
|
Sam:
[32:48]
| Not nothing. Nothing significant.
|
Ivan:
[32:51]
| No, they're not going to do anything, Sam. Mike Johnson is useless.
|
Sam:
[32:54]
| They'll rename some damn post offices.
|
Ivan:
[32:56]
| Okay, but that's not doing anything, Sam.
|
Sam:
[33:01]
| This is why I say there will be bills passed and signed but there will not be any significant policy changes because of those bills passed and signed. like like they may they'll kick the can down the road a few more times on budget stuff for instance you know that kind of stuff will happen i think there's a question on that later too, so so no to this question um and same thing will congress take steps to preserve the affordable care act.
|
Ivan:
[33:34]
| They're not going to do anything.
|
Sam:
[33:36]
| Yeah, I will agree on that. I mean, that's one that may get a little bit more pressure. And we know there have been some Republicans already breaking from Trump. Well, actually, Trump himself has gone wishy-washy on that a couple of times.
|
Ivan:
[33:50]
| Trump has broken from himself.
|
Sam:
[33:52]
| He has.
|
Ivan:
[33:54]
| Which is a normal thing. It's a normal event. Yes.
|
Sam:
[33:57]
| Yeah. I mean, so, I don't know. But I'm going to say no just because it's an election year.
|
Ivan:
[34:04]
| Can I just say, listen, I'm going to say no, because the Republicans love sticking it to people.
|
Sam:
[34:10]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[34:11]
| I mean, they really love this part. Especially those people that don't deserve any of this fucking government help shit.
|
Sam:
[34:18]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[34:19]
| Except corporations. Those deserve it.
|
Sam:
[34:22]
| Okay, next up. Will Congress enact any of the Republican alternatives to the Affordable Care Act?
|
Ivan:
[34:29]
| Fuck no!
|
Sam:
[34:30]
| Specifically expanded health savings accounts and some sort of check set.
|
Ivan:
[34:34]
| They're not going to do anything. They're not going to fucking do anything. These assholes are going to do anything.
|
Sam:
[34:38]
| I'll agree that was from Ed. And then Bruce has one that sort of overlaps with Ed's. Will Congress preserve the ACA subsidies for the middle class? I think we've covered that already. No.
|
Ivan:
[34:48]
| Fuck the middle class. No.
|
Sam:
[34:50]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[34:51]
| You know, the Republicans should be, you know, if the Republicans want to be honest, they should really have a shirt that's just, you know, Trump should come out and just say, fuck the middle class. Although he kind of said it at some point, but, you know, not exactly in those words.
|
Sam:
[35:04]
| And now we're into other. From Bruce, will there be another government shutdown?
|
Ivan:
[35:11]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[35:12]
| I'm going to say no. You think no? I think they will just very quietly extend things.
|
Ivan:
[35:20]
| Kick the can down the road. I'm not going to talk you out of it. I'm not going to talk you out of it. But yeah, I think for sure there will be another government shutdown. Yes.
|
Sam:
[35:27]
| Okay. Since longer than the last one?
|
Ivan:
[35:30]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[35:32]
| Okay. Another shutdown and longer than the last one, which was already a record breaker. So you're predicting it.
|
Ivan:
[35:39]
| Are you stuck on your prediction?
|
Sam:
[35:43]
| I'm going to stick with no shutdown because I think they will just quietly, Democrats and Republicans, agree to kick the can down the road with almost no drama.
|
Ivan:
[35:53]
| Okay. And you're firm on your position.
|
Sam:
[35:55]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[35:56]
| Okay. The reason I'm saying this is because the last time that there was a congressional shift like this, okay, with Trump in power, the shutdown wasn't lifted until the Democrats took office. And if this is the case, again, that they're going to lose, the Republicans aren't going to do shit. They're going to say, fuck this, it's not our case. And they're going to dump it until the Democrats get into power to cut the deal.
|
Sam:
[36:21]
| So the next time this comes up is only like March, though, right?
|
Ivan:
[36:27]
| Well, I know, well, we have that, but I think.
|
Sam:
[36:30]
| Or not even January.
|
Ivan:
[36:32]
| Doesn't this run out again just in a few weeks? Yes, it's in January, but I don't think it's going to be now. I'm going to think they're going to do a kick the can. They're probably going to do a kick the can in January, but then it's going to get to the next kick the can.
|
Sam:
[36:45]
| Because they'll kick the can until after the election.
|
Ivan:
[36:48]
| They're going to kick the, no, I don't. They didn't do it now. They only got two months.
|
Sam:
[36:54]
| Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you think they're going to kick the can multiple times over the year?
|
Ivan:
[36:59]
| Yes. And then one of those is going to get stuck. And the one that gets stuck, then it's going to be shut down until after the election.
|
Sam:
[37:08]
| Well, okay. And you're thinking probably not even not after the election, but probably all the way through the end of the year. Yes. Let the Democrats fix it in January.
|
Ivan:
[37:19]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[37:20]
| Okay. Yes. okay um and one last question and this is me adding one on epstein again we talked about epstein and trump will there be epstein file impacts on other politicians additional beyond what we've already seen.
|
Ivan:
[37:38]
| I don't know.
|
Sam:
[37:40]
| And then i've got one later on for other famous people who aren't politicians but this is just politicians, Like, do we get definitive proof of Bill Clinton doing bad things?
|
Ivan:
[37:52]
| I don't know anybody.
|
Sam:
[37:54]
| Some senator?
|
Ivan:
[37:54]
| There's only been like one mention of, millions of pages, been like one mention of Bill Clinton and all this whole thing so far that they've come up with. I'm going to go with yes.
|
Sam:
[38:07]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[38:08]
| Somebody else. That's somebody else. I don't know who, though.
|
Sam:
[38:11]
| Some other politician.
|
Ivan:
[38:12]
| Yeah. Somebody, some other politician will get a snarl.
|
Sam:
[38:16]
| And just to be clear on definition.
|
Ivan:
[38:18]
| And I will define by politician. It can be either somebody that was in office or is in office.
|
Sam:
[38:24]
| I was about to clarify that. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[38:26]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[38:26]
| So it doesn't have to be somebody currently holding office. It could be somebody like Bill Clinton who's been out of office for a long time. And it could be presidents, senators, congresspeople, governors, all kinds of things. Right. Like politician, general. Right. Okay. Anyway, I will say for the record, I do not believe my wife is in the Epstein files.
|
Ivan:
[38:53]
| So that's one of your, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to pad my stats and I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to agree that your wife is not in the Epstein files.
|
Sam:
[39:02]
| Okay. Because she is a politician, of course.
|
Ivan:
[39:04]
| Yes. And I, and I will make the bold prediction that your wife will not be in the Epstein files.
|
Sam:
[39:10]
| Oh, and, and I, it is an election year for my wife as well. So I would be remiss if I did not make the prediction that she will win re-election.
|
Ivan:
[39:19]
| Okay, I will also predict that Brandy's going to win re-election.
|
Sam:
[39:24]
| Yes. Like, yes. I would be in trouble if I predicted anything else.
|
Ivan:
[39:30]
| Okay, so this weren't the politics, okay?
|
Sam:
[39:32]
| And by the way, I'm not changing my prediction because I do think it's the way.
|
Ivan:
[39:37]
| Does my condo board election count as politics?
|
Sam:
[39:40]
| Sure, why not?
|
Ivan:
[39:42]
| Okay, all right, we have a condo board election coming up January 9th. Okay, so it's going to be in 2026. We've never had this before that it's aligned with this, with the, you know, like with the prediction show in this way. Okay. So, Sam, do you predict I will be president of the condo board again in January?
|
Sam:
[40:00]
| Wait, you're actually running to try to get it back?
|
Ivan:
[40:03]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[40:04]
| Like, because you quit in disgust and were like, I'm done with this.
|
Ivan:
[40:07]
| Yes, but, you know, the new people that came in basically are, my summary is that they are running a Trumpian playbook. And so basically, I am at my disgust right now at their basically just self-serving craziness. I'm running again. So, will I win? Will I win my seat again? By the way, I actually won the election last time. I didn't lose in the last election, by the way. I won. But I quit in part because of all the shit that was going on. I was sick. One, I was sick. I was like, I don't want to deal with this shit right now. So I quit. I'm running again. So I did win the last election, but I resigned.
|
Sam:
[40:56]
| To properly analyze this, I need to know the polling.
|
Ivan:
[41:00]
| No polls. I have no idea.
|
Sam:
[41:03]
| Man, like, do you have a sense?
|
Ivan:
[41:08]
| I can say this, that there is one thing, like, right now, which may give you an indication that this is— I was just reading these. I just got these documents today. And one of the bizarre things that they did is, and I'm checking whether it's probably not legal, they expanded the size of the board, okay? And now, here's the thing about the expansion of the size of the board. There are now seven candidates, okay?
|
Sam:
[41:34]
| Uh-huh.
|
Ivan:
[41:35]
| But there are, they, it used to be three board seats, but they expanded it to five board seats. So the odds of me winning are high based on that information.
|
Sam:
[41:50]
| Okay. I was going to ask, are other voters expressing their discontent and upset about what they're doing? Yes. I'll go ahead and predict you win.
|
Ivan:
[42:00]
| You're going to predict I win? Okay. All right. I'm going to abstain from making a prediction on my own election. That kind of feels icky. it's like i i i every time i go and i make a prediction on my own shit i'm always you know create i don't know creating my own problems so there you go all right okay.
|
Sam:
[42:17]
| And that brings us to the end of the politics section.
|
Ivan:
[42:20]
| Okay should we take a break and.
|
Sam:
[42:22]
| Just from my memory of previous shows we actually wrapped up politics faster than we usually do despite your like oh my god speed it up speed it up speed it up comments at the beginning.
|
Ivan:
[42:32]
| No no no the reason i said it was Because if we did go at the pace that we were going at first, we weren't going to make this the longest show in the history of mankind. So, yes, I did speed it up.
|
Sam:
[42:44]
| We'll spend a lot more time talking about the European predictions in the international section later, I'm sure. Okay. okay it is time for a break unless you have any more politics stuff you want to throw in last minute that we have not already covered.
|
Ivan:
[43:03]
| Let me see do I want to throw in an extra prediction, any extra predictions okay I'll throw one in yes I'll throw one in this may fuck my stats up I'm going to say that Mike Johnson doesn't make it at speaker until the end of the year Oh.
|
Sam:
[43:23]
| How's that? I will say he will. He will be speaker through the end of the year.
|
Ivan:
[43:29]
| I know that's an aggressive prediction, but there are circumstances that could really force his hand.
|
Sam:
[43:36]
| There are several different circumstances. I mean, one, we talked about already, the right people leave unexpectedly and the Democrats actually take the majority. um the other is we get enough republicans unhappy that they try to kick him out again so far there does not seem to be appetite for that mtg mtg was like asking around about that just a few weeks ago and did not find support for it um you know another is you know something happens to him you know as a scandal whatever like you know but yeah i'm gonna say he he makes it through the year Okay. Okay. Time for a break. The first break here is an Apple Dream. It's Apple Dream 36 making its premiere on the show. Here we go.
|
Sam:
[45:06]
| Okay, we are back, and it is time for international. First batch of questions is from Ed. What additional EU nations will elect far-right presidents or other major leaders?
|
Ivan:
[45:23]
| Hmm. I'm going to say nobody right now.
|
Sam:
[45:26]
| Nobody additional?
|
Ivan:
[45:27]
| As a matter of fact, no, they have actually been on the losing in a few recently. Bulgaria just had one recently where they lost.
|
Sam:
[45:38]
| I think the pattern in a bunch of these has been they've been gaining some ground in parliaments, but not enough to actually win power. And in some places, like you said, they've been losing ground, too. But even when they have been gaining ground, it hasn't been quite enough so that, you know, a coalition of the other parties is able to push it. Even in a few cases where they've ended up like the biggest party in some area, all of the other parties have banded together to keep them out of power.
|
Ivan:
[46:14]
| There was an article that I was just reading about the Bulgaria election where they actually, they went, they, and I do think that the countries that are closer to the border with Russia, they, they, they have been far more aggressive at being anti the far right crazies that love Putin kind of stuff. OK, well, they see it up close and they they they are ones that are not definitely liking any of that shit. And what I saw and I the heck there we go. Let me see. I'm pulling up the story. Here it is. This was just yesterday. Bulgarians joined the euro and eject their government, basically. OK, huge anti-corruption protests provide a chance for reform. So basically, they... You know, they pushed away a party that was, like, kind of, like, aligned with all of this shit. And they decided, fuck that. And no, we want to be closer to the EU, not less. By the way, you know, I know that the UK is not in the EU anymore. But there was a recent poll that showed, like, right now how much support, how much, hey, did we, the question to the British people, did we fuck up by leaving the EU right now?
|
Sam:
[47:39]
| Basically, yes.
|
Ivan:
[47:39]
| Basically i don't think the answer is but yeah not those words but that was basic that was the basic uh gist of it it's north of 70 percent of of people in the uk right now saying oh my god we fucked up so bad north of 70 percent right i mean it's so fucked up.
|
Sam:
[48:00]
| Okay by the way in case it wasn't obvious we're in it we are in the international section now in the europe subsection.
|
Ivan:
[48:08]
| Okay, next time. You know, every time you say the international section, all it brings back to me are flashbacks of my beloved program that was canceled at CNN. Do you remember what it was called?
|
Sam:
[48:18]
| The International Hour, was it? Yes, that's correct. I remember Christie Brinkley replaced it. That's the important part.
|
Ivan:
[48:23]
| Yes, that, yeah. It was on from 10 a.m. to like 12.
|
Sam:
[48:27]
| House of Style.
|
Ivan:
[48:28]
| Whatever. They replaced it with fucking House of Style. I swear to God, I've never, I see these people right now punching TVs and wanted to do that. I never felt more the urge of wanting to take a baseball bat to my TV than having my fucking program replaced by fucking House of Style with Christy Brinkley.
|
Sam:
[48:47]
| I will say, however, even after that swap, if you compare CNN now to CNN then... It's, listen, it's sad.
|
Ivan:
[49:01]
| Listen, they're all sad. It's a reason why I, for a long, long, long, long time, don't watch any. You only watch Bloomberg.
|
Sam:
[49:10]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[49:10]
| Yes, that's it. It's the only, you know what, it's, it's, it's, why? It's wonky. We talk about endogenous factors and, you know, exogenous economic shocks and, you know, beta of stocks and, you know, that kind of shit. And I'm like, this is what I'm here for. OK, you know, the under, you know, all the underlying factors that affect the CPI and how it gets revised and blah, blah, blah. And that kind of shit, you know, real stuff. OK, you know, not. Hey, didn't we piss off some guy in Indiana? Next.
|
Sam:
[49:51]
| Yeah. So, you know, I found in recent years, I have found MSNBC the most watchable, but they have declined significantly in the last year as well. The number of shows on that network that I find watchable is like less than half of what it was a year and a half ago. You know, it's just and and of those, there are only a couple that I think are actually good, you know, and it's just I don't know. All of these places are under the same sort of financial pressures and ratings changing ratings. They're chasing ratings.
|
Ivan:
[50:35]
| I know that my type of TV news show does not at all accrue ratings.
|
Sam:
[50:43]
| Right. But they're chasing ratings. They're part of conglomerates that have to make Trump happy because of mergers and all this other crap. Like, we've got all kinds of factors that are at play that just, like, the overall quality of that kind of stuff is declining. And I feel like there's got to be an opportunity in there somewhere. But at the same time, the reason it's it's all declining for a reason. The economics are bad.
|
Ivan:
[51:11]
| The economics are bad, especially of linear any linear broadcast media. I mean, the only reason why Bloomberg can make money at it is because of all the revenue sources that they they've got, not definitely ratings or any of that stuff. And because Michael Bloomberg decides that that's what you know.
|
Sam:
[51:30]
| But this is why clearly we are going to fill that gap and, you know, we will have subscribers by the millions by the end of the year. Is that a prediction, Yvonne? We'll save that for later.
|
Ivan:
[51:44]
| We'll save that for later. Okay.
|
Sam:
[51:46]
| We'll save that for later.
|
Ivan:
[51:48]
| On international predictions. Okay.
|
Sam:
[51:49]
| Will Sarkozy be—oh, I didn't predict the far-right presidents. I will agree with you. I will agree with you. No additional. Okay. Will Sarkozy still be in office at the end of the year? I don't even know what's up with their current election cycles and all that. Do you know?
|
Ivan:
[52:04]
| That I recall, because remember, they've got the presidency and they've got—I don't remember if it's premiership—you know, because you've got the—is it prime—it's It's not a prime minister.
|
Sam:
[52:14]
| President. It's not a prime minister.
|
Ivan:
[52:16]
| Yeah, it's another name for that role. I mean, Sarkozy is president. And that term is a long term.
|
Sam:
[52:23]
| It's a five-year term.
|
Ivan:
[52:24]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[52:26]
| He started in 2017.
|
Ivan:
[52:28]
| It's not Sarkozy. It's Macron. What are we talking about? Yeah, Sarkozy's been out of office.
|
Sam:
[52:33]
| Hey, I just read Ed's question. It's my...
|
Ivan:
[52:38]
| I'm like, yeah, Ed, sorry. Make a live correction. Yeah, no, Sarkozy's in jail, if I think correctly now. Then he got convicted of something, didn't he?
|
Sam:
[52:50]
| Yes, he did. He's a French former politician and convicted criminal who served as president from 2007 to 2012. Right. I'm not sure if he's still in jail. I'll check that while you check the situation of the current president.
|
Ivan:
[53:05]
| Let me, okay. Hang on. Let's see. When is Macron's term ends? His term. Wow, he's only 48.
|
Sam:
[53:17]
| He entered jail October 2025 for a five-year sentence. So he's still in jail as of right now.
|
Ivan:
[53:24]
| He assumed office in 2017, so he's president of France. When does the term end?
|
Sam:
[53:31]
| Well, they're five-year terms, so that would mean 2027 he'd be up. Because he's on his second term.
|
Ivan:
[53:37]
| Right, 2027. So it won't be this year. So he will be president this year.
|
Sam:
[53:41]
| Nothing will derail that prematurely?
|
Ivan:
[53:45]
| I don't think so, no.
|
Sam:
[53:47]
| I'm going to agree. He will be in office at the end of the year. Not Sarkozy.
|
Ivan:
[53:52]
| Not Sarkozy.
|
Sam:
[53:53]
| Marcon. Mark, Mark, Macron, Macron.
|
Ivan:
[53:57]
| Not Marcon, not Marcon, not Macaron either. I like macaroons.
|
Sam:
[54:03]
| I don't like them. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[54:05]
| There are, there are, you know, acquired taste.
|
Sam:
[54:10]
| Okay. I mean, I've had them. I just, I'm not, I'm not like spitting them out or anything. I just like, I look at them and I'm like, could I have something else, please? Yeah. Have some other kind of code. Very good.
|
Ivan:
[54:23]
| We'll make sure no macaroons for you. Okay.
|
Sam:
[54:28]
| Will the EU take definitive steps to protect Ukraine above and beyond what they do have done this year, obviously? And you can debate what definitive means. This is from Advin.
|
Ivan:
[54:42]
| Will there be a long-term plan for the security of Ukraine, basically? Is that, I mean, would that be a fair way of, by a step?
|
Sam:
[54:51]
| Yeah, I guess, I guess it's like, is it enough to sort of like make a difference to the facts on the ground?
|
Ivan:
[54:59]
| Right now, they give them money and weapons and things. The thing is, is there something more like long term, like of a commitment in terms of security of Ukraine or.
|
Sam:
[55:14]
| Actual European troops on the ground in country?
|
Ivan:
[55:18]
| You know what? I think that right now this thing.
|
Sam:
[55:21]
| Or air support.
|
Ivan:
[55:22]
| No, I think this thing's going to muddle on. There's no peace deal. There's no whatever. There's no nothing. This thing just muddles on.
|
Sam:
[55:31]
| Specific questions about some of those things later, but yeah.
|
Ivan:
[55:34]
| Well, I will go that I don't think that the Europeans will be able to agree on a framework like this here. Part of the big problem is the problem that you've got that you deal with the fact that you've got Trump in the White House.
|
Sam:
[55:45]
| Like Hungary. Well, you got Trump and you got Hungary.
|
Ivan:
[55:48]
| And Hungary, yeah. But I know they were doing certain moves to like be able to do things without Hungarian approval. Approval, yeah.
|
Sam:
[56:01]
| Yeah, I would agree. It's the whole definitive steps thing. I think it's not going to be anything dramatically different than what they've been doing, which brings us to the next question. Will the Ukraine War of Aggression by Russia reach a ceasefile and peace plan? I'm going to say no. I think we're going to have the continued status quo, basically, for all of next year. I don't think anything substantial really changes with what's going on in Ukraine until either Putin, Trump, or both are gone. And even then, stalemate is the default. Right.
|
Ivan:
[56:46]
| You know, these wars, like when, I think, remember, I think the Iran-Iraq War, right?
|
Sam:
[56:54]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[56:55]
| Had dragged on forever, okay? And I can't remember what event, some economic event, or something just happened where all of a sudden it came to an abrupt end. As many of these do. Like, if you think about the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, for example, it seemed like it would never end. And then all of a sudden, it just all fell apart in like no time at all.
|
Sam:
[57:22]
| But I don't think that the Russian economy is at a point for that. Yeah, things like that often end up like things that are basically wars of attrition often just go and go and go. And then all of a sudden, kaboom, everything falls apart in one direction or the other.
|
Ivan:
[57:39]
| But I don't think it's 2026. I don't think 2026 is the year for that.
|
Sam:
[57:43]
| Okay. Okay, next up, we're moving away from Europe to the Middle East. Question number one from Ed, will Bibi finally go on trial? And actually, like, my question on that is, isn't he already on trial? Aren't there proceedings already in progress?
|
Ivan:
[58:04]
| Okay, now, now, now, now.
|
Sam:
[58:06]
| Like, whether or not the proceedings get to the end is a different question, but.
|
Ivan:
[58:13]
| I haven't been keeping up on.
|
Sam:
[58:16]
| Because I just brought up a story from December 26th, so a couple days ago.
|
Ivan:
[58:21]
| That says— The trial is ongoing.
|
Sam:
[58:24]
| Yeah. The December 26th article that I'm looking at from Israel Today says, yet testimony heard this week in the Jerusalem District Court has intensified claims, blah, blah, blah. So the trial is ongoing. Trial is ongoing, yeah. So I guess the better question is, is there a resolution to any of these? Does he get a verdict in any trial?
|
Ivan:
[58:45]
| I have no knowledge in detail of the process that has to happen, you know, for this in Israel. But I'm going to just throw a dart into the wall and predict something. I'm going to predict that this thing drags on still through 2026 somehow. and that there's no final resolution, no final conviction, nothing. It just drags on. The process drags on.
|
Sam:
[59:12]
| Let me say, I think there might be an initial verdict, but that it will be in some sort of appeals process by the end of the year. And also, let me just say, I also know absolutely nothing about the Israeli process at play here.
|
Ivan:
[59:28]
| Yeah, so we're taking a guess. Right now, we're just taking a wild guess.
|
Sam:
[59:31]
| Or even the details of these damn cases. Like, apparently there's three separate cases against him that are proceeding independently.
|
Ivan:
[59:39]
| It had to do—wasn't it like the bribery corruption? It was like breaches—yeah, here it is. Breach of trust accepting bribes and fraud. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[59:49]
| Yeah. So anyway, we have no idea. We're obviously guessing. So Yvonne says no verdict at all this year, this coming year. I say there will be a preliminary verdict, but it will still be in appeals by the end of the year.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:02]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:00:03]
| Okay. Next question from Ed. Will Israel absorb most or all of Palestine? And haven't they already? Like, how is this a question for 2026?
|
Ivan:
[1:00:15]
| Well, okay. But let's be a little bit more about. Let's be more specific. I think more it returns to Gaza. It's just, I mean, is the status quo remaining in Gaza right now that we've got? Like, which is, I don't even understand. What is the status quo right now?
|
Sam:
[1:00:35]
| The status quo in Gaza is technically we have a ceasefire in place. There were supposed to be follow-up talks to finalize things. Those have not gone anywhere yet. Israel was supposed to fall back behind specific lines. They did not. Well, they did, and then they pushed back forward. There's theoretically a ceasefire, but there are new attacks of Israel on Gaza every week that are reported. So, but for some reason, they're not reported as Israel violated the ceasefire, but Israel has violated the ceasefire over and over again. And they have not technically met all the requirements of the ceasefire. However, no one is saying we're back with no—everyone's pretending the ceasefire is still fully in place. and there's not an active conflict even though there's low-level stuff still going on. That's the status quo.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:32]
| Well, I mean, they've basically flattened Gaza. I mean, is there anything to conflict with left?
|
Sam:
[1:01:39]
| Little bits here and there.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:41]
| Yeah, well, that's the thing. That's it, which is basically what's happening. Little bits here and there.
|
Sam:
[1:01:46]
| I mean, I'm going to predict, like Ukraine, this is a status quo kind of thing. And the situation at the end of 2026 will be very similar to the situation at the beginning in Gaza. And in the West Bank, if anything, Israel just approved more settlements last week. So they will continue.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:08]
| I bet it hasn't been going on for a while.
|
Sam:
[1:02:10]
| Yeah, they will continue to eat away on what is controlled by the Palestinians in the West Bank. And Gaza will be status quo. That's my prediction for 2016.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:20]
| I will predict that during 2026, there will be no Trump resort in Gaza.
|
Sam:
[1:02:28]
| Yeah. Okay. Yes. I will agree with that. That will not happen in 2026. The Trump Riviera or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:35]
| Yeah, whatever they were going to do. Trump, Gaza, Riviera. Right. I mean, that's one. And I don't think that this entire, like, discussion that's been had, that's been had, that, I mean, that's ridiculous been had, about basically forcibly relocating all the Palestinians out of Gaza, that's not going to go anywhere either.
|
Sam:
[1:02:57]
| Right. I will agree with that as well. They will continue to have such discussions, but nothing will come of them.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:05]
| Nothing will come of them.
|
Sam:
[1:03:07]
| Okay, from Bruce, will the U.S. bomb Iran again?
|
Ivan:
[1:03:13]
| Fuck, it's a tough one. Shit.
|
Sam:
[1:03:18]
| I mean, it's a good bombing.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:20]
| I mean, every once in a while, just to satisfy his little push-the-button thing.
|
Sam:
[1:03:27]
| Especially if, like, you know, there's been a new Epstein file release or something that he needs to distract from.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:32]
| I'm going to say yes.
|
Sam:
[1:03:34]
| I'm going to say no. No in Iran. His attentions are elsewhere. And we'll talk about elsewhere in a few minutes.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:40]
| Well, yeah, I know. But, you know, Iran's always, you know. He keeps circling back through his. I'm going to say yes. He likes to circle back through his Rolodex of hate.
|
Sam:
[1:03:53]
| Well, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:54]
| I'm sure he probably has a Rolodex. Do you think Trump has a Rolodex?
|
Sam:
[1:03:59]
| He is stuck in the 80s. Yeah. So quite possibly.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:02]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:04:03]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:04]
| I had a Rolodex.
|
Sam:
[1:04:06]
| I i i had some sort of thing but never a proper rolodex.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:10]
| You know we i don't want it to travel agency office i had a rolodex yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:04:14]
| What are the big actual circular.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:18]
| Yeah yeah the circular one yeah with all the cards you put in with the yeah yeah because they did.
|
Sam:
[1:04:22]
| Make other models and other shapes.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:24]
| No but the circle yeah i'm talking about the circular one where you put the cards and you went like through to find like the contacts yeah yeah yeah i had one of those yeah of.
|
Sam:
[1:04:30]
| Course okay next up from Bruce we kind of covered this already but will Israel fully withdraw from Gaza hell no.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:38]
| Fuck no fuck no.
|
Sam:
[1:04:40]
| Not not not in this lifetime certainly not in 2026 but.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:46]
| Not in 2026 i don't know how to say this thing but it's definitely not in 2026.
|
Sam:
[1:04:50]
| Yeah okay will all also from bruce will al-shara still be the president of syria this is this guy who was a former jihadi renounced all that like a long ago and ended up the leader of Syria. I'm going to say yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:10]
| I'm going with yes.
|
Sam:
[1:05:12]
| There was a very good front line on him that talked about both his history and his first few months as president of Syria. He's got a lot of difficulties, but honestly, he seems to be trying. There are a few places where he's backslid in terms of some of the minorities in Syria and such like that, but...
|
Ivan:
[1:05:32]
| But look, compared to where they had been and to what they had before, where you've got, you know, with the Assad regime, I mean, he's actually trying out a lot more. There was a series of articles recently in The Economist talking about how Assad and his entourage are living a life of luxury in Russia. Yeah. You know, like right now. But they've also been told that they can't, like, talk to the press. They can't do anything public, you know, like go out and like speak and like do stuff or whatever but but they they they are living a life of gilded luxury and in russia.
|
Sam:
[1:06:05]
| Is there a good way to jump straight to being an exiled ex-dictator without having to be the dictator first because you know sign me up i guess.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:13]
| I don't know you want to okay but but but but in russia oh you want to live a you want to live a gilded i hear he splits.
|
Sam:
[1:06:23]
| This is time with Abu Dhabi, though. It's not just all Russia.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:26]
| True, true, true. It is between Abu Dhabi and Russia. Having been to Russia myself, I would not like to make it my primary place of residence.
|
Sam:
[1:06:38]
| Crimea.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:39]
| If you were talking about, no, no, no. If you were talking like, you know, we had.
|
Sam:
[1:06:44]
| Crimea is not really Russian, but kind of, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:47]
| Because it's occupied. I know, I get that. But if you want to go back to like.
|
Sam:
[1:06:51]
| And it's the tropical place where Russians went to vacation. Not really tropical.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:55]
| I'll tell you, listen.
|
Sam:
[1:06:56]
| The closest they get.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:57]
| The best one that, the one that I think had the best one of those exiles was Duvalier from Haiti. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:07:06]
| Okay. Where did he go?
|
Ivan:
[1:07:07]
| He goes, see, France, okay?
|
Sam:
[1:07:08]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:09]
| The south of France, okay?
|
Sam:
[1:07:11]
| That works.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:12]
| Yeah. That, okay, that you can sell me on, yes. But I'll skip the dictatorship part because I have no interest in that. I have no interest in torturing people, arresting them to power, whatever, blah, blah, blah. But if you're going to put me in exile in the south of France, I'm like, okay, I can manage. Even though it sometimes gets colder than I would like. But I could live with that.
|
Sam:
[1:07:34]
| Okay. I could see that.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:38]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:07:38]
| Okay. Next up, Asia. From Ed, will China invade Taiwan?
|
Ivan:
[1:07:45]
| No.
|
Sam:
[1:07:46]
| Is this the year? Is this the year? I will agree. No.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:51]
| No.
|
Sam:
[1:07:51]
| China doesn't want. China would like to.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:54]
| China doesn't want the blow. China would like for Taiwan to go and surrender to them today.
|
Sam:
[1:08:00]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:01]
| But they don't want the blowback from the war.
|
Sam:
[1:08:04]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:05]
| They want the fear it instills that they threaten a war, but they don't want the blowback from a war.
|
Sam:
[1:08:12]
| I will agree. Not right now. And then Ed asks, or will Taiwan sign a treaty ceding governance to China but ensuring continued democratic government?
|
Ivan:
[1:08:26]
| No, no. Well, look how well that's done for Hong Kong.
|
Sam:
[1:08:30]
| Exactly. They can look at Hong Kong. That did not go well. And then finally, Ed says, or will it remain at status quo? Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:40]
| Everybody's status quo.
|
Sam:
[1:08:41]
| You know, I'm sensing a theme of things remaining status quo in our recent predictions.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:48]
| I think this is a year of the status quo.
|
Sam:
[1:08:51]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:52]
| Well, yeah. Yeah. But we may get more things named after Trump. That will lead to change the status quo.
|
Sam:
[1:09:00]
| And I predicted Trump will be gone by the end of the year. So that obviously wouldn't be status quo.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:05]
| Yeah. If that happens, then a lot of these status quo predictions basically are, you know, we're going to be in big trouble.
|
Sam:
[1:09:13]
| Because if Trump leaves, clearly China will immediately invade Taiwan, thinking J.D. Vance is a pussy.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:19]
| Yeah. Well, maybe not that one, but other predictions could be impact.
|
Sam:
[1:09:30]
| Okay, North Korea.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:32]
| We haven't talked about that in a while.
|
Sam:
[1:09:33]
| And by the way.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:33]
| To be clear, she meant a pussy reference. Look, J.D. Vance, J.D. Vance says couches.
|
Sam:
[1:09:38]
| That's very unlike me, by the way. I just came out.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:41]
| I know. We're on the theme. By the way, you know, he prefers couches as far as information that has been relayed to me.
|
Sam:
[1:09:48]
| You know, that guy who made up the couch thing, which was completely made up, by the way. Genius, anyway. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:55]
| Hey!
|
Sam:
[1:09:56]
| They should have done more of that shit. I'm sorry.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:59]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:09:59]
| Like, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:01]
| Anyway.
|
Sam:
[1:10:02]
| Okay. North Korea.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:04]
| It sounds plausible.
|
Sam:
[1:10:05]
| It does?
|
Ivan:
[1:10:06]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:10:07]
| North Korea. Yo. The question from Ed is, will Kim Eun die or be ousted from offices?
|
Ivan:
[1:10:17]
| How old is he?
|
Sam:
[1:10:19]
| Kim Jong-un.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:20]
| You know, he's been kind of—we haven't heard from him much lately.
|
Sam:
[1:10:25]
| He's been very quiet.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:27]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:10:28]
| I remember in the first presidency, it was all over. We had all kinds of saber-rattling on both sides, and then we had Trump make his visit and then talk about love letters and all this kind of stuff. But we haven't really heard much in years.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:46]
| Okay, I just looked this up because I, you know, I know he assumed power when he was young, but I didn't realize how, well, not really. How old do you think he is? I just looked it up. By the way, he assumed office in 2012.
|
Sam:
[1:11:06]
| My guess, without actually looking, is he's approximately our age, mid-50s, early to mid-50s.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:13]
| No.
|
Sam:
[1:11:14]
| 60s?
|
Ivan:
[1:11:15]
| He's 41 years old.
|
Sam:
[1:11:17]
| He's 41?
|
Ivan:
[1:11:18]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:11:20]
| Jeez.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:21]
| He's 41 years old. 41 years old. This guy assumed this role when he was 28.
|
Sam:
[1:11:32]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:34]
| I don't think he's going anywhere after I looked that up.
|
Sam:
[1:11:37]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:38]
| I mean, unless they kill him. And I don't know. The problem is he's got everybody so famished in the country anyway, you know, and he has the strength to go fucking kill him.
|
Sam:
[1:11:47]
| Well, the more like, it's not going to be like a popular revolution if he goes. It's going to be like someone close to him that's already in power.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:54]
| Right, some of his general society You know, fuck this guy. Go boom, boom, boom.
|
Sam:
[1:11:57]
| Or his, like, sister or somebody. You know?
|
Ivan:
[1:12:00]
| Does he have a sister?
|
Sam:
[1:12:01]
| He has a sister.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:03]
| Or he has a daughter.
|
Sam:
[1:12:04]
| He has a daughter. I think he has a daughter and a sister, both of which are involved in the...
|
Ivan:
[1:12:09]
| Let's see. Relatives. Kid and family. Here we go. Children to one confirmed.
|
Sam:
[1:12:12]
| Remember, he killed a half-brother a while ago.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:15]
| Oh, yeah. The guy that he poisoned, like, on some foreign trip, right?
|
Sam:
[1:12:19]
| In Singapore or something.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:20]
| Yeah, Singapore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's see. Fuck, I can't. tell. Wives, sons, daughters, Kim Jong-un's family, wife, daughter, son, son, I guess he has sons, plural, and daughters, plural. So I guess he has brothers. Yeah. So he must have brothers and sisters. Yeah. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:12:49]
| Well, to have sons and daughters, you don't need a brother and sister.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:51]
| No, no, no, no. I mean his parents. His parents.
|
Sam:
[1:12:54]
| Oh, his parents.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:56]
| His parents. His parents.
|
Sam:
[1:12:57]
| Okay. Yes. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:58]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:12:58]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:58]
| So. Yeah. So.
|
Sam:
[1:13:00]
| Okay. Well, yeah. I do not think he will die or be ousted from office. This is another status quo place.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:08]
| Look, but here's the thing. I don't know, at some point he's going to do something to get attention. I didn't realize that this, you see, how little we care right now about them. I just pulled up the news and looked them up. Two days ago, news from two days ago. North Korea says it tested long-range cruise missiles, and we apparently didn't give a damn.
|
Sam:
[1:13:27]
| I guess so. Yeah, eight years ago we were talking about this stuff and about how they were gaining the capability that they could hit the west coast of the United States and blah, blah, blah. There was that.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:39]
| North Korea Kim's orders tests of nuclear capable cruise missiles. And apparently we didn't give a damn. So eventually he will try to do something that gets our attention, right? Because that's the way that he's operated.
|
Sam:
[1:13:52]
| That has been the pattern. Like whenever it's too quiet, suddenly we'll get some North Korea action. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:59]
| So I will predict that we will get some North Korean incident that is notable in the news in 2026.
|
Sam:
[1:14:06]
| Big enough that we talk about it on the show. That's our usual gauge.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:10]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:14:12]
| Okay, Ed does have, we both predicted that there won't be a change of leadership in North Korea, but Ed wants to know, if there is, would that start a process of negotiation for merging North and South Korea? And I will say no. Even if Kim Jong-un is gone, that was not going to start up right away.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:36]
| As far as I can tell, he has been grooming his daughter to be just as, how do I say, craving of the trappings and adulation that he receives as leader from any of the pictures and videos I've seen. So he's grooming her for that.
|
Sam:
[1:14:54]
| Yeah. And let me be clear on that. If there is a Kim Jong-un replacement, it will not be somebody who's like, ooh, let's be a liberal democracy.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:04]
| No.
|
Sam:
[1:15:05]
| You know, it's a bad chance of that. Right. Okay. Oh, and that was, there was a follow-up on Taiwan as well. Like, if there was an invasion, what would U.S.'s involvement be like? And if there was an invasion, I think we would not go to direct war with China over it. We might give supplies. It would end up similar to Ukraine, like, in terms of what the U.S.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:40]
| Involvement is. No. Okay. So I'll make this prediction, even though I'm pretty sure we don't have to discuss, we would have to, this is a conditional prediction because it has to be- This is conditional.
|
Sam:
[1:15:52]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:52]
| It is conditional if we were going to go to war, which I'm predicting we won't go to war.
|
Sam:
[1:15:56]
| No, no. If China actually did invade Taiwan, what would we do?
|
Ivan:
[1:16:01]
| Oh, there would be. We'd all be shooting. And the reason is because the Ukraine invasion had little direct economic impact on the United States. However, a Taiwan invasion would.
|
Sam:
[1:16:15]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:16]
| And that's the problem. I mean, because there is so much dependency of the United States on semiconductors and other stuff from Taiwan that the reality is—, China would still want to sell that stuff. Yeah, Sam, but I mean, if they're going to invade and bomb Taiwan, I mean, them being able to do a land invasion to Taiwan is going to have severe disruptions in that supply chain. Okay. Forget about whether in the future maybe they said they want to sell it.
|
Sam:
[1:16:54]
| Well, so with defending against it.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:56]
| Yeah but but here's well but which one has a better shot of being less disruptive just letting them do go mano a mano and you think that the Taiwanese are not look like they would basically they're not going to roll over they're not going to roll over anyway you're right yeah, So there would be a lot of shooting, you know, non-conventional shooting.
|
Sam:
[1:17:22]
| Conventional shooting, not a nuclear war.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:24]
| No, no, no no news. But a lot of conventional shooting.
|
Sam:
[1:17:26]
| You think Trump would respond to that with an all-out war on China?
|
Ivan:
[1:17:30]
| No.
|
Sam:
[1:17:30]
| Or just over Taiwan?
|
Ivan:
[1:17:32]
| No, no, just over Taiwan. But I'm sure that, yeah, because Japan is not, Japan will probably strike in defense of Taiwan. They've agreed to it, if I remember correctly. And so did Australia and some other people. So this is going to involve, unlike in Ukraine, where nobody wanted to directly participate. In the Taiwan conflict, a number of people have agreed to directly participate already at this point. And I think that there is a lot more economically at stake that there is. And look, the reality is that that's what drives these fucking things. you know i will.
|
Sam:
[1:18:14]
| Stick with i will stick with taco on here trump always chickens out i think, if this happened trump would find a way to not be.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:23]
| So you don't think he would want to show off come on man send a couple of carriers go and sink the chinese carriers in the water like out there with some subs going like fucking like blow them out blow them out of the water he would love that shit. He has been finding an itch to like that kind of shit. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:18:43]
| Yeah. Just to have a difference on something that we both agree will not happen, I will stick to no and you will stick to yes. But I think we can both agree that if China did invade Taiwan, the results would be bad.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:00]
| Oh, it's awful for the global economy, for people, in terms of casualties, deaths. This would be a catastrophic war. Far worse than the Ukraine war.
|
Sam:
[1:19:15]
| Okay, next up, Americas. Number one, from Bruce, will Maduro still be president of Venezuela at end of year? I'm going to say yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:31]
| You know, he has been negotiating to leave.
|
Sam:
[1:19:34]
| We're talking about the south of France just a few minutes ago.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:38]
| Not south of France, but somewhere similar. I think Spain had offered some passage. You know what? I don't think Maduro lasts 2026. I'm going to say no.
|
Sam:
[1:19:50]
| Okay. I, I, I, okay. That's covered later. So next up, also from Bruce, will Argentina repay the $20 billion loan from the U.S.?
|
Ivan:
[1:20:05]
| We're never seeing that money.
|
Sam:
[1:20:06]
| That sounds like a no.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:08]
| We're never seeing that money.
|
Sam:
[1:20:09]
| Well, even under, like, on official repayment terms, is it even supposed to be repaid this year?
|
Ivan:
[1:20:14]
| Not that I recall, because...
|
Sam:
[1:20:16]
| Probably not.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:16]
| Remember, it wasn't even a loan. The way that this... If I remember, the way that the $20 billion to Argentina were done by us buying currency, if I remember correctly.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:30]
| Let me see how they did it. Yeah, exactly. is a currency swap line with Argentina Central Bank and direct purchases of Argentine pesos. So we took U.S. dollars and bought Argentine pesos. There wasn't really directly like a repayment? There wasn't a loan? I mean, we could just go on the open market and sell the pesos. The problem is, and I think the more accurate question is, you know, would we, if we sold, if we went and sold those pesos, would we get what was promised in the currency swap line, the core of the aid was 20 billion currency swap agreement under disagreement. The Central Bank of Virginia exchanged a significant Argentine pesos for dollars. Okay. With the agreement to return the dollars later with interest.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:27]
| I don't, how they, I don't, I don't, I don't, they don't have how to return that 20 billion. So I guess they were promising that we will buy the, give you back the $20 billion in the currency swap. But the reality is that it would be crazy because the peso has continued to drop in value. So that means that they would have to a lot, a lot, lot more pesos to get those dollars. So if that was now I'm seeing that that was the agreement, I got to say that that promise now they're not giving us back 20 billion dollars and we're never seeing that money.
|
Sam:
[1:22:07]
| OK. I believe this next one is from Bruce and and overlaps the next one as well. But, oh, I should predict that. I don't I know nothing about this one, but I'll agree with Yvonne. no repayment. Okay, next up. Will the U.S. annex any parts of Canada, Greenland, or Panama?
|
Ivan:
[1:22:30]
| In 2026? No.
|
Sam:
[1:22:33]
| In 2026. No.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:34]
| No.
|
Sam:
[1:22:34]
| No.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:34]
| No, but we'll still hear about it, though.
|
Sam:
[1:22:38]
| You know, it had gone quiet for a little while, and then it came back recently. Yeah, the Greenland part. Like, Trump appointed that envoy to Greenland or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:46]
| Oh, yeah, such a well-qualified and, you know, knowledgeable person on Greenland affairs that we have appointed, yes. See, governor of Louisiana or something?
|
Sam:
[1:22:57]
| Something like that. Oh, which, by the way, hit some controversy because apparently it is illegal for him to hold that federal position at the same time that he's governor. And then he was like, oh, does it? And people were asking him, does this mean you're resigning as governor? He's like, wait, no, no, I'm not resigning as governor. And so, like, the whole thing, like, whatever. And I shouldn't whatever this. This is exactly the normalization people talk about. Like, illegal crap all the time.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:31]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:23:32]
| And, like, like you said, who has standing? Like, what's the situation? Is anything going to happen? Even if it does go to courts. It takes years to go through the courts. So everybody throws up their hands and be like, I guess he's doing illegal shit then. So, anyway. Next up. This is from Ed. and will Trump direct placing of military forces on Greenland? The problem with this question is, of course, we already have military forces.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:03]
| You're right. We already have... You mean outside of the encampment that we have? I'm going to say we're not going to have anything over and above what we already have had in Greenland.
|
Sam:
[1:24:14]
| I will agree with that. I guess the question is aiming at, like, are we going to try to take over Greenland militarily? No.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:22]
| No. This is just something to distract every other week about Epstein.
|
Sam:
[1:24:28]
| Well, I think that this is something like, I mean, would Trump like it? If Denmark had actually responded with like, oh, sure, we'll sell it to you. Sure, we'll swap it with Puerto Rico. Whatever.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:45]
| You know, I would have been, listen, if that was the offer, okay, on the table, the Puerto Rico one, look, I would have been heading the delegation, okay, to go and close these negotiations as soon as possible. Okay?
|
Sam:
[1:25:00]
| Yes. Anyway, like, would Trump actually like a deal where the U.S. takes possession of Greenland? Yes. Would he actually, like, go to war with Denmark over it? No.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:14]
| Would he pay for it? I'm going to say no either, because he doesn't like anything that he has to pay for.
|
Sam:
[1:25:19]
| Well, but if he can use other people's money, that's a whole other story, though.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:22]
| That's a different story, yeah. So you think the Saudis are going to give him the money to go and, like, pay Denmark? Is that how it's going to work?
|
Sam:
[1:25:30]
| Well, he doesn't care. As long as it's not his personal stash, he doesn't care. Like, he can use taxpayer money for it. He doesn't care about that.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:35]
| No, no, no. But the thing is, he doesn't like to approve, like, even like, you know, it has to feel like, third-party money. You know what I'm saying?
|
Sam:
[1:25:44]
| Yeah, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:45]
| So.
|
Sam:
[1:25:47]
| It'll be just like the ballroom. He'll have, like, all the major U.S.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:51]
| Corporations like chucking some money. Exactly. Sign checks over to this thing.
|
Sam:
[1:25:57]
| Give him, like, a little trophy.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:00]
| We are so... And a medal. A medal.
|
Sam:
[1:26:04]
| Denmark should just give him, like, a little medal that says.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:07]
| You know, the Donald Trump honorary Greenland.
|
Sam:
[1:26:11]
| And here's the keys to Greenland. Little gold keys.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:15]
| And a medal of like the something of Greenland. The, I don't know.
|
Sam:
[1:26:25]
| Yeah, exactly. The green part.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:27]
| Yeah, right. The green part. Right.
|
Sam:
[1:26:32]
| Yeah, that would make him happy.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:34]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:26:34]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:35]
| Especially if it's made out of gold. Remember, it's got to be out of gold.
|
Sam:
[1:26:39]
| Of course. Has to be gold. Well, at least gold-colored. It can be gold spray paint.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:43]
| At least a gold-colored, yes. He's apparently fine with that. Yeah, apparently, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:26:47]
| Okay, next up, also from Ed, will there be a direct Trump invasion of Venezuela? Now, of course, we did have this report where Trump, like, apparently, like, spilled the beans on a covert operation on some dock in Venezuela that happened earlier this month. But, like, that—.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:08]
| That was not an invasion.
|
Sam:
[1:27:09]
| It's not an invasion.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:10]
| No. They, for some reason, attacked a dock.
|
Sam:
[1:27:14]
| Yes. Which, apparently from reports, was not a very significant dock either, and the Venezuelans barely noticed.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:22]
| Yeah, no.
|
Sam:
[1:27:24]
| So, invasion? Let me, let me add not just land invasion. Will we have like, let's do two questions. First of all, are we going to have direct large scale strikes on Venezuela proper? Not just the boats, not just like a little tiny thing on a dock, but like, are we going to have like airstrikes on Caracas or something?
|
Ivan:
[1:27:49]
| I know Rubio wants it. Oh, it's a tough one. I don't, You know, the thing is, you know how the focus was in Venezuela for weeks and weeks and we moved all these troops and we moved all this stuff. We have all this gear. And like I told you, I mean, I flew Dominican Republic and there is like military equipment deployed over there. There's military equipment all over Puerto Rico, like all of a sudden deployed all over the place. And it's like all over the Caribbean.
|
Sam:
[1:28:16]
| We moved in an aircraft carrier.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:18]
| Yeah, and an aircraft carrier. I'm going to say that we're going to bomb Venezuela at some point.
|
Sam:
[1:28:27]
| I'm going to say no to full scale. Invasion, yeah. Well, not even invasion. No to full scale airstrikes. Like, we're not going to have, like, Iraq-style shock and awe or anything. At worst, we'll have a few airstrikes on isolated targets. no full-scale massive air attack and no land invasion no no troops on the ground other than like special forces doing like little attacks here and there that has already been reported and is already going on.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:03]
| I i mean i i think that he's going to try to use bombings and some stuff like that in order to intimidate maduro to leave but not invade with like troops so some stuff like the bombings that we've had in iran you know we've struck like leaders and stuff and whatever, did the bunker busters that kind of stuff i think that i think that that that's gonna be what we'll get eventually okay.
|
Sam:
[1:29:36]
| Okay next we have we have an anywhere else category and then we have a global category of things that cover the whole world. So anywhere else first from Ed will, I guess this could be global too, whatever. Will space aliens invade the Earth and take over governing of the world? My answer, God, I hope so. That would be cool.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:58]
| Ah!
|
Sam:
[1:30:00]
| But no, no, I don't think that's going to happen.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:04]
| I don't know. No, I'm going to say the answer is no as well.
|
Sam:
[1:30:10]
| No, going out on that limb this year.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:13]
| No, no, we're not going to get, you know, no, we're not going to get the alien invasion that we've been hoping for. I mean, aliens from space, to be specific.
|
Sam:
[1:30:26]
| Makes me want to go rewatch V.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:29]
| There you go that's a blast from the past there you.
|
Sam:
[1:30:33]
| Go yeah there you go okay then also from ad will there be any resolution of the catastrophe in the sudan and i'm gonna say unfortunately no this is another status quo type thing where it'll just continue to be bad this this is also by the way one of those that we have i think we've only mentioned it in passing maybe once or twice over the course of the whole year. But the number of dead there eclipses almost anything else in the world at the moment. It's horrific.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:02]
| Yeah. No, I know. But that's what keeps happening. So, ah, nobody cares.
|
Sam:
[1:31:09]
| Unfortunately. So, do you agree? No resolution this year?
|
Ivan:
[1:31:13]
| No resolution.
|
Sam:
[1:31:14]
| Okay. Now we have some ones in the global category. From me, will there be any overt country versus, any new overt country versus country wars between UN member states? I'm going to say no.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:28]
| I'm going with you. I'm going to say no.
|
Sam:
[1:31:31]
| Okay. Next up also for me, will there be any new civil wars that get enough news coverage that we actually talk about them on the show?
|
Ivan:
[1:31:40]
| Mm, that's a good question. God. That gets, like, that really becomes, like, a recurring theme that we talk about it, like, you know, like, we talked about the Ukraine war kind of a thing.
|
Sam:
[1:31:54]
| Well, at least once. Like, we— It's just at least once is.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:59]
| Like, quite a low bar.
|
Sam:
[1:32:01]
| Well, hey, let's say more than in passing. We can't just say, oh, this thing happened in Sudan. We have to spend, like, five or ten minutes talking about it. enough so that it appears in the description of the show I'm going no I will also say no like they're unfortunately new low level conflicts almost every year but like very few of them get raised to the level where we notice them and part of that is you know the US centric nature of our show and blah blah blah and, Yeah, it is what it is. Okay, next up from Ed, and I think I'm going to disqualify this question. It's who will be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. And the reason I'm going to disqualify this is hundreds or if not thousands of people get nominated, and we don't usually see that list. It's not like the Oscars where there's five people nominated and then they pick one.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:02]
| Did you nominate me?
|
Sam:
[1:33:04]
| I did not. And I think there actually is a restricted list of who can do the nominations, but it's a pretty damn big list of people who can nominate. And, you know, it, yeah, we don't have, we don't have a situation where there's like a small list that's nominated and then you pick one. It's just like, but.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:22]
| But, but you didn't know.
|
Sam:
[1:33:23]
| We never see the full list. Cause I know I'm sorry, Yvonne, your, your accomplishments were just not big enough this year.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:31]
| I mean, come on. I, I think I did.
|
Sam:
[1:33:34]
| You, you did, you did add like 15 wars.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:38]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:33:39]
| Yeah. So the next question is who will receive the Nobel Peace Prize? I, I will say like the last few years, like, honestly, like I haven't known the people before they won. I haven't recognized.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:52]
| Okay. I happen to have known the recipient. This one was this year. That's from Venezuela.
|
Sam:
[1:33:58]
| From Venezuela, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:33:59]
| Yeah. Yeah. So I knew who that person was. Let me see. I'm going to, I'm going to hang on. I'm going to pull up the list of like a recent.
|
Sam:
[1:34:05]
| I haven't actually looked up the list lately.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:07]
| Of recent Nobel Peace Prize winners. Here we go. It started with the 1901 getting down to the bottom. Maria Corina Machado, which was. So 2024 was Nihon Hidankyo for its efforts to achieve a world of free of nuclear weapons. Never heard of them. Narjiz Mohammadi, 2023, for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran. I think I had heard when she got named, so I remember that, but I didn't know her from before. 2022, Alice Bialatsky, some kind of memorial and the Center for Civil Liberties. Peace Prize laureates represent civil society in their home countries. They have for many years promoted the right to criticize power. So this was one from Alice Pilevsky's from Belarus, Memorial Foundation in Russia, and then the Center for Liberties in Ukraine. 2021. Jesus Christ, I mean, we don't know any of these people. Maria Reza and Dmitry Muratov, for their efforts to save their freedom.
|
Sam:
[1:35:28]
| Now, Maria Reza, I have seen some documentaries on her from Frontline.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:31]
| Okay, so there you go.
|
Sam:
[1:35:32]
| But after she won, after she won, I did not know before she won.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:35]
| No, I have no idea. For the efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is preconditioned democracy and lasting peace. Same with Mara Khan.
|
Sam:
[1:35:42]
| By the way.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:43]
| 2020, the World Food Program. Well, we had heard of that. Okay. 2019, Abiy Ahmed. Sorry if I mispronounce your name, Abiy. For his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea.
|
Sam:
[1:36:04]
| Anyway, how far back are you going to go, John?
|
Ivan:
[1:36:06]
| I'm going to go until we find somebody we know. Well, let me see if that's even possible.
|
Sam:
[1:36:11]
| The last one I recognize is 2014 Malala.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:14]
| Well, the first one I recognize is 2009.
|
Sam:
[1:36:18]
| Barack Obama.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:20]
| Yes. Yeah, I knew that guy.
|
Sam:
[1:36:24]
| Yeah, anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:26]
| And before that, shit, you see, the 2010s were easy. 2008, okay, I don't know, but 2007, Al Gore.
|
Sam:
[1:36:33]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:34]
| Well, that makes it easy.
|
Sam:
[1:36:36]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:38]
| Look, 2002, Jimmy Carter. The fuck, man? You know, 2001, Kofi Annan. I know who Kofi Annan is. And 2000, Kim Dae-jung, the South Korean guy. Yes, I knew that guy. I mean, 2010s, you know, those I knew. But I realized that after Barack Obama, it's like, I have no, you know, the first one that I knew from before the prize was 2025. That's the first one that I knew.
|
Sam:
[1:37:06]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:08]
| That's it.
|
Sam:
[1:37:09]
| Okay, so, bottom line, my prediction is someone will win the Nobel Peace Prize, who we have not heard of or talked about before. I will further say it will not, not be Donald Trump.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:24]
| Okay, I will agree it's not Donald Trump. I'm going to ask ChatGPT who it thinks will win the Noble Peace Prize in 2026 and that will be my answer to the question I cannot predict the Noble who will win but it's confidential I don't care, fuck screw you give me your best shot who okay let's see trying trying trying Trying, Okay, not Donald Trump, because it talked about, but I'll go with number two, Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms, ERRs. It's an organization that gives a service to, you know, the conflict we were just talking about. So they are a strong non-individual contender. So I will go with Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms.
|
Sam:
[1:38:20]
| Okay, very good. Next up, and we were joking about this just a second ago, from John. First question from John today. How many wars will Trump claim to have ended or prevented by the end of 2026? He's already up at like eight or something, right? So this would be above and beyond that.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:38]
| So I'll go with 10.
|
Sam:
[1:38:42]
| 10. So two more. Like, I'm not sure. Is eight his actual current number? I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:48]
| It's approximately there. Once again, I got to ask. I'm going to go with how many wars has Donald Trump?
|
Sam:
[1:38:55]
| You know, chat GPT is not the most reliable for this kind of question.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:59]
| Well, what the hell anyway? I mean, this is a question that's very difficult, you know, as well. So I'll go with whatever the fuck it says right now. As claimed to have ended.
|
Sam:
[1:39:12]
| Eight. I found an article from USA Today from December 5th.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:16]
| It says eight so far.
|
Sam:
[1:39:21]
| What does ChatGPT say?
|
Ivan:
[1:39:23]
| Eight.
|
Sam:
[1:39:24]
| Okay, here are the eight.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:25]
| By the way. So we got agreement on eight.
|
Sam:
[1:39:27]
| Wait, wait, wait.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:27]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:39:28]
| Here are the eight that Trump claims to have resolved. Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:36]
| Yeah, it's on this list.
|
Sam:
[1:39:37]
| Iran and Israel.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:38]
| Yep.
|
Sam:
[1:39:39]
| India and Pakistan.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:40]
| Yep.
|
Sam:
[1:39:41]
| Cambodia and Thailand.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:42]
| Yep.
|
Sam:
[1:39:43]
| Israel and Hamas.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:44]
| Yep.
|
Sam:
[1:39:45]
| And, wait, that's seven. What did I miss?
|
Ivan:
[1:39:48]
| Let's see. Israel, Hamas, Israel, Iran, India, Pakistan.
|
Sam:
[1:39:52]
| Oh, Ethiopia and Egypt.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:53]
| Yeah, Ethiopia. Yep. There you go. That's eight.
|
Sam:
[1:39:57]
| Okay. So you think two more. Two more. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:02]
| More is better, right?
|
Sam:
[1:40:05]
| I'll say, given his need to, like, inflate numbers, if he did eight in his first year, he's going to do another eight in his second year, so make it 16 total.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:15]
| Okay. There you go.
|
Sam:
[1:40:16]
| He has to keep up the pace.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:18]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:40:19]
| Okay. And that is the end of the international section. and you know and just for for those who are worried that we're approaching the two hour mark already and have only done two of these they tend to get faster and faster as we go on like the the last few tend to be shorter anyway of course anybody listening knows how long we ended up being so you know exactly how far exactly right so okay next break here we go and then we will be back with the technology section. Here we are.
|
Sam:
[1:41:43]
| Okay, we are back. Technology, first section in technology is energy. I'm moving things around between subcategories again now. First energy question. From Ed, will Trump's closing of the coastal wind projects be reversed?
|
Ivan:
[1:42:03]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:42:04]
| No. Yes? I'm going to say no. Why do you say yes?
|
Ivan:
[1:42:08]
| Because there is no good legal basis to actually for them to just shut them down. I will say that actually there will be an injunction and they will be reopened. Plus, the fact is that we need the energy. And so right now he's causing, you know, you've got this whole thing with affordability and energy prices spiking, specifically in the area that we're talking about. And so cutting off the supply is nuts.
|
Sam:
[1:42:34]
| Do you think whatever has to go through the courts will get done this year?
|
Ivan:
[1:42:36]
| I think there will be an injunction to reopen them because remember, these projects are already either operating or close to being operational. So, yes. So I think that there will be an injunction to actually stop this idiot. I think they're already it already had happened, Sam. He's trying this for a second time. And in the past, it had been shut. It had been blocked. So I think that he's going to they're going to wind up going back to court and they're going to put they're going to he's going to lose again.
|
Sam:
[1:43:03]
| So, well, let me ask, instead of will it be reversed at any point, will these be open at the end of the year?
|
Ivan:
[1:43:13]
| Yeah, I mean, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:43:15]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:15]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:43:15]
| Okay. Because you implied there could be back and forth as it goes up and down the legal chain.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:22]
| Yeah, but I think the first thing is that they're going to, his order is going, this already had happened, that he had tried this already and he had lost and he's tried again. so.
|
Sam:
[1:43:34]
| Okay, I'm going to stick with no, but we'll see. I clearly don't know as much as you do on this one. Okay, next from Ed. Will someone make an actual fusion plant capable of powering one or more houses? Not fission, because I believe those already exist in various ways, both at large scale and people have been making smaller scale ones. But this is fusion. I'm going to say no. We're not there on fusion yet.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:59]
| No.
|
Sam:
[1:44:00]
| Fusion is always several years in the future.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:02]
| I would like, wasn't that like a Back to the Future thing, the Mr. Fusion? Mr.
|
Sam:
[1:44:08]
| Fusion?
|
Ivan:
[1:44:10]
| Yeah. I mean, I would love that. That would be fantastic. But I don't think we're there yet.
|
Sam:
[1:44:15]
| Not there yet. And there are a number of companies who claim to no longer be 15, 20, 30 years away, but to be only a couple years away. But this is one of those things where I'll believe it when I see it. But even once it's true, they will start out super expensive. They will start, it'll be a long time till we see actual practical application of Fusion stuff. So I'm going to say no, not in 2026. Next up, transportation. This is from Ed. Two parts. And he doesn't specify U.S., so we treat this how you are. What percentage of cars and pickups will be full EV at year-end? There are a number of things we want to clarify here. First, is this U.S. only or global? Second, are we talking about new cars purchased, or are we talking cars on the road? However you want to answer this, Yvonne. And this is full EV. There's another question on hybrid after this.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:24]
| Repeat the question. Sorry.
|
Sam:
[1:45:28]
| Yvonne got distracted there.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:30]
| Yeah, I got distracted for a second. Sorry. Repeat the question.
|
Sam:
[1:45:34]
| What percentage of cars and pickups, so just vehicles, will be full EV at the year end? This is from Ed. But he does not specify U.S. or international, and he does not specify whether he's talking about new cars sold or whether he's talking cars on the road. So pick however you want to answer that question. And there's a separate question for hybrid. This is full EV only.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:01]
| Let me see, because I'm going to pull up the information on that first. Because this year, in 2024, we had more than 10. We did exceed 10%.
|
Sam:
[1:46:14]
| In 2024.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:16]
| In 2024. That's a year. For new car sales.
|
Sam:
[1:46:21]
| In the U.S.?
|
Ivan:
[1:46:23]
| Yeah, but.
|
Sam:
[1:46:25]
| But then we have incentives expiring and all kinds of other factors.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:29]
| So, I mean, that's one of the things where I think that and because of some of the trends, the share of that will probably like remain kind of flat. This year. So I think that that's so that that's it's going to stay around not nine to 11 percent range.
|
Sam:
[1:46:44]
| Nine to 11 percent.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:46]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:46:47]
| And you are new part, new cars.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:49]
| New cars.
|
Sam:
[1:46:50]
| Yes. Fully V.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:53]
| Yes. The reality is that hybrids is a totally different question.
|
Sam:
[1:46:57]
| Yeah. We're going to talk about that in a second. So, for that same prediction, I am just going to say, despite all the headwinds, 2026 will be greater than 2025.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:11]
| Okay. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:47:13]
| I'm not going to say how much greater, just more as a percentage. Okay. So, next up is hybrid. And, again, Ed doesn't specify plug-in hybrid versus regular hybrid. doesn't specify U.S. versus international, doesn't specify purchases versus on the road. So choose whatever you want in order to answer that question.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:36]
| So sticking with that, we had been like at around total sales.
|
Sam:
[1:47:40]
| And now are you talking plug-in hybrid or all hybrid?
|
Ivan:
[1:47:44]
| All hybrids, including plug-ins. If I'm going to go with – the thing is that the figures that I found, the first ones kind of like mix hybrids, electrics, and plug-in hybrids. Okay. So that percentage is around 22%. So I guess if you take that 10%, it is, it's around 12% of the market. But here's the thing. Like Toyota, for example, just recently launched a whole bunch of upgrades to some of their most popular vehicles. And the base model that you can have, you can't have a non-hybrid anymore. They're all hybrids, period. So if we go by your standard of, will it be higher?
|
Sam:
[1:48:26]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:27]
| Oh, by far. It's going to blow it away. Because Ford also was increasing their output of hybrid vehicles as well. They had backed off on some electric models and were aggressively pushing more, selling more hybrid models. In part because there was, they had launched like a couple of years ago, this little like pickup truck called Maverick. I don't know if you've seen those around. They're a small pickup truck. Okay. Small, you know, it's a small fuel efficient pickup truck. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:49:07]
| Not like the tiny Japanese ones, though, but small for U.S. standards.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:10]
| It's bigger than those, but it's small for U.S. standards, okay? It goes back to, like, we haven't had a pickup truck with that size dating back to the 90s, 80s. And they couldn't keep them in stock. They were, well, number one, they were super fuel efficient. They were cheap, okay? And they couldn't make enough of them. They've actually had to move production to, you know, to to increase production of of this vehicle and so yeah you've got a Ford that is expanding their hybrid production Toyota that has moved all their cars basically but several of their model lineups, including their number one most popular car in the U.S. the RAV4 that's number one car in the U.S. behind the Ford F-150 and Chevy Silverado okay that's it's a Toyota RAV4 that one you can't have unless it's a hybrid anymore, period. Okay, that's it. And Honda had been moving in the same direction, so you're going to get that that number will shoot well past the 22%. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:50:16]
| Well, 22 minus the 10, so above 12.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:20]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:50:20]
| So I'm going to agree up. Okay, next question from Ed. And this leaves a lot of interpretation, but ed ed asks will tesla finally deliver a safe self-driving car yeah now because you can argue that their existing fsd is already is pretty good at this point like it's it's still got some issues it's not full self-driving like are you talking about the thing is what are you talking about Will we have.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:53]
| Do we, you know, what level would we be talking about? Right now we have level three. That's the most we got?
|
Sam:
[1:51:02]
| I think so.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:03]
| Yeah. Okay. So I don't think we're getting a level four car.
|
Sam:
[1:51:08]
| I forget the exact definitions of the difference. But the, I mean, are we talking here like, yeah, the prediction that like we talked about after 10 years earlier this year where, you know, you can legally sleep. There is no steering wheel. Are we talking that? Or are we talking, you know, are we talking like Waymo kind of taxis? What are we talking about?
|
Ivan:
[1:51:31]
| Okay, so reality is that we don't have a level four car, okay, that really, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:51:39]
| Define L3, 4, and 5 for us.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:41]
| So the thing is, level four basically is a car that drives itself with no human intervention inside the operational design. So we don't have that.
|
Sam:
[1:51:52]
| So what's L5?
|
Ivan:
[1:51:54]
| I've never heard of L5.
|
Sam:
[1:51:56]
| I thought it was a five-point scale. Maybe it's only four.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:02]
| Okay, there is level five. Okay, so human required, no, but in zones. So this is the, okay, level five is the one that doesn't require human at all. That it can drive anywhere. It's not geofenced. Okay, because we've got cars that can geofenced drive in certain conditions, but we know that they even require human intervention. We just saw that in San Francisco where there was an outage in San Francisco. And all the Waymos got confused. All the Waymos got confused. So we don't have that. I think, I don't think that we're crossing that threshold this year either.
|
Sam:
[1:52:42]
| So no L4 cars in the U.S. in 2026.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:48]
| Yeah, especially ones that a consumer can be. Because the one that talked about is a consumer can buy. You know, they defined that a Waymo is a level four. But the reality is that, A, it requires human. B, that's got to be geofenced. So there isn't, yeah, so that's the limitation that we've got. And consumers can't buy it. It's only, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:53:08]
| It's running a taxi service. You can't go out and buy a Waymo for personal use.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:12]
| Correct.
|
Sam:
[1:53:12]
| And sleep in the back seat while it drives you somewhere.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:16]
| Correct.
|
Sam:
[1:53:17]
| Yeah. Okay. And we don't think that's going to change in 2026.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:20]
| I don't think so.
|
Sam:
[1:53:22]
| Now, will, let me refine, with Tesla's existing full self-driving feature, will it improve enough to the point that people like you aren't poo-pooing at safety issues.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:39]
| I don't think that Tesla can get to that. Okay, people like me are poo-pooing at safety issues. Because no radar at all. Even if they had just stuck with radar, just regular radar. The reality is that they have made it that they've kind of like locked themselves in in terms of progress by limiting. It's like me saying, hey, Sam, you know what? Forget about your ears. You don't need those. You can do everything with sight. No, you can't. I mean, you can, but it's not going to be as good as if you had ears as well. It's just, I mean, this is a self-imposed limitation that makes no sense whatsoever.
|
Sam:
[1:54:21]
| There are lots of deaf people who might disagree with you.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:27]
| It's, I know what you're saying.
|
Sam:
[1:54:29]
| You are, in this case, you are intentionally making the problem harder.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:35]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:54:35]
| Whether or not you can eventually solve the problem is perhaps debatable, but you were intentionally making it harder.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:42]
| It's the same thing as like, you know, with deaf people, of course, of course, you can do quite a lot. OK, without it, you can get. But the reality is that when you're trying to get to you, you get to the margins where you're trying to do this improvement at a certain point, there is a limitation. OK, and so, yeah, you can get to 90 plus percent of it, but you're artificially imposing a limitation that you really shouldn't have for no good reason whatsoever. It's not even cost either. It's just stubbornness. and somebody else will, beat them by using it, which is a stupid thing, even though they had such a head start.
|
Sam:
[1:55:20]
| Okay. I forget if I even said it. I will agree on no, we're not going to get to the point where full self-driving will continue to improve.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:33]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:55:34]
| We have seen it each year. It has been better than the year before. It will not get to the point where unanimous, I mean, you're never unanimous on anything, but you will not get to the point where people are fairly universally acknowledging, okay, yeah, it's good enough, it's safe, you know, you really can safely You're not going to be able to buy a level four car.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:02]
| A true level four car today.
|
Sam:
[1:56:04]
| Yeah, let's put it that way. It will not evolve to level four, it will still be level three. Is that a good way to put it?
|
Ivan:
[1:56:09]
| Yes. Okay. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:56:10]
| Okay, so... The next question from Bruce is, will SpaceX catch the Starship with Mechazilla? And I had to look this up because I don't follow them closely enough. Mechazilla is the giant mechanical arms on the pad gantry to catch the descending first stages of things. They have done this with—so this seems like they did it. Like, here's an article from October 14, 2024. In one of the most dramatic, high-risk spaceflights to date, SpaceX launched a gargantuan, super-heavy Starship rocket on an unpiloted test flight Sunday. Oh, okay. And then used gigantic Mechazilla mechanical arms on the pad gantry to pluck the descending first stage out of the sky. So they grabbed the first stage, but they have not grabbed the Starship itself. And so the question, I guess, is will they do that in 2026?
|
Sam:
[1:57:17]
| I'm going to say no. I've been fairly bearish on the pace of SpaceX's progress. They seem to eventually get whatever they're after, but it always takes them significantly longer than they advertise as when they think their timetables will be. And I feel like they've been having a lot of issues lately. Maybe I'm wrong. I mean, Starship in particular blew up a number of times. I mean, all of their things blow up a number of times before they succeed. That's just their intentional mode of operation. Like, so, but I'm going to say no, not in 2026.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:01]
| I'm going to go with Sam and say no.
|
Sam:
[1:58:03]
| Okay. Next up from Bruce, will Artemis 2 be a success? Is that even still scheduled for this year? I think he's butchering it back.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:13]
| I know. That's a good question.
|
Sam:
[1:58:14]
| I mean, it was at one point scheduled. So, the current scheduled launch date is February. So, not very far away right now.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:26]
| Well, that's the target at the earliest launch. Right.
|
Sam:
[1:58:29]
| Well, yes. But that's the—.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:32]
| I guess it's supposed to happen in the next few months.
|
Sam:
[1:58:34]
| Currently, that is the scheduled date. I mean, they may push it back.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:38]
| Are there two moon astronauts rehearsed for launch day? And that was yesterday. Shit. This is closer to, you know, this happened to us already before. This happened with the first Artemis where it just sneaked up on us. Yeah. It looks like they're getting ready to roll.
|
Sam:
[1:58:53]
| And to be clear, Artemis 2 is a manned mission to go around the moon and come back. So they're not landing yet. That's been pushed out even further. But first manned mission with this, I will say it won't happen in February, but it will happen this year. and let's define success as the four, they actually go around the moon and the four astronauts return alive.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:24]
| Yes, we want, yes. Live astronauts returned, yes, is successful. Not dead astronauts.
|
Sam:
[1:59:30]
| Not dead astronauts and not an Apollo 13 scenario where they go partway and come back without getting there. I'll say yes. Let's be optimistic.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:39]
| Maybe partway. Well, I mean. Wait, wait, wait. Apollo 13, actually.
|
Sam:
[1:59:43]
| They didn't land. They didn't land.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:44]
| Right, so it would be the same. Yeah, so in terms of this mission, Apollo 13 would have been successful.
|
Sam:
[1:59:50]
| Well, yes, but, yes. But, like, if they did not successfully circle the moon. Like, for instance, they do an emergency escape on launch or something. That doesn't count.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:01]
| They did circle the moon, is what I'm saying.
|
Sam:
[2:00:03]
| Well, yes, I know Apollo 13 did. But, like, I'm saying in this case, a partial, like, if they— No, no, no.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:10]
| If they go circle the moon, come back, and land, and they're all alive, it's a success.
|
Sam:
[2:00:17]
| That's a success, yes.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:18]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:00:18]
| If any one of those elements are missing, it's not a success.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:21]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:00:22]
| Yeah, they don't circle the moon, somebody dies, et cetera, then it's not a success. I'm going to be optimistic and say yes. Again, I think it'll be delayed past February because everything ends up delayed. But let's say yes. Are you a yes?
|
Ivan:
[2:00:40]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:00:41]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:42]
| 2026, yes, it will happen.
|
Sam:
[2:00:44]
| Okay, next up, the social media subcategory. Okay. Will X usage increase in 2026? I'm going to say it's going to continue to decrease. It's been on the decline.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:57]
| It continues to decline. That thing is just slowly imploding.
|
Sam:
[2:01:02]
| I mean, it still has an amazing amount of influence, like given what it is.
|
Ivan:
[2:01:08]
| But it's not what it was.
|
Sam:
[2:01:11]
| For sure.
|
Ivan:
[2:01:11]
| It used to be a viable business. Now it's just Elon's pet project.
|
Sam:
[2:01:18]
| Thing.
|
Ivan:
[2:01:19]
| It's like truth. Basically, it's like truth social right now, which doesn't make any money either. But that used to be a viable business, Sam.
|
Sam:
[2:01:27]
| Well, but the question here isn't about viable businesses. It isn't about money. It's about usage. Like, like, usage keeps going down.
|
Ivan:
[2:01:35]
| Usage keeps going down. It's been trending downward and downward and downward continuously.
|
Sam:
[2:01:39]
| And I see nothing that's going to change.
|
Ivan:
[2:01:40]
| And there's nothing. I mean, there's no, you know, there's no investment in it. There's no updates in it. I mean, other applications are adding features, adding things, working into it, and, you know, they're not, so.
|
Sam:
[2:01:55]
| Okay. Bruce also asks, other than the change in ownership, which, by the way, has that, is that, has that fully gone through yet? Or is it still like a, we've agreed, but it hasn't happened yet? Is that done?
|
Ivan:
[2:02:11]
| The change of an ownership for?
|
Sam:
[2:02:13]
| TikTok. TikTok.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:15]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:02:16]
| So it's completely, I knew there was an agreement, but like it.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:19]
| Actually- That was official over the last couple of weeks, yes.
|
Sam:
[2:02:22]
| Okay, so it's done. Other than the change of ownership, will there be any significant changes to TikTok?
|
Ivan:
[2:02:30]
| I don't expect there to be.
|
Sam:
[2:02:32]
| I'm going to say.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:33]
| They've kept a lot. The management team, the people, they're still the working relationship, whatever. This is more like a change in the investors. But in terms of like how it operates, there was no change as far as I tell.
|
Sam:
[2:02:45]
| I'm going to say this depends on significant. Because I'm going to put it this way.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:52]
| Okay. Significant. I'm going to define significant more easily. Are there going to be changes like Twitter? I'm saying simple. Yeah, but we just, you know, yeah, we just...
|
Sam:
[2:03:03]
| Where you see a massive exodus because of feature changes that people find repulsive or content changes that people find repulsive.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:10]
| Or because you've got the CEO going like fucking like just fucking around with the algorithm on a regular basis just in order to just... No, you're not going to have any of that shit. No.
|
Sam:
[2:03:20]
| I'm going to say I'm not going to define it that way. Well, I will say I agree with you. I don't think there will be something that dramatic in the way that you described. However, I think TikTok's influence peaked in 2025. And you're going to see a decline and degradation that I don't necessarily, it's not necessarily because of the ownership changes necessarily, but just in the last few months, I've already seen things like increases in the percentage of ads you see, dark UX patterns where it makes it harder to swipe past an ad without accidentally clicking on it.
|
Sam:
[2:04:08]
| In the last couple of weeks, people have been complaining that there was some sort of bug in the algorithm where you were all of a sudden seeing all kinds of old crap instead of new stuff. And I've noticed as well that it's not, As responsive in figuring out the right things to show me, I think they're playing with things and tweaking with things to try to improve monetization and improve, you know, retention. And that in the process, just like almost every fucking social media company out there, that they start breaking the things that people liked about it. by trying to make it more efficient at making money. And so it becomes less desirable over time. And I think TikTok is in that cycle and they've already peaked and they're on the downslope. Now, do I think they're going to have the kind of dramatic decline that Twitter slash X had? I don't think it's going to be as dramatic, but I think there is going to be a, you know, general feeling at the end of 2026 that it was not as good or not as compelling as it was in 2025. There's my prediction.
|
Ivan:
[2:05:34]
| Well, I'm just going to think that I think that most people will not notice any significant change in what's happening whatsoever. That's just going to be my opinion. They're just going to operate steady as she goes, like right now.
|
Sam:
[2:05:44]
| Well, and my prediction is no step change that people will notice like that and complaining No, just a gradual decline over the course of the year.
|
Ivan:
[2:05:54]
| Well, I'm not going to predict that. I think that 2026 is going to be, my opinion is just no significant, nobody's going to be bitching that, oh my God, they fucked up the application by the end of the year. Any differently in terms of, well, here's the thing, everybody complains that everything's been fucked. Like at the end of the year, even when nothing changes. However, I don't think that there's going to be an exodus of users because of any significant changes to it. There you go.
|
Sam:
[2:06:25]
| Okay. Next up, and this is for me a more generic question. What does the social media landscape in general look like at the end of the year compared to now? I mean, we've had sort of, we talked about X. Yeah. The various ex-competitors, it looks like BlueSky and Threads are still the two major ones. I'm a lot more on BlueSky. My wife is a lot more on Threads. I think you're more on Threads than BlueSky, right, Yvonne? I'm not sure.
|
Ivan:
[2:06:57]
| I will say that I've been more on Threads than on BlueSky. I am using BlueSky. I am using Threads. I must admit that I am barely ever logging into Mastodon anymore.
|
Sam:
[2:07:07]
| Me too. Like, I will occasionally check in, but it was my go-to for a long time.
|
Ivan:
[2:07:13]
| For a while.
|
Sam:
[2:07:14]
| Blue Sky has taken its place for me.
|
Ivan:
[2:07:16]
| Yeah. So I am going to both.
|
Sam:
[2:07:19]
| I'm upset, by the way, that, like, the people who made TweetBot and Ivory as clients, they said they were going to be working on a Blue Sky client, but it hasn't come out yet. But apparently they like one of the it's only a team of like two to three people working on it. And one of them had like a major family health crisis. So it's delayed indefinitely, which I don't blame them for at all. Those issues are more important. But but yeah, I'm kind of there are things about the official Blue Sky application that piss me off and make me really wish I had one from those guys. But but it's still it's the place I use all the time. And the reason is, it's where the people I want to follow are. It's where the news accounts are. It's where the entertainment accounts are. It's, you know, all this kind of stuff. And to me, more than anything else, that's what matters. And it is, you can get very easily, your default feed is still reverse chronological and not algorithmic. And that actually matters a lot to me.
|
Ivan:
[2:08:26]
| Yeah, I know.
|
Sam:
[2:08:29]
| So does this environment change significantly? Do we have new players? Do we see any big changes? Like somebody declining? I mean, we said X is going to decline further.
|
Ivan:
[2:08:43]
| Truth social will take over the world.
|
Sam:
[2:08:45]
| I mean, we said X is going to decline, but it's not going to disappear or anything. It's still going to be bigger than these competitors.
|
Ivan:
[2:08:50]
| Truth social will take over the world, Sam.
|
Sam:
[2:08:55]
| Yes. Yes, I'm sure that's it.
|
Ivan:
[2:08:58]
| Well, here's the reality. In terms of daily active users right now, I think, like, I saw certain stats recently. Threats has been eclipsing X on a global basis.
|
Sam:
[2:09:09]
| Have they actually passed X?
|
Ivan:
[2:09:11]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:09:11]
| Okay. I'll check again.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:13]
| I haven't heard that yet.
|
Sam:
[2:09:13]
| I
|
Ivan:
[2:09:14]
| I'll check again but.
|
Sam:
[2:09:16]
| But it's got to the point paying attention so.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:18]
| Yeah i there now i i've seen several posts showing.
|
Sam:
[2:09:22]
| I i think i saw a graph at one point that said it was approaching but not one that had actually passed i.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:30]
| Think it was one as of late 2025 threads has surpassed x in global daily active mobile users.
|
Sam:
[2:09:37]
| Okay excellent i.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:40]
| Know it was recent now so so that's that's where we're at right now that.
|
Sam:
[2:09:43]
| I still can't get into the threads habit i check it occasionally but i can't get into a habit there blue sky is my habit now blue sky and tiktok are where i am regularly so i.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:54]
| Mean think about that i mean you want to talk about squandering a lead i mean but.
|
Sam:
[2:09:58]
| Yeah but.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:59]
| He doesn't care i mean elon doesn't seem to give a shit.
|
Sam:
[2:10:03]
| Well the thing is it's still like you still find not in the way that it used to of course but you still find conversations on X being things that can sometimes drive news coverage in a way that you still don't have on these other platforms true but.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:26]
| But Twitter doesn't move the needle in terms of those conversations as it did like five, six years ago.
|
Sam:
[2:10:34]
| Oh, no, not at all.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:37]
| Their relevance is like completely like.
|
Sam:
[2:10:40]
| You can make an argument that the reason like somebody like Musk would want this is not about the money. It's all about the influence and driving the conversation. But even by that metric, he's been screwing it up.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:55]
| Oh, he has completely diminished it so much.
|
Sam:
[2:10:58]
| Yeah. Okay, next up, consumer tech slash AI. From Ed, which AI company will be the first to fold up in bankruptcy? And I need to caveat this. There are hundreds of, if not thousands, of AI companies. There are only a few that are big and in the headlines. And I don't think any of those big ones will go bankrupt this year.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:22]
| None of the big ones go bankrupt this year. No, no.
|
Sam:
[2:11:25]
| We're talking the Anthropics.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:28]
| You know, whatchamacallit. We got Anthropic, OpenAI.
|
Sam:
[2:11:34]
| Musk's XAI or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:36]
| Musk's XAI.
|
Sam:
[2:11:38]
| And, of course, Google is in this game. A bunch of other companies are, you know, doing stuff.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:45]
| Look, the crazy thing, and how this mixes XAI with X, okay, by the way, is that Elon Musk made whole his investors on the Twitter buy by basically just filling Twitter with stock in XAI. That's it. That's what he wound up doing.
|
Sam:
[2:12:12]
| Oh, gosh.
|
Ivan:
[2:12:15]
| Because, I mean, the value itself of Twitter is, it's plummeted.
|
Sam:
[2:12:22]
| Right. Okay, moving on. And then I realized I made a big mistake, but we'll do this first. Will there be changes in AI market share? If so, which one will gain the most? This is from Bruce. And how do you even define this?
|
Ivan:
[2:12:40]
| I'm sorry, I misunderstood. Say it again?
|
Sam:
[2:12:43]
| Will there be changes in AI market share? If so, which one will gain the most? This is by Bruce.
|
Ivan:
[2:12:49]
| Problem is, how do you define it? Yeah, that's the problem. we don't really have any good metrics on that right now it's not like we have active daily active users things or whatever i don't know.
|
Sam:
[2:12:59]
| We occasionally get some of that but even there it's like what's the difference between like somebody using the chat box bot app versus somebody using the api to build something versus somebody using coding tools based on that platform there are all kinds of different usages and you know so far like you know open ai and chat gpt have gotten the most press but you know a whole bunch of these others are actually doing a bunch of stuff you you the anthropic stuff is big google's stuff is big i think if anything yeah google google maybe gets the least attention because it's part of google instead of an independent company but google's doing a bunch of stuff you know i i don't know like how to how to measure this maybe maybe let.
|
Ivan:
[2:13:50]
| Me you talk about google and you know we talked about agent ai okay look i yesterday i went to a wendy's in.
|
Sam:
[2:13:59]
| Orlando okay they.
|
Ivan:
[2:14:01]
| Have the drive-through this ai agent that's powered by google i just like I just looked up what it is to take your order. Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:14:11]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[2:14:12]
| By the way, extremely accurate. far more accurate than my experience than the people taking my order.
|
Sam:
[2:14:19]
| Which which by the way this is one of those things where they have tried this in various trials at various points over the last two years and there have been a few spectacular flame outs where it's gone badly but like everything else in this space every three months the technology is dramatically better than it was three months ago so i don't think but.
|
Ivan:
[2:14:41]
| Yeah but i don't think that they had been using this google AI agent now. And I think that they went and they had tried it before just with the voice recognition and whatever and just blah, blah, blah. And that didn't, that, that, that, that tried and failed.
|
Sam:
[2:14:52]
| Some of the examples before is like McDonald's famously tried this and it was ordering all kinds of weird crap for people that wasn't what they wanted. Like, like McFlurry's with bacon added and stuff like that. And then there was another fast food company that did it and somebody was able to successfully order 10,000 cups of free water, you know, things like this. But like I said, it's getting better. So your experience was good.
|
Ivan:
[2:15:17]
| I mean, it was dead on balls accurate. I mean, it was perfect. Look, I, you know, I go through these drive-thrus many times. The reason I'm not somebody that regularly likes to eat fast food, but it's the only drive-thru place that my son can eat their food. If we're on the road and we don't have anything else, it's the only one that has, It's stuff that is allergy-free. So it's Wendy's. And, man, I don't know how I struggled with getting somebody to take my order at Wendy's over and over. And the damn agent was faster, more accurate to take an order than any person that I've had in recent times. Or most of them.
|
Sam:
[2:16:04]
| Okay so how do we how do we even answer this question i don't think we've got i don't think we've got.
|
Ivan:
[2:16:10]
| Good metrics i don't know i don't think we got.
|
Sam:
[2:16:12]
| Because most of them are private companies like they're i don't know i i think that's the.
|
Ivan:
[2:16:20]
| Problem because most of them are private companies it's not like if we if we could go like say hey let's compare open ai's revenue with like xai or whatever but even though when it's part of google we can't even break that out anyway so we don't know.
|
Sam:
[2:16:34]
| Let's let's let's try to define it this way in the last year or two whenever people have generally been talking about the default thing they talk about is chat chat gpt will that will that change will we be talking about like clod or gemini i'm gonna say more than chat gpt i.
|
Ivan:
[2:16:55]
| Don't think it's changing no.
|
Sam:
[2:16:56]
| I i will agree like and and that hides a bunch of stuff behind the surface like that's not the best measure but i think that's what it's.
|
Ivan:
[2:17:05]
| The only one that we've got right now because we don't have enough data anywhere else so yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:17:08]
| Okay uh next up for me this is a repeat question i asked it last year too will there be any major quote-unquote incident, that will be blamed on ai that's like big enough that we talk about it on the show and everybody is like yeah ai screwed this up and it had major real world consequences now we have to define major because we've already had like a whole bunch of suicides blamed on people talking to chat gpt and other ai agents you know but what do we mean by major and you know what do we think here i.
|
Ivan:
[2:17:44]
| Don't know i i, I don't know.
|
Sam:
[2:17:48]
| I'm going to define it as we have a major news story where something goes horribly wrong that is talked about on this show for like a whole segment where the root cause is determined to be an AI screw up.
|
Ivan:
[2:18:04]
| Here's a reality. We already had that happen.
|
Sam:
[2:18:07]
| Well, tariffs.
|
Ivan:
[2:18:09]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:18:13]
| Yes, we can argue that, you know, all the initial tariffs on, like, the big, like, whatever you call that, Freedom Day or whatever the hell he called it, we're all determined by AI.
|
Ivan:
[2:18:25]
| Liberation Day. Liberation Day.
|
Sam:
[2:18:27]
| Liberation Day, yes.
|
Ivan:
[2:18:29]
| And how we tariffed penguins.
|
Sam:
[2:18:32]
| Penguins, yes.
|
Ivan:
[2:18:34]
| So we already had it happen, so it's going to happen again.
|
Sam:
[2:18:38]
| It's gonna happen again okay i i will say there will be at least another incident equivalent to or greater than the tariffs that are attributed to ai for sure yes okay so now it is time for break that is the end of our our our our technology section but here's the big mistake i made Because I was about to say, and our next segment is hodgepodge, and that's the end. But I completely skipped our economy section.
|
Ivan:
[2:19:10]
| Yeah, I was wondering when we were going to hit the economy.
|
Sam:
[2:19:13]
| I figured it was coming next. Economy is usually before technology in the order we have used for years upon years. But I just accidentally skipped the whole damn section. It's a relatively short section. We don't have that many questions, and most of them are going to be up-down questions. But let's take a break and we'll come back and we'll do economy in the wrong order. Sorry, my bad. Here we go. Okay, we are back, and now it's time for economy. We divide this into non-numeric and numeric. There are only two in the non-numeric category this time. Number one from Ed, will we enter into a formal—well, he says depression. I'll just say recession at this point. Will we have a recession?
|
Ivan:
[2:21:37]
| Yes. I'm predicting a recession in 2026.
|
Sam:
[2:21:42]
| Okay. Yes, I'll agree. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[2:21:46]
| That's not a good sign. will it we both agree you know we may be wrong what i'm saying right well and to use.
|
Sam:
[2:21:56]
| To use ad's words will it be bad enough that people start comparing it to the depression.
|
Ivan:
[2:22:02]
| No i don't think so but but but yeah but we we are we are going to have a we're on track to have a recession now it may be that it's going to be pushed towards the second half of the year And the reason is because the tax cuts, okay, people are going to start filing their taxes now based on some preliminary estimates that I did. I mean, I, that have not gotten a tax refund in 20 years, may get one, of all crazy things. So a lot of people are going to be getting money back somehow. So that may...
|
Sam:
[2:22:48]
| But concentrated it more on higher incomes than lower, right?
|
Ivan:
[2:22:52]
| Yeah, so it will still do this whole thing. We keep talking about this K-shaped economy, you know, where we've got people with money or keep spending, but the poor people keep getting fucked, the middle class and the poor. So we'll keep getting more of that. But what I'm saying is that that may stave off a recession into the second half because of that. It's just because we're going to get all that money goosed in from the tax cuts. But look, with so many things moving in the other direction, it's just a short-term boost. And what are the problems with upper-income people? getting getting these, which is it's the whole issue with trickle down economics. It's it's just that a lot of times it doesn't fucking trickle down.
|
Sam:
[2:23:38]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[2:23:40]
| So that's why I think we're getting a recession. So anyway.
|
Sam:
[2:23:44]
| OK, but no depression.
|
Ivan:
[2:23:46]
| I don't think we're going to get a depression in 2026.
|
Sam:
[2:23:49]
| OK, next up for me, we talked about the Supreme Court and tariffs and we agreed that whatever they do, it's not going to have a dramatic effect on the actual tariffs. But more generally, what's going on with tariffs? Because whether the court gets involved or not, you know, is Trump going to backslide? Is Trump going to change things? Are you going to screw with them more? Has everybody just adapted to them and now they're the reality and no one cares anymore? What's going on with tariffs in 2020?
|
Ivan:
[2:24:16]
| It's not, listen, tariffs, it's not that people have just whatever and adapted. We've had a record number of bankruptcies this year, Sam. A lot of those are tariff-driven.
|
Sam:
[2:24:31]
| Right, right. But that was 2025. What's going to happen in 2026? Is everybody who's going to go bankrupt already done so and now we're good?
|
Ivan:
[2:24:38]
| No, it's just, no, no. The effects of the tariffs, many times, are delayed. So we will see more effects of the tariffs coming to the years. Part of why I expect a recession, because the reality is that a lot of manufacturers had moved in inventory ahead of tariffs. Once the inventories run out, once profit margins start getting increased, a lot of people had delayed increasing prices because of uncertainty of what the final tariffs were going to be. Okay? More companies have started announcing more price increases. Like automakers. They've been like, some had held the line a couple of months ago on the prices, so they've been, you know, sending more price increases. So you're going to get more and more effects on inflation and the economy in 2026 tariffs. A lot of just just a lot of the effects have been delayed. It's just the way it is.
|
Sam:
[2:25:42]
| So what's your what's your one line summary on what's going on with tariffs in 2026?
|
Ivan:
[2:25:50]
| I think that there will be, just like it happened a couple of months ago, where, didn't you see that the Brazil tariffs all of a sudden Trump backtracked on a whole bunch of them? On coffee, on bananas.
|
Sam:
[2:26:06]
| And some other stuff. I believe I remember vaguely, yes.
|
Ivan:
[2:26:08]
| Yeah, because prices of those goods were getting out of control, okay? I think that as the year progresses and as these inventory things start with new stuff that keeps prices keep coming up, you're going to start seeing more pressure on more backtracking on a number of these tariffs. Because it's going to keep, I think the biggest issue is it's going to start impacting profit margins of a lot of larger companies. now, where they had, but remember, hey, if I stockpiled whatever materials into last year, and then, okay, now I've got to use the new, more expensive ones, because right out of the old cheap ones, right, that I stockpiled, and all of a sudden, I can't just hold off on raising prices. I'm going to start raising prices, but maybe consumers can't absorb the bigger prices because unemployment is rising. And so that's going to start squeezing profit margins. The moment that Wall Street starts saying that profits are down, profits are down, profits are down, guess where the pressure is going to go to? They're going to be lining up at the White House and I guess, I don't know, somebody's going to give him, handing out more gold and, I don't know, trinkets to get tariff relief.
|
Sam:
[2:27:32]
| Okay. My tariff prediction, I think, is similar to yours. we're going to continue to, you know, besides the SCOTUS thing we already talked about, we're going to continue to see Donald Trump, tinker with them throughout the year up down sideways making a deal here making a deal there exceptions here exceptions there and it's just one of it's one of the toys he likes to play with and he will continue playing it with it yes and the the actual results yeah you just went through a litany of various effects we can see. But I will say that the actual results will continue to be somewhat muddled in that because there's a delay between cause and effect, and because there are all kinds of other things going on too, there'll always be a little bit of, you know, plausible deniability of like, whatever's happened, oh, that's not the tariffs, that's something else. That's this, that's this, or whatever. And so it won't be completely clear cut. But Daniel Trump, that's a new one.
|
Ivan:
[2:28:48]
| That's a new one. Daniel. Yeah, Danny.
|
Sam:
[2:28:51]
| Daniel Trump. But Donald Trump will continue to play with his tariffs. It's his favorite toy. And we will continue to see general negative effects on the economy that some people blame on tariffs, but which other people argue are unrelated. There you go.
|
Ivan:
[2:29:08]
| Oh, yeah. A lot of people argue they're unrelated because of how delayed the effect has been. Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:29:14]
| Right. Okay. Numeric economy predictions first. First up, this is the first one from my son Alex. He wants to know, will one plus one equal two?
|
Ivan:
[2:29:26]
| Hmm.
|
Sam:
[2:29:27]
| This is a tough one. For sufficiently large values of one.
|
Ivan:
[2:29:33]
| I mean, yeah, I mean, it could be, you know, when you've got a tariff one versus a tax one versus a candy one. I'm going to say this is the year that one plus one breaks the two. It doesn't add up.
|
Sam:
[2:29:49]
| It doesn't add up this year.
|
Ivan:
[2:29:51]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:29:53]
| So one plus one will be more than two this year.
|
Ivan:
[2:29:56]
| Yes. Correct.
|
Sam:
[2:29:58]
| Okay. I'm going to go with one plus one is going to be less than two this year.
|
Ivan:
[2:30:05]
| Shit.
|
Sam:
[2:30:05]
| It's going to be that year.
|
Ivan:
[2:30:07]
| It's going to be that year. Damn.
|
Sam:
[2:30:11]
| Okay. Next up from Bruce. CPI, that's consumer price index, as of Q3. Now, in previous years, I'll just say this, previous years, for all of these numeric ones, I've gone through, I've used a spreadsheet, I've looked at the last 20 years, and I've done a projection of a range that I thought was reasonable based on previous variability, blah, blah, blah. The last two years, I've been like, I don't have time for that crap. I'm just going to say up or down. I'm going to say CPI, which is it's basically inflation, right? It's the main measure of inflation.
|
Ivan:
[2:30:47]
| Consumer price index, yeah. There's producer price index, there's a consumer price index. The one that we look at most of us.
|
Sam:
[2:30:53]
| Inflation is the rate of change of CPI, right?
|
Ivan:
[2:30:57]
| Yes, right. I mean, consumer price index would be zero, it's flat. It could be deflationary. CPI could be negative.
|
Sam:
[2:31:03]
| I'm going to say we're up. Inflation is going to be up over... Q3 next year is going to be higher than Q3 this year.
|
Ivan:
[2:31:10]
| Right. We're going to have, the CPI will be positive, basically. We're going to have inflation. And what you're saying is it's going to be a higher inflation rate than 2025.
|
Sam:
[2:31:23]
| Yes. And we're talking year over year number as of the Q3 number because we won't have Q4 number yet.
|
Ivan:
[2:31:30]
| I'm going with a yes too.
|
Sam:
[2:31:32]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[2:31:33]
| I'll agree with that one. Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:31:34]
| How about GDP? Now you've predicted an inflation which implies reduction in GDP.
|
Ivan:
[2:31:41]
| I'm going to GDP is going to be end of Q3 GDP is going to be is that I mean we're going to have, lower growth than 20 so let's let's make sure we're.
|
Sam:
[2:31:57]
| Very specific on here are we talking about the rate of growth of GDP are we talking about absolute GDP.
|
Ivan:
[2:32:02]
| Yeah so the question is we're going to be negative. Well, if we start a recession, here's the thing, right? So a recession requires two quarters of negative GDP to be officially called a recession.
|
Sam:
[2:32:16]
| Negative GDP growth. Negative GDP growth. Negative GDP would be an entirely different scenario.
|
Ivan:
[2:32:20]
| Yeah, negative GDP, that would be quite a problem. Negative GDP growth. Fuck. The thing is that I don't think we're going to be in negative GDP growth until Q3.
|
Sam:
[2:32:31]
| Okay. So are we talking— So I expect— Q3, but we're here, we're just comparing—well, actually, do it however you want. I'm going to compare and say the rate of GDP growth reported for Q3 will be less than the rate of GDP growth reported for Q3 2025. So I'm not even saying positive or negative. I'm just saying lower growth.
|
Ivan:
[2:32:58]
| We're going to have lower growth. We're going to have way lower growth than 20.
|
Sam:
[2:33:01]
| Now you can you can go beyond that and be more specific.
|
Ivan:
[2:33:04]
| I already talked about the recession earlier. So I already I already made a recession prediction. I'm going to put all to be consistent. We're not not. I'm going to go with your prediction. You know, GDP growth will be lower in 2026 and 2025. Absolutely. Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:33:19]
| Comparing the Q3 numbers.
|
Ivan:
[2:33:21]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:33:22]
| Okay. Bitcoin at end of year. Also from Bruce.
|
Ivan:
[2:33:28]
| I'm going to say that Bitcoin at the end of- How did it do this year?
|
Sam:
[2:33:31]
| Did it actually end down this year?
|
Ivan:
[2:33:34]
| I think it's kind of flat.
|
Sam:
[2:33:35]
| Year over year.
|
Ivan:
[2:33:36]
| Isn't it?
|
Sam:
[2:33:37]
| Well, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[2:33:37]
| Isn't it kind of flat?
|
Sam:
[2:33:38]
| It's not exactly flat. So is it up or down? Let's get a chart up.
|
Ivan:
[2:33:43]
| Oh, God.
|
Sam:
[2:33:45]
| Getting up Bitcoin one year.
|
Ivan:
[2:33:49]
| It's very close to where it started.
|
Sam:
[2:33:50]
| Last year. Down year over year. Down year over year.
|
Ivan:
[2:33:53]
| Yeah, like 5.2%. Yeah, it's very close to where it was last year. So it was like it started the year in 92 and it ended the year at 87,000.
|
Sam:
[2:34:02]
| And a fraction in both cases. Yeah. I'm going to say down again. Second down year in a row.
|
Ivan:
[2:34:07]
| Okay, I'm going with down.
|
Sam:
[2:34:10]
| Okay. Gold.
|
Ivan:
[2:34:13]
| Gold up.
|
Sam:
[2:34:15]
| I'll agree with you on up. Gas, like, you know, car gas.
|
Ivan:
[2:34:23]
| Down.
|
Sam:
[2:34:23]
| In the U.S. Down? I'll go with down two. I'm agreeing with you too much. This is not good. No, this is not good.
|
Ivan:
[2:34:35]
| This makes for terrible entertainment.
|
Sam:
[2:34:37]
| Terrible entertainment, and it doubles the risk. Like, we calculate an overall score. Yes, I know. Whenever we hedge by disagreeing.
|
Ivan:
[2:34:46]
| Yeah, but we're, we're. You know, it means we're.
|
Sam:
[2:34:50]
| If we're both wrong, we're screwed.
|
Ivan:
[2:34:53]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[2:34:55]
| Okay. Okay, and by down, we're talking average U.S. nationwide, blah, blah, blah, whatever, because, of course, it varies location to location, and we're talking U.S., not international, et cetera. Okay, not on here, but we've always also talked about, generally, oil, and we pick Brent Cruz. Sometimes we pick the other one.
|
Ivan:
[2:35:19]
| Whatever you want. I think we pick West Texas Intermediate.
|
Sam:
[2:35:23]
| We've done both in previous years.
|
Ivan:
[2:35:25]
| All right, so let's go with West Texas. Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:35:28]
| Yes. I'm going to say up. I'm going to say up.
|
Ivan:
[2:35:33]
| I'm going to say down.
|
Sam:
[2:35:34]
| Okay. You know, you don't have to follow my lead and go up and down. You could do ranges, too.
|
Ivan:
[2:35:40]
| No, no, no. Let's be consistent, because otherwise, then we're doing two different predictions on every single one. No, this is easier to try.
|
Sam:
[2:35:49]
| Okay, Dow, up or down? I'm going to say down, because we're predicting a recession and all that.
|
Ivan:
[2:35:55]
| I'm going to go with down.
|
Sam:
[2:35:56]
| And S&P also down?
|
Ivan:
[2:35:58]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:35:59]
| Okay. And we might as well complete the trifecta NASDAQ also down?
|
Ivan:
[2:36:04]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:36:05]
| I'm also going down. Oh, God, we're agreeing on all of these.
|
Ivan:
[2:36:09]
| I'll go against you. I'll go NASDAQ up.
|
Sam:
[2:36:12]
| NASDAQ up, everything else down. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[2:36:15]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[2:36:16]
| And then unemployment up or down? I'm going up.
|
Ivan:
[2:36:20]
| No, unemployment's going up. Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:36:24]
| Okay that was rad how about trade deficit from ed.
|
Ivan:
[2:36:28]
| Okay let's see where the trade deficit trend line has been by the way trade deficit year-to-date september was up by the way.
|
Sam:
[2:36:36]
| Aren't tariffs gonna fix all this.
|
Ivan:
[2:36:38]
| Uh-huh yeah that's.
|
Sam:
[2:36:40]
| What tariffs are for right export everything import nothing.
|
Ivan:
[2:36:43]
| Uh okay yeah uh uh oh let me check so uh U.S. trade deficit monthly. Here's the Y charts. Three year. Well, I mean, trade deficit has been relatively... It was up this year, year to date, in large part because of that surge of imports. Yeah, year over year because of that huge surge of imports that we had.
|
Sam:
[2:37:15]
| At the beginning of the year when people were stocking up.
|
Ivan:
[2:37:17]
| Yeah. I mean, it was like, it hit like a record. I mean, it's a crazy number, Sam. It hit stocking up for the tariffs. Like the trade deficit now is at 53 billion and it's been about averaging around 60.
|
Sam:
[2:37:34]
| But there is still deficit. We didn't get to a surplus.
|
Ivan:
[2:37:37]
| No, we didn't get to surplus. But in March, it hit $137 billion. That's how big that surge of imports was heading into the tariffs. $137. That was like March was $137 billion. February, $120 billion. And January, $128 billion. So think about this. compared to where what was the.
|
Sam:
[2:38:04]
| Baseline like last.
|
Ivan:
[2:38:05]
| Year 60 we basically we imported yeah yeah yeah we imported an extra 180 billion dollars worth of merchandise over a three month period okay, because of the tariffs.
|
Sam:
[2:38:22]
| But it was supposed to go down, Yvonne, because of tariffs. We were supposed to get to surplus.
|
Ivan:
[2:38:27]
| Yeah. Now it's down now, of course, because fuck, we imported the shit out of everything.
|
Sam:
[2:38:34]
| Okay, so now that initial bump is out of the way, in 2026, do we go up or down?
|
Ivan:
[2:38:40]
| Tread deficit is going to go up again.
|
Sam:
[2:38:42]
| Up again? Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[2:38:44]
| He's going to go... Well, no, here's the thing. It's actually going to be down on 2025 because of that huge surge of interest.
|
Sam:
[2:38:50]
| And are we talking whole year number, or are we talking quarter over quarter, or year over year? Well, at this point.
|
Ivan:
[2:38:54]
| Usually what we can get at this point is usually only trade data through September.
|
Sam:
[2:39:01]
| Kind of like the same thing as GDP. Are we going to actually compare Q3 to Q3 then, as opposed to a full year number?
|
Ivan:
[2:39:06]
| Or, I mean, the trailing four quarters.
|
Sam:
[2:39:10]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[2:39:10]
| So I'm going to say trailing four quarters. It's going to be down. It's going to be down, but simply because we had that ridiculous surge of imports.
|
Sam:
[2:39:18]
| Okay. I'll agree. Next up, two related items. Federal budget deficit. It's going to go up again.
|
Ivan:
[2:39:28]
| It's up. I mean, we cut taxes like lunatics. Of course, it's going up.
|
Sam:
[2:39:32]
| Yes. And the related question, will...
|
Ivan:
[2:39:37]
| You know how bad we've cut taxes, Sam? Did you see that in the last couple of weeks that Mitt Romney actually agreed that we needed to raise taxes?
|
Sam:
[2:39:43]
| Yes, I saw that.
|
Ivan:
[2:39:45]
| Yes, I did. I mean, this is the timeline that we are in right now, where Mitt Romney actually agrees that we need to raise taxes. Holy shit, what a time to be alive.
|
Sam:
[2:39:55]
| Okay. Next up, related question, will the total federal debt go over $40 trillion? I just looked it up on Fred. The most recent number they had is Q2. What's the number? But 36. 36 trillion.
|
Ivan:
[2:40:15]
| Oh, fuck, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Answers yes. It's going over $40 trillion. Answers yes.
|
Sam:
[2:40:19]
| Okay. I will agree. Yes. Okay. And that's it for econ.
|
Ivan:
[2:40:25]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:40:26]
| Okay, so that means it is time for another break. And then it really will be our last one, Hodgepodge, which is a bunch of random little stuff. And hopefully we'll go pretty quick. We will be back because we are now rapidly approaching the three-hour mark. Yo, so here we go.
|
Ivan:
[2:40:44]
| So much for me hurrying this thing up.
|
Sam:
[2:40:46]
| Well, I don't think we'll make it to four.
|
Ivan:
[2:40:51]
| Good.
|
Sam:
[2:40:52]
| Good. So here we go. Okay, we are back and we are in hodgepodge and the first subsection of hodgepodge is medical. And the first question is from my son, Alex, who asks, will Yvonne die?
|
Ivan:
[2:43:08]
| I'm going with a no.
|
Sam:
[2:43:10]
| You know, as tempted as I am, I have to go with no. Because if I went with yes, then in order to get this right, if in the last week of December you were still alive, I'd have to come down to Florida and murder you. And that would be a bad set of incentives.
|
Ivan:
[2:43:25]
| He's got a co-host with you every fucking week.
|
Sam:
[2:43:28]
| Exactly. So, like, this is not a winning scenario for me. I'd also end up in jail, and that would be bad.
|
Ivan:
[2:43:36]
| That would be bad.
|
Sam:
[2:43:37]
| That would be bad. And just to get one additional question right on the prediction show.
|
Ivan:
[2:43:42]
| It seems like a lot.
|
Sam:
[2:43:44]
| Yeah. So I'm going to have to go with yes, Yvonne will still be alive at the end of the year.
|
Ivan:
[2:43:49]
| Okay. Well, by the way, one prediction to add. Fidel Castro will still be dead.
|
Sam:
[2:43:55]
| Now, I put our celebrity deaths at the end, but okay, Fidel Castro will still be dead. You didn't qualify as a celebrity death, so I didn't move you to the end.
|
Ivan:
[2:44:07]
| I'm fucking deeply offended.
|
Sam:
[2:44:11]
| Okay, next up from John. How many MRIs will Trump have in 2026?
|
Ivan:
[2:44:18]
| I'm going with three.
|
Sam:
[2:44:20]
| I will go with four.
|
Ivan:
[2:44:22]
| Okay, there you go.
|
Sam:
[2:44:25]
| Okay, next up, Ed, will an mRNA-based care be found effective for treating any form of cancer? Now, there have been some that have already been pretty promising. That's what I was thinking.
|
Ivan:
[2:44:38]
| Ed. Don't we have?
|
Sam:
[2:44:40]
| I mean, I guess the question is where in the trial process they end up being? Because I know there are early trials that are already showing good results, right? Or am I wrong?
|
Ivan:
[2:44:50]
| Yeah, that's what I thought. No, no, that's what I remember.
|
Sam:
[2:44:55]
| So, I guess, is the question really, like, are they out of trials and available for general use?
|
Ivan:
[2:45:00]
| Yeah, I mean, I guess, so there is no approved yet mRNA-based cancer therapy, okay?
|
Sam:
[2:45:11]
| But there's some that are showing promising results in trials.
|
Ivan:
[2:45:13]
| Right? Yes, correct, but it's in clinical trials, yes, and that are shown promise. Some have reached late stage, yeah, but none are approved. So the question is whether we get one approved in 2026.
|
Sam:
[2:45:24]
| Yeah, because I mean, found effective, I would say late stage, you're already almost there. But I guess approved.
|
Ivan:
[2:45:30]
| I'll go with approved. I don't know. Based on this fucking administration, I'm going to say no. Because these guys are sociopaths.
|
Sam:
[2:45:37]
| Well, could they be approved elsewhere in the world?
|
Ivan:
[2:45:41]
| Yeah, I'm going to say yes.
|
Sam:
[2:45:42]
| Okay. So yes, elsewhere, no U.S. Because this administration fundamentally thinks like mRNA is poisoning you or something.
|
Ivan:
[2:45:52]
| Correct. Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:45:53]
| Because they're out of their minds. I will agree. Yes, international, no U.S. for actual approved usage of mRNA cancer treatments. Okay, next up from Ed, will RFK Jr. be thrown out of office? No.
|
Ivan:
[2:46:13]
| No. I mean, if they haven't thrown any of them out yet, why are we going to throw them out in 2026? I mean, in a normally functioning administration.
|
Sam:
[2:46:24]
| Hackseth, Rubio— Maybe if my prediction comes true and we have President Vance by the end, maybe Vance thinks differently about RFK. But even then, I don't think so. I think he's going to try to.
|
Ivan:
[2:46:33]
| No, no, no. I think that a guy like Vance, who is, remember, he just goes with the flow, right?
|
Sam:
[2:46:42]
| Mm-hmm.
|
Ivan:
[2:46:44]
| I'm sure that he will get rid of almost all of these people because he will want people that sucks up to him.
|
Sam:
[2:46:52]
| Eventually, not like on day one or anything.
|
Ivan:
[2:46:55]
| Yeah, not on the... Because you want people that suck up to him, not Trump.
|
Sam:
[2:47:01]
| I can see that. But also, he's going to be very careful about trying to keep the Trump base and blah, blah, blah, and, you know, whatever.
|
Ivan:
[2:47:08]
| But right now, he's already losing them with these guys anyway. So what the hell?
|
Sam:
[2:47:12]
| Anyway, RFK will still be there at the end of the year.
|
Ivan:
[2:47:14]
| RFK will still be there.
|
Sam:
[2:47:17]
| Next up. Oh, God. I'm going to be tempted for ups and downs on these as well, rather than numbers. Sorry, Ed, because I haven't done research. How many deaths? And I guess these are worldwide. worldwide, maybe U.S. I don't know. I'm going to interpret these as U.S. for now. Measles, whooping cough, and tetanus, all three up.
|
Ivan:
[2:47:41]
| We're all up.
|
Sam:
[2:47:42]
| We're going up. We've got the world's worst public health administration that we've ever seen.
|
Ivan:
[2:47:48]
| All the numbers are going to point up. Oh, that's the wrong way.
|
Sam:
[2:47:51]
| Everything about prevention is out the window. Yeah, up, up.
|
Ivan:
[2:47:57]
| Make America sick again.
|
Sam:
[2:47:59]
| Right. Okay, that's it for medical. The next category was originally sports, but Alex made it sports slash abblesmay. First question, will Abelfnaf be finished from Alex? This is that game that I was making last year. I will say yes, goddammit. I will finish it in 2026.
|
Ivan:
[2:48:25]
| I'm going to say no.
|
Sam:
[2:48:26]
| I obviously did not finish it in 2025. I suck.
|
Ivan:
[2:48:32]
| I don't want to know.
|
Sam:
[2:48:34]
| Okay. His next question, will Abolfnaf Web Game Edition, because right now it's a Mac game, and I was trying to make it a web game, will it be canceled? No, it will not be canceled. And furthermore, it will be out by the end of 2026. I'm pointing at Alex. Of course, I predicted it would be out by the end of 2025, and I was wrong. We'll see that next week. What do you think, Yvonne Abolf?
|
Ivan:
[2:49:01]
| I agree with your prediction.
|
Sam:
[2:49:03]
| And by the way, to avoid jinxing myself, I have not added predictions here for Robin letter or juke potter potter or bookshelf or my to-do list manager thing or any of the projects i'm actively working on because that would you know i it would be that.
|
Ivan:
[2:49:22]
| Could be that would be problematic.
|
Sam:
[2:49:24]
| I i mean you know i i am tempted to just make positive predictions for everything but no i'm going to not do that to avoid like bad luck for me predicting things like obviously happened with Abolfnaf. Okay, next question from Alex. Will Abelsmay become an athlete?
|
Ivan:
[2:49:46]
| Ha ha ha ha! I'm going to go with a no.
|
Sam:
[2:49:51]
| I'm going to say I will be signed by at least one professional sports team in 2026.
|
Ivan:
[2:49:58]
| Whoa!
|
Sam:
[2:50:00]
| You know, I don't know, probably hockey, ice hockey, you know?
|
Ivan:
[2:50:04]
| Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds great. Right. Seattle Kraken, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.
|
Sam:
[2:50:10]
| Yeah, that's it.
|
Ivan:
[2:50:11]
| That's my new career. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:50:14]
| It sounds great.
|
Ivan:
[2:50:15]
| You don't need those teeth anyway. What the hell?
|
Sam:
[2:50:18]
| Don't need teeth. You know, I'm sure the fact that my shoulder and hip hurt all the time isn't going to affect this in any way. The fact that, you know, my maximum run without winding myself is like 10 seconds. That doesn't matter.
|
Ivan:
[2:50:35]
| You're good. You're fine.
|
Sam:
[2:50:37]
| I'm fine. You're fine.
|
Ivan:
[2:50:39]
| You're fine.
|
Sam:
[2:50:40]
| So, yes.
|
Ivan:
[2:50:41]
| You're fine.
|
Sam:
[2:50:42]
| Did I just make the—I will become an athlete, and furthermore, I will be signed by a professional sports team.
|
Ivan:
[2:50:48]
| Yes, that's correct. Yes, that's your—.
|
Sam:
[2:50:50]
| I'm doing wonders for my average for next year.
|
Ivan:
[2:50:53]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:50:54]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[2:50:54]
| Yeah, this will really help out.
|
Sam:
[2:50:56]
| Next question from John. How many curmudgeons corner mugs will be sold in 2026? Now, I will exclude myself. So anything that I purchase for myself or for giving mugs to guests on the show and stuff like that, or to people who, you know, join the Patreon at an appropriate level, I'm not going to count those. I'm going to say two, two mug purchases in 2026. I'll go with one. With one? You know, are you making a purchase right now? Because you need to wait till midnight.
|
Ivan:
[2:51:27]
| No, no, no. I'm not making a purchase right now. But at least it's one that I can, if it's not coming true, I can go and just quickly solve it.
|
Sam:
[2:51:36]
| By a bug.
|
Ivan:
[2:51:37]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:51:37]
| There you go. Okay. Okay. Ed wants to know, will the Spurs be the champions? And to show my athleticism from the previous question, I don't even know what sport this is.
|
Ivan:
[2:51:52]
| Okay, this is NBA, San Antonio Spurs.
|
Sam:
[2:51:55]
| Okay. And Ed says, by the way, go Spurs, go.
|
Ivan:
[2:51:58]
| Okay, so he's a big Spurs fan. So they've got this, they've got this guy, Wembenyama, who's from France, that has the, he is so tall, Sam, and his arms are so long. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous how this guy can move so swiftly. I'm going to say no. Because I think my prediction will be that the NBA champs, again, will be the same team as last year. Oklahoma City.
|
Sam:
[2:52:30]
| Okay. John asks, will there be an MLB lockout? And I'm not going to make any predictions on the Spurs because I have no idea.
|
Ivan:
[2:52:41]
| I mean, you can just go throw a dart out at it. Say yes or no.
|
Sam:
[2:52:45]
| Okay. Bruce asks for a Super Bowl winner.
|
Ivan:
[2:52:48]
| Oh, fuck. Super Bowl, well, it's going to happen in the Phoenix. Oh, man. Shit. Super Bowl winner. Damn. I, I, I, I'm going to, let me look again and, I, I, let me look at my options here. I don't like my options. Um, uh, let's see. Uh, uh, hold on. who would I pick? I'm going to pick the Los Angeles Rams.
|
Sam:
[2:53:29]
| Okay. I'm going to do nothing on this one. Do you want to do baseball World Series?
|
Ivan:
[2:53:36]
| I'm going to pick the Dodgers again.
|
Sam:
[2:53:38]
| I'm going to avoid this, too. I have no idea. Any other sports you want to make a championship prediction for?
|
Ivan:
[2:53:46]
| No, no. That's already enough championship predictions.
|
Sam:
[2:53:48]
| Do we have an Olympics this year? Anything going on? Do we have a Winter Olympics?
|
Ivan:
[2:53:53]
| Do we? When is the Olympics? No, but we have a World Cup.
|
Sam:
[2:54:00]
| World Cup, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[2:54:03]
| Oh, God. No, no. I'm not going to make any more sports predictions. I'm done. That's enough sports predictions.
|
Sam:
[2:54:08]
| One more curmudgeons corner prediction since we had the mugs one. Traffic, like weekly downloads for curmudgeons corner. It is typically for years now hovered around 50 a week, sometimes a little higher, sometimes a little lower. My prediction is it's still going to be in that range most of the year between 40 and 60.
|
Ivan:
[2:54:35]
| Uh, I'm going to predict it's going to stay in that range. Now, you know what? No, I'm going to predict it's going to break out over 60.
|
Sam:
[2:54:46]
| Break out over 60. Just once or break out over 60 and stay up over 60?
|
Ivan:
[2:54:50]
| No, no, no. Like that. Because we do occasionally go above 60.
|
Sam:
[2:54:55]
| So we have.
|
Ivan:
[2:54:55]
| No, no, no. The average will break out over 60.
|
Sam:
[2:54:58]
| And stay over 60.
|
Ivan:
[2:54:59]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:55:01]
| Okay. Okay. Very good. I'm going to say the average will stay between 40 and 60 most of the year. It might peak above it, but it won't stay above it. There you go.
|
Ivan:
[2:55:11]
| So what I'm saying is that, because you talked about that 40 to 60 range, what I'm saying is that the average, when you look at it, will break over that range.
|
Sam:
[2:55:20]
| Right, and stay over. Correct.
|
Ivan:
[2:55:22]
| I'm saying it might go over temporarily.
|
Sam:
[2:55:24]
| But won't stay over.
|
Ivan:
[2:55:24]
| What I'm saying is the average of the year, yes.
|
Sam:
[2:55:27]
| Okay. Yeah. Just looking at the last year, our smallest weekly number that I don't think was a data artifact was only 20 downloads. And our highest that I don't think was just bogus data was 130. The average number all-time high was around 70, and low for the year was around 35. But, yeah. And our current average is inflated by some bogus numbers I haven't eliminated from the charts yet. So, we had one day that said we had 102 downloads, which was not real. and once I take it out, it'll reduce our average. Okay. Back to, That was you?
|
Ivan:
[2:56:22]
| No, no, no. It helps me.
|
Sam:
[2:56:24]
| Oh, right. It helps you. Okay, next up, weather and climate. How many Atlantic hurricanes in 2026?
|
Ivan:
[2:56:35]
| Man, how many do we have this year? I'm going to go, well, oh.
|
Sam:
[2:56:40]
| And by the way, this is hurricane specifically not named storms.
|
Ivan:
[2:56:48]
| See, how many do we have this year? we had two.
|
Sam:
[2:56:55]
| Only two.
|
Ivan:
[2:56:56]
| No, we had total hurricanes not named storms.
|
Sam:
[2:57:00]
| Gabrielle and Humberto. I'm looking at that HC site. We had Tropical Storm Andrea, Tropical Storm Barry, Tropical Storm Dexter, Tropical Storm Ferdinand, Hurricane Gabrielle, Hurricane Humberto, Tropical Storm Jerry, Subtropical Storm Karen, and Tropical Storm Lorenzo. Only two hurricanes.
|
Ivan:
[2:57:27]
| No, it says here. No. I'm at the Wikipedia page. Hurricanes, we had five.
|
Sam:
[2:57:34]
| Wait. I'm looking at the NHC. I'm not sure. Wikipedia, too.
|
Ivan:
[2:57:40]
| Hurricanes were five.
|
Sam:
[2:57:42]
| Okay. Which ones?
|
Ivan:
[2:57:44]
| Let me see.
|
Sam:
[2:57:45]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[2:57:46]
| Aaron. Okay. Gabriel. Umberto.
|
Sam:
[2:57:51]
| Wait, are you looking at the 2025 season? You're looking at 2024.
|
Ivan:
[2:57:56]
| No, I'm looking at 2025. 2025 Hurricane Atlantic.
|
Sam:
[2:58:00]
| What the hell am I looking at then? I'm looking at 2025 Atlantic hurricane season. I'm looking at 2025. Let me look at Wikipedia too. So, match. You know, this shouldn't be hard.
|
Ivan:
[2:58:13]
| No, it should. I trust Wikipedia. So, it got Five major, five hurricanes, four major.
|
Sam:
[2:58:22]
| Barry, Chantel, Dexter, Aaron.
|
Ivan:
[2:58:26]
| That's a hurricane. That's one.
|
Sam:
[2:58:29]
| Oh, wait. Okay. I don't, like, I'm missing Aaron from this list entirely. I don't know. Okay, I will go with yours. I will go with yours because it's, like, I'm clearly missing a couple.
|
Ivan:
[2:58:43]
| Like, I'm looking at the— Five was a very low number, by the way. All right. Well, that's because probably because of the cutbacks by these assholes.
|
Sam:
[2:58:53]
| But there you go.
|
Ivan:
[2:58:56]
| But I'm going to say, look, the average is seven. We're going to go over five. I mean, that was a that was a very low number.
|
Sam:
[2:59:06]
| OK, so your prediction is more than five for next year.
|
Ivan:
[2:59:10]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:59:11]
| OK, I I will give a range here. that four to seven. I'll go with four to seven. Okay, now how many of them will make landfall in the U.S.?
|
Ivan:
[2:59:28]
| Oh. Two.
|
Sam:
[2:59:31]
| How many was it this year? Any of those?
|
Ivan:
[2:59:33]
| I don't know if any of them made landfall in the U.S.
|
Sam:
[2:59:36]
| Okay. I'm gonna say zero to two. Okay, next up. We ask this every year. Will 2020 2026 be the hottest year ever?
|
Ivan:
[2:59:48]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:59:49]
| I'll say yes as well. You're more likely to be right with a yes than a no. Like, we do have some years that it comes in number two or number three instead of number one. But it's number one a lot. Okay. My next one is one specific to Yvonne. And it was prompted by your complaints at the beginning of the show about the coldness of the weather. Will Ivan, with his own eyes, in person, see snow in 2026? It doesn't have to be snow at your home. You could have traveled somewhere and seen it somewhere.
|
Ivan:
[3:00:26]
| I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's happened.
|
Sam:
[3:00:28]
| Obviously. Oh, and I will add, it can't count seeing the top of a mountain from a distance. has to be like, you physically, the snow is where you are.
|
Ivan:
[3:00:38]
| So it's not like if I'm on an airplane and we fly past a snow-capped peak.
|
Sam:
[3:00:42]
| No, that doesn't count. If you fly over Greenland on the way to Europe, that doesn't count. No, you have to be physically present with the snow.
|
Ivan:
[3:00:54]
| Shit. You know what? I'm going to go with a no.
|
Sam:
[3:00:58]
| Okay. I will say yes, even if I have to mail you a snowball.
|
Ivan:
[3:01:04]
| No, I'm not going to nail you a snowball. You can. I mean, you pack it in dry ice.
|
Sam:
[3:01:09]
| Yeah, yeah. It's possible. I'm not going to do it, though. I promise I will not do it. But I will say yes, you will see snow.
|
Ivan:
[3:01:17]
| But it will be quince- You may be right.
|
Sam:
[3:01:19]
| You will end up, it won't be at your house. I'm going to make myself- Listen.
|
Ivan:
[3:01:23]
| If it's snowing in Boca Raton, it's going to be really a- I mean, I know this year's probably going to be very fucked up. But shit, if it's snowing in Boca, then it's really, really beyond fucked up.
|
Sam:
[3:01:36]
| No, it's, you're going to travel somewhere and incidentally you're going to happen to be there during a cold snap.
|
Ivan:
[3:01:41]
| Yeah, I mean that's the way that I normally see snow, so yeah.
|
Sam:
[3:01:44]
| Okay. When is the last time you saw snow? How many years ago was the last time you saw snow?
|
Ivan:
[3:01:51]
| I think that the last time I saw snow, I think it must have been at a meeting in Rochester, New York, where I went for work.
|
Sam:
[3:02:01]
| So like five years, six years ago?
|
Ivan:
[3:02:03]
| Yeah, it must have been in 2019. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[3:02:08]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[3:02:08]
| But I went, yeah.
|
Sam:
[3:02:11]
| Okay pop culture John wants to know will the Rolling Stones release a new album and of course my immediate reaction is they're still alive heck.
|
Ivan:
[3:02:22]
| I just heard they canceled a tour I think because one of them didn't feel well so I'm gonna say no they're not gonna release.
|
Sam:
[3:02:28]
| I'm gonna say no they canceled and they apparently said they're probably never gonna tour again they've in you know.
|
Ivan:
[3:02:38]
| They're really old now.
|
Sam:
[3:02:40]
| Well, a lot of these bands do the things where they switch out members, and they keep going even after none of the original members exist.
|
Ivan:
[3:02:47]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but no, well, it's not none. Usually, at least, the bands stay together because, like, one or two of the key original members stay, even though everybody else changes.
|
Sam:
[3:02:56]
| Usually, not always, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[3:02:57]
| Okay, but, you know, yeah, yeah, I mean, they're old.
|
Sam:
[3:03:02]
| Yeah, I'm going to say no.
|
Ivan:
[3:03:03]
| Hey, Mick Jagger is 82. fuck Jesus Christ McJaggar's 82 Keith Richards is 82 as well and Ronnie Wood is 78 the youngster I mean yeah these guys are not touring again come on gotta be done.
|
Sam:
[3:03:24]
| Next question from Bruce best picture Oscar winner now I've looked up like contenders. And apparently this is from Variety and Rotten Tomatoes with an AI assist from something. I don't know, whatever, AI crap. It lists the contenders as one battle after another, sinners, hamnet, wicked for good, and sentimental value. Now, I've only seen one of the five and I've only even heard of a couple of the others. So I have seen Wicked for Good. I haven't reviewed it on this show yet, but I will say that it was fine, but not as good as the first movie, which a lot of people expected because the second half of the musical wasn't as good as the first half either. but I don't I think if it was going to get an Oscar it should have been for the first one so it's going to be one of these others that I've never heard of, of these others the only one I've well, the ones I've heard of, a little bit of buzz about but not enough to even tell you what they're about are One Battle After Another and Sinners I heard more buzz about One Battle After Another so I'm going to pick that one just because I've heard about it more Okay.
|
Ivan:
[3:04:44]
| So I've not watched any of them, I really have very little idea what any of them are about. The only one that I've heard of some talk about is Sinners.
|
Sam:
[3:04:55]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[3:04:55]
| So simply on the basis of the fact that I had heard of the name of the movie, and it's not Wicked for Good, which I know is a much bigger movie, which I will go with Sinners.
|
Sam:
[3:05:08]
| Someone pointed out recently, I was watching probably a TikTok recently, of somebody analyzing how up through about the 1970s, The list of Oscar nominees and Oscar winners often aligned very closely to the biggest box office winners. But starting in the 1980s, that deteriorated. That's right. And so now there's almost no correlation at all. You almost never see an Oscar winner also be a big box office winner or vice versa. It's very rare. Anyway, okay, that's our predictions for that. Obviously not knowing. And here is my Epstein files follow up. You know, we talked about Trump Epstein files. We talked about other politicians Epstein files. So will there be a major impact on any other famous individual from the Epstein files that come out this year, whether it be, you know, wealthy people or entertainers or anybody who's well known for other reasons?
|
Ivan:
[3:06:15]
| I got to believe that the answer is yes.
|
Sam:
[3:06:17]
| I got to say yes, too.
|
Ivan:
[3:06:20]
| There's somebody that we hadn't really talked about that is going to get blowback from this.
|
Sam:
[3:06:27]
| You know, and I'm going to, I will say yes. I will go further this time because we already know Melinda French Gates specifically said that one of the reasons for her divorce was her husband's involvement with Epstein.
|
Ivan:
[3:06:48]
| But we've already heard about him.
|
Sam:
[3:06:49]
| He's already gotten some blowback. But we will have something in the Epstein files that validates an issue with Bill Gates above and beyond pictures of him with Epstein that are arguably innocent. We're going to hear something about Bill Gates involved in a way that is not innocent.
|
Ivan:
[3:07:11]
| I hope not. I mean, I, you know.
|
Sam:
[3:07:16]
| I hear you.
|
Ivan:
[3:07:17]
| And I, and I, and I hope not, not in a way of like, I don't, I don't want to hear it if it really happened.
|
Sam:
[3:07:23]
| If it really happened, string him up at his knees, you know, whatever. But I'm just going to say, like, if Melinda French Gates believed Bill Gates when he said, oh, yeah, I hung out with him, but it was nothing. They might not be divorced today. So she's got to know something. I'm going to take that as the extra smoke on Bill Gates.
|
Ivan:
[3:07:47]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[3:07:50]
| But whether or not it's actually Bill Gates, I'm going to predict there are going to be some other people above and beyond who we have heard about already, where there is something that comes out of the files that is extremely bad for them. Now, on all of these, Trump, the other politicians, this one, I want to caveat this by saying this might not mean proof that would hold up in a court of law that they committed a crime. that's a really high bar and that might not be in there but but allegations things that seem credible things that are like okay we may not be able to prove it but that looks pretty damn fishy you know that kind of stuff okay okay and we are at the very last thing which is our traditional death predictions Transcription by CastingWords.
|
Ivan:
[3:08:43]
| Which one broke up?
|
Sam:
[3:08:46]
| People who will die in 2024.
|
Ivan:
[3:08:49]
| Oh, the dead. Okay. Our dead pool. Okay. All right. So who are we?
|
Sam:
[3:08:54]
| Okay. Now, we've also typically put this into two categories. One are just celebrities that are really old. And it's like, okay, at some point, their time will come. And then we've always made ourselves go with somebody who's not old that we're still predicting. So I will go, let's go with the old ones first. Now I brought up a list. IMDb has a list of oldest living actors and celebrities. The first few, I don't even, well, Ray Anthony, I have no idea. Jacqueline White, no idea. Eva Marie Saint, I've heard the name, but I couldn't necessarily bring her up. She was apparently in some Hitchcock movies and some other stuff. Bridget Ober, no idea. Lee Grant, no idea. First one that I'm like, oh, yeah, definitely. Dick Van Dyke just turned 100 a few days ago. There were pictures of his birthday party and him doing stuff at his birthday party.
|
Ivan:
[3:09:53]
| Yeah, but I tell you what, he looks pretty good. I'm not betting on, I guess, Dick Van Dyke. Okay, I'll tell you what. I've seen him exercise still. 100 is 100.
|
Sam:
[3:10:02]
| I've seen him drive.
|
Ivan:
[3:10:03]
| I know, but I've seen, listen.
|
Sam:
[3:10:05]
| Yeah, I know, I know what you're saying.
|
Ivan:
[3:10:06]
| I see a lot of people are getting to 100. What I'm saying is I'm not predicting this year.
|
Sam:
[3:10:11]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[3:10:12]
| It's just that I've seen him. He's still working out. He's still, you're still driving until recently for heaven's sakes. Okay.
|
Sam:
[3:10:19]
| So are you going to explicitly predict he will be alive at the end of the year?
|
Ivan:
[3:10:23]
| Yes, I'm going to go with Dick Van Dyke will make it to the end of 2025.
|
Sam:
[3:10:28]
| Okay, I will say Dick Van Dyke will not. But I definitely see- I mean.
|
Ivan:
[3:10:32]
| 2026, sorry.
|
Sam:
[3:10:33]
| Yeah, 2026. Yeah, he, I mean, you're right. For 100 years old, he looks pretty good. He's pretty spry still for 100.
|
Ivan:
[3:10:41]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[3:10:42]
| The next one I recognize, age 99, Alan Greenspan.
|
Ivan:
[3:10:48]
| Shit for real he's.
|
Sam:
[3:10:50]
| 99 yep.
|
Ivan:
[3:10:54]
| Okay pass I don't want to predict Alan Greenspan's death I think he gets a lot of shit.
|
Sam:
[3:11:02]
| I'm going to say yes to Alan Greenspan I'm going to hit the other 99s and I'm not going to go past 99 Gene Shalit, David Attenborough and Mel Brooks Jesus.
|
Ivan:
[3:11:12]
| David Attenborough is 99?
|
Sam:
[3:11:15]
| Yes Okay. I'm going to say all three of them die. All three of them die. Gene Shallot, David Attenborough.
|
Ivan:
[3:11:21]
| You're killing them all.
|
Sam:
[3:11:22]
| I'm killing them all.
|
Ivan:
[3:11:24]
| I'm going to just go predict one. Gene Shallot.
|
Sam:
[3:11:27]
| Okay. Will you, are you predicting the Attenborough and Brooks live or just not?
|
Ivan:
[3:11:33]
| No, no, no, no, no. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm passing on predicting those. I'm just going to predict that Gene Shallot dies.
|
Sam:
[3:11:39]
| Okay. Do you have any other old people that you want to predict? And then we'll talk young people.
|
Ivan:
[3:11:46]
| I already predicted Fidel would still be dead, so okay.
|
Sam:
[3:11:48]
| Yeah, you already predicted Fidel will still be dead.
|
Ivan:
[3:11:52]
| Let's see. Well, one that is old that I saw on the list, Clint Eastwood. And he recently stopped working, by the way. I mean, you know, I remember he canceled some work recently. No, I don't want to predict any more of these people dying right now. I'm good with the ones we predicted.
|
Sam:
[3:12:18]
| Okay. And obviously I predicted, well, I didn't predict he'd actually die. I predicted a significant health-related issue for Donald Trump. Any young people you want to add to our dead pool? Steve Miller. I'll say young, under 40, under 40.
|
Ivan:
[3:12:33]
| Steve Miller.
|
Sam:
[3:12:35]
| Oh, the one in the administration.
|
Ivan:
[3:12:37]
| Yes. That's Steve Miller.
|
Sam:
[3:12:39]
| Is he under 40?
|
Ivan:
[3:12:40]
| We have us.
|
Sam:
[3:12:41]
| I just said under 40.
|
Ivan:
[3:12:42]
| No, he's under 30. He's under 40.
|
Sam:
[3:12:45]
| Because there's also Steve Miller, the musician, but that's entirely different.
|
Ivan:
[3:12:49]
| No, that's not the same Steve Miller I'm talking about.
|
Sam:
[3:12:52]
| Okay, let's see. Born in 1985.
|
Ivan:
[3:12:56]
| I told you.
|
Sam:
[3:12:57]
| Oh, that makes him. He was born in August. He is over 40.
|
Ivan:
[3:13:01]
| He just turned 40.
|
Sam:
[3:13:02]
| I'll let you have him. I'll let you have him.
|
Ivan:
[3:13:04]
| Okay. All right.
|
Sam:
[3:13:05]
| I'll let you have him. Let's see. Do I want to do one of these? Okay, fine. I'll do one that I hope is incorrect. But I will do Adriana Grande. What? And the reason is...
|
Ivan:
[3:13:22]
| Why are you killing her? She's so young.
|
Sam:
[3:13:25]
| The reason is, on her press tour for Wicked 2, she looked really awful.
|
Ivan:
[3:13:30]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[3:13:31]
| She looks like she's going through some stuff. That's why.
|
Ivan:
[3:13:34]
| That sucks.
|
Sam:
[3:13:36]
| Now, I don't know...
|
Ivan:
[3:13:38]
| I wish her well.
|
Sam:
[3:13:39]
| I wish her well, too. I think, you know, but, you know, she didn't look great. Now, and of course, there was a lot of pushback. We're like, you know, don't talk about people's appearances. You don't know what's going on with them. Don't judge them. They've got their own thing going on. Granted, all of that, sorry. But she looked unwell. I'm sorry. She didn't look great. Like, and hopefully she'll snap out of it and she'll be doing great soon. But anyway. Okay, that's all I have.
|
Ivan:
[3:14:09]
| Okay, by the way, one guy. I'll predict that Joe Biden's still alive by the end of this year, 2026.
|
Sam:
[3:14:16]
| I will say yes. I will say, in conjunction with my prediction about Trump, I will say Joe Biden will continue to look like he's better, healthier, and more mentally with it than Donald Trump.
|
Ivan:
[3:14:35]
| Yes, I will agree with that as well. You know, one thing that I reminded me why I really deeply appreciated that man so much is that I am sure that Joe Biden could have found somebody to give him a fucking private jet to fly to St. Croix. And instead, he flew commercial anyway to go on vacation.
|
Sam:
[3:14:57]
| Okay, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[3:14:59]
| I'm sorry, but.
|
Sam:
[3:15:00]
| By the way, people have been criticized, like, there was somebody on Fox complaining that he was on vacation in the week between Christmas and New Year's.
|
Ivan:
[3:15:10]
| What is he supposed to be doing?
|
Sam:
[3:15:13]
| As, you know, as an ex-president, like, they're like, oh, look, Joe Biden's on vacation again.
|
Ivan:
[3:15:21]
| What the fuck? Did they explain what the hell he's supposed to be doing?
|
Sam:
[3:15:26]
| I mean, frankly, his entire life should be vacation now. Yes!
|
Ivan:
[3:15:35]
| Pretty much!
|
Sam:
[3:15:36]
| Leave him alone.
|
Ivan:
[3:15:38]
| That was Tommy Lahren, who has absolutely, I mean, her head has a for rent sign in it. I mean, you know, there's just nothing there, so whatever. All right.
|
Sam:
[3:15:50]
| Okay, we're done. Okay, we are done. That was the last question I had. And any other last-minute predictions you want to make about anything at all?
|
Ivan:
[3:16:00]
| Anything at all? Well, one very important thing.
|
Sam:
[3:16:02]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[3:16:03]
| I don't want to be remiss.
|
Sam:
[3:16:04]
| Pain. That's right.
|
Ivan:
[3:16:06]
| We're in for a lot more of it. Yes.
|
Sam:
[3:16:09]
| Unfortunately, I think you're right.
|
Sam:
[3:16:14]
| Yes, 2026 will be another year for pain. Anyway, that's it. Thank you, everybody, for joining us. Next week, we will be reviewing the predictions we made about 2025. And we will be recording that on January 4th, which means I only got a couple days. It usually takes me—this is a three-hour show. It's going to take me like six hours to go through last year's show and try to pre-fact check everything that we predicted last year, write down every prediction we made. Because even though we had like a document like we did have this time, the actual set of predictions we make in the show does not exactly match. So I listen to the show a little bit at a time, pause it, write down predictions, go check whatever I can find, et cetera. It takes a long time to prep for this show. So everybody, you better appreciate it. Anyway, we'll be recording that show next week and putting it out a couple days later. So hope you enjoyed this year's prediction show for 2026. Tune in a year and a week from now, and you will hear how we did on our 2026 predictions. And tune in next week. Do you hear how we did last year? And that is it. I think, Yvonne, we can dispense with the highlights from the Slack and all that kind of stuff, unless you're really anxious for it. You have one? Okay, go for it. Go for it. Go for it.
|
Ivan:
[3:17:40]
| Sam shared an article that the headline was, what did we get stuck in our rectums last year? Okay, this is the time of year to be grateful for not having things stuck up our asses and to think of those less fortunate than us. So spare a thought for those Americans who misjudged their capacity, the capacity of their own orifices. All reports are taken from U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's database of emergency room visits. Yeah, there is a list of that.
|
Sam:
[3:18:08]
| I'm not going to go into the detail. And they list multiple orifices, not just the one.
|
Ivan:
[3:18:12]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[3:18:13]
| And things that have been reported in those over the course of last year.
|
Ivan:
[3:18:17]
| Apparently quite a lot of things. They may get to the Consumer Product Safety Commission for some reason. So there you go.
|
Sam:
[3:18:22]
| Well, because apparently that product is not safe for that use.
|
Ivan:
[3:18:27]
| Well, yes, that would be a problem. So anyway, on that note.
|
Sam:
[3:18:32]
| Okay, with that, give the full reference. Where was that publication in case people want to look at it?
|
Ivan:
[3:18:37]
| This was called on defector.com, D-E-F-E-C-T-O-R.com. And that was the name of the article, What Did We Get Stuck in Our Rectums Last Year?
|
Sam:
[3:18:47]
| Excellent. So anybody wanting to go look at that, have fun, it is worth a chuckle because you do envision like, what the hell were these people thinking? And sometimes you know what they were thinking and you'd rather not. But, you know.
|
Ivan:
[3:19:02]
| Exactly.
|
Sam:
[3:19:04]
| Okay, we're done. Thanks, everybody. We're out of here. Have a great week. Oh, a happy new year. Well, by the time you listen to this new year, the moment will be passed. But I hope you had a good new year.
|
Ivan:
[3:19:16]
| Well, you can still, I mean, we still cheer like happy new year to so many people like even a week afterwards. So, okay.
|
Sam:
[3:19:22]
| Happy new year. I hope you have a whole great new 2026, despite our prediction of pain. We're out of here.
|
Ivan:
[3:19:29]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[3:19:29]
| Goodbye.
|
Ivan:
[3:19:30]
| Bye.
|
Sam:
[3:20:02]
| Okay, that's it. Later. Bye.
|
Ivan:
[3:20:06]
| Bye.
|
