WEBVTT 00:00:00.010 --> 00:00:02.570 Okay, one more time with feeling. Hello? 00:00:03.150 --> 00:00:05.250 One more time with feeling. Can you hear me? 00:00:05.530 --> 00:00:06.410 Yes. Okay. 00:00:07.130 --> 00:00:09.790 And I can hear you. Good, good, good, good. 00:00:12.170 --> 00:00:17.170 Why hasn't this gone up? There we go. Okay, put that out. Put that out. 00:00:20.290 --> 00:00:22.090 Bloom. Okay. 00:00:25.430 --> 00:00:27.170 Oh, yeah, that sounds wonderful. 00:00:28.150 --> 00:00:34.930 I try. I try hard. Okay, are we ready? Shall we begin? And hope for the best. 00:00:39.090 --> 00:00:43.370 Oh, Jesus Christ. I just accidentally zoomed in and the whole screen got big. 00:00:43.490 --> 00:00:47.370 I did that a couple of times as well. I'd never done that before. 00:00:47.370 --> 00:00:50.490 I'm like, all of a sudden, yo! I'm like, wait, no, that's too close. 00:00:51.110 --> 00:00:52.050 Okay, here we go. 00:01:17.810 --> 00:01:23.530 Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, December 6th, 2025. 00:01:23.590 --> 00:01:26.470 It's just after 17 UTC as we're starting to record. 00:01:26.590 --> 00:01:28.930 I'm Sam and J. Yvonne Bowes here. Hello, Yvonne. 00:01:29.850 --> 00:01:30.050 Hello! 00:01:31.070 --> 00:01:38.030 Now, one thing before we get started, and I meant to do the prep for this, 00:01:38.150 --> 00:01:41.250 but I completely forgot until literally this very second, so I haven't done 00:01:41.250 --> 00:01:46.950 it yet, which is we are now in December, which means we are rapidly approaching 00:01:46.950 --> 00:01:50.110 our end-of-the-year special shows. 00:01:50.470 --> 00:01:55.930 The last show of the year is going to be predictions for 2026, 00:01:56.450 --> 00:02:02.110 and the first show of next year is going to be review of our predictions that 00:02:02.110 --> 00:02:04.550 we made a year ago for 2025. 00:02:05.810 --> 00:02:11.210 Now, as I've done the last few years, I'm going to put up a Google Doc that 00:02:11.210 --> 00:02:17.730 has some basic categories and invite our listeners to start dropping in things 00:02:17.730 --> 00:02:19.510 they want us to do predictions on. 00:02:20.290 --> 00:02:23.950 Now, you know, like I said, I haven't prepped the Google Doc yet, 00:02:23.950 --> 00:02:27.410 but this is heads up to start thinking about it. 00:02:27.570 --> 00:02:33.470 And I promise you for next week, I will have a link to that Google Doc. 00:02:33.970 --> 00:02:37.390 For anybody who remembers previous years, it's probably going to be the same 00:02:37.390 --> 00:02:43.310 URL as last year, but with 2025 changed to 2026. But I haven't set it up yet. 00:02:43.930 --> 00:02:48.390 And yeah so start thinking about it start thinking about things you would like 00:02:48.390 --> 00:02:53.710 us to predict we of course have things we we always like tend to include anyway 00:02:53.710 --> 00:02:58.210 but pain but we are look looking for suggestions from people and things you 00:02:58.210 --> 00:03:01.670 want us to predict and uh we predicted pain for. 00:03:01.670 --> 00:03:04.910 This here i'm sure and i i'm pretty sure i was right. 00:03:04.910 --> 00:03:11.170 You you generally predict pain and you generally predict that Fidel Castro will die. 00:03:11.470 --> 00:03:13.990 Yes, I'm consistent. 00:03:14.350 --> 00:03:17.030 Even though he's died many years ago. 00:03:18.050 --> 00:03:20.570 Well, I, yeah, well. 00:03:20.690 --> 00:03:24.410 Some, you've sometimes gotten it right and sometimes wrong because sometimes 00:03:24.410 --> 00:03:29.030 you predict that he will die and sometimes you predict that he will be dead 00:03:29.030 --> 00:03:30.290 and those are different. 00:03:30.730 --> 00:03:32.310 Those are different. Right. 00:03:33.170 --> 00:03:33.470 Yes. 00:03:33.510 --> 00:03:38.090 You know, I, I agree. Those are different. Okay. I don't think that if I predict 00:03:38.090 --> 00:03:40.870 he will die again this year, I could be a next year. 00:03:41.130 --> 00:03:45.470 I will be correct. Or if I did that, I got to check back on the logs to see 00:03:45.470 --> 00:03:48.210 what I predicted. But, yes, that tends to be accurate. 00:03:48.430 --> 00:03:53.410 I will say that my prediction for pain for this year was probably quite accurate. 00:03:54.110 --> 00:04:01.470 I don't think that if anybody goes and describes 2025 and doesn't include the word pain, I, you know. 00:04:01.610 --> 00:04:05.550 That is one of your pretty safe predictions. Did you? 00:04:05.690 --> 00:04:05.810 Yeah. 00:04:06.330 --> 00:04:07.510 I will say. Yes. 00:04:07.730 --> 00:04:09.670 And this year it was more accurate than others. 00:04:11.030 --> 00:04:16.370 Yes anyway so other than that we're going to do our usual thing with less newsy 00:04:16.370 --> 00:04:20.910 stuff in the first segment and then moving on to more newsy stuff as we go of. 00:04:20.910 --> 00:04:23.470 Course i would be remiss to point out that it. 00:04:23.470 --> 00:04:24.050 Didn't seem. 00:04:24.050 --> 00:04:31.090 That until until this year when i shared a video clip from. 00:04:31.690 --> 00:04:39.030 Yes, I did not know where the pain thing was from. Yes, I had no idea that it was from something. 00:04:39.030 --> 00:04:41.750 You had no idea of where that came from. 00:04:42.410 --> 00:04:47.590 Yeah, no, I had not the slightest clue. And then suddenly it was revealed to me. 00:04:48.110 --> 00:04:52.790 But yeah, I just thought that was a thing you did. I had no idea it was from something. 00:04:53.230 --> 00:04:56.850 Yeah, no, it was, you know, I wasn't that original. 00:04:57.150 --> 00:05:01.730 I mean, I have some original ones, but not that one. it was you know i i guess 00:05:01.730 --> 00:05:04.090 have you watched the rocky movies. 00:05:04.090 --> 00:05:09.850 I i have only ever seen and we are we we recently it must be one of. 00:05:09.850 --> 00:05:10.890 Them had to be on. 00:05:10.890 --> 00:05:14.050 The afi list rocky the original rocky 00:05:14.050 --> 00:05:19.490 was on the afi list and i think i'd seen it before but i did actually recently 00:05:19.490 --> 00:05:24.430 like within the last couple months re-watch it with alex i'm not ready to review 00:05:24.430 --> 00:05:29.090 it on the show yet because i'm going in order but okay but i have only ever 00:05:29.090 --> 00:05:32.490 seen the original rocky none of the none of. 00:05:32.490 --> 00:05:33.410 The sequels okay. 00:05:33.410 --> 00:05:37.530 None of the sequels and there's a lot of sequels since i've now watched the 00:05:37.530 --> 00:05:43.190 first one they will now be on the list to eventually get to them including like 00:05:43.190 --> 00:05:46.510 they're still releasing these damn things right i mean now they're releasing 00:05:46.510 --> 00:05:49.750 new whatever but yeah that is so So they. 00:05:49.750 --> 00:05:55.510 Are still absolutely releasing these. But this, that was from Rocky three. 00:05:55.890 --> 00:05:57.750 Rocky three was, uh. 00:05:58.210 --> 00:05:59.170 The one with Mr. T. 00:05:59.470 --> 00:06:04.810 Mr. T. Yeah. It was, I think it was an 82 that it was out. Something like that. 00:06:05.170 --> 00:06:11.930 I, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm, let me see. Uh, when was it released? Uh, let's see. 00:06:12.690 --> 00:06:15.850 Uh, why am I, I'm, I am slow. Here we go. 00:06:16.530 --> 00:06:21.930 Uh, it was released. Yeah, I was right. 82. So it's been a while. 00:06:23.320 --> 00:06:29.900 So, yeah, and that was what Mr. T played a guy, a guy named Clubber Lang. 00:06:30.520 --> 00:06:34.660 And he was asked at some point, like, you know, he was being interviewed and 00:06:34.660 --> 00:06:37.020 he was asked, predictions, what are your predictions? 00:06:37.300 --> 00:06:41.180 And he looks at the camera all angry as a Mr. T look. Pain. 00:06:42.190 --> 00:06:49.970 Right. Yes. Anyway, so I am going to work on trying to catch up with my movie 00:06:49.970 --> 00:06:51.210 list and do two of those today. 00:06:51.510 --> 00:06:57.690 But in the meantime, Yvonne, what's your non-newsy, less serious thing to start off the show with? 00:06:58.250 --> 00:07:04.690 My non-newsy, less serious thing to start the show off with? What the hell? 00:07:06.370 --> 00:07:10.190 What happened this week? I don't even remember. What was I doing? 00:07:10.190 --> 00:07:16.710 Our list is very sparse this week, like, of things that we've noted. 00:07:16.710 --> 00:07:21.850 Well, I had a very busy, well, I was, like, busy, but it wasn't, 00:07:21.970 --> 00:07:28.510 it was a, the type of busy is a different type of busy. 00:07:28.610 --> 00:07:32.370 What happened is my wife this week has been working elections. 00:07:32.690 --> 00:07:37.550 There's been a local, my wife regularly works elections. There was a local, 00:07:37.570 --> 00:07:42.510 I think it's state representative election that that off cycle because somebody 00:07:42.510 --> 00:07:43.690 died or something, whatever. 00:07:43.950 --> 00:07:47.370 And they were she was being replaced, not for our district. 00:07:48.370 --> 00:07:52.250 And she's they they do early voting for those. 00:07:52.410 --> 00:07:58.750 And she's she's been doing early voting, you know, for this election, you know, at the site. 00:07:58.750 --> 00:08:05.130 And so, so she's been out of the house all day because it's, 00:08:05.270 --> 00:08:09.070 she started working at last Saturday and she's been there every day. 00:08:10.110 --> 00:08:14.370 She's had to get there at, to the polls, bowling station, like leave the house 00:08:14.370 --> 00:08:17.230 at seven 30 in the morning and she's not getting home until eight o'clock. 00:08:17.550 --> 00:08:20.670 So I've been having to take mine into school, pick him up from school, 00:08:20.770 --> 00:08:22.950 take him to basketball, take him to tutoring, take him to here. 00:08:23.130 --> 00:08:25.790 So I have been like, you know, quite. 00:08:26.560 --> 00:08:31.120 You know, and doing my job. Okay. You know, because some of us have a job still 00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:36.340 and, you know, and so I, I've been, you know, I've been doing both at the same time. 00:08:36.460 --> 00:08:40.000 So it's just, I feel like I've just been running around back and forth, 00:08:40.160 --> 00:08:41.500 back and forth, back and forth. 00:08:42.280 --> 00:08:49.660 Um, and then one of the things that I was trying to solve this week is something 00:08:49.660 --> 00:08:58.380 that I did not expect that the time I spent in the 80s programming COBOL would be useful. 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:01.280 So you were doing COBOL this week? 00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:06.480 I had to do something related to COBOL this week, okay? 00:09:06.680 --> 00:09:13.160 And I didn't realize that the time that I spent programming in COBOL would be 00:09:13.160 --> 00:09:17.320 useful right now in my career. 00:09:17.460 --> 00:09:19.060 So you weren't actually programming COBOL this week. 00:09:19.060 --> 00:09:22.440 I wasn't, but I was resolving. issue with it. 00:09:23.020 --> 00:09:32.520 The thing is, I remember when I coded in Cobalt, it's the only language that I have used that I... 00:09:33.400 --> 00:09:39.420 A lot of, you know, a lot of, like, basic is running a real-time compiler. 00:09:40.220 --> 00:09:40.360 Okay? 00:09:40.800 --> 00:09:41.600 You're not... 00:09:41.600 --> 00:09:42.140 Usually. 00:09:42.680 --> 00:09:47.240 Yeah, usually. So you write the code, and you have it, and you run it, 00:09:47.300 --> 00:09:48.840 and it's being compiled in real-time. 00:09:49.300 --> 00:09:54.940 But COBOL, you compile, you take the code, you modify it, you compile it, 00:09:55.120 --> 00:09:57.160 and then you run it, okay? 00:09:57.160 --> 00:10:05.140 So if you are making changes, you go and you rewrite some code, 00:10:05.140 --> 00:10:09.600 you have to recompile it first before you run it. 00:10:10.200 --> 00:10:13.780 And then that compiled code is the one that's run. 00:10:13.900 --> 00:10:17.960 And usually, you know, for every platform, you have to have a compiler, 00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:25.040 you know, like I remember that I was using back then Ryan McFarlane Cobol. 00:10:25.040 --> 00:10:28.800 And I had to, I was running it on Xenix, you know? 00:10:29.260 --> 00:10:35.780 And so the first thing I ever did, I mean, the only code that I ever worked 00:10:35.780 --> 00:10:41.880 on in it was for a payroll program that was written for another hardware platform. 00:10:42.920 --> 00:10:48.880 But in order to run it on the hardware that we had, first, we had to make some changes to it. 00:10:48.940 --> 00:10:51.800 The second thing was that we had to recompile it for the hardware that we were 00:10:51.800 --> 00:10:53.340 running, okay? Otherwise it wouldn't run. 00:10:53.660 --> 00:10:59.480 And you have to have the right compiler. And if you didn't have the compiler, you know, so anyway. 00:11:01.100 --> 00:11:06.760 I have a customer that has PeopleSoft. Now, PeopleSoft that I knew, 00:11:06.960 --> 00:11:11.980 that I knew, is not written in COBOL. It's a newer application. 00:11:12.640 --> 00:11:17.900 But I came to discover and find out. Because, you know, the only time I ever 00:11:17.900 --> 00:11:22.900 used PeopleSoft before was that we had the company at HP, we used PeopleSoft for. 00:11:23.100 --> 00:11:27.960 We had replaced our old ERP that we had for the old HR system, 00:11:28.080 --> 00:11:30.720 which was written in, like, whatever legacy system it was. 00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:35.960 We have people so right but that's the only time i ever really used it but company 00:11:35.960 --> 00:11:41.260 i work with does sell they owned it and so there's a customer that has it and all of a sudden, 00:11:41.940 --> 00:11:44.720 people called me for a project and said hey we need a 00:11:44.720 --> 00:11:47.440 cobalt compiler and i'm like wait what what do 00:11:47.440 --> 00:11:53.360 you mean for what i did not realize and learned over the last recent time that 00:11:53.360 --> 00:12:01.620 apparently everything that is batch processed in people soft is actually run 00:12:01.620 --> 00:12:05.640 in cobalt i have no idea of that okay okay, 00:12:06.720 --> 00:12:08.960 And so, I mean. 00:12:09.100 --> 00:12:13.260 I mean, it's well known that COBOL is still in use in all kinds of legacy things, 00:12:13.380 --> 00:12:17.240 but it's kind of surprising whenever you find out it's in use for something 00:12:17.240 --> 00:12:20.980 that you consider sort of an up to date modern thing that is right. 00:12:21.260 --> 00:12:26.560 You know, as opposed to something that's been running in a closet for 40 years, you know, exactly. 00:12:26.560 --> 00:12:30.480 And that was surprising. Now, the application itself is not. 00:12:31.620 --> 00:12:39.960 But what I've come to find out is that, hey, there are certain things that if 00:12:39.960 --> 00:12:43.140 you want to run batches, you want to do things, you want to code something, 00:12:43.920 --> 00:12:46.840 you want to do some customization, it's written in COBOL. 00:12:46.840 --> 00:12:53.040 And so I had to go and I got on a conference call where I realized that the 00:12:53.040 --> 00:12:55.880 only guy on the call that had, 00:12:56.220 --> 00:13:02.380 you know, we're talking about, well, how many users do you really need for to buy a compiler license? 00:13:02.380 --> 00:13:06.420 And I realized, well, I've actually done this. 00:13:06.740 --> 00:13:12.440 And the reality is that all you probably need is one because you just sit one. 00:13:13.180 --> 00:13:16.540 You're going to have to have one licensed guy who's going to be sitting over there. 00:13:16.640 --> 00:13:23.020 And anything that's changed, he will be the guy who will be doing the compiling 00:13:23.020 --> 00:13:25.360 for that code to go and send that. 00:13:25.560 --> 00:13:27.580 Then put in the system and run. 00:13:27.840 --> 00:13:33.920 But we don't really, not everybody needs one. And so I, I got on a call where 00:13:33.920 --> 00:13:40.100 there were like about 10 or 15 people and I happened to be the only guy that 00:13:40.100 --> 00:13:42.580 had ever compiled anything in Cobalt Sound. 00:13:42.960 --> 00:13:44.960 And that makes me feel quite old. 00:13:47.280 --> 00:13:48.960 Full of fucking things. 00:13:49.970 --> 00:13:51.750 Yeah, well, I mean. 00:13:52.030 --> 00:13:59.370 Shit, I am, I mean, if, you know, if that doesn't date me, I don't know what the fuck does. 00:14:00.430 --> 00:14:06.750 That is certainly an option. Next thing you'll be talking punch cards. 00:14:07.330 --> 00:14:13.550 You know, I never used punch cards, but, you know, did do a lot of the of the 00:14:13.550 --> 00:14:19.190 the the cards where you filled out the data by by filling, you know, 00:14:20.050 --> 00:14:25.090 you answered the little bubbles and then use the, you know, then fed them into 00:14:25.090 --> 00:14:32.390 the IBM mainframe, you know, the to to to to test run test scores or whatever using those that those. 00:14:33.030 --> 00:14:37.050 I don't think I ever actually used a punch card for anything real. 00:14:37.310 --> 00:14:41.750 I remember I had a punch card with like my name punched in it or whatever. 00:14:42.170 --> 00:14:42.550 Okay. 00:14:42.770 --> 00:14:49.590 And I'm pretty sure my dad, at least one point in time, actually did use punch 00:14:49.590 --> 00:14:51.370 cards for actually like something real. 00:14:51.790 --> 00:14:53.650 So, but you know. 00:14:54.790 --> 00:14:59.470 Anyway, so, okay, you used COBOL. Anything else you got? 00:14:59.750 --> 00:15:10.750 My knowledge, my first-hand knowledge of using COBOL was actually useful in 00:15:10.750 --> 00:15:17.650 an actual business situation today in 2025. 00:15:18.350 --> 00:15:20.410 I'm amazed. I'm amazed. 00:15:21.350 --> 00:15:28.970 Amazed is not the right word. But yes, it does definitely show that, fuck, I'm old. 00:15:29.410 --> 00:15:33.390 So before we move on to my movies, and because you mentioned you're old, 00:15:35.050 --> 00:15:38.510 your recovery continuing the pace, you look like you feel good today. 00:15:38.690 --> 00:15:41.610 I feel pretty good. I am feeling pretty good. 00:15:43.570 --> 00:15:51.930 So it's definitely a pace. We are now in week four, day, what, 00:15:52.430 --> 00:15:56.530 one or two around there of it. 00:15:57.110 --> 00:16:00.270 It's definitely feeling well. They said six weeks. 00:16:01.030 --> 00:16:05.290 It's coming along. Yeah. Yeah. So it's feeling good so far. 00:16:05.850 --> 00:16:10.010 Excellent. So I'm going to bang out two movies. 00:16:10.370 --> 00:16:15.110 Bang out two movies. Let's bang on the movies. Okay. All right. Let's see. 00:16:15.270 --> 00:16:20.930 What do we got for movies? So first of all, I will have to issue a correction 00:16:20.930 --> 00:16:26.990 for a number of weeks ago when I talked about the movie Godzilla versus King Kong. 00:16:28.320 --> 00:16:29.480 A few when. 00:16:29.480 --> 00:16:33.480 Was that what what was that out what year is this movie. 00:16:33.480 --> 00:16:39.900 When did godzilla versus kim king kong come out yeah okay i i will tell you 00:16:39.900 --> 00:16:45.580 that is not the one i'm gonna be talking about but let me get the list up godzilla 00:16:45.580 --> 00:16:51.320 versus kong king kong versus godzilla let me get the title right was 1962 so. 00:16:51.320 --> 00:16:54.400 That was the 62 one but then they do a modern remake of that. 00:16:54.400 --> 00:16:58.880 There there were There was Godzilla vs. 00:16:59.160 --> 00:17:05.660 Kong in 2021 and Godzilla X-Kong, The New Empire in 2024. 00:17:06.640 --> 00:17:07.940 I, I, okay. 00:17:08.340 --> 00:17:13.680 And by the way, upcoming Godzilla X-Kong Supernova in 2027. 00:17:14.280 --> 00:17:18.820 Well, I am maintaining my perfect streak of not having watched any of them. 00:17:19.240 --> 00:17:22.300 So I am not talking about any of those modern ones. 00:17:23.020 --> 00:17:25.760 What i said wrong when i 00:17:25.760 --> 00:17:28.840 talked about godzilla versus or sorry king kong 00:17:28.840 --> 00:17:35.840 versus godzilla on the show earlier was i had said that you know we were working 00:17:35.840 --> 00:17:42.340 our way through both the godzilla and the king kong movies and you know we had 00:17:42.340 --> 00:17:47.680 and i forgot which one we'd hit king kong versus Godzilla in order in, 00:17:47.800 --> 00:17:51.380 and I thought maybe it was the Godzilla movies, I was wrong. 00:17:51.740 --> 00:17:58.640 I, in fact, had not yet started the Godzilla movies when we watched King Kong versus Godzilla. 00:17:58.900 --> 00:18:02.200 I had been working my way through the King Kong movies. 00:18:02.600 --> 00:18:04.280 But not any Godzilla movies. 00:18:04.680 --> 00:18:14.720 Yes. And the King Kong, on the King Kong side, I believe this is actually third in both of them. 00:18:15.800 --> 00:18:19.060 I, of course, have to check that now, too. 00:18:20.520 --> 00:18:27.020 Da-da-da, da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da. Here we go. King Kong franchise. 00:18:28.330 --> 00:18:31.570 Where's the list? Yes, it's third in both. 00:18:31.970 --> 00:18:38.130 So the King Kong vs. Godzilla is third in both franchises. But we were doing it on the King Kong side. 00:18:38.650 --> 00:18:46.430 Now, another side note before I go to the main movie here is that last night, 00:18:46.650 --> 00:18:52.130 actually last night, it came up when we were picking a random movie to watch 00:18:52.130 --> 00:18:54.890 that Alex and I should watch the next King Kong movie. 00:18:54.890 --> 00:18:58.530 But then we realized that the 00:18:58.530 --> 00:19:01.430 first two king kong movies king kong 00:19:01.430 --> 00:19:04.590 and son of kong from 1933 i had 00:19:04.590 --> 00:19:08.830 watched way back in 2015 before alex 00:19:08.830 --> 00:19:13.910 was watching movies with me he was only six years old at the time so he requested 00:19:13.910 --> 00:19:20.950 that we restart the king kong franchise so at this very second Yvonne we are 00:19:20.950 --> 00:19:26.410 halfway through the original King Kong we started it last night and paused because 00:19:26.410 --> 00:19:28.490 everyone was sleepy how many okay how. 00:19:28.490 --> 00:19:29.910 Many movies are there in the. 00:19:29.910 --> 00:19:37.550 In the King Kong franchise yeah so I I looked this up last night it it depends 00:19:37.550 --> 00:19:43.150 how you count like Wikipedia has oh well it has the direct to, okay, 00:19:43.830 --> 00:19:53.250 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, including some direct to video 00:19:53.250 --> 00:19:55.750 animations in the King Kong site. 00:19:56.210 --> 00:19:57.770 14? Damn. 00:19:58.590 --> 00:20:06.370 Whereas in comparison, Godzilla has 40. 00:20:07.410 --> 00:20:07.950 40? 00:20:08.790 --> 00:20:10.550 40. there. 00:20:10.550 --> 00:20:12.470 Are 40 Godzilla movies. 00:20:12.470 --> 00:20:18.010 Including both including both Japanese and American versions yes wow, 00:20:20.030 --> 00:20:23.370 fuck that's a lot of movies so Eddie, 00:20:24.560 --> 00:20:29.780 Anyway, we have restarted the original King Kong with my son as of last night 00:20:29.780 --> 00:20:32.880 and paused halfway through it. We will continue later today. 00:20:33.180 --> 00:20:41.320 But my point of all of this extended introduction is that after we watched King Kong vs. 00:20:41.520 --> 00:20:45.940 Godzilla, we realized we had not actually started the Godzilla franchise yet. 00:20:46.220 --> 00:20:50.920 So today's movie is the original Godzilla from 1954. 00:20:52.400 --> 00:20:52.780 Okay. Okay. 00:20:53.560 --> 00:21:00.060 So, and I will give it a very similar review to my review of King Kong versus 00:21:00.060 --> 00:21:04.140 Godzilla, which is that it is a bad movie. 00:21:04.480 --> 00:21:09.980 However, it is the type of bad movie that is extremely fun to watch. 00:21:09.980 --> 00:21:16.440 Oh, because because it is bad in an amusing way that keeps you laughing, 00:21:16.440 --> 00:21:18.920 keeps you making fun of it. 00:21:19.140 --> 00:21:24.680 Like, you know, when Alex and I watch these movies, like we pause regularly 00:21:24.680 --> 00:21:29.200 to make snarky comments about the movie or to make fun of the special effects 00:21:29.200 --> 00:21:31.960 that we're laughing all the time. 00:21:32.180 --> 00:21:37.060 Because, I mean, my God, it is a guy in a big rubber suit stomping on a model 00:21:37.060 --> 00:21:42.920 of the city. You know, I mean, and it's just, it's, it's hilarious. 00:21:43.340 --> 00:21:48.400 I will, of course, read the beginning of the Wikipedia plot summary just for 00:21:48.400 --> 00:21:50.080 context. But I mean, it's Godzilla. 00:21:50.400 --> 00:21:54.620 It's the monster goes into Japan and stops on things. 00:21:55.640 --> 00:21:56.260 Basically. 00:21:56.880 --> 00:22:03.380 Anyway, plot in 1954, after the Japanese freighter Aiko Maru is destroyed near 00:22:03.380 --> 00:22:07.720 Odo Island, another ship, the Bingo Maru, is sent to investigate, 00:22:07.980 --> 00:22:10.100 only to meet the same fate with few survivors. 00:22:10.380 --> 00:22:14.200 A fishing boat from Odo is also destroyed with one survivor. 00:22:14.520 --> 00:22:20.240 Fishing catches mysteriously dropped to zero, blamed by an elder on the ancient 00:22:20.240 --> 00:22:22.060 sea creature known as Godzilla. 00:22:22.620 --> 00:22:27.120 Reporters arrive on Odo Island to further investigate. A villager tells one 00:22:27.120 --> 00:22:29.860 of the reporters that something in the sea is ruining the fishing. 00:22:30.160 --> 00:22:34.460 That evening, a storm strikes the island, destroying the reporter's helicopter, 00:22:34.460 --> 00:22:39.680 and Godzilla, briefly seen, destroys 17 homes, kills 9 people, 00:22:39.700 --> 00:22:41.980 and kills 20 of the villagers' livestock. 00:22:43.420 --> 00:22:46.540 Odo residents travel to Tokyo to demand disaster relief. 00:22:47.620 --> 00:22:51.460 The villagers' and reporters' evidence describes damage consistent with something 00:22:51.460 --> 00:22:52.800 large crushing the village. 00:22:53.890 --> 00:22:58.930 The government sends paleontologist Kyoto Yamane to investigate the island where 00:22:58.930 --> 00:23:02.570 giant radioactive footprints and a trilobite are discovered. 00:23:02.910 --> 00:23:07.610 The village alarm bell is rung and Yamane and the villagers rush to see the 00:23:07.610 --> 00:23:11.010 monster, retreating after seeing it as a giant dinosaur. 00:23:11.690 --> 00:23:15.870 Yamane presents his findings in Tokyo, estimating that Godzilla is 50 meters, 00:23:15.950 --> 00:23:19.450 160 feet tall, and has evolved from an ancient sea creature, 00:23:19.670 --> 00:23:23.650 becoming a terrestrial creature. He concludes that Godzilla has been disturbed 00:23:23.650 --> 00:23:25.950 by underwater hydrogen bomb testing. 00:23:26.370 --> 00:23:30.090 Debate ensues about notifying the public about the danger of the monster. 00:23:30.370 --> 00:23:35.730 Meanwhile, 17 ships are lost at sea, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. Plot continues. 00:23:36.010 --> 00:23:41.650 I will note that we have been making a point to watch the Godzilla movies with 00:23:41.650 --> 00:23:44.250 Japanese audio and English subtitles. 00:23:44.250 --> 00:23:44.830 Titles. Okay. 00:23:45.410 --> 00:23:48.190 You know, not dubbed into English. 00:23:48.470 --> 00:23:48.750 Okay. 00:23:48.870 --> 00:23:51.970 Okay. you know but uh but yeah 00:23:51.970 --> 00:23:57.790 it's still funny you know it's you know the horrible special i mean this was 00:23:57.790 --> 00:24:04.090 1954 you don't expect that much but still even for 1954 it's kind of weak in 00:24:04.090 --> 00:24:05.390 terms of special effects but 00:24:05.390 --> 00:24:10.170 honestly that's what gives it its charm the acting is not that great but, 00:24:11.210 --> 00:24:15.730 Even with, you can tell, even with the language difference, it's not just, 00:24:15.890 --> 00:24:18.230 you know, oh, the acting's weak, they're speaking Japanese. 00:24:18.450 --> 00:24:22.550 No, no, you can tell the acting is weak, just generally. 00:24:24.550 --> 00:24:28.910 But it's all, it's hilarious. I'm going to give it a thumbs up. 00:24:28.910 --> 00:24:32.410 And you know this whole genre is 00:24:32.410 --> 00:24:36.690 loved by lots of people specifically because of 00:24:36.690 --> 00:24:41.430 this kind of feel that i'm talking about you know it's it's nobody i mean some 00:24:41.430 --> 00:24:45.190 of the modern remakes they're trying to make it a little bit more serious and 00:24:45.190 --> 00:24:51.190 have a high special effects budget and stuff but the reason people like are 00:24:51.190 --> 00:24:56.270 fans of these old ones is precisely because they're ridiculous exactly Yeah. 00:24:56.610 --> 00:25:00.090 I mean, if I remember when I watched it, the whole thing that, 00:25:00.270 --> 00:25:04.150 you know, the little bits that I watched, because I'm pretty sure I've not watched 00:25:04.150 --> 00:25:06.130 any of these in its entirety. 00:25:06.430 --> 00:25:06.950 All the way through. 00:25:07.150 --> 00:25:10.530 Yeah, just bits and pieces. Is that the part that made it funny was exactly 00:25:10.530 --> 00:25:13.290 that. That it was just the special effects were just dumb. 00:25:13.990 --> 00:25:15.370 And that's what made it funny. 00:25:16.670 --> 00:25:23.390 Yeah. And the story is silly and the plot's not, is very thin, you know. 00:25:23.790 --> 00:25:26.350 It's just a big dinosaur destroying the city. 00:25:26.870 --> 00:25:32.610 Well, and they do have humans, like there's side plots going on with the humans. 00:25:32.790 --> 00:25:36.010 Like there's this guy and his girlfriend and he's trying to, 00:25:36.230 --> 00:25:40.190 the girlfriend gets in the way of where Godzilla's going to be and he has to save her. 00:25:40.430 --> 00:25:44.910 And, you know, and then there's various people that you care about or at least 00:25:44.910 --> 00:25:45.970 theoretically care about. 00:25:46.710 --> 00:25:51.690 Because they're involved in the battle against Godzilla or they're involved 00:25:51.690 --> 00:25:54.110 in trying to figure out what's going on or whatever. 00:25:54.270 --> 00:25:58.010 So there are humans in these movies that have something to do and have some 00:25:58.010 --> 00:26:01.210 sort of plot, but none of it really matters all that much. 00:26:01.330 --> 00:26:07.310 The main point is the guy in the rubber suit running around destroying things. 00:26:08.230 --> 00:26:11.730 So that's movie number one. 00:26:11.930 --> 00:26:14.230 Movie number one. Okay. 00:26:14.230 --> 00:26:16.030 Movie number two. 00:26:17.030 --> 00:26:21.490 Is from 2003 it is 00:26:21.490 --> 00:26:28.310 a made for is this correct i just want to make sure i'm pretty sure it was made 00:26:28.310 --> 00:26:35.970 for tv yes it was made for tv for the sci-fi channel and it's river world from 00:26:35.970 --> 00:26:41.030 2003 Have you ever heard of either this or the book? 00:26:41.310 --> 00:26:44.730 I had never heard of River World. 00:26:45.770 --> 00:26:50.910 So River World, I was a fan of the novel series. 00:26:51.130 --> 00:26:59.090 There was a series of science fiction novels by Philip Jose Farmer that was 00:26:59.090 --> 00:27:01.750 released from 1971 to 1983. 00:27:02.470 --> 00:27:07.270 And I remember reading and liking these books as a teenager. 00:27:07.930 --> 00:27:13.290 So, you know, I was excited, you know, movie coming out about it. 00:27:14.150 --> 00:27:20.750 And I don't remember if I saw it back in 2003 when it was new. I might have. 00:27:20.950 --> 00:27:23.470 But, you know, I watched it again last year. 00:27:24.010 --> 00:27:27.310 And we're not last year. It was actually this year. We're now talking about 00:27:27.310 --> 00:27:31.070 movies I watched last January. So I'm only 11 months behind. 00:27:31.070 --> 00:27:31.990 That's not that bad. 00:27:33.290 --> 00:27:34.210 Yeah, so. 00:27:34.410 --> 00:27:35.170 It's not that bad. 00:27:35.170 --> 00:27:35.550 Anyway. 00:27:35.990 --> 00:27:39.470 I mean, we've been doing the show for 20 years. I mean, you know, it's not that bad. 00:27:40.150 --> 00:27:47.190 Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, the basic premise of the books, let's start with that, 00:27:47.570 --> 00:27:57.990 is every human being who's ever lived is resurrected around the banks of a river on an alien planet. 00:27:58.850 --> 00:28:04.650 And have to and they have to figure out what's going on with the world i never 00:28:04.650 --> 00:28:09.630 heard of this movie why were they resurrected what was going on who are the 00:28:09.630 --> 00:28:14.850 beings that brought them there all of this kind of stuff okay i guess i'm looking. 00:28:14.850 --> 00:28:20.010 At is this was this a tv movie yeah i guess. 00:28:20.010 --> 00:28:21.710 Yes okay sci-fi channel. 00:28:21.710 --> 00:28:25.730 Okay all right so that's that's one reason i had never heard of this okay All right, yeah. 00:28:26.170 --> 00:28:31.710 Yeah, and it was intended to be the pilot for a series, but the series never got made. 00:28:32.030 --> 00:28:37.990 They did try a reboot in 2010 as well. I have not watched that yet. 00:28:38.590 --> 00:28:42.770 Well, it wasn't exactly like acclaimed is what I'm looking at here. 00:28:43.270 --> 00:28:50.370 It's got an IMDb rating of barely 5.1, which is really, really low on IMDb. 00:28:51.210 --> 00:28:56.450 I mean, a 5.1 is really a clunker on IMDb. 00:28:56.710 --> 00:28:57.130 Yes. 00:28:57.290 --> 00:29:02.050 It's got, let's see. Before you get to your rating, I'll read here. 00:29:02.190 --> 00:29:09.030 5.1 on IMDb, 37% on Rotten Tomatoes, only 41% in Just Watch. 00:29:09.790 --> 00:29:15.570 At Google users, 58% said they like it, but I have a feeling that this is like 00:29:15.570 --> 00:29:19.510 a little bit of a selection bias because probably the only people that go there 00:29:19.510 --> 00:29:22.230 to Google to review it are actually the people that liked it. 00:29:22.530 --> 00:29:25.290 Probably the rest of the people are not really giving a shit. 00:29:25.410 --> 00:29:28.470 I'm like, well, this thing sucked. I'm not going to Google to look at it. 00:29:29.490 --> 00:29:31.490 So that's what I see. So Sam... 00:29:32.300 --> 00:29:33.200 What are your thoughts? 00:29:34.620 --> 00:29:41.860 So, I am giving it a thumbs down. It was just, it was not memorable in the slightest. 00:29:41.860 --> 00:29:47.100 Well, it was not memorable in the slightest in terms of the actual movie itself. 00:29:47.440 --> 00:29:52.440 The thing is, I, having been a fan of the books. 00:29:52.600 --> 00:29:53.220 Ah, I see. 00:29:54.000 --> 00:30:02.200 It kept annoying me. Differences and things that were done badly and things 00:30:02.200 --> 00:30:04.620 that were just like, you know, missing. 00:30:05.380 --> 00:30:09.420 It was not a good adaptation of the books, I felt either. 00:30:09.420 --> 00:30:15.880 Like they, first of all, they didn't like, it wasn't centered around the same character, you know, 00:30:16.060 --> 00:30:22.700 like there were, there were a lot of things that just like, I felt like this 00:30:22.700 --> 00:30:25.300 is not a good adaptation of the books. 00:30:25.300 --> 00:30:30.460 It's sort of, even the basics of the concept weren't like, just weren't implemented. 00:30:30.700 --> 00:30:36.820 Well, I kept, there were little details that I kept like stopping it to talk to Alex about like, 00:30:37.260 --> 00:30:40.680 well, you know, they did this, this way, but in the book that it was like this 00:30:40.680 --> 00:30:44.620 and they had this thing and like, but in part, like I'll give you one example 00:30:44.620 --> 00:30:48.580 and I recognize why they did, they wouldn't have done it. 00:30:49.820 --> 00:30:53.760 This is not an example of why it was a bad adaptation. Any adaptation would 00:30:53.760 --> 00:30:56.040 have changed this, but it's what I obsessed about. Okay. 00:30:56.680 --> 00:31:02.380 In the book, like, you know, first of all, everybody's resurrected naked initially. 00:31:02.620 --> 00:31:05.000 No, I figured you would like that. 00:31:05.040 --> 00:31:05.780 They did do that in the movie. 00:31:06.500 --> 00:31:12.080 I did like that. I enjoyed that. That was good. And they did do that in the movie as well. 00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:14.940 Although it was a made-for-TV movie, so you didn't see any. 00:31:15.080 --> 00:31:17.100 No. This is ridiculous. 00:31:17.100 --> 00:31:19.360 It was implied nudity rather than actual nudity. 00:31:19.360 --> 00:31:19.620 You know. 00:31:20.600 --> 00:31:29.580 But no, the thing is, they discover these giant mushroom things that once a 00:31:29.580 --> 00:31:33.240 day erupt and give them little canisters of supplies. 00:31:33.460 --> 00:31:33.640 Okay. 00:31:34.460 --> 00:31:40.020 In the books, one of the supplies that comes out of the little canisters are 00:31:40.020 --> 00:31:44.980 these things that are essentially washcloths with magnetic edges, 00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:48.160 and people made clothes out of those. 00:31:48.520 --> 00:31:50.660 Washcloths with magnetic edges? 00:31:51.400 --> 00:31:55.900 Yeah. So, like, you could take a bunch of these little squares of fabric and, 00:31:55.900 --> 00:31:59.200 using the magnets, connect them together and make clothes and stuff. 00:31:59.360 --> 00:31:59.780 Interesting. 00:32:00.160 --> 00:32:06.520 Okay. And I remember reading the books thinking that was a really nifty concept, and I liked the idea. 00:32:06.760 --> 00:32:12.080 Like, you know, whereas in the TV show, the canisters just contained clothes. 00:32:12.600 --> 00:32:19.920 Oh, no, Matt, no. Well, that's just not a good way of doing that. 00:32:20.700 --> 00:32:24.180 And all kinds of different clothes, too. So the people were wearing all kinds 00:32:24.180 --> 00:32:29.200 of different things. One of the things in the book is that fashion did arise 00:32:29.200 --> 00:32:33.680 by people creating different sorts of things out of the magnetic washcloth things. 00:32:34.020 --> 00:32:37.180 But it was all made out of the same underlying material. 00:32:38.560 --> 00:32:42.580 Anyway, and obviously this is a change I would have made too if I was adapting 00:32:42.580 --> 00:32:46.140 it. Like explaining the little washcloth things is a little esoteric. 00:32:46.780 --> 00:32:54.720 But yeah, it was just completely non-memorable. and for fans of the book it seemed to be not. 00:32:55.730 --> 00:32:59.150 It didn't do it justice, I think. And also they were trying, 00:32:59.550 --> 00:33:01.710 they, they moved really fast, really far. 00:33:02.090 --> 00:33:07.690 Like the books contain, I mean, it was a what five book series. Did I say? 00:33:07.930 --> 00:33:14.930 Yeah. It ended up being five books and you only very, very slowly start figuring 00:33:14.930 --> 00:33:19.130 out what's going on in the, in the, in the world that they're talking about. 00:33:19.890 --> 00:33:23.190 And you know the first book is all 00:33:23.190 --> 00:33:25.930 about sort of adapting to the fact that you're in 00:33:25.930 --> 00:33:29.530 this universe and you only find out little tiny glimpse and 00:33:29.530 --> 00:33:33.070 hints of what's really going on and stuff like that and 00:33:33.070 --> 00:33:36.270 because they were making a movie out 00:33:36.270 --> 00:33:39.250 of it they i guess they wanted to accelerate that 00:33:39.250 --> 00:33:42.730 so you figured out a little bit more about what was happening a little bit faster 00:33:42.730 --> 00:33:46.150 but you know they were hoping to make a series out of it so they could have 00:33:46.150 --> 00:33:56.870 still dragged that out longer right you know and and it's they they skipped they still had like. 00:33:57.760 --> 00:34:01.260 I mean, one of the things is in both the book and the movie is, 00:34:01.400 --> 00:34:04.420 you know, you get all humans from all time resurrected together. 00:34:04.580 --> 00:34:08.320 So you get people from different historical periods interacting with each other, 00:34:08.400 --> 00:34:10.960 which is cool. You get some famous people from different periods. 00:34:11.600 --> 00:34:16.160 One of the main characters ends up being Samuel Clemens, Mark Twain. 00:34:16.160 --> 00:34:19.200 Okay you know and and that that's kind 00:34:19.200 --> 00:34:21.920 of cool i mean he makes a riverboat because you know 00:34:21.920 --> 00:34:24.740 samuel clemens was a riverboat pilot on the 00:34:24.740 --> 00:34:27.520 mississippi okay he ends up building a riverboat and 00:34:27.520 --> 00:34:32.000 blah blah blah and that's in both the the books and the movie but you know anyway 00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:38.320 it it was it was not great as you read the you know descriptions like if you 00:34:38.320 --> 00:34:43.720 were a fan of the books maybe watch it for completeness but you know your time 00:34:43.720 --> 00:34:46.920 would be better spent going and digging the books back up movie. 00:34:46.920 --> 00:34:52.500 Adaptations of books are are always like i you know they're such a crapshoot 00:34:52.500 --> 00:34:55.180 i mean you know there are some that are. 00:34:55.180 --> 00:34:56.680 Done very well no. 00:34:56.680 --> 00:34:57.500 Sometimes they're done. 00:34:57.500 --> 00:35:03.040 Well some are so bad you you you have to evaluate them on their own merits though 00:35:03.040 --> 00:35:07.820 like i i'm i'm this comparison to the book thing is somewhat unfair in some 00:35:07.820 --> 00:35:10.860 cases because it is a different media and different things. 00:35:11.220 --> 00:35:16.320 Yeah, but, but some people just make really shitty movies out of good books. 00:35:16.460 --> 00:35:17.800 I mean, I, I still remember. 00:35:18.040 --> 00:35:23.020 I, I, I will, I forever think that, you know, from the Clancy book series, 00:35:23.600 --> 00:35:28.540 there was only like one movie that was a good, that was really good. 00:35:28.620 --> 00:35:30.440 It was Hunt for Red October. 00:35:30.760 --> 00:35:32.680 The rest were meh. 00:35:33.330 --> 00:35:38.070 They weren't that great. I mean, they even brought Harrison Ford in and some of whatever. 00:35:38.430 --> 00:35:42.830 And honestly, they deviated so much from the book. Okay. 00:35:43.250 --> 00:35:48.390 In things that didn't need deviating, is my point. 00:35:48.850 --> 00:35:52.590 They just changed the story completely in many cases. 00:35:54.070 --> 00:35:58.430 You know, probably the one that was the worst was they did the sum of all fears. 00:36:00.050 --> 00:36:09.070 And the entire story everything changed okay it just it had no it had barely 00:36:09.070 --> 00:36:13.190 any you know semblance to what was in the book. 00:36:13.190 --> 00:36:17.790 That's the kind of adaptation i hate the most actually like. 00:36:17.790 --> 00:36:21.730 I'm like why did you use the book then you know yeah. 00:36:21.730 --> 00:36:26.410 And there are a variety of these and Another was, and I haven't seen this, 00:36:26.550 --> 00:36:30.590 but I've, well, I won't mention ones that I haven't seen as examples, 00:36:30.830 --> 00:36:33.950 but even though I've heard people make the complaint. 00:36:34.290 --> 00:36:40.130 But, yeah, there are certainly ones where really the only thing is sort of the 00:36:40.130 --> 00:36:44.030 one-sentence high-level concept of the book and maybe a couple of characters. 00:36:44.570 --> 00:36:45.430 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen that. 00:36:45.830 --> 00:36:47.650 And nothing else matches. 00:36:47.650 --> 00:36:49.930 And nothing else matches, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 00:36:51.410 --> 00:36:56.490 And that's annoying. Like you said, just make a new one. Don't even bother. 00:36:57.290 --> 00:37:00.710 That great example is the Jason Bourne movies. 00:37:01.290 --> 00:37:04.510 And their source material in the Ludlam books. The reality is, 00:37:04.530 --> 00:37:09.630 I will say, that the Ludlam books, in my personal opinion, they're kind of dull. 00:37:10.290 --> 00:37:14.030 Ludlam was not that good. And then a whole bunch of them were written by somebody 00:37:14.030 --> 00:37:17.210 else that wasn't even him because he died. And then somebody decided to write 00:37:17.210 --> 00:37:24.090 books in his name anyway. The movies, because the source material of the book was not that great. 00:37:25.300 --> 00:37:28.660 They actually, well, okay, great. We've got the character born. 00:37:28.780 --> 00:37:31.680 We know he had amnesia. We know he did this. We know he did that. 00:37:32.060 --> 00:37:36.600 But if we do what's in the book, this doesn't really work. Okay? 00:37:36.900 --> 00:37:39.620 All right. Let's do something a lot more exciting. 00:37:40.480 --> 00:37:45.020 And so even though it carried the name of a book or whatever, 00:37:45.220 --> 00:37:52.680 whatever happened in the movie was way better than whatever the fuck the source book was. 00:37:52.680 --> 00:37:57.020 So they did a good job of that, of making the movie a lot better than, 00:37:57.240 --> 00:37:59.120 in my opinion, a mediocre book. 00:37:59.920 --> 00:38:06.860 Yeah. Anyway, this is what I would say I would recommend people go read the books. 00:38:07.100 --> 00:38:11.300 But at the same time, I haven't read them since I was a teenager. 00:38:11.560 --> 00:38:14.860 So I don't know if I would still like them now. 00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:15.220 Okay. 00:38:15.360 --> 00:38:19.940 You know, like they may not have aged well or they may include whatever. 00:38:19.940 --> 00:38:26.080 Whatever you know so i mean i enjoyed them as a teenager but that was a long 00:38:26.080 --> 00:38:29.620 time ago again reminding. 00:38:29.620 --> 00:38:32.740 Our audience how old we're getting thank you sam. 00:38:32.740 --> 00:38:40.540 Oh yes yes of course okay shall we take a break and then hit serious stuff serious 00:38:40.540 --> 00:38:46.480 serious xm radio no not that kind Not the star either. 00:38:46.700 --> 00:38:51.100 Not the star either? Okay. All right. We might be time to get serious. 00:38:51.820 --> 00:38:58.680 Okay. As promised last week, the first break today is a wiki of the day. So enjoy. 00:38:58.920 --> 00:38:59.320 Wiki wiki. 00:40:47.220 --> 00:40:53.040 Okay, now we're back. So, Yvonne, you want to kick it off, picking our first 00:40:53.040 --> 00:40:55.740 newsy topic? Newsy, news, news, news? 00:40:57.120 --> 00:41:02.260 Newsy, newsy. Well, you said it with the newsy pronunciation. 00:41:02.260 --> 00:41:05.680 Oh, not, not, not Nuzzy. Is it Nuzzy? Is it Nuzzy? 00:41:05.700 --> 00:41:06.600 I don't know. 00:41:07.200 --> 00:41:08.380 You want to talk more about her? 00:41:09.180 --> 00:41:16.620 I would really prefer not to. although she was in the news again because she 00:41:16.620 --> 00:41:20.820 got fired or quit or something um yeah, 00:41:21.590 --> 00:41:25.350 Oh, if we didn't put a lot in here this week. 00:41:25.490 --> 00:41:31.070 No, we, our, our list is so sparse this week. I added a couple of things, but like there's. 00:41:31.150 --> 00:41:36.250 You know what? I just actually, uh, there is one that was from last Saturday 00:41:36.250 --> 00:41:37.370 that we didn't talk about. 00:41:37.530 --> 00:41:40.470 And I actually just pulled up an article on it. 00:41:40.790 --> 00:41:44.290 It's related to a couple, it's related to cost of living. Okay. 00:41:44.390 --> 00:41:45.610 Which we didn't talk about. 00:41:46.270 --> 00:41:48.430 Okay. Let's talk about the cost of living. 00:41:48.430 --> 00:41:54.730 So, you know, and I mean, this is relevant politically, like right now, 00:41:54.830 --> 00:42:02.490 as the Republicans are arguing about what to do about these health subsidies. 00:42:02.490 --> 00:42:05.350 And they haven't really done anything like right now. 00:42:06.570 --> 00:42:10.990 And there was an article that i had shared about somebody that was calculating 00:42:10.990 --> 00:42:22.710 that the that the true poverty line should really be at 130 000 that's a lot. 00:42:22.710 --> 00:42:25.730 Yvonne what what is it what is it really right now that. 00:42:25.730 --> 00:42:27.630 I mean that's like that's like 00:42:27.630 --> 00:42:34.210 it's 35 000 for for for a for a two person household with two kids. Okay. 00:42:34.510 --> 00:42:36.570 So for a four person family. 00:42:36.910 --> 00:42:44.410 Yeah. $35,000, which I don't care where you are living in the United States. 00:42:44.590 --> 00:42:50.830 I mean, you're, you're at that point, you are heavily dependent on government 00:42:50.830 --> 00:42:57.750 aid to, to really be able to eke out a sustainable existence, okay? 00:42:57.950 --> 00:43:02.150 There's just no way at $35,000. I mean, at that level with a family, 00:43:02.410 --> 00:43:06.350 you need to be getting SNAP, Medicaid. 00:43:07.670 --> 00:43:13.270 Maybe even some housing assistance, I mean, in order to be able to pay. 00:43:13.450 --> 00:43:19.950 Because look at $35,000, here's one of the issues that you've got right now. $35,000 gross, okay? 00:43:20.390 --> 00:43:24.810 One of the things is that we have one of the most regressive taxes that we have is Social Security tax. 00:43:24.930 --> 00:43:32.030 So anybody at the $35,000 level cannot escape paying the 7% for, 00:43:32.210 --> 00:43:35.850 7.5% for Social Security, okay? 00:43:36.010 --> 00:43:38.350 So that right off the bat. 00:43:39.370 --> 00:43:47.090 You know, takes away $2,600, okay? Right off the bat, no exemptions, no nothing. 00:43:47.750 --> 00:43:51.510 Yet unemployment tax, other stuff or whatever, that gets you up to $3,000. 00:43:51.550 --> 00:43:53.150 You can't get out of those. 00:43:53.290 --> 00:43:56.990 So you're already down to $32,000 right off the bat, okay? 00:43:57.430 --> 00:44:01.650 Add sales tax anywhere that you live for any money that you spend. 00:44:01.810 --> 00:44:05.290 You're buying shit, you're paying sales tax, okay? 00:44:05.970 --> 00:44:10.130 That also takes a chunk out of these people as well. 00:44:10.570 --> 00:44:15.170 Another probably, they got to be spending $10,000 to $15,000 a year in taxable 00:44:15.170 --> 00:44:16.490 stuff. That's another $1,000. 00:44:16.650 --> 00:44:21.930 So you're really down to like $30,000 of actual money. 00:44:22.490 --> 00:44:29.970 Divide that by 12 months for $2,500 for a family of four. 00:44:29.970 --> 00:44:35.290 When you are looking at a median car payment right now, a $750, 00:44:35.290 --> 00:44:40.070 in an America that is heavily dependent on cars, okay? 00:44:40.730 --> 00:44:46.430 Think about this. On a family of four, for sure, half their money is going to 00:44:46.430 --> 00:44:49.150 transportation, even if they bought used cars. 00:44:49.910 --> 00:44:52.710 Yeah, I was going to say, the $750 is for like a new car, though, right? 00:44:52.950 --> 00:45:02.370 Yeah. Right. But, okay. But take it down to a used car. Take it down that they have two used cars. 00:45:02.770 --> 00:45:05.930 Say they're paying $350 a month for each. 00:45:06.230 --> 00:45:10.170 But they're going to need two cars. And most of this nation, 00:45:10.330 --> 00:45:15.510 if you've got two kids, I mean, so that gets you the $700. 00:45:15.950 --> 00:45:18.990 Add auto insurance. Auto insurance right now. 00:45:19.370 --> 00:45:28.350 $400 on the median. I definitely know where, you know, yes, they ideally would need two cars. 00:45:28.550 --> 00:45:31.870 Lots and lots of families deal without because they just can't. 00:45:32.450 --> 00:45:36.030 Okay, but most of the time they can't deal with one car. 00:45:36.430 --> 00:45:41.650 The reality is that those families somehow have to scrounge how to get a second one. 00:45:42.290 --> 00:45:43.810 Because there's just, if the, if 00:45:43.810 --> 00:45:48.230 the two people have jobs and if they have kids, there's just no, I mean. 00:45:48.710 --> 00:45:51.930 And they're living in some place without adequate public transportation. 00:45:52.110 --> 00:45:54.190 Public transportation, which is most of this nation. 00:45:55.650 --> 00:46:00.510 You have to figure it out. But once you add, think about this. 00:46:00.830 --> 00:46:03.650 Two car payments of $350, $700. 00:46:04.370 --> 00:46:07.750 Add car insurance, $400. You're at $1,100. 00:46:08.630 --> 00:46:11.610 Add gas. Not cheap right now, all right? 00:46:11.870 --> 00:46:17.230 $300, $400 a month. You're already at $1,500. These people have $1,000 just in the transportation. 00:46:18.550 --> 00:46:23.590 They haven't paid for a place to live. They haven't bought food. 00:46:24.870 --> 00:46:33.550 I mean, so saying that above that, you're not in poverty at $40,000 is crazy. 00:46:34.930 --> 00:46:38.890 And the thing is, when they were talking about the $130,000, 00:46:39.450 --> 00:46:44.470 look, they were considering a household payment that basically you're paying 00:46:44.470 --> 00:46:48.230 $2,000 for your house, $1,000 for your groceries, 00:46:48.890 --> 00:46:50.930 $1,500 for your car transportation. 00:46:51.950 --> 00:46:56.110 And one of the things that a lot of people have to pay for is daycare, which I've seen to a lot. 00:46:56.270 --> 00:47:01.450 If you're paying for daycare, $2,000 a month if you have to pay for daycare. 00:47:01.810 --> 00:47:05.970 And I believe I read that the person who did this analysis used, 00:47:06.310 --> 00:47:09.230 picked a county in New Jersey as their sample. 00:47:09.390 --> 00:47:12.690 And obviously there are places that are more and less expensive. 00:47:13.250 --> 00:47:14.390 But it's in the ballpark. 00:47:14.390 --> 00:47:19.970 But the thing is that I said, listen, take out $30,000. Listen, take out the daycare. 00:47:20.930 --> 00:47:25.410 Take it down. If you made this down to $90,000, 00:47:26.110 --> 00:47:31.170 okay, and not the $130,000 because you picked, like, a lower place to live, 00:47:31.610 --> 00:47:37.210 you do the math after tax and whatever, especially because one of the problems 00:47:37.210 --> 00:47:42.090 that they're talking about in an article I just shared today is the benefit clips, okay? 00:47:42.510 --> 00:47:46.550 Because what's the problem? And this is a problem, like, with... 00:47:47.410 --> 00:47:52.310 A lot of what Biden kept trying to do, which he couldn't do as much as he wanted 00:47:52.310 --> 00:47:56.470 to, was to help people in the middle class because of those benefit cliffs, 00:47:56.830 --> 00:48:01.770 like with child tax credits and stuff or whatever. How to get universal. 00:48:02.450 --> 00:48:05.390 Remember how he wanted to institute one of the things that, you know, 00:48:05.490 --> 00:48:07.630 oh, the Democrats don't care about the middle class. 00:48:08.030 --> 00:48:16.550 Biden was out saying he tried his damnedest to make sure that people had universal access to daycare. 00:48:16.550 --> 00:48:19.470 This is one of those things, by the way, I just want to say, 00:48:19.630 --> 00:48:27.070 like, to me, it is like malpractice when politicians put in place things with cliffs to begin with. 00:48:27.330 --> 00:48:32.810 Like, come on, folks, like on almost anything, you can design the program. 00:48:32.810 --> 00:48:38.170 So instead of having a hard cut for those who don't know, benefit cliffs are 00:48:38.170 --> 00:48:42.090 things like where there is a hard and fast threshold. 00:48:42.390 --> 00:48:42.870 Right. 00:48:43.070 --> 00:48:45.990 Below it, you get some benefit. Above it, you do not. 00:48:45.990 --> 00:48:46.850 You got zero. 00:48:47.210 --> 00:48:52.650 And so it creates a system where, like, let's say the threshold is on income. 00:48:53.510 --> 00:48:59.210 And just for the sake of argument, let's say it's $20,000 as a threshold. 00:48:59.530 --> 00:49:04.450 If you make $19,999.99, you get the benefit. 00:49:04.650 --> 00:49:07.610 You make one penny more, you get nothing. 00:49:08.030 --> 00:49:08.570 That's right. 00:49:08.810 --> 00:49:11.630 You know, and sometimes they're not quite that harsh. 00:49:11.730 --> 00:49:15.230 They're not quite that steep, but they are pretty steep. Yes. 00:49:15.230 --> 00:49:24.910 And it is not that tough to create things where instead of having hard thresholds, 00:49:24.990 --> 00:49:33.690 you have a graduation that goes from over an extended length of time that sort 00:49:33.690 --> 00:49:34.970 of eliminates that threshold. 00:49:34.970 --> 00:49:38.510 Where if you're at a low enough level, you get the full benefit. 00:49:38.570 --> 00:49:42.270 And as you make more and more money, you get less and less benefit up to the 00:49:42.270 --> 00:49:46.610 point where you can afford to pay for it yourself. And now you get zero. 00:49:47.160 --> 00:49:53.340 You know, but and I've I've often advocated for just just give everybody the 00:49:53.340 --> 00:49:58.040 benefit and tax it back from the people who can't afford it as just a simple model anyway. 00:49:58.820 --> 00:50:04.720 And you. Yeah. And you. And that makes sense. I agree with your with your thinking with that. 00:50:04.800 --> 00:50:08.780 But in reality, we've got lots and lots of programs with these cliffs which 00:50:08.780 --> 00:50:13.340 cause all kinds of incentive problems. They cause people to like, 00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:18.240 not like they can't make more money because if they did, they would lose their 00:50:18.240 --> 00:50:19.740 benefit and stuff like that. 00:50:19.840 --> 00:50:22.880 And it's just like, it completely messes up incentives. 00:50:23.280 --> 00:50:28.020 Also, it creates a huge bureaucracy to enforce the threshold because you have 00:50:28.020 --> 00:50:30.260 to measure whatever it is that is the threshold. 00:50:30.460 --> 00:50:32.500 They often have to do extra paperwork. 00:50:32.740 --> 00:50:35.440 There are all kinds of problems with it. But anyway, go ahead. 00:50:35.440 --> 00:50:40.900 So the whole the whole thing is that this goes to this entire thing where, 00:50:41.020 --> 00:50:43.520 you know, how Trump has been getting upset because he's been getting hit on 00:50:43.520 --> 00:50:47.380 affordability and how his ratings on the economy keep keep diving. 00:50:47.740 --> 00:50:52.820 And this entire thing also with the health care health care subsidies being, 00:50:52.940 --> 00:50:56.920 you know, eliminated by the by the GOP for a lot of people. 00:50:57.400 --> 00:51:00.340 And this is the shit sitting the affordability crisis. 00:51:00.500 --> 00:51:04.680 This is the end. And the Republicans are not doing anything about it. 00:51:04.680 --> 00:51:10.480 They couldn't they they pay lip service to it, but not actually doing anything. 00:51:11.140 --> 00:51:16.780 And I get people like I get people that keep saying, well, the Democrats didn't 00:51:16.780 --> 00:51:18.160 try to do anything with it. Damn it. 00:51:18.280 --> 00:51:24.340 Biden tried really, really hard to do certain things to actually address this. 00:51:24.820 --> 00:51:29.220 You know, and none of the Republicans were in for it. 00:51:29.540 --> 00:51:33.280 OK, you had the whole issue with they didn't have enough votes with, 00:51:33.280 --> 00:51:34.420 you know, Manchin and Sinema. 00:51:34.680 --> 00:51:37.880 Manchin kept blocking a lot of this stuff as well, okay? 00:51:38.460 --> 00:51:42.440 And so the reality is that he was trying very hard to do shit, 00:51:42.600 --> 00:51:44.820 to directly address these things. 00:51:45.120 --> 00:51:49.500 And the Republicans would have none of it. None of it. And so... 00:51:50.300 --> 00:51:56.440 In his first year, he was able to get people child tax credit checks, okay? 00:51:57.000 --> 00:52:02.100 He was able, and he had pushed his stuff to try to get every, 00:52:02.160 --> 00:52:06.740 he wanted to give everybody fucking child care. 00:52:06.960 --> 00:52:12.380 So people were not like that example in $130,000 where you're living in a place 00:52:12.380 --> 00:52:18.160 and you're having to pay $2,500, $3,000 for daycare for your kids. 00:52:18.160 --> 00:52:22.080 So people are in the workforce and they're not going broke and they're not making 00:52:22.080 --> 00:52:27.980 the decision of the of, you know, because it almost becomes unless the job is 00:52:27.980 --> 00:52:32.820 making a ton of money, you can't afford that, that, that, that child care. 00:52:32.980 --> 00:52:36.860 It makes no sense to be basically working just to be paying child care. 00:52:37.460 --> 00:52:41.980 It just doesn't for many people. And so at that point. 00:52:42.080 --> 00:52:43.780 You might as well stay home and take care of the kid. 00:52:44.300 --> 00:52:49.540 Exactly. But that also harms the workforce as well. 00:52:50.040 --> 00:52:54.040 You know, and you still need money for other things. 00:52:54.200 --> 00:52:58.600 And you still need money for other things. And so, and there was another article 00:52:58.600 --> 00:53:01.920 that was like, that I was looking at today, and this has been going around, 00:53:01.960 --> 00:53:07.140 that with surging auto debt, that repos across the U.S., they talk about that 00:53:07.140 --> 00:53:08.680 car dependent Miami feels the pain. 00:53:08.680 --> 00:53:13.100 But the reality is that across the board in the United States right now, 00:53:13.100 --> 00:53:19.060 there is a surge in car repossessions. 00:53:19.360 --> 00:53:25.140 OK, there was this this report out like right now that found that annual car 00:53:25.140 --> 00:53:30.580 repossessions and low defaults fall rates are at the highest since the years 00:53:30.580 --> 00:53:32.720 during and immediately after the Great Recession. 00:53:33.260 --> 00:53:41.020 Think about this. people are defaulting on their cars at levels not seen since 00:53:41.020 --> 00:53:44.260 the 2008 financial crisis. I mean... 00:53:46.310 --> 00:53:52.270 People are really, really, really struggling, okay? This is really bad. 00:53:53.850 --> 00:53:59.250 And we've got Republicans at the helm that don't seem to give a shit. 00:53:59.690 --> 00:54:07.410 I heard Donald Trump say this week that the affordability crisis is a Democratic scam. 00:54:07.850 --> 00:54:09.550 It's all just a bunch of lies. 00:54:09.770 --> 00:54:13.790 That is correct. That is exactly what he said, yes. That is exactly what he said. 00:54:13.950 --> 00:54:14.650 Isn't he right? 00:54:15.350 --> 00:54:20.110 Oh, of course he's right. It's all scam. No, he's not right. Fucking asshole. 00:54:20.890 --> 00:54:25.330 And here's another problem that we've got right now. They keep focusing on the 00:54:25.330 --> 00:54:27.550 Fed lowering rates, blah, blah, blah. 00:54:28.350 --> 00:54:33.250 I have been talking about how because of what Trump has done this year, 00:54:33.570 --> 00:54:42.810 because of his actions with foreign trade and alienating foreign buyers of U.S. treasuries. 00:54:43.750 --> 00:54:50.510 Even with expected interest rate cuts, none of those are making a dent on the 00:54:50.510 --> 00:54:52.290 30-year mortgage rate, okay? 00:54:52.810 --> 00:54:56.810 The 30-year mortgage rate is not dependent on the short-term rates that the 00:54:56.810 --> 00:55:00.710 Fed sets. It's dependent on the 10-year U.S. Treasury 10-year rate. 00:55:01.030 --> 00:55:03.490 And that fucker won't budge. 00:55:03.930 --> 00:55:07.610 It is not moving down. It's not moving down. 00:55:07.950 --> 00:55:10.930 And there was nothing that they could do to make it move down. 00:55:10.930 --> 00:55:15.590 In large part because it takes policy changes to... 00:55:17.310 --> 00:55:24.350 To, well, policy changes that Trump already made have made it that the stupid 00:55:24.350 --> 00:55:26.290 rate is remaining stubbornly high. 00:55:26.610 --> 00:55:29.070 And none of those are easy to undo. 00:55:29.450 --> 00:55:34.590 The trade war is the main reason why the stupid 10-year won't go down. 00:55:34.990 --> 00:55:38.850 And because he hasn't really backed off on any of this shit, 00:55:39.050 --> 00:55:41.910 it's causing the problem where you've got, 00:55:42.130 --> 00:55:44.930 A, you've got affordability for a lot of shit where people 00:55:44.930 --> 00:55:48.230 are struggling right now because inflation is is is 00:55:48.230 --> 00:55:52.190 higher than it's the e-pushed inflation back up and 00:55:52.190 --> 00:55:57.690 it's pushing interest rates higher because the 00:55:57.690 --> 00:56:03.370 reason why the 10-year dropped had a lot to do with our trade balance and our 00:56:03.370 --> 00:56:12.470 trading partners willing to be holding u.s treasuries and they have had because of Trump, 00:56:12.830 --> 00:56:17.230 they have been less willing to hold them unless they get paid more. 00:56:18.130 --> 00:56:23.790 That's the way the bond market works. OK, you know, you will hold something 00:56:23.790 --> 00:56:30.510 that's very sure that you feel safer and pay a lower rate. 00:56:30.510 --> 00:56:33.830 But if you start feeling insecure about it, then the rate goes up. 00:56:34.530 --> 00:56:35.090 Right. 00:56:35.290 --> 00:56:41.290 You're a higher risk. You need to pay more. And Trump has made that America is a higher risk. 00:56:42.890 --> 00:56:47.490 A borrower. And there is nothing that he is doing that's going to fix that. 00:56:48.670 --> 00:56:55.490 So speaking more broadly than just affordability, you know, we've got a ton 00:56:55.490 --> 00:56:56.910 of recession indicators, don't we? 00:56:57.250 --> 00:56:59.890 Oh, my God. Everything is flashing red. Yes. 00:57:00.410 --> 00:57:02.470 So so go into that a little bit more. 00:57:02.690 --> 00:57:10.090 Jobs. OK, this week. OK, by the way, they went and decided not to publish a 00:57:10.090 --> 00:57:11.210 whole bunch of economic data. 00:57:11.210 --> 00:57:18.070 Oh really well why we i don't understand like what why do you think. 00:57:18.070 --> 00:57:22.230 That could be sam do you think it's because it was all it all looked great. 00:57:22.230 --> 00:57:29.670 Yvonne we know that they have said that these these all of these metrics they've 00:57:29.670 --> 00:57:34.010 discovered were being manipulated by the democrats and were bullshit numbers 00:57:34.010 --> 00:57:38.570 so they have to get a handle on everything they can't publish it while they don't know. 00:57:39.250 --> 00:57:44.370 Ah, that's why. Yeah, no. Obviously, it has to be because all the data was shipped. 00:57:44.890 --> 00:57:48.610 The ADP jobs report showed that we had the worst period of hiring that we've 00:57:48.610 --> 00:57:53.550 had in years as well in terms of private sector hiring. It's been awful. 00:57:53.850 --> 00:57:57.530 We had the most layoff notices that we've had since the Great Recession. 00:57:57.750 --> 00:57:59.730 I don't know if you've heard about this story. 00:57:59.830 --> 00:58:02.230 I am proud to be part of that, you know, that story. 00:58:02.770 --> 00:58:04.670 Okay, yeah. I mean, yeah. 00:58:04.930 --> 00:58:07.190 I have contributed in my own way. 00:58:08.530 --> 00:58:14.710 I mean, it's one of those things where all the fucking indicators are flashing 00:58:14.710 --> 00:58:17.270 red, okay, about this. Yeah. 00:58:17.550 --> 00:58:26.330 And the fact that the only thing that held up GDP this year is investment in AI. 00:58:26.870 --> 00:58:31.630 Oh, God. Yeah. That makes it feel good. 00:58:31.810 --> 00:58:35.350 There's no, like, frothy bubble there or anything. Yeah. 00:58:36.610 --> 00:58:42.350 Look, there are things in the, in the AI space that obviously has happened with 00:58:42.350 --> 00:58:44.270 a lot of these waves that are overvalued. 00:58:44.530 --> 00:58:48.870 I don't doubt that there's a whole bunch of things, but also I think we've got, 00:58:49.030 --> 00:58:51.290 I think we've got on that space. 00:58:51.470 --> 00:58:54.410 We've got opinions like that are all over the place about this, right? 00:58:55.030 --> 00:58:59.450 I had shared on the, on, on the show, one of the shows while you were in surgery, 00:58:59.570 --> 00:59:01.250 the one where Bruce and Ed were on. 00:59:01.250 --> 00:59:04.190 Um i talked about i shared this on 00:59:04.190 --> 00:59:07.030 the curmudgeons corner slack too but there was there was 00:59:07.030 --> 00:59:09.710 some chart i believe it was in the 00:59:09.710 --> 00:59:13.930 economist where they said predictions on 00:59:13.930 --> 00:59:17.690 ai's effect on world 00:59:17.690 --> 00:59:21.490 gdp they're all had a chart well basically 00:59:21.490 --> 00:59:24.710 the two extremes of the 00:59:24.710 --> 00:59:30.010 thing were one that went up to infinity when you get the singularity and ai 00:59:30.010 --> 00:59:35.890 takes over everything and one that goes down to zero because the ai causes human 00:59:35.890 --> 00:59:41.210 extinction and and that that was the extremes extremes of the prediction you 00:59:41.210 --> 00:59:43.870 know so it's like okay and. 00:59:43.870 --> 00:59:48.390 That's and that's basically what you you see in the market and with everybody 00:59:48.390 --> 00:59:54.090 talking about this there that that is basically the spread of opinions i think that, 00:59:55.470 --> 00:59:58.170 objectively looking at this i i 00:59:58.170 --> 01:00:01.210 what are the one of the things you 01:00:01.210 --> 01:00:04.490 know they keep trying to compare it to 2000 and the 01:00:04.490 --> 01:00:07.650 tech bubble there well there's one thing one of the things that was 01:00:07.650 --> 01:00:10.550 the biggest issue in the 2000 tech bubbles there's 01:00:10.550 --> 01:00:13.810 no monetization they kept building cool 01:00:13.810 --> 01:00:16.830 shit without any way to monetize it 01:00:16.830 --> 01:00:20.010 okay all right that that's not what's happening 01:00:20.010 --> 01:00:23.230 with any of this ai stuff there there there is 01:00:23.230 --> 01:00:26.810 clearly a path to monetizing this 01:00:26.810 --> 01:00:29.850 i mean i i you know i i have seen this happen 01:00:29.850 --> 01:00:32.850 like with a lot of what a 01:00:32.850 --> 01:00:37.310 lot of the things that are being done that that i don't i don't have a i don't 01:00:37.310 --> 01:00:41.990 have an issue with finding the the ways to monetize it but i also find so many 01:00:41.990 --> 01:00:51.910 people that decry it yet it you said adoption is no nobody's using this stuff that that's bullshit oh. 01:00:51.910 --> 01:00:52.950 Everybody's using it. 01:00:52.950 --> 01:00:57.110 Everybody's using it everybody's using it and people sometimes are using it 01:00:57.110 --> 01:00:59.710 they don't even know they're using it okay and. 01:00:59.710 --> 01:01:02.370 Like in my example and i'm paying i am. 01:01:02.370 --> 01:01:03.270 Paying several. 01:01:03.270 --> 01:01:04.990 Ai companies at. 01:01:04.990 --> 01:01:07.230 This very moment i i think. 01:01:07.230 --> 01:01:13.890 I'm i'm paying cursor i'm paying anthropic i'm paying open ai right now i've 01:01:13.890 --> 01:01:17.450 got regular monthly subscriptions for all three of them i use one of them a 01:01:17.450 --> 01:01:20.870 lot more than the other two so i may want to change that up at some point but 01:01:20.870 --> 01:01:22.810 like at the moment i'm using all three. 01:01:22.810 --> 01:01:29.770 And yeah and i'm using it practically every day and and listen of the younger 01:01:29.770 --> 01:01:32.710 generation those people can't live school right. 01:01:34.390 --> 01:01:38.590 How would you write an essay for school without ChatGPT? 01:01:38.890 --> 01:01:41.770 I told you that my experience, I bumped into a guy that said that he doesn't 01:01:41.770 --> 01:01:45.310 understand how he could write an email without AI anymore. 01:01:45.850 --> 01:01:48.710 And so I see a lot of people, you hear a lot of loud people complaining, 01:01:48.890 --> 01:01:51.790 oh, they're forcing me a copilot and this or whatever. 01:01:51.990 --> 01:01:55.650 I don't want to, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Where the reality is that we've 01:01:55.650 --> 01:01:57.690 got an entire generation of 01:01:57.690 --> 01:02:04.230 people right now that are 100% dependent on AI for basic things every day. 01:02:04.390 --> 01:02:07.710 So when they are trying to tell me how this is a complete bubble, 01:02:07.790 --> 01:02:11.250 that they're building shit that nobody is using, that is absolutely a lie. 01:02:11.250 --> 01:02:17.350 And by the way, the adoption rate on this is insanely high. 01:02:17.510 --> 01:02:20.850 I mean, the stuff we're talking about didn't exist three years ago. 01:02:20.990 --> 01:02:25.950 Two years! So that's why when I go, when I see people, they're trying to tell 01:02:25.950 --> 01:02:30.350 me, look, is there stuff that could be, that is overvalued, okay? 01:02:30.650 --> 01:02:34.350 That, you know, we're overpaying for it. 01:02:34.390 --> 01:02:39.610 That where maybe they may be overspending in the short term on certain things. 01:02:39.790 --> 01:02:41.710 I believe that. But the reality is that. 01:02:41.930 --> 01:02:46.010 Or the typical pattern that happens on all kinds of waves like this, 01:02:46.170 --> 01:02:53.790 where the first run companies who are really driving it and like burning out 01:02:53.790 --> 01:02:56.430 and not making the monetization work. 01:02:56.430 --> 01:03:00.250 And it's the second wave that ends up being the ones that really. 01:03:00.510 --> 01:03:05.570 Or something. Or something happens in the middle. Listen, with a lot of things, 01:03:05.690 --> 01:03:10.330 let me give an example of like real estate, like back in 2008, 01:03:10.570 --> 01:03:14.850 a lot of, you know, we're talking about how there was a lot of overbuilding into 2008. 01:03:15.010 --> 01:03:20.030 But the reality is that in the next five years, all that real estate got bought up. 01:03:20.210 --> 01:03:24.810 And by the way, the prices that we thought were crazy in 2008 now are cheap. 01:03:25.500 --> 01:03:25.960 Right. 01:03:26.700 --> 01:03:32.340 And so that's the thing where these waves sometimes wind up, 01:03:32.400 --> 01:03:36.420 it happened in the PC industry in the 90s, where all of a sudden there was a 01:03:36.420 --> 01:03:38.100 wave of overbuilding of PCs, 01:03:38.300 --> 01:03:41.940 and all of a sudden they tried to put too many PCs on the market, 01:03:41.940 --> 01:03:45.960 and all of a sudden they had to cut prices in order to get people to buy, 01:03:46.060 --> 01:03:48.780 and some companies lost money for a little bit because of whatever. 01:03:48.780 --> 01:03:51.680 But then after, you know what, now, whatever. 01:03:53.420 --> 01:03:58.660 Look, generally speaking, I mean, these bubbles and such aren't necessarily 01:03:58.660 --> 01:04:02.660 saying this thing pops and is gone forever. It's just that there's stuff that's 01:04:02.660 --> 01:04:05.760 premature and over, you know. 01:04:06.380 --> 01:04:11.960 And so, yeah, you get the up, you get the down, and then you have it slowly go back up again. 01:04:12.140 --> 01:04:16.040 And very well end up higher than the bubble was. 01:04:16.060 --> 01:04:19.020 Well, there were a lot of things in the bubble. But listen, but there are certain 01:04:19.020 --> 01:04:23.120 things in the bubble that we talk about in bubble that are like impossible. 01:04:23.120 --> 01:04:24.660 It was like, you know what? 01:04:24.780 --> 01:04:28.220 Like people were paying 400 times earnings for Cisco. 01:04:29.000 --> 01:04:37.560 There was no mathematical model ever to get to 400 times earnings to make Cisco 01:04:37.560 --> 01:04:41.540 sell enough to make that value make sense. 01:04:41.540 --> 01:04:45.460 OK, but right now, when they're trying to tell me that NVIDIA is in a bubble 01:04:45.460 --> 01:04:47.820 where they are, they're comparing. 01:04:48.140 --> 01:04:54.500 I got people comparing NVIDIA to Cisco, whereas NVIDIA is like a 30, 01:04:55.280 --> 01:04:59.800 20 some odd times future earnings, whereas Cisco was at 400 times. 01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:03.240 I'm like, OK, guys, look, you guys are not looking at the numbers. 01:05:03.520 --> 01:05:08.180 You guys are not looking at the numbers. I'm sorry, but you're comparing two 01:05:08.180 --> 01:05:08.900 things that are different. 01:05:08.900 --> 01:05:14.240 Now, when you're telling me that you've got a Palantir that's at 500 times earnings 01:05:14.240 --> 01:05:17.960 and that I can't make or figure out how in the world they're going to, 01:05:17.960 --> 01:05:20.220 you know, make that kind of money. 01:05:20.360 --> 01:05:23.520 And you've got a Tesla out there and you've got some other stuff that's like 01:05:23.520 --> 01:05:25.520 valued like that. Yes, I do agree. 01:05:25.880 --> 01:05:29.300 And there's a whole bunch of overvaluation and there is that kind of stuff. 01:05:29.960 --> 01:05:33.640 But I do think but the biggest thing that I keep seeing is all these people 01:05:33.640 --> 01:05:36.600 trying to go on TV and try to tell me how nobody uses AI. 01:05:36.820 --> 01:05:39.320 AI doesn't work or whatever, blah, blah, blah. Let me tell you something. 01:05:39.680 --> 01:05:42.880 AI can do a whole bunch of fucked up things. And like you said, 01:05:42.980 --> 01:05:51.820 I think it is one of the most polarizing technologies that we have ever deployed. 01:05:51.820 --> 01:05:57.220 And it shows that that economist article that you mentioned where the spread was. 01:05:58.080 --> 01:06:02.800 Why the spread was, why they're going to be destroyed by it or, 01:06:02.800 --> 01:06:08.360 you know, the edge of the outcomes was like the entire spectrum of the existence 01:06:08.360 --> 01:06:11.240 of the planet, basically. Yeah. 01:06:14.140 --> 01:06:21.940 I think that, but people to say that it's not being used when I see so many 01:06:21.940 --> 01:06:26.180 people right now that basically just depend on it every day. 01:06:26.300 --> 01:06:33.800 And as we've talked about this technology, it's also continuing to evolve very rapidly. 01:06:34.060 --> 01:06:38.600 I mean, when we started talking about this two years ago, you know, 01:06:38.920 --> 01:06:42.520 there were all kinds of problems. And it was bad. 01:06:42.920 --> 01:06:43.620 And it was bad. 01:06:44.380 --> 01:06:51.100 And, and, you know, we, and in some ways it still is, but the ratio of utility 01:06:51.100 --> 01:06:55.140 to badness is shifting over time. It is getting better over time. 01:06:55.380 --> 01:06:56.220 It is getting a lot better. 01:06:56.220 --> 01:07:03.080 And it is, and even at this point, like even comparing, if you go back and look 01:07:03.080 --> 01:07:06.900 three months, there's a noticeable difference, let alone if you're looking back a year. 01:07:08.400 --> 01:07:12.260 And, and, and so it's really hard to predict where we're going. 01:07:12.260 --> 01:07:15.220 And, and there is the, 01:07:15.460 --> 01:07:20.260 you know, like you said, there is the question of, okay, you can see the path to monetization, 01:07:20.280 --> 01:07:25.240 but we're still very much in the phase where all of these companies are spending 01:07:25.240 --> 01:07:30.440 a shit ton more than they're making in order to grow the technologies, 01:07:30.440 --> 01:07:33.140 do the improvement, you know? Yeah. 01:07:33.840 --> 01:07:37.200 But like a lot of the big name brands that everybody talks about, 01:07:37.660 --> 01:07:42.400 you know, you're, you're, but they're, they're investing that to continue improving 01:07:42.400 --> 01:07:45.780 the technology to spur that adoption. 01:07:45.940 --> 01:07:49.960 You know, all the usual things that happen in the early growth stages of things. 01:07:50.120 --> 01:07:53.960 And so the question is, where does all that stabilize and who's left standing? 01:07:54.160 --> 01:07:57.620 Do you have a game of musical chairs and you've got like 10 players and five 01:07:57.620 --> 01:08:00.920 and only two of them survive? Maybe, you know, maybe. 01:08:01.480 --> 01:08:07.340 Maybe, maybe. for all we know. But bottom line is that you know... 01:08:07.340 --> 01:08:12.420 Anyway, you were saying this is the only thing that GDP got down on. 01:08:12.420 --> 01:08:17.540 That is a GDP. The thing is that I don't... You know, I think that, 01:08:18.310 --> 01:08:22.870 Obviously, there could be too much froth in this, but saying that it's just, 01:08:23.110 --> 01:08:27.250 this isn't a tulip bulb bubble. 01:08:27.590 --> 01:08:28.230 Okay, all right. 01:08:28.590 --> 01:08:33.810 I will say, by the way, by the way, if you account for everything, 01:08:34.770 --> 01:08:40.330 you know, tulips are probably cost more than they did during the tulip craze. 01:08:40.630 --> 01:08:43.110 At least nominally. Probably not. 01:08:43.110 --> 01:08:45.590 Nominally. Probably not. Yeah, not, not, not. 01:08:45.590 --> 01:08:50.110 Because it was like people were spending their entire year's income on one tulip and stuff. 01:08:50.270 --> 01:08:53.470 Yes. I don't think tulips are that expensive like right now. 01:08:53.790 --> 01:08:56.750 I wonder how much a tulip bulb is right now. That's a great question. 01:08:58.030 --> 01:09:02.310 You should get the long-term chart of tulip bulbs going all the way back to the tulip. 01:09:02.810 --> 01:09:06.310 I should try to find one of those. But anyway, the bottom line is that, 01:09:06.450 --> 01:09:09.270 unfortunately, the economy is only being held up by that. 01:09:09.350 --> 01:09:14.110 And that's not a lot of companies that are in this gig. 01:09:14.110 --> 01:09:20.410 Well, in general, I've seen a number of people talk about how the uneven distribution 01:09:20.410 --> 01:09:24.710 of the economy is a significant issue in terms of companies. 01:09:24.890 --> 01:09:29.830 Like you mentioned, there's somebody did a chart where they're like, here's the S&P 500. 01:09:30.610 --> 01:09:35.150 Here's the S&P 500 without the 10 companies who are doing well. 01:09:35.150 --> 01:09:41.490 Now, to be fair, I looked at that, and to be fair, even since 2020, 01:09:41.490 --> 01:09:46.630 the increase in the stock market on the non-whatever companies, 01:09:46.750 --> 01:09:49.990 the ones that are not involved in that, was 120%. 01:09:49.990 --> 01:09:51.970 That's not a bad return, okay? 01:09:52.470 --> 01:09:53.870 But the other ones. 01:09:53.950 --> 01:09:55.850 It's 1,000-plus percent, yeah. 01:09:56.270 --> 01:10:00.070 Well, and in the last year, the others have been more down. 01:10:00.390 --> 01:10:05.830 Right. Um, and, and then, but also I've seen like analysis of like things like 01:10:05.830 --> 01:10:07.110 consumer spending and stuff. 01:10:07.590 --> 01:10:11.130 Consumer spending is being held up by the top 10%. 01:10:11.930 --> 01:10:17.210 Like the top 10% who's invested in the stock market, making money from the stock 01:10:17.210 --> 01:10:21.450 market, all this kind of stuff, they're doing well. They're spending lots of money. 01:10:21.650 --> 01:10:24.330 They're doing, you know, they're buying their lots of Christmas presents. 01:10:24.570 --> 01:10:28.110 The other 90% is hunkering down. 01:10:29.210 --> 01:10:29.730 Yeah. 01:10:30.030 --> 01:10:32.910 And so you see that division as well. 01:10:33.630 --> 01:10:40.550 Not totally. And so this is not sustainable. This is not sustainable. 01:10:42.090 --> 01:10:47.450 We're going to, you know, and the problem that the GOP has is politically, 01:10:47.670 --> 01:10:49.070 this is a time bomb in their hands. 01:10:49.410 --> 01:10:53.230 Because really the guys that are hurting, for the most part, 01:10:54.150 --> 01:10:54.930 are their constituents. 01:10:56.050 --> 01:10:59.690 Those are the guys that had voted them in because supposedly the Biden economy 01:10:59.690 --> 01:11:03.030 wasn't working for them and the Republicans were going to fix the economy. 01:11:03.530 --> 01:11:07.130 And what they have done is make it incredibly worse for them. 01:11:07.810 --> 01:11:10.150 And all the surveys right now show that. 01:11:10.990 --> 01:11:14.870 And they're not doing anything to fix it. 01:11:15.370 --> 01:11:19.410 Yvonne, has this pattern happened before? Has this pattern happened before? 01:11:20.070 --> 01:11:24.050 Have Republicans come in when the Democrats left them a good economy, 01:11:24.050 --> 01:11:25.890 and then something happens? 01:11:26.590 --> 01:11:28.070 It's just bad luck, right? 01:11:28.690 --> 01:11:29.970 Yeah, it's just bad luck, yeah. 01:11:30.550 --> 01:11:34.210 Oh, it's because the Democrats really left them a mess. 01:11:34.430 --> 01:11:38.250 Yeah, they left them a mess. I mean, October— Yes. 01:11:38.250 --> 01:11:41.710 This has happened before. This is this has been like the typical pattern for 01:11:41.710 --> 01:11:45.750 Republican administration, Republican administration going back like decades now. 01:11:46.030 --> 01:11:52.630 Yeah. October 2024. There is an article in The Economist on the cover. 01:11:53.030 --> 01:11:53.570 Yes. 01:11:53.770 --> 01:11:59.210 That the headline was The American Economy, The Envy of the World. Yeah. 01:12:00.440 --> 01:12:06.500 That was the headline over 2024. And right now, it's a basket case. 01:12:06.680 --> 01:12:16.660 Like right now, it really is. I mean, it's being held up by one massive technology 01:12:16.660 --> 01:12:22.340 shift that has caused a massive spend in that direction. 01:12:22.340 --> 01:12:32.180 But the rest of the economy is stagnating. It's suffering badly I mean, 01:12:33.540 --> 01:12:37.080 All these immigration rates are hitting the economy negatively, 01:12:38.060 --> 01:12:41.320 okay? All right? They're driving up costs, okay? 01:12:41.880 --> 01:12:49.080 You've got, you know, in some places now, you've got a dearth of workers for certain things, okay? 01:12:49.200 --> 01:12:53.620 And what it's doing, it's driving up costs of construction and some other things 01:12:53.620 --> 01:12:57.900 because they can't get workers for that, okay? 01:12:58.460 --> 01:13:02.360 And then you've got on the other part where he went and he took a, 01:13:02.360 --> 01:13:08.460 he took a, they took a chainsaw to the federal government and cut hundreds of thousands of jobs, 01:13:09.040 --> 01:13:12.120 driving up costs because the deficit 01:13:12.120 --> 01:13:17.620 went up while creating a mass of unemployed people at the same time. 01:13:19.260 --> 01:13:24.640 And they went and they raised the tariffs, which impacted a lot of medium businesses, 01:13:25.060 --> 01:13:30.000 small, medium businesses, and it's impacting individuals heavily because it's driving up costs. 01:13:30.580 --> 01:13:37.920 It's just, it's everything that they've done is just bad for the economy. All of it. 01:13:38.760 --> 01:13:42.820 This week, they were trying to tout how we, oh, we're bringing, 01:13:43.220 --> 01:13:48.520 we're going to bring back manufacturing of chips to the U.S. 01:13:49.000 --> 01:13:52.980 Fuck, Biden had been working on that and had more success than that over the 01:13:52.980 --> 01:13:56.480 last four years with the Chips Act than they ever did in their lifetime. 01:13:57.780 --> 01:13:59.000 It was a whole big thing. 01:13:59.720 --> 01:14:11.020 Yeah, and it was making progress. All the green manufacturing with the new energy, they hit that too. 01:14:11.280 --> 01:14:15.040 So they fucked that part of the industry too, which was also surging, 01:14:16.700 --> 01:14:23.560 everything they have done you know it's the saying oh my god what the hell this 01:14:23.560 --> 01:14:31.640 political commentator said I think it was Conway everything Trump touches dies yes. 01:14:33.120 --> 01:14:38.160 So, Yvonne, I guess we can save the real predictions for the prediction show for next year. 01:14:38.320 --> 01:14:42.560 But, like, how bad is this going to get worse before it gets better, right? 01:14:42.840 --> 01:14:46.600 Oh, God, yes. It's going to get a lot worse. I'm not turning this around anytime 01:14:46.600 --> 01:14:49.540 soon. No, they're not doing it. Like I said, they're not doing anything to fix 01:14:49.540 --> 01:14:50.800 it. They're making it worse. 01:14:52.320 --> 01:14:57.880 Look, when people's pocketbooks get hit next year with the double whammy of 01:14:57.880 --> 01:15:02.120 losing insurance coverage or those that keep it have their... 01:15:02.120 --> 01:15:07.680 This is tens of millions of households that are getting this impact. 01:15:07.960 --> 01:15:10.140 Think about all the other impacts that they've had negative. 01:15:10.440 --> 01:15:14.040 Aside from, okay, great. So now they've got their health insurance rates are 01:15:14.040 --> 01:15:18.060 soaring. So that reduces their disposable income. Bam. You got that. 01:15:19.740 --> 01:15:23.640 They also went on student loans. Remember? Student debt. 01:15:23.900 --> 01:15:27.940 Remember how that was also a big positive on the economy because they were forgiving 01:15:27.940 --> 01:15:31.880 a lot of that and suspended payments on a lot of those? Well, they lifted all of that. 01:15:32.120 --> 01:15:35.100 Okay yep that's. 01:15:35.100 --> 01:15:39.660 Also hitting millions and millions of people as well they. 01:15:39.660 --> 01:15:40.500 Just keep. 01:15:40.500 --> 01:15:42.000 Fucking people sam. 01:15:42.000 --> 01:15:48.880 So yvonne order of magnitude are we talking about short quick recession that 01:15:48.880 --> 01:15:55.080 people barely notice are we talking 2008 level great recession or are we talking 01:15:55.080 --> 01:15:57.540 1929 level Great Depression. 01:15:57.800 --> 01:16:02.720 I'm thinking more early 90s style recession. 01:16:03.020 --> 01:16:04.820 Okay, tell me more about, 01:16:05.790 --> 01:16:07.990 What was that like? I should remember. 01:16:08.990 --> 01:16:18.110 The early 90s recession was a period of very low growth to negative growth where employment was, 01:16:18.330 --> 01:16:24.510 you know, people were struggling to find jobs and costs were rising. Okay. 01:16:25.170 --> 01:16:29.450 And that's why H.W. Bush lost. 01:16:29.450 --> 01:16:37.410 We were coming off a bank bust at that time where there had been a massive bank 01:16:37.410 --> 01:16:40.410 bailout because this was the S&L crisis. 01:16:41.770 --> 01:16:49.630 And this was also a part where the defense industry was shrinking because of the end of the Cold War. 01:16:49.690 --> 01:16:52.630 And that caused a lot of layoffs. Okay. 01:16:53.470 --> 01:16:59.010 And so employment was muted. 01:16:59.370 --> 01:17:01.730 You know, people were struggling to get jobs. 01:17:02.130 --> 01:17:09.250 The automakers were also laying off a lot of people because they had been getting 01:17:09.250 --> 01:17:12.490 hammered by imports at the time. 01:17:12.810 --> 01:17:17.550 GM and Ford were not doing very well against our foreign competitors. 01:17:17.950 --> 01:17:20.930 And I think that you're going to get a style like that where. 01:17:21.880 --> 01:17:28.840 We're having right now a period of more like stagflation where we've got high 01:17:28.840 --> 01:17:37.680 costs and higher unemployment for a while, like right now at this point. 01:17:38.360 --> 01:17:44.920 One of the reasons I don't think balance sheets for a lot of people and companies 01:17:44.920 --> 01:17:51.460 are in better shape than they have been at in the 80s and 90s or at other times. 01:17:51.880 --> 01:17:58.800 And so I think that that that's one reason why we're not talking about 2008 levels, 01:17:58.800 --> 01:18:08.900 but we're talking more like now it looks more like early 90s kind of where it was hard to find a job. 01:18:09.060 --> 01:18:12.180 I don't know if you recall, but I do recall that it was like when we got out, 01:18:12.360 --> 01:18:17.800 when we graduated from college in 93, it was a tough job market for us is a 01:18:17.800 --> 01:18:20.940 very tough job market for us to find a job in 93. 01:18:20.940 --> 01:18:26.500 And that was like because of the effects of that recession that we that that 01:18:26.500 --> 01:18:30.680 come out and like the the shrinking defense budgets and all of this stuff and 01:18:30.680 --> 01:18:32.780 whatever and how that lowered employment how, 01:18:33.480 --> 01:18:38.140 the auto industry was shrinking how we were it was it was it was a difficult 01:18:38.140 --> 01:18:45.100 economy so that's that's i think what we're facing right now okay very cheery 01:18:45.100 --> 01:18:47.200 way for arrest this turn yeah i. 01:18:47.200 --> 01:18:48.960 I I figure it's time to take a break and move on. 01:18:49.680 --> 01:18:51.180 Yeah. Yeah. There you go. 01:18:51.360 --> 01:18:57.640 Okay. We'll take a quick break. I'll come back and I'll preview to try to cheer things up a little bit. 01:18:57.860 --> 01:19:01.780 I'm going to talk about this week's election results and. 01:19:02.260 --> 01:19:03.600 Oh, there you go. Yeah. 01:19:04.080 --> 01:19:08.280 You know, how things might be looking for next year's elections. 01:19:08.660 --> 01:19:09.060 Okay. 01:19:09.160 --> 01:19:09.760 Back after this. 01:19:52.890 --> 01:19:59.790 Okay, we are back. So, elections. We had this race, congressional race in Tennessee. 01:20:00.630 --> 01:20:04.250 The Democrat did lose, but they were expected to lose. 01:20:04.610 --> 01:20:08.810 Yes. The question was margins. Now, I know some people were hoping they would 01:20:08.810 --> 01:20:14.450 pull out an upset, but the reality is they lost by, I forget the exact number, 01:20:14.530 --> 01:20:16.290 it ended up being like 6% or something. 01:20:16.510 --> 01:20:20.690 But this was a district that Trump had won by 22%. 01:20:20.690 --> 01:20:21.850 2%, yes. 01:20:21.850 --> 01:20:29.110 It's a huge shift. And if you look at some of the maps that show shift per county 01:20:29.110 --> 01:20:34.710 or shift per whatever subgeographic area, they were all moving blue. 01:20:35.150 --> 01:20:39.790 Like very red areas were moving blue by a significant direction. 01:20:39.790 --> 01:20:46.570 And if you look at all of the special elections that have been going on since 01:20:46.570 --> 01:20:52.090 the 2024 election, on average, 01:20:52.470 --> 01:20:57.170 and I'm going to forget the exact number, but it's somewhat like 10%, 01:20:57.170 --> 01:21:02.170 maybe even a little bit more, of the shift towards the Democrats. 01:21:03.630 --> 01:21:07.490 And this is huge like if 01:21:07.490 --> 01:21:11.110 if this replicates it all and and you look you have people 01:21:11.110 --> 01:21:16.830 have pointed out special elections are special there tend to be more motivated 01:21:16.830 --> 01:21:21.530 people that come out and it's a different kind of electorate than in a midterm 01:21:21.530 --> 01:21:25.430 let alone like every four-year presidential election but it's a different sort 01:21:25.430 --> 01:21:29.430 of people that come out for special elections so they're not 100 percent predictive 01:21:29.430 --> 01:21:31.070 and you can get divergences. 01:21:31.330 --> 01:21:37.130 But generally speaking, if you look at the last however many midterm cycles, 01:21:37.610 --> 01:21:44.670 when one party is winning special elections by this margin, they end up taking 01:21:44.670 --> 01:21:49.210 the House of Representatives like 60, 70 percent of the time. 01:21:49.410 --> 01:21:51.050 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Agreed. Yeah. 01:21:51.350 --> 01:21:51.990 And, 01:21:52.680 --> 01:21:56.900 You know, and we're talking about, you know, there was also news about the Texas 01:21:56.900 --> 01:22:01.780 redistricting and the Supreme Court, like, upheld the districts that, 01:22:01.920 --> 01:22:05.720 well, they let them stand for now. 01:22:06.020 --> 01:22:08.500 Right, until a case goes through. Right. 01:22:08.680 --> 01:22:13.400 But the case won't go through before next year's elections. Basically, 01:22:13.660 --> 01:22:16.580 these maps will be in place for 2026. 01:22:17.240 --> 01:22:23.120 But what you have here is also the scenario where, look, people weren't all 01:22:23.120 --> 01:22:26.580 talking about how they gerrymandered these maps to gain five more seats. 01:22:27.660 --> 01:22:35.060 But that kind of assumes that the electorate looks a lot like it did in 2024. 01:22:35.060 --> 01:22:38.040 Right if you if you've got 01:22:38.040 --> 01:22:41.460 a 10 12 01:22:41.460 --> 01:22:45.220 point shift in the electorate then a 01:22:45.220 --> 01:22:50.520 lot of these seats that they had gerrymandered thinking they were so safe they 01:22:50.520 --> 01:22:55.420 could afford to dilute them a little bit and take over some blue areas and and 01:22:55.420 --> 01:23:02.620 kill those seat democratic seats are are at risk right and and And just more generally, 01:23:03.440 --> 01:23:08.420 if, you know, I had talked on this show a while back about, 01:23:08.660 --> 01:23:14.340 you know, people had done analysis that if everybody did all the gerrymandering 01:23:14.340 --> 01:23:19.920 for their party that they could legally do before 2026, so Texas does their 01:23:19.920 --> 01:23:22.160 thing, California does their thing, blah, blah, blah. 01:23:22.780 --> 01:23:28.220 The most typical scenario is it would represent a Republican gain of between 01:23:28.220 --> 01:23:32.280 five and 10 seats that they get out of that effort net between, 01:23:32.280 --> 01:23:34.980 you know, Democrats doing their thing, Republicans doing their thing. 01:23:35.480 --> 01:23:42.320 If you have a scenario where the overall shift is 10 to 12 points towards the 01:23:42.320 --> 01:23:46.280 Democrats, that swamps that five to 10 seats. 01:23:46.460 --> 01:23:46.740 Right. 01:23:47.910 --> 01:23:53.390 You know, and and you're you know, you're talking a wave election and you're 01:23:53.390 --> 01:23:57.810 talking, you know, you may have a shift of, you know, 30 seats overall, 01:23:58.190 --> 01:24:01.850 which is more than enough to bring the Democrats back into the House. 01:24:02.210 --> 01:24:09.470 And may may may even put the Senate at risk, which, you know, 01:24:09.550 --> 01:24:11.890 had been viewed as sort of potentially out of reach. 01:24:11.890 --> 01:24:16.610 Like, you know, the best case scenario for Democrats was getting the getting 01:24:16.610 --> 01:24:20.450 the House back, but they probably wouldn't get the Senate back because it's 01:24:20.450 --> 01:24:23.750 just a bad set of races for the Democrats for Senate. 01:24:23.970 --> 01:24:28.590 But if you're talking about that big wave, there's at least a chance for the Senate. 01:24:30.110 --> 01:24:35.670 You're maybe not going to predict it, but it becomes in play where maybe it wasn't before. 01:24:36.650 --> 01:24:41.750 And so, and this all has to do with the stuff that you were talking about in 01:24:41.750 --> 01:24:44.610 the last segment, Yvonne. It's like, yeah. 01:24:44.730 --> 01:24:47.430 And they're not doing anything to fix it, which is the problem. 01:24:47.810 --> 01:24:51.210 They're not doing anything to fix it, but I just, and speaking more. 01:24:51.430 --> 01:24:53.890 You know what they're doing? We're building a ballroom, Sam. 01:24:54.030 --> 01:24:55.990 I don't know if you saw. And the ballroom keeps getting bigger. 01:24:56.450 --> 01:24:58.650 And the ballroom keeps getting bigger and bigger. 01:24:58.670 --> 01:25:03.770 I know. And he fired the architect who didn't want to make it as big. 01:25:03.770 --> 01:25:05.970 So you have to get another one now. 01:25:06.070 --> 01:25:09.950 But I don't know if this one will either, because he hired an architect that 01:25:09.950 --> 01:25:13.250 is the guy that has done so much of the construction in D.C. 01:25:13.610 --> 01:25:16.010 Historically. OK, which is the weird thing. And I thought, wait a minute, 01:25:16.090 --> 01:25:22.610 you went with with a guy who's basically his career has been spent trying to preserve D.C. 01:25:22.910 --> 01:25:26.270 Looking a certain way. I don't know how the hell this guy is going to go and 01:25:26.270 --> 01:25:28.070 just agree with doing that. 01:25:28.790 --> 01:25:31.410 Yeah. Well, anyway, like I'm sure this guy will get fired. 01:25:31.530 --> 01:25:32.270 Too, is what I'm saying. 01:25:32.890 --> 01:25:34.670 Yes. OK. But, but what, 01:25:35.510 --> 01:25:43.690 Back to what I was talking about, I think the shift is not—it's twofold, 01:25:43.690 --> 01:25:47.210 and it's always complicated what factors are at play. 01:25:47.370 --> 01:25:50.130 But one is Democrats are really riled up. 01:25:51.290 --> 01:25:55.430 The Democrats are turning out for these things. They are really upset. 01:25:55.750 --> 01:25:59.710 They are turning out. They are voting for their people. And by the way, 01:25:59.810 --> 01:26:04.870 this person who came really close in Tennessee was not a moderate Democrat. 01:26:05.670 --> 01:26:10.610 They were a fairly progressive Democrat. So like this sort of is, 01:26:11.210 --> 01:26:14.590 you know, you get the whole arguments about like, well, what kind of Democrats 01:26:14.590 --> 01:26:20.670 should the Democrats be running and is, you know, adapting to the district and 01:26:20.670 --> 01:26:22.490 make sure like in a place like Tennessee, 01:26:22.710 --> 01:26:24.730 of course, like if a Democrat is 01:26:24.730 --> 01:26:27.330 going to win, it's going to have to be a Republican light type candidate. 01:26:27.550 --> 01:26:30.410 And no, this was not a Republican light type candidate. 01:26:31.590 --> 01:26:36.110 They did well anyway. now would, 01:26:36.860 --> 01:26:41.100 Maybe if they'd run a Republican light, they would have actually won. I don't know. 01:26:41.620 --> 01:26:46.760 But, you know, anyway, but that's item one. 01:26:47.060 --> 01:26:52.780 Number two is disillusioned Republicans, where maybe these Republicans aren't 01:26:52.780 --> 01:26:53.700 going to vote for Democrats. 01:26:54.180 --> 01:26:59.900 Some of them in the wishy-washy middle might. But a lot of, you hear over and 01:26:59.900 --> 01:27:03.160 over again, these people saying, this isn't what I voted for. 01:27:03.660 --> 01:27:06.440 Now, on the one hand, yes, it is, you damn idiot. 01:27:06.440 --> 01:27:10.260 You fucking idiot. Yes. Yes, it is. You fucking morons. 01:27:10.400 --> 01:27:13.960 It's exactly what you voted for. They told you, you know, they told you they 01:27:13.960 --> 01:27:16.900 were going to eat your face. They told it to you right to your face. 01:27:17.340 --> 01:27:21.040 And what you said is that the Democrats are exaggerating about it. 01:27:21.580 --> 01:27:22.080 Or lying. 01:27:22.080 --> 01:27:23.220 That they didn't really mean it. Or lying. 01:27:23.520 --> 01:27:24.480 Just outright lying. 01:27:24.740 --> 01:27:26.780 Lying. That they didn't mean it. Right. 01:27:26.980 --> 01:27:31.600 But, you know, yes, the administration has been doing exactly what they said they were going to do. 01:27:31.780 --> 01:27:36.320 And so all these people go, oh, this is, I didn't expect this, blah, blah, blah. 01:27:36.440 --> 01:27:42.140 Come on give me a fucking break but you know and part of it is economy you have 01:27:42.140 --> 01:27:48.380 a lot of the people are saying like he promised prices would come down prices haven't come down no. 01:27:48.380 --> 01:27:52.280 Days day one he was gonna cut kill inflation on day one sam. 01:27:52.280 --> 01:27:58.360 No not just kill inflation who's gonna make prices go down go down you know 01:27:58.360 --> 01:28:01.820 like and those discount houses. 01:28:01.820 --> 01:28:03.920 Sam are the discount. 01:28:03.920 --> 01:28:10.080 Houses available at the Trump Center for Peace. Eggs really did come down, didn't they? 01:28:10.460 --> 01:28:15.920 Eggs did really come down. As a matter of fact, speaking of eggs, 01:28:16.160 --> 01:28:19.520 I went recently and I ordered... 01:28:21.340 --> 01:28:22.620 A Fabergé egg? 01:28:22.820 --> 01:28:31.420 Well, I did not order a Fabergé egg, but I did order eggs online to get from Costco. 01:28:32.300 --> 01:28:36.520 And the thing is that I saw the item And I'm like, okay, it said eggs. 01:28:37.710 --> 01:28:41.150 I didn't look at how many eggs I bought. Okay. 01:28:41.990 --> 01:28:46.610 I mean, I have been eating eggs right now from that order for the past couple 01:28:46.610 --> 01:28:53.110 of months. And I have been like making like massive egg, egg, like it was so many eggs. 01:28:53.610 --> 01:28:58.770 Okay. I got, it must be like 60 eggs or something like that. Some crazy amount. 01:28:59.210 --> 01:29:03.270 It was a box. It was literally, instead of like, you know, one of these like 01:29:03.270 --> 01:29:08.010 two little rope, you know, egg carton things. 01:29:08.310 --> 01:29:08.830 Not a dozen. 01:29:09.230 --> 01:29:13.650 It was a box double stacked with eggs. 01:29:13.910 --> 01:29:19.490 I mean, it was just crazy. Now, what I will say is that the reason why I didn't 01:29:19.490 --> 01:29:22.870 think I was getting that many eggs was because it was cheap. 01:29:23.490 --> 01:29:29.630 I saw the price, and I think that that box cost me like $9. 01:29:30.750 --> 01:29:35.850 And I'm like thinking I'm getting a dozen maybe two dozen eggs tops or whatever 01:29:35.850 --> 01:29:40.310 no I got holy shit Sam I got a ton of eggs, 01:29:40.950 --> 01:29:43.850 for very little money so yes the price 01:29:43.850 --> 01:29:46.570 of eggs did come down yes but lots of 01:29:46.570 --> 01:29:52.390 other prices have not lots of other prices have definitely not they keep talking 01:29:52.390 --> 01:29:57.050 here's the thing they keep talking supposedly how there's gas at less than two 01:29:57.050 --> 01:30:03.750 bucks a gallon somewhere And they're literally for there is no place in the 01:30:03.750 --> 01:30:06.290 United States where you can get that nothing. 01:30:06.290 --> 01:30:09.330 It doesn't exist. But they keep talking about. 01:30:09.730 --> 01:30:10.430 Right. 01:30:11.370 --> 01:30:18.350 Yeah. So look, prices is one of these things where people are talking and, 01:30:18.550 --> 01:30:22.130 but also on other things too. 01:30:22.390 --> 01:30:27.090 I mean, even the immigration stuff, which is supposedly one of the, 01:30:27.090 --> 01:30:30.630 you know, things that Donald Trump was stronger about. 01:30:30.770 --> 01:30:33.610 And it's an issue that the Democrats are weak on and whatever. 01:30:33.970 --> 01:30:37.830 You get all these people saying, you know, I, I want, I thought he was going 01:30:37.830 --> 01:30:42.370 to get rid of the criminals, but he's going after everybody, you know? 01:30:42.470 --> 01:30:42.710 Yes. 01:30:42.870 --> 01:30:46.710 And again, again, this is one of those things, well, this is exactly what he 01:30:46.710 --> 01:30:48.530 said he was going to do. I'm sorry. 01:30:49.190 --> 01:30:49.590 Okay. 01:30:49.690 --> 01:30:50.230 So I'm sorry. 01:30:50.470 --> 01:30:53.010 I found my receipt. So, so, so I wouldn't lie. 01:30:53.150 --> 01:30:54.910 For you, you're back on the eggs, back on the eggs. 01:30:54.930 --> 01:31:00.150 Yeah. Kirkland Signature Eggs, large. What I didn't see, it was five dozens. 01:31:01.090 --> 01:31:02.250 Five dozen. Okay. 01:31:02.510 --> 01:31:05.830 I got five dozen eggs for $14.97. 01:31:06.850 --> 01:31:07.250 Okay. 01:31:07.250 --> 01:31:11.910 Five dozen. Basically $3 a dozen. 01:31:12.470 --> 01:31:13.030 Okay. 01:31:13.690 --> 01:31:18.950 Very cheap. But yeah, I got five dozen eggs. This is ridiculous. 01:31:19.630 --> 01:31:24.070 You know, if I was a little bit closer, I'd come over for a few omelets. 01:31:24.550 --> 01:31:26.910 I still got some eggs left from it. Yeah. 01:31:29.090 --> 01:31:34.590 No, but yeah, look, there are a lot of disillusioned Trump supporters. 01:31:35.270 --> 01:31:38.290 And third? The Epstein stuff. 01:31:38.730 --> 01:31:43.590 We're sort of in a lull with Epstein news, but that'll hit in a couple more weeks. 01:31:44.330 --> 01:31:46.750 We're about halfway through the 30 days. 01:31:47.050 --> 01:31:50.270 I mean, it's going to blow up again, right? Because if they don't... 01:31:50.270 --> 01:31:51.290 It will blow up again. 01:31:51.450 --> 01:31:51.910 Because... 01:31:54.190 --> 01:32:00.110 Here are the scenarios, right? They have dragged on releasing it because it's bad. 01:32:00.610 --> 01:32:04.830 So we know that it's got to be bad. So that's why they keep dragging on releasing it. 01:32:06.410 --> 01:32:10.850 Either they'll try to refuse to release it again or to release something so 01:32:10.850 --> 01:32:13.170 redacted that we run out of ink trying to print it. 01:32:13.470 --> 01:32:13.950 Right. 01:32:14.810 --> 01:32:18.790 And it's going to leave because it's so redacted that what it's going to do 01:32:18.790 --> 01:32:21.630 is make it blow up again because then they're hiding everything. 01:32:22.310 --> 01:32:28.850 Right. So with all of these factors together, you get Republicans who are just 01:32:28.850 --> 01:32:32.650 turn out as depressed. They're a little bit disillusioned. 01:32:32.930 --> 01:32:38.090 Also, like, even if they are gung ho on Trump, that doesn't always translate 01:32:38.090 --> 01:32:40.230 into whoever their local person is. 01:32:41.010 --> 01:32:47.190 Did you see that Nancy Mace is like, it sounded like she's going to quit as well, aside from MTG? 01:32:47.970 --> 01:32:48.190 Yes. 01:32:48.930 --> 01:32:52.070 That's another bad sign for Republicans. 01:32:52.070 --> 01:32:57.650 Well, and there are apparently a whole bunch of Republicans who are thinking 01:32:57.650 --> 01:33:02.290 about, at the very least, not running again and possibly quitting early. 01:33:02.630 --> 01:33:08.490 And I saw speculation that one of the issues here is that if you get one or 01:33:08.490 --> 01:33:12.130 two more quitting, the Democrats have a majority. 01:33:12.130 --> 01:33:15.530 So like you have to like they're 01:33:15.530 --> 01:33:20.950 going to carefully consider their timing because nobody's going to be want to 01:33:20.950 --> 01:33:27.090 be the one Republican that tips the balance so like the question is anybody 01:33:27.090 --> 01:33:30.970 who wants to get out has to do it quick because otherwise they might be locked 01:33:30.970 --> 01:33:33.530 in because they don't want to be that person well. 01:33:33.530 --> 01:33:38.310 You know or somebody you know we've unfortunately we've had this happen somebody gets sick or dies. 01:33:39.330 --> 01:33:43.210 That could happen too because that happens So far in this term, 01:33:43.210 --> 01:33:44.810 it's only been Democrats who died. 01:33:44.950 --> 01:33:45.530 I know. 01:33:45.750 --> 01:33:46.970 They had to be replaced. Fuck. 01:33:47.150 --> 01:33:47.590 Fuck. 01:33:48.570 --> 01:33:51.590 Jeez. Yeah. The damn luck. 01:33:53.870 --> 01:33:58.510 But, you know, yes, you never know when when something could happen. 01:33:59.710 --> 01:34:04.470 But yeah. And look what what you're hearing from those Republicans. 01:34:05.230 --> 01:34:10.730 There are two factors in play. One is nobody really wants to be in the minority. 01:34:10.950 --> 01:34:13.190 So there are a lot of people thinking we're going to lose next time. 01:34:13.370 --> 01:34:16.730 I don't want to be here if we're in the minority because it's not fun. 01:34:16.730 --> 01:34:20.930 But then we've also got people saying, well, actually, it's not fun right now 01:34:20.930 --> 01:34:25.670 either, because we can't actually do anything. We can't actually do anything. 01:34:25.830 --> 01:34:25.910 Right. 01:34:26.010 --> 01:34:29.930 We're not enacting any policies. We're not doing anything. All we do is grovel 01:34:29.930 --> 01:34:31.870 to Donald Trump and do whatever he says. 01:34:33.630 --> 01:34:36.570 And I'm not they're not having fun. 01:34:37.070 --> 01:34:42.010 And a lot of people don't like Johnson. I specifically heard some reports this 01:34:42.010 --> 01:34:46.890 week about how a bunch of the folks who are considering leaving are women. 01:34:47.050 --> 01:34:53.550 And one of the reasons is specifically because they feel like Johnson treats women like shit. 01:34:53.550 --> 01:34:57.790 Even in his own party. No, you don't say. Really? 01:34:58.650 --> 01:35:09.250 You're shocked? Oh, my goodness. You are shocked that your dear Republican leader is a misogynist. Wow! 01:35:10.150 --> 01:35:15.130 It took you this long to find out, you stupid idiots! 01:35:18.730 --> 01:35:20.490 Yes. Yes. 01:35:21.650 --> 01:35:25.010 How do you think they finally figured it out, Sam? 01:35:25.630 --> 01:35:31.290 Did you see that cringy interview where he was sitting with his wife, 01:35:31.370 --> 01:35:35.490 but literally was trying to sit as far away as possible from his wife? 01:35:36.390 --> 01:35:37.810 I did not see that. 01:35:37.810 --> 01:35:42.770 There is a video clip that is hilarious where he is shown in some interview 01:35:42.770 --> 01:35:48.290 with his wife that their interaction is so fucked up. OK, all right. 01:35:48.690 --> 01:35:52.550 In terms of physical contact or whatever, I mean, he is literally, literally. 01:35:54.020 --> 01:35:59.540 Just seems to, they're trying to avoid her at all costs. 01:36:00.520 --> 01:36:05.320 That's lovely. Well, and of course, we've got the rumors about J.D. 01:36:05.400 --> 01:36:09.300 Vance getting ready to dump Usha for Charlie Kirk's widow. 01:36:12.020 --> 01:36:16.520 I totally buy that. I mean, that's on brand for these guys. 01:36:16.820 --> 01:36:23.380 I mean, look, Newt Gingrich dumped his dying wife for somebody else, right? 01:36:24.160 --> 01:36:25.160 Twice, I think. 01:36:25.460 --> 01:36:26.800 Yeah, right. 01:36:27.220 --> 01:36:29.920 Once while his existing wife had cancer. 01:36:30.220 --> 01:36:32.940 But no, cancer was dying, right, yeah. 01:36:33.060 --> 01:36:33.260 Yes. 01:36:33.860 --> 01:36:35.880 So, hey, this is on brand. 01:36:37.140 --> 01:36:37.680 Perfectly. 01:36:38.720 --> 01:36:43.640 Okay, so, yeah, we may see more Republicans leave. 01:36:43.840 --> 01:36:48.640 We may see that staunched by the fact that they just can't afford to lose any more people. 01:36:49.660 --> 01:36:53.600 But, yeah, as of now, we're down to two vacant seats. 01:36:53.940 --> 01:36:58.540 I'm just looking at the stats. As of December 4th, two days ago, 01:36:59.140 --> 01:37:03.760 which, by the way, apparently when a Republican was elected in a special election, 01:37:03.900 --> 01:37:06.240 there was no delay in swearing them in. 01:37:07.540 --> 01:37:14.320 But it's now 220 Republicans, 213 Democrats, two vacant seats at the moment. 01:37:14.320 --> 01:37:20.280 By the way, I just saw that there's an opinion piece on by the Washington Post 01:37:20.280 --> 01:37:25.420 editorial board where the headline was, relax, it's not a winning economic message. 01:37:25.980 --> 01:37:29.400 And this is about the economy and Mike Johnson specifically. 01:37:30.240 --> 01:37:34.720 Republicans have a holiday message for cash-strapped Americans. Chill out. 01:37:35.660 --> 01:37:40.200 Relax, in quotes, said Speaker Mike Johnson, advised on Thursday, 01:37:40.580 --> 01:37:42.720 assuring voters that we'll feel better. 01:37:42.940 --> 01:37:46.180 What's provisions from the big, beautiful bill kick in next year? 01:37:46.360 --> 01:37:49.900 We are exactly on the trajectory where we've always planned to be. 01:37:50.400 --> 01:37:53.640 Steady at the wheel, everybody. It's going to be fine. 01:37:54.340 --> 01:37:55.780 Sam, it's going to be fine. 01:37:56.040 --> 01:37:59.260 It's going to be fine. Excellent. All right. 01:37:59.400 --> 01:38:05.680 Look, the big, beautiful bill provisions is only going to give people like me more money. 01:38:06.890 --> 01:38:08.570 OK, that's it. 01:38:08.750 --> 01:38:12.410 And by and by people like me, you mean people who are fairly well off anyway. 01:38:13.090 --> 01:38:18.330 Exactly. Yes. Those are the only fucking people that are getting money. 01:38:18.630 --> 01:38:20.710 He's fucking everybody else. 01:38:21.170 --> 01:38:25.690 The people who wound up having to cut back the number over here said apparently 01:38:25.690 --> 01:38:28.030 that Americans right now, 01:38:28.210 --> 01:38:32.830 this year, consumers estimate they will spend an average of seven hundred and 01:38:32.830 --> 01:38:36.650 seventy eight dollars on holiday presents down from one thousand twelve. 01:38:36.890 --> 01:38:38.790 At this point last year, okay? 01:38:39.590 --> 01:38:42.450 I haven't started my Christmas shopping yet. I need to do that. 01:38:42.470 --> 01:38:43.710 Growing numbers are using buy 01:38:43.710 --> 01:38:47.270 now, pay later services, another indication people feel strapped for cash. 01:38:47.810 --> 01:38:51.430 That are released by ADP show. That was the unemployment drop. 01:38:52.170 --> 01:38:59.070 But this is the winning message that Speaker Mike Johnson is selling. Relax. 01:39:00.190 --> 01:39:06.190 Don't worry about it. Steady the course. What we did is great and it's only going to get better. 01:39:07.370 --> 01:39:10.010 Despite every indicator saying the opposite. 01:39:10.820 --> 01:39:14.580 Which is probably why these people are like, you know, they're like, 01:39:14.720 --> 01:39:20.360 he's driving us a cliff, so let's get off the clown car before it crashes off the cliff. 01:39:20.940 --> 01:39:27.040 Well, and some of these Republicans, by the way, have also been quoted in the 01:39:27.040 --> 01:39:30.860 press saying that if there was another speaker election now, 01:39:31.160 --> 01:39:32.640 Johnson would not win it. 01:39:32.980 --> 01:39:39.300 He would not have the votes. however i have not heard that there's any stirrings 01:39:39.300 --> 01:39:41.120 going on to try to remove him. 01:39:41.120 --> 01:39:44.400 But the biggest problem was because they know that would be a disaster too like 01:39:44.400 --> 01:39:48.440 another disaster i mean exactly they're gonna go through like another how many 01:39:48.440 --> 01:39:52.760 rounds did it take for him to be speaker i mean we lost track i mean that was 01:39:52.760 --> 01:39:54.180 just well no that that was. 01:39:54.180 --> 01:39:54.780 The first time. 01:39:54.780 --> 01:39:57.620 That was the first time no no the second time he 01:39:57.620 --> 01:40:00.580 got it when he got the job when he 01:40:00.580 --> 01:40:05.380 got the job that we settled on mike johnson okay it took bazillion rounds if 01:40:05.380 --> 01:40:10.680 if mike johnson said resigned right now there's nobody in line to take this 01:40:10.680 --> 01:40:17.980 check right so it's gonna be a shit show again again yes. 01:40:19.080 --> 01:40:20.820 Okay, let's wrap this thing up. 01:40:21.020 --> 01:40:21.800 All right, let's wrap. 01:40:21.840 --> 01:40:22.540 Can we wrap this up? 01:40:22.840 --> 01:40:23.720 We could wrap it up. 01:40:24.940 --> 01:40:28.880 Curmudgeons-corner.com. Go there. Find all the stuff. 01:40:29.320 --> 01:40:33.280 All our old episodes, transcripts going back a couple years now, 01:40:33.960 --> 01:40:40.580 all the ways to contact us, a link to buy a mug. You guys wanted a link to buy a mug. 01:40:40.760 --> 01:40:43.640 Start buying damn mugs. You know? 01:40:44.840 --> 01:40:52.260 I i haven't seen the like the huge i i haven't seen the order of like 100 100 mugs at a time. 01:40:52.260 --> 01:40:55.100 That's what i expected we need to get we need to 01:40:55.100 --> 01:41:01.780 get like you know how there for it used to be a big thing in order to funnel 01:41:01.780 --> 01:41:06.060 cash to like say somebody at the house of representatives was that if they they 01:41:06.060 --> 01:41:12.520 came out with a book all of a sudden you know some guy I would buy 10,000 copies of the book. Okay. 01:41:12.680 --> 01:41:13.260 Right. Yes. 01:41:13.380 --> 01:41:17.420 That was the easy way to funnel money. So look, if you want to funnel money 01:41:17.420 --> 01:41:26.120 to us and buy 10,000 mugs, we are open to, we are open to having money funneled towards us. Yes. 01:41:26.420 --> 01:41:27.340 We can be bought. 01:41:30.380 --> 01:41:34.080 Yes. The, the, the new all MAGA all the time, curmudgeons corner. 01:41:34.480 --> 01:41:35.700 Yes. For the right price. 01:41:35.940 --> 01:41:36.120 Yeah. 01:41:38.280 --> 01:41:41.240 Yeah no i i don't i don't i think that 01:41:41.240 --> 01:41:43.900 if they you know they could give me like a i will say that if 01:41:43.900 --> 01:41:50.640 i do that negotiation i will take the money up front uh and i'm sure that after 01:41:50.640 --> 01:41:55.920 the first week they will try to get their money back which i'll say no and well. 01:41:55.920 --> 01:41:59.960 I'm not going to refund the caymans or someone exactly they're they're not getting 01:41:59.960 --> 01:42:02.700 their fucking money back and i'm not and they're not going to renew. 01:42:05.080 --> 01:42:06.360 Hey, I got to do it to them. 01:42:06.540 --> 01:42:09.500 Hey, they're doing it to us. I got to do it to them. Give me a fucking break. 01:42:10.060 --> 01:42:14.640 There you go. And of course, a link to our Patreon where you can give us money as well. 01:42:15.060 --> 01:42:18.340 At various levels there, we will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell. 01:42:18.460 --> 01:42:20.780 We will send you a postcard. We will send you one of those mugs, 01:42:21.340 --> 01:42:22.780 et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 01:42:23.160 --> 01:42:28.660 And at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask us, we will invite you to the 01:42:28.660 --> 01:42:32.880 Commudgeons Course Slack where Yvonne and I and a bunch of others are hanging 01:42:32.880 --> 01:42:35.640 out throughout the week, sharing links, chatting. 01:42:36.460 --> 01:42:40.880 I, you know, we, there are all kinds of conversations going on. 01:42:41.060 --> 01:42:47.200 We've been, Yvonne and Pete and some other folks were talking about cars for a while. 01:42:47.720 --> 01:42:53.500 They were talking about like, you know, what exactly is wealthy? What's not wealthy? 01:42:53.760 --> 01:42:56.520 All this kind of stuff. There are all kinds of topics going on. 01:42:56.600 --> 01:43:00.400 But what Yvonne is something that was discussed on the Curmudgeons Car Slack 01:43:00.400 --> 01:43:03.640 this week that we have not talked about on the show that you would like to highlight? 01:43:03.860 --> 01:43:10.660 Well, there were two things. One is Sam made a point of mentioning that I didn't 01:43:10.660 --> 01:43:13.400 share this picture of this drunk raccoon, 01:43:13.920 --> 01:43:17.120 apparently a raccoon broke into 01:43:17.120 --> 01:43:19.980 a uh a liquor store of 01:43:19.980 --> 01:43:27.440 some kind and broke the bottles and then licked the the the alcohol got drunk 01:43:27.440 --> 01:43:34.380 and was found passed out drunk by the bathroom like laid out like i have actually 01:43:34.380 --> 01:43:38.040 picked up drunk people laid out i thought you were gonna say you'd. 01:43:38.040 --> 01:43:39.520 Actually picked up drunk raccoons. 01:43:39.520 --> 01:43:43.980 No no i've done that with i've done this with people Okay? 01:43:44.200 --> 01:43:49.240 More than once, okay, that they passed out at the bathroom like this. Not with a raccoon. 01:43:49.660 --> 01:43:54.200 Apparently, the Virginia Distillery Company, formal statement regarding the 01:43:54.200 --> 01:43:56.420 very intoxicated raccoon, they issued a statement. 01:43:56.680 --> 01:44:01.760 We'd like to address the reports of their very intoxicated raccoon found inside Virginia ABC store. 01:44:01.980 --> 01:44:04.420 According to eyewitnesses, the raccoon entered the premises, 01:44:04.640 --> 01:44:08.920 bypassed the allocated Berman, and went straight for our award-winning American single malt. 01:44:09.140 --> 01:44:13.460 We're proud of our whiskey. We did not expect it to be so quite appealing to local wildlife. 01:44:13.720 --> 01:44:18.580 Anyway, so they had that. So we had the drunk squirrel. Okay. The second thing. 01:44:18.720 --> 01:44:21.940 Now, apparently, speaking of AI as well, this was a true incident. 01:44:22.200 --> 01:44:28.600 This was a true incident. However, people have been spreading around fake AI 01:44:28.600 --> 01:44:32.760 video of the raccoon drinking out of the bottles and stuff. 01:44:33.220 --> 01:44:33.600 Yeah. 01:44:33.700 --> 01:44:34.060 And so. 01:44:34.240 --> 01:44:39.960 I at first thought that it was fake. So I didn't share it. I didn't realize it was real. 01:44:39.960 --> 01:44:44.640 And here's one of the, this is what is going to make our media environment so complicated. 01:44:44.980 --> 01:44:50.460 This was a true story, but with fake video circulating about it. 01:44:51.070 --> 01:44:55.450 Look, I saw Progressive the other day actually do a commercial showing, 01:44:55.450 --> 01:44:59.710 like, animals driving, which they actually mentioned that it was AI-generated, 01:44:59.730 --> 01:45:03.290 and this was a TV commercial that they did, like, with a voice of flow, 01:45:03.290 --> 01:45:05.910 but with, like, AI-generated images. 01:45:06.090 --> 01:45:08.470 So this is, we're going to get a lot more of this. So anyway, 01:45:09.550 --> 01:45:13.970 the second story talking about AI, let's say I've shared. Okay. 01:45:14.570 --> 01:45:21.130 You can go on a real live date with an AI girlfriend at this New York City cafe. 01:45:21.330 --> 01:45:24.110 We wish we were kidding. Okay. 01:45:25.510 --> 01:45:27.230 I, what the fuck. 01:45:27.230 --> 01:45:29.270 Man? So the picture they have, the picture they have showing there, 01:45:29.390 --> 01:45:34.110 by the way, you go to this restaurant. It's like, it ranges like a semi-fancy 01:45:34.110 --> 01:45:38.530 formal restaurant with like tablecloths and candles and all this crap. 01:45:38.970 --> 01:45:46.230 And then at the table, when you sit down, they prop up a phone on a holder that 01:45:46.230 --> 01:45:48.710 has your AI girlfriend to talk to during your date. 01:45:49.190 --> 01:45:51.710 I mean, you know, couldn't they at least get you an iPad? 01:45:53.030 --> 01:45:54.770 It looked like a phone in the picture. 01:45:55.130 --> 01:45:59.150 Yeah, I know. But could they at least get you a fucking iPad? I mean, for real. 01:45:59.150 --> 01:46:07.930 Think you know just they could they could do a full-size monitor even you know like apple vision like. 01:46:07.930 --> 01:46:12.350 The screen so you could think that you know you're like looking at them or something 01:46:12.350 --> 01:46:15.170 there you go that that's a good use for apple for. 01:46:15.170 --> 01:46:19.330 The apple vision thing they could indeed but no this this looked like it looked 01:46:19.330 --> 01:46:23.310 like you had a phone where you were facetiming somebody but it's a fake person. 01:46:23.650 --> 01:46:29.410 Right. This is, I mean, I, I, I have to, I, I find myself not being drawn. 01:46:29.410 --> 01:46:32.470 You know, when I FaceTime my fake AI girlfriend, I do it from home. 01:46:33.120 --> 01:46:34.800 I don't need to go to the restaurant. 01:46:35.300 --> 01:46:40.140 I find myself not drawn to having fake conversations with AI. 01:46:40.440 --> 01:46:43.400 I don't, I don't. You tried to do it on the show. 01:46:43.860 --> 01:46:45.940 It was kind of blah. 01:46:47.020 --> 01:46:52.800 I, I, I got, I upgraded my, my Google home assistant now to Gemini and it says 01:46:52.800 --> 01:46:54.420 that I can have conversations with it. 01:46:54.740 --> 01:46:59.040 I have not been interested in having a conversation with the fucking. 01:46:59.040 --> 01:47:01.880 Yeah, I'll tell you, I, you know, I mentioned I'm paying at least three different 01:47:01.880 --> 01:47:06.980 AI companies, is one of which I'm really using. The other two I used earlier, but use less now. 01:47:07.240 --> 01:47:13.120 But I'm always using it to do specific things. I can't say I've ever once just 01:47:13.120 --> 01:47:17.380 like, you know, I'm going to talk to it. I'm going to have a conversation. 01:47:17.700 --> 01:47:23.800 I just haven't done that. Even when I use the voice mode, I'm asking it questions. 01:47:24.320 --> 01:47:29.500 Like I've done that where like I'm walking the dog, Alex and I, 01:47:29.500 --> 01:47:32.980 and my mom who sometimes walks a dog with us, we're talking about something 01:47:32.980 --> 01:47:35.460 like the other day I was walking. 01:47:35.660 --> 01:47:39.060 We were walking the dog, my mom, my son, and myself. 01:47:39.260 --> 01:47:42.760 We're walking the dog. We're going around. My mom makes a comment about like 01:47:42.760 --> 01:47:46.800 one of the trees we pass and how it had really big leaves. 01:47:46.960 --> 01:47:50.900 And she wondered something about it. So I pop open, you know, 01:47:50.960 --> 01:47:53.140 chat GPT. I take a picture of the tree. 01:47:53.400 --> 01:47:56.260 I ask it what's up with this tree. What's the name of the tree, 01:47:56.380 --> 01:48:01.140 whatever it tells me, It talks to me and we have, we have, I asked some follow-up questions. 01:48:01.300 --> 01:48:07.760 It was, it was the big leaf maple, by the way, my mom was remarking on how big the leaves were. 01:48:07.860 --> 01:48:13.520 And so we asked what it is. It turns out the name of the damn tree is the big leaf maple. 01:48:13.920 --> 01:48:17.620 And it was like, you couldn't be any more creative than that. 01:48:17.780 --> 01:48:23.600 It couldn't be like something else. No, it's the big leaf maple because it has big leaves anyway. way. 01:48:23.700 --> 01:48:27.220 So, but it was, it was purpose. Like, you know. 01:48:28.150 --> 01:48:34.010 I'm using the AI to get some information. I'm using the AI to help program something 01:48:34.010 --> 01:48:36.010 I'm working on. I'm using the AI for something. 01:48:36.250 --> 01:48:41.870 I can't say I've ever once just been like, you know, I'm lonely right now. 01:48:42.090 --> 01:48:45.230 Let me just spend the next half hour talking to the AI. 01:48:45.570 --> 01:48:52.050 No, no, no. I just, I get nothing from that. I mean, I just, no, no. 01:48:53.460 --> 01:48:56.440 It's like the same problem that I have with watching like how, 01:48:56.540 --> 01:49:02.100 uh, these, uh, supposed to like scary movies where I know it's fake. 01:49:02.340 --> 01:49:05.260 And I just, they don't, I'm like, just looking at it. I'm like, 01:49:05.340 --> 01:49:07.320 this is just stupid. And that's it. 01:49:07.320 --> 01:49:12.300 I don't know. Meanwhile, I get startled by things on shows I'm watching that 01:49:12.300 --> 01:49:13.600 aren't even supposed to be scary. 01:49:14.140 --> 01:49:15.200 Exactly. There you go. 01:49:15.460 --> 01:49:20.080 I jump in. Not, not, not Godzilla. I just laughed at Godzilla. 01:49:20.160 --> 01:49:21.000 Two, two more things. 01:49:21.280 --> 01:49:22.760 I want to do more things. Go, go. 01:49:22.760 --> 01:49:27.020 One was, I shared, I lost everything at a friend's recommendation. 01:49:27.020 --> 01:49:29.980 I invested my life savings in a firm abroad. 01:49:30.200 --> 01:49:33.940 Now it's all gone and the CEO was in court. What now? 01:49:34.300 --> 01:49:44.660 So, you know, investing everything into some obscure offshore investment, 01:49:45.040 --> 01:49:48.640 okay, and then being shocked at the fact that you lost all your money, 01:49:48.860 --> 01:49:52.120 okay, and, you know, it's a scam. 01:49:52.760 --> 01:49:57.520 You're a fucking idiot okay if you do that okay just put all your. 01:49:57.520 --> 01:49:59.720 Money into the donald trump coin like. 01:49:59.720 --> 01:50:02.840 Exactly and normal people just lose 100 that 01:50:02.840 --> 01:50:05.520 way yes then the last one that i 01:50:05.520 --> 01:50:08.200 had it was the there was an article on bloomberg about the 01:50:08.200 --> 01:50:11.040 microsoft is the house that excel built and they talked 01:50:11.040 --> 01:50:13.900 about how excel started or whatever 01:50:13.900 --> 01:50:16.840 the interesting part about the story was that the guy who 01:50:16.840 --> 01:50:20.760 was the key developer at some point basically quit 01:50:20.760 --> 01:50:23.700 microsoft he was like i'm burnt out this sucks 01:50:23.700 --> 01:50:27.060 sometime in the 80s and he decided to go he said 01:50:27.060 --> 01:50:30.380 fuck this i quit i'm going to be working 01:50:30.380 --> 01:50:35.640 at a farm and picking vegetables and he did that for two to three months and 01:50:35.640 --> 01:50:44.260 then realized shit this sucks i'm gonna go back let me call and they actually 01:50:44.260 --> 01:50:47.680 wanted him back at microsoft Let me call them to see if they'll hire me back. 01:50:48.830 --> 01:50:52.050 And so he did. But the guy went in the middle of it and said, 01:50:52.270 --> 01:50:53.850 fuck this. I hate this shit. 01:50:54.070 --> 01:50:59.050 I'm going to go work on a farm and pick vegetables and then realize, 01:50:59.290 --> 01:51:01.110 what the fuck am I doing? This sucks. 01:51:02.330 --> 01:51:08.290 Okay. You know, I can see some of, you know, as I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life. 01:51:08.710 --> 01:51:11.130 Like, okay, I could pick vegetables. 01:51:11.990 --> 01:51:12.370 Exactly. 01:51:13.230 --> 01:51:14.730 Let's go do that for a while. 01:51:14.730 --> 01:51:18.190 If you look at this guy, he said that, yeah, after a little bit of doing that, 01:51:18.330 --> 01:51:19.990 he realized, holy shit, this sucks. 01:51:20.670 --> 01:51:25.350 No, I honestly, there are some things that are complete career shifts that might 01:51:25.350 --> 01:51:28.110 be interesting to me. Picking vegetables is not one of them. 01:51:28.330 --> 01:51:29.670 Picking vegetables is not one of them. 01:51:29.690 --> 01:51:32.790 Farm work in general is not something that appeals to me, I don't think. 01:51:33.310 --> 01:51:38.530 Yeah, no, he, you know, he went and he basically just went and he was like, 01:51:38.650 --> 01:51:41.250 he was like burnt out. He's pissed off. He quit. 01:51:42.030 --> 01:51:48.090 And yeah, he was, uh, he was, uh, he was picking vegetables for, 01:51:48.210 --> 01:51:51.610 for a bit, for, I can't remember exactly. 01:51:51.810 --> 01:51:56.450 It was farm work and it was hard. And he realized that, yeah, 01:51:56.630 --> 01:52:00.410 I, I, um, I, I don't, I don't, I don't like doing this. 01:52:00.910 --> 01:52:03.350 Let me see. I actually found it here specifically. 01:52:04.070 --> 01:52:07.810 He was so frustrated both by delay and he'd been excluded from the meetings 01:52:07.810 --> 01:52:10.790 in which the decision was made that he quit telling colleagues his plan was 01:52:10.790 --> 01:52:13.350 to leave the software industry in favor of migrant farm work. 01:52:13.510 --> 01:52:16.890 I look back on it. It's clear I was just totally burnt out. 01:52:17.730 --> 01:52:22.250 Project Odyssey got back on track after Clunder ran out of cash somewhere in 01:52:22.250 --> 01:52:24.630 the OJ Valley two months after his departure. 01:52:24.830 --> 01:52:28.070 I picked lettuce a couple of times and did some other odd jobs, 01:52:28.110 --> 01:52:30.550 he recalls. Then my backpack was stolen. 01:52:30.810 --> 01:52:33.950 I'm like, I need money. Let me call Microsoft. 01:52:35.190 --> 01:52:38.770 And they were desperate to have him back. And so they were like, 01:52:38.890 --> 01:52:41.190 fine, just get back here. 01:52:42.370 --> 01:52:46.230 Beautiful. Okay. I think we're done. 01:52:46.350 --> 01:52:46.770 We're done. 01:52:48.290 --> 01:52:53.250 Thank you, everybody, for joining us yet again. Have a great week. Blah, blah, blah. 01:52:53.670 --> 01:52:57.830 Next week, I will have that link for everybody to suggest things for us to predict 01:52:57.830 --> 01:52:59.610 on our annual prediction show. 01:53:00.330 --> 01:53:05.830 In the meantime, stay safe. Have a great week. We'll talk to you later. Goodbye. 01:53:06.430 --> 01:53:06.910 Bye. 01:53:36.910 --> 01:53:41.090 Thank you. Thanks, Yvonne. Have a good weekend. We'll talk to you later. 01:53:41.290 --> 01:53:42.130 All right. Bye. 01:53:42.450 --> 01:53:43.150 Later. Bye.