Sam: Good morning, Mr. Bo. Hello. Good afternoon for you.
Ivan: Well, that's volume is very low. Can you talk again?
Sam: Hello, hello, hello.
Ivan: Okay, yeah, my volume was very low over here.
Sam: Okay, let me...
Ivan: Okay, so Manu has a birthday party this afternoon, so...
Sam: Limited time?
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Okay. Let's get this thing started. When's your drop-dead time for ending, so I can watch the clock?
Ivan: Let's just try to make it, you know, let's just try to keep it under 90 minutes.
Ivan: I'm going to skip doing a butt first so we don't get dragged too long.
Sam: Okay, so 1130 my time.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Okay. Okey dokey, let's get going. Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Ivan: He turned 13 yesterday.
Sam: That's got to be a lie. There's no way.
Ivan: I wish it were.
Sam: Okay here we go congratulations on having a teenager god yeah,
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, August 2nd, 2025.
Sam: It's just before 17 UTC as we're starting to record right now.
Sam: I'm Sam Mentor, Yvonne Bowes here. Hello, Yvonne.
Ivan: Hi. Hola.
Sam: So, as usual, our plan will be to do a quick segment on non-newsy stuff.
Sam: I have a couple movies Yvonne is skipping because he needs to get out of here.
Ivan: I will make just one quick comment, which is the only thing that I can comment,
Ivan: well, comment is that I crossed through immigration twice this week. Yes.
Sam: How many times were you arrested?
Ivan: I was not arrested. I will say, though, that immigration in my—I crossed immigration
Ivan: in Puerto Rico to go from the Dominican Republic into Puerto Rico,
Ivan: which that was very uneventful.
Ivan: There's nobody there, and right now there aren't that many international flights
Ivan: going to San Juan, so it's, you know, that was uneventful.
Ivan: But when I got back to Miami, I did get through quickly because I still have
Ivan: global entry, so I can get through it relatively quickly.
Ivan: But they changed some of the process for global entry, which is a little bit weird.
Ivan: It still went fast, but holy shit, that place was chaotic.
Ivan: I mean, that was, it's the chaos that I expect sometimes to see around the holidays
Ivan: and something like that when a lot of people are traveling.
Ivan: But for a regular just Thursday early evening holy shit what a chaotic immigration
Ivan: area I mean I see people like get,
Ivan: something bad happened it was just the the lines were worse than i ever remember
Ivan: and i'm assuming that's because they're just being more,
Ivan: assholic about the whole thing yes um and um that.
Sam: Is the assumption i would make too.
Ivan: But but you know the global entry part was you know uneventful so because you've.
Sam: Got yeah you're a u.s citizen you've got global entry you've got your path by
Sam: the way some Some countries, they're not hassling you.
Ivan: No, no. Yeah. Because global entry, hell, I don't even have to show my passport to go to global entry.
Ivan: It's just, it's right now completely facial recognition.
Ivan: You scan your picture, you know, that you, you, that you walk up to a kiosk
Ivan: that recognizes your face, an agent, you know, then, then you,
Ivan: you get on this line where an agent goes and says, uh, Ivan, yeah.
Ivan: Looks at the picture, compares you. Just they double check and just let you go. That's it.
Ivan: That's all that happens. because it used to be that you had to
Ivan: scan your passport and do all sorts of
Ivan: things hell i don't even have to fill a customs form anymore
Ivan: the customs declaration or anything i don't feel
Ivan: a declaration it's just walk up do that
Ivan: and done so that that gets that done relatively quickly but but man it was just
Ivan: it just looked like sheer chaos so that was the only thing that i i got And
Ivan: it's the first time I've had to cross through immigration since the new regime.
Ivan: And it is correct. You know, it is correct to call it now a regime.
Ivan: I don't see any other proper adjective.
Sam: Yeah. Yes. Okay.
Ivan: So anyway, so that's it.
Sam: Shall we go? I got my two movies and then we can move on. We can do my two movies really quick.
Sam: Like, we will not allow extended discussion on either of you.
Ivan: The reason is my son has his birthday party this afternoon. He's turning 13.
Ivan: So, therefore, I need to skedaddle.
Sam: Absolutely. And, you know, important milestone. Important milestone.
Sam: Now a teenager is now going to cause you unknown amounts of trouble.
Ivan: Fuck me. Jesus Christ.
Sam: Yes, yes, yes. Okay, so the first of my movies is another one of these AFI top
Sam: 100 movies I've been working my way down through since 1998.
Sam: In real life, you know, not this list, we're actually in, the next one I watch
Sam: will be number three. So I'm almost at the end.
Sam: Okay. But this is number 17 from the 1998 list, which, interestingly,
Sam: they re-ranked it in 2007. It dropped all the way to 65 for the 2007 list.
Ivan: That's a steep devaluation.
Sam: Yeah. So I guess they determined there were a bunch of things that somehow in
Sam: the nine years between 1998 and 2007 made it less wonderful, I guess.
Sam: Anyway, the movie was The African Queen from 1977.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Actually, sorry. No, no, no, no, no. African Queen from 1951.
Sam: 1951. I misread. There was a television version of this in 1977,
Sam: but that is not what I watched.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: So, look, this is, I don't know. Like, I'm thinking maybe the 65 is better than
Sam: the 17, okay? It was a fine movie.
Sam: It was based on a 1935.
Ivan: I think it was just overrated when they first did the...
Sam: I don't know. Look, here's the thing.
Sam: Look, the plot, let me read you the beginning of the plot from Wikipedia, of course.
Sam: Samuel Sayre and his sister Rose are English Methodist missionaries in German
Sam: East Africa in August 1914.
Sam: Their mail and supplies are delivered by a small steamboat named the African
Sam: Queen, helmed by the rough-and-ready Canadian mechanic Charlie Allnut,
Sam: whose coarse behavior they stiffly tolerate. Yes, Allnut.
Sam: When Charlie warns the sires that war has broken out between Germany and Britain
Sam: they choose to remain in Kungdu only to witness German colonial troops burn
Sam: down the village and herd the villagers away to be pressed into service,
Sam: when Samuel protests he is struck by a soldier and
Sam: soon becomes delirious with fever dying shortly
Sam: afterwards Charlie helps Rose bury her brother and they escape in the African
Sam: queen and then the rest is what happens to them as they try to get out of German
Sam: West Africa and back to British-controlled territory or whatever.
Sam: That's the plot of the movie. Let me give you one particular thing you can imagine
Sam: might be one of the things why this did not age well.
Sam: A 1950s movie set in 1914 14, Africa.
Ivan: Sounds like it could be quite racist.
Sam: There are definitely racist components here.
Sam: You know, there's just the natives, when they are portrayed,
Sam: are not really portrayed as people, you know, is the fundamental thing.
Sam: You know, they're sort of running around, they're doing their thing,
Sam: they're like hooping and hollering. And, you know, they, they are not really,
Sam: they're not characters.
Sam: They're not like a significant part of things. They're just sort of background
Sam: of, oh my God, they're in wild Africa, you know?
Sam: And, you know, other, you know,
Sam: and so, yes, I, I imagine this is one of the reasons why from the late 1990s
Sam: to the early 2000s, this was dropped a bit in the, in the rankings.
Sam: Having said that, you know, there's still like, it's an interesting dynamic
Sam: between the two main characters.
Sam: It's got the whole sort of thing of the sort of uptight religious woman and
Sam: the sort of wild macho river guy,
Sam: you know, and, you know, they, you know.
Sam: Fall for each other as you would expect and then there's some like world war
Sam: two or sorry world war one background stuff between like what's going on between
Sam: the british and the and the germans and the you know the war background stuff
Sam: because they get involved in the back and forth with that.
Sam: And i i would say i'm giving it a thumb sideways it was fine i'm not sure it
Sam: deserves number 17 on this list. Frankly, I don't know. Well, obviously.
Ivan: I don't know if it really deserves 65. Apparently a lot of people agreed with
Ivan: you because they dropped it like a rock the next time around.
Sam: Yeah, I'm not sure if it really deserves 67 or 65 or whatever the hell it was I said.
Sam: But, you know, 65.
Sam: It was an okay movie. It was entertaining.
Sam: I laughed at a few moments. The dynamics between these two were comical.
Sam: It was sort of 1955 stylized, too.
Sam: You know, if you think about old movies, it's not going for realism per se.
Sam: They're sort of exaggerated characters, and that's fine. You know, anyway.
Sam: That's all my thoughts on this one. Do you have any thoughts on this one?
Sam: I'm guessing you've probably been scanning the Wikipedia page.
Ivan: I never watched this movie. No, I decided not to scan the Wikipedia page on
Ivan: it. But I, I, I, but I've never heard, I, I, you know, no, I had heard of them.
Sam: Oh, I should mention since I didn't, it's Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn,
Sam: which of course that's part of why, like, this is a famous, like two famous actors from that era.
Ivan: Extremely famous. I mean, there are multiple movies on this list that is.
Sam: You know. And who are famous for like their interactions as well.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: And so, this is undoubtedly a big
Sam: part of why it was on the list was just because it was the two of them.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Anyway.
Ivan: Well. All right. So, thumbs sideways on this movie, right?
Sam: Yes. Thumbs sideways. All right. And the next up is? Jurassic Park 3.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: I previewed that these two would be the movies last week.
Ivan: I say again.
Sam: You never made it past the first two.
Ivan: Never. I mean, and again, the second one I didn't even watch I Know in its entirety.
Ivan: I'm pretty sure I never did. I watched bits and pieces of it when it was on
Ivan: linear movie channels back in the day.
Ivan: But it never attracted me watching it from beginning to end.
Ivan: I just didn't find the, I just didn't pique my interest.
Ivan: So, three is like, I mean, shit, if I could complete two, forget three.
Ivan: It's kind of like Fast and the Furious.
Ivan: I watched the first one. I've never even, I don't, I have no,
Ivan: I know there was like 10 of them or something like that.
Ivan: I don't think I've watched intentionally a minute of any past the first one.
Sam: Well, Jurassic Park, as you know, just last month released their seventh. So they're on seven now.
Ivan: Yeah, that's right. For God, that's right. Jesus.
Sam: And I have not watched past three. Like, this is as far as I've ever gotten,
Sam: so I will probably eventually watch the rest.
Sam: But, you know, look, okay, I will once again read the first two paragraphs of
Sam: the plot summary from Wikipedia, and then give my further thoughts.
Sam: Paleontologist Alan Grant struggles to secure funding for his Velociraptor research,
Sam: where he attempts to prove his hypothesis.
Sam: They were intellectually and socially advanced.
Sam: Instead, he finds himself rebuffing the public's obsession with the events on
Sam: Isla Nublar and the InGen Incident in San Diego. That's the first two movies.
Sam: He receives encouragement to continue from his now-married ex-girlfriend,
Sam: Ellie Sattler, and his assistant, Billy Brennan, who uses 3D printing to replicate a velociraptor larynx.
Sam: Wealthy couple Paul and Amanda Kirby offered to fund his research in return
Sam: for a guided aerial tour of Isla Sorna, claiming they have permission to fly there.
Sam: Alan reluctantly agrees, flying there with Billy, two of the Kirby's mercenary
Sam: associates, Udesky and Cooper, and their pilot Nash.
Sam: When the Kirby's try to have Nash land the plane, Alan protests and is knocked unconscious by Cooper.
Sam: He awakens to find they have landed, and the Kirby's refuse to leave until a
Sam: Spinosaurus approaches them.
Sam: They attempt to escape, but the dinosaur attacks their plane during takeoff and kills Cooper.
Sam: The plane crashes in the forest and the
Sam: spinosaurus kills nash and swallows paul's
Sam: satellite phone the survivors flee encountering
Sam: a tyrannosaurus which is promptly defeated by the spinosaurus
Sam: as the humans escape and then of course the rest of their adventures on the
Sam: island continue there is a revelation on the motives of the rich people who
Sam: brought them here in the first place etc etc etc and yeah i i'm sorry you.
Ivan: Know you just you just described.
Sam: This and you.
Ivan: Know i am 100 confident i i no clue i i had no idea that this movie was about
Ivan: had any of those plot points nothing nothing zero.
Sam: You might have guessed it was about dinosaurs that's.
Ivan: About the only part I could have guessed correctly, yes. That there were some
Ivan: humans and dinosaurs. That I could have guessed, yes. Other than that.
Sam: Yeah, look, here's the thing. I'll give it another thumb sideways.
Sam: It was fine. It was what you expect from a movie with humans running around with dinosaurs.
Sam: But, you know, it was not. I think I save thumbs down for the movies I truly hate.
Sam: You know where i'm like not only did i was it blah but it was actually distasteful
Sam: and i regret ever having wasted my time watching it and i came out of it feeling you know,
Sam: mad that the movie exists that's what i save thumbs down for this this is a
Sam: thumb sideways is it was just sort of like,
Sam: okay, generic,
Sam: dinosaurs chasing humans around as the humans try to get out formulae whatever
Sam: you know it was a it was it's only 92 minutes long so it's not one of these mega like two minutes.
Ivan: Long that's awfully short i mean especially i think the original jurassic park
Ivan: was over two hours for sure.
Sam: Right now now you're gonna have to make me check it i'm gonna have to yeah it
Sam: was 127 minutes the original yeah.
Ivan: It was a yeah it was a long movie i mean what the heck.
Sam: And jurassic park 2 was 129 minutes so this was at the time this was the shortest
Sam: jurassic yeah it may still be i don't,
Sam: but is it you know if you want to kill
Sam: an hour and a half it was fine to kill an
Sam: hour and a half you know it i wasn't upset by it but you know there are plenty
Sam: of better ways you could spend an hour and a half but you know if you're bored
Sam: and you just want to stick a movie on and and watch it like it is fine like
Sam: i don't regret i don't regret having watched it i'm not upset by having watched
Sam: it. It just wasn't anything special.
Sam: Completely routine, sort of by the numbers.
Sam: Dinosaurs chase people.
Sam: Some people die. Some people live.
Sam: Obstacles in the way as they try to get out. You know, I'm...
Sam: There you go. Okay. That's all I got. Shall we move on? That's all you got.
Sam: Take a break and do news stuff?
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: So break time. Here we go. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Break: You're listening to this podcast. Do you like it? No. Do you want to support the show? No.
Break: Well, after you have subscribed to the show, followed us on Facebook,
Break: and told all your friends they should be listening to, what else can you do? I won't subscribe!
Break: You can help fund our Patreon at patreon.com slash curmudgeonscorner.
Break: Patreon is a way you can throw us a few bucks a month to help out with the expenses of the show.
Break: You know, web hosting, equipment, a little bit of advertising to promote the
Break: show, and maybe every once in a while some much-needed sedatives for Yvonne.
Break: At different contribution levels, you can get a mention on the show,
Break: our Curmudgeon's Corner postcard, or even a Curmudgeon's Corner mug.
Break: Fun stuff. Not fun.
Break: In any case, the contributions help tell us that you enjoy and appreciate the
Break: show. I really, really hate curmudgeon's corner!
Break: Are we worth a buck a month? No!
Break: Five bucks a month? No! Or if you are nuts about us, maybe even more?
Break: 100 billion! Billion dollars!
Break: Even though you don't have anywhere near a billion dollars!
Break: If we're worth anything to you at all, send it our way at patreon.com slash
Break: curmudgeon's corner. Alex hates, really, really hates, Carmudgeons Corner!
Break: That's really mean, isn't it? But I hate Carmudgeons Corner. But I really do!
Sam: Okay, so before we move on, though, like since that was about the Patreon and
Sam: everything like that, have you received the postcards yet?
Ivan: I actually, I got back from my trip and I just grabbed the envelope from the mail yesterday.
Sam: There you go. So this is, we owe a couple people postcards and I have.
Ivan: I just showed, for those of you not watching that video, I showed Sam the envelope on video.
Sam: Yes. Yeah, and I put my little tiny notes on the postcards, and now they're
Sam: with Yvonne to put his notes.
Ivan: What was I supposed to put on these postcards?
Sam: Just a little note saying thank you or whatever.
Ivan: Oh, okay, right. Okay, yeah, that's it. Okay, all right, got it.
Sam: You know, or you can do something more creative. You can do whatever you want with them.
Ivan: I could, you know, apply on it like some glue.
Sam: Sure, sure. That would work well in the mail on a postcard.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: You know, just put glue on it, stick it in the mailbox, see what else attaches
Sam: to it on the way. Right. You know?
Sam: Now, if you do anything interesting with them, take a picture.
Sam: Okay. And share before you.
Ivan: Like, I'll see what I, I'll see what my creativity brings to.
Sam: Or you can do what I did and give a very. Which my creativity sucks.
Sam: My, my, mine was very boring. Maybe I'll get. It was like, thank you for listening.
Ivan: In order to make it make it even more boring maybe I'll get chat GPT to write what I'm going to say.
Sam: There you go exciting stuff anyway because we mentioned the Patreon and at various
Sam: levels you get various things one of those levels is a postcard and we owed
Sam: a couple people a postcard for like months.
Ivan: It's a very nice postcard yeah it's good you've got a picture of us you know
Ivan: and stuff it's nice yeah I mean I don't know if that's actually nice now that
Ivan: I think about it but you know it is what it is.
Sam: Okay von so start us out what newsy thing do you want to talk about first this
Sam: week there's been lots going on.
Ivan: You know as i i was checking my apple news app on the computer yeah and the
Ivan: first headline there grabbed grabbed right now.
Sam: This very second.
Ivan: As we're recording yeah you know because i i
Ivan: did mention some stuff different stuff on
Ivan: i said you know in this in
Ivan: the topics we put down to tariffs i put
Ivan: down about jobs more epstein i i
Ivan: said more stuff about reshoring you know uh job reshoring but i was looking
Ivan: at the economic stuff but then here's the thing uh this headline from nbc news
Ivan: summed it up tariffs alarming job numbers and a high-profile firing a wild week for the economy,
Ivan: And that, I think, from the economic side, is what summed up this week. This week was insane.
Ivan: You know, this week was insane. And the whole thing is, the main problem with
Ivan: it is, it's all self-inflicted.
Ivan: The entire reason the week was wild, it's not because, you know,
Ivan: certain things happened that they had to react to.
Ivan: No, this is all due to the policies of disadministration.
Sam: Isn't that pretty much true for everything since January 20th?
Ivan: Yeah, but look, I will tell you that outside of the financial crisis, Or like this,
Ivan: you know, because the dot-com implosion was an impact back in the early 2000s.
Ivan: But what really triggered more, you know, economic issues in that downturn,
Ivan: early 2000, 2001, was September 11th.
Ivan: Okay, so that was a huge, huge external shock, okay, we had.
Ivan: And also the Enron and WorldCom financial scandals, okay?
Ivan: That happened where massive fraud was uncovered on two of the darlings of the
Ivan: stock market at the time.
Ivan: You know, and so those things were things that the administration had to react
Ivan: that were external factors, okay? Okay.
Ivan: Everything that just happened this week, the tariffs are self-imposed.
Sam: Okay? Yes.
Ivan: They're the ones that started this wild ride with the global economy with the stupid tariffs, okay?
Ivan: The job numbers are a result of the tariffs, okay?
Ivan: And the dope bullshit.
Sam: Before moving on from that, like explain a little bit more why jobs are.
Ivan: Well, what I'm saying, well, what I'm saying is that when I'm reading,
Ivan: I'm going first just through the headline of the things that happened.
Ivan: We can get the details about that later. But we're talking about job numbers
Ivan: and the firing is also a result of this administration,
Ivan: the way it handles everything, where the only thing that matters is loyalty.
Ivan: And so, and they don't want to hear bad news. So how do they deal with bad news?
Sam: The, they fire the person coming up with the numbers.
Ivan: Right? Or like, what happened to Tulsi?
Ivan: What happened to Tulsi? She went and she said, Hey, Iran's not a threat. What happened then?
Sam: They started distancing her and then she went and produced like a report on,
Sam: Russia or something to like said what they.
Ivan: Wanted to hear.
Sam: Yes. So she learned her lesson.
Ivan: Right. She was like, what am I talking about? Wait, I'm supposed to produce
Ivan: actual information? No, I just got to say whatever the fuck they want to hear.
Sam: And I presume, I mean, they've, you know, the replacement at,
Sam: what's it called? The BLS, Bureau of Labor and Statistics.
Sam: The replacement is, of course, going to be like, okay, we got the message. Only good numbers.
Ivan: So, yeah, I mean, you know, and the whole thing that happened is that,
Ivan: you know, the last few months that I've talked about job numbers coming out,
Ivan: a couple of times we had had in advance ADP that does a report on private sector jobs.
Sam: ADP is that payroll company that processes tons of paychecks.
Ivan: Which is the largest processor of payroll in the United States. Okay.
Ivan: I mean, they do payroll for so many companies.
Ivan: As a matter of fact, I was just literally talking to a customer this week that
Ivan: did a product that competed with ADP this week.
Ivan: And basically, they told me that they were exiting the business.
Sam: Because there's no point in competing.
Ivan: Yes. And basically, you know, handing it over to ADP.
Ivan: They made some agreement with them related to that.
Ivan: So that's how big they are in this space. And the reality is that it's a space
Ivan: that is consolidated and it's a space that margins are thin.
Ivan: OK, it's payroll processing. You want to talk about the dullest fucking thing that there is.
Ivan: This is basically just you get these files, you calculate the pay,
Ivan: you take out the taxes, you you set you submit the fucking paychecks.
Ivan: And then you people get W-2s, okay?
Ivan: Basically all there is. And so they have, because they have so many customers, okay?
Ivan: They have been doing, for the last few years, I wonder how long it's been. It's been a few years.
Ivan: This private jobs report that kind of like, that comes out usually just before
Ivan: the government labor report.
Ivan: OK, and the last few months, the report from ADP was that this economy, the jobs market was bad.
Ivan: OK, that's what they had been reporting the last couple of months.
Ivan: Now, remember that the one thing is they only track private sector.
Ivan: OK, but a couple of times the report had come out the last couple of months from the government.
Ivan: The one thing that always stood out to me is like, huh, they're showing a lot
Ivan: of public sector hiring in this report.
Ivan: That masked the bad private sector jobs report okay.
Sam: Well and wait a second let me just ask a question there a lot of public sector
Sam: hiring isn't like trump like firing everybody at the well but you gotta remember listen.
Ivan: But but part of it part of this was,
Ivan: You got to remember that they do this. You remember, it's not just federal government.
Sam: There's also state and local.
Ivan: Right. So who knows, right? I mean, exactly where the data is coming from.
Ivan: But one of the things about these reports is that first they do some statistical analysis.
Ivan: They do some stuff. And then usually then later, these reports get corrected
Ivan: when all the data actually comes in.
Ivan: So you get a preliminary number. And then later, when all the information comes
Ivan: in, they do a corrected number, okay?
Ivan: So the last, this report, they issued corrections for the last couple of months.
Ivan: And those corrections eliminated a lot of the supposed job gains the last couple of months.
Ivan: Were really we just had with this report now the worst three-month stretch for
Ivan: job creation since take a guess sam.
Sam: Pandemic era trump's last administration who.
Ivan: Was president then sam.
Sam: Well apparently biden because every time you yeah every time you hear about
Sam: that stuff it's always biden you know these days but or obama yeah like no it
Sam: was uh it was donald trump but it was.
Ivan: Donald trump so right now we just had.
Sam: But wait no wait wait yvonne what i have i have heard that these numbers were
Sam: made up by a democratic appointed yeah person who was out to make the trump
Sam: administration look bad and so these are all bullshit.
Ivan: Now yeah sure uh-huh right and so the one thing is yes that's exactly what they
Ivan: said and they proceeded to fire this person who by the way that position actually
Ivan: requires senate confirmation and.
Sam: I believe i saw that this is
Sam: one of the people who's converted but converted confirmed by
Sam: like 80 something votes it was a it was
Sam: a bipartisan everybody was like yeah they're good
Sam: because this is one of those positions that is intended
Sam: to be a technocrat intended to be
Sam: somebody who's not political who you're
Sam: hiring them because they're actually an expert in the
Sam: field and they know what they're doing and blah blah blah and so anyway it was
Sam: 80 some votes which isn't like marco rubio's 97 or whatever the hell he got
Sam: but you know it's still pretty good and uh i i've seen a bunch of comments from
Sam: previous office holders of that job,
Sam: from republican administrations including donald trump's first term talking
Sam: about how bad this is and how this is the wrong thing to do and how this person
Sam: is good and blah blah blah yeah so anyway now.
Ivan: Now the the numbers with the corrections by the way the numbers what they did
Ivan: to kind of match what ADP was publishing. Okay, by the way.
Sam: Right. So what you had, let me make sure I got this right.
Sam: What you had was the private company's numbers that they put out originally
Sam: months ago were actually closer to right than the original government estimates.
Ivan: Correct. Yes.
Sam: So if anything, the government was erring in the direction that made it look better first.
Sam: And then corrected it later.
Ivan: Yes. Yes.
Ivan: And one of the things that what I've observed happened with this and why this
Ivan: happens frequently is because some of those statistical assumptions,
Ivan: you know, are based on trends. And the trend had been good on jobs, right?
Ivan: Well, because we had, you know, when Trump took over, you know,
Ivan: we had had a good job trend, okay? There had been good job creation.
Ivan: All of this shit started happening because, you know, we have a psychopath in the White House.
Ivan: And so, you know, now all of a sudden, as all the data that they collect came
Ivan: in and they made the adjustments, they realized, oh, shit, we're doing bad. Like, really bad.
Sam: Yeah, okay. But at the same time, didn't we have good GDP numbers and stuff like that going on?
Ivan: Okay, the GDP number, okay, was also inflated in large part due to the wild
Ivan: swings we've had in trade because imports dropped a lot and imports,
Ivan: you know, imports dropped by an inordinate amount.
Ivan: And imports are a negative on trade.
Ivan: But when all of a sudden you've had an artificially low import number,
Ivan: basically it was a result of a whole bunch of companies going and front-loading inventory, okay,
Ivan: in the earlier months.
Ivan: They front-loaded inventory because of the worry about the tariffs,
Ivan: and then when the tariffs were announced, then they stopped importing shit.
Ivan: But this is just one of these statistical, you know,
Ivan: one of these events that is causing the statistical numbers to show poor ported
Ivan: strength when what it is,
Ivan: it's just showing the wild swings being caused by this trade war.
Sam: So, cause I'll tell you, this is, this is one of those things.
Sam: And we've talked about this before in terms of like timelines and in terms of
Sam: worst case scenario talk and stuff like that.
Sam: But the, the impression for the person who's not into it on a day-to-day basis,
Sam: I think is continuing to be.
Sam: All of these people have been playing chicken little, saying the sky is falling
Sam: since the day Donald Trump was sworn in, but we're not seeing the collapse yet.
Sam: And so they're full of shit. We're seeing some good numbers here.
Sam: We're seeing some good numbers there. Even where we see bad numbers, they're not that bad.
Sam: And so.
Ivan: I don't know what the hell they're. Listen, I don't know what the hell they're watching.
Ivan: But this week, anybody, almost any company that deals with imports, hard products and shit,
Ivan: starting announcing multi-billion dollar hits from tariffs in their bottom line.
Ivan: The last one to announce, yes, it was Berkshire Hathaway, Ford,
Ivan: GM, Stellantis, some company that imports a lot of stuff and sells it online.
Ivan: You know, all of them all of a sudden said, we're getting hit one after the
Ivan: other. OK, one after the other.
Ivan: The companies that didn't get hit are cloud providers.
Ivan: OK, people that sell software because they're not tariffed. It's not product.
Ivan: It's not copper. There's no steel in it, whatever. So they're not getting hit by this shit.
Sam: Basically, service companies are doing fine.
Ivan: Correct. Service companies are doing fine. And Apple, in large part,
Ivan: people believe, even though some are saying, eh, it's not really.
Ivan: Some people are front-loading iPhone purchases.
Ivan: Now, in Apple's case, they actually had good China numbers. There were a whole
Ivan: bunch of other things in it. And some people are saying, well,
Ivan: actually, the carriers were getting pretty aggressive with deals.
Ivan: So there's more than that. But most every other company that has to import something,
Ivan: starting announcing that we're getting substantial profit hits. Okay.
Ivan: And Sam, let me tell you something.
Ivan: I've been working in corporate America for 30 years. You know,
Ivan: around there, almost. Getting closer.
Ivan: I've never seen any company I've worked at where they get a $2,
Ivan: $3 billion hit in the bottom line.
Ivan: And they just say, we're good. We're not going to take any action.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: They're going to do something. Whether it's layoffs, whether it's price increases,
Ivan: they're going to do something to offset losing billions.
Ivan: They're not going to just sit on their fucking hands and do nothing.
Ivan: And, you know, I don't understand who the hell thinks they're just going to sit.
Ivan: You know, so, yeah, they're saying, well, I haven't seen the implosion.
Ivan: Well, you know, this happens in stages.
Ivan: OK, this isn't just, you know, you know, people have like I've said this before.
Ivan: Delayed effects. OK, on things people just cannot understand.
Ivan: They cannot.
Ivan: You know, it's just, it's 90 plus percent of the people are incapable of grasping
Ivan: that when you do something in April, they think, oh, nothing blew up.
Ivan: And then six months later, kaboom.
Ivan: Oh, well, that couldn't have been what happened in April.
Ivan: And I'm like, fuck, Jesus Christ, idiot, fucking moron.
Sam: You know, it's amazing our species ever figured out, like, how pregnancy works.
Ivan: Yes! You're like, how the fuck did this happen? Wait a minute.
Ivan: How come you're having a baby? What the fuck? Whoa!
Ivan: Nah, it couldn't have been that. Come on. No. What? Wait, what? No.
Ivan: No, no, no. That's impossible. Look at that, of course, the baby.
Ivan: What are you talking about?
Sam: Yeah, exactly.
Ivan: So, another thing that came out, two things, wait, wait. Powell also announced
Ivan: that they're not cutting rates.
Sam: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Ivan: You know, yet. But here's the problem, Sam.
Ivan: PCE, which is the, oh, God, it's a whole set.
Ivan: PCE is, uh, the PCE is the Personal Consumption Expenditure.
Ivan: Let's see. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait. Let's see.
Ivan: In inflation. Hold on. Let me get...
Ivan: Okay. Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index. Okay. All right.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: So the PCE is known for capturing inflation or deflation,
Ivan: across a range of products that people buy. Okay? That is rising.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: It hit like 2.7. Okay? It's going in the wrong direction.
Ivan: And so you've got declining jobs and you've got prices going up.
Ivan: So the Fed is caught in a pickle because if you loosen rates,
Ivan: it's going to spur inflation.
Ivan: The problem right now, specifically in the one market that could be heavily
Ivan: influenced by lower rates is housing. Okay?
Ivan: Housing demand has been constrained because of high rates.
Ivan: Housing demand has also suffered from low inventory.
Ivan: And so, if you go with a Greenspanian lowering of rates, okay,
Ivan: that fucker would ignite inflation in a way that we haven't seen since the 1970s.
Sam: Oh, that sounds fun.
Ivan: That's the problem. And that's the pickle that you're caught in between.
Ivan: So this is why Jay Powell is sitting there with his moron in the White House
Ivan: and his idiotic advisors yelling at him to cut rates.
Ivan: And I'm like, ah, so what the fuck are my choices?
Ivan: Hey, I unleash inflation like we haven't seen in decades.
Ivan: Or, you know, if I don't do that because he's not cutting tariffs,
Ivan: which, by the way, the tariffs are what's causing the employment problems.
Ivan: Nothing else. There's nothing else.
Sam: Okay, connect the dots right there. Is it because the higher prices cost less
Sam: sales, cause less revenue, cause sales?
Ivan: How can you, as a company, decide to invest right now in a project given the
Ivan: uncertainty created by this?
Ivan: You are going to hold off on any investment decisions that would be affected
Ivan: by these tariffs right now.
Ivan: Yeah, you know, nobody is going to rush to go and reshore manufacturing because
Ivan: of the policy uncertainty.
Ivan: Because what happens if in six months he changes the tariff again?
Ivan: And then you spent you're in the middle of spending billions to build this manufacturing
Ivan: plant that all of a sudden you're going to have to shove up your ass.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Nobody with this much uncertainty is willing to invest and spend.
Ivan: If you've got your copper with a 50% tariff, if you've got tariffs on steel,
Ivan: if you got tariffs on your products, the first thing you're going to do as it
Ivan: hits your bottom line is hold back hiring.
Ivan: Because that's the one thing you can control the fastest.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: You're going to say, uh-uh-uh.
Ivan: We don't know what the fuck is going on. All non-essential hiring. You freeze.
Ivan: You delay. You do whatever. That's the first fucking thing you're going to do.
Ivan: And until there is, and right now, the tariffs at where they are,
Ivan: this week, based on this Friday, are only one-third less than the Liberation Day tariff number.
Ivan: So it's still a ridiculously high tariff level.
Sam: Well, and just on how this is being spun again, like, there's a lot, I mean,
Sam: look, people are talking about how much better it is than those Liberation Day
Sam: numbers, as opposed to how much worse it was than where we started.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: And it's like, wait a second here.
Sam: This is sort of your classic bait and switch. Like, you know,
Sam: we're going to charge you like $100 for this thing that's normally worth $5.
Ivan: So I switched you from a catastrophe to a disaster.
Sam: We're going to cut it to $80. Now you're happy, right?
Ivan: Exactly. I mean, that's pretty much it.
Sam: Well, and look, a lot of these countries are sort of, it does seem like there's
Sam: a rush of these people to at least give verbal agreement to these sort of letters
Sam: of like, okay, you're at 15 or whatever.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: You know, just to like get Trump off their backs and make it not 25.
Ivan: Right. And none of these are any actual trade deals.
Ivan: Nothing that's been agreed to has been a trade deal. A trade deal is usually
Ivan: a 2,000-page document, okay?
Ivan: The UK framework that they agreed to recently and framework with Japan,
Ivan: Korea is less than 20 pages.
Ivan: It's just a framework. It's just, it's just a, I said, it's basically a letter of intent.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: And as I explained to people, like.
Sam: With some things in, by the way, like the EU one has, they've already admitted
Sam: some of the things that the EU promised to do isn't like actually.
Ivan: That's never going to happen. It's not just the EU. All of them, yes.
Ivan: All of them. Look, going back, going back to the trade deals that he made back
Ivan: in his first term, all of these were, you know, Trump said, well,
Ivan: the deal with Japan includes a 500 billion dollar down payment.
Ivan: And everybody was like, down payment.
Ivan: The fuck is he talking about this so-called agreement?
Ivan: OK, letter that makes this commitment has nothing,
Ivan: nothing, nothing to make sure that that that that that headline number that
Ivan: they committed to investing happens or doesn't include shit that they were already
Ivan: going to do or whatever. It's just bullshit.
Sam: Mm-hmm. I mean, and this goes to, look, this is Trump's regular MO on all kinds of things.
Sam: First of all, he cares about the optics, not the substance, number one.
Sam: So he wants to be able to wave the piece of paper around and say,
Sam: look, we have a deal. It doesn't actually matter what the deal is.
Sam: And and then second you know on tariffs specifically donald trump just wants
Sam: tariffs like he doesn't care if the end result is just every place in the world
Sam: has 15 he just wants the tariffs you know and then average.
Ivan: Effective tariff that we had went from somewhere between zero and two percent
Ivan: to 18 it's basically like they just added an 18 sales tax.
Sam: Right i mean the But other people pointed out, like, most coverage still does
Sam: not cover it that way. You hear it occasionally.
Sam: But, like, this is the biggest tax increase ever that I remember.
Ivan: Ever.
Sam: You know, like, the world where Republicans were anti-tax, I mean.
Ivan: Listen, Republicans right now stand for nothing.
Ivan: Nothing, nothing, Sam, nothing.
Ivan: They don't even stand against pedophilia. Nothing.
Ivan: They don't even stand.
Sam: Yeah. I mean, and, and look in this particular case, again, Trump somehow manages
Sam: to finagle this messaging.
Sam: I mean, I'm sure the vast majority of people in this country still think like China pays the tariffs.
Ivan: Oh my God. You know, always the dumbest fucking line ever.
Sam: You know, the fact that this is fundamentally a tax that Americans pay on goods they purchase,
Sam: yes, if you are paying attention and watching the right channels and reading
Sam: the right sources, you will hear people say that.
Sam: But I don't think it's penetrated to the general public.
Ivan: It's not going to enter their pocketbook.
Sam: Yes. Which, as you said, this is one of those delay factor things.
Ivan: Building and building and building. And companies have delayed it,
Ivan: Sam, but part of it has been.
Sam: Delayed it and phased it. And phased it. Because this is important,
Sam: too, because there is, if you,
Sam: like, let's say you're jumping the price of something from $10 to $20.
Sam: You're doubling the price.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: But if every couple months you increase it by $1.
Sam: So it takes you 10 months or a year to do that doubling and,
Sam: people sort of acclimatize to it. Now, that's still a pretty fast increase.
Sam: They'll probably notice that.
Ivan: Listen, they'll start noticing it. Because that was kind of like the price increases
Ivan: that we had a couple of years ago.
Sam: You can, if you spread it out long enough, people notice less.
Sam: Now, they still will eventually notice, but it's different than you double it in one day.
Ivan: Let me tell you something. For the vast majority of MAGA folks,
Ivan: which really are in the lower side of the income spectrum,
Ivan: this is a much bigger hit to their income than it is for folks like ourselves.
Ivan: They have already started noticing it big time, okay?
Ivan: And they will notice it even worse, okay, as this starts going through.
Ivan: There is no way that they're not going to notice the kind of pain that's coming.
Ivan: Okay. Because it's coming.
Sam: It's coming. The one I've started to hear about in the last couple of weeks,
Sam: echoing the eggs thing from before, is beef.
Ivan: Beef.
Sam: You know.
Ivan: Beef is soared.
Sam: Beef is soared. And Donald Trump, just one of the ones he announced was even
Sam: higher tariffs on Brazil.
Ivan: Which is one of the biggest beef exporters to present to the United States.
Sam: Right. And so, yeah, beef prices are going up.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: And, and, and, you know, these are, these are these red meat Americans who like
Sam: beef is like, you know, somehow more macho than like eating chicken or pork or something.
Sam: So like, you know, beef will hit home, I guess. I don't know, but.
Ivan: But yeah, it's a cascade of things like right now between Powell,
Ivan: the whole interest rate mess, between inflation, between the tariffs,
Ivan: between the bad job numbers, and hey, did we forget about Epstein?
Sam: Well, yeah, maybe in the next segment. We're doing econ right now.
Ivan: You know, but by the way, let's be clear about this.
Ivan: Trump right now is trying to flood this, you know, everything with all of this
Ivan: shit in large part to distract.
Sam: Try to move the story along.
Ivan: Yes. He's trying to move the story from the whole Epstein thing.
Ivan: He is determined to try to move the story and which is why this week was wild.
Ivan: And we've got a ballroom, Sam.
Sam: Okay. If we're moving on from econ to everything else, why don't we go ahead and take a break?
Sam: And then when we come back, we'll just do everything else.
Ivan: But, you know, before I would like to just summarize.
Sam: Yeah. Okay. Summarize. Summarize the wild week.
Ivan: I'll summarize the wild week in how I felt about this.
Ivan: And I'm just like, we are being run by the biggest fucking bunch of morons ever
Ivan: put in charge of anything ever.
Ivan: Like somebody yesterday on Bloomberg came on.
Ivan: They asked him, well, Peter Navarro said, well, let me be clear.
Ivan: I've never thought that anything coming out of Peter Navarro's mouth is worth
Ivan: anything because he's just wrong on everything.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: That's it.
Sam: That's it.
Ivan: Fuck Trump. Fuck his people. Fuck them all. I hate them.
Sam: This has been a theme now for like a decade.
Ivan: I didn't realize Hunter Biden felt exactly like I did. Holy shit. Jesus Christ.
Sam: Yeah, yeah. Okay. We talked about him last week. I know, I know.
Ivan: But I'm still like always like just surprised, you know, just like until I heard
Ivan: him. I'm like, shit. I mean, Jesus Christ. I mean, might as well just.
Ivan: You could have AI put my face on him and said, oh. Look at that.
Sam: You should just swap you out. See if Biden will adopt you.
Ivan: I mean, I'd like to hang out with Joe. He's a nice guy. Probably tell somebody, you know what?
Sam: And your family can have hundreds.
Ivan: Let me tell you something. Can you have a hanging out one day with Joe over
Ivan: at the house when he's got the grandkids and whatever and everybody over there
Ivan: cooking or whatever, hanging out with that? Probably a good time.
Ivan: No. I would say it would be a lovely time.
Sam: There was a video clip this week that was going around of him like just dropping
Sam: into some random ice cream shop to get some ice cream. Yeah. So.
Ivan: I mean, that would be a lovely time.
Sam: I would, you know, we could do a reality show with you in Biden's family and Hunter in your family.
Sam: See how the swap worked out.
Ivan: Well, that would be interesting. With my family, I think Hunter might be in for a rude awakening.
Sam: Okay, here comes a break. It's another Apple Dream. Oh!
Sam: Randomly chosen from the 72 currently available Apple Dreams. This is Apple Dream 2.
Sam: Very, very old Apple Dream. Here we go.
Break: Here is a dream for Alex. I've already forgotten most of it.
Break: Mom and I and you were in Mozambique, where Grandma Ruth lived for a number of years.
Break: And I think we were just visiting, but maybe we were living there.
Break: But we needed to go home. Grandma Ruth was there, too.
Break: And we needed to catch the airplane back.
Break: And then we realized we had two different
Break: flights and we were worried about how
Break: to get mom to her flight and then we realized my
Break: flight was only a couple hours after her flight and so we thought that maybe
Break: we should just go to the airport together but then we realized we'd have to
Break: have someone to take care of you because we couldn't just leave you at the airport
Break: while we both left and went back to the United States.
Break: And then I woke up. I think there was more to it than that. But I don't really remember anymore. Bye.
Ivan: So it's not convenient just to leave a child at the airport. It doesn't really work.
Sam: I don't see why not. I mean, you know.
Ivan: We just say, hey, just stay here. And, you know, like ticketing,
Ivan: you know, before security in that area. and says, you know, just wait here and we'll be back.
Sam: We'll be back in a week. Have fun.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: You know? Yeah, just usually like a food court or something.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam: They can eat, their bathroom.
Ivan: In some airports, they're even open 24 hours. I will tell you this.
Ivan: My wife went through Seattle Airport a couple of weeks ago because she went
Ivan: to this thing that she was going to like.
Sam: In Vancouver or wherever.
Ivan: No, no, no. She went back. she met with some people they were going on this
Ivan: thing to the Washington she hates Seattle airport,
Ivan: all the lounges were full all the restaurants were full everything was full
Ivan: everything's under construction she came back she was in a really pissy mood
Ivan: she said I hate this fucking airport.
Sam: I apologize for the people of Seattle.
Ivan: I'll let her know that you're transmitting your apologies. Okay, so very good.
Sam: Okay, so shall we just essentially do a lightning round of all the other crap
Sam: on our list from this week?
Ivan: Sure.
Sam: Okay, one thing I will start with that just, we haven't talked about on the
Sam: show in a long, long time, but just to put it out there, it is still horrible in Gaza.
Ivan: Oh, God.
Sam: You know.
Ivan: It's worse!
Sam: This week.
Ivan: It's worse!
Sam: This week, we're talking a lot about starvation and the fact that Israel hasn't
Sam: let very much food in for a couple months. And so now.
Ivan: Hey, but you know what? I'm sure that Harris would have done much worse.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Look, I am sure that she would have made sure that they got nuked by now. Yeah.
Sam: Yes. Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, Harris probably would have gone out there with a
Ivan: gun herself and started killing babies.
Sam: Probably. Okay. Yeah. So, look, what has seemingly changed this week is a dam
Sam: seems to be breaking in terms of both international and U.S.
Sam: Public opinions on this thing. And I shouldn't say a dam breaking.
Sam: I mean, it's been moving in this direction for a while. It just seems to be accelerating.
Sam: Accelerating we've got a few
Sam: countries now saying they're gonna recognize the
Sam: palestinian authority as a state uh it either right away or in a few months
Sam: depending on what israel does things like that like i you know canada the uk
Sam: i think a couple others and look this is basically a symbolic thing.
Sam: It's not going to make too much of an on the ground difference.
Sam: But it's, it's a step that most of sort of the industrialized Western countries have not done.
Sam: Like a lot of other countries have like, you know, most of sort of the non-aligned third world,
Sam: third world is an outdated concept at this
Sam: point but like most of those non-eu
Sam: not non-us most of those countries have already
Sam: taken this step years ago you know to recognize the
Sam: palestinian state but sort of
Sam: the core western group of countries has not and part of the reason is that they
Sam: have always stated that should be part of a negotiated peace settlement that
Sam: israel takes part in and basically these countries are saying it's absolutely
Sam: clear at this point that Israel has no intention of ever going there,
Sam: And so we're going to go ahead and take this step to try to give a little bit
Sam: more weight to the Palestinian side and also to, you know, basically register our disapproval.
Sam: And we also see like polls of Americans in terms of who do you sympathize more
Sam: with, the Americans or the Israelis,
Sam: are now heavily on the Palestinians or the Israelis, are now very...
Sam: Much tilted towards the Palestinian side being the side that's being sympathized with.
Sam: And look, I think this is, I mean, honestly, I've been there for a long time,
Sam: even before October 7th.
Sam: But when you have something like October 7th specifically, it's like clearly,
Sam: Hamas was in the wrong on what happened in October 7th.
Sam: They made an unprovoked attack on civilians that wasn't even going to really
Sam: make any progress towards their theoretical political goals,
Sam: at least it seems this way. It seems like it's played out this way.
Sam: But then, Israel's response has been so far disproportionate to what happened.
Sam: I mean, I forget the latest totals, but the number of people killed is obscenely high. Yep.
Sam: And like, so like orders of magnitude higher than what Hamas killed on October 7th.
Sam: And a significant portion of those killed have been children.
Sam: It's like, and, and you are, you see these pictures of them basically leveling
Sam: huge parts of the Gaza Strip completely, like no buildings left standing.
Sam: And you know so yeah the sympathy has has
Sam: shifted now has that translated into
Sam: changes of what's happening on the ground no it has
Sam: not yet even in terms of like the u.s congress somebody pointed out that while
Sam: while the like for instance let's talk about democrats for the moment because
Sam: republicans are a whole different story but on the democratic side it's now
Sam: like if you survey Democrats.
Sam: It's like 70% or something are like Israel's gone too far we have to be taking
Sam: harsh actions against Israel to rein them in we should be doing sanctions,
Sam: we shouldn't be selling weapons to them anymore, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah,
Sam: In terms of Democratic people in Congress, it's like only 20% or something have that view.
Sam: And so we still have, you know, we don't have, you know, majorities even within
Sam: Democrats, let alone overall, to like change policy.
Sam: And Donald Trump is certainly not going to change policy. You joked about Kamala
Sam: Harris, but I suspect at this point she would have shifted some.
Sam: I mean, even, you know, the whole thing against Biden was he was he was clearly
Sam: displeased with what Netanyahu was doing, but he was trying to keep it private.
Ivan: He was trying to influence a lot of pressure on them and had been able to like.
Sam: You know, the one that's happened so far. Biden negotiated. Exactly. Hostages. Exactly.
Ivan: And he had been able to pressure him to stop some of the most vicious stuff
Ivan: and just, you know, to stop a lot of these things to try to,
Ivan: like, make this more targeted, what they were trying to do.
Ivan: He really did put a lot of pressure. But let's be clear about this.
Ivan: Once Biden is gone, Netanyahu has basically done whatever the fuck he's wanted to do.
Ivan: And Trump has done absolutely nothing to stop him from being completely,
Ivan: completely, you know, unconcerned for the lives of anybody living there at all.
Sam: Now, to be clear, in just in the last couple of weeks, Donald Trump has,
Sam: for instance, said, oh, yeah, there are obviously people starving there and that's bad.
Sam: Wait, wait, wait. I just want to say this, which Netanyahu to this day is denying.
Sam: He's saying that it's a lie and people aren't starving.
Sam: So Trump has gone against him in that sense, but he's not doing anything.
Sam: But he has sort of...
Ivan: But you know what?
Sam: He's expressed some displugged.
Ivan: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what? That had to meet the sound of the
Ivan: standard Trump thing that happens, that he listens to the last person to talk to him.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Where he must have talked to somebody and whatever, and they said that,
Ivan: and all of a sudden he said that, then three days later, like, forget it.
Sam: Well and the key is as far as we have seen he's not actually putting pressure
Sam: on netanyahu to change anything other than verbally saying like yeah this kind of sucks and.
Ivan: That he sent food.
Sam: Yes and oh because nobody had thanked him for the food nobody.
Ivan: Thanked him for the food because i mean he's just never thanked enough for everything he does for us.
Sam: Okay anyway gaza is horrible. It continues to be horrible. Next up, you pick one.
Ivan: Well, I was gonna, well, I forgot one thing.
Ivan: Well, one thing to cover on the, on the tariff side that I forgot to mention.
Sam: Which is very important.
Ivan: You know, Trump is very good at making foreign politicians be popular. That hate him.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And so in Brazil, you know, this whole thing, the row with Brazil and like with
Ivan: Bolsonaro and him trying to impose serious, you know, higher tariffs on Brazil
Ivan: because they're prosecuting him.
Ivan: The president of Brazil, Lula, whose popularity wasn't that great.
Ivan: He actually is now over 50% popularity, thanks to Trump.
Sam: Nice.
Ivan: I mean, so Lula is thanking Trump because he stood up to him and basically said, fuck you.
Ivan: You know, you want to do these tariffs? Let's go. Come on. And his popularity is soared.
Ivan: So there you go. All right. So next subject on this.
Ivan: And by the way, he also blinked on some of the Brazil tariffs.
Sam: Of course.
Ivan: Yeah. You know, we buy airplanes from Brazil and shit like that.
Ivan: And all of a sudden, oh shit. Yeah. Well, anyway.
Sam: Just on that, since you mentioned the exemptions on certain things,
Sam: another report came out this week that i believe you forwarded around on the
Sam: curmudgeon's corner slack about how you know there are all kinds of exemptions
Sam: for one thing or another or another and yeah what what what is there rhyme or
Sam: reason behind the exemptions no oh what's what's going on i'm.
Ivan: Sure that what i said is like listen take take take a you know cross a list
Ivan: of donors to trump versus those exemptions And I am sure that that will answer your question.
Sam: Yes. And this is something that we said from the very beginning,
Sam: by the way. It's like, don't even watch the tariffs. Watch the exemptions.
Sam: Anyway, go ahead. Okay.
Ivan: More Trump Epstein, Sam. So what, you know, so this week, Trump trying to tamp
Ivan: down the issues with Epstein went and said, what was it that he said?
Ivan: He said that Epstein stole Virginia.
Ivan: And I'm sorry.
Sam: How do you say her last name?
Ivan: And I feel bad because this year, you know, they mentioned that she committed
Ivan: suicide this year. And I know that a lot of this stems from the abuse,
Ivan: the abuse that she was subjected to by these monsters.
Sam: And by the way, not just the original abuse, ongoing abuse.
Ivan: Ongoing, ongoing, yes.
Sam: Um like you know the original physical
Sam: abuse happened you know decades ago but on
Sam: an ongoing basis anybody who does this kind of
Sam: thing and goes up and
Sam: again sort of quote goes public goes up
Sam: against powerful people whatever they're getting
Sam: death threats all the time they're getting you know
Sam: their motivations questioned they're getting this that this
Sam: is why like it you know lots of people never
Sam: come forward because when they do it's
Sam: it's it's an incredible act of
Sam: bravery to actually come forward in one of these cases especially when the perpetrator
Sam: is famous but honestly even when they're not because all kinds of people will
Sam: just impugn your own motives and and try to say you're you're just making it
Sam: up you're out to get them money like trying to ruin this money something.
Ivan: Whatever blah blah blah yeah.
Sam: So uh but.
Ivan: But then this fucking trump monster goes and says that epstein stole her from her from him.
Sam: Yes,
Sam: I mean, to be honest, like if you listen to the video clip on Air Force One,
Sam: you know, he says they were asking him, what was the origin of your beef with
Sam: Epstein that caused you to sort of break up his friends?
Sam: Now, there have been various stories in the past about what was responsible for this.
Sam: In some cases, Trump was saying it was just because he was a creep.
Sam: In other cases, and the one that seems to be the most collaborated with additional
Sam: evidence from other people— Corroborate.
Ivan: Corroborate.
Sam: Well, it was actually that it was a real estate beef. There was a property that
Sam: Epstein was trying to buy, and Trump found out about it.
Ivan: And then Trump went and bought it.
Sam: Trump went and bought it at a
Sam: higher price, but Epstein was mad that Trump bought it out from under him.
Sam: But Trump was mad that he had to pay more because Epstein was bidding on it in the first place.
Sam: Blah blah blah that seems to be like the stuff that is the most evidence for
Sam: the actual reason of their breakup but this time donald trump said it was because
Sam: he was poaching people from mar-a-lago,
Sam: and you know he was he was stealing my
Sam: employees but no he didn't volunteer the virginia thing at
Sam: first someone on the plane one of
Sam: the reporters asked him was one of
Sam: these people virginia and he's like i'm not
Sam: sure i think yeah probably yeah i think so
Sam: yes it was that that's sort of the way he said
Sam: it you know so it wasn't sort of him coming out and definitely saying like i
Sam: broke up with him because he stole virginia gillif gillif whatever fuck anyway
Sam: he wasn't saying it was specifically because he stole that woman.
Sam: He was talking about a pattern of him stealing.
Sam: Jiffrey. Jiffrey. Jiffrey. And then when asked if she was one of them,
Sam: he said, yes, I sort of think so, probably.
Sam: The timing does not line up. If you look at this, like they continued to be
Sam: friends for years after this supposed incident.
Sam: So it doesn't really make sense.
Ivan: But the problem is that I think that everything, you know, everything that he says is a lie.
Ivan: So I'm sure that that and remember that that Trump has had this thing where
Ivan: he has beefs with people's pissed off about something.
Ivan: Then he goes back and his friends with him and then he goes back to being pissed.
Ivan: So God only knows if he was pissed about that. But then he came back or whatever.
Ivan: Then he was pissed. You know, but but but but.
Sam: And the other thing about it that got people, like Virginia Gilliff, say it again?
Ivan: Jeffrey. Jeffrey.
Sam: Virginia Jeffrey. Her family came out and said the thing that disturbed them
Sam: most about this whole thing is how he was basically describing her as if she was property. Right.
Ivan: That was stolen. Yes. That's the way that he described it. Yes.
Sam: And so, like, if you were.
Ivan: Which goes back to the whole sex trafficking.
Sam: Yes. And just to be clear, Virginia herself had repeatedly said that she was
Sam: not abused by Donald Trump herself.
Sam: You know, she had been asked that question multiple times.
Sam: She had named other people, most notably not just Epstein himself,
Sam: but Prince Andrew from the UK.
Sam: So she had named other names, but she was asked about and said specifically,
Sam: I never had those kinds of interactions with Donald Trump himself.
Sam: But she was recruited from Mar-a-Lago. She was working at the spa in Mar-a-Lago
Sam: at first, and that's where Epstein and Maxwell recruited her,
Sam: where Maxwell met her. And,
Sam: Which brings up the question. Now, I've heard some conflicting reports on exactly
Sam: what she was doing at the spa.
Sam: Like, I mean, she might have just been a front desk attendant or whatever.
Sam: But the bottom line is, why are you hiring teenagers for that anyway?
Ivan: Well, why is he buying beauty pageants with, like, teenagers?
Ivan: Why is he hanging out and, like, going and, like, oogling them one day or,
Ivan: like, changing their clothes?
Ivan: You know, as everybody has mentioned publicly. why is
Ivan: he going and having parties where all of a sudden he invited
Ivan: people like you know luther campbell from two live crew that he showed up where
Ivan: he was so he was like he saw these girls he saw they were half naked he saw
Ivan: that they were like so young and he realized what the fuck is this thing and
Ivan: decided to turn around and leave right.
Sam: Yeah it's not like there isn't a chain of circumstantial evidence around Donald
Sam: Trump liking his girls young too.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: And apparently the deal he made with Ivanka at some point when she was growing
Sam: up was that he would, from that point forward, never date anyone younger than she was.
Sam: And he talked about on Howard Stern or something, how this was a big sacrifice
Sam: because as Ivanka aged, you know, he was shutting himself out from a huge part
Sam: of his potential market.
Sam: So,
Sam: okay. So, yes.
Ivan: Oh, and let's not forget, what happened this week to Ghislaine Maxwell?
Sam: I was going to go there next. So she got transferred to- To Club Fed! To Club Fed.
Sam: And apparently they had to put in special override exemption,
Sam: whatever, because she wasn't actually eligible for the nicer,
Sam: lower security prison. because she's a sex offender.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, those facilities are basically intended for like white collar criminals, et cetera.
Sam: And being a sex offender is not considered part of that, which by the way,
Sam: I just want to also put out there, a lot of people are making sure they point
Sam: this out, but I want to be one of them.
Sam: There, a lot of the coverage of Maxwell talks about her sort of facilitating
Sam: Epstein and like recruiting girls for Epstein and delivering them to him and
Sam: to the other men in that circle.
Sam: And that is absolutely true. That happened. She was convicted of that.
Sam: But it's also important to note, she also directly molested these girls.
Ivan: Yes. Yes.
Sam: Like it is part of the evidence on record in the trial.
Sam: Yes. There are plenty of witnesses who have testified to this that very often
Sam: she would actually be the first one to molest these girls.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: And sort of warm them up for Epstein or whatever.
Sam: And, you know, so her, her whole modus operandi was that she would go searching
Sam: in, you know, lower income areas,
Sam: people with, you know, single parents, troubled teens who were like in trouble
Sam: for other things already.
Sam: She would befriend them. She would talk to them about how she thought they could
Sam: be models and she was going to hook them up with like modeling agencies and
Sam: maybe Hollywood and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And you fill their heads with like how she's going to make them like an amazing
Sam: success and help them out in their careers and help them out financially and all this kind of stuff.
Sam: And then she would molest them herself and then she would deliver them to Epstein
Sam: and then she would deliver them to other men that were in that same circle.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: You know, so she is, Yo,
Sam: All of this, there appears, we seem to be sort of working our way up to some
Sam: sort of Donald Trump pardon or
Sam: commutation of Maxwell in exchange for presumably her, at the very least,
Sam: saying Donald Trump had nothing to do with this.
Sam: And perhaps also, while she's at it, pointing the finger at some Democrats, you know.
Sam: And we had a situation where I can't remember if this happened by the time we talked last week or not,
Sam: but high up officials from the DOJ interviewed her alone, which,
Sam: by the way, is completely nonstandard in any sort of way as well.
Sam: They gave her limited immunity to do so normally if
Sam: you were going to interview somebody like this
Sam: you would make sure the people interviewing her were
Sam: people that were intimately familiar with all the details of her case already
Sam: so that they could do things like catch her in any lies know the right places
Sam: to ask questions all this kind of stuff oh by the way they fired the person
Sam: who would have met that criteria.
Sam: Jim Comey's daughter, who happened to be the one prosecuting both Epstein and
Sam: Maxwell, they fired her a couple weeks ago.
Sam: She would have been perfect for that if you were actually going to do this in
Sam: a good faith sort of way, which they are clearly not.
Sam: Instead, they bring up one of the Donald Trump cronies, I forget which one, to do the interview.
Sam: The interview, there's no record right now in terms of where their notes on
Sam: the interview was there a recording was there anything it was it just him in
Sam: a room with her, you know, we don't know those details.
Sam: Now, maybe there, maybe there are all, you know, all that we just don't know. And.
Sam: You know, and this is all put in the thing of, we're going to get to the bottom of it.
Sam: But come on, you know, and clearly the.
Ivan: We're going to get to the bottom of it. And somebody shared with me a meme that
Ivan: showed, you know, he's going to get to the bottom of it.
Ivan: And they showed OJ on a picture on the side said, yeah, I'm going to find the killers.
Sam: Yep. look there
Sam: there is no public evidence of direct wrongdoing by
Sam: donald trump at this point but he continues to act guilty you know and you know
Sam: this whole movement moving her to the low security federal facility blah blah
Sam: blah i mean it it just looks like a proof of good faith essentially look Maxwell.
Sam: You know, we're going to give you this right now just to show you if you can
Sam: give us more, maybe we'll give you more too.
Sam: You know, and who knows? This is just speculation. We don't know what's happening,
Sam: but it all looks bad and it's all keeping things in the news.
Sam: So like, if the goal is to make this disappear, Donald Trump is doing it exactly
Sam: the wrong way. There's also been, by the way, a congressional subpoena for more
Sam: of the materials that apparently have to be delivered by the 15th.
Sam: We'll see if that actually happens.
Sam: But yeah, we're 100% Streisand affecting this.
Sam: Where Donald Trump himself is keeping this in the news more than anybody else. Yeah.
Sam: Like if he had just shut the fuck up and been quiet, like, I'm not saying it
Sam: would have blown over completely because a lot of MAGA folks were upset.
Ivan: A lot of MAGA folks are still upset. Let's be clear about this.
Ivan: All of this is distracting from we don't listen to this whole thing.
Ivan: What was the whole purpose of how this all started? How did this all start?
Ivan: What was the main thing? There were, because this administration was going to?
Sam: Release all the files.
Ivan: That's right. Where the fuck are the files, Sam?
Sam: No, no, but my point is just that Donald Trump has made this worse.
Sam: Right. You know, if he had been quiet, it wouldn't have gone away completely.
Sam: But by the fact that he himself keeps talking about it and keeps saying more things.
Ivan: On and on and on.
Sam: You know, it's keeping it alive. It's giving more fuel to the fire.
Sam: It's making him look more and more guilty, even to some of his own supporters.
Sam: I mean, you know, we don't see like him, you know, we have not yet reached the
Sam: magical moment where all of MAGA suddenly decides Donald Trump is a fraud.
Sam: But we're working on the edges.
Ivan: We're working on the edges.
Sam: You know, so the other thing I will mention on this is that Bruce on our Commudgeons
Sam: Corner Slack left us a comment saying, you guys are missing the whole point of this Epstein thing.
Sam: The real point is people think Epstein was hired by a foreign intelligence service
Sam: to set all these people up, or the CIA, but most people apparently think it's Mossad,
Sam: to set all these people up, gather blackmail evidence, and then manipulate all
Sam: of these important Americans.
Ivan: And look, what I said, and my first reaction is that there hasn't been a single
Ivan: shred of credible evidence to point towards that.
Ivan: I mean, look, the first people that really did a thorough job that exposed Epstein
Ivan: and basically led him to being arrested, okay,
Ivan: back, you know, back in the late 2010s, okay, was the Miami Herald.
Ivan: And they had done a very authoritative, very thorough investigation into Epstein,
Ivan: interviewed so many of the victims, 60, 70 of them.
Ivan: I mean, their investigation, it's one of those things that you rarely still
Ivan: see being done by a local newspaper.
Ivan: OK, and it was extremely authoritative.
Ivan: It was extremely detailed. They gathered the evidence. And during that entire
Ivan: time that they went through and gathered that information, not one single iota
Ivan: shred of evidence came forward that it had anything to do with that.
Ivan: The main thing for Epstein was how this all started was him ingratiating with
Ivan: himself with people with money
Ivan: by providing the girls because a lot of these people liked the girls.
Ivan: And this would give him access to more money because he was one that didn't
Ivan: start with a lot of money.
Ivan: He didn't have that kind of money. But the first guy that he targeted that he
Ivan: was very close relationship with, and there's been a lot of questions about, is Leslie Wexner.
Ivan: Leslie Wexner is the guy that was the owner of the limited.
Ivan: You know, he was he was the driving force of town at Victoria's Secret and all
Ivan: of these other companies.
Ivan: This is where he had ingratiated himself
Ivan: with and through managing some of his money and doing investments
Ivan: getting money with them this is where where his main source of money first came
Ivan: and then he parlayed that into other money and other connections and this entire
Ivan: thing with the girls was a he liked it b it was his way of like sharing with
Ivan: his friends and getting money out of them.
Sam: So there are a couple things here, just to circle back to the foreign intelligence for a second.
Sam: First of all, like, this is an Occam's razor thing. There's a plenty good explanation
Sam: without involving, like, the Mossad.
Sam: Yeah. You know, you don't need it to explain everything that happened here.
Sam: Second, people have pointed out, in a lot of the legal cases so far,
Sam: if there had been an intelligence connection, you would have expected U.S.
Sam: Intelligence to actually intervene in some of those cases to exclude certain
Sam: evidence or to guide it in some way.
Sam: And there's no evidence of that having happened.
Sam: So yeah, I think you've got, you don't need any of that for this to happen.
Sam: This is fairly straightforward.
Sam: There's also fairly limited evidence at this point that there was a specific
Sam: blackmail scheme in place, as opposed to, like you said, Yvonne,
Sam: just him sharing with his friends.
Sam: Now, obviously, given who some of his friends were, there was opportunity for blackmail.
Sam: But it seems like that evidence isn't there.
Sam: Maybe that some of what is in the files that we'll find out if they're all released,
Sam: blah, blah, blah. We don't know.
Sam: The other thing, though, is the financial element. There are several senators,
Sam: I think Senator Schiff was one of them, I could be wrong, who was pushing and
Sam: saying, look, we really do need to do a more thorough investigation of the financial side of this.
Sam: Because there is a lot of question on exactly where, how, when he got his money,
Sam: and was it all above board, et cetera.
Sam: And it's just a, that would be a good place to investigate further.
Sam: And apparently that just has not, like, what has happened so far in the criminal
Sam: trials didn't need that to go after the charges they were specifically going after.
Ivan: Well, plus, let's be clear, though, you know, the only person who went to trial was Ghislaine.
Ivan: I mean, Epstein didn't go to trial. He committed suicide before he got to fucking
Ivan: trial. Well, at least we think he committed suicide.
Ivan: I mean, because even I'm like a little bit. I mean, I always believe that 100 percent.
Ivan: But right now, still, we still don't have clarity on this whole thing about
Ivan: the missing minutes in the video anyway.
Sam: Right. Okay. Well, we are now at the time that you said you needed to stop, Yvonne.
Sam: So let's wrap things up. The only other thing that I will save for another week
Sam: is Kamala Harris has reemerged on her book tour.
Sam: And so there's commentary on that and what her intentions are.
Sam: She's not going to run for a governor in California.
Sam: Maybe she'll run for president, but she says not yet. She's just doing other
Sam: stuff right now. And of course, she's hawking the book.
Sam: And people have reacted to that in various ways.
Sam: Another day. Another day.
Ivan: I'm going to say this. Look, this was like Kabbalah. I'm not fucking reading
Ivan: a book about that damn campaign. I really don't fucking care.
Ivan: I don't want to rehash it right now.
Sam: Yeah. Anyway, we will have plenty of time to talk about election 2028 as things develop.
Sam: We got election 2026 first. So anyway. Okay.
Sam: Curmudgeons-corner.com. You can go there. You can find our archives.
Sam: You can find transcripts. You can, you know, listen to old shows if you want.
Sam: You can find all the ways to contact. That would be our archives.
Sam: I'm being redundant there. I know. I'm sorry. You can find all the ways to contact
Sam: us, except TikTok. I still have not linked TikTok.
Sam: I'm still way behind on posting clips to TikTok. I'm still on the week where my car died.
Sam: Like, I posted one video from that week. I usually post three videos per show.
Sam: I've got two more yet to post. I've got one chosen.
Sam: I'll probably push it out after we're done recording.
Sam: I've told myself I'm going to like put one video out a day until I'm caught
Sam: up, but I haven't been meeting that target.
Sam: Anyway, you can always contact us and of course our Patreon where we can,
Sam: where you can give us money and giving us money is good because at various levels,
Sam: you will get like, you know, mentioned on the show. We will ring a bell.
Sam: You'll get a postcard like Yvonne is working on right now. He's going to do
Sam: something amazingly creative.
Ivan: Woo!
Sam: Like some sort of massive arts and crafts. Oh, yeah.
Ivan: This thing will be worth millions.
Sam: Exactly. Like, you know, it'll be jeweled with diamonds.
Ivan: You know, this whole thing, diamonds are being so devalued now with all these
Ivan: artificial diamonds, you know?
Ivan: So it's not exactly right now. I got to probably need to use like gold leaf.
Sam: There you go. Gold leaf. There you go. Gold leaf. styled yeah yeah got a Donald Trump this is.
Ivan: 20 25 yes you're gonna get a Donald Trump style postcard yes.
Sam: Yeah anyway yeah you get a postcard you can get a
Sam: mug you can get like stuff you know it's fun but
Sam: most importantly at two dollars a month
Sam: or more we will invite you to the curmudgeon's corner slack or
Sam: we'll we'll do that for free if you ask you know
Sam: but you know we love for the two dollars anyway you know
Sam: anyway on the curmudgeon's corner slack yvonne and
Sam: i are sitting around chatting we're always sitting right when we're when we're
Sam: dealing with the slack we're sitting i mean i could be walking maybe but most
Sam: of the time most of the time i'm sure we are we are sitting around a campfire
Sam: with s'mores talking on the curmudgeon's corner slack,
Sam: Yeah, no. Anyway, so Yvonne, what is something that we discussed on the Curmudgeon's
Sam: Corner Slack this week that we have not discussed on the show at all and would
Sam: entice people to join the Slack?
Ivan: Okay, look, I shared this. Nobody made a comment on this.
Sam: So nobody cares about it, so you're bringing it up.
Ivan: Apparently, but I am going to bring it up. Taste testing battery-flavored tortilla chips, okay?
Ivan: They're there you know this these marginally
Ivan: tastier than licking an actual nine volt battery so
Ivan: some company went and like tried to create
Ivan: chips that taste like how it tasted when you went and i'm sure that i'm not
Ivan: the only one that did this i've absolutely done this you know put your tongue
Ivan: and licked the two ends of a nine volt battery and he actually went the guy
Ivan: went that actually bought a 9-volt battery and licked it, okay,
Ivan: just to compare the flavor of the chips.
Ivan: I think in summary, let me see. It says here, let's see.
Ivan: It's been a while since I last licked a battery, so in the name of science, I bought my own.
Ivan: Licking a 9-volt battery is probably safe. The Rewind is clearly that it does
Ivan: not recommend or condone licking, biting, or otherwise ingesting real batteries.
Ivan: But I figure if it's good enough for my colleague, Sean, it's good enough for
Ivan: me. I found the experience pretty unpleasant.
Ivan: A small, sharp shock and lingering metallic aftertaste. Not what I usually look for in a tortilla chip.
Ivan: Rewind's taste, that's the brand of the chips, is a little less intense.
Ivan: There is a sharp, acidic flavor at first, but it's milder than I expected.
Ivan: I love salt and vinegar chips, and I've had packs that make me wince much more than these.
Ivan: What stands out a little more is that there is a mineral taste underlying it
Ivan: all, an odd tankiness that isn't a million miles from battery metal.
Ivan: The chips themselves are a little thinner than I like. I prefer a more substantial
Ivan: crunch for protein chips, but aren't bad at all. So there you go.
Ivan: Apparently, these guys developed a chip...
Ivan: Kind of, sort of, tries to bring to the tortilla chip the taste of licking a 9-volt battery.
Sam: I was just looking around to see if I had one, like, just sitting on a shelf.
Ivan: I have one, and I am not licking it.
Sam: If I had turned to the left to my shelf and actually seen one,
Sam: I would have licked it right now.
Ivan: No, no, I know where I have my 9-volt batteries. I'm not doing it.
Sam: I mean, I know I've got some somewhere. I just don't think they're within reach
Sam: of where I'm sitting right now.
Sam: But you know i did see a video on tiktok
Sam: this week as well it was probably an old one being recycled but it had a slight
Sam: variant on this it had some like woman probably around 20 years old like college
Sam: aged woman with a metal nose ring and and she decided that sort of like,
Sam: you had two ends sticking one out of each nostril yeah and so of course she decided oh god she.
Ivan: Put She connected the 9-volt battery to the fucking... Oh, God.
Sam: Yes, exactly. She connected the 9-volt battery to the nose thing.
Sam: And it worked out just about as you would expect. Oh, shit.
Ivan: No, shit.
Sam: Anyway, this is how you tested to see if a 9-volt battery was still good.
Ivan: True.
Sam: How strong was it? You don't need some fancy electrical tester.
Sam: You just stick it in your mouth. Well, not in your mouth. You lick the terminals.
Ivan: You just lick the terminals. You lick the terminals. You don't swallow it.
Sam: Yeah. And you know, it's sort of felt, it's one of those feelings that, yes, it's unpleasant.
Sam: But somehow you're drawn to it.
Ivan: I, look, I did it once and was cured.
Sam: You were cured after one try?
Ivan: Yep, never again.
Sam: I must say, I have done this many times in my life, not just once.
Ivan: No, I did it once, but I said never again.
Sam: To be fair, this was not something where I decided, oh, this is cool.
Sam: I'm going to do it for fun all the time.
Ivan: That reminds me about the same thing. It's like, look, things that I've done
Ivan: like that electrically once, never again. A, lick the battery.
Ivan: B, also, like, when I was little, put my finger in between the prongs as I went
Ivan: to plug in something into a socket and get shocked by that.
Ivan: Yeah, that's also unpleasant. I said, that's never happening again.
Sam: When you're dealing with AC power as opposed to DC power, there are serious
Sam: health risks. You can get burnt. You can have heart issues.
Sam: You can die from that. now most of
Sam: the time you'll get lucky and you're like i i've i've been
Sam: shocked by ac house power on a
Sam: variety of occasions and i clearly have not died but
Sam: you know i'm lucky also that varies like depending on like
Sam: part of the world like in places that have 220 voltage it's
Sam: worse than places that have 110 or whatever like we
Sam: have or 120 i forget whatever whatever it
Sam: is like some places in the world have double what we have or you
Sam: know and you don't want to do that with like your your you know
Sam: some u.s outlets are high voltage for major appliances and things like that
Sam: you don't want to be you know trying to stick your tongue in between the plug
Sam: and the wall no no no no absolutely not be safe whatever but but yeah nine volt
Sam: battery you know it's probably not going to kill you you don't want to swallow it.
Ivan: You don't want to swallow it.
Sam: The other batteries you don't want to swallow that are particularly bad.
Sam: You know those little button batteries.
Ivan: The little, yeah, the little button batteries. That's it.
Sam: Because if you actually swallow them, they can destroy your intestines.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Like that's a major, like go to the ER right now if you ever accidentally swallow
Sam: one of those. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or if your pet swallows it or whatever.
Sam: It can be, you can die a long, painful death from, you know,
Sam: destroying your internals.
Sam: In your digestive system.
Ivan: Let's try to avoid doing that. Okay.
Sam: So wait, you, you are not advocating opening a food truck that is 100% battery flavored foods.
Ivan: Correct.
Sam: No, I don't think it'll be success. No actual batteries either.
Sam: Little, little bowl of button batteries as like candy appetizers.
Ivan: No, no, no, no, no.
Sam: Just like, just like some places give you those little mint.
Ivan: Hey, let's wrap them in chocolate. Yeah. You know, let's go try to kill some people. Yay.
Sam: Let's not. Just in case anybody's listed who might want to throw us in jail,
Sam: we're not actually going to distribute batteries at Halloween inside the candy. No.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Not happening. Okay, we are done. Thank you, everybody, for joining us yet again.
Sam: Have a great week. Stay safe. All that kind of stuff.
Sam: And here comes the goodbye music. Well, first, we have to say goodbye. Goodbye.
Ivan: Goodbye.
Break: Thank you.
Sam: Okay, have a great birthday party. Say happy birthday to Manu for me.
Ivan: All right, I will.
Sam: Later.
Ivan: All right.