Sam: Hello, Yvonne. Hello. How's your doing?
Ivan: Oh, well, I'm home.
Sam: Oh, that's good. It's been a while.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: So let me boop, boop, boop.
Ivan: Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Yeah, exactly.
Ivan: One thing is that I am trying something radically different today to connect.
Ivan: I actually noticed when i went
Ivan: to the link that it said that there is a riverside application for mac oh.
Sam: There's a mac app app now okay.
Ivan: Yes and i saw the link and i'm like wait why the hell am i firing up a browser
Ivan: and doing this shit i downloaded the application and i am doing it from the
Ivan: application right now beautiful.
Sam: That like is exciting and.
Ivan: Tingling what's.
Sam: No i was thing exciting and new love boat.
Ivan: The love boat soon we'll be making another run the love boat exactly.
Sam: Exactly i'm glad you sang it and not me but yeah yeah exactly shall we just jump in and go.
Ivan: Sure okay here we go Go.
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, September 28th, 2024.
Sam: I'm Sam Minter, Yvonne Boas here. Hello, Yvonne. Let's go.
Ivan: Let's go.
Sam: There you go. So, uh, high energy.
Sam: Our agenda, as usual, is we're going to have a segment where we talk about non-newsy
Sam: stuff first, and then we will have a couple of segments on newsy stuff.
Sam: Stuff one with stuff yvonne picks and one with stuff i pick and that's the plan that's the plan focus.
Ivan: For some reason.
Sam: You know the the people listening to the podcast can't tell the the lot if there
Sam: was a they can't i mean that would be.
Ivan: You know well apparently we have.
Sam: People it just it just popped into focus okay there.
Ivan: You go yeah we have you know you're saying that but yet we've discovered that
Ivan: we have had people that are watching this.
Sam: Yeah let me let me check the stats on
Sam: our youtube channel which by the way youtube.com slash
Sam: at curmudgeons hyphen corner we are we are now up to seven subscribers there
Sam: you go only five of them have names that i can see because they've made their
Sam: subscriptions public but that's okay that's fine and let's Let's see.
Sam: Let's see what our views have looked like on recent episodes. Okay.
Ivan: Two million views. We're getting a check soon.
Sam: Yes, that's it. No. So far on this live stream, no views. Last week's episode had one view.
Ivan: Well.
Sam: One view. Now, of course, that only means they like looked at a couple seconds,
Sam: not that they watched the whole episode. so.
Ivan: It doesn't necessarily mean okay well i mean you see the streaming stats i mean i don't.
Sam: And then we then we had like our our august 31st
Sam: show had five views okay 24th had
Sam: six i can see on the dashboard by
Sam: the way the uh let's now that
Sam: only tells me last week which had no view that is anyway oh oh here we here
Sam: we go oh oh the summary of our watch time from the last 28 days yeah yeah yeah in hours yeah 0.0 hours.
Ivan: We're doing great.
Sam: We're doing it.
Ivan: Our money's going to be rolling in. I mean, we're going to be rich,
Ivan: Sam. We're going to be rich off of YouTube.
Sam: You know, the Patreon wasn't making quite enough. So the YouTube is going to
Sam: like make us billionaires because like, you know, the people are just like, they can't get enough.
Ivan: You know, they're going to have to just turn over their stock to us.
Ivan: I mean, it's just a door. yet listen you owe so much money just just look just
Ivan: right so you know stock used to come to these certificates you could actually
Ivan: endorse and give get to somebody just you know they just print the stock certificates just just you know i.
Sam: Have i have a better stat.
Ivan: Oh oh oh oh okay i looked.
Sam: It up the top content in the last 28 days the number one was the august 31st
Sam: august 31st episode which which had five views, if you remember.
Sam: Yeah. The average view duration.
Ivan: Two minutes.
Sam: 15 seconds.
Ivan: Wow.
Ivan: Damn.
Ivan: Impressive. Listen, they probably just popped in. They saw how sick I looked.
Ivan: And then they just said, well, we're done.
Sam: Exactly.
Ivan: We might just get sick just by looking at them through this screen, for God's sakes.
Sam: Exactly. So, you know, and I look, I do put out the little mastodon too,
Sam: that says we're live, but you know, no one cares. It's okay. I mean, okay.
Sam: I know the time is not, like, good for this kind of thing, you know?
Ivan: Oh, well. Anyway.
Sam: We could be big in Japan.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Sure.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a good time to be watched in Asia. Sure.
Ivan: Sure, sure. Yeah. It's ideal.
Sam: Yeah. So, anyway. But first. What do you have this week, Yvonne?
Sam: Something good, non-newsy?
Ivan: Well, I'll say about non-newsy. I mean, it's non-newsy just because it's something
Ivan: that, you know, I spoke about how I had that lunch last week. Two weeks.
Ivan: Was it? No, yes, it was last week.
Sam: You mean the award thing that you got?
Ivan: No, the one that I was in Napa, where I had first guy.
Sam: Oh, yeah, you talked about that last week.
Ivan: He told us a story about him just being an irresponsible idiot driving.
Sam: Yes, yes. You talked about that last week. Do you have an update?
Ivan: That but well no no the thing is that that
Ivan: lunch had so many wide-ranging things and there was another one
Ivan: that popped up i mean that was it another stupid person well it was the same
Ivan: guy this guy i will say it it seemed to be kind of a dick okay and so but one
Ivan: of the things that and i you know probably if i gave more details people could
Ivan: maybe like figure out who he is so I won't.
Ivan: Okay, no, yeah. But one thing that we were talking at the table about a whole
Ivan: bunch of different things. And, you know, we were talking about.
Ivan: You know, that area got hit, you know, four years ago by some massive fires.
Ivan: Right, okay. Napa and, like, for example, the hotel where I stayed at,
Ivan: at least half of it was destroyed by the fire.
Ivan: They still have not restored that part.
Ivan: And as I was going through there, and we're talking about four years later,
Ivan: so many trees and so many things were damaged that there's still work going on.
Ivan: I mean, we were at this minery, and you could hear trees getting chopped down.
Ivan: That were from the fire and how they're doing a lot of work and how honestly
Ivan: the damage is so extensive that it's taken years and years.
Ivan: I mean, they are, you know, you know, I would say they're not like paralyzed
Ivan: by it by any means, but there's a lot of things where, okay,
Ivan: we cleaned up the, you did probably 80, 90% of the work,
Ivan: but there's still a big, big pieces that are not done.
Ivan: Um you know and some things that you know aren't coming back there's a there
Ivan: is a very big hotel near the one that we were staying called the calistoga ranch
Ivan: that was completely destroyed by the fire and basically the owner got paid by
Ivan: the insurance company and he was just like.
Ivan: Fuck it i'm not i'm i'm i'm taking the money and i'm not building this again
Ivan: you know right it it It was that extensive.
Ivan: And so we're talking a little bit about just the situation going on and some stuff.
Ivan: You know, we were talking about about this and we were talking about for some
Ivan: reason with natural disasters.
Ivan: I was mentioning that, you know, that this guy that we knew from a long time
Ivan: ago, he he he was he owned quite a number of the duty free stores in the Caribbean.
Ivan: And one time back in around the early 90s.
Ivan: A big part of his stores were shuttered for months because a massive hurricane hit the Virgin Islands.
Ivan: And one of the things that we were talking about, natural disasters and the
Ivan: conversation coming around with COVID and PPP funds, because people,
Ivan: some people are talking about that.
Ivan: A lot of the people there were business association taking PPP funds.
Ivan: We're talking about what people have done.
Ivan: Most of the people at the table, I will, I will say that for the most part,
Ivan: they did good, good use of it.
Ivan: And even like I mentioned that we hired more people. They said,
Ivan: no, yeah, we did the same and so forth.
Ivan: So most of the people at the table were, you know, I was like, this is good.
Ivan: And so I was mentioning the case of this guy back in the early 90s.
Ivan: And I think that he went and when all his stores got shut down by the hurricanes,
Ivan: instead of laying off anybody,
Ivan: he paid everybody their salaries for months and months and months until all the stores reopened.
Ivan: He did not lay off one single person. in in most of these cases that's not typical
Ivan: i i i can assure you that most yeah you know hotels are shut down a month late
Ivan: they're laying off everybody they're not paying anybody a dime.
Ivan: And you know it's one of those things that a few times that you had met him and this guy,
Ivan: i didn't realize how much money this guy had okay it's just one of those things
Ivan: that you You meet him and he's such, you know, he was so affable,
Ivan: open, helping everybody, whatever.
Ivan: You know, you heard about this stuff, how he went and like basically out of
Ivan: his pocket. He was just like, fuck this, whatever.
Ivan: I'm paying everybody. You know, you guys can come and help. We'll do clean up,
Ivan: whatever, you know, whatnot.
Ivan: Until we're open back. None of you guys are going to miss a paycheck.
Ivan: OK, I don't care. Doesn't fucking matter. OK, I'm dead. Yeah.
Ivan: And so we're talking about how he was and we talked about that,
Ivan: that kind of stuff. And so Tesla boy was complaining because he owns a Tesla boy.
Sam: Being the person you talked about last week who.
Ivan: Like slept and yeah, who basically had an accident who put who put a weight
Ivan: on his car just would go to sleep to let it drive. Okay. Right.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: He, he was complaining that he has the,
Ivan: he does deliveries under contract for a very large company in the Pacific Northwest
Ivan: that ships a lot of things by. Yes. Yeah. Ships a lot of stuff.
Sam: I wonder who you could possibly be.
Ivan: I don't know. I don't know. You know, Costco probably. And then, yeah.
Ivan: And, you know, he was complaining that they had made him pay his drivers more
Ivan: money, you know, push it up from 20 to 22 bucks, you know, an hour.
Ivan: And he was bitching about it. And so a few of us at the table and actually there
Ivan: was there was another gentleman at the table who.
Ivan: How owned a massive auto dealership group
Ivan: in the midwest okay and he
Ivan: was like he was almost like we looked at
Ivan: him and said dude how much you think a fucking employee costs what
Ivan: the hell how much do you want to pay him what what do
Ivan: you think what are you gonna they're gonna pay their living expenses
Ivan: with what like 10 bucks an hour nobody can afford you
Ivan: know nobody can afford a damn thing you know right out
Ivan: of that out of that money but it was just the the the
Ivan: damn attitude of you
Ivan: know hey you're in a major metro with
Ivan: very high costs and you think that you can get away with paying full-time people
Ivan: like you know 10 11 bucks an hour and then oh by the way expect them not to
Ivan: steal packages and do stuff or whatever you're paying them like you know wages
Ivan: that they can't afford anything,
Ivan: you know, it's just preposterous, you know, but, but obviously there,
Ivan: you know, that is an attitude that thankfully at the table, most people were
Ivan: like, they looked at him, they were like, dude, what planet are you living on,
Ivan: man? Nobody can afford anything on 10 bucks an hour.
Ivan: And somebody had posted a sign because I've seen this already.
Ivan: Multiple people like complain, oh, we can't, we can't find workers.
Ivan: We can't find workers. We are short on workers. And then you look at the wages
Ivan: that they're trying to pay, but they're trying to pay.
Ivan: And you're like, dude, seriously? I mean, yeah, you're not going to get anybody, you know, at that rate.
Ivan: I mean, I talked about how, you know, what a higher maintenance guy like right now.
Ivan: Basically, that's what the goal and rate is north of 20 bucks an hour.
Ivan: Any damn job, you know, for the most part, you want to get somebody, you know.
Ivan: I mean, if you're not paying at least 20 bucks an hour, it really, you know, it's not.
Ivan: Financially affordable for these people to work.
Sam: Now this does vary by part of
Sam: the country but yes in general like the what people have
Sam: expected in previous decades is just no longer relevant to the no any anywhere
Sam: in the country now certain certain parts of the country are more expensive than
Sam: others for sure but but still like what what what's the national minimum wage
Sam: is still like Like $750 or something?
Ivan: Yes, yes.
Sam: It's like...
Ivan: But nobody gets paid $750. It's ridiculous. I mean, I've seen...
Ivan: The base wages that I see people get paid right now are... I mean,
Ivan: they start... They're north of $10 an hour, okay?
Ivan: But it's just the entitled attitude is the thing. You know? Right.
Ivan: I just... It's just... from these people. It's just always aggravating.
Ivan: But what I will say is that I happen to be with a number of other business owners and people that.
Ivan: You know, pretty, you know, with big businesses that they were looking at.
Ivan: Thankfully, like most people at the table were looking at it.
Ivan: I was like, dude, you're nuts, you know?
Ivan: And so I felt relieved that it's not just me that thinks that,
Ivan: you know, why does it think this is nuts?
Ivan: It's like, you know, it's thankfully the generalized attitude is like,
Ivan: oh, dude, you got to pay people.
Ivan: So and so i i do think that
Ivan: that i i i was just i realized
Ivan: that i was like damn it you know you you you tend to hear more of
Ivan: the complaining but i realized that it was a business table with about one
Ivan: two three four you know we're about
Ivan: five business people and basically four the consensus like 80
Ivan: was like you know that that you know
Ivan: we were right that you know yeah you you can't be
Ivan: thinking of paying people 12 bucks an hour and
Ivan: expecting to get you know top-notch workers
Ivan: i i still will never forget i mean
Ivan: this is something that some guy at hp that i i will say that i had it's a conundrum
Ivan: to me because i had issues with him but i found out very much that he deeply
Ivan: respected my work okay and i i
Ivan: didn't think that he did but i i found out later holy shit that he He did.
Ivan: And I was just, it's one of those things where it's one of the last people I
Ivan: expected to, to, to do so.
Ivan: And, but one time he made this statement that I was just, my God,
Ivan: this is just the worst statement I've ever heard.
Ivan: He flat out went and said, in a meeting with a lot of people,
Ivan: we want to hire the best talent at the lowest possible wages.
Ivan: And I was just like, what? Come again? end.
Sam: Well, yes. I mean, obviously you're not going to get the best at the lowest,
Sam: but presumably it is, it is something competitive.
Sam: Well, right. But presumably what you want to.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: But presumably what you're talking about is you want to optimize to get the,
Sam: the, the, the peak of that curve, right?
Sam: Where you're sort of your employee goodness per dollar is maximized.
Ivan: You know, I will say that it's just that my philosophy with hiring people was very different.
Ivan: OK, I honestly, I went out and I set out to hire the best damn people I could find.
Ivan: And I would set out to pay them more than average.
Ivan: But the reality is that I usually wound up with less people on the team because
Ivan: I didn't believe that quantity of employees, you know, generally was a way to be productive.
Ivan: I figured, you know what, you give me six top guns instead of 15 average kind of people.
Sam: Well, presumably this varies greatly based on the job, right?
Ivan: I know, I know. Look, financial analysts.
Ivan: Look, you want to hire some person that, I mean, basically struggles with,
Ivan: because I've seen these in finance. Oh, yeah, he's got a degree, whatever.
Sam: But but what?
Ivan: But somebody else takes an hour because they are whatever. It takes this guy
Ivan: two days. What's the point of that? No, but no.
Sam: But like your cashier at McDonald's.
Sam: Well, you know, I mean.
Ivan: It depends on the different kind of thing, but that's what I said. No, no, no, no.
Ivan: Not even at that. Look, let me tell you something. Same thing applies to the retail.
Ivan: Look, because one of the things that I that we did with what I had,
Ivan: like the better cashiers or the better people like at the store,
Ivan: you know what? They could multitask and do some other shit.
Ivan: OK, yeah, yeah. And so the thing is that I'm like, yeah, they could be OK.
Ivan: I use them at the cashier. But all of a sudden a vendor came in and they need to deal with them.
Ivan: If I hired the, you know, the person that didn't have the capacity to do that, they could deal with it.
Ivan: This guy could say, hey, I'm attending the cashier at a low point.
Ivan: The vendor comes in. I can check the order.
Ivan: I can sign it off. They can deliver it. And I can trust that person to do it.
Ivan: And we're not going to get screwed.
Sam: The bottom line, especially these days, is the kind of roles where you really
Sam: say, like, it's completely interchangeable.
Sam: It's a brainless job are the ones that are all getting automated anyway.
Ivan: But even though you know my whole
Ivan: point is that you know what you're better
Ivan: off getting the better talent
Ivan: and paying them more because a lot
Ivan: of people are just like ah we'll hire volume oh so we have 200 annual turnover
Ivan: shit you're just hiring you know you're paying shit and you're hiring bottom
Ivan: of the barrel they're all turning over the trainings you know you're burning
Ivan: so much money training and recycling people I remember.
Sam: I remember a couple of years reading about, well, I think it was about one specific
Sam: company, but it has occurred to more than one.
Sam: Where basically because they were doing what you were saying and just rotating
Sam: through people at the lowest volumes,
Sam: they, they were starting to have problems because there were very few people
Sam: left that they hadn't already hired and gotten rid of within their areas that
Sam: they were trying to hide.
Ivan: Right. You know, and so exactly.
Sam: I mean, there's always more people, but But there's only a certain number that
Sam: are within the geographic area you're looking for and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And they were just having trouble because it was like, oh, yeah, we are.
Sam: You are already here and gone.
Sam: And yeah, so, yeah.
Ivan: I saw this at the damn copier business. OK, look, when I when I worked at Rico,
Ivan: dude, I mean, they there are places that had turnover that was like 400 percent,
Ivan: 500 percent annual turnover.
Ivan: You understand this, right? Right. They they basically I mean,
Ivan: 500 percent turnover, Sam. That means there was a team of 40 people.
Ivan: And basically to keep that team staffed, they basically went through 200 people
Ivan: in the whole fucking year. OK, right.
Ivan: It's nuts. OK.
Ivan: And yeah. And they got to a point that all of a sudden next year. Right.
Ivan: They'd already gone through all the fucking copier sales, but already a couple
Ivan: of times. All of a sudden, this asshole, they already had fired because he sucked.
Ivan: All of a sudden, he's being recycled through the damn thing because they couldn't
Ivan: find anybody else who was interested in selling fucking copiers.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: So, yeah, I just, no. It's a dumb strategy.
Ivan: I just think that you get, I think that when you make those teams that are better,
Ivan: the people are also better.
Ivan: They're more motivated. They're, they're more, you know, I mean,
Ivan: you know, having that kind of turnover gets, gets the moralizing after a certain
Ivan: point when you're, you know, when, when you're on a team and all of a sudden
Ivan: by in six months, you don't know anybody who was already there.
Sam: Yeah. Well, and like you said, too, below a certain level, it's just like,
Sam: you're not going to get anyone anyway, because no one can live off it.
Sam: It's not worth the amount of time. Like sometimes you're not even paying them
Sam: enough to pay for the cost of getting back and forth to work.
Ivan: Yeah. I mean, that was literally a problem. That was literally a fucking problem. Yes.
Sam: And so you have to adjust.
Sam: I mean, and, you know, minimum wage conversations aside at this point,
Sam: because we haven't raised the minimum wage, the market is taking care of it.
Ivan: Oh, yeah, the market's taking care of it because it's ridiculous because it's
Ivan: just – I mean the minimum wage is just not possible.
Sam: But even there, you do have – if you had like a set minimum wage that was thought about more,
Sam: it might be a little bit higher than the going rates because you still sort
Sam: of have a little bit of – for these employers who aren't thinking the way you're
Sam: talking about and are just like, let's get the cheapest we can possibly get.
Ivan: Well, they're trying to pay $11.12 an hour and they're like.
Sam: There's always sort of a race to the bottom where there's, yes,
Sam: at a certain point you won't get anybody, but you can get pretty low and still
Sam: get sort of the most desperate of the desperate, you know, and,
Sam: and that's not serving anyone well.
Ivan: No, it's not. So, so anyway, so I, I just, you know, it was just,
Ivan: I realized that that for whatever reason that that, uh, the conversations that that table got pretty.
Ivan: We talked a wide range of things. It was just, I didn't expect that.
Ivan: I mean, you get set to sit at the table, you get assigned with people.
Ivan: And I, I did have my brother and my, my, my, and my sister-in-law at the table,
Ivan: but you get assigned like 10, 12 random people.
Ivan: And you, you're like, you know, you don't know what the heck you're going to find out.
Ivan: I mean, I found, I sat down with this other guy who I did have a lot,
Ivan: a lot of, a lot of fun with who, you know, confessed that he was there separated
Ivan: and he was like going on his fourth divorce. And I was like,
Ivan: Oh shit, your fourth divorce.
Ivan: Son of a bitch and then you know he was pretty drunk when he told me the next
Ivan: day we were making fun of him like shit i told you that yes you did so we had
Ivan: a lot yeah we but but i i will say that,
Ivan: being i was forced a little bit to
Ivan: like interact with people that i that i don't
Ivan: know which that is always harder i mean i'm good like a
Ivan: lot with people i know but i mean i i will
Ivan: admit that with with new people it's a little bit of a thing but i actually
Ivan: had a great time excellent so so there you go all right so sam what are we movie
Ivan: book book yeah and and also i will say not an audiobook a real book with you
Ivan: know like well or at least in digital form.
Sam: Yeah this one i read on a kindle.
Ivan: Okay all right but.
Sam: I i do i do just say it's a book when i finish an audiobook i i mean i don't.
Ivan: Well, no, no, no, they're books. I just, just checking which, which format is it in?
Sam: This was a digital ebook on a Kindle.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: And before I get into the book itself, I will say also, this is the last item
Sam: I actually have on my backlog of media right now.
Sam: Now that does not mean it's the last thing I've watched or read.
Sam: Cause see what I do is like every two to three months. Okay,
Sam: like, first of all, when I finish something, when I watch a movie,
Sam: when I finish a TV show, when I finish a book, I take a screenshot on my phone.
Sam: To commemorate the fact that I have finished the thing.
Sam: And then once every two to three months, I go through all the screenshots and
Sam: log them onto my wiki page and onto the backlog for curmudgeons corner.
Sam: So at the moment it has been, let's see, I've got, uh, let's see, log.
Sam: It has been 18 weeks, five days and 22 hours.
Sam: Since the last time i did that okay so so
Sam: anything that i have finished in the last 18 weeks
Sam: isn't yet on my backlog list for curmudgeon's
Sam: corner so like i don't off the top of
Sam: my head know what's next after this book eventually i
Sam: will go through and do this and the
Sam: problem is when it gets to 18 weeks like the
Sam: way i do this like okay my
Sam: phone has lots and
Sam: lots and lots and lots of images
Sam: and things of various sorts on it including my son alex likes to take the phone
Sam: and then just do like dozens of pictures of things he's eating and random crap
Sam: like that with your phone not not his He'll do it with his phone,
Sam: too. But if his phone isn't handy, he'll grab mine.
Ivan: Oh, God.
Sam: Okay. I, I, one of the reasons he has his own phone is so that he can do this
Sam: stuff on his phone and not clog up my phone with these images.
Ivan: I get that.
Sam: Of course I, I, I, and I never delete anything. So they're all there.
Sam: So like, I literally, when I go through this process, I'm opening up my photos
Sam: app and going back one picture at a time and saying, is this a screenshot of
Sam: something I read or watched?
Sam: And so like, I have to go back through like 10 or 15,000.
Ivan: Pictures. Yeah, so, okay, I'm sorry, but so you don't know that the phone automatically
Ivan: creates a folder with your screenshots.
Sam: Right? Well, they're not all actually screenshots. Like, if something comes
Sam: on TV, because there are two things I do here. Okay, no, no, no.
Ivan: This is screenshots first. I'm just playing.
Sam: Yeah, no, you're right. I said screenshots. screenshots generally speaking when
Sam: i finish something it is a screenshot but i combine this process
Sam: with the algorithm i use to add additional
Sam: things to my list ai so for
Sam: instance we need ai for sam sam it's ai yeah just just for example like if if
Sam: i see an article well articles can sometimes be screenshots so let's if i see
Sam: something on tv where like yeah they're interviewing
Sam: an author of a book and I'm like, oh, okay, that sounds interesting.
Sam: I will point my phone at the screen and take a picture of it.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: And so then, so as I'm going back through this list, it's like only a very,
Sam: very small fraction of what I'm logging are things I've actually completed.
Sam: Most of it is books or movies or TV shows that I'm like, oh,
Sam: that's interesting. I will add it to my list.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Does it, does it, does that make sense now? know.
Ivan: Uh yes it does.
Sam: I mean i know i'm insane but like well you understand but you know yes and for
Sam: the for those of you who aren't on video yvonne is playing with the the ios
Sam: slash mac auto reactions we're like what are you talking about i.
Ivan: I wonder what i mean me i'm not i'm not doing anything i don't know what's going on over.
Sam: Yeah yeah so so like on the video there's like balloons and thumbs up icons
Sam: and all this kind of stuff i mean i don't know what you're Yes.
Ivan: I don't know what you're talking about. I mean, anyway, anyway.
Sam: So anyway, with all of those preliminaries out of the way, the book of the week
Sam: that I finished in May is Big Data from 2013.
Ivan: Big Data. Or 2014.
Sam: Okay, so the author of this, let me bring it back up. I had the stupid web page up a second ago.
Sam: Oh, here we go. It is by Victor Meyer Schoenberger and Kenneth Kukier.
Ivan: Okay never heard of these people so what okay question.
Sam: So this was this why why did you wind.
Ivan: Up reading this book.
Sam: Oh i don't know i like sometime many decades ago like i i saw it and was like many decades.
Ivan: Ago it was only 11 years ago so that book came out.
Sam: Okay i will i will tell you exactly it was added to my list on april 24th 2013 okay.
Ivan: So yeah uh when was the book written.
Sam: And and actually the i i have a note here uh-huh it was added to my list because
Sam: i saw some random person on twitter mention it.
Ivan: Okay there you go all right so that was it okay.
Sam: But but actually i remember at the time this book was kind of like lots of people
Sam: were sort of talking about it and stuff um i kind.
Ivan: Of remember having heard it being mentioned yeah.
Sam: So now normally when i do these things like if it's a movie i'll bring up the
Sam: wikipedia page and i'll read the quick summary of it and then talk about it.
Sam: There was no Wikipedia page for this book and the sort of Amazon listing was sort of like lame.
Sam: So I have, as you just suggested a few minutes ago that I asked chat GPT to
Sam: give me a two paragraph summary of this book.
Ivan: Wow.
Sam: So I'm going to read that to you and then I will discuss my thoughts on this book.
Ivan: Okay. All right.
Sam: Can I make these bigger? Okay. Big data, a revolution that will transform how
Sam: we live, work, and think it, you know, it's both Amazon and this say it was
Sam: 2014, but I had a 2013 date.
Sam: I don't know. Maybe it is the difference between paperback and hardcover,
Sam: or maybe I put it on my list in 2013, but it wasn't actually out till two,
Sam: whatever. It doesn't matter.
Sam: Anyway, by, by Victor Meyer Schoenberger and Kenneth Kukier,
Sam: explores the profound shift brought about by the emergence of big data,
Sam: analyzing vast amounts of information to uncover patterns and insights that
Sam: were previously undetectable.
Sam: The authors argue that the rise of big data is changing the way businesses,
Sam: governments, and individuals make decisions, moving away from traditional small-scale
Sam: analysis to focus on correlations within massive data sets.
Sam: This approach allows for new predictive capabilities, even if it sometimes sacrifices
Sam: understanding the why behind certain phenomena.
Sam: By leveraging big data, organizations can optimize operations,
Sam: forecast trends, and create more personalized services, ultimately reshaping industries.
Sam: However, the book also warns of the
Sam: potential risks and ethical challenges associated with big data. Big data.
Sam: Meyer Schoenberger and Kukier. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right.
Sam: Kukier. Whatever. Cookie Monster.
Ivan: Yeah. Okay. Whatever.
Sam: C-U-K-I-E-R. I don't know if I'm pronouncing Schoenberger either correctly.
Sam: S-C-H, the O with the little dots over it, N-B-E-R-G-E-R.
Ivan: Sounds good to me.
Sam: So discuss issues like privacy erosion, data ownership, and the danger of blindly
Sam: trusting algorithms without human oversight.
Sam: Gee, I don't know.
Ivan: Yeah. It's amazing.
Sam: Wonder what? They stress the importance of developing legal and regulatory frameworks
Sam: to manage these risks while encouraging innovation.
Sam: Despite the challenges, the authors believe that big data holds immense potential
Sam: to revolutionize society, though it must be approached with caution to avoid
Sam: unintended negative consequences.
Sam: Now, that's the summary. This was from 2014. Obviously, things have moved quite a bit since 2014.
Sam: I'll say, actually, it mentions that they talk about the risks.
Sam: I actually like got the feeling while reading this that the section about risks
Sam: was sort of thrown in like, oh, we got to talk about the risks,
Sam: but it was mostly cheerleading.
Sam: You know, it was mostly like, hey, this is going to be awesome.
Sam: We can do all this stuff. And they were talking about all kinds of examples
Sam: that were already at play.
Sam: And while they did talk about risks, I feel like they, they sort of hand waved
Sam: away the risks saying, oh yeah, but we can deal with those.
Sam: And I think that there are a lot of places,
Sam: even before we talk about AI, which obviously this gets into,
Sam: but even before you get to that, there are so many places where they were saying
Sam: things like, look, we don't have to worry about every example being correct.
Sam: We just have to, on average, do a good job with all of this data and have it
Sam: be, And often we can get better results than looking at all the stuff individually
Sam: because you just like doing sort of statistical sampling.
Sam: One of the primary themes of the book is like, you know, in the past you looked
Sam: at individual examples and you did statistical sampling and you did detailed
Sam: analysis of the statistics and you came up with conclusions.
Sam: And they're like in the big data world, you don't have to do that sampling.
Sam: You can actually look at everything.
Sam: You don't have to sample. You just look at all the data and make some conclusions based on it.
Sam: And then often this data is very noisy.
Sam: It's often dirty data where some of it's incomplete or you don't have it.
Sam: But it's still the sheer volume of it often makes it better than your sampling anyway.
Sam: I actually saw it like, we'll undoubtedly talk about election polls later.
Sam: I actually saw someone, an article, man, I only scanned it.
Sam: I didn't read the summary and I didn't share it. So I'm not going to be able to find it.
Sam: But there's a new firm that's trying to do election forecasting.
Sam: And apparently they've gotten some elections already correct with accuracy unknown in the polling world.
Sam: They forecast an election and gotten it right within a couple hundred votes.
Sam: Like not just, and their methodology rather than polling people is just take the census data,
Sam: model little AI agents for every person in the, in the census based on everything
Sam: they can find out about that person, their demographics,
Sam: their family, all of this information.
Sam: And they make a little AI agent that tries to simulate being that person and
Sam: predict how they're going to vote and whether they'll vote.
Ivan: And whether they'll vote, because that's one of the most important things, right?
Sam: Yes, whether they'll vote and if they vote, who they'll vote for.
Sam: And apparently they've gotten some insane accuracy in some cases.
Sam: And so this is an example of that kind of thing.
Sam: But basically the idea is just look at everything. We've got the data now.
Sam: You can just look at everything.
Sam: Forget sampling and looking at this stuff.
Ivan: I mean, this is something that's been going on in a whole bunch of different industries where...
Ivan: You've got so much more data from different sources now that you can,
Ivan: that it's, and it's not about, you know, correlation is not causation, okay?
Sam: Right, but one of the main arguments that this book made was correlation is
Sam: not causation, but it doesn't matter.
Sam: You can make decisions based on the correlation.
Ivan: No, but the thing is that it's not, it's not, to me, it's not so much about correlation.
Ivan: I think that the thing is about how you are able to synthesize a number of data
Ivan: points across from different sources and to understand what is happening a certain point in time.
Ivan: So, you know, for example, I was reading about retail patterns.
Ivan: Right. And so, you know, you correlate weather, you correlate temperature,
Ivan: you correlate how many people are coming in, what areas they are buying.
Ivan: The demographics of that person and you correlate those a
Ivan: certain time and and and there is a whole bunch of data that then allows you
Ivan: to predict what purchase patterns are going to happen on certain days and why
Ivan: and what and what products are going to sell more and which less man same thing
Ivan: i mentioned this airlines for example that one of the oh yeah.
Sam: They they had a bunch of airline examples in this book they had a whole bunch
Sam: other but like what one of the key elements in that is is the prediction doesn't have to be exact.
Sam: Like you don't, like you can say that this thing is going to be,
Sam: you know, rising and that you can take action on that.
Sam: And it can be a probabilistic forecast.
Sam: And that is still something that's actionable. Yeah, and you can get out of
Sam: all this data. And so, I mean.
Ivan: But there are things that correlate that do have effects. So don't get me wrong.
Ivan: It's not that. It's just that you can't automatically assume that you have to like,
Ivan: Go and double check that, you know, that, that, that the relationship is,
Ivan: there is a causal relationship and, you know, that, that.
Sam: That happens, but it's. But again, one of the, one of the things in this book
Sam: that they tried to argue, and I, I'm not sure I 100% buy it.
Sam: I found myself a lot of times saying, come on guys, is that basically they were
Sam: saying, look, proving causation is just too damn hard.
Ivan: So don't even try if you've got the correlation go on it no no that's bullshit
Ivan: no no that that's ridiculous and it's not that you have to prove it it's not
Ivan: even that it's hard it's it's.
Sam: That what they were arguing is it doesn't matter you can.
Ivan: I don't agree because there's been so many times that i've seen people do stupid
Ivan: correlations on shit okay i mean i i bullshit i've seen this is so over and over and over.
Ivan: I mean, where you get these dumb correlations that make, you know,
Ivan: that you think work, but it's just then all of a sudden something breaks it
Ivan: like badly and then you realize, oh, they really weren't connected, huh?
Ivan: You know, you have to go through a lot of modeling and a lot of testing to make
Ivan: sure that that data pattern, the way that it's happening is related.
Ivan: And it's not just, you know, it's not just a coincidence.
Ivan: So I don't think.
Sam: So, so there's, there's a famous website called spurious correlations.
Sam: If you Google spurious correlations, you'll find it.
Sam: It lets you pick like random things and it just finds things that have been correlated with.
Sam: That aren't real. So I just hit the random button. So here's an example.
Sam: From 2004 to 2022, the consumption of butter correlates to the amount of wind
Sam: power generated in Lithuania very strongly.
Sam: Okay. Viewing random. Here's another one. The popularity of the dumb ways to
Sam: die meme correlates very strongly from 2006 all the way to 2022 with the number
Sam: of electronics engineers in the state of Utah.
Ivan: Ah, okay.
Sam: One more, one more. um from 2002
Sam: to 2022 the number
Sam: of public students in ninth grade yeah as a from the national center of education
Sam: statistics correlates yeah i'm looking at the graph they line up like nearly
Sam: perfectly with the stock price of bank of america,
Sam: so you know now yeah you could take this and be like okay so let me do some
Sam: demographic projections on the number of students that are going to be in ninth
Sam: grade the next few years and based on that decide how much how much bank of america.
Ivan: Is going to be worth yeah well good.
Sam: Luck with that investment strategy okay all.
Ivan: Right look yeah so anyway so all right.
Sam: What are you going to give this book? What's your rating? Let me finish a couple
Sam: thoughts. A couple more thoughts. Sorry, sorry.
Sam: Throughout this whole thing, of course, this was like 10 years ago,
Sam: the parallels to what's currently going on with AI development were obvious.
Sam: The AI development, especially LLMs, are just taking this to the next level.
Sam: They're sucking up huge amounts of data.
Sam: They've got complicated algorithms trying to pop out conclusions for that.
Sam: I summarized the damn book with an AI at the beginning of this.
Sam: And even more sophisticated, or I shouldn't say more sophisticated,
Sam: even different models that aren't LLM-based also are just, they feed on the
Sam: massive amounts of data in order to make their conclusions.
Sam: And I think the same thing is true
Sam: here, where I think there's still the underestimation of the problems.
Sam: Problems it's it in both of these cases both 10 years ago and now with ai it's
Sam: like everybody's so excited about the thing and willing to run with it that there's the amount of.
Sam: Just pause and slow down a little bit to make sure what you're doing makes sense
Sam: and isn't harmful is for the most part getting thrown by the wayside and and
Sam: maybe we'll get lucky and there's nothing
Sam: really horrible is going to come of it and it's all going to be wonderful.
Sam: I mean, I I'm, I'm at this point using various AI tools on a regular basis for
Sam: one thing or another, and they are saving me tons of time and they're useful,
Sam: but you know, I don't know.
Sam: I feel like it's just the, the main thing about this book.
Sam: And I think about a lot of the AI talk right now is there is so much cheerleading and,
Sam: About how wonderful this is.
Sam: And yeah, the skeptics are definitely making noise too, just to be clear.
Sam: But the industry as a whole seems to just be like full speed ahead.
Sam: This is a gold mine. Let's go.
Ivan: And why, and why is that Sam? Why is it?
Sam: Because it is undoubtedly true that there are going to be people making fortunes off this shit.
Sam: Now it, Now, it may well crash after that, but in the meantime,
Sam: there are people who are, you know, exactly like,
Sam: you know, for all of these things, you know, I mean, the same thing has been
Sam: said about a whole bunch of different phases of things.
Sam: Like the most recent before this was crypto where everybody was like oh everything
Sam: has to be crypto let's jump in with crypto on two feet and that is mostly faded
Sam: out at this point let's see if it comes back but most most of the hype around
Sam: that is like in hibernation at least at the moment i mean crypto is still around.
Ivan: But it's not.
Sam: Oh no i know i know i mean i know and.
Ivan: And one of the the things and the biggest problems is that crypto has not proven to be a.
Sam: Actually useful.
Ivan: Well it's not an easy trend easily transactable medium of exchange.
Sam: Right right right right and then.
Ivan: And then the other thing is that one of the things that they were trying some
Ivan: people the idea was oh it's it's anonymous it's private it's not centralized
Ivan: and actually here's the reality it isn't at all.
Sam: Yeah because everything is stored in a public fucking
Sam: public blockchain that people can access
Sam: that's right well and the thing is like and there's always leakage that can
Sam: tie you back like the fbi has now gotten really good at figuring out who actually
Sam: owns various wallets on blockchains and stuff like that uh it's not so that's why Yeah.
Ivan: But yeah, that whole anonymity thing is all bullshit.
Sam: But my point is, I used crypto as one example, but you have these hype cycles
Sam: every few years where some new technology is going to be the big new thing.
Sam: And sometimes it works out. Sometimes it's a bubble.
Sam: You know, sometimes it's not. I mean, and even like going back to the original
Sam: Internet bubble, right?
Sam: Like that initial bubble popped. but at this point the entire damn world is built on that.
Ivan: Anybody gonna question the value of a lot of this stuff?
Ivan: I mean, look, we talk about delivery of merchandise or whatever and one of the
Ivan: biggest flameouts that happened at that time was Webvan you know, which you know, they,
Ivan: well they were investing billions in warehouses and they never were able to
Ivan: monetize it or whatever,
Ivan: what a mistake that shit was never gonna work well.
Sam: Yeah well now look well yeah i mean nobody can live.
Ivan: Without their delivery of anything i mean you.
Sam: Know a common phenomena in these cycles going
Sam: going back hell all the way to railroads and stuff probably
Sam: even earlier is that the first movers actually
Sam: don't automatically they're not the winners they're not the winners they build
Sam: out a bunch of infrastructure and go bankrupt and then the people who come in
Sam: in the second wave and can build off of that they're the ones who end up being
Sam: the the big the big money makers who become monopolies and all this kind of stuff i still remember.
Ivan: What i still remember one of the greatest examples of that was in latin america
Ivan: during the 90s there was this huge investment surge in by telecoms across latin america.
Sam: Yep i remember you using the example before and.
Ivan: And they they invested heavily in whatever and man And I mean,
Ivan: there was this massive bankrupt flame out.
Ivan: You had Global Crossing, OptiGlobe. There was Bell South, Latin America.
Ivan: And all of these companies sold everything for pennies on the dollar.
Ivan: And Carlos Slim in Mexico scooped them up all on pennies at the dollar.
Ivan: And right now, Carlos Slim is one of the top 10 richest people in the world.
Sam: Right. And so, anyway, to the rating of the book, I'm actually going to give
Sam: it a thumbs up, even though it's like a decade old, because it's thought-provoking,
Sam: and it has the interesting...
Sam: Dual nature where on the one
Sam: hand they're talking about examples where you
Sam: know what's happened because it's like 10 years of history have gone past that
Sam: so you know like in some cases where they're being very optimistic about what's
Sam: going to happen and you know oh well that flamed out that didn't actually work
Sam: out because because of xyz whereas these other things did work out And meanwhile,
Sam: the parallelism to what is now going on with AI is completely obvious because
Sam: AI is just taking the same big data mindset and moving it to yet another new level.
Sam: So I'm giving it a thumbs up like it's interesting
Sam: because you get that history you
Sam: see what they're talking about and know what they got wrong wrong and
Sam: right but also it is still relevant to
Sam: this new cycle of stuff that's going on right now so thumbs up it was I liked
Sam: it I enjoyed the book it was it was worth the read I should mention as usual
Sam: like this is one of the things that And by the way, I read this out loud to Alex,
Sam: like I do with all my books now, and only occasionally, every once in a while,
Sam: reading for like half an hour, but not on an everyday basis or anything.
Sam: And so this book, which was 244 pages long, took me 271 days to read,
Sam: so 0.9 pages per day was the rate at which this book was read.
Ivan: Well, there you go. There you go.
Sam: And it's, I will also say like, you know, sometimes when reading books that
Sam: are nonfiction, like to myself,
Sam: I can find myself like reading a couple of pages and then going back and saying
Sam: like, what was that again?
Sam: I have to go back. Cause I, my mind started to drift and I was still reading. Yeah.
Sam: Reading things out loud, every word, actually helps you stay paying attention
Sam: to what the hell you're reading.
Ivan: That's very slow, though.
Sam: It is. Oh, even that, I will add one thing.
Sam: My son is like the mini version of me and insists on being a completist,
Sam: which means we also read every word of the bibliography index and footnotes.
Ivan: Oh, fuck you guys. Fuck all of you. Jesus fucking Christ.
Ivan: God damn. Jesus. Fuck.
Sam: Every word out loud. Reading the bibliography and the citation of like such
Sam: and such book, page 46 through 47.
Ivan: I recognize the pattern.
Sam: Okay. Let's take a break and then talk newsy stuff.
Sam: This is another Apple dream.
Sam: Oh this this is abel dream 41 it is a little bit long it is it's like three
Sam: and a half minutes so just a heads up warning for those of you don't like them
Sam: you can fast forward yvonne is going to have to suffer through it so here we
Sam: go i'm i'm hitting i'm hitting play,
Sam: hold on i hit the button wait oh let me maybe this button.
Break: Okay i don't like this dream at all,
Break: myself alex brandy and our dog jetski we're going to a park and we were gonna
Break: it was more park with like a lot of walking areas than like playgrounds and stuff.
Break: But we turned a corner and i saw
Break: a bear it was a black bear so i'm like bear
Break: bear bear and i'm motioning for everybody to
Break: turn around and we all turn around and as we turn around a much bigger like
Break: grizzly bear kind goes running by now there's like a little fence between us
Break: and where the grizzly bear was but it was one of those like wooden slat fence
Break: not slat you know where they They put the little pieces of wood,
Break: like, next to each other and little things.
Break: Anyway, the kind you could get through easily. Like, it's...
Break: You could jump over it or somebody could get through it and we're heading back to the car,
Break: and trying to like the bear is still a little bit of ways and then we're like where's jet ski,
Break: and then we see like two bears
Break: off in the distance tossing something and we're like oh no jet ski got between
Break: the two bears and we make some loud noises and the bears run away but we go
Break: to get jet ski and his whole back half isn't working right he's still alive though and so then we're.
Break: Like rushing to get him back into the car like I pick him up and like taking him back to the,
Break: trying to take him back to the car like I didn't fit I am like I don't know
Break: if I'm supposed to move him but I have no choice and I was picking him up and
Break: my wife was on the phone trying to
Break: figure out the right place to take him and whether our pet insurance would cover
Break: like being mauled by a bear.
Break: And Jetski was still breathing but felt like he weighed like two pounds and he's a 150-pound dog.
Break: And we get him to the car and we're trying to get him into the car.
Break: And someone who was in the way getting in the car and I yelled at them and I
Break: apologized for yelling at them and was like, but my dog.
Break: And as we're getting I think Randy was
Break: finding out that this kind of thing was not
Break: covered by insurance so we'd have to figure out the money things and it wasn't
Break: clear to me if Jet Ski was going to make it but he was struggling he fought
Break: against me he didn't want to get into the car I guess he wanted to go back to
Break: the Bears or something I was very upset, very worried,
Break: this was not a good dream,
Break: And then I woke up, and it was one of those where I was very,
Break: very relieved to discover that this was a dream, and it was not really happening.
Break: So, yeah. I'm gonna go find my dog. Well, no.
Break: He's asleep downstairs somewhere. I'm gonna leave him alone. I apologize.
Break: Going to go back to sleep in a second. Bye.
Sam: And that's it.
Ivan: You know, recently, I had a dream for some reason that my wife and I were in
Ivan: hand-to-hand combat with ninjas.
Sam: Oh, okay. Yep.
Ivan: And by the way, you know, at least we were kicking the ninjas' ass.
Sam: Oh, good job. Okay.
Ivan: We were repelling the ninjas.
Ivan: And i woke up and i'm like okay honey yeah you know hey apparently we're under
Ivan: ninja attack apparently we we're gonna kick their asses good.
Sam: Job i mean it's your your training has paid off.
Ivan: The training has paid off yes absolutely so anyway so i i don't know what that
Ivan: means but anyway all right so uh on to the things uh yeah let's see what do
Ivan: we want to cover first yeah.
Sam: It's yeah Yeah, it's your pick first. I can do the traditional,
Sam: like, I'm doing all the election stuff in my segment if you want to cover other stuff now.
Sam: Or shake it up. You can do election stuff. I don't know.
Ivan: Now let me see. I'm looking at what we've got here. Well, I had made some notes.
Ivan: So we've got Hurricane Helene.
Ivan: Yeah.
Ivan: So, you know, one thing that I didn't realize about this hurricane,
Ivan: And that was the discussion about this.
Ivan: And the storm was very large in terms of the wind area that was covered.
Ivan: It's not that it doesn't happen, but most hurricanes, usually the wind field
Ivan: itself is relatively small.
Ivan: So it only affects a pretty relatively narrow band around the storm.
Ivan: But in this case, I mean, the winds several hundred miles away were tropical storm winds.
Ivan: This was a very big storm, and it caused a lot of storm surge all across the
Ivan: west coast of Florida, and actually some difficult weather conditions even in
Ivan: the east coast of Florida.
Ivan: The airports were impacted with a lot of delays and difficulties.
Ivan: The winds and the strength of the winds was pretty stiff, and the thing is that
Ivan: you had pretty strong steady winds, but you had very strong gusts, okay?
Ivan: And coming from the south, most of the runways at airports in the Florida east
Ivan: coast, whether it's Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, or Miami International Airport,
Ivan: have east to west running runways, okay?
Ivan: Okay. Except Miami, that does have a crossing runway, okay? Okay.
Ivan: There is a lot of videos online of
Ivan: airplanes trying to land with what were crosswinds at about the maximum,
Ivan: you know, close to, you know, the maximum crosswind that you're allowed to land.
Ivan: Right. Struggling to do so. Okay.
Ivan: And a lot of flights got canceled. And Miami Airport did not gamble with that
Ivan: and was just using the crossing runway,
Ivan: which made the crosswind vector lower, but it limited then that you had an airport
Ivan: that normally operates with three runways down to one for both takeoffs and landings, okay?
Ivan: I saw some bigger airplanes say, fuck it, we're going to do it.
Ivan: So I did see that an A380 landed on the east-west runway, and they were like, fuck it.
Ivan: The Lufthansa was like, you know what, this beast will do it. Whatever.
Ivan: We're fucking, we're putting this thing down. But I happened to have been flying
Ivan: back yesterday from Puerto Rico. And it made it that it took what an approach to Miami.
Ivan: Once you're once we're inside of the airport, you'll be touching down in like
Ivan: 10 minutes. Max. All right.
Ivan: We spent about almost 50 minutes to land because. Yeah.
Ivan: Since they were only using one runway, they had to make this massive line of
Ivan: airplanes that was stretching all the way to central Florida in order to make
Ivan: them, you know, line them up.
Ivan: You know, oh, you have to. It's like, listen, you have to go to the back of the line.
Ivan: Well, the back of the line kept getting longer and longer and longer and longer
Ivan: and longer at the airport. I kept going, and I'm like, how fucking far are we
Ivan: going away, for God's sakes?
Ivan: And yeah, it was like the furthest away I've ever started an approach into Miami
Ivan: International Airport ever in my life. And I will say this again.
Ivan: Also, that was one of the bumpiest fucking landings I've ever made at Miami
Ivan: International Airport in my life.
Ivan: Because even with the fact that we were on runway 12, the winds were coming
Ivan: from 180, 190 around there.
Ivan: That was still a strong fucking crosswind that was gusting up to 40, 50 knots.
Ivan: And that was a ride to get in.
Ivan: People on the plane were a little bit unnerved. The landing was hard, okay?
Ivan: And so that was going on. on in the west coast of florida the storm surge from
Ivan: the storm yeah let's just talk.
Sam: About the actual start like enough about your plane stuff like those were.
Ivan: Fine but well well yeah in the end it was
Ivan: fine but there was obviously a lot of people but but you know that was my my
Ivan: but my personal experience of the but but but the thing is that this was like
Ivan: hundreds and hundreds of miles away usually when it's that far away it doesn't
Ivan: fucking matter right and this thing was was so far away,
Ivan: and we're getting the effects of this thing, and I was like,
Ivan: holy shit, what the hell?
Ivan: But, man, you know, the storm surge was brutal, that they had all across the
Ivan: west coast of Florida, a lot of different places, and,
Ivan: This is the third major hurricane that has hit the panhandle in the last 13 months. Right. Okay.
Sam: And this was by far the biggest of the three.
Ivan: Yeah. And I mean, it's three of them.
Ivan: And one of the damn things about the panhandle and that area in northern Florida,
Ivan: which always just made me nervous.
Ivan: And I said, I'm never fucking buying a house in this area because even like
Ivan: newer houses there are not built to withstand even a cat one cat to hurricane.
Sam: You know, this is this is what like you can understand maybe for like something
Sam: built a long, long time ago. But new construction.
Sam: Come on. There's no excuse now.
Ivan: And there is no excuse. I went to, I had some friends or neighbors that moved to Jacksonville.
Ivan: They bought a new house over there. They moved up there because to be fair,
Ivan: it was a lot more affordable than now here. And I, and I get that.
Ivan: And the house is beautiful. But then I realized I'm looking at the fucking house.
Ivan: It's all wood. All the walls, every, I mean, yeah, it's, it's,
Ivan: it's just a poor, it's a concrete slab at the bottom and the fucking structure is all wood.
Ivan: I'm like, fuck this thing in a cat three cat four hurricane.
Ivan: It's like, you know, say bye bye, say bye bye to this fucker.
Ivan: It's not surviving this is a new construction in the last three or four years
Ivan: and so i'm like going i'm like what the fuck is
Ivan: with this shit and so you know they were showing videos of these communities
Ivan: they got wiped out and you see that every single fucking house uh you know was
Ivan: not elevated to accommodate for storm surge was made out of materials that basically
Ivan: like the bit wolf could have blown them down and i'm just like you know,
Ivan: what the hell people it's just i i mean it's
Ivan: like i don't and and and you know i know
Ivan: that a lot of those historically have been there for a long time people
Ivan: anything about it but i just always felt it's
Ivan: like i mean look you've had so many big hurricanes hit that area and i'm just
Ivan: like now there is a stat recently i saw that in florida right now of residences
Ivan: and a lot of these i assume are paid for because there are a number of these
Ivan: 25 of homes right now are completely
Ivan: uninsured. Okay.
Sam: That's crazy.
Ivan: Yeah. They're completely uninsured. So they basically, you know,
Ivan: they are running the risk that if they get hit by a, by a hurricane,
Ivan: they are out there. They're not going to have any, I mean, they're not going
Ivan: to have the resources to rebuild at all.
Ivan: And, you know, or.
Sam: Or anything or anything, it's not, it's not just a hurricane.
Sam: Like there are There are all kinds of things that could happen.
Ivan: A fire, you know, yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of a lot of other things that
Ivan: could happen that that would wind up, you know, leaving them homeless. Yes, absolutely.
Ivan: So I, you know, this this state has been suffering through a series of issues
Ivan: related to insurance issues.
Ivan: The governor basically has just not really done anything about it.
Ivan: You know, the governor, obviously, right. Yesterday, I see him.
Ivan: I don't understand what, you know, there's another narcissist jerk off.
Ivan: Who the fuck wears a shirt with their name on it?
Ivan: Like, you're not even running for campaign right now. He was like with a sweater
Ivan: vest that has his name like printed in big DeSantis like here.
Ivan: Okay, like on his chest. chest.
Sam: You know i.
Ivan: I'm sorry to.
Sam: Be fair i i have seen like i i've seen like.
Ivan: Who who i i mean he's not running for re-election right now sam he's not running
Ivan: for president not running for re-election it's not like it's more like a it's.
Sam: More like a name tag right.
Ivan: No no i mean i know.
Sam: It's embroidered but it serves that function right.
Ivan: No i don't think so no no no i i don't think so i.
Sam: Know all my clothes say sam you.
Ivan: Know actually that would look nice i'll get you a nice little you know get a
Ivan: nice little sweater it says sam or.
Sam: My logo my little abelsmay logo.
Ivan: You know i get that on all my clothes yeah or an apple yeah that's another one
Ivan: i mean i get it i mean i work if you work those are those of you listening.
Sam: Cannot see right now but ivan is currently wearing.
Ivan: Something with.
Sam: All kinds of corporate logos all over.
Ivan: His shirt yes you know yes i am yes i am now it's.
Sam: Who's it's who's uh paying for him.
Ivan: Yeah so it's me these are these are my corporate sponsors right now they're
Ivan: paying the bills yes absolutely you know i got ubs securities crowd strike of
Ivan: course crowd strike you know they're paying for their i mean you know we we
Ivan: had we we had the tapes so they basically had to pay us you know on on how they
Ivan: screwed it, everybody. So anyway...
Ivan: I it's just the thing is that this bastard is going out there just doing some more self-promotion.
Ivan: I guess maybe he's going to think that he's going to battle like take Marco
Ivan: Rubio Senate seat or some shit like this.
Ivan: I don't know who the hell knows. Maybe I mean, maybe.
Ivan: And, you know, he hasn't done anything about the fucking insurance insurance issue.
Ivan: He keep doing he keeps talking about climate change doesn't exist. You blah, blah, blah.
Ivan: Then he talks about resilience. He gives some money. But it's just that this
Ivan: guy just, he builds up straw man. He fights against them, but he doesn't fix anything.
Ivan: And the, and the insurance issue has been one that has, you know,
Ivan: dragged on and on. It's not fixed.
Ivan: You know, our premiums here are up 300% in the last five, six years.
Sam: And part of this, we haven't said the words yet, but like this,
Sam: there's a climate change component here.
Ivan: Yes, and that's what I was saying.
Sam: Storms are getting bigger, they're getting more frequent. Not every year. It's all statistical.
Ivan: Here's the thing, we haven't gotten hit with them down here in South Florida,
Ivan: but the reality is that, you know,
Ivan: Down here, we're way better prepared than they are up there, okay?
Ivan: And unfortunately, the guys that are getting hammered with three of them in
Ivan: the last 15 months, there's a place that's way less prepared and the one that
Ivan: least believes in this being real.
Ivan: I mean, that's the problem.
Sam: Well and the thing is like you know
Sam: without without interventions
Sam: of some sort it is very possible
Sam: that certain areas it just doesn't make sense to rebuild and so insurance companies
Sam: aren't going to want to voluntarily do business there because it's like we're
Sam: not going to make our money back because of course this is going to get screwed
Sam: up again sooner rather than later right Well.
Ivan: It's like what I was mentioning earlier about the guy in California,
Ivan: though, because of the wildfires decided to just not rebuild.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Ivan: You know, the mitigation that he had to do in order to ensure that he wouldn't
Ivan: get damaged again that way was so much.
Ivan: And part of the reason why the hotel was staying is still only half an operation
Ivan: is because of how much work that will take in order to do it.
Ivan: They're planning on doing it, but it's been four years of work and you're still not there yet.
Ivan: Yet so that is that is
Ivan: a that is a big issue and over here you're just
Ivan: not getting in a lot of places that stuff
Ivan: done it's just not happening this government isn't putting a focus on that or
Ivan: a priority because one of the things that you would have done already if you
Ivan: really took this seriously was upgrade the building codes right you wouldn't
Ivan: allow those damn house new houses that are being built,
Ivan: you know, out of.
Sam: Out of regulation is bad.
Ivan: Yes. That's the problem. Regulation is bad. Yes. All regulation is bad.
Sam: No, but yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Like it, it's,
Sam: it's one of those things where you're, you have to make a decision at some point
Sam: that says either you take vast swaths of land and say, this is not actually inhabitable.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: You You can't live here. Maybe, maybe you could visit, make it a national park
Sam: or something, but like, you're not going to build houses and stores and all
Sam: this kind of stuff in there.
Sam: Or you put requirements in place that say, if you're going to build here,
Sam: you're going to build in a way that will survive any reasonably expectable event that might happen.
Sam: And this goes for other parts of the country too. I mean, where you are,
Sam: it's like hurricanes and stuff like that.
Sam: In other places, it's the wildfires. In other places, it's earthquakes.
Sam: In other places, it's landslides, whatever.
Sam: But, you know, just saying like, hey, there are dangers in this spot.
Sam: If you're going to build here, you have to account for them.
Ivan: Right. And, you know, and if you're going to build there and despite the fact
Ivan: that we said no build, well, then, you know what? You get destroyed.
Ivan: It's your shit out of luck. You're getting nothing.
Ivan: I mean, forget it. I'm sorry, but I just we just can't, you know,
Ivan: the problem is if they build new, if they build new. What I'm saying is after a disaster.
Ivan: I mean, I get that certain people, you know, I've lived in some places that
Ivan: right now are 40, 50 years.
Sam: Yeah, there's a difference between historical things and new construction.
Sam: But even then, there's also the flip side of that, right? Like if you make new
Sam: construction more expensive, then you're pricing certain people out of the market.
Sam: And then what do those people do?
Ivan: The thing is that the thing is that there are construction methods in order
Ivan: to build these, you know, that are more resilient, that don't add that much to the cost.
Ivan: But, you know, especially when you're talking about, man, we're not talking about $100,000 houses.
Ivan: We're talking about houses worth $450,000.
Ivan: Look, I bullshit.
Sam: They're just goosing. They're just goosing. But you also you have to also talk
Sam: about the apartment buildings and things like that. And maybe maybe maybe you
Sam: shouldn't have trailer parks at all, you know, but like if you're going to build that.
Ivan: Listen, I've said that. I mean, I'm sorry that all of those should be outlawed.
Ivan: I mean, I in the state of Florida.
Ivan: I mean, I just you cannot have those as permanent residences.
Ivan: Well, shit, we got people trying to ride out storms in every fucking time we get a storm.
Ivan: Right. I try to ride them out on fucking sailboats, man.
Ivan: And then all we do is fucking pick up the body, fish the bodies of these fucking
Ivan: people out of this game. okay it's just stupid it's just stupid there's suicide
Ivan: boxes you cannot ride a major storm out in a fucking sailboat.
Sam: Right and yet
Sam: you you end up in a situation by the way like you know when you when you are
Sam: giving the okay everybody evacuate everybody get out this is going to be an
Sam: unsurvivable situation if you don't also provide the support to actually get
Sam: all of those people There are all kinds of people who have situations financially.
Sam: They don't have the resources to get out. Or even if they do,
Sam: like grandma doesn't, and they can't take grandma or the systems in place,
Sam: don't let them take their pats or whatever.
Sam: There's all kinds of things that make it hard. and you
Sam: know you you i don't know yet there are
Sam: ways to be prepared and ways to be resilient to these kinds of things but hey
Sam: part of fixing these problems is indeed you know you have to provide the support
Sam: so even your poorest people can live somewhere that's safe.
Ivan: And but i i i think also So, you know, I've been used to living with this since I was a child.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Okay.
Ivan: I remember the first hurricanes that we had to prepare for when I was little
Ivan: that were massive storms, you know, that that most of them missed us.
Ivan: But, you know, when I was when I was a freshman in college, you know,
Ivan: Hurricane Hugo hit Puerto Rico.
Ivan: Hurricane Hugo is a category three, category four storm.
Ivan: I mean, you know, I remember that I could talk to my parents for weeks.
Ivan: I had no idea how they were. I mean, the phones died right as the storm approached,
Ivan: and I didn't know anything for two weeks.
Ivan: So I've lived with this, but, you know, I don't get, like, the storms themselves,
Ivan: they don't scare me because I've lived with this my entire life.
Ivan: It's just one of those things that Mother Nature throws at you.
Ivan: I mean, if you're in the Midwest, you've got tornadoes, you know,
Ivan: if you're in the West Coast, you've got earthquakes, you got wildfires,
Ivan: you know, they're mother nature, no matter where the hell you are.
Ivan: As a way of getting you one way or another, you know, is the thinking about
Ivan: the flash floods in Texas, for example, that happen whenever they get a massive rain event.
Ivan: I mean, the flash flooding that happens so quickly, you know,
Ivan: it just overwhelms people.
Ivan: Like a couple of minutes before, there's nothing, and then all of a sudden,
Ivan: people are drowning. So it's crazy.
Ivan: So I just think that, you know, me, I, you know, to me, I see people how they
Ivan: are stressed and panicked.
Ivan: I was seeing somebody in the opinion page talking about it, but they didn't grow up with this, okay?
Ivan: They moved there when they were an adult. You know, I had to deal with this
Ivan: as a child. And so I, for some reason, my mentality is, look,
Ivan: with a hurricane, my feeling is, I know it's coming. I can prepare.
Ivan: And in my family, we take preparation seriously.
Ivan: I know so many people that don't and then wind up in terrible situations.
Ivan: But the key to all of this and like why my parents, maybe there were two weeks
Ivan: in Comunicado, but you know what?
Ivan: We had generators. We had water stored. They had whatever.
Ivan: They had electricity. They had satellite. They had everything.
Ivan: The only thing they couldn't do was call out.
Ivan: But they had everything because they were prepared.
Ivan: And that's the one thing that people just, I don't know, they don't think in advance about it.
Ivan: You know, like I was explaining, I've got, I mean, we haven't had a hurricane threat.
Ivan: Yet this season, but I've got a whole bunch of massive water bottles stored in our laundry room.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: You know what? I have them there. They're already there. I have a gas stove
Ivan: in the garage ready to go.
Ivan: I got coolers to store stuff ready to go. Yeah. You know, I've got this shit. It's ready.
Ivan: Okay. I don't have to start from scratch to get prepared for a damn storm.
Ivan: But you see so many people that all of a sudden they see a storm bearing down
Ivan: and then all of a sudden they're freaking out trying to prepare for this thing.
Ivan: OK, and, you know, it's it's just always to me it's wild.
Ivan: OK, it's wild that they just have not taken one second to prepare.
Ivan: So why always, you know, they say this right before a hurricane season starts.
Ivan: Hey, get prepared to do whatever.
Ivan: Man, 90 percent of people don't do shit.
Sam: Well yeah a lot of it is just not yeah no motivation but again i i keep coming
Sam: back to there are also people who you know being prepared takes money you know well.
Ivan: Some is cheap i mean.
Sam: How much you think.
Ivan: Like a whole bunch listen you think.
Sam: I know i know i got i got like i got i.
Ivan: Got five massive jugs of water in my thing what do you think 10 bucks.
Sam: I i know but But for some people, 10 bucks is a big deal, you know? But yeah.
Ivan: Fair enough.
Sam: You know?
Ivan: Yeah, it's a good point.
Sam: But yeah, like, this is one of those things where, first of all,
Sam: yes, people have to be more aware.
Sam: People have to actually take these things seriously. But also,
Sam: you have to assume that lots of people won't. And so, therefore,
Sam: state and local governments need to be ready to take up the slack.
Ivan: And that's where the government of the state of Florida, especially,
Ivan: I mean, I will say that more so than ever under this governor,
Ivan: has not taken their job with this shit seriously.
Ivan: Because I will say that we had a number of Republican governors before,
Ivan: and they took this way more seriously than this damn clown.
Ivan: This guy is definitely the worst fucking governor we have had in a long time.
Sam: I said state and local, but of course the feds have FEMA, the Red Cross as a
Sam: private organization does a lot of stuff.
Sam: There are all sorts of things out there, but having all of them up and running
Sam: and prepared and making sure they know what they're doing is important.
Sam: And like you're saying, it does matter. If you've got somebody who doesn't take
Sam: it seriously and says, ah, well, we'll deal with that when it happens,
Sam: then you're just asking for it.
Ivan: Yeah and that and that's the reality so so
Ivan: anyway a lot of people got got and thankfully
Ivan: the one thing at least thankfully about where it went the storm like right now
Ivan: through florida is that that is one of the least but we had the storm surge
Ivan: and it was you know it was damaged but it's not well that is still one of the
Ivan: least populated areas of the state,
Ivan: OK, and thankfully it veered off further east of Atlanta. It didn't actually go directly to Atlanta.
Ivan: I can't report, but I spoke to to Kathy and she told me that,
Ivan: yeah, they had a lot of down a mutual friend of ours.
Sam: Who lives near it.
Ivan: So it's on is on the slack. Usually, I don't know. I don't think she listens
Ivan: to show, but she for some reason somehow got on the slack.
Ivan: I don't know. But anyway, but she she she said that, you know,
Ivan: they had they had power, you know, flicker in and out.
Ivan: They had a lot of trees fallen there was flooding that kind of stuff but but
Ivan: you know thankfully nothing more than that but but the power was still on even
Ivan: though it had flickered on and off several times during the evening so.
Sam: Yeah but as usual with these things there's lots of places without power
Sam: there's lots of places without internet lots of
Sam: places where cell service is gone you know you
Sam: you mentioned like the hurricane when you were younger where you couldn't get
Sam: a a hold of your parents for weeks uh you know there there are lots of people
Sam: that don't have communications right now at this very second and we'll see how
Sam: long it takes it to to get everything restored currently right.
Ivan: Now based on the storm there is this really cool uh web website
Ivan: called poweroutage.us okay okay and
Ivan: it it shows uh it shows the details of a number of customers without power right
Ivan: now so florida has about 500 000 customers without power but the number one
Ivan: right now that got really hammered south carolina 1.1 million customers without
Ivan: power georgia has 800 000.
Sam: And by the way south south carolina wasn't even one that like you know when
Sam: you it's like this was in florida where's south carolina come in you know and
Sam: yeah yeah you got west virginia tennessee illinois for god's sake yeah yeah.
Ivan: Because because the weather system like really went into Tennessee and you know,
Ivan: all, all of these places. It was crazy.
Sam: I noticed, I noticed looking at this website, there's some power outages in
Sam: California too, but I think they're probably unrelated.
Ivan: Yeah, I don't think that those are related.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah. Those are not related. Yeah. So but but yeah, but you've got but you've
Ivan: got I mean, basically Florida out of, you know, isn't, you know,
Ivan: hell, Ohio had 250,000 people without power because of this.
Ivan: So Ohio has half the people out of power than Florida.
Ivan: Now, it's because it hit an area less population, but I will say also because
Ivan: of, you know, because of how power, you know, the resilience has been built
Ivan: into some of the electrical grid in Florida because we've been hit by so many storms.
Ivan: So, you know, so that also, that also is a factor. So, but anyway,
Ivan: that's my report. Hurricane.
Sam: Okay, done with the hurricane. We'll take a break in just one second and then
Sam: we will talk election and politics and all of that kind of stuff let's see which
Sam: break am i supposed to play now,
Sam: which one this one this one we will be back after this.
Break: In the box that you found upon my face.
Break: What? Bye.
Sam: Okay, that's that. So before we get into other stuff, I will mention that while
Sam: Yvonne was talking about the hurricane, we had a breaking news alert.
Sam: That North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, who we talked about,
Sam: he's the one who was posting on the porn site about being a black Nazi last
Sam: week, has been hospitalized after an incident at a campaign event.
Sam: There's not really a lot of detail on that. I've been looking while Yvonne was
Sam: talking for news stories.
Sam: There are a bunch of news stories on a bunch of sites. So this has been confirmed,
Sam: but nobody's really got any detail yet as of the time that we are recording
Sam: in terms of what the incident is, what his condition is, etc.
Sam: But something happened.
Ivan: Oh, well, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
Sam: Yeah. So I don't know if he had like a health issue or somebody attacked him
Sam: or like this is literally breaking news. By the time you listen to this,
Sam: you'll know what's what happened and if it ended up being serious or not.
Sam: Wait. Oh, treated for burns.
Ivan: What? Burns.
Sam: Burns.
Sam: He's currently being treated for burns after the incident. He's in good spirit.
Sam: Did somebody throw some hot coffee on him or something?
Sam: I don't know. Anyway, like, obviously, we don't know. By the time you listen
Sam: to this, you'll probably know what happened.
Sam: But and I guess he's going to recover. So but I don't know. Weird. Okay.
Sam: So as usual, I will start with my election graphs update just to see where things are.
Sam: And I will note at the moment that we are recording, there are like two or three
Sam: polls that have come out in the last few hours that I have not had a chance to enter in yet.
Sam: But I don't think there are anything that significantly changes the picture.
Sam: And the picture is actually pretty damn static from where it's been the last
Sam: few weeks. stakes, Harris's position is actually a little bit better than it
Sam: was last time we talked, I think. Well, it depends on the metric.
Sam: But look, the bottom line is we still have all of these damn states that are really, really close.
Sam: And so the range of reasonable possibilities goes from a fairly healthy Trump
Sam: win to a fairly healthy Harris win.
Sam: Win you might even call it you might even call it landslides on each side although
Sam: i landslide to me still means like ronald reagan style landslide landslide to.
Ivan: Me is like that harris vance poll that's uh that's out there at like plus 21.
Sam: Yeah i i noted on the curmudgeon's corner slack right before we started recording
Sam: that or a little bit before we started recording uh somebody actually
Sam: polled Harris versus Vance instead of Harris versus Trump and Harris versus
Sam: Trump was a head by a few percent.
Sam: Harris versus Vance was a head by like 21%.
Sam: It was crazy. But the bottom line is we still have, you know, all of these super, uh,
Sam: close states in the polls. And I did want to make the distinction between like
Sam: toss up, which is where we are.
Sam: Like if you want to predict this as a toss up, you could get a Harris win.
Sam: You could get a Trump win versus close.
Sam: Like it's not necessarily predicting that the actual result on election night
Sam: will be super, super close.
Sam: It might be, it might be super, super close.
Ivan: It could be all over the place.
Sam: It could be all over the place. Here's the thing. Like I said,
Sam: it is not unreasonable to have, given what we know and given the uncertainty,
Sam: especially in the damn Electoral College,
Sam: where all of these close states, if you add them up, are a huge number of electoral votes.
Sam: So we just don't know is the answer.
Sam: It's not that, oh my God, this is going to be super, super close on election
Sam: night and every single one of these states will be waiting days and weeks for
Sam: the count and the recount.
Sam: It might happen that way, but it also could easily happen that, hey,
Sam: the polls are underestimating Harris systematically by 2% or 3%,
Sam: in which case she wins by a landslide.
Sam: Or they could be underestimating trump again by two or three percent in which
Sam: case he wins by a damn healthy margin it's just it's not that it's necessarily
Sam: this is going to be super super close it's just we don't know we like we do
Sam: not have the precision of information no listen.
Ivan: I know that the the average is especially one of the things about the averages
Ivan: is that we have only been been tracking Harris versus Trump for really a relatively short time. Okay.
Ivan: It's been only a couple of months. Yeah.
Ivan: And that we've, this has really been, been tracked, but there is an interesting
Ivan: thing that I've seen about recent polling.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: It's the number of polls that show Harris ahead by five points or more in the national.
Sam: There have been more. Well, and I will say this is important.
Sam: Wait, wait, let me say this. This is important.
Sam: Popular vote-wise...
Sam: I think I would be shocked if Harris loses the popular vote like that one is not close.
Sam: That one is not like margin of error. Like, but she's she's significantly had that.
Ivan: But the thing is, but beyond that, one of the things because we know that state
Ivan: polls always lagged the national polls.
Ivan: OK, and the one thing is that, look, the bigger the margin you have on the national
Ivan: polls, the likelier is that, you know, that you're going to be able to pull
Ivan: a number of states that are closer into into your orbit.
Ivan: It's just, you know, it's just we don't have the data yet because obviously it takes a lot longer.
Ivan: It's just it's just the fact that in in recent weeks, whereas in August,
Ivan: how many polls had her ahead by, you know, more than four points? it was like almost none.
Sam: But like still if it's still if it's.
Ivan: Been a lot i mean it's not just.
Sam: No there have been there's been a lot of them and we we talked
Sam: last week too that like what the hell is
Sam: like are the polling averages doing because like right now rcp oh sorry right
Sam: now 538 has the polling average at harris plus 2.8 but if you look at the recent
Sam: polls plus six plus six six 6 plus 2 plus 5 plus 7 plus 4, 5,
Sam: 5, 3, 3, 7, 3, 6, 6.
Sam: How the hell do you get 2.8 out of that?
Ivan: Hell, is it 2.9? I don't know. I don't get it. But I mean, literally.
Sam: All the polls, the majority of them are 5+. I know the answer to that,
Sam: and they say it right there on their website, is it's not actually an average of those polls.
Sam: They're factoring in some fundamentals. They're factoring in state polls as well.
Sam: They're doing some nonsense with it, but it means it's not the average.
Sam: Now, RCP theoretically is a straight average, but they still have Harris up by 2.0.
Ivan: The one that has moved much further away, because I know that Decision Desk
Ivan: with the Hill does do more of an average.
Ivan: They have Harris up to a 4.2.
Sam: I looked into their methodology statement. They also do a lot of fundamentals just differently.
Ivan: Just differently. But they have Harris at the highest margin that she's had
Ivan: periods as we've been tracking this at four point two.
Ivan: If she has in in their average she has definitely opened up the the lead is the biggest it has been.
Sam: Right so Biden dropped out what what
Sam: I will say again is like I don't think there's any question in popular vote
Sam: I I would be shocked if Harris loses the popular vote well I'm more talking
Sam: and wait wait wait let me say like we're you and you talk about this the state polls lagging.
Sam: And that's, that's true.
Sam: That's less true now that we're in the home stretch in the last few weeks,
Sam: because there, the volume of state polls in the, in the close states is now massive.
Sam: Like with my five poll averages, most of my five poll averages at this point
Sam: are only taken about a week of, of, of the last week of polls.
Sam: Right. And the, the thing is, it's not that it's that there's a lot of,
Sam: like, if I had to say, like, if I look at the whole race overall,
Sam: what I would say is there's actually a bunch of, there's a, I'm looking at my
Sam: tipping point graph and there's a lot of motion up and down in it,
Sam: but I actually think most of that motion is not real.
Sam: Most of that motion is just pollsters coming in and out, coming into the various states.
Sam: And the real situation is that after we had that big move towards Harris,
Sam: when she first started, since then, we've been really bouncing around in a range
Sam: with Harris ahead between zero and 2%.
Sam: But like, but it's just bouncing in that range.
Sam: It's not like, I don't think there's real motion of that's been very significant.
Sam: And that sort of ties in with what we're seeing in the national averages too, which is she's ahead.
Sam: She's ahead by a decent margin, but at least in like, again,
Sam: like 538 is doing some magic. I think you're absolutely right.
Sam: She's increasing that margin nationally, but it's unclear to me,
Sam: like, is she running up the score in blue states as opposed to making the moves
Sam: that she needs in the swing states?
Ivan: Well, let's be clear, to be fair, those national polls aren't just also,
Ivan: they're trying to do in a national picture what, you know, what we're looking at state by state. Okay.
Sam: Well, no, they're not just. No, they are.
Ivan: They're not just.
Sam: There's differences. Like the national poll averages are trying to predict the
Sam: popular vote, period, end of story. The forecasts that these sites build off
Sam: them are trying to do the electoral college.
Sam: But like that, when you look at national poll averages, no, they're,
Sam: they're predicting popular vote. They are not predicting the election.
Ivan: I, I, well, well, I really, what happens.
Sam: What happens though, is like, except in really close scenarios,
Sam: those follow each other, you know, like you, we've, we've had,
Sam: we've We've had two examples recently in our lifetimes where the popular vote
Sam: in electoral college went different ways, but that's actually pretty rare.
Sam: Like usually the winner of the popular vote wins the electoral college too.
Sam: It's just that we've had a particular configuration recently where if the popular
Sam: vote margin is less than a couple percent, it could go the other way.
Ivan: Well, you know, when they're trying to build these, you know,
Ivan: they're trying to find out who's going to win the election. OK, well, no, it's not just.
Sam: No, no, no.
Ivan: That's a distinction.
Sam: All of these places, 538, a DDHQ, all of these places, they have election models
Sam: that try to do what you're doing.
Sam: But that is not the poll average.
Sam: The national poll average is the national poll average. It's popular.
Ivan: No, no, no.
Sam: That's their model. Their model. No, no, no, no.
Ivan: No. No, I'm not talking about the national poll average. I'm talking about,
Ivan: say you're Bloomberg, you're doing state by state poll and you're doing a national poll. OK.
Ivan: All right. You're trying to model that to try to tell you who's going to win
Ivan: the election when they're even we're not doing a model.
Ivan: They're not doing it just, you know, they're not going and like,
Ivan: oh, let's just let's weigh in.
Sam: No, the models that are built on top of the polls do what you're talking about.
Sam: The national polls are looking for the popular
Sam: vote end of story the the what the
Sam: things that are trying to predict who wins are the models that are built off
Sam: that like i like i i 5 30 no like a national poll is meant to predict the national
Sam: popular vote end of story the model the electoral models these guys do something before like.
Ivan: 20 years ago we basically we didn't do this shit with these fucking models and
Ivan: each state and any of this shit back then honestly we we only.
Sam: Relied on these fucking that that's that's because
Sam: that's because before before 2000 the
Sam: last time the electoral college and the popular vote went in different directions
Sam: was in the early 1800s so no one thought it was going to happen oh yeah so like
Sam: the the reason we had this outburst of of, oh, crap,
Sam: we have to pay attention state by state, is because of the year 2000 and then 2016.
Sam: Both of those years are where they went other directions, and that's where people
Sam: realized, hey, actually, we're in a universe where the popular vote winner can
Sam: lose the electoral college, so we have to pay attention on a state by state basis.
Ivan: All right. So you're trying. I pulled up the methodology at a Bloomberg poll.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Okay. All right. Ah, Bob, Bob, Bob said it everywhere.
Ivan: Okay, that's not what this says. I could read the whole blurb.
Ivan: That's not what this says.
Sam: Send me the URL.
Ivan: It says that they are trying to go. Our 2020 turnout forecasts are generated
Ivan: by a series of predictive models built in historic turnout.
Sam: Wait, wait, wait, wait. That's not a poll. You just said it's a forecast model. That's different.
Ivan: No, no, no. This is the... No, this is the... Well, okay, this is the election
Ivan: model. Okay, you're right.
Sam: Yeah, exactly.
Ivan: This is on the model. Hang on, hang on. Where is... OK, Bloomberg's national poll.
Ivan: Here we go. OK, sorry, because I did pull up the model. They have a whole they
Ivan: got too much shit going on over here.
Sam: See, it's just that these are two different things. If you want to,
Sam: where they are doing a forecast of the election, that's when you take into account
Sam: the electoral structure.
Sam: But if you're doing a national poll, you're doing a national poll.
Sam: You're seeing where people are going to vote on a nationwide basis.
Sam: And that's why, like, we don't usually want to pay attention to those national
Sam: polls because they don't tell you who's going to win.
Sam: Well, they tell you who's going to win the popular vote, but that doesn't matter.
Sam: I mean, that's the whole reason all of these sites, including Bloomberg, have forecast models.
Ivan: Well, we went to the fucking forecast models because we really went out,
Ivan: you know, because of what's happened. But let's be clear about this.
Ivan: Most of those, okay, when you look at it, say, you know, for example,
Ivan: a couple of years ago, Hillary won the popular vote by 2%, 3%,
Ivan: whatever the heck it was.
Ivan: All those were within the margin of error. The reality is that when you're looking
Ivan: at, if you're looking at the margins that we've had, they've been between the plus minus four.
Ivan: The reality is what we talked about, you know, when you're looking at the national
Ivan: poll, is that any of those results, even if you look at the national poll,
Ivan: have been within the margin of error where one or the other. Yeah.
Sam: Well, here's the thing. Like if, if current polling, like forget the weird five
Sam: 38 average that has hair at 2.8, if she's really at six or 7% nationally,
Sam: then it, the chances of it going in a different direction than the electoral
Sam: college are really small.
Sam: Like if she's only at two and a half, 3%, the chances of it going the other direction are decent.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, so it really depends, like, you know, like, because really like it
Sam: is only close selections where it could go the other way.
Sam: And right now, the way the states are configured, it's really only 538 actually
Sam: has a chart of like their simulations for their model that shows like,
Sam: you can see what percentage of the time, you know, Republican wins the electoral college,
Sam: but Democrat wins the popular vote and vice versa.
Sam: But really the chances of the other way around of like Trump winning the popular
Sam: vote, but losing the electoral college is tiny, tiny, tiny at the moment.
Ivan: Exactly.
Sam: So the risk is a narrow popular vote win for Harris could fairly easily still
Sam: end up with a electoral college win for Trump. Now, that's not automatic.
Sam: It's not saying if the popular vote win is narrow, she will automatically lose.
Sam: It is possible. It is realistically possible that you could have a situation
Sam: where if Harris's national margin is only like, you know, say less than 3%,
Sam: you could still get reasonable scenarios that lead to a Trump win in the electoral college.
Sam: Okay. So, so my, my, my, my overall point though,
Sam: we went off on major tangents there from my original point because,
Sam: you know, we never do that here on this show, but that the overall summary of
Sam: the situation is still that it's a toss-up.
Sam: Within the skill that pollsters have, either outcome for the electoral college
Sam: is reasonably possible.
Sam: And like I said, that doesn't necessarily mean it's necessarily close.
Sam: Harris could still win by a really healthy margin.
Sam: It's just that we don't know based on the data we have right now.
Sam: And then also like, you know, and this gets back to the whole,
Sam: we've talked many times about all the reasons where we might think that this time around.
Sam: Polls are underestimating the Democrat, and there's a lot you can convince yourself on that.
Sam: But if you try hard, you can convince yourself the other direction, too.
Sam: So we'll know when we know, you know, which way the polls are wrong.
Ivan: OK, by the way, the Reuters Ipsos poll specifically says that they are not trying to do what you said.
Ivan: As a matter of fact, it says the Reuters Ipsos poll is designed to be nationally representative.
Ivan: Representative this can limit utility in projecting the
Ivan: outcome of presidential elections but they don't mean they're not trying to do
Ivan: it it just can limit the utility okay it's specifically
Ivan: they just said what i said no no
Ivan: no no no no no no no no what they said is that it's not the most exact measure
Ivan: of it but it doesn't say that they're not they're trying to predict but they're
Ivan: The reason it's not exact is because they're predicting the popular vote. No, no, no.
Ivan: That's not what they said. As a matter of fact, you go back further.
Sam: Send me the link. Send me the link right now.
Ivan: I'll send you the link so you can read it. They're not trying to model the fucking,
Ivan: they're trying to model what the fuck the outcome of the election is.
Sam: Not the popular vote. They're modeling the outcome of the popular vote.
Sam: Nationally representative sample by definition means they're looking at the
Sam: popular vote if they wanted to model the outcome rather than the popular vote
Sam: then they no no explicitly not do a popular no they do.
Ivan: Both but the thing is that they're saying you're saying again that this is.
Sam: Indicative but.
Ivan: It's not the.
Sam: Best predictor no no it's like it's like look it's like it's like Yvonne,
Sam: Yvonne, by definition, if it's nationally representative, then it is not taking
Sam: into account the structure of the Electoral College.
Sam: You would have to intentionally bias it to give more weight to certain states than others.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Which would make it not. If they do that, then it's not a representative sample nationwide.
Ivan: It represents. It's it's.
Ivan: You you have.
Sam: You sent me the links yet i'm yes it's on general it's on general oh you can read.
Ivan: It later we could we could we could oh.
Sam: No hell no i'm gonna read it right now oh god no way no way,
Sam: are we.
Ivan: Gonna talk about are we gonna talk about the fact that the major of new york
Ivan: got indicted or something.
Sam: No no wait why why
Sam: is this because i'll continue without supporting us
Sam: damn it okay blah blah blah projection of national opinion blah blah blah what
Sam: about registered and likely blah blah blah further down i i is designed to be
Sam: yeah this is exactly what you read the an important part.
Sam: The Reuters-Ipsos poll is designed to be nationally representative.
Sam: That means it's looking.
Ivan: It's representative of- It represents the nation of what the result is going
Ivan: to be. It's not that it's- No.
Sam: It's representative of the national voting population.
Sam: Then it specifically says the reason it limits
Sam: its utility is because presidential elections are decided
Sam: on a state by state basis this is they are not so it is it's by definition of
Sam: the word nationally representative by definition means you're modeling the popular
Sam: vote no yes no if you were modeling you're making.
Ivan: One massive leap.
Sam: No if you were modeling the nationally representative.
Ivan: Means that you're trying to figure out what the hell the.
Sam: Nation is.
Ivan: Going to do what they have like the president not fucking figure out what a
Ivan: damn meaningless number that has no meaning Eating.
Sam: No, nationally representative means you are sampling the national population
Sam: and you are trying to figure out what they will do.
Sam: That gives you the popular vote.
Sam: If you are, if you are, if you want to, if you want to predict,
Sam: this is a prediction of the election outcome in terms of popular vote.
Sam: It is specifically, they specifically say it's not, it limits the utility for
Sam: the presidential election because it's state by state instead.
Sam: If you want to predict the state by state, if you want to wait.
Ivan: Okay, these models by nature, subjective and pollsters take multiple factors
Ivan: into account by determining who to include, including respondents,
Ivan: self-reported level of enthusiasm to come over there and pass voting behavior.
Ivan: Like any attempt to predict future behavior, those models can have flaws that
Ivan: they're overestimate, underestimate, estimated group balance at the end.
Sam: That's the standard way for determining, that applies to every poll forever.
Ivan: All right. Anyway, let's move on. Okay.
Sam: Not until you admit you are completely wrong, Yvonne, then we will move on.
Sam: We will continue this argument until you capitulate and admit that I am right
Sam: about everything and you are always wrong about everything thing because you
Sam: don't understand anything that.
Ivan: Sounds great okay there you go beautiful.
Sam: Okay okay fine we can move on like fine fine just so long as you know i'm right okay.
Ivan: Can i ask a question.
Sam: What is.
Ivan: The sane washing thing.
Sam: Okay sane washing okay let me take a deep breath,
Sam: okay uh sane washing is just the
Sam: term that people have been using for what a lot of media has been doing for
Sam: donald trump's speeches and such where and this depends on which media you're
Sam: talking about of course but basically lately in a lot of of a lot of trump speeches
Sam: a lot of trump Trump interviews,
Sam: a lot of whatever he's been rambling incoherently a lot.
Ivan: And so he doesn't even know where the fuck he is.
Sam: Right. Often.
Ivan: Regularly. I mean, this has happened every fucking week. I'm like,
Ivan: but now Sona, he thinks he's in Pennsylvania.
Ivan: He's in North Carolina. He thinks it's a Michigan. I'm like, what the fuck?
Sam: I mean, but a lot of places, and this includes major media like Washington Post,
Sam: New York Times, et cetera.
Sam: What they try to do when they present an article about, hey,
Sam: Donald Trump gave a speech is They try to figure out, what the hell did he really mean?
Sam: Then they frame it around that rather than talk about he's being incoherent.
Sam: Here's one example. Oh, man, can I remember it?
Sam: The education one that we talked about the other day is an example.
Sam: He was asked to talk about how do you solve child care, and his answer was all about tariffs, right?
Sam: There was another case where he was asked some sort of economic question,
Sam: and his answer to it was, we will deport millions of people.
Sam: And that was his answer to the economic question.
Sam: And so and but you get sometimes descriptions in the media of like,
Sam: you know, Donald Trump presents an interesting economic plan,
Sam: you know, and it's like the interest.
Ivan: Oh, my God, I've seen more than one of those. I mean, I'm like,
Ivan: what the fuck are you guys talking?
Ivan: You know, the crazy I do agree that one of the crazy things is is and I I actually
Ivan: believe that there is a large group of people that take this seriously. I mean, because it's not,
Ivan: You know, I know that people are saying it's sane washing, but I see all these
Ivan: business people literally like, you know, business executives saying, well,
Ivan: he said he's going to do this about
Ivan: the taxes and the tariffs and so forth and so on. And I am like, why?
Ivan: What the fuck are you guys talking about?
Ivan: I mean, there is no thing that he has ever said on day like today that is going
Ivan: to be what he's going to carry out in two months. Right.
Sam: And I think this is the fundamental thing of sane washing is it's basically,
Sam: you know, he's got, he spits out some sort of incoherent word salad.
Sam: And then you have the reporters who are dealing with that, just trying really,
Sam: really hard to translate that into something a serious politician who knew what
Sam: they were talking about might say, and then
Sam: evaluate it according to that, as opposed to what he actually said.
Sam: And the criticism of this is if you only were paying attention to that,
Sam: then you might get an impression of Donald Trump as, oh, he's making serious
Sam: economic proposals, he's doing this, he's doing that.
Sam: Whereas if you actually watched him or read an exact transcript of what he said
Sam: you'd be like what what what's he what listen.
Ivan: Listen he's now hawking one hundred thousand dollar watches.
Sam: Yes okay.
Ivan: Along with a cheaper version for 599 dollars.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: I did place my order.
Sam: Oh, of course. And there's new coins as well.
Ivan: Oh, there's new coins!
Sam: There's new coins.
Ivan: I mean, Sam, you want to talk about sane washing? If any other candidate during
Ivan: this period of the election campaign had been hawking this many scams leading
Ivan: up to the election, I mean,
Ivan: the Republican Party would have thrown him out by now.
Sam: Well, and also, all of these things are just potential— They're all scams!
Sam: Well, they're scams, but they're potential vehicles for bribery and such, too.
Sam: It's like where people don't actually expect to get the benefit.
Sam: They just want a way to shovel money to Donald Trump.
Ivan: Listen, the most direct vehicle of bribery right now, DJT, to a guess, 100 percent.
Ivan: You want to fucking bribe Trump, pump up DJT stock.
Ivan: That's all you got to do. That's all you got to do.
Ivan: When you go in and you just shovel money in there, just buy,
Ivan: you know, announce that you bought 100, you know, whatever, millions of shares.
Ivan: Fuck it. you know and you're just
Ivan: shoveling money in his pocket i mean now i i you know speaking of djt i happen
Ivan: to think that you own it's thinking because yes yes i i'm accumulating a controlling
Ivan: position in djt as we speak i know it's that he he he,
Ivan: the as his odds of winning keep diminishing
Ivan: yes then the people that have been trying to funnel money by basically currying
Ivan: favor with him by buying djt are basically saying well i don't you know what
Ivan: maybe it's just up to shit i mean it's just tanking so i might as well flee
Ivan: too you know speaking speaking of odds.
Sam: I just want to say i did i i forgot to include this on my election update.
Sam: I currently give Harris odds between 50 and 60%.
Sam: That's my range, somewhere between 50 and 60%. Election betting odds has it
Sam: at 52, so right in that area too.
Sam: And I think most of the people who are giving odds are in that ballpark.
Sam: I think Nate Silver this time is an outlier.
Sam: At least last time I looked, which was at least a week ago, He was actually
Sam: still favoring Trump, but, you know, anyway, it's a toss up anyway.
Sam: Sorry, you said something about odd. So I had to say that.
Ivan: No, but but but it's just that, you know, the the all of these people have all
Ivan: these methods of just funneling money to it to his pockets by either buying
Ivan: his NFTs or buying his trading cards or buying the the the damn watches or Bibles or whatever.
Ivan: Ever not jesus christ what i mean there is this cycle of being in the middle
Ivan: of a fucking election and then all of a sudden another ad that he's records
Ivan: where he's pawning you know he's trying to pawn off some other scam product okay and by the way i.
Sam: Can almost guarantee you well from from what i've heard that hundred thousand
Sam: dollar watch isn't really the quality you would expect from a $100,000 watch.
Ivan: Listen, I looked at that watch, okay? It's not worth $1,000.
Sam: Okay?
Ivan: I mean, just from the pictures, it's, you know, I mean, you know,
Ivan: listen, I was last week with some people that were wearing some watches that were worth $100,000.
Ivan: Let me tell you something.
Ivan: Donald Trump's watch doesn't look like that one.
Ivan: No. Okay. So no, it's, they were.
Sam: They were, they were picking the watches up at target and just rebranding them.
Ivan: I, I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, you know, although I think that they went
Ivan: to some, look, there are a number of, I, I, I, I can guarantee you that watch is made in China. Okay.
Sam: But wait, what about, what about the massive tariffs on China?
Ivan: I mean, you know, what, what does that matter? I think I saw a lot of the Trump
Ivan: hats and benefit. They're all made in China too. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah, I, yes.
Ivan: Yeah, so, you know, like that fucking matters. But, you know,
Ivan: China does make a lot of knockoffs, okay?
Ivan: You know, I mean, you go over there, and they do make some decent ones,
Ivan: but it's just, you know, it is one shitty-looking watch. I mean...
Sam: Real quick, we're over our target time, so I just want to blow through a couple
Sam: things real quick just to get them mentioned on here.
Sam: One, I had made a note, and this is just something to keep an eye out,
Sam: for, but for the last few weeks, Vance has been a lot more visible than Trump himself is.
Sam: You know, he's holding more events.
Sam: He's on TV more. I mean, I'm not saying Trump has been absent entirely.
Sam: He was for a few weeks after the first assassination attempt.
Sam: He was, he like didn't come out for a little while, but Trump has been around,
Sam: but it seems like Vance is out more and he's actually getting a little bit more
Sam: attention because you know he says stupid stuff like trump says stupid stuff
Sam: too but vance is getting negative attention for his comments more often it seems and so you gotta wonder a,
Sam: How much of this is planned by Trump that he's like, he's actually holding back
Sam: and not campaigning as much as he would otherwise?
Sam: And also, is he getting pissed at Vance for getting more attention? I don't know.
Ivan: Oh, I'm sure he is. But also, look, let's say him. I mean, how is he going to
Ivan: be out there if he's recording all these fucking commercials for more grifts every fucking week?
Ivan: I mean, every Sam, every fucking week, there is a new commercial for some new grift.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Whether it's the trading card or the watch or whatever.
Sam: He has to get all this stuff in before he loses.
Sam: Because then his value is going to go down. There's been a lot of speculation, too.
Sam: We talked about how close this is. But there's been speculation that Trump's
Sam: internal polling shows that he's losing. For sure.
Ivan: Oh, I'm sure.
Sam: Listen. And that he is. And honestly, if I had to bet, I'm betting on Harris right now.
Sam: The enthusiasm gap seems obvious, but like this, despite whatever polling numbers,
Sam: because I also talked the other day about like the conservative pollsters have
Sam: been out in force and they're like pushing the numbers up towards, but towards Trump.
Ivan: But listen, I even saw some Trafalgar polls showing Harris like I had certain
Ivan: things that I was like, and I was like, whoa, what the fuck?
Sam: Yeah, there were a couple of those. but like i and so does trump is has trump
Sam: gone into an oh crap i'm gonna lose so i might as well just grift as much as
Sam: i can and then i mean how he talked about if he loses he wants to go live in
Sam: venezuela you know he also.
Ivan: Said recently which i don't know if i believe that he said he if he lost he wasn't gonna run again.
Sam: Yeah yeah by.
Ivan: The way curiously the new trump watches which are are available for pre-order.
Sam: Later this fall are.
Ivan: Not being advertised as luxury type pieces, but rather as collectible items
Ivan: for individual enjoyment only.
Ivan: Okay uh oh the joy
Ivan: that i get from looking at my fake gold
Ivan: watch that has the words trump on it
Ivan: oh my god every day is just pure joy yes that has to be you know what kind of
Ivan: a fucking loser are you that would get this and say that they are getting individual enjoyment.
Sam: My goodness. Well, look, especially for the $100,000 one, and we implied this
Sam: before, but nobody who can spend $100,000 on that gives a crap about the watch at all.
Sam: They just see this as a way to give him. They just want to give him money.
Ivan: Give Donald Trump $100,000.
Sam: And get around any financial restrictions, anything like that.
Ivan: They probably will get the watch and then just once they get it,
Ivan: they'll toss it in the garbage or give it to the give it to the pool guy or
Ivan: whatever or something, you know, some, you know, here, here, here.
Sam: They don't want the damn watch.
Ivan: I'm not wearing this piece of shit.
Sam: Now, of course, all of these two, though, I don't know specifically about the
Sam: watch, but these are all licensing deals like, you know, so it's it's also like
Sam: Trump probably has his money up front anyway from the licensing.
Ivan: Yes. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Sam: So he's not necessarily like getting a certain percentage.
Ivan: He probably gets it up from pain and then gets a percentage.
Sam: Yeah. I'm sure he does. I'm sure he does.
Ivan: Otherwise that way he put, he goes and he hawks them.
Sam: Okay. A note. The waltz Vance debate is coming up on October 1st.
Sam: That's a two next this coming Tuesday.
Sam: So keep keeping a watch out for that. It'll be fun. I'm sure.
Sam: I'm not entirely sarcastic. I want to see those two go up against each other.
Sam: It should be an interesting thing.
Sam: I think Walsh will probably kick Vance's ass as much as Harris kicked Trump's
Sam: ass. That's my prediction right now.
Ivan: I mean, I agree.
Sam: Uh, we'll, we'll see, but that's my prediction also. Oh, and we,
Sam: since we were talking Vance, I can't, the Vance dossier that was apparently
Sam: hacked by the Iranians and they've been trying to hawk to all kinds of journalists,
Sam: but nobody has been publishing.
Sam: It was finally published by somebody a couple of days ago.
Ivan: I wanted to get the cliff notes. I haven't seen anybody do like the cliff notes.
Sam: So, so actually the guy, the guy who published it gave a really high level.
Sam: Basically it it just the the reason that
Sam: none of the major news
Sam: companies are have not published it before one is of course they're like hey
Sam: we were fooled by all this stuff against clinton we're not going to be fooled
Sam: again which is a little unfair but still um but but i get it yeah but it's when
Sam: you when you look at there's nothing really all that newsworthy in here It has,
Sam: it's like a standard oppo research from what I read of things that are public anyway.
Sam: So like it's got a list of all the times Vance said Trump was stupid or an idiot or whatever.
Ivan: Which we knew about.
Sam: Which we knew they've got a number of places where Vance was involved in one
Sam: thing or another that might be embarrassing.
Sam: And I mean, none of them are even as good as the couch thing, you know?
Sam: So, you know, yeah
Sam: so like it's basically all normal stuff
Sam: there's no smoking gun that says like oh my
Sam: god vance was doing this thing that we had no idea about that's going to completely
Sam: change the campaign there's nothing like that now of course when they were going
Sam: over the stolen clinton stuff they were talking about like podesta's risotto
Sam: recipe and crap like that so that that wasn't particularly newsworthy either,
Sam: but they still were having an hour a day talking about the new revelations.
Ivan: Yeah, but I was...
Ivan: I never understood why anybody cared about those kind of innocuous emails,
Ivan: but whatever. Anyway, all right.
Sam: And then the other thing is that special counsel did submit his 180-page document to Judge Chunkin.
Sam: Chunkin? Is that how you say Chunkin? Chunkin? I don't know.
Ivan: I'll butcher the name.
Sam: The judge. The judge in the January 6th case out of D.C., apparently the earliest
Sam: possible that we could see redacted versions of that filing are also next Tuesday.
Sam: But there are chances that it'll be longer because the Trump people have until
Sam: Tuesday to file their objections to a redacted version coming out.
Sam: And so depending on what you
Sam: know the judge may take more time to decide on that the judge
Sam: may the judge may decide not to release redacted versions and apparently she's
Sam: making separate decisions on the main document and the appendices the appendices
Sam: are all where a whole bunch of goodies are in terms of actual witness testimony
Sam: and stuff like that so it's possible we'll get redacted views of some of this.
Sam: It's possible that we won't until after the election or even until some eventual
Sam: trial in 2028 or something.
Sam: My expectation is like a lot of people have been sort of holding their breath
Sam: and saying, this is the one thing we might get before the election is this document.
Sam: My prediction is even if we get a redacted version, it's not going to have Some
Sam: massive new revelations that change anything.
Sam: It's going to be more of the same kind of stuff we already know,
Sam: and it's not going to change anybody's mind on anything.
Ivan: By the way, two tidbits before we forget, Fed cut interest rates.
Sam: Oh, yeah.
Ivan: And inflation came in lower than expected.
Sam: Yes absolutely oh and update we do now oh.
Ivan: Wait number three the economy in the second quarter grew faster than.
Sam: And and there were decent inflation numbers too i think yeah yeah.
Ivan: That was what i said inflation came in below.
Sam: Okay we are wrapping up but we do now know what happened to mark robinson i
Sam: have the update okay what happened uh this is mark robinson attended a truck
Sam: show in Mount Airy, North Carolina tonight.
Sam: He burned his hand leaning against a truck and was taken to the hospital.
Sam: An official source says he is fine and home now. Oh,
Sam: well, so yeah, it's not somebody through scalding water on him.
Sam: It wasn't some attack. It was an.
Ivan: Those truck events are crazy. I just saw a news story related to some guy that
Ivan: went into a rage and just Not a monster truck, but close to it.
Ivan: Then basically, I mean, he was arrested because he tried to run over about six people.
Ivan: But the guard did run over a couple of cars and people had to run and flee from
Ivan: being run over. So, okay.
Sam: Yeah. So, but yeah, he just leaned on a hot part of a truck and burnt his hand. That's, that's all.
Sam: Okay. And you mentioned Mayor Adams was indicted for all sorts of corruption in New York.
Sam: And it may not be over yet. There may be more to come.
Sam: So, okay. With that, the stuff to end the show, go to curmudgeons-corner.com.
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Sam: At $2 a month or more. Or if you just ask us, we'll invite you to the curmudgeon's
Sam: corner slack where Yvonne and I and others are chatting throughout the week,
Sam: sharing news links, sharing funny links, sharing whatever.
Sam: So Yvonne, do you have something to highlight from the curmudgeon's corner slack?
Ivan: Well, something you just posted.
Ivan: Childless congressional candidate in Virginia borrows his friend's family,
Ivan: his friend's wife and children for campaign photo op.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: What do you think? That if he won, what, they're going to find out this wasn't
Ivan: his fucking family? What the fuck is this?
Sam: Well, apparently he said.
Ivan: You know, I just want to be surrounded by some nice looking people.
Sam: Well, yeah, essentially. and and look honestly the thing is it makes it look
Sam: like it's his family like like right you know my my that.
Ivan: Picture is fed to the sea that's not just me sitting with some random people hey whatever no.
Sam: Yeah because because like look my wife on her campaign stuff there there is
Sam: a picture with me and the family but there are also pictures with her with other
Sam: random people right like so So, okay,
Sam: you can have campaign pictures with random people in it. That's a thing. That's not a big deal.
Sam: But this picture is posed so it looks like this is my family. And it's not his family.
Sam: It's his friend's wife and kids.
Sam: And apparently he does have a fiancee, it says, but they don't have a family yet.
Sam: And apparently he didn't want to be in a picture with his fiancee,
Sam: I guess. I don't know. But, like, yeah.
Ivan: That's bizarre. bizarre i mean i'm like i mean the right thing would have been
Ivan: to just pose with his fucking,
Ivan: fiancee i mean what the hell hey we just brand them kids hey come on i mean
Ivan: might as well just gonna fucking photoshop them but it was a brand of i mean
Ivan: funnier would have been right if he had done an ai generated image of him in
Ivan: a fake family there you go.
Sam: So just to note as well this is his opponent in this race is uh eugene vinman
Sam: you know if you remember the.
Ivan: Vinman brothers yes Yes, yes, yes.
Sam: So, uh, Eugene is not the one who's been on TV the most and the key player was
Sam: his brother, but, but Eugene Vindman is his brother and he's running,
Sam: it's at Virginia's seventh district.
Sam: And so, yeah. So yeah. Anyway.
Sam: I don't know. There you go. And we are done. Thanks, everybody. Have a great week.
Sam: Have fun. Stay safe. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Ivan: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Ivan: Blah, blah, blah. I already sang at the beginning. I'm not singing again.
Sam: Yeah. And, and, and, and so, yeah, as we're recording this, let's see,
Sam: how many days do we have left?
Sam: 38.8 days left until the first election results start coming out,
Sam: except for Dixville notch or whatever that comes in like a few hours before that.
Sam: So we're running out of time. By the time you listen to this,
Sam: it'll probably be a day less than that. Like,
Sam: not much time left, you know, one way or another, This whole thing will be done.
Sam: And then, or, or it could be, it could be like 2020 where we have weeks until
Sam: we have election results.
Sam: And then we have people fighting on January 6th at the Capitol,
Sam: you know, who the hell knows and all kinds of lawsuits.
Sam: But hopefully we actually, hopefully we have a clear Harris win like on election
Sam: night. That would be nice, right?
Ivan: Well, we didn't have one with Biden clear.
Sam: I know, I know it took like a week. i'm hoping
Sam: like like but if it actually ends
Sam: up close that allows all kinds of shenanigans to
Sam: happen no i know i don't want it to be close i want the
Sam: clear win i mean i i want to be hearing that harris is winning florida by like
Sam: 9 p.m on election night you know because then if that's happening it's a blowout
Sam: okay it's all it's all yeah yeah yeah so anyway now i'm not like betting on
Sam: that but i'm hoping but that.
Ivan: Would be nice to hear.
Sam: Okay we are done thank you everybody i said that already yeah here's the outro
Sam: music enjoy oh say goodbye yvonne bye bye Bye.
Sam: Thank you. Okay, that's it. I'm hitting stop.