Sam: Greetings greetings salutations uh okay you hear me okay uh-huh okay i know
Sam: and get this a little closer i don't know where'd i go here we go blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Ivan: Blah blah blah that's what we could do why don't we just do a whole show where
Ivan: instead of actually saying any words.
Sam: Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Ivan: Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Sam: Blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Ivan: Blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Sam: Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Sam: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Sam: blah blah blah blah blah blah and the thing got boo-boo. There we go.
Ivan: Boo-boo.
Sam: Shall we just jump right in then?
Ivan: Yeah, I mean, yeah.
Sam: I can only see half your head.
Ivan: Half? Half?
Sam: I can see your nose and one eye.
Sam: Because you're leaning back. Oh, well, because the riverside,
Sam: like, is showing me the center, not the hole.
Ivan: Oh, I see. And actually what I saw, okay, I, I did. Okay. Here's the, because it does.
Sam: It's showing me like a vertically.
Ivan: Okay. All right. You've got the vertical. I've got it, or it's horizontal one on the top of the other.
Ivan: So I see me in there. No problem.
Ivan: Now, if I, what now, if I go and I widen the, the, my browser,
Ivan: then it puts me vertical. Then I can't see myself.
Ivan: Then I just see an elbow. well that sucks hold on well okay hang on wait wait
Ivan: wait okay oh fuck what you're just gonna put yourself in the middle no i gotta
Ivan: okay i have to oh fuck hold on i can i can i can fix this i can do this oh.
Sam: You're you're gonna do the auto tracking thing of course that makes.
Ivan: Me dizzy the whole damn no no i'm not gonna do the auto tracking what i'm gonna
Ivan: do is i can there we go I can pan and Manually?
Sam: Okay Yes.
Ivan: You can do it manually So I just pan the camera.
Sam: Good enough You can be laid back in your chair like you are Instead of sitting up straight Right.
Ivan: Because I'm old I'm tired I did I understand.
Sam: Shall we just start the show? Yes Okay, here we go here we go bleh.
Ivan: Bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh get Sam dizzy.
Sam: It's a wonderful world here you go,
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Friday, April 18th, 2025.
Sam: It's just after 2.30 UTC as we're starting to record.
Sam: I'm Sam Inter and Yvonne Bo is here again for the whole show,
Sam: not just the 15-minute recording he sent in. So, welcome, Yvonne.
Ivan: At least I did send a recording. Hello.
Sam: No, no, that was great. That was great. And, you know, I talked around. I reacted to you.
Ivan: I did the best I could. But I, you know, I went to three funerals for four people in one week.
Sam: That is quite a lot.
Ivan: I don't, and I don't remember when the last time I had been to a funeral.
Ivan: It had to have been years and years.
Ivan: Well, the last funeral that we had in the family, unfortunately,
Ivan: was during COVID. We couldn't get together for it.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: It was right at the start of a pandemic.
Sam: I think I had two last year.
Sam: One was for an uncle of mine that I attended via Zoom.
Sam: And the other was for my sister's grandfather, my step-grandfather,
Sam: as it were, that I attended a few months earlier.
Sam: And I included the eulogy for that in on the show.
Ivan: Yes, yes, yes, yes. I remember this. Yes.
Sam: But, but, and then my, my mother's last remaining brother passed away last year as well.
Sam: And that one, that one's the one I attended via zoom.
Ivan: Um, well, so, so the thing is that there was only one, the, there was only one
Ivan: relative of mine. And actually the one for my relative is the one that caused
Ivan: me to have to change all my plans.
Ivan: Because the thing is that this is my, one of my, my father's first cousins.
Ivan: And I did share, you know, her a bit on our Slack,
Ivan: because during a time when women never got educated,
Ivan: okay, I had two of my elderly, like, women, you know, ancestors,
Ivan: okay, my grandmother and this first cousin, that both graduated from college before the age of 20.
Ivan: Because they were that fucking smart, okay? Right.
Ivan: And proceeded to go and, like, get master's degrees and shit like this.
Sam: And what years are we talking? Like, when would they have been here? In the 20s.
Ivan: In the 1920s and 30s.
Sam: Wow, yeah.
Ivan: Yeah, this is not normal. This is a time when no women did this, okay?
Sam: Or at least it was very rare. It was very rare.
Ivan: It was very, very rare.
Sam: I believe my grandmother, my mother's mother, also was college educated in the
Sam: 1920s, early 30s, whatever.
Sam: But yeah, it was, it stood out a lot.
Ivan: It was more rare from Puerto Rico, okay, all right?
Ivan: Add to that, Puerto Rico was extremely poor and uneducated at that time,
Ivan: okay? So, and the fact that she came to the U.S.
Ivan: To do her master's, okay, also, that was not normal.
Ivan: She went to the University of Florida and was doing that, and she met her husband there.
Ivan: The person who became her husband. And they moved. He happened to be from Palm Beach County.
Ivan: And so they lived here. I'd seen him a few times. I didn't see his office as
Ivan: I would like. But we did have a good.
Ivan: We just had a good relationship with them. Always very helpful.
Ivan: Always very kind. And so she passed away. She was 95.
Ivan: The one thing is that she also. She was very. With my brother specifically. She was very close.
Ivan: So my brother. Who was in Texas. You know.
Ivan: Hard to do is he hopped on a plane and came over for, for the service.
Ivan: And so, you know, so I had to, you know, I was like, well, I didn't have to,
Ivan: but I'm like, my brother's coming to town.
Ivan: He doesn't live here. And I'm like, well, you know, fuck, I'll,
Ivan: I'll go pick you up at the airport.
Ivan: And, but the thing is that in between all of that, the weekend before I had,
Ivan: I have like three friends that went to school with me in Puerto Rico that live
Ivan: here that I talked to that are close.
Ivan: Two of them had their fathers die, okay?
Ivan: Pretty close to each other, okay? And then one of them had their sister die as well.
Ivan: Unfortunately, at age 49 of cancer.
Ivan: So the service the week before was for the father and the sister at the same fucking time.
Ivan: You know, so it was... Yeah.
Ivan: Now, what do you think about this is that I this is somebody who while I was
Ivan: growing up from very, you know,
Ivan: elementary school all the way through high school, I slept at their house all the time.
Ivan: It's the place that I slept away from my house the most during that time.
Ivan: OK, during all those years.
Ivan: And so i spent a lot of time so i knew her you know i
Ivan: knew her parents or brothers cousins you know
Ivan: i i stayed i stayed with him a lot i mean i stayed over there
Ivan: a lot i mean and you know so so we were that
Ivan: close and so but one thing is
Ivan: that you know we never really went to church but we
Ivan: did a catholic service and i was like i was making the joke that to them because
Ivan: there was like still four four male brothers that are alive okay all right you
Ivan: know and i said uh you know what the fuck is this we've got the worst bunch
Ivan: of fucking catholics do the catholics.
Ivan: Why the fuck are we doing this y'all laugh i was like what the
Ivan: fuck else are we supposed to do well yeah good boy the hell
Ivan: else are we gonna do also from that one is you know as i came to find out one
Ivan: of the cousins who came was some MAGA dickhead and he started spouting up some
Ivan: MAGA stuff and my the discussion started it was around asylum specifically.
Ivan: I guess he was very upset about people getting asylum
Ivan: and that the that that that that
Ivan: uh that the u.s so why the fuck do we have to
Ivan: take more people you know why the hell do we get give asylum to
Ivan: more people than anybody and my buddy who went to high school by the
Ivan: way remember this guy i don't think
Ivan: i think that his education whatever it was
Ivan: is not very good you know my my my my buddy
Ivan: whose dad passed his sister remember it was
Ivan: his brother sister okay yep he went
Ivan: to johns hopkins okay all right you know he's an
Ivan: engineer he's a pretty bright guy okay you know
Ivan: i got me i'm not that stupid either and
Ivan: i got this moron well i mean no no
Ivan: no we know no no no no no we know this guy i mean
Ivan: if this guy maybe got a certificate from trump you
Ivan: or something he's starting to argue with him about statistics he's
Ivan: arguing with a guy whose father died at his house and
Ivan: so he starts giving her shit i i i i
Ivan: hear this and i hear him trying to tell him how he knows more about it and i
Ivan: you know saying how all these immigrants get everything they want and and i
Ivan: just look i saw his girlfriend's also looking at rolling her eyes at this and
Ivan: i just i fucking lost it i went and i I just said, listen,
Ivan: fucker, free shit.
Ivan: You mean to tell me that all those fuckers that are cutting the grass outside
Ivan: of here and fucking fixing the roofs? They're coming in and they're living.
Ivan: What free shit are they getting, you dumb dickhead? And let me tell you.
Ivan: And after I said that, let me tell you something.
Ivan: I don't even want to have this fucking discussion. We're at a fucking funeral.
Ivan: And these kind of gatherings, you don't talk about politics or fucking religion.
Ivan: So why don't you just shut the fuck up?
Sam: And then there was a round of applause.
Ivan: Basically what I heard afterwards was that that's exactly what happened that
Ivan: they all like just were like oh thank god somebody shut him the fuck up right,
Ivan: So that was my good deed for that weekend. And then came the next weekend where
Ivan: the funeral mass was for this other friend that I, I know her,
Ivan: I hadn't been as close with her, but she went with me also from elementary school.
Ivan: These are two people that died are both people that I went to elementary school
Ivan: that I've known through my life.
Ivan: Okay. So it's, it's, you know, it's, it's quite a long ways.
Ivan: We were in the same class together and her father died.
Ivan: And the thing is her, I told her, yes, I'm going to come to the mass,
Ivan: you know, because I met your dad.
Ivan: I've seen her dad, but we, we socialize regularly. So I, it's not like I don't see her.
Ivan: So, so I said, no, no, no, I'm going to come over, you know,
Ivan: because I know, you know, they're going to do it here because her parents have moved up here.
Ivan: And so that was at 10 AM. And then at one o'clock was the other service.
Ivan: And so I, I, I literally, the day of those services to go through all these
Ivan: services, pick up my brother, take him up to go back.
Ivan: I wound up driving over 200 miles to go all over to, to do this.
Ivan: You know, the service for my friend was very small, but my dad's cousin, she had seven kids.
Ivan: And then I listen, the number of seven kids, those got married, grandchildren.
Ivan: Listen, there were hundreds of people at the service. This is just just the
Ivan: family part, just the family part.
Ivan: Right. Just a ridiculous amount of people. OK, so that was an awful big service.
Ivan: The other one was very small, okay, in part because they hadn't lived up here that long.
Ivan: And I think some people did come from out of town, but not as many.
Ivan: I think they actually went to Puerto Rico to do a service there.
Ivan: So this was like a final service, but they did something there.
Ivan: So this shit's not fun.
Sam: No, no. I mean, people always try to make like funerals like a celebration of
Sam: their life and a happier thing. But they're still sad.
Ivan: I did, you know, I did, you know, there were some funny jokes that were thrown around and some stuff.
Ivan: And it was sometimes good to see certain people you hadn't seen in a while.
Ivan: And I, and I, and I, I will say that one of the biggest reasons to,
Ivan: to do this is to provide some comfort to those that are the closest to them.
Sam: Yeah. It's just suffering, you know.
Ivan: Because it's, you know, it's hard. Yeah. I mean, I, I, so that,
Ivan: that's basically the main thing. you go there to be there for them.
Ivan: And actually, one of the things, you talk about a celebration,
Ivan: we do make, it is funny to bring up some anecdotes about stuff that happened
Ivan: with them and stuff over the years.
Ivan: You laugh about shit, whatever, whatnot. That's always,
Ivan: and you get to, sometimes there are certain people that you haven't seen in
Ivan: a long time that you get to see. So, you know, and I took the opportunity that
Ivan: because my brother was here that, you know, I mean, my brother doesn't live here.
Ivan: So you don't get to do this that often. Take out, take my dad and my brother.
Ivan: We all went to lunch with mom and two. So we all, so we all got to do that.
Ivan: So, you know, so that was a thing.
Ivan: But yeah, so my, my somber.
Sam: I am hoping there will be less funerals for you next week.
Ivan: Well, here's the one thing. We got less people to kill now.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: It is one thing about, I guess, getting to a little bit to this age.
Ivan: Everybody starts fucking dying.
Ivan: I also had, I found out that my, actually, I was told last, last Friday when
Ivan: I came in, I bumped into who is my boss's boss's boss, who's a friend,
Ivan: who's a, who's a friend of mine.
Ivan: So I know when I took my brother to lunch after the airport,
Ivan: he goes and he sees me, what are you doing? Aren't you working?
Ivan: And I'm like, dude, I'm going to look, he was, he was giving me shit.
Ivan: He's like, is this at a rest at a restaurant? He was at the fucking restaurant.
Ivan: I'm like, listen, yeah, we're going to a fucking funeral.
Ivan: Give me a fucking break. And he's like, oh, get out of here.
Ivan: I'm like, and I found out that my, that the guy who is his direct report, who's my boss's boss.
Sam: His father was in hospice.
Ivan: Okay. Right. And he just happened to pass away.
Ivan: Yesterday as well. Now, he happens to be in Argentina, so I sent his condolences.
Ivan: I don't think I'm going to...
Ivan: To Buenos Aires for that one. I didn't actually know him. I mean,
Ivan: I know him, but I don't know his father.
Ivan: And that one, I just sent my condolences. I mean, that was...
Ivan: So that one... But yeah, so I don't know.
Ivan: Getting too many people dying around me right now. I hope this isn't rubbing off.
Ivan: I got wood or something. Gotta do something. What do you do for good luck?
Ivan: Like, toss salt over my shoulder? I don't know. Something.
Sam: Well, the wood thing is one of the superstitions. The knock on wood thing.
Ivan: I don't know. Yeah, this is okay. Wood. Wood. Okay. Yeah. Wood.
Ivan: Wood is one. I don't know. Is it real wood?
Sam: Or did you just knock on plastic or something? No, no, no, no.
Ivan: No. There's real wood there. Yes, there's real wood. Okay. All right.
Sam: There you go. There is real wood.
Ivan: Then it's okay.
Sam: Then it'll work. You know, because if it's fake wood.
Ivan: Then I'm going to kill. That means I just sent in somebody's death. Exactly.
Sam: That's how it works.
Ivan: That would be bad.
Sam: Okay all right so okay.
Ivan: All right enough with the with the gloom and doom which which by.
Sam: The way actually i don't know what.
Ivan: The hell i'm talking about we're gonna talk about the news the fuck am i saying.
Sam: Yeah well we'll take a quick break this is the happy.
Ivan: Frothy part at this point well.
Sam: I i will do a movie next however it's a kind of dark movie too so oh fuck this can't you pick.
Ivan: No no no pick a happy movie no no.
Sam: I'm going in order oh fuck this so and then after that like you said we'll take
Sam: a break what is a Schindler's List that we got.
Ivan: Like now or something Jesus Christ not.
Sam: Yet although I did watch that recently that is a fucking.
Ivan: Depressing movie it's a well made movie and it's fucking like depressing as all I'm.
Sam: Not going to talk about it now like it's but like Alex and I watched that like
Sam: within the last few weeks so it'll it'll probably be a year to try to explain to people oh
Sam: We are talking about it. No, no, no, no.
Ivan: No, no, no. I'm going to talk about Liam Neeson, who's trying to explain to
Ivan: people that Liam Neeson was a serious, like dramatic actor and that he didn't
Ivan: become an action star until many, many, many years later.
Ivan: It's one of those bizarre things that you realize that how fucking old we are,
Ivan: because you get, oh, no, Liam Neeson, like, you know, all these action movies, whatever action.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, that's, listen, even Liam Neeson himself said, as an older guy,
Ivan: he was like, listen, I don't know, they said that I should do this movie, I thought it was crazy,
Ivan: how's this going to work, I'm an old guy, now I'm going to be an action star,
Ivan: and then all of a sudden, blambo!
Ivan: I'm like, you know, the action star of the...
Sam: Let me tell you, and this is getting ahead of things, but we watched Schindler's
Sam: List one week, which has Liam Neeson. Yeah.
Sam: The very, I'm pretty sure it was the very next movie we watched was The Phantom
Sam: Menace, which also has Liam Neeson.
Ivan: Now, now, but here's the thing. Somebody was arguing with me,
Ivan: oh, he was in The Phantom Menace.
Ivan: That's an action movie. I'm like, whoa, wait a minute.
Ivan: No. I'm sorry, nobody equates like Chuck Norris.
Ivan: Like action movie with like Star Wars. Star Wars is a sci-fi movie that had action. Let me add.
Sam: Then within a short amount of time after that, we also watched like Batman Rises
Sam: or whatever it is, the third Batman movie, which had him in it as well as a
Sam: cameo. You did that one too?
Ivan: Oh, okay.
Sam: He was in Batman Begins in a more prominent role, but it had flashbacks to that one.
Sam: Listen, can I be honest? Anyway, but the point is we had like multiple movies
Sam: in a row with Liam Neeson.
Ivan: And I was like.
Sam: What the hell? Is this the same guy?
Ivan: It's like, can I just say something? It's like, I lost.
Sam: It's like Schindler really took a turn later and became a Jedi. What the fuck?
Ivan: Well, I think he was a Jedi first before he was, he was, oh,
Ivan: wait, no. Schindler first.
Ivan: Right. Then he became a Jedi. And then he became an assassin.
Sam: And, and yeah. And whatever he was in Batman. Yeah.
Ivan: Well, here, but, but here's, okay. Can I just say that you just mentioned these Batman movies?
Ivan: And a bunch of other stuff. Listen, they've made so many Batman movies.
Ivan: I gotta be honest. I watched the Batman that had Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. Yes, yes.
Ivan: And I think that I watched...
Sam: By the way, I just want to say, the movie that I will be talking about is a
Sam: Jack Nicholson movie. Okay, go ahead. Okay, so there we go.
Ivan: We got Jack Nicholson. and then I think I watched The Dark Knight. Okay.
Sam: That's it.
Ivan: And I think, and by the way, I did not watch The Dark Knight because I wanted to watch it.
Ivan: It's just because I was somewhere and somebody put it on. But,
Ivan: There have been so many fucking Batmans and Batman movies in the last 30 fucking years.
Ivan: It's fucking confusing.
Ivan: I don't, I, and they've, they've re, I mean, I've never seen,
Ivan: how the hell could they reboot the same fucking character like five fucking
Ivan: different times in 30 years?
Ivan: And they've milked the shit out of it somehow. And people keep watching it too. Yeah.
Sam: And there have been multiple Supermans and multiple Spamans.
Sam: Spider-Men and, you know. I don't think there have been.
Ivan: As many fucking, well, the Spider-Mens are also confusing. I think I also watched
Ivan: the first one and then the rest, I'm like, I'll fuck off.
Sam: Well, and then they brought them together. Like the different. Anyway, yes.
Ivan: Come on, get the fuck out of here. You guys, just, you know.
Sam: Fuck all of you.
Ivan: I mean, seriously.
Sam: Okay so my actual
Sam: movie for today is another one
Sam: of these afi 100 years 100 movies
Sam: once and i as as folks who've listened a while know i've been slowly working
Sam: that the this is the 1998 list that came out on the 100th anniversary of the
Sam: invention of movies and so So it was the 100 best movies from the first 100
Sam: years that movies existed.
Sam: They put out an updated list in 2007, but it's a 1998 list that I'm going through.
Sam: I am pretty sure I started at number 100, if not in 1998, then fairly soon afterwards.
Sam: So you can tell it's been a while.
Sam: As of the one I'm going to talk about today, what I'm talking about today is
Sam: number 19 on the list. But I will mention that I watched the...
Sam: We watched this back in July and we have accelerated because as of right now,
Sam: this very second, we're about to enter the top five.
Sam: Like the next one from this list that I'm going to watch is number five. So we're almost done.
Sam: And Alex and I have actually decided that once we have finished with number
Sam: one, we're going to start the 2007 list. Okay.
Ivan: And so just.
Sam: At number 100 and work our way back up because they revised it.
Sam: They dropped some things. They added some things, whatever.
Sam: Anyway, number 19 was Chinatown from 1974. Yep.
Ivan: I think I've watched this movie.
Sam: It's Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. And obviously, we're at the point in the
Sam: top 100 list where every single one has won lots of awards and been nominated for more.
Sam: It was it had 11
Sam: academy award nominations best picture best director
Sam: best actor best actress best original
Sam: screenplay etc etc etc
Sam: you know and fundamentally like i i won't spoil the end but like the beginning
Sam: of the plot summary in on wikipedia in 1930s los angeles a woman identifying
Sam: herself as Evelyn Mulray,
Sam: hires private investigator J.J.
Sam: Jake Gittes, that's who Jack Nicholson plays, to trail her husband Hollis,
Sam: the chief engineer at the Department of Water and Power.
Sam: Gittes photographs Hollis in the company of a young woman, and the pictures
Sam: make their way to the post record exposing their apparent affair.
Sam: Gittes is then confronted by the real Evelyn Mulray, who threatens to sue him.
Sam: He concludes that the imposter was using him to discredit Hollis. And then it continues.
Sam: There's like corruption in like 1930s LA with the government and the contracting
Sam: for the water and this organized crime and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And, you know, all of this and all kinds of intrigue.
Sam: Up. It was very good. I will tell you the ending, like I had not seen this movie
Sam: before. I had not heard of the movie. Well, I'd heard of it.
Sam: I had not known the plot of this movie.
Sam: So I basically came in knowing nothing about this movie other than,
Sam: you know, it was called Chinatown and it was on the AFI list.
Sam: You know, that was about all I knew. And it had Jack Nicholson.
Sam: The ending gutted me you know it was like a because i i did not know what was
Sam: coming i had no spoilers and it was very powerful ending and the whole thing
Sam: was good i mean you would expect that from being at number nine now i'm not sure if i didn't.
Ivan: That i that i watched this okay so now i'm gonna have.
Sam: To fucking.
Ivan: Watch this damn thing and.
Sam: Apparently there was a 1990 sequel called
Sam: the two jakes i heard about that i
Sam: have not watched that yet i assume it does
Sam: not have the same reputation as the original but you
Sam: know whatever you know i'll probably
Sam: watch the two jakes eventually but the but chinatown and
Sam: it's sort of like one of these what's a
Sam: you know normally like
Sam: i don't like 1970s movies i've found
Sam: but but it's i think
Sam: it's really the 1970s movies set in the
Sam: 1970s that are really trying to
Sam: like there's this sort of you know aesthetic of show all the the grunge and
Sam: everybody's bad and no one's sympathetic and like you know i i'm thinking of
Sam: various ones where there's like corrupt boxers or druggies or whatever.
Sam: And it's like, I just don't, I don't sympathize with anybody in this.
Sam: And it's sort of just like horrible people being horrible.
Sam: This one like tried to have, I mean, it felt like a move.
Sam: I mean, it was set in the 1930s And it honestly felt more like a movie from
Sam: a couple decades earlier, a little more violent, a little bit more overt violence
Sam: than a movie like actually from like the forties or fifties or whatever.
Sam: But it had that sort of slow burn
Sam: where you know it's not
Sam: non-stop action or anything like that it's sort of the situation slowly builds
Sam: up and the danger escalates and you're wondering what's happening and who you
Sam: can trust and what the motivations are and what's going on and yeah,
Sam: Thumbs up. I liked it. Good movie.
Sam: That's, that's about it. I mean, I, you know, and I really should like do better.
Sam: I need to catch up on these damn movies. Cause when I try talking about them,
Sam: like I watched this in July.
Sam: So that's been what?
Sam: August, September, October, November, December, January, February,
Sam: March, April. That was nine months ago.
Sam: So my memory fades. I should do a better job of like talking about,
Sam: or you're just trying to make work for me.
Sam: Well, that's what I do.
Ivan: I was just.
Sam: Going to say I should like catch up and like be review these within a couple
Sam: of weeks of actually watching them because then things would be a lot fresher in my mind.
Sam: But I do remember I enjoyed it. But it was one of those that,
Sam: you know, we were, you know, I'll eventually get Schindler's List.
Sam: But Schindler's list for instance is the kind of movie that you watch it and
Sam: you're like, wow, that was an incredibly good movie.
Sam: I do not want to watch it again anytime soon. No, no. Yeah.
Sam: And I think, I think Chinatown felt, fell in that same category for me.
Sam: Like it was good. I recognized it as good. It is not one I'm going to want to
Sam: watch again anytime soon. You know? Okay, so I.
Ivan: Checked this last list that they have at the AFI.
Ivan: The 2007 version? Yeah, the latest one, they've got the top 100.
Ivan: I've only watched about 29 of them.
Sam: Okay, you just went through the whole list?
Ivan: Yeah, and I've watched like 29 of them. Okay.
Sam: Yeah, and by the way, Chinatown, like Wikipedia has the 1998 and 2007 list right
Sam: next to each other and sortable. So you can tell like Chinatown was 19 on the
Sam: 1998 list, but dropped to 21 for. Yeah. It's yeah.
Ivan: It's over here at 21. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Sam: And, but yeah. Yeah. So I will.
Ivan: I've only watched like about a third of them. So like.
Ivan: You got some.
Sam: Work to do. Yeah.
Ivan: Well, it seems, you know.
Sam: I, I was telling people on the show last week that you weren't in that,
Sam: you know, I am sure you watch more movies than what you talk about here, but I have a list.
Sam: And so like, it's all organized. Yeah.
Ivan: I, I, I, you know, I, I, and books and TV shows.
Sam: I mean, I've, oh yeah.
Ivan: I mean, for sure. I mean, I, I've, I've read, I've finished several,
Ivan: I mean, I've finished a number of books the last couple of years.
Ivan: So, yeah, I mean, for sure. I think you've talked about one of them.
Ivan: Yeah. And it's funny that I keep, you know, I read books and I realize I'm like,
Ivan: huh, maybe I haven't read books.
Ivan: Then I'll go through, oh, shit, I did read a whole book. Never mind.
Ivan: Okay, yes, I did read a few books.
Ivan: So even when I get slow, I'm still reading a number of books. You know, so, yeah.
Ivan: I will say that there is a movie that this list was done what year?
Sam: The original list was 1998. The revised list was 2007.
Ivan: Look, with all this financial stuff going on, I went and I rewatched recently
Ivan: this movie called Margin Call. Okay. That.
Sam: Was done in.
Ivan: The last 15 years. I will
Ivan: say that that is one of the best movies in terms of financial drama that showed
Ivan: probably more of how things in corporate environments work and how certain decisions
Ivan: get made and how shit happens.
Ivan: It was a really well-put-together drama. And the cast was excellent.
Ivan: And, man, that's gotta be...
Ivan: Watched it to go back and some people just notice that it's it's an amazing
Ivan: movie so it's in a very powerful movie as well yeah so if you don't have it
Ivan: on that list you need to add it i just i just.
Sam: Added it again and i i think i might have had it already because you might have
Sam: mentioned it before but it's been added again now.
Ivan: So that was one that i watched in part because of some of the,
Ivan: there is a line in that movie uh i
Ivan: bring it up from the terms of movies you know
Ivan: later on we'll talk about all the stuff that's going on and
Ivan: i mean it's a big truism people people think
Ivan: that a lot of these executives like that they know everything
Ivan: that's going on that they're geniuses in some way of
Ivan: some sort i would say that most good executives aren't they're
Ivan: probably no more it's wide rather
Ivan: than deep okay and if
Ivan: you're really good then you know that you don't know you you're you
Ivan: need experts to tell you about certain things because you don't know the details
Ivan: you can't know the details about every single area so that's why
Ivan: you hire really good people or experts that can give you the recommendations so
Ivan: then you can make the decision you know that you need to make based
Ivan: on that and and the line that is very relevant to a lot of the stuff that's
Ivan: going on like right now was that the chief executive the chairman of the of
Ivan: this investment bank said you know why he asked everybody at the table do you
Ivan: know why i get paid all this money,
Ivan: and people were like because i get paid to listen to the music and to figure
Ivan: out when the music stops so we
Ivan: can get off and let me tell you something right now i don't hear a thing.
Ivan: And, you know,
Ivan: Donald Trump is push it's a scary thing.
Ivan: I wound up a few months ago, buying gold because I'm scared of that right now. Should.
Sam: And then get into the actual news now? Sounds like we're transitioning.
Sam: But I brought it up for the movie because that was a very.
Ivan: He was at the boardroom with everybody, and they were bringing him the analysis.
Ivan: And it's one of those analysis that goes back to how people figured out that
Ivan: we were at the financial crisis in 2008. You know, I.
Sam: Will say this. One of the movies that I watched more recently,
Sam: so it'll be months and months and months until I talk about it on the show,
Sam: also took place during the 2008 financial crisis.
Sam: Can you guess what it was? It wasn't March and Call.
Ivan: It was the other one with Michael Burry and the other people.
Ivan: It was the one that was more famous.
Ivan: I don't think it's... It had the Australian blonde woman. It had,
Ivan: what's his name? Steve Carell in it. No.
Sam: That's not that one either? That's not that one. No, it was the sequel to Wall
Sam: Street. Wall Street Money Never Sleeps. Oh, Wall Street Money.
Ivan: Oh, Money Never Sleeps. Okay. Yes.
Sam: So, anyway. I will give my opinion of that in like 10 years whenever I get to
Sam: it in order. Okay. Well, there you go.
Ivan: We've got plenty of time. Okay.
Sam: Let's take the little breaky-breaky. You know, according to my random rules,
Sam: the next one should be a wiki of the day one, but I didn't have time to prepare
Sam: it. So we'll do a different one and we'll do the wiki of the day next time.
Sam: So, uh, okay. So here we go. Break number three.
Sam: Do, do, do.
Break: This podcast is sponsored by Alex Mzilla.com.
Break: Alex Mzilla is great. It's on YouTube and it has lots of fun videos.
Break: Alex Emsola is awesome and great.
Break: I love his videos, and they are obviously better than Curmudgeon's Corner.
Break: While they're funnier, they're more interesting. And frankly,
Break: he seems at least a little smarter than either of the hosts of Curmudgeon's Corner.
Break: Honestly, it's ridiculous how endlessly talented and phenomenal Alex Emsola is.
Break: That's how great his YouTube channel is.
Break: A-L-E-X-M-X-E-L-A dot com. Yes.
Break: Do, do, do! Okay.
Sam: We are back. The one you were trying to struggle to get the name of,
Sam: The Big Short. The Big Short. Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: So I looked it up during the break. Okay, there you go. Okay.
Sam: So, and I added it to my list. There you go. So, okay.
Sam: News. Newsy stuff. I guess since you were starting with the economic Donald
Sam: Trump stuff, why don't we, are you confused now?
Sam: What's going on? No, no, no. it's just that i okay earlier.
Ivan: I had close slack and i can't you just broke everything.
Sam: There we go okay there so let's start with the donald trump economic stuff and
Sam: then in the next segment we can do i don't know the donald trump legal stuff
Sam: so you know when i when i recorded the show last week was,
Sam: you know, your, your little 15 minute segment had included his back down on tariffs.
Sam: And then by the time I recorded, he'd also backed down on electronics and some
Sam: other things and for China, even leaving some other things in place.
Sam: And, you know, you made the point and I talked more about everything that was wrong with that.
Sam: What, what's happened since then? I mean, the most recent thing,
Sam: he's threatening to fire the Fed chair, even though he doesn't have the legal
Sam: authority to do so. You know, fun stuff like that.
Ivan: Look, the thing is that still to this moment, we're having a sell-off of dollar assets.
Sam: Wait, everything hasn't, like, popped back up and, you know,
Sam: we're not all good? So we had this massive.
Ivan: Like, bump, like, one day. that one day yes that one day because of the the
Ivan: announcement but but you know the,
Ivan: continuing to see pressure on treasury rates and interest rates in general.
Ivan: Trump is under the delusion that the Fed can somehow, in a very quick way, bring that down.
Ivan: But they can't. they can't it's it's it's,
Ivan: it's not just setting rate policy
Ivan: which the rate policy drives short term
Ivan: rates and that usually translates down into the 10 year and the 20 and the 30
Ivan: year more 30 year rate and they are they are somewhat connected but they're
Ivan: not directly connected you can control the short term right but also the Fed has multiple they.
Sam: Have they can do balance.
Ivan: Sheet stuff right right no but what i was just going to say but.
Sam: Their mission is multifaceted they're supposed to take action number one thing is.
Ivan: Price stability well number one important thing is price stability okay and
Ivan: that's the thing that just donald doesn't want to accept or understand that
Ivan: because everything he has done,
Ivan: even with the backtracking,
Ivan: still massively inflationary.
Ivan: Which he fundamentally doesn't believe.
Sam: He doesn't believe it. Because, of course, the other countries pay the tariffs.
Sam: That's how it works. Right. Because he doesn't fucking.
Ivan: Understand how anything works. The Fed just can't drop rates.
Ivan: I mean, I guess. Because that is also very inflationary. Because dropping the
Ivan: rates drives dropping the dollar.
Ivan: I mean, they theoretically could do whatever.
Sam: Right? The question is, is it wise and what are the effects of that?
Sam: No, well, could you drop rates?
Ivan: Yes, but it would drive a bigger sell-off of dollars. Right.
Ivan: So it would be massively, you've got two inflationary pressures at the same time.
Ivan: Okay. because then you're going to goose the economy while you've got inflationary pressure.
Ivan: Prices only go way to go up, so inflation is going to get way worse.
Ivan: And then it creates the problem also of the liquidity of treasuries.
Ivan: I mean, rates are moving where it is obvious that people are selling dollar assets.
Ivan: And the reality is that Why are people now, unlike at other times,
Ivan: of crises, not buying dollars?
Ivan: There's only one fucking reason.
Ivan: It's called Donald J. Trump. Because...
Ivan: In the investment world now knows that he is a lunatic.
Ivan: I think that many of them thought that what would happen was,
Ivan: like in the first term, that a lot of this stuff would be offended off by those around him.
Ivan: Yeah, and I will tell you.
Sam: He's just a bunch of talk. He's using it as a positioning statement for negotiations,
Sam: whatever. None of this will really happen.
Sam: Or if a little bit does, it won't be that much. Because, like,
Sam: he did put on some tariffs in the first term that did cause some damage. You know.
Ivan: But.
Sam: They weren't anywhere.
Ivan: Nearly as expansive as this. And so that's the situation. You've got this where
Ivan: some tariffs got dialed back.
Ivan: But most of them have. But a lot of them have not.
Ivan: Okay. A lot of them have not.
Sam: And even the ones that did dial back a few days later, him and his team are
Sam: talking about, oh, well, they'll they'll be back, though.
Sam: And they keep talking.
Ivan: About going and like imposing even more tariffs on other places.
Ivan: I mean, they keep talking like, oh, we're not done with imposing tariffs.
Ivan: Well, right. Right. I like when, when he.
Sam: Said the specific thing, when they backed off and said, okay,
Sam: well, no, no, no tariffs on the electronics coming out of China,
Sam: which gave like Apple and other companies a big sigh of relief.
Sam: A couple of days later, they come on and say, oh no, but we are going to be
Sam: tariffing the semiconductors.
Sam: We just haven't figured that out yet. We'll do that next month.
Ivan: So it really, I mean, this is why the markets have started selling back off again.
Ivan: And trust is difficult to build. It's easy to break. Yep.
Ivan: And the one thing that the U.S. has had is, and Mr. We Have Been Screwed Over
Ivan: by Everybody doesn't understand that the one advantage that the U.S.
Ivan: Has had for a long time is that the U.S.
Ivan: Dollar has been the reserve currency of the world.
Ivan: Everybody, when they wanted to put their money in safety, buys dollars.
Ivan: It's why we have so much cheap capital.
Ivan: And that is one thing that really boosts the economy more than it is one of
Ivan: the biggest drivers of the economy.
Ivan: It's also why, you know, companies come and list their shares in the U.S.
Ivan: They sell bonds in the U.S.
Ivan: Even some foreign governments wind up selling bonds in the U.S.
Ivan: Like Argentina, that does repeatedly because nobody would buy a bond issued
Ivan: under the laws of Argentina because they didn't trust those laws.
Ivan: But they would come to the U.S. and they would feel that in the U.S.
Ivan: They would get a fair shake, you know, if there's a legal dispute to get paid.
Ivan: OK, but when you are basically just saying that you're going to flout all the
Ivan: laws that you're going to impose,
Ivan: you know, basically just try to bully everybody into shit and,
Ivan: you know, just fuck with the economy like it's just a toy.
Ivan: You know, people are leaving.
Ivan: I mean, he has been threatening to delist shares of Chinese companies, for example.
Ivan: So what is, I mean, when you start doing those kinds of threats,
Ivan: then what that means is that you're going to be, well, wait,
Ivan: I can't, I don't want to list my shares in the U.S. then.
Ivan: It's just everything that he is doing is horrifically damaging to the American
Ivan: economy at this moment. And.
Ivan: Seen the the the effects of the
Ivan: pricing but they're coming you know a lot
Ivan: of importers have already talked about this though they're
Ivan: trying to clear shipments they also were trying to
Ivan: now impose some additional fees on chinese ships arriving
Ivan: in the u.s as well which i saw there i
Ivan: actually had seen this while i was in puerto rico because a couple
Ivan: of people that i know down there are in the ship are in the shipping industry
Ivan: because everything to puerto rico comes by ship So I was talking to some people
Ivan: that were in the shipping industry and that they had proposed these rules that
Ivan: basically about Chinese ships and how they would be taxed and how if you use Chinese ships,
Ivan: you would be extra taxed and levied and blah, blah, blah.
Ivan: And I saw the document. It was just total insanity as well.
Ivan: It would increase the cost of shipping anywhere, anything that happened to move
Ivan: like between points in the U.S.
Ivan: By ship in an astronomical fashion. Okay.
Ivan: It's just the kind of idiotic bullshit that this administration keeps doing
Ivan: that has no rhyme or reason with any of the data or economic fact.
Ivan: And it's everything that this administration does.
Ivan: It doesn't matter if it's—the economy is like one part that he's fucking with heavily.
Ivan: Health care whether it's immigration health care whatever the fuck the weather i mean.
Ivan: You know there is nothing everything here it's just you know my gut feeling,
Ivan: is that we're getting screwed and so we're gonna do this then today what the
Ivan: hell was it that he said he said this thing that was hilarious he said where the heck did,
Ivan: here. Trump says he's reluctant to keep raising tariffs on China.
Ivan: President Trump has said he's reluctant to continue ratcheting up tariffs on
Ivan: China because it could stall trade between the two countries.
Ivan: No shit, Sherlock! Really?
Ivan: Now you figured this out? So, I mean, I've seen...
Sam: China was, like, going to restrict.
Ivan: Deliveries of Boeing aircraft, which is our number one export. Okay?
Ivan: Our number one export, period. OK, a dollar value item that we that we sell is fucking aircraft.
Ivan: OK, so China was saying, hey, you can't buy any more Boeing aircraft.
Ivan: We're going to block deliveries of the fucking Boeing aircraft. OK.
Ivan: All right. It's catastrophic. OK. All right.
Ivan: To do that as well. I mean, this is all so fucked up. And by the way,
Ivan: they talked about the set was we're going to do these bespoke negotiations with
Ivan: everybody over the next 90 days.
Ivan: Sam, 70 negotiations with 70 countries at the same time you do them in 90 days.
Ivan: Well, just kind of like just a trade agreement.
Sam: I don't know.
Ivan: Wait, wait, wait.
Sam: I don't know if you heard this part. but you
Sam: know those law firms that donald trump like strong-armed
Sam: into saying they would do pro bono work for causes that he appreciated yeah
Sam: so apparently he has been saying over the last week that part of what he intends
Sam: them to do is all these trade negotiations for him what the fuck does that.
Ivan: I mean, still, regardless. Which, by the way, by the way.
Sam: That is insane. Well, it also isn't legal, apparently, because they can do pro
Sam: bono work, but they can't do pro bono work for the government. Right. It's nuts.
Ivan: Well, of course, now all these fucking legal firms are realizing what they should
Ivan: have known in the first place, which is that you can't say yes to a fucking
Ivan: bully, which is what I've been saying since the beginning.
Ivan: These guys are going, I'm like, oh, yeah, we'll just make a deal and then go
Ivan: away. No, when you fucking say yes to one of these assholes that it's like it's
Ivan: like saying yes to the mob.
Ivan: OK, right. It is totally like saying yes to the mob. It is saying yes to the mob.
Sam: It is saying yes to the mob. OK, but look, going back to what you said a little
Sam: bit ago about just sort of Donald Trump not understanding.
Sam: I've heard a number of, if you try to piece together some of the statements
Sam: that he and the pro-tariff people around him have been saying,
Sam: they say repeatedly things like the income from the tariffs will make up money
Sam: that we can, will make up for income tax so we can drop taxes,
Sam: et cetera, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: It almost is reliant on the assumption.
Sam: First of all, The other countries are paying the tariffs, but also that the
Sam: amount of product sold and traded isn't going to drop, isn't going to drop.
Sam: It's just going to be exactly the same, but we'll make more money. This is the moronics.
Ivan: This is the part where apparently, you know, failing economics 101.
Ivan: Hey, Sam, you know, as the curve of prices went up in econ 101,
Ivan: what happened to the curve of demand? Well, here's the thing. He doesn't think the.
Sam: Price will change because China will just pay the tariff.
Ivan: You're right. Yvonne is dumbfounded.
Sam: I'm just, you know.
Ivan: It's just, he doesn't understand, you know, where the fuck the,
Ivan: how the tariffs get paid.
Ivan: I just, he just, and even it's just, you know, people are just going to write
Ivan: a check, you know, for more.
Ivan: I don't, it's just, it is so dumb. The whole thing is so fucking dumb.
Ivan: It is beyond dumb. There is no, you know, there's just no logic to any of this. None.
Ivan: None, none, none. We're dealing with a psychopath.
Ivan: Well, he said repeatedly.
Sam: Look, in the golden years of the 1880s and 1890s, there was no income tax and
Sam: we just made all the federal government's money off tariffs.
Sam: And that's what he wants to go back to. Yeah.
Ivan: We had no roads. We had no airports.
Ivan: We had no, you know, what the fuck didn't we have, Sam?
Ivan: We didn't send rockets to the moon. We didn't pay social security.
Ivan: We had no medicare we had no medicaid okay well they don't want any of those
Ivan: things either so well they don't want any.
Sam: Of those things either.
Ivan: You know what the fuck didn't we have
Ivan: we didn't have shit i mean i
Ivan: this is just this thing is this mess is not old okay look gold is up 20 percent
Ivan: do you just keep fucking buying gold i bought gold i said this months ago look i,
Ivan: what are the fucking smartest things i've i've done let me tell you i did say
Ivan: it on this show so if you didn't do it that's your fucking problem okay but i'm it's just.
Ivan: There's no there is no positive end game in the way that they are doing this
Ivan: like right now you know there just isn't I mean,
Ivan: everything every leading indicator for the economy isn't shit you've got I've
Ivan: got car you know for example I've got a car dealer that I bought a car from
Ivan: desperately calling me to renew a lease.
Ivan: And the reason why I know they're desperate to do it is because they're worried about tariffs.
Ivan: Okay? Because those tariffs haven't been lifted. The tariffs on the cars,
Ivan: they're still in place, 25%. Right.
Ivan: That didn't go away. So we got a tariff of 25% of fucking cars coming in right now.
Ivan: 10% on everything else.
Ivan: Then we got 100 plus percent tariffs on China. except those electronics.
Sam: Except those electronics.
Ivan: So I so stupid the whole fucking thing is so stupid it's just so stupid Sam I in my life,
Ivan: And it's just such level of just grotesque stupidity in doing policy.
Ivan: And this is what we're up against right now.
Sam: Well.
Ivan: And this comes back to the.
Sam: Conversation you and I have had a number of times. But it's worth bringing up
Sam: over and over again because it's like, okay, is it really stupidity or is this what he wanted?
Sam: Now, he has no clue, Sam.
Ivan: He really is this clueless. He is this dumb.
Ivan: There is nothing from what he says that betrays that there is any intelligence
Ivan: or master plan behind it.
Sam: Five dimensional chess, Yvonne. Yeah, the five dimensional chess. He's a genius.
Ivan: Just trust in Trump.
Sam: It'll all be better. The one reason.
Ivan: Why he backed off massively last week was because Scott Bacent showed him the
Ivan: fucking chart on what the hell was happening with the treasury market.
Ivan: And he told him that, look, this thing goes, we're in a fucking heap of trouble.
Ivan: Then we have to go back to, we're back to 2008 measures.
Ivan: I mean, literally, this is the kind of financial crisis shit we're talking about.
Ivan: We're talking about going back to 2008 measures, where the
Ivan: treasury is going to have to go into to the bond market and
Ivan: just start doing quantitative easing again they're
Ivan: gonna have to just go in and just start buying you know
Ivan: just printing dollars by the way that's also fucking you know gonna devalue
Ivan: the dollar which also raises rates and prices yeah yes it's just it's it's it's
Ivan: a fucking shit show in every direction.
Ivan: I don't know what the hell the only, I don't see a good end,
Ivan: OK, the only endgame that happens that I think is the tariffs start hitting
Ivan: everybody's pockets in the coming weeks and months.
Sam: People start getting really angry.
Ivan: The constituents start getting really angry already. A lot of the smaller businesses
Ivan: that are involved in importing shit are getting the sticker shock already right now.
Ivan: OK, right. They're starting to get the bills. but that hasn't translated yet
Ivan: directly into the inventory of people now,
Ivan: timu shine and all of these are already getting fucked so
Ivan: anybody all these people that like that shit they're already they're already
Ivan: hit with tariffs okay there's no exemptions okay so i guess if you if you're
Ivan: buying something i mean right i mean right now i haven't looked but i mean i've
Ivan: never bought from this but i'm guessing that you know if you're used to seeing And some prices,
Ivan: those are going to go up.
Ivan: I've never bought anything for Tim. Have you?
Ivan: No, no. I haven't even been to the website.
Sam: Okay. I just went to the website for the first time.
Ivan: But it's so popular, though. Oh, yeah.
Ivan: And so the only way that this gets to stop is by massive discontent.
Ivan: That's the thing. There is no other way to make it stop.
Ivan: People, the people have to get angry. What one thing that he is say,
Ivan: calculating, he's not calculating that he isn't.
Ivan: Seen is that he idolizes Putin.
Ivan: But one thing that Putin has been adept at is managing the economy.
Ivan: You know, he has done his crazy shit,
Ivan: but he also has a number of people around him that are smart economists that
Ivan: have figured out ways to reduce the impact of his,
Ivan: of the things that he's done. Okay.
Ivan: They have looked for ways for people to be able to get food,
Ivan: to get stuff, to get whatever, how to, okay, great. I'm going to go launch a war.
Ivan: I'm going to get years of international sanctions and everything else.
Sam: Still collapsed. Right.
Ivan: Right. But but he's got smart people that he's listening to to say,
Ivan: OK, great. I wanted to invade Ukraine. I got these sanctions.
Ivan: What do I do to get around? OK, that's not how Trump is operating.
Ivan: Trump is operating that he's going to do this shit and he doesn't need to do
Ivan: anything to mitigate the impact of any of this.
Ivan: So because if you want, OK, I want to bring back manufacturing to the U.S.
Ivan: Well, what Biden was doing was doing that. OK, because the problem is that after
Ivan: 30 or 40 years of of of so much manufacturing moving offshore.
Ivan: You couldn't bring it back overnight, number one. But the second problem is
Ivan: that there's a lot of manufacturing and the jobs, the number of jobs and the
Ivan: things you don't need as many people as you used to to make a lot of shit that we used to make.
Ivan: The second problem is that back in this golden age, like in the 50s and 60s,
Ivan: where we had, as a percentage of the world, so many of the manufacturing jobs
Ivan: other countries didn't, well, the U.S.
Ivan: Was 60% of the GDP of the world. Okay?
Ivan: Right. It's not— Just as a reminder to people.
Sam: In part because most of the rest of the world was devastated by World War II.
Sam: Correct. Okay? Exactly right.
Ivan: And that was the 50s and 60s. Now the U.S.
Ivan: Is around 30, 40%. It's still a large percentage. But the world economy grew a lot.
Ivan: It's so much bigger. Okay?
Ivan: So if you're building, if you're Apple, you don't want all of your business.
Ivan: You don't want all your costs in only one country when 60% of your sales come
Ivan: from outside the United States.
Ivan: You need to spread that out throughout the world because that is one way that
Ivan: you would do the so-called natural hedging against currency effects.
Ivan: Okay, so this hit a lot of companies back in the 80s, okay, when we were still
Ivan: coming off of how the post-World War II world was in terms of manufacturing.
Ivan: There was a massive devaluation of the dollar, okay?
Ivan: And when that devaluation happened, okay, Germans, Germans specifically,
Ivan: actually Germans and the British, okay, both of them, they sold a lot of cars in the U.S.
Ivan: Well, there was a 50% devaluation in the dollar. That meant that the price of
Ivan: their cars doubled overnight. Their sales plummeted, okay?
Ivan: Porsche almost went bankrupt, okay, over this.
Ivan: And beginning at that time, and it came to fruition into the 90s,
Ivan: well, the Germans decided, look, we can't just manufacture cars in Germany and
Ivan: sell cars in Germany. We need to diversify.
Ivan: And they have manufacturing plants in the U.S. Or they buy parts and other things from the U.S. Okay?
Ivan: Or from the different markets where they sell. So there are BMW cars that are assembled in China,
Ivan: in the U.S., in Germany, not just in Germany, because in order to protect yourself against that.
Ivan: So he's trying to say to Apple, hey, bring all that manufacturing back to the U.S.
Ivan: Well, shit. I mean, if I sell 60% of my total phones outside the U.S.,
Ivan: even if I wanted to, I can't bring all that manufacturing to the U.S.,
Ivan: number one, because that exposes you to way too much risk.
Ivan: And then the second thing is that nobody wants those fucking jobs.
Ivan: Nobody wants those fucking jobs, OK, here in the U.S.
Ivan: Because people moved on from that. okay there are people it's just there was
Ivan: a survey recently that showed how americans you know said hey do.
Sam: You think it's.
Ivan: Great for america to have you know bring back all the manufacturing 80 of them
Ivan: said yes yes let's build build build build build okay great how many of you really want to have,
Ivan: jobs. Only 20% of them said they wanted manufacturing jobs.
Ivan: They don't want the fucking jobs. They don't want to be in a fucking factory. Okay.
Ivan: It's not what the U.S.
Ivan: Economy has developed over the last 20, 30, 40 years. It's turned into a service economy.
Ivan: They're still manufacturing, by the way. The one thing is that if you look at
Ivan: the manufacturing output,
Ivan: it's not like it's decreased but the manufacturing employment
Ivan: sure as hell has but because of automation automation yes
Ivan: technology efficiency so we still build
Ivan: a lot of shit here but damn it you know people don't want to fucking go back
Ivan: to you know they're not going to be sewing sneakers and you know putting little
Ivan: screws and iphones and and even if you wanted it to happen yeah like Like I've
Ivan: seen industries be protected by tariffs in certain places.
Ivan: Hey, you know, do a bidder or whatever. You see a tariff, OK?
Ivan: Well, you do a tariff when you're protecting an industry that's there.
Ivan: OK, you're trying to give them time to see if they could, you know,
Ivan: invest, do some incentives or whatever.
Ivan: But by putting the tariffs right now, when there's no capacity here,
Ivan: the only thing that can happen is if you need the item, you're going to have
Ivan: to pay more for it. That's it.
Ivan: There's nothing else I can do because we're not going to get a fucking iPhone
Ivan: from anywhere else. and and one of.
Sam: The there's there's an interview with tim cook that's been floating
Sam: around where he talks about people who are
Sam: like look there's this myth that the china is about low labor costs it's not
Sam: about low labor costs they've now labor costs have pretty much caught up it
Sam: maybe it's a little bit cheaper but not much it's about the skill set and the
Sam: tooling and everything else that's there. The entire ecosystem.
Sam: He brought a particular example of like, you know, if you wanted to get a you know,
Sam: of tooling and manufacturing into a room, like there's probably like 30 people
Sam: in the entire United States with that skill set.
Sam: You go over to China, there are tens of thousands.
Sam: Listen, I was looking into manufacturing an.
Ivan: Electronic product sometimes like about 10, 15 years ago. Okay.
Ivan: And, you know, I went, I talked to a couple of different manufacturers,
Ivan: a few little factories in Shenzhen.
Ivan: And it was just amazing the capacity that they had. Oh, This is what you want
Ivan: to build. Oh, we need this component. We need this. We need that.
Ivan: Listen, you couldn't do any of that here. There's nobody to talk to to do that.
Ivan: They were, I mean, they, they, they have such an entire ecosystem to do that so easily over there.
Ivan: And, and when he's talking about the labor rates, he's, he may be exaggerating
Ivan: it a little bit. They are a lot higher than they used to be. Okay.
Ivan: They're not totally the same, but they're still cheaper, but it's not.
Sam: But it's not what it used to be.
Ivan: It's not the biggest driver. Because, look, I had an operations center in Shanghai, specifically, okay?
Ivan: And the average person at the Shanghai operations center was making $30,000,
Ivan: $40,000, $50,000 a year.
Ivan: It's not like they were making $5,000 a year.
Ivan: And that's similar to some of the labor rates here. So really,
Ivan: in Shanghai, for example, the reality is he's right.
Ivan: It wasn't paying any fucking, it was not cheaper. It was maybe somewhat cheaper,
Ivan: but not that, not like 2% versus, you know, not 80% less. No.
Ivan: So, yeah, I mean, he's right about that. It is the entire manufacturing,
Ivan: the supply chain, the ecosystem,
Ivan: everything that's over there, how you know they've got that all put together
Ivan: in order to be able to make the products ship them and and distribute them very
Ivan: easily so but i'm talking about,
Ivan: you just got a psychopath at the wheel i mean that's our problem and the reality
Ivan: is that i was talking about the end game earlier when people get upset the only
Ivan: thing is that congress needs to act and congress can good.
Sam: Luck with that.
Ivan: Well i mean listen yeah we talked well they were talking about lisa murkowski
Ivan: was talking yesterday how she admitted that they were scared they're they're scared.
Ivan: But at some point, what I'm saying about the constituents getting angry.
Ivan: At some point, they get more afraid of their voters than.
Sam: Of Donald Trump. And that's exactly what needs to happen.
Ivan: At some point, because, and the way that that happens is people showing up at
Ivan: their fucking car dealer trying to buy a car realize that they can't afford
Ivan: a fucking car anymore because it's 25% more expensive.
Ivan: Well, but the thing we talked We talked.
Sam: About a couple of weeks ago when we talked about what would it take for enough
Sam: Republicans to bail on Trump in order to do these kinds of reversals from the Congress.
Sam: You know, the conclusion we came to at the end of that discussion was it's far
Sam: more likely that before it gets to that point,
Sam: Donald Trump does one of his traditional flips and goes backwards just in time
Sam: to avoid it. And claims victory somehow. And claims victory somehow.
Ivan: Exactly.
Sam: But here's the thing.
Ivan: At this point, he still hasn't budged. He is still under the dilute.
Ivan: You know what? He caved on some of the things because of the things that he understands.
Ivan: And he didn't on a whole bunch of others. And I don't think he still realizes
Ivan: that the shit that he still enforced has a lot of really negative impacts still.
Ivan: I think that's the problem.
Ivan: I mean, this guy, the guy's never been shopping to a store in his life,
Ivan: right? I mean, he's never been to a grocery store, right?
Ivan: It's an old it's an old-fashioned word that people are talking about.
Sam: A lot recently groceries right but but this guy this.
Ivan: Motherfucker's never been to walmart what you know what the fuck would he know
Ivan: about prices at walmart okay right he doesn't know anything he doesn't understand
Ivan: that all those fucking products that are lined up over there and people go buy
Ivan: they come from fucking china right and so at.
Sam: Some point people.
Ivan: Are going to be showing up at the fucking store they're going to see the widget
Ivan: that they bought last year to go to the barbecue and the beach was,
Ivan: you know, $100, and now it's $250 because of the tariff, they're going to be
Ivan: like, what the fuck happened?
Ivan: It was Joe Biden's fault.
Sam: Biden's fault. Yes, clearly.
Ivan: It's all Joe Biden's fault. Well, I mean, that's what strategy says Joe Biden's
Ivan: fault. Everything's Joe Biden's fault. I mean, look.
Sam: Yes. I think there's the delay, too, right?
Sam: Like you said, you know, prices and the recession and the unemployment.
Ivan: Believe me, because we're getting all of these things. Sam, we're getting a
Ivan: fucking recession. We're getting a recession.
Ivan: We're getting more unemployment. You know,
Ivan: businesses are not they're not investing Sam they don't want to hire they're
Ivan: scared of hiring and they're not investing man they're looking at it and they're
Ivan: like shit we don't know what we're going to do we have to wait to see what the
Ivan: fuck happens right well because and I talked a little bit.
Sam: About this last week and we've talked about it before too because on top of
Sam: everything else is the one thing is the policies are bad for all of these objective
Sam: reasons but the The other thing is the freaking uncertainty because he changes
Sam: his mind every five minutes.
Sam: Yes. So how the hell can you plan for it? You can't. And that's the problem.
Ivan: And they went. Listen, a whole bunch of executives met with him.
Ivan: OK, this is roundtable, went to him and said this. Hey, you know,
Ivan: we need some certainty to understand so we can plan.
Ivan: And he brushed it off and said, these fucking guys, they want certainty,
Ivan: whatever. Who gives a shit?
Ivan: Yeah. And that's what he said.
Sam: So they're all like.
Ivan: What the fuck? But, you know, the other day, the one thing that's very crystal
Ivan: clear, what this whole battle is, look, these guys,
Ivan: honestly, their ideal world, which guys, which guys, these billion.
Sam: These guys like.
Ivan: Trump and his billionaire friends or whatever, the guys I want to,
Ivan: the guys I want to go and set up, they are fucking like free,
Ivan: you know, you know, this, this libertarian, like freedom state in Greenland
Ivan: or wherever the fuck or yes, where the hell they, they want to do it or wherever
Ivan: the hell they want to do it. I think their entire,
Ivan: vision is that we can go set this up.
Ivan: They're going to replace all the professional class of people like you and me with AI.
Ivan: And then we can pay a whole bunch of low-level schlubs to do the rest of the
Ivan: shit that we can't do with AI.
Ivan: I mean, that's what they want. Mm-hmm. This is.
Sam: Why they are so.
Ivan: Hell-bent on, you know, anybody who is some kind of smart, educated,
Ivan: professional with information, fuck you, no.
Ivan: RFK Jr. is going to tell you what the results are going to be of the autism research.
Ivan: You know, you could replace RFK Jr.
Sam: With an AI, too. Well, actually, we could.
Ivan: Listen, if we put an LLM right now versus RFK Jr., we would be getting better
Ivan: results. I mean, a lot better results.
Ivan: So this is a case where I would be in favor of AI taking over, like, immediately.
Sam: As long as you don't train it on RFK Jr.'s writings.
Sam: You know, I, years ago.
Ivan: Yes, years ago.
Sam: Somebody had posed.
Ivan: This question to me about different managers and, you know, what their effects are on companies.
Ivan: And I had segmented people as leaders into a few different categories, okay?
Ivan: So you got the guys who are the visionary, proactive guys, okay?
Ivan: Come into a company, say a guy like Steve Jobs, okay?
Ivan: This guy is visionary. He understands and he also is a leader and he also is
Ivan: able to recruit a lot of talented people and he was able to change things and
Ivan: he was able to develop things and he was able to grow a business and he was
Ivan: able to, to, to take something in a,
Ivan: you know, that was being run before by some maybe professional management,
Ivan: but didn't have the right vision into something that, that is,
Ivan: that grows and, and that people want to be working at.
Ivan: And that is, that is heavily improved. Okay.
Ivan: So you got that guy. Then you've got the guys that I say, these are,
Ivan: these are the lazy executives.
Ivan: Okay. They don't, they may not be necessarily out, but you know, they may be very smart.
Ivan: They may be dumb, whatever, but it's the, it's the lazy class.
Ivan: And the lazy class is, Hey, if I come into a company that's,
Ivan: Hey, everything's running fine or whatever.
Ivan: I'm just getting my checks. There's a good professional staff in there.
Ivan: I'm not going to do anything.
Ivan: I'm not going to fucking do anything. Why the fuck am I going to do anything? Everything's working.
Ivan: All these people write my reports. I just show up. I'm like Queen Elizabeth going around here.
Ivan: Whatever. I collect for a few, five, four, five years.
Ivan: Student numbers go to the next job, whatever. And I didn't fuck up anything
Ivan: and nothing happened. Everything's good. And I had some of those managers. It was great.
Ivan: You know, look, you had an executive. He was the leader. He wasn't involved
Ivan: in anything. Listen, no problem.
Ivan: Just don't say anything. Don't do anything. Don't worry about it.
Ivan: We got everything covered.
Ivan: We don't really need you. We don't need you to do anything. Don't worry about
Ivan: it. Okay. Just stay over there. All good.
Ivan: Everything will be fine. Don't worry about it. Just don't. Yes.
Ivan: Don't. We don't need your idea. We don't need any. We don't.
Ivan: We don't really need anything. Just, just stay over there. You know,
Ivan: go, go fly business class, go spend money.
Ivan: You're good. You're good. No, no problem. So you got those.
Ivan: But then you get, unfortunately, you know, you get the, the,
Ivan: the idiot proactive people. So this is the,
Ivan: football okay and this is really like donald trump okay really where the guy
Ivan: is a moron okay yes okay but instead of.
Sam: Doing like the lazy.
Ivan: Executive which you could just listen everything was running sam you didn't
Ivan: have to do anything all you have to do is like look i'll just name a few generic
Ivan: guys look there's a lot i come in there there's a lot there's a lot to be said for.
Sam: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Yes! Yes!
Ivan: You just come in, fuck, you go down to Mar-a-Lago, you play golf,
Ivan: you go and, like, you know, you fuck all the hookers that you want. I don't care.
Ivan: Give all the pardons you want. Pardon whoever the fuck you want, whatever.
Ivan: But, you know, you put a few competent people around and these different things,
Ivan: you just sit around and just say, hey, as long as I get my pardons,
Ivan: as long as I get my whatever,
Ivan: you do whatever you know don't worry about it whatever but no no that's not
Ivan: what we got what we got is proactive and dumb where basically he thinks he needs
Ivan: to fix everything but he's an idiot so basically everything that he done is
Ivan: a wreck and I've seen these guys in corporate,
Ivan: these are the same shit as what this guy is doing they don't know anything they
Ivan: have all the wrong ideas they don't listen to anybody that's smart and they
Ivan: keep just plowing ahead until they fucking just fuck up everything.
Ivan: And this is what we do.
Ivan: This is what we have. It's the class of executive, the worst I've always feared.
Ivan: These are the worst people that there is.
Ivan: I am all for having lazy executives, to be honest.
Ivan: Okay. I, you know, I'm happier with a fucking lazy executive.
Sam: I
Ivan: Mean, look, there are certain.
Sam: Situations where if you just coast like that, eventually it causes problems.
Sam: But a lot of the time, it's not that bad. plus if you have to if you're in a.
Ivan: Healthy place to stay if you hired the right people yes yes then they'll call.
Sam: Hey boss we.
Ivan: Got a fire okay well can you can you you know can you can you extinguish a fire,
Ivan: yeah yeah yeah I got okay great do it okay alright let me know if you need anything okay bye that's it,
Ivan: you know I don't want anything else,
Ivan: but we're not in there Sam we have,
Ivan: in Spanish I called him my nickname for this guy I just haven't found how to
Ivan: translate this well it's a proactivo pendejo okay that this is.
Sam: This is the type of.
Ivan: Manager that that you know that Donald Trump is he's proactive,
Ivan: and my pendejo is dumbass he's inept but proactive it's the worst combination
Ivan: ever to have somebody that's inept and proactive you don't want that ever you
Ivan: really don't want that But we've got that.
Ivan: And Sam, you know, it's only been two months.
Ivan: Well, three now.
Sam: Almost. Almost three.
Ivan: February, March, April.
Sam: It's only been three fucking months, man.
Ivan: And so many, he right now has the worst approval rating of anybody in this short
Ivan: amount of time, except himself.
Ivan: Although that still, by the way, gets me.
Sam: Like every time people bring up that stat, I'm like, really?
Sam: He is more liked now than at the same point eight years ago?
Sam: I'm going to tell you why. I'm going to tell you why.
Ivan: I'm going to tell you why. because a big part in the first time that he lost
Ivan: some of the MAGA people because he wasn't doing what he's doing now,
Ivan: because they expect to be more aggressive instead of naming these the Rex Tillerson's
Ivan: of the world and that kind of stuff.
Ivan: So now those guys are a little bit more solid because he's doing that part.
Ivan: That I think is the difference.
Ivan: Yeah, I don't know.
Sam: Like, to me, it's just objectively, like, he's so... Like, he was bad last time,
Sam: but he's worse this time.
Sam: He is actively way.
Ivan: Way, way worse. Yes. But you're just saying some people actually like the worse.
Sam: And so that's why... Correct. Whereas before, he was pissing off.
Ivan: Those guys because he wasn't doing enough, and pissing us off because he was still being...
Ivan: Incompetent idiot. Okay.
Sam: Well, I mean, incompetent idiot, because that was the whole immigration thing.
Ivan: That now, now we're even, you know, in a worse thing. Okay.
Sam: Let's, I think we should take our break now.
Sam: Cause we're, we're, we're running low on time and I do want to make sure we
Sam: do cover the legal stuff. Cause there's the whole, is he finally just actively
Sam: defying SCOTUS at this point?
Sam: And that whole, Well, before we go to legal stuff.
Ivan: Well, actually, before we go into that, do one quick thing. Just one quick subject
Ivan: before we get into the legal. Okay.
Ivan: Insert this. Because there was a whole bunch of women went into space,
Ivan: and they got a lot of hate. Okay.
Sam: We'll just throw this in the middle. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ivan: It's just the intermission between the, you know, continue to talk about it.
Ivan: Intermission, yeah. Yeah.
Ivan: So, I mean, are they just getting hate because people are just pissed off at
Ivan: the billionaires like right now?
Ivan: I guess that's, I mean, it's a good reason, but is that it?
Sam: No, I think there's a little bit more to that. I mean, yes, people are pissed
Sam: off at the billionaires. Yes, people are pissed off that it was just a bunch of famous people.
Sam: But I think part of it was also the disconnect between like the marketing of
Sam: it was like, oh, look, so inspiring, an all-woman crew, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: Whereas the reality was it's a bunch of rich tourists on an 11-minute ride.
Sam: Meanwhile, you've had really prominent, serious women astronauts for a long
Sam: time now. Ah, but the thing is.
Ivan: This wasn't.
Sam: Well, and look, and they sort of acted kind of silly, too.
Sam: So they weren't like, ooh, serious, blah, blah, blah. They acted silly and goofy on their thing.
Sam: And, you know, it was just sort of the, it was almost tried to show,
Sam: down people's throats, look, this is an amazing milestone of the all-female
Sam: crew and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: Whereas the way this particular space capsule works, they're all just passengers.
Sam: It's all remotely operated.
Sam: They're not doing anything. It just goes up and down.
Sam: I saw a lot of people as well saying things like, wait, I thought Katy Perry
Sam: was going to be in space for like a month or something.
Sam: It was 11 minutes. What the hell are you talking about?
Sam: She's back already. But I do think that and I listen.
Ivan: I think this translates from everything that's going on in terms of the backlash
Ivan: is because of what is this assault on on?
Ivan: It's this assault from the billionaire class on what is the I call now it's
Ivan: like the medium upper class of America.
Ivan: That that is because that is what it is and i and i think that's that that's
Ivan: the whole thing where you know they go around riding in rockets where you know
Ivan: you've got must saying that you know oh you're a scientist and they and age
Ivan: fuck you you're you know you're worthless well and i i think that's a number
Ivan: of people have pointed out the disconnect of.
Sam: Like celebrating like this all woman crew etc while meanwhile they're laying off hundreds,
Sam: hundreds of women scientists at NASA. Exactly. Right.
Sam: And CDC and wherever. So that's in the middle of all of this, it's kind of like just.
Ivan: You know, fuck off. Really, you know, whatever. I get it. Yeah. So, okay.
Ivan: Okay. We can take that break now? Yeah.
Sam: Okay. Here we go.
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Sam: our way, please feel free.
Sam: Yeah, I mean, you know.
Ivan: We'll make good use of it.
Sam: Yeah, we'll definitely make it. And look, instead of sedatives.
Ivan: Send me whiskey. Send me scotch. We'll go on Jeff Bezos' spaceship.
Sam: I don't want.
Ivan: To go on a fucking spaceship. I don't know. I'll wait for once I can go to orbit.
Sam: I want it to go like.
Ivan: You know, in like 2001. Those might be more dangerous than helicopters.
Sam: Listen, I want it to go.
Ivan: I wanted it to be like it was in the movie 2001. Yes. Yes.
Sam: You say, you know, we get on this.
Ivan: Plane and we get to the space station. That's a hotel. If it was like that, then yes.
Ivan: You know, it feels like going on an airplane trip, kind of like that.
Ivan: Then yes, that's what I want. You don't want to pay.
Sam: A million dollars plus for an 11-minute ride up and down again? Not exactly, no. No?
Ivan: No no no.
Sam: Not at all.
Ivan: I don't see why not it's.
Sam: A little bit uh pricey.
Ivan: A little pricey i'm sure the price.
Sam: Will come down at some point hope.
Ivan: You know 50 be like a helicopter ride but of course you know those aren't very
Ivan: safe as i've mentioned i'm sure like yeah yes.
Sam: Eventually you know So SpaceX and Blue Origin have done well so far.
Sam: They haven't killed anybody yet.
Sam: But look, let's be honest. It's only a matter of time, right? Listen, I want, yes.
Ivan: And if it's going to be that they're going to kill somebody,
Ivan: may it please be Elon Musk and his maiden voyage. As I've pointed out before.
Sam: He's the only one of these billionaires
Sam: who hasn't ridden on their own spaceship. Well, you know what?
Ivan: Maybe he's not as dumb as I thought he is.
Sam: Okay, so let's start. The main legal thing is there have been a number of cases
Sam: bopping up and down the court system, but the one that has gotten the most attention over the last week,
Sam: although I shouldn't say that, there's competition for this.
Sam: I mean, most attention. It's like, I mean.
Ivan: Every day is a fucking like shit show of, you know, new shit that we're arguing
Ivan: about. Well, the one I was going to.
Sam: Start with is the case about what was his, what's his name?
Sam: I always, you know, I suck at names. Which one? Which one?
Sam: The guy mistakenly sent to El Salvador. Kilmar. Kilmar.
Ivan: Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. There you go. But I'm going to pronounce it Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia.
Ivan: I'm not even going to attempt that.
Sam: Anyway, that made it all the way up to SCOTUS, and SCOTUS basically said,
Sam: yes, the lower court is right. Facilitate getting this guy.
Sam: They did say something about like, let's clarify what they meant by effectuate,
Sam: but we're going to say facilitate.
Sam: And so it went back down to the lower court and the lower court needs to make it happen. Well, yes.
Ivan: But they wanted to specifically.
Sam: Say like what was within scope and what was not like, for instance,
Sam: you could argue that effectuate means do it at all costs.
Sam: If you have to, if you have to send the army to invade and physically take over
Sam: the country in order to get him back, the court is ordering that.
Sam: And the Supreme Court might not go along with going that far.
Sam: But you clearly wouldn't need to go that far, right?
Sam: Donald Trump could say, we changed our mind, bring him back,
Sam: and he'd be back. Given that the Senator Chris Van.
Ivan: Hollen very doggedly and persistently finally got to meet him.
Ivan: Right. But anyway, the point was.
Sam: SCOTUS said, facilitate it. It went back to the lower courts.
Sam: The lower court was like, I want you to tell me right away, what's this guy's current status?
Sam: What are you doing to get him back?
Sam: And the Trump administration has been basically bullshitting him over and over
Sam: and over. He asked for daily updates.
Sam: They've given him bullshit daily updates and basically have said they're not
Sam: doing anything and there's nothing they can do.
Sam: They at one point said, like, we believe our obligation to facilitate is done if like, if,
Sam: at the border. We acknowledge that he showed up and we arrest him,
Sam: but we can't make El Salvador do anything.
Sam: And meanwhile, you know, the president of El Salvador is like, what are we going to do?
Sam: Smuggle him back to the U.S.? In the Oval Office, by the way,
Sam: this conversation happening.
Sam: But basically... Well, I'm hoping that the.
Ivan: Senator goes and gets a private jet, just loads them up and just brings them over.
Sam: So far, the president and vice president of El Salvador have both posted after
Sam: that meeting, basically making fun of the whole thing and saying, like,
Sam: look, look, he got out of the death camp and was sitting there having margaritas with the senator.
Sam: And now his reward. Well, those two guys are clowns.
Ivan: And now the reward.
Sam: He can go back into the custody of El Salvador.
Sam: They're not giving him up right now to the senator. At least not.
Sam: Well, let's be clear. Let's be clear.
Ivan: For days, they were refusing to even let him meet him. Right.
Ivan: They finally wound up letting him meet. And apparently the senator is very fucking
Ivan: persistent. Okay. So I'm going to give him.
Sam: I keep wanting to turn back to the main point here is not actually what's going on with this guy.
Sam: Although it's the fact that the Trump administration has been blatantly not cooperating.
Sam: With what the Supreme Court said to say. I mean, what they have been hiding behind.
Ivan: And they've done this on purpose, obviously. They have been trying to say.
Sam: According to on— Hey, he's a citizen from El Salvador.
Ivan: And we sent him to El Salvador. What can we do? Well, right.
Ivan: They've been doing that.
Sam: They've been quibbling about the wording. They've been saying the courts can't
Sam: tell the executive branch how to do foreign policy.
Sam: They're right. But they've also at various points been refusing to actually
Sam: give meaningful updates on the status.
Sam: Right. They've been refusing to say what we what they have done.
Sam: They've they've, you know, basically, like they have been trying to make arguments
Sam: about why what they're doing is actually in compliance.
Sam: And in fact, like Stephen Miller and Donald Trump have even been saying that
Sam: the Supreme Court ruling was 9-0 in their favor, as opposed to 9-0 against them.
Sam: They're trying to like distort reality like they do.
Sam: And they're trying to.
Ivan: Yes. But, but the, the.
Sam: The, the, the judge in this particular case as ordered a week and a half of
Sam: discovery of like, you know, you're going to bring in people to testify to tell
Sam: me exactly when, where, and how,
Sam: you know, things have been going on.
Sam: The other court dealing with the more general transportation of people to that
Sam: prison has already said that there, I forget the exact terminology.
Sam: It's one step short of them, but it probably will cause that they are in contempt
Sam: of court or something like that and has issued more conversations.
Sam: I always get these two cases confused, so I apologize because they're going on parallel tracks.
Sam: But both of them are essentially at the point of declaring the administration
Sam: in contempt. On contempt.
Sam: And some of the questions are who exactly would be in contempt?
Sam: Is it the lawyer who's saying something?
Sam: Is it some administration official? I would start with a fucking lawyer.
Ivan: And then work your way up, right. Yeah, basically, yeah.
Sam: Well, and, you know, they— And this is criminal contempt.
Ivan: So— Potentially, but there's a problem there.
Sam: Too, because normally, how would criminal contempt work?
Sam: It would be a referral to the DOJ in order to go after them.
Sam: No, no, no, no, no, no. The judge— Wait, wait.
Ivan: Wait. No, no, no, no.
Sam: No, no. That's not— No.
Ivan: The judge can do— The judge.
Sam: The judge can do certain things.
Ivan: The judge can declare that they are, okay, this is, no, you're talking about,
Ivan: you're confusing it in error of contempt. No.
Ivan: No, you're talking, no, no, no. A judge can, listen, a judge can declare you
Ivan: in contempt of jail and order you to jail.
Ivan: Yes, yes, yes, they can. But a couple of different things.
Sam: The particular modes of contempt that are being talked about here,
Sam: there are a couple options that have been talked about.
Sam: One is the referral to DOJ, which would obviously go nowhere.
Sam: One of the judges had specifically said they would assign a different lawyer to do the prosecution.
Sam: And then, as you said, under certain circumstances, the judge can just say,
Sam: you're going to jail until you cooperate.
Sam: Yeah. You know, and.
Ivan: That's yet a.
Sam: Different type. So all of these are potentially in play, but the question is
Sam: who, what, where, how the administration
Sam: has already appealed one of the notices of potential contempt.
Sam: And so, and that, yeah, these things are bound.
Sam: Down the courts. It is inevitable that this will go back to SCOTUS again,
Sam: but probably both of these cases will end up at SCOTUS again.
Sam: And then we see, does SCOTUS get even more strenuous in what they say,
Sam: or do they try to back down a little bit?
Sam: I mentioned last week that even within SCOTUS's orders here,
Sam: they left wiggle room for the administration to play the kind of games they're playing.
Sam: Do they order, do they issue another ruling with less wiggle room or not?
Sam: Cause they don't really want the straight up confrontation with Donald Trump. They want to avoid that.
Sam: They're hoping at some point, like you said, like maybe this gets resolved because
Sam: you know, the, the, the, they end up, the guy gets to go home.
Sam: Now, Stephen Miller and others have said
Sam: like explicitly okay the when
Sam: we messed up here it's because there was a judge's order on the book saying
Sam: we couldn't send him back to el salvador it doesn't say anything about anywhere
Sam: else in the world if he steps foot back in the u.s we're immediately going to
Sam: expel him again but send him to yamina or somewhere i mean for.
Ivan: For what reason they had no reason to expel him anyway, either. Well, they claim.
Sam: There are many reasons. Of course, that's all in dispute and they haven't provided
Sam: the evidence needed, which is why, you know, yes, yes.
Sam: And so the thing is with all of this is, you know, people have been trying to
Sam: parse words or of like, when do we hit the constitutional crisis?
Sam: Like on one extreme, like you could say the very first time that Donald Trump
Sam: didn't do exactly what the lower court judge said, you were already there.
Sam: Now there's an argument that says, well, now he's directly violating what SCOTUS
Sam: said. So now we're there for sure, right?
Sam: And then you could argue, well, yeah, but SCOTUS left some wiggle room.
Sam: Let's let it get back to SCOTUS again, and then maybe we're there.
Sam: But the bottom line, I think, is that absolutely everything Donald Trump has
Sam: been doing his second term is a constitutional crisis from beginning to end.
Sam: Because the one fundamental characteristic of Donald Trump's presidency the
Sam: second time around is to not worry about the law is, just do whatever the fuck
Sam: you want and wait for them to stop you.
Sam: And fundamentally, as far as I'm concerned, you're already at a crisis at that
Sam: point because you've lost the respect for the process. But I'll tell you what.
Ivan: Listen, the main reason of a crisis right now is because you simply have one branch.
Ivan: Okay, you have the executive branch who is basically saying,
Ivan: I'll do whatever the fuck I want. Okay?
Ivan: The judicial branch has been making orders against them.
Ivan: They have been ignoring them. But the reality is that your third check and balance
Ivan: here is supposed to be our Congress.
Ivan: And Congress has basically abdicated their
Ivan: responsibility to do anything about this guy well i mean they they're they're
Ivan: they're but look at all but look at all the ways like with with with expenditures
Ivan: with the tariffs no i know but here's the thing though and i know we talked about murkowski.
Sam: Talking about how.
Ivan: People are scared.
Sam: And we've talked about that before but yes there are some people who are scared
Sam: but the current congress is,
Sam: MAGA than it was two years ago or four years ago or eight years ago,
Sam: there is a significant portion of the Congress who is absolutely fine with this.
Sam: It's not that they are like, oh, we want to restrain him, but we're afraid.
Sam: I mean, there certainly are some people in that category, but for the most part,
Sam: like they're, they're like, I'm not going to say for the most part, because we know, okay.
Ivan: They are complicit, but you've got, remember, you've got the different groups
Ivan: here. Okay. You do. You do.
Ivan: And there is, and a lot of the Republicans, you know, a significant number. Okay. All right.
Ivan: You know, more than enough to be able to impeach Donald Trump. Okay.
Ivan: Despite something that he's doing is illegal, but, but their constituents would
Ivan: hang him on effigy or hang him directly.
Sam: Or hang him directly, which that's been their.
Ivan: Their, their fear. So, you know, and, and that's the reality.
Ivan: You've got a number of people there. more than enough to take action that aren't
Ivan: doing it simply because they are scared and that's why Alyssa Markoski was saying
Ivan: it because she knows that that's the case I think realistically whatever their.
Sam: Motivations or not the we are so far away from a scenario where this Congress
Sam: would actually do jack well and that's the reason why I.
Ivan: To a certain extent unfortunately and I not that I I relish having a,
Ivan: economic, you know, recession or worse at this moment, but it's about the only
Ivan: thing that's going to shake people out of this is that, you know,
Ivan: it's like I mentioned, there's just no other way that it's going to shape Congress into action.
Ivan: None other. These guys are not going to do a damn thing unless their constituents
Ivan: all of a sudden are unemployed,
Ivan: can't afford shit, and they're all pissed off yelling at them about what the
Ivan: fuck. Well, and the key part.
Sam: There is the general population in those red districts has to not only be in
Sam: pain, but actually blame Donald Trump for it.
Sam: Yeah. And I have no confidence that they will.
Sam: I think that one thing when it comes to the economy.
Ivan: They always blame whoever the fuck is president. Hmm. You know, that's just the fact.
Ivan: You know, look, W1 re-election, you know, even with all the shit that happened
Ivan: and whatever, and the Republicans didn't get their asses handed to them until
Ivan: they fucking crashed the economy.
Ivan: Simple as that. Yeah.
Sam: You know, as much of a shithead as Carville is these days, the economy,
Sam: stupid, was, you know, right on. He's fucking right.
Ivan: These guys are not going to change their worldview until it fucking slams their pocketbook. Period.
Ivan: It's all self-interest.
Ivan: Everything. every single one of these guys that you've seen that are there were
Ivan: all that that are like all of a sudden there were that are all that i'm not
Ivan: not on social media not only self-interest but immediate.
Sam: Right now impossible to ignore self-interest because if you try to explain to them how something.
Ivan: Will affect them.
Sam: Like five years in the future no no no no well i'm talking about.
Ivan: I'm talking yeah we're talking about how all these guys
Ivan: on social media that right now are crying that they voted for trump
Ivan: and they lost their job because he didn't think he was coming after
Ivan: them or they got the or they got or they got profiled he didn't think he was
Ivan: coming after them or blah blah blah it's it's all because it hit them straight
Ivan: you know on that forehead with a two by four that's what that's how they realized
Ivan: oh fuck yeah he really was he really fucked me,
Ivan: well even then i.
Sam: Like i heard who who was it there was somebody doing interviews with like farmers
Sam: that were getting screwed by the tariffs that are already in place, right?
Sam: Well, I'm sure there are a number of stuff still.
Ivan: You know, still will fucking like smash your balls with a hammer anyway. Well, no.
Ivan: They specifically said, well.
Sam: We got hurt by the tariffs last time Donald Trump was in here,
Sam: but he saved us with a bailout. We expect him to do it again.
Sam: Yeah, that's true, but he's not.
Ivan: Going to bail out people who are going to go shop for cars pretty soon.
Ivan: He's not going to be able to. Yvonne, I think you're missing.
Sam: I think you're missing something important.
Ivan: Which is? The launch of the new Trump-branded automobiles.
Sam: Oh, those are going to go up against the Teslas.
Ivan: Huh? Teslas already have a T.
Sam: You just have to change the front. That was just Trump.
Ivan: Fuck Tesla. It's going to be the Trump Model Y. In gold. Gold edition.
Sam: Gold edition.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Exactly.
Ivan: I like this.
Sam: There you go.
Ivan: Every car now we're back in the 90s we're
Ivan: gonna have gold editions they're gonna have little
Ivan: gold like doorknobs little gold striping a little fake gold you know shit all
Ivan: over the place like the fucking oval office now we see fucking oval office looks
Ivan: like a goddamn fucking like room at a vegas brothel now,
Ivan: Well.
Sam: Ed, you know, and the government could pay Tesla for the Trump branded cars
Sam: and give them out free and give them out free. Yes, we will give.
Ivan: You know, so it's it's so it's like it goes back to the Nazi plan,
Ivan: the car for everybody, the Volkswagen, the Volkswagen. Yes. Yes.
Sam: The people's car, the people's car.
Ivan: There we go okay anyway.
Sam: I think the whole back and forth okay i think here's.
Ivan: One thing i i want to make sure and if if anybody didn't understand something
Ivan: i want to make a point very clear right now i'm not sure if i made this very
Ivan: very clear but i want you all to know that i absolutely despise Donald J. Trump.
Ivan: No one would have.
Sam: I just want to make sure that if that wasn't.
Ivan: Clear up until this moment, I wanted to make sure that to make it very clear.
Ivan: You know you want a Trump mobile.
Sam: If I got a free Trump mobile.
Ivan: I would probably do one of the least ecological things that I would ever probably do.
Ivan: You would burn it. Burn it to the ground. I would burn the fucking thing.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Of course you would.
Sam: Okay. Like, so I think that the back and forth between the courts and Trump
Sam: is going to go on for a while.
Sam: I think it will be increasingly clear. This is my prediction.
Sam: It will be increasingly clear that Donald Trump effectively is ignoring it and
Sam: is doing whatever the fuck he wants anyway.
Sam: But he will continue to put out enough fig leaves or fig leaves to keep it going
Sam: up and down and up and down in the courts.
Sam: And he won't at any point directly say, fuck you, Scotus, I'm,
Sam: you don't matter. He won't make it that clear, but the effective result will
Sam: be the same because he'll figure out one way or another to do what he wants anyway.
Sam: That's my take. He may occasionally throw a fig leaf.
Sam: Maybe this guy in El Salvador, some compromised thing happens to him maybe probably
Sam: not though because donald trump fundamentally believes that backing down is
Sam: losing listen like everything you.
Ivan: Know something will happen that he can declare a victory in some way so that's
Ivan: what i'm saying like for example because what has what could happen is that
Ivan: the the the president of el salvador somehow in order to i'll say face just sends them back,
Ivan: you know, or some shit like that. Or I decided that.
Sam: You know. You.
Ivan: Know, if I.
Sam: Were to design an actual way out. Yeah.
Sam: It's a neutral third party, neutral third country. We'll send them to Mexico. A neutral.
Ivan: Third country offers.
Sam: Asylum for this guy and his whole family. Yeah. Yeah, there you go.
Ivan: Yeah, that's the kind of thing I could.
Sam: See as a way out. He doesn't come back to the U.S. He doesn't stay in El Salvador.
Sam: Okay. Can we get that offer?
Ivan: Can we get that offer?
Sam: For a neutral third party to take us in? Yeah. Yeah. Like, can we get asylum in.
Ivan: Like, Italy? Yeah.
Sam: The person in charge of Italy is, like, not that great either.
Sam: Maloney, no. Well, Switzerland.
Ivan: Switzerland. They get an asylum offer. They're neutral. You know,
Ivan: neutral. You know, neutral. They're very neutral. Yeah. Okay.
Sam: I was thinking more Scandinavia, but too cold for you.
Sam: You know, I love.
Ivan: Like, you know, I love Scandinavia conceptually.
Sam: Just not the weather too cold.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: I mean, shit.
Ivan: Don't you have like some, yeah, like, like the, the French have these overseas departments.
Ivan: Okay. You know, like, like the Caribbean.
Sam: Right?
Ivan: Well, Denmark does have Greenland.
Sam: Okay. That's not helping.
Sam: Like, you know, they have like something like.
Ivan: You know. Look, I'm still open to Puerto Rico joining, you know,
Ivan: being turned over to Ted Mark.
Sam: Don't some of those actually still have some Caribbean islands?
Sam: Yeah, the French do. Martinique, whatever.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So do the British as well. There's a few British overseas territories, yes.
Ivan: I mean, one time when we went to Anguilla, I had to get my wife a British visa
Ivan: to go over there. Right. Way back when, before she decided.
Sam: To become a.
Ivan: Citizen. Now, of course, I'm exploring getting citizenship somewhere else.
Ivan: Yes, you've mentioned it.
Sam: Okay, we should wrap up. There's all kinds of other stuff that happened.
Sam: Just to throw out a couple bullet points.
Sam: Okay, by the way, there is one thing about it.
Ivan: None of it is good. Oh, the other things that have happened, you mean?
Sam: Yeah, none of them are good. Are any of them good?
Ivan: Well, the list I was going to go through.
Sam: Yes, you go through. You go through. Well, let's see. For example,
Sam: I was looking at the list that we put up.
Ivan: On the thing. The Slack. Yeah, on the Slack, direct negotiations with,
Ivan: which seemed like a joke. Okay. And I guess maybe, is that why they had all
Ivan: those bombers at Diego Garcia?
Ivan: I guess they were thinking about. Yeah. Okay.
Ivan: Apparently, apparently, by the way.
Sam: On that, Israel was about to attack.
Sam: Yeah. That's what, and, and apparently the U S Donald Trump specifically said,
Sam: no, no, no, we're going to negotiate with Iran.
Sam: You got to hold off. So I guess like, I, I, I don't disagree with,
Sam: let's start negotiating with Iran again.
Sam: Do I have trust that Donald Trump can do it in a way that makes sense? No.
Sam: But I think it's better than bombing them. You remember USMCA?
Ivan: Look, if he wants to do USMCA too, but like the Iran nuclear agreement too,
Ivan: that's basically the same thing as it was before. It was almost the same shit
Ivan: as NAFTA, except with some minor changes.
Ivan: So there you go. Okay, I'll go with that. Yeah, he could do something like that.
Sam: I mean, probably you'd have to give Iran some more concessions than they had last time.
Sam: But, you know, but at a fundamental level, I don't disagree with negotiate rather than bomb.
Sam: But yeah. Okay, go ahead. Okay. Even though- 224 pounds.
Ivan: That's how much, I was going to say.
Sam: How much Ivan weighs, but no, that's a Donald Trump, right? That's how much
Sam: Donald Trump weighs. Yes.
Ivan: At six foot three. I mean, I, this is, he released his medical reports this week.
Sam: It's just, and he's of course.
Ivan: Like, you know, a handsome.
Sam: Healthy man. We didn't mention.
Ivan: Anything about Harvard saying, go fuck yourself. And then a number of universities
Ivan: actually like now decided that, you know, it's not a good idea to negotiate
Ivan: with Donald Trump. And by the way, a whole bunch of law firms actually also
Ivan: decided, what the fuck are we doing?
Ivan: What are we negotiating with this asshole? Yeah, I mean, there were a.
Sam: Handful of law firms that had already taken him to court and won every single
Sam: one. But there were tons that were capitulating.
Sam: Yeah. And hopefully these reverse. But there were idiots. I mean, there were.
Ivan: Idiots that I think a number of them are realizing that they were idiots.
Ivan: And now they're like, oh, you know, they want to fight us for more.
Ivan: We're like, fuck you. No. So, yeah.
Ivan: There was the homegrown next. What the hell was the homegrown next thing?
Ivan: No, this was Trump and what's his.
Sam: Name from El Salvador? What's the president's name? Oh, yeah,
Sam: yeah, yeah. That he's going to deport American citizens.
Ivan: Deport American citizens. Yeah.
Sam: Basically, he told the president of El Salvador, you need to build a bunch more
Sam: prisons like this because we want to send a bunch more people to you.
Sam: No, by the way, he doesn't have the money.
Ivan: But thank God El Salvador doesn't have the fucking money.
Sam: But anyway.
Ivan: Including the homegrown ones next. Well, you know.
Sam: Donald Trump could pay for it. He doesn't like paying. construction will.
Ivan: Exactly. Number one, he doesn't like to pay for anything.
Ivan: Number two is, how fast did that wall go up, Sam, in Texas when he was president? Exactly.
Ivan: EO against Krebs and Taylor, you know, so he targeted a couple of people,
Ivan: more people that said anything about him. He keeps targeting people that say anything about him.
Sam: No, but the specific thing here is this one was, well, no,
Sam: yeah, but no, but this was the most direct one yet in terms of he issued an
Sam: order directly to the DOJ to investigate these two people. Yeah, I know, I know.
Ivan: The Bernie AOC tour. You know, the only thing I'll say about this is.
Sam: You know, whether or not it's effective in the end, I don't know, but I like it.
Sam: Like these two. I think that this needs to mushroom into.
Ivan: Like, massive protests at some point. This needs to go from this. There were, but no.
Sam: We need to bigger.
Ivan: No, I know. And the protests are.
Sam: Like, a monthly thing. They're on a schedule. They're going to happen more. But, like, no.
Sam: The thing is, and it's not just, like, that Bernie and AOC are filling up,
Sam: like, large venues in red states. It's if you listen to what they're actually saying.
Sam: Oh, yeah. It's great. It's great.
Ivan: It's great.
Sam: It's passionate. One thing, there was one five-second clip of AOC who was like,
Sam: people ask us why we even come to Idaho.
Sam: It's because you matter.
Sam: I love it. Love it.
Ivan: She said more that was great.
Sam: But just that one thing to like, say we, but I,
Sam: There was a poll.
Ivan: By the way, there was a poll, if she primaried Schumer for the Senate,
Ivan: where she was beating him 65-35.
Ivan: Yeah, no, I believe that for the primary.
Sam: I'm waiting for the general election polls to see if she could win in the general
Sam: election. Yeah, that's, you know.
Sam: But, you know, Schumer needs to go anyway.
Sam: Yeah, he needs to go. You know, but anyway, no, I like what they're doing.
Sam: I like that they they are active.
Sam: They speak well. They are not compromising on their values.
Sam: No, to try to like attract centrists or anything.
Sam: No, no, no, no. They're not wishy washy. They're clear on what they believe.
Sam: And if you don't like it, you don't like it. But they will they will listen
Sam: to the people who disagree with them, but they will still like go right on.
Sam: And there are a few others that have been doing this kind of thing.
Sam: I've seen Buttigieg out a bunch lately. I've seen Walls out a bunch lately.
Sam: There's another one whose name I'm forgetting right now, I'm sorry,
Sam: who's been on TV a lot and just calling out the administration left and right.
Sam: We talked about the Booker thing, you know, all the sort of a one-off.
Sam: But like what is not working right now is the people who are just like,
Sam: oh, we'll be quiet and we'll wait for the administration to like shoot itself
Sam: in the foot and then we'll be well positioned.
Sam: I mean, they may be right. I mean, if they tank the economy.
Sam: But, you know, I tell you, I am really thinking positively right now about the
Sam: Democrats who are being out there and vocal and visible and combative against the the current regime,
Sam: as opposed to the ones who are being quiet. Yeah.
Sam: And part of this is I saw someone on TV or a podcast or whatever,
Sam: and again, I'm not going to remember who or where it was, was saying they've got to stop.
Sam: Thinking of themselves at this point. For this particular moment in history,
Sam: you need to not think of yourself as like a traditional American party in the
Sam: minority that's just waiting for their next term.
Sam: You need to think of yourself more like the opposition movements,
Sam: like solidarity in Poland during the last bits of the Cold War.
Sam: Hey, good news. That kid, the.
Ivan: Kid that was American that the fucking police held up in northern Florida.
Ivan: They released him. Yeah, we hadn't mentioned that one.
Sam: But he was an American citizen who... Yeah, but at the court hearing,
Sam: they were like waving his birth certificate around and stuff like that.
Sam: Oh, he's got an ice hold. I'm like, he's a fucking American citizen.
Ivan: You assholes. And the judge was like, oh, sorry. Yeah, the judge was like.
Sam: I see a birth certificate. I can't do anything about it. Well,
Sam: the problem is, yeah, he couldn't overrule the ice hold.
Ivan: The sheriff had to fucking go look at what the judge said and say, oh, okay, fine.
Ivan: Anyway, I like the Bernie AOC tour.
Sam: I'm liking those two more and more as every week goes by, and there are a few
Sam: other Democrats who are doing it right and a bunch that are doing it wrong. Okay, go ahead.
Sam: And the last one that we didn't talk about.
Ivan: Is RFK on autism. I think I may have mentioned a little bit but RFK is RFK Jr.
Ivan: Is a complete fucking moron.
Ivan: Yes. He knows nothing about nothing and thinks he's smarter than everybody else. He's an idiot.
Ivan: He has never met a person,
Ivan: Very clearly, obviously. Never fucking met one.
Ivan: For some fucking reason, he advocates about, you know, the vaccines cause of
Ivan: autism, but this motherfucker has never, ever met somebody with autism.
Ivan: He is a joke. And this guy, I probably would get arrested if I fucking met.
Ivan: I mean, he is.
Sam: Not just ignorant. He is...
Sam: He's dangerous. he's dangerous and actively
Sam: harmful in any everything he is doing right
Sam: now yes uh and like you know
Sam: if if we we could have done a whole segment on him and autism you know and and
Sam: what he's doing but like it's just one facet of all of the harmful things he's
Sam: doing across all kinds of different areas which of course what he's doing is
Sam: a small fast of what the whole damn administration is doing that's right.
Sam: But, and that's why like each little slice of it gets a little bit of attention
Sam: because there's so much, it's just this active destruction,
Sam: of all sorts of things that are helpful and positive, replacing them with things
Sam: that are not just neutral, but actively harmful.
Sam: And that's where we are right now and where we probably will be for the next few years.
Sam: And thank you so much for everybody who voted for him or you jackasses who stayed
Sam: home because Harris wasn't pure enough for you.
Sam: Okay. On that happy note.
Sam: Yes. On that happy, wonderful, exciting note.
Sam: Hey, everybody, you know the deal. Go to curmudgeon-corner.com.
Sam: You can find all of the stuff,
Sam: all the ways to contact us, all our archives, transcripts of recent shows,
Sam: all of those fun things, all the ways to subscribe,
Sam: follow us, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, except TikTok. I still haven't linked to TikTok.
Sam: You know, I keep putting it off.
Sam: At this point, I'm not sure if TikTok is going to disappear or stay or whatever.
Sam: I'm hoping for certainty. But in the Trump administration, you never get certainty about jack shit.
Sam: So maybe at some point i'll add the little logo
Sam: for tiktok too but anyway i links
Sam: to all of those things and also of course to our patreon where
Sam: you can give us money at various levels we will send you a postcard we will
Sam: mention you on the show we will send you a mug blah blah blah blah blah and
Sam: yes i still owe pete greg and eggs egg not egg eggs eggs hit an all-time new
Sam: high price-wise, didn't they, Yvonne, recently?
Sam: They had been going down, but then they went back up. Nah, they're expensive.
Ivan: They're staying expensive, yeah. You know, now I want them.
Sam: I found eggs at Costco.
Ivan: Actually, the ones at Costco, they've been able to source them at my old price.
Ivan: Oh, there you go. That's what I saw. There you go.
Sam: Anyway, yes, Pete, Greg, and I said egg again.
Sam: Greg and egg, egg. Pete, Greg, and Ed, I will eventually get you the things I owe you.
Sam: And yeah, at $2 a month or more on the Patreon, or if you just ask us,
Sam: we will invite you to the Curmudgeons Corner Slack.
Sam: Whereas we, you know, over the course of this show, we've mentioned like at
Sam: least half a dozen different things that we'd shared on the Slack or talked about on the Slack.
Sam: It's a lot of fun. Yvonne and I are there. A bunch of listeners are there.
Sam: We share links. We chat about the news. We chat about other things.
Sam: It's great fun. You should join us. So be in contact.
Sam: Let us know and start participating in the Slack.
Sam: And those of you who are members of the Slack, but aren't in very often, visit more often.
Sam: Come play with us. It's a lot of fun.
Sam: Okay, Yvonne. So, what's something from the Slack that's worth mentioning before we say goodbye?
Sam: What's something from the Slack?
Ivan: Okay. I'm so alone. Crosswalk speakers across Silicon Valley hacked the play
Ivan: AI audio of Musk begging for friends. Oh.
Sam: Is that sweet it's so yeah sweet i feel so bad for him so so sad.
Ivan: Yeah poor poor little elon well he's he's also apparently.
Sam: On the outs now from the administration so you know he's working his way back
Sam: to his company slowly he's been in much less visible the last two weeks i don't
Sam: know well i mean neither has.
Ivan: Yeah, Navarro has a...
Sam: Navarro. Ever since the initial rollout of the tariffs didn't go quite as smoothly
Sam: as they hoped, for some reason... Liberation day, Sam!
Ivan: Liberation day.
Sam: Should I go import some things from China? I did go and buy those.
Ivan: Tires that I wanted to get to beat the tariffs. i i i you know i.
Sam: I i said last week they they've
Sam: delayed the tariffs on the electronic items except for the 10 so i'm back to
Sam: my plan of waiting till the the next new iphones come out before upgrading my
Sam: iphone in i think that's like right waiting for the 17s not the 16s the the
Sam: only thing like right now i don't know if you.
Ivan: Saw that that you guys had stayed until the end of the podcast Uh,
Ivan: Apple for earth day is running a promotion.
Ivan: They hadn't run in the past recently, but apparently you can get a whole bunch of discounts.
Ivan: If you turn in old Apple products and there's a list of them that are usually
Ivan: get no trade in that they're, that they're useless and don't work,
Ivan: but they'll give you money.
Ivan: They'll give you a discounts. Uh,
Ivan: So they've got that.
Sam: Promo for Earth Day I am once again thinking Going through the whole thought
Sam: process Do I want an iPad?
Sam: And we talked about that before How there's the iPad ladder Let me tell you
Sam: something And I don't say that.
Ivan: Right now I.
Sam: Find myself using.
Ivan: My Because my old iPad There were certain reasons I used it,
Ivan: but not as much This one, to do one I find myself using it quite a lot I figure at this point.
Sam: Like if i were to go ipad again i i would i would intentionally go mid-range
Sam: i don't think i can like like i'd go for an air and one thing i realized i don't need all the storage.
Ivan: Not now because everything's.
Sam: A lot of content.
Ivan: Everything's on the.
Sam: Cloud i didn't really you.
Ivan: Know before i needed all the all of it especially when i was flying because
Ivan: many times like there was an internet on the flights but you know what it does
Ivan: have enough of a cache and and now on on i i can stream audio and video on the
Ivan: damn planes anyway yeah i mean i can i keep thinking.
Sam: Like you know at minimum i want the same amount of memory that i have on my
Sam: phone but i'm thinking you know i probably don't even need that you know so
Sam: anyway i'm thinking about it we'll see i don't it would be a splurge, but like, we'll see.
Sam: Anyway, we are done. Thank you everybody for joining us yet again. Have a great week.
Sam: Stay safe. Have fun, but not too much fun.
Sam: You know, all the stuff I usually say like, and Yvonne and I,
Sam: if all goes well, nothing unexpected happens.
Sam: We'll be back again next week.
Sam: Goodbye. Bye.
Break: Okay.
Sam: Okay, that's it. Have a lovely evening, Yvonne. Thank you. Bye.
Ivan: Bye.