This episode is brought to you by Faithful Counseling. Click that link and get 10% off! In this episode of The Babylon Bee podcast, editor-in-chief Kyle Mann and creative director Ethan Nicolle talk about the biggest stories of the week like the invasion of murder hornets, how a 30 second clip is dividing people, and the "if-it-just-saves-one-life" crowd supporting perpetual lockdown. Kira Davis, editor-at-large of RedState joins Kyle and Ethan for a bit and then Dr. Robert P. Murphy arrives to explain what in the world is going on with the economy under lockdown and how Christians should think more like an economist. In the subscriber portion, subscribers get to listen to Kyle and Ethan wax poetic on all the wonders of cheese with a G.K. Chesterton reading! Send your emails to podcast@babylonbee.com and maybe we will answer you in our next Mailbag segment! Pre-order the new Babylon Bee Best-Of Coffee Table Book coming in 2020! Show Outline Introduction Kyle's vacation out of California rapidly descends into chaos as his car explodes and Ethan tries to one-up Kyle's story. Stuff That's Good Kyle likes the In-N-Out Animal Style Fries & secret menu and Ethan likes The Steeldrivers (Chris Stapleton years). This News Is Weird Florida lizard breaks world poop record, dies constipated Man walks into Dunkin Donuts with no mask — or pants 'Darth Vader' enforces lockdown in Philippine village World's biggest 5G tower installed on Mount Everest using yaks to lug 'controversial' equipment up tracks French encouraged to eat more cheese as act of patriotism Stories of the Week Story 1 Trump Retaliates Against Asian Murder Hornets With American Kamikaze Bears Washington state is noticing a worrying new invasive species of Asian Giant Hornets called "Murder Hornets" Are bears the deterrent we need to stop this unchecked aggression from the Far East lately? What other options did Trump consider? Story 2 Asking For Context Of Thirty Second Video Revealed To Be Racist Dog Whistle Ahmaud Aubrey was followed in a truck in an alleged citizen's arrest by two whites, a father and son. When one of the men tried to use a shotgun to force the man to comply, an altercation occurred, in which Ahmaud was killed. Everyone is forming an opinion based on 30 seconds of footage- which looks really bad- but does it provide all the relevant data we need to decide guilt? Is it okay to ask questions? The struggle of even talking about this civilly and the frustration felt by all people Story 3 'It's Worth It If It Saves Just One Life,' Says Woman Who Supports Abortion On Demand Hypocrisy of the left on saving lives… trying to keep abortion clinics open and shutting everything else down Obviously would have to shut down cities, get rid of cars, planes, subways… As if a permanent lockdown on the economy won't cost lives in the long run. Even now the UN is warning about 260 million marching to starvation worldwide as a result of the economy being shut down. What about those lives? If we don't get back to work and produce things, pretty soon we won't be just watching netflix and ordering in pizza every night. Things will get bad for everyone. Planned Parenthood's bizarre tweet on Mother's Day Interview of the Week Dr. Robert P Murphy joins Kyle and Ethan to help explain what in the world is going on with the economy. He breaks things down like Ethan is five and uses numerous lemonade stand analogies. We had some issues on the skype video quality. Love Mail/Hate Mail We talk about how we are a racist trash fire. Paid-subscriber portion Looking at Chesterton's essay on cheese. Poets need to write more about cheese. Become a paid subscriber at https://babylonbee.com/plans
In a world of fake news, we bring you up-to-the-minute factual inaccuracy and a heavy dose of moral truth with your hosts, Kyle Mann and Ethan Nicole.
This is the Babylon B. Fake news you can trust.
Welcome, my friends.
Yes.
Hello.
Pull up a seat.
There.
I see you.
In the studio audience.
Welcome.
As we do the Babylon B podcast.
See, as you can tell, we were practicing looking at the cameras unless you're listening on audio, and then you wouldn't be able to tell.
I wouldn't know that.
But that's what we're doing.
Because Ethan and I just stare dreamily into each other's eyes instead of looking at the cameras.
Because that's what we're used to.
It's security.
It's like.
Am I being funny?
I can't tell.
This is funny.
You definitely play off the facial.
I'm like, Mr. Costy Hinn, is Benny Hinn, is he dumb?
Yeah.
And I look at Ethan and he nods.
Good question.
Good question.
We just talked to Costi Hinn, who will be airing at some point.
And that's why the interviews that are going to come out, we just had the Phil Robertson one come out and another one's we weren't really in the headspace of being on video yet in those.
So that's really like kind of a candid look at what it's like when we record because especially the Phil Robertson one, he's just talking and Dan didn't want to have a photo of Phil Robertson up the whole time.
So it just keeps cutting to our facial expressions like talking.
Kyle's checking Twitter.
Yeah, we see Kyle on his phone.
But this is now a professional newscast.
Exactly.
So you're going to see higher energy from us.
Right.
Smarter questions, more scathing points.
Oh, I can't look at this too much.
It's weird.
It is weird.
It's this giant eye of Sauron staring at you.
It's a cyclops, a three-legged cyclops.
And Dan can move it, so I'll look at it, and then it'll be like, yeah, you can move on a remote.
Very scary.
You had a crazy week, Kyle.
I did have a crazy week.
You want a vacation?
We decided to do a little vacation to Phoenix, Arizona.
And it was more like, we're locked down in California.
Let's go over there.
My wife can get her hair done.
It's so hot, we'll die.
But we rented an Airbnb with a pool.
With AC, hopefully.
And AC, which our AC is broken right now.
Oh, yeah, that's bad.
So it was like, even though we went to a hotter place, it was relaxing.
And it felt good to have a little freedom.
We actually ate out at a restaurant.
Did you do that?
Arizona restaurant.
Oh, yeah, because it's not.
They supposedly lifted some restrictions yesterday.
That's amazing.
So we managed to go out to eat.
My wife got her nails done and stuff.
Wow.
I got my nails done, but not.
Murderers.
Oh, yeah.
We want grandma to die is what I'm trying to say.
Well, you don't have grandparents in Arizona, so that's okay.
I'm just killing the Arizoni.
They're zoning.
Zonian.
Yeah.
Arizoners.
But sunlight kills the virus quickest and it's constant there.
You can't avoid it.
There's probably no virus.
There are no COVID-19 cases in Arizona.
But we are sick of talking about COVID-19.
I'm so sick of it.
So we're going to only do like one story on COVID-19 today, I think.
But yeah, okay, so my evacation was a complete and total disaster because my transmission broke down.
We were about 40 miles outside of Phoenix.
Yeah.
And my son had to pee.
And he's like, he caused it?
Yes.
So we pull off the side of the road.
He's like, I don't want to be, I don't want to be in the bush.
So we put him back in the car.
There's a rest stop like five miles.
I try to get back to speed up to speed on the freeway.
Won't shift past like first gear, second gear.
So I'm driving through the desert 7,000 RPMs.
The little heat temperature gauges.
Oh, gosh.
I'm like trying to go neutral.
I finally get over a hill and we're like rolling.
Pull off at a gas station.
We let it cool down for like an hour, get back in, and we kind of limped into Phoenix.
Just as we got off the freeway, transmission totally gone.
It wouldn't engage at all.
So I managed to put it in park, throw it in drive.
It would get in first gear, and we're like, rolled into the Airbnb and stopped.
And then the next morning, I had to take it to the mechanic for $4,000.
$4K, man.
So please support with the GoFundMe that is on your screen right now.
There's a GoFundMe.
No.
I'm just kidding.
I once burnt out.
My engine just got completely fried out, and I had to buy a new one.
It was like $7,000.
It was just enough to not buy a new car, but to just buy just enough to fix the car that I didn't even really want.
And it was right when I was going to buy a wedding ring anyway.
Yeah.
Totally.
I'm trying to one-up your story, but $7,000 is almost double what you paid.
One time my car exploded.
And your entire family died.
And my whole family died.
Wow.
But not really.
It's just wanted to one-up you.
Yeah.
Apologies to people who have had that happen.
Well, this is a podcast where we cover the news through reading Babylon B stories, your most trusted fake news source.
It's not satire.
It's guys talking about satire that write satire.
And then soon we're going to launch a second podcast where we talk about the Babylon B show.
Yeah.
So then it's guys talking about guys talking about guys writing satire.
It's called Talk and Bee.
Talk and B.
And it'll feature that one guy from all those other shows, Chris Hardwick.
He'll be the host.
And let's talk.
Okay, let's talk.
Let's talk about this, though.
Stuff that's good.
But now, this week's edition of Stuff That's Good.
For my stuff that's good this week, I'm going to, again, piggyback off my Arizona experience.
And I'm going to recommend an amazing burger place that you've heard of called In-N-Out.
And specifically.
That's here.
Why is it In-N-Aries?
Well, it is in Arizona too.
But specifically going to the secret menu and doing things like the animal-style fries and the animal-style burger.
I've had friends tell me that Whataburger is amazing, way better than In-N-Out.
This is the comparison that's always made.
Personally, I think In-N-Out is probably not the best burger ever.
Personally, I think that In-N-Out is not the best burger ever.
Yeah.
But I can't.
I can't do this.
I've had when I moved to Casa California, I didn't understand that.
You distracted me.
I told Kyle that he bumps the mic.
And now he just did it.
Now he can't function.
I'm so sorry.
But I didn't get it.
But then I got it later.
Like, it is weird.
In-night?
Yeah, like, I didn't, I was like, what is the big deal about this?
It's just a normal burger.
And then as I lived here, I suddenly started craving them.
And I went through a phase where I kept sneaking out at night and getting in and out.
Or if I was driving home late at night, I wanted to get in and out.
There's a weird, there's something about the crispiness, the way they make the bun, the animal style.
I don't know what it is.
And it is, it feels like a secret club because of the secret menu.
In-n-Out tastes like California.
That's and it's amazing.
And they're Christians, so.
Yeah, and they have Bilevers in the cups.
It's a little bit of Holy Spirit.
I did not see Bioverser than the Whataburger Cups.
So, and the Whataburger burger and fries were quite underwhelming.
So all you people who say that Whatababurger is the fries were very bad.
The burger was, it felt like a burger I could make at home.
Like did not.
You're dividing our audience.
So right now.
You people who like Whataburger are wrong.
Eat In-N-Out instead.
That's my stuff that's good.
Ethan.
My stuff that's good.
Last week I introduced many people to the band Crooked Still.
I got some thank yous.
And so this week I'm going to do another music recommendation if you like bluegrass.
There is a pretty famous country singer right now named Chris Stapleton.
He was like named best new country music artist of the year a few years back.
He's not new.
He was in a band called Steel Drivers for a while.
The band is still around with a different lead singer.
They're all right now.
Chris Stapleton's amazing.
So if you go back to the first few Steel Drivers albums with Chris Stapleton on them, it's like this gritty rock vocals with like really good bluegrass, good songwriting.
It's some of the best.
This is some of my favorite music.
So it's lesser known Chris Stapleton.
So if you like Chris Tapleton, go back to that.
If you like Bluegrass, it's just a perfect mix of like it's got more power to it than a lot of bluegrass.
It's kind of like a guy like singing like, but Chris Stapleton, you know, he is like, with banjos.
Sounds like the nickelback of.
He's a little nickelbacky, but better.
Yeah.
Awesome.
So check out our stuff.
That's good.
Yeah, sounds good.
Listen to Steel Driver while eating In N Out.
Do it.
This has been stuff that's good.
This news is weird.
Florida Lizard breaks world poop record.
Have you read it yet?
Dies constipated.
Does he die of constipation or did he pass away with his and he still just has probably a picture on the screen right now of like a what's that?
It's like not an x-ray, but it shows it's an in it.
You can see inside him picture.
One of those doctor pictures.
Doctor pictures with the inside.
Medical picture thing.
You can see his bones and you see just a massive turd all around him, like his entire body, because he's eating greasy sand, I think.
Was that what it was?
Without clicking on it.
I think that's Dan was telling me.
He showed me a picture.
One of them doctor pictures.
What is the measurement for the size of poop?
Well, you've got a lot of things.
You've got length, you've got density.
Yeah.
Circumference, growth.
There's probably a lot.
Like, because there's Scoville's for like hot sauce.
So I was curious if there's one for poop.
I know in South Park.
Well, the South Park was in.
It's Kirk.
Yeah, that's right.
I've never watched mean to Katie Curric.
Except maybe one episode or two.
And maybe it should be Acostas or something.
I don't know.
Sorry.
Libs.
Nice.
Owned.
Libs-owned.
We need a sound clip for Libson.
Yeah, I need something from that.
And like a big stamp that comes on the screen.
Gotcha.
They're tearing up into my coffee mug.
Destroyed.
A man walks into Dunkin' Donuts with no mask or pants.
You like that?
So if coronavirus wasn't happening, would the story just be popular?
Would it be a man walks in with no pants?
That's true.
And which is, it's funny that right now, which is more offensive?
I know.
Could you at least have the decency to put a mask on?
The first thing they notice is, please put a mask on.
Put a mask on.
And then they're going.
You don't even have pants on.
Or if he doesn't have a mask on.
So you please just at least remove your pants and tie them around your face.
But if you're not wearing pants, does that spread the coronavirus?
That's a good question.
So if you just pee on flatulence.
Flatulence.
Is that the same as a cough?
Yeah.
A reverse cough.
Maybe we need butt masks.
That's what underwear is.
I guess we never thought about that.
It's crazy.
Darth Vader enforces lockdown in Philippine Village.
I'm assuming this isn't the real Darth Vader because he's fictional.
So there's just a guy dressed up as Darth.
Yeah, I would assume so too.
So there's a guy dressed up as Darth Vader.
Oh, he's going around in a little boat.
In a boat?
Darth Vader has a boat.
Local officials are dressing up as Darth Vader and sailing around in little, rowing around in little boats.
So people are going insane because of the lockdown.
Yeah.
Basically, there's the guy on the beach down here dressed as death.
Seen that guy?
Yeah.
Did you see that stormtrooper that got arrested in Canada?
He had the fake laser blaster and he was just marching around.
And these cops come with all their weapons drawn and they're like, drop the gun, drop the gun.
They don't get wow.
That's candidate for you.
If somebody did a mass shooting in a stormtrooper outfit, that would ruin it for all cosplayers.
That's true.
Don't do that.
Just want, don't do that.
I mean, I don't want people to die.
Really, any at all.
Any shootings, but especially.
And also, if I could get that side effect in another way that people didn't have to die, I wouldn't mind if Star Wars cosplaying was a little more taboo.
Well, think about something you love, though.
Like, what if a guy slung a banjo around his back?
Yeah.
And then did a mass shooting.
That would ruin it for you forever.
Banjo is already kind of associated with like KKK and stuff.
That's right.
And you don't care because you're racist.
I'm bringing it back to morbid, obese, white non-racism.
All of that was the same, except the word non-yeah.
Final weird story?
Oh, no, we got two more.
Two more.
World's biggest 5G tower installed on Mount Everest using yaks to lug controversial equipment up tracks.
The controversial equipment was controversial.
Oh, 5G.
I mean, 5G, people think it's coronavirus and stuff.
Wait, it spreads coronavirus?
That's what people are saying.
Or like causes cancer, it causes all this.
So all these people are like some yaks are in on it.
Someone took these maps.
It was like all the coronavirus infections, all the 5G towers, and they're like all in the same spots.
But that's because they're all in cities.
It's heavily populated areas.
It's amazing all the things you could make connections between.
And Yaks and Yaks are now in on it too.
So that's crazy.
And we, as journalists of the Babylon B, we have no inside knowledge on 5G being the thing that spreads coronavirus.
This episode brought to you by Spectrum.
That was good.
That was really good.
Keep that joke in there.
It merged with T. Tiffany?
Something.
T-Mobile.
Yeah.
The letter T, T-Mobile.
It starts with the T.
Yes, it does.
French encouraged to eat more cheese as an act of patriotism.
What does that mean?
This reminds me of when we all ate freedom fries back in the 9-11.
We did that?
Yeah, they were all mad about.
I think everybody hid that from me because I was already morbidly obese.
So they're like, don't tell Ethan that we're all eating freedom fries, all right?
Yeah, because if you could just justify it as I'm a patriot.
I'm eating fries.
Yeah, I gotta be patriotic.
I'll get nine of them.
You would be dead by now.
Yeah, because I don't remember that at all.
So they hid that from me.
The term was born in 2003 when the Republican chairman of the Committee on House Administration renamed the menu item French fries in three congressional cafeterias in response to France's opposition to the proposed invasion of Iraq.
What are we talking about?
French fries or cheese?
So the French fries, they renamed them freedom fries in the congressional cafeteria because they were mad that France didn't want us to invade Iraq.
Okay.
That's the fact that the cheese here.
That's the most petty American story ever, and that's kind of wonderful.
So this is the opposite, though.
This is France saying you guys got to eat cheese.
But why?
What's the problem that they're like, okay, if you guys don't eat cheese, well, maybe it's like economic.
Everyone will die.
It's to help the dairy industry because they're struggling with a huge surplus of cheese.
Gotcha.
Eat cheese.
Well, maybe we can help the French out.
Yeah.
I love cheese.
We're going to do a special thing today in a subscriber portion.
We're going to read GK Chesterton has an amazing essay on cheese.
It's funny and poignant.
And so we're going to read that and go over it and chat about it.
It's one of my favorites.
It's one of the all-time favorites of anybody who likes Chesterton.
It's very short.
Essay on cheese.
It's a little cheesy.
But hey, it's great.
Great.
Yes.
We're really going to shred this one.
It's going to be really Gouda.
Gouda.
It's an Agouda.
Yeah, but I mean, it hates being a.
I always say Gouda.
I don't know.
It's like Gauta.
I think it's Gauda.
I don't pronounce it.
My wife used to really try to.
She's called a howda.
Howda?
And then we found out it's gauta.
Yeah, because it just seems like whatever your instinct is, you got to go against it with cheese.
See, but I double think that and then triple think, and then I end up completely wrong.
Yeah.
Anyway, check it out.
Yeah, it's going to be very crafty.
You're still thinking of it.
It's really sharp.
Every week, there are stories.
These are some of them.
Trump has unleashed a new weapon in the Cold War with the Far East after the recent attack on the Pacific Northwest of the invasive swarms of giant Asian hornets nicknamed murder hornets.
Trump has unleashed a new secret weapon developed just for this attack.
American kamikaze bears.
I like it.
You have to say American because kamikaze is Japanese.
Well, because the original name that they were giving these things over social media was Asian murder hornets.
Asian murder hornets.
So the parallel is American kamikaze bears.
Oh, because murder is an American thing.
And a kamikaze is a Japanese thing.
Right.
Or was because there's kamikaze pilots in Japan, and then in America had murder pilots.
Yeah.
We didn't kill ourselves.
We just murdered.
So I'm trying to draw these parallels that aren't there.
So our pilots in World War II were murder pilots.
My grandfather was a murder pilot.
Well, he was a kamikaze pilot.
He's a murder pilot.
Yeah.
Who do you want on your side?
Yeah.
I mean, the murder.
The kamikaze seems really inefficient to me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You can't reuse them.
You don't want one.
Yeah, not reusable.
I wonder why they did it.
I bet maybe the destructive force of one plane loaded with explosives was a lot greater than dropping a few people.
Yeah, like you can't compete with that insanity of that.
You're going to just blow yourself up.
I don't want to blow up.
It was a little really scary.
Yeah.
And I bet also that because you didn't have all the crazy heat-seeking missiles we have today, it was easier to just point right out.
That's true.
Yeah, because you have to aim whatever you're aiming at with your plane is what you're shooting, right?
Yeah, versus like flying above and drop the torpedo.
So you get a few more bullets in if you just blow up.
This is a commentary of two guys who know nothing about military technology commenting on military technology.
Yeah.
So yeah, apparently there are these new Asian giant hornets.
They've gotten a lot of press, the Asian murder hornets, but there's a lot of bugs and things that haven't got as much press because their crime isn't exactly murder.
Yeah, and since we are investigative journalists, we went out and found these species.
It's good to get educated.
For instance, there's the wire fraud butterflies.
That's a bad crime.
Yeah.
It's not as bad as murder, but still pretty bad.
I don't even know what wire fraud is.
Like when you tap into people's that always sounds like one of those fake crimes where they can't nail someone for something else.
The black and the white wire in your lighting gets flipped.
No.
You can't turn it on.
It's like criminals that they couldn't nail for something else and they're like, but you transferred this money via wire.
So that's how they get it.
I still don't get it.
Profanity-spewing click beetle.
Yeah.
At least they click.
So it kind of masks the swearing.
Like they self-censor with the censor with the click.
The North American.
This is not actually a bug, but it made the list.
North American racketeering raccoon.
Again, I don't know what racketeering is.
This is two guys who don't know anything about anything.
That's a point.
White collar crimes.
Commenting on crime.
White-collar crimes are boring.
Who wants to get into all those details?
Whenever we would move into a new area, because we bounced around a few times, you look up the crime maps to see how nice the area is that you're looking at.
Yeah, you can pull up a crime map.
Lot of cops, a lot of police departments will do it.
I've seen the predator maps, but I've never seen the full.
And you'll see the recent crimes.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
So we feel safe in an area if all the crime is like in the neighborhood will be like wire fraud.
Yeah.
Racketeering.
Okay.
So that's a good.
Not shot people in the face or something.
Right.
Mattress tag beetles.
So do they rip?
They rip the tags.
It says do not remove by penalty of law.
And then they're just right there.
Snip, snip, snip.
Oh, that's bad.
Yeah, that's pretty bad.
I'll throw you right in jail for that.
There's the telemarketer aphids, which they're just really annoying because they're just calling you constantly.
Telemarketing is not a crime.
Well, it might be in some areas.
It's available.
If you tell them not to call you and then they still call you, that's a crime.
That's true.
I'd say.
And I think the aphids don't respect that list.
Genocidal potato bugs.
That's pretty bad.
I don't know why they haven't.
I think it's mainly that they still like murder, but it's mass murder, right?
I think it's mainly that they think about it a lot, but they don't pull it off very often.
I think potato bugs are the absolute disgustingest creatures that God made.
You know, I have a funny because, well, okay, there's Jerusalem crickets, which are also called potato bugs, but I'm talking about like sow bugs, right?
Roly polis.
Oh, I was talking about those Jerusalem.
Okay.
They're absolutely gross, like yellow and black.
I don't know if I've seen them.
Are they around here?
And Chino growing up, we had them all the time.
I'm thinking of roly-polis, which are also called potato bugs by some people like me.
And my wife just figured out that if you, she found this on the internet, if you put in a tuna can, you fill it with beer, you put that in your garden next to the plant that the roly polis won't stop eating, and you put it right at like the level of the ground so it's like a pool, they will murder themselves in mass to get into the beer.
Like they will just all get in there until you have a full tuna can of dead, a genocide of potato bugs, sow bugs, roly polis.
So is that what a group is?
Is that what a group of potato bugs is called?
The genocide?
It's called a potato pile.
I don't know.
Yeah.
One more bug we have.
We have one more bug here that needs more press, the arson lice.
So if your head catches on fire, that could be arson lice.
You never know.
You never know.
But then the Trump.
But Trump, since he launched these American Kamikaisu Bears, he met in his war room with his generals and they had a bunch of different ideas.
They had little manila folders and files like, sir, here are the different animals you could consider for this attack.
Very thoughtfully considered before selecting the American Kamikaisu bear.
So the first one that he considered was this is the first time I'm seeing this list.
The first one he considered was the sexual assault weevils.
Yes.
There's a picture I think that looks like Harvey Weinstein maybe with a very long proboscis on his face.
Kidnapping and torturing walruses, which I think it's mainly they're not as efficient because they're slow.
And then I don't know if they actually kill.
They just kidnap and torture.
So it's pretty bad.
But not as bad as a kamikaze wear.
The flesh-ripping platypus is another one.
Yeah.
Rip and tear.
Yeah, they don't kill.
They rip and tear.
Yeah.
And they want to live.
Again, you can't compete with something that's a kamikaze.
Hey, that goose that was outside?
They had little.
We have geese on.
Oh, oh.
I'll wait until then.
Okay.
I'm next.
Serial killer whales, which is worse than a killer whale because they're a serial killer.
And they mostly hang out in cornfields carrying knives.
Do they have a type?
Like they have their MO that they have.
Yeah, like their type they go for.
Yeah.
Which is, again, not as efficient.
You want a killer whale that'll just take out anybody.
Somebody who's more diverse in their murdering.
And the serial killer, well, he leaves this calling card, like a shell or something on the like shells on the eyes of the little fish bone or something like that.
Something like Heathcliff.
Face-eating ducks.
Face-eating ducks are the worst.
Aren't those just geese?
You could say that, actually.
They've mutated.
They're bigger and they want to eat your face.
But there's also exploding geese.
Which that could be kamikaze, but they're not as big as a bear.
So there was two of those geese outside, and they had the little goslings, I guess.
The little Ryan goslings.
The Ryan Goslings.
Is that what they're called?
The babies?
I think so.
So the little.
Just funny.
And I usually have a truce, me and that goose.
Oh, yeah.
A goose truce.
Because I walk by him every morning.
And he just looks at me.
Just looks and stares.
Yeah.
His head turns like a sword.
His head turns.
But there's two of them now, and they have like six of these little goslings.
And I walk by.
Oh, the more goslings, the more furious.
And he hissed.
Yeah.
I mean, he or she, I don't know how to tell, I guess.
It has babies.
Well, there's two, but there's two geese there.
So I don't know if they sidehugged each other and came out with this.
Yeah.
And then you can feel around and check.
There was also a broken egg right next to them.
So that might have been sad.
They were in a fight.
Yeah.
All right.
And the last animal that Trump considered is the organ-thieving lemurs.
Lemurs.
How do you say it?
Lemurs?
Are they friends?
Let me try this again.
I'm looking at this on the very bottom of my scene.
Organ-thieving lemurs.
I can't say it.
That's like the Obama way to say it because he's like trying to get their dialect.
Goodness gracious.
Lemurs.
The organ-thieving lemurs.
Lemurs.
Oh, where did my kidney go?
Is it lemurs?
They're the ones that are like the guy in Madagascar that single ringtail.
The move-it-move it guy.
That guy.
You got crazy eyes that all our kids are obsessed with.
They're very spry and rascally.
And they also steal your organs.
Running off with your organs.
Like the church organ or the.
Your gut, guts.
Okay.
Yeah.
The other kind.
They could steal a church organ if they all banded together, but I don't know how cooperative they are.
Well, these are all pretty good options.
I think Trump was right to go with the American kamikaze bears, though.
I agree.
But that was educational.
All right, for our second story.
So Kyle was gone this week, and me and Dan decided to run this story.
We both kind of hesitated before we did.
Kyle returned to a big smoking crater where the Babylon B headquarters used to be.
Yeah.
So I wanted to, because there was a very serious story that came out about, I'm sure most people have heard about it.
Is it Ahmaud?
Ahmad?
Ahmad Arbery.
Guy was killed.
But it was all, there's this 30 second video that had come out and it felt like to, so here's the headline.
Let me just read that line.
Asking for context of 30-second video revealed to be racist dog whistle.
And so me and Dan were like, we know that some people are going to be mad about this, but like, I want to put this out for there for the people that feel this feeling.
Like, it's not.
And we immediately got accused of defending the shooters, which is not at all what we were trying to do.
So we called Kira because we love Kira and she's an authority on this.
And also, Kira, I saw you called it a lynching.
So you took a much harder stance than I did.
I didn't.
No, I don't call it a lynching.
Okay, maybe I misread one of your tweets.
Maybe I retweeted somebody, but no, I wouldn't have applied that.
Okay, then you put, so can I get your perspective?
Why don't you stop putting words in her mouth?
Tell us then.
Yeah, thank you for waiting cleaning.
Tell me if I'm racist or not.
Well, I appreciate it, Ethan.
And I'm sorry that I didn't get to talk to Kyle today, but it's good to talk to you, Dean.
I'm Kyle.
I'm here.
This is why we should have a camera on for.
That's why we need a camera.
But we don't really need the camera.
I don't have to see you guys.
I know what you guys look like.
That's right.
All too familiar with your faces.
I've actually gained weight, so you don't want to see me now.
Worse.
Oh, join the club.
Listen, I'm glad you guys reached out to me and I appreciate it.
I appreciate your curiosity about it and that you're not willing to just kind of take whatever narrative, but you wanted to talk through these things.
And the last couple of times I've been on your show, that's kind of where we go with things, right?
Like we always talk through things.
We might not agree with them, but I always say that the conversation has to be had.
And that means it means having some uncomfortable confrontations.
And you guys are not confrontational people at all, also, which is like, I know this is so hard for you.
What's that supposed to mean?
We debated about even talking about this for a while before we almost canceled this.
I fully expected to get an email going, you know what, the guys have just decided to back off.
And that's fair.
I don't think that's cowardly.
I mean, the Babylon B isn't exactly like serious commentary.
No, that's some, that's something what I do.
So in a respect, you don't want to thwart your audience.
But I do think this is something to be talked about.
And I think one of the things that I am having trouble with that bothers me about the discussion around this is that there seem to be two different discussions.
And I think only one of those discussions is actually valuable.
One discussion is, what was this kid doing before?
What was the moment before?
Right.
Was he scoping out a home or an empty property to rob?
Did he have a history with these people?
Was he kind of a troublemaker from the start?
Did he have a kind of a bad background?
That's one question.
So I guess people ask that question because that's what brought him to the incident.
But I think the other question that's being asked, and this is the more relevant one, is if Ahmed Arbery were white, would he be alive today?
And my personal opinion is yes.
And so I don't, I think I wrote an article at Red State.
You can go find it.
It's called You Didn't Shoot Ahmed Arbery.
And I posit that I think a lot of white conservatives automatically push back at this kind of stuff because they're so used to being blamed for all of racism everywhere for all time that it puts them in a defensive position.
And so they feel like to even acknowledge the very notion that there is a very dangerous type of racism out there is to almost be accusing themselves.
And it makes people uncomfortable.
So they feel defensive.
They have to push back.
And I guess I can recognize the instinct and maybe even understand it, but it's okay for us to acknowledge that there is a very specific experience in this country that is the black experience.
And the police are very closely intertwined with that.
And there's a whole history with that.
And I think no matter how you cut this, to look at that young man and look at him fighting for his life, basically, I don't think he didn't deserve to die.
So the moment before isn't relevant in this case.
It's not, and that doesn't mean any time anywhere.
Now have the race hustlers and the gripters latched onto this and he's got, you know, whatever, the L sharpened attorneys or whatever.
Yeah, of course.
But, you know, who else is the Arbery family supposed to turn to?
It's not like there's a bunch of conservative groups out there reaching out and offering to represent them, you know, and offering to find justice for them.
So that's where I stand on the matter.
I don't mind the questions.
I don't even mind the arguing, but I don't think that it is a valid point to make that this young man deserved to die and he brought it on himself.
And I agree with that.
I think that's the wrong.
I see that too.
People are, they're becoming online detectives, you know, and they're like zooming in on the video with pixelated, like, look what he's wearing or what he's doing here.
Yeah.
And the argument that he didn't, nobody deserves to die for checking out a construction site.
Or you don't even really deserve to die for like being a thief in a house.
I mean, it's not, the punishment doesn't fit the crime.
The questions around it are like, what, you know, what happened?
And I think that the frustration that I run into with it is it feels like you have two choices, which is because we live in such a polarized time.
It's like either it was a pure racist hate crime.
We have to completely just buy into that and that racism is alive and well.
And therefore, all the cures for racism that have been given to us by the left or people that kind of buy into this whole thing that says not that there isn't racism, but like it's this version, I guess.
I don't know.
It's like I said, why are we talking about this?
I'm scared to even talk about it.
Or the other side of it is we have to go the full other way that he completely had it coming and you walked over this property, you expect to get shot.
And there's a whole discussion that, I mean, I do think is valid to talk about like what's with these law, the citizens' arrest laws or whatever.
I mean, if people feel like they can just chase somebody down with a gun, they feel like they're within their legal rights, like maybe that's something to have some questions about as well.
Sure, absolutely.
And I mean, look, it may even be one thing if these men were in their home and this kid broke into the home.
And, you know, that is another thing.
But they set up a sting, you know, they set up a and they weren't law enforcement officers.
So they literally stalked a young black kid.
I don't see how you see it any other way.
Now, now, you're absolutely right.
There are questions to be asked and there's room in the middle here to have a productive conversation.
It's just not going to be had on social media.
It just isn't.
And I don't think what we should be doing is accusing each other of being either heartless racist monsters or totally sold out to the social justice warrior movement for simply expressing some opinions, asking some questions.
I mean, you guys know me.
I'm not of the mind that black people have to be living in fear walking outside of their house every day.
That's not how we live.
That's not how me and my family live.
We've never been forced to live that way.
That doesn't mean that there aren't certain realities that are true for maybe not so much me, you know, as a middle-aged biracial black woman, but for my son, you know, who is a young black man and even my husband, who we do deal with these issues of driving wall black.
That's a real thing.
I know, you know, I know people like to say, well, I've been pulled over for speeding too, but there's a conversation that every black family has.
And I have white family too, so I know it's not the same conversation.
And it's like, that's okay.
That's okay to admit that these things do exist.
We, Ethan and Kyle and me, you and I, we all have the assurance that there is a greater power out there, that there is a greater common cause that binds us and unites us all.
We know to look to the one who can heal those riffs.
And that brings us a comfort, but not everyone has that comfort.
And it's certainly not available on social media.
So we get slung into the mud with all of this.
I don't think there needs to be mud slinging, but you know, it's 2020.
There you go, bringing God into it again.
There you go.
Yeah.
That's why we love you.
I always feel like we need an organ playing that slowly builds up behind you.
You should have that.
They're going to start searching.
You guys have to make that happen.
Do you guys do it in post?
We'll do it in post.
Which, if she started a church, would she have to do like the Roxanne?
Like she has to feed the preaching to the man on the stage.
Oh, like in the earpiece.
Yeah, the earpiece or hiding in the bushes.
Yeah.
Well, she's a good biblical Christian, so she wouldn't preach.
Yeah.
Right.
This is a topic for another time.
We've had this discussion before.
We did.
She told Beth Moore to go home.
Okay, we're going to get you back here soon, Carrie, because we want you back in person.
We miss you and we love you.
Yeah, I miss you guys too.
I'm really sorry our Norm McDonald double date did.
No, we're going to see Norm.
It'll happen eventually.
He'll be back.
I hope so.
I hope so for America's sake.
Yeah, we got to do it.
All right.
Well, thank you so much for coming on for our quick.
I think it's the first time we've had a quick guest, just a little expert weigh in on a story, but I felt like it was appropriate and we always like a good excuse to talk to Kira.
Well, you guys successfully avoided any kind of real, like having any real opinions on the issue.
So I don't think anyone can pin y'all down on this one.
You've done your job.
It's amazing what people can derive from that story.
Like the amount of tweets saying that we're this is pure racist.
The funny is we were saying the joke was literal Nazis.
Yeah, the joke was literally like asking a question is a racist dog whistle and everybody, there's all these people going, this is a racist dog whistle.
You can't explain.
If you have to explain the joke, then you've already failed.
Not saying it was funny.
You got to ignore the haters.
All right, guys.
All right.
Thank you.
In person with you soon.
Take care.
Sounds good.
Thank you, families.
Thank you.
Bye.
Bye.
All right.
Well, the diversity of the Babylon B podcast has just decreased by 100% as soon as Kira hung up.
All right.
You guys want to keep going?
Let's do it.
Experts around the nation say that our ethical arithmetic for public policy now only needs to meet the standard if it saves just one life.
The announcement was immediately met by wild cheers from those who hate economic activity of any kind and also those who celebrate abortion on demand.
So if it saves one life, that's the measure.
Except for abortion.
That's except for abortion.
Or, you know, you kill hundreds of millions.
It ends one life.
If we just end just one life, it is worth it to plant this plant parenthood here.
Planted parent.
That was hard to say.
You can make a pickle planted, planted the planned parenthood of the planted planters.
I like how a normal twister.
I like how a normal doctor is like, was the operation, was the thing successful?
Oh, yeah, she's still alive.
And an abortion doctor is like, oh, shoot.
It's still alive.
It's messed up.
Like, that is the measure, right?
You're messed up.
CDC releases information on how to make sure nobody dies at all.
Did they release that?
Everybody should die permanently.
Oh, yeah.
So everybody should die is gone.
They recommended the CDC recommended that everybody die to prevent permanent death.
Because if we would all just die right now, then no more death would ever happen.
I like this idea that we can all just lock ourselves in our house and then the government can just print dollar bills and send them to us.
And nobody's going to factories to build anything.
Nobody's going to be able to do it.
No one's going to lose their mind.
Yeah.
No one's going to farms.
Nothing is being produced.
As if that's what we always wanted.
Like, ah, I got to go to work.
I wish I could just sit at home and get money in the mail.
You sound like you're not a friend of socialism.
Yeah, that's the weird thing because someone's got to at least mail the money.
At the very least, somebody has to be the money mailer.
I'm the money deliverer.
So our government needs like two positions.
Yeah.
The money printer and the money mailer.
Is there anybody else?
I guess money deliverer.
What about if you know the tie on?
Because you can't buy anything unless somebody's made it or whatever.
So, yeah, but that's you want.
That's not in America.
You just get it from.
You want grandma to die is what it sounds like to me.
Grandma Killer.
Everybody chant with me.
Grandma Killer.
Wait.
It seems like there should be a better cadence.
That sounds like a person's name.
Her name is Grandma Killer, and she's a grandma that kills everybody.
Hey, hey, hi, hi.
You want grandma to die?
The cane impaler.
There's got to be a good.
How many grandmas did you kill today?
Yeah, ashes to ashes.
I don't know.
What was the old Vietnam chant that they started doing?
Hey, ho.
I was like, how many kids did you kill today?
I don't know.
I wasn't alive in Vietnam, were you?
No, I was not.
But they started doing it at what's her name?
Dane Lash.
Lash.
They started chanting it there and stuff.
How many kids did you kill today?
Okay.
Yeah, I don't know.
This story.
Oh, you know, Planned Parenthood put out a tweet on Mother's Day.
It said, Happy Mother's Day from moms at home to moms on the front line.
What's on the front line mean?
Of the war on babies?
What's the front line?
That's very groupy.
That is on the front line.
Because in their business.
Of the war on women.
They're defending themselves from the Republicans that are trying to kill women.
Oh, the war on women.
Yeah.
Not the war on babies.
Even though, oddly, they're winning the war on babies more than the war on women.
It was, hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?
But I thought they did some.
Oh, hey, hey, NRA, how many kids did you kill?
Hey, hey.
I got nothing.
So what do we got next today?
I don't know.
We got an interview.
We do?
Yeah, for...
I'm excited.
Dr. Dr. Economics.
Bob Murphy.
Yeah.
And he gave us a lot of analogies using lemonade stands because that's the only way I can understand economics.
And even then, I'm like 50-50.
I'm going to get it.
Yeah.
If you ever always listen to economics lectures and you say, explain that to me like I'm five years old, you're going to enjoy this.
Yeah.
Because we got him to compare a lot of things together.
We really kept bringing him back to the lemonade stand.
So here we go.
So as Christians, we know that God's always there for us, but sometimes things can feel kind of sketchy, especially during this time of coronavirus and a lot of anxiety, depression, and all that stuff is skyrocketing.
And what can help us to speak to someone who shares your faith and values?
Right.
Counselors, therapists.
I think that a lot of Christians, they want to reach out to those kind of people, but it's awkward to be like, are you a Christian or not?
Yeah, there's a stigma with it.
And there's people who.
And it's like that's supposed to not matter, but it really does matter.
Faith is a big deal, do you?
Yeah, there's people who are wary of talking to someone who's maybe not a Christian.
And what if one of the issues you have is your crisis of faith?
I've had people like that.
I don't deal with as much, but I've had people have that issue where they're really worried about, am I getting to heaven?
Or like it stresses them out.
So those kinds of questions about you get theological.
So this week, our podcast is being sponsored by Faithful Counseling.
And there are online counselors that are there for you, whether you're struggling with depression, stress, anxiety, the crisis of faith thing Ethan talked about, relationships, all of that stuff that you would bring to a council, you can bring to Christian counselors online.
They'll communicate you with you via text, chat, phone, and video.
So if you're like awkward about video, you can just text your therapist.
That'd be pretty cool.
That's pretty neat.
Like that.
So you can go to faithfulcounseling.com/slash Babylon B, and you get 10% off your first month.
Hey, hey.
A little honey for the B fans.
So pretty cool.
Faithfulcounseling.com slash Babylon B. Do we have to say it another time?
I think you have to say it one more time.
Faithfulcounseling.com/slash Babylon B.
So they have a questionnaire that you can fill out and it'll help them assess your needs and get you matched to a counselor that you'll love me.
You just got to go to faithfulcounseling.com/slash Babylon B. You're very good at that, Ethan.
Thank you.
So check it out.
And thanks for sponsoring the podcast.
Faithful Counseling.
And now, the Babylon Bee's topic of the week.
Welcome to the Babylon B interview show.
I'm Kyle Mann.
I'm Ethan Nicole.
And we are joined today.
It's actually not the interview show.
I think this is the new show.
Oh, no, it's not the interview.
Yeah, we're putting this on our topic of the week.
That's right.
Corrected, you already know.
I already ruined it.
Yep.
It's just stupid.
Idiot.
That's perfect because we have the guy that writes economics for dummies books, I think.
Is that true?
When I googled you.
Well, I'm sure you do read it.
It's not for dummies, but yeah, it's always in that row.
What was it?
Yeah.
It's for the general public, sure.
Okay.
Also known as Dummies.
No, I'm just kidding.
His name.
Should we say his name?
Yeah, we should say his name.
Okay.
Dr. Robert Murphy.
You go by Bob.
Is that You Go By Bob?
Are we cool with that?
Yes.
Yeah, when I Googled your name, oh, it's the politically incorrect guy.
It's not the idiot's guide.
Gosh, I'm an idiot.
I'm an idiot.
Sorry about that.
Now you have to do the stupid idiot hit yourself in the face thing.
Stupid.
There you go.
Sorry.
All right.
Today for our topic of the week, we are talking about economics, which is the study of eco money.
Yeah, it's like the technology.
Okay.
I think.
And so we, since we, we are very studied in the school of economics, but we thought we would get someone on to just confirm our biases.
Yeah, I have like eight Thomas Soule books on my bookshelf.
Oh, nice.
So you're pretty much, you have a degree in economics, pretty much.
Yeah.
So today we are joined by Dr. Robert P. Murphy.
Hi, Doctor.
Thanks for joining us.
Yes.
Glad to be here.
And let me say I love your guys' stuff for all joking aside.
Well, thank you.
Well, I mean, I think we want to, you know, dive into, I mean, I'm sure you've been talking about this like crazy, but it couldn't be a crazier time for the economy.
And maybe just where are people getting it wrong?
You hear a lot of people saying stupid things on the internet.
You know, with we're in the middle of, in fact, we're just switching to video.
So anybody watching, we're in the middle of COVID.
There hasn't been a hair place open for a while.
So I haven't had a haircut in a long time.
So I just.
Me neither.
Just so you know, if you're seeing me.
That's why I look like a caveman.
Sure.
So I think the mistake of the people, I'll do like mistakes in the left and the right.
So the people on the right, like the typical Trump supporter, I think their mistake is if they think the economy was doing great and then, oh, shoot, this stupid virus from China came and ruined everything.
Especially my colleagues in the what's called the Austrian School of Economics.
We've been warning ever since the Fed has been doing the rounds of QE or quantitative easing that they were blowing up a giant bubble that was going to burst.
The yield curve inverted last summer.
And so before this thing even hit, like a lot of us were warning that there was going to be a pretty bad recession starting this summer anyway.
So obviously this global pandemic doesn't help matters any, but I think the economy was in serious trouble already.
So for people who think this is just some exogenous thing that Trump couldn't control, and that's why the economy is bad, I think that's wrong.
As far as the people who are, you know, the typical progressive leftist types, the thing that they seem to just believe that, oh, everyone can stay home, you know, indefinitely and the federal government just needs to send relief checks and we'll just wait till the medical establishment signs off and when it's safe.
And I think, you know, putting aside issues of the medical aspect of this, they're just not understanding the fact that the economy needs people going to the factories and it's not just enough to have workers go back to work eventually.
But when you get to your job, I mean, you're using things that other people produced.
So the way to quickly put it is when the carpenters go back to work, if there's no new nails because nobody who makes nails has been going to work for three months, they can't do their job.
So I think the longer this lockdown lasts, you start seeing pockets.
The most obvious example that I'm sure your listeners are aware of is the breakdown of the food supply chain with the meat aspect of it.
So that sort of thing, it's not just meat in general.
We all like just having people not, yeah, people not going to work.
I mean, it's not just a matter of, oh, we'll just have the government take care of it.
I mean, the government printing money or borrowing money, if people aren't going to work, there's nothing the money can buy.
So there's just that element too that I think some people on the left are not fully grasping that.
So it sounds to me like you want people to die.
Is that what you want?
Well, no.
You know, I just wanted to throw in there.
Everything economists say, my brain starts to twist up like a, like a, like, you know, when you get a Charlie horse in your leg?
I get that in my brain.
Yeah.
It's like, ah, ah!
So it is.
But if you put it all into like lemonade stand analogies and keep it $10 in $10, $1 increments, then I can get it.
So if you can always use those analogies for me, I'll get it.
I will do my best.
So, I mean, the more serious thing to your reply is: you know, we're certainly in my household taking this very seriously.
But again, it can't be that everyone just stays home indefinitely because, you know, we rely, you know, we get Instacart and stuff.
And well, how are the grocery stores having food to bring to us?
And, you know, who's making gloves?
Who's making hand sanitizer if no one's going to work?
I mean, so, yeah.
I mean, I know this is kind of like common sense stuff, but yet some of the commentary we see, it's like, oh, we can't go back to work until it's safe.
And it's like at some point, you know, unfortunately, I mean, there's no good outcome for this, right?
I mean, there's constraints, there's scarcity.
There's no plan that someone could say and realize there's no downside.
And so that's, you know, that's the trade-off we face right now.
So what was the, you said the economy was already in trouble.
So what were the indicators of that and why was the economy in trouble?
Okay, so what I think causes the business cycle typically is that the central bank in conjunction with the commercial banks, it floods the market with cheap credit.
So interest rates get pushed down to artificially low levels.
So I think that's what happened during the housing bubble years, right?
In the mid-2000s, is that the Federal Reserve was creating too much money, interest rates were low, and that helped fuel that unsustainable boom.
And that's why there was a crisis in 2008.
So, the Fed did the same thing they had done after the dot-com crash, just far more so with the rounds of QE.
So, like one way to put it in a simple manner is the government or the Fed creating dollars doesn't make us wealthier.
There's not more houses, there's not more food, there's not more software engineers just because they create dollars.
And obviously, they can't just, you know, why don't they just create a million dollars for everybody, make everyone a millionaire?
You realize at some point, well, that can't be it because then prices would just go up, right?
So, the mere act of creating money doesn't make us wealthier in a real sense, but it can screw things up.
And so, I think the booming stock market, you know, from 2009 onward was artificial.
That, you know, objectively, there was a lot wrong with the U.S. economy, and yet the stock market was booming.
So, that's one indication to me that that was artificial.
And so, you asked for a measure, like I said, one pretty objective thing that a lot of economists and analysts looked at was what's called the yield curve inversion that happened in 2019 at the end of the summer.
And that historically, since World War II, whenever that has happened, where what that means is the interest rate on short-term bonds is higher than on long-term ones, typically that signals a recession that comes within a year or so.
So, that did happen.
So, a lot of people were saying, uh-oh, it looks like a recession is finally here.
Yeah, lemonade stand version.
Yeah, I didn't hear a lemonade stand on there.
I didn't hear a single lemonade stand reference.
So, I guess, yeah, if the interest rate's too low, then too many people think it's a good idea to start lemonade stands.
The Fed chickens out, raises interest rates, and then a lot of people say, Wow, I shouldn't have started that lemonade stand.
I got to lay off the work.
That worked.
Now, I understand.
Now, I get it.
How about hot dog stands?
Yeah, probably dress it up.
Yeah, yeah, anything, any food.
We also could have done another analogy people use is to say, like, the cheap credit from the Fed is like giving a sugar high, or sometimes you might use like a drinking analogy.
And so, yeah, the low rates are good, but businesses get hooked on it, and then it's kind of like you're going to have a hangover, and so you need more.
You know, so there's different analogies people use, but the basic idea being the Fed's not doing us any favors by creating money and keeping interest rates low.
The interest rates are price, it communicates information, and so if it's the wrong number, that screws things up.
So, the Fed is like a drug dealer and they're injecting everybody with crack.
Crack.
Do you inject crack?
I don't know.
I mean, if you're going to, you can inject people with crack if you're just a crazy person with a needle.
You just inject anything into the syringe.
You have the disregard for the law.
Yeah.
Do anything.
Okay.
So, what are some unforeseen or unseen?
What are some things going on right now in the economy that like the average person is not even aware of?
Like, we're all talking about meat and people need jobs, obvious stuff.
What's stuff that like the layman is not catching on to?
Okay, so one thing that's a pretty big deal is the federal stimulus act that they recently passed, the $2 trillion or whatever the number was.
One of the components of that, and I think they call it the CARES Act, one of the components was the federal government was augmenting state-level unemployment insurance by $600 a week.
And so, that was being, so it was that flat fee regardless of what your previous wage had been.
So, typically, if you lose your job, you get state administered unemployment, and it's based at some percentage of what you used to earn, you know, up to a maximum.
So, you get paid less from unemployment than if you had kept your job.
Whereas here, there's literally millions of people, I don't remember what the exact estimates were, who are getting paid more in unemployment right now than when they had been working.
So there's anecdotal reports of like business owners who wanted to keep their employees on the payroll, you know, out of goodwill and stuff.
Yeah.
And just, you know, they had a team meeting and realized you guys can make more.
Just apply for, you know, I'll, quote, lay you off, apply for unemployment.
You'll get more.
Plus, you know, no one, we don't have any customers right now, or maybe they're not essential.
They're forced to be closed anyway.
And then later in the, you know, when summer will, I'll hire you back.
So even as these lockdowns end, you know, state by state, they're phasing stuff out.
I think the labor market's going to be mired in this rut at least until August because this, what I just said, that's true up through July.
So there's that element that, you know, the official unemployment numbers are going to be really huge once the next month's numbers come out because there's a lag.
And that's going to stay high at least through the summer because, like I say, there are many people who are literally getting paid more to stay home than to work.
So there's that element.
Beyond that, though, I'm concerned that what the government's doing in the central bank, meaning the Federal Reserve, it's moving into a position where you need to be on their good side.
Like you're getting cheap loans from them or to be declared an essential business, like in the various phases and who's allowed to go to work.
And so I'm concerned, like a lot of the smaller businesses, like a mom and pop store or it's just sole entrepreneurship, they're just going to go under.
And then, you know, really the bailouts or whatever, the relief programs are going to be more for bigger companies.
So I think you're going to see a lot more consolidation of this where this crisis is being hijacked, as it were, so that besides everything else that's going on, when the dust settles, I think there's going to be a lot more concentration and a lot of small business owners are going to get wiped out and they're going to have to go back to being employees.
Yeah, so like, what's your prediction for when things, when everybody goes back to work, it's probably going to not going to happen instantly or overnight, but there's definitely going to be a shift where like it starts to happen and people start to, it seems like it's already kind of starting to happen.
Like I'm noticing more places are opening up in limited capacity.
Like even some are doing it against the wishes of their local government.
Like it's people are like restless to go back to work.
Once that kind of, I don't know if it'll tidal wave in or how fast it'll happen, but that shift happens, what effect do you think that'll have on the economy?
Well, I mean, it'll be good.
So like in terms of the official numbers, we don't have the estimate yet, but I mean, GDP, you know, that thing fell off a cliff.
I think it's probably the biggest, the biggest drop in a quarter literally ever.
Like even during the Great Depression, it didn't fall this quickly because there's never been anything like this.
There's never been a time when the governments around the whole country just said you can't go to work.
There's nothing like this.
That's never happened.
I mean, there's been pandemics and stuff, but they didn't force everybody to stay home before.
So to answer your question, I mean, that'll somewhat recover.
But again, in my mind, the economy was already in serious trouble anyway.
And so then this is just kicking somebody who already.
Is there a boom, do you think, because of all the things people haven't been doing for so long?
Will suddenly go out and will there be a lot of spending, do you think?
Or is it going to be a week, a week climb back up?
Because a lot of people weren't working.
Right.
So the latter thing you said, I think, that it's, I think a lot of people are still going to be skittish.
And even when everything's wide open, and even if all the restaurants and I mean, I think a lot of people are just going to say, you know what, I don't want to go back to a movie theater anytime soon.
Let's wait a year and see how many people get.
They'll see if there's a second wave of this stuff.
Makes sense.
Or a restaurant.
You know what I mean?
So I think there's going to be a lot of things where it's not just going to be flipping a switch and it goes back to normal for various reasons.
Like for some things, I think it's just people are just going to say, yeah, it's a new environment now.
And, you know, I don't, like, I've seen cases in Jap, I don't know if it was Japan, but No, it was in China, excuse me, where they try to reopen movie theaters with every other seat taped off and stuff like that.
But that's kind of, you know what I mean?
Like, I don't think you'd feel safe doing that.
Oh, well, as long as the guy's only, you know, 10 feet away from me, breathing into the same air for two hours.
So anyway, I'm just saying there's things like that that aren't going to come back.
The other big thing, too, though, is the way I'm looking at it, it's not that the economy is just driven by, oh, are people willing to spend money?
Because, like I said, they can just create money.
That's not the issue, is you have to go to the store.
What are you going to spend your money on?
Someone had to make that.
And so, unless people start going back to work, that's really the constraint here is people have to go back to work.
And again, it's going to be tricky with this wave of bankruptcies and things.
I mean, to give you another example, apparently in April, 25% of tenants didn't make their rental payment, you know, just nationwide.
Yeah.
So there, I mean, a bunch of landlords that they can't make their mortgage payments.
So what happened?
You know, so there's a lot of cascading things here.
Yeah.
And I don't think it's correct when people kind of just assume, oh, well, the federal government will bail everybody out.
And, you know, that's just like we're all paying for it indirectly as taxpayers then.
So it's, yeah, there's a lot that's getting screwed up here.
And it's not merely a matter of, oh, let's just wait, stay at home and watch Netflix for a few weeks and everything will be fine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's so many different people in so many different situations to think the government can fix it all by throwing money at everybody.
It's like, like, I even know at our house where our my wife is a nurse, she has hardly worked during this period because she, whatever she does is considered an essential.
So we've lost her chunk of the income has been almost all the way down.
Apparently, whatever we made in 2018, I don't know, we haven't gotten any checks or anything from the government.
So it's been not horrible, but it's been tight.
You know, it's like a right.
Anyway, that's an anecdote right there.
Can you give that anecdote with some lemonade stand?
Yeah, I was going to say she had a lemonade.
We both have lemonade stands, but nobody's buying her lemonade because they decided hers is not essential.
Mine's not essential either, but I still just go and do it because I'm rebellious.
Ah, I believe in freedom.
So if you could go punch one economist, who would it be?
And where in their body would you punch them?
And what you describe the punch.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know if you guys know this, but actually, I'm a pacifist.
So I thought you were technically kicking them.
Yeah, yeah.
So that's what I would do.
I would write it.
Yeah.
Write a scathing article.
There is a thing, so it would have to be Paul Krugman.
And there is a thing where I challenged him to a debate.
And then I, you know, to promote that, I was doing a thing like a Rocky deal.
So I was doing videos of me with boxing gloves on.
And The Economist magazine did pick that up, and they had a caricature of me tapping him on the shoulder with my boxing glove.
So there is that going on.
So it would be him, but yeah, it would be more of a metaphorical punch.
Okay.
In the metaphorical, maybe like, yeah.
Well, yeah, that's the thing.
It wouldn't be like from behind.
Like, it wouldn't be a cheap shot.
Yeah.
I want him to see it coming.
Full frontal.
Yeah.
So I didn't mean that.
Wrong use of that.
Like the trolley problem.
The trolley's headed towards Paul Krugman and you've got the lever.
What?
That's the trolley problem.
That's not a lemonade stand analogy, so I can't.
I can't follow.
A lemonade stand is about to fall on Paul Krugman, and he has the opportunity to dive and save him and says, I got you.
That's the best we can get out of a pacifist, I guess.
So you're a pacifist.
Wow.
So yeah, you're a Christian, but you said you're a pacifist.
How does that work?
Yeah.
Because Christians like war.
I know you're being provocative and funny, but yeah, I am curious what the I've pondered that myself.
So, because where my pacifism comes from is just, you know, so I let me be clear.
I, I don't think everyone who's a Christian, oh, to be a good Christian, you got to be passive.
I'm just saying the way like I interpret the Sermon on the Mount and stuff, I'm saying, well, it sure sounds like he's saying this stuff.
And, you know, in his own life, Jesus obviously didn't, you know, use violence to stop what happened to him, even though bad people did bad things.
So, um, so yeah, that's it, it does flow from it's sort of like the way I can put it is like imagine like your literal brother, you know, wouldn't you feel bad if you had to go tell your parents, yeah, we had an argument and I killed him, like, even if it was in self-defense, like, wouldn't you be second-guessing yourself?
So, to me, I try to treat everyone as if depends what it was about.
Well, yeah, it's children of God, right?
And so, to say, like, so again, I know there's crazy circumstances people can come up with, and but I would just really bend over backwards to say, is there any way to try to diffuse this without resorting to actual violence?
But is that would there be a point where you would have to resort to it or you never would hands up until your head is exploded by something?
I mean, the one people always push me to court, like, oh, something horrible is going to happen to your kid, and you're looking at, yeah, so yeah, I'm not going to let something like that happen, but really, I would try a lot to make sure I don't find myself in that position.
And I think a lot of the cases, cases, you know, so if someone's coming, I would prefer to put my body in between it and, you know, if I could do something like that, as opposed to like, oh, I would go get a bat and smack the guy in the head.
So I call you like a nigh pacifist.
No, but it's not like near.
Nearly, near.
Right?
You just leave a little wiggle room.
A little bit of wiggle room.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know.
So I'm trying to create a new term.
Borderline.
Borderline pacifist.
So did you become a Christian while you were attending the Austrian School of Economics?
I was, I became a Christian in grad school.
So kind of.
Oh.
Kind of.
Yeah, I mean, the two are probably parallel tracks, though.
Gotcha.
Gotcha.
You ever read Thomas Soule?
You like it?
Yeah.
You like him?
Yeah.
I like him a lot.
That was supposed to be a funnily stupid question, but it just sounded odd.
I was just being, I'm an idiot.
No, but in all honesty, it was him reading his, like, do you know what I mean by op-eds?
Because I already know people read newspapers.
We make fun of op-eds all the time.
Okay, good.
So when I was younger, you know, some kids would read the sports section.
I'd get newspapers and I'd flip to the, you know, the back of the A section.
And so the ones that my, you know, occasionally would have Walter Williams or Thomas Sowell, those, those are my favorite.
That's what made me want to go into and become an economist.
Nice.
Was it his stuff?
What are some of the commonly lobbed?
I mean, I'm sure there's the weird thing about reading Thomas Soule is I don't find a lot of people on the left that say much about him.
They either just pretend he doesn't exist, which is probably really convenient.
Or, but what are some of the commonly lobbed accusations?
I don't know.
Like, where do they say he's wrong or criticisms of Thomas Sowell from the left?
And where are they incorrect?
I don't know.
Great question, Ethan.
You know, you're right.
I think they mostly ignore him.
Yeah.
And I feel bad because, you know, no matter what the poor guy does, everyone's going to just mention what his skin color is.
But I think that that is part of it, that they realize they can't accuse him of being a racist.
And since he writes so much on problems with quotas and affirmative action and things like that, it's not like they can even just sidestep those things.
And so I do think that's part of it.
Like, if you're some white liberal who's used to just dismissing people as, oh, you're racist, you don't get it.
You know, they can't say that to him.
So, I think partly, you know, but you're right.
I, I don't, I've heard like he and Walter Williams have referred to and said, you know, some of their critics call them, you know, Uncle Tom or like token Republican black people.
You know what I mean?
Like that kind of stuff.
But, you know, I'm just hearing them say that's sometimes how they deal with us is they, you know, dismiss us that way.
But I have never really seen people address him head on.
Huh.
Yeah, that's fascinating.
Got any kind?
Well, I mean, I could go on, but I just, I was, I feel like I should give you a turn.
So, Christian, you're a Christian economist, and I'm kind of wondering how you, how you see that connecting or, you know, why should Christians even care about that?
And I don't know.
It seems like it's one of those sciences or areas of study where Christians aren't.
He's a climate scientist for money.
A climate scientist, but with money, right?
Is that how you are?
So you predict.
When do you predict the world will end from money?
I don't know.
I was on a roll, man.
Sorry, I ruined you.
I was on a roll with that question.
No, that's a good question.
I like his question.
Don't answer mine.
Okay, so you're, if I understand, you're saying it, like, is there a tension between economics and Christianity?
Or, like, why should Christians care about it?
I mean, what, you know, why should we care?
Okay, well.
He's not Dave Ramsey.
I don't, yeah, so I think, so, so, part of it is, um, you know, like, I think it's just economics is interesting and it's important to people.
And so it's not that, you know, Christians per se care about it due to Christianity, but it's, you know, just it's most of what government does nowadays in some way involves an economic fallacy.
And so partly, you know, for to keep people, you know, things like protecting the family from the onslaught of the state and things like that, which, you know, a lot of Christians care about, I think partly is, oh, if you, if people knew sound economics, a lot of the justification that politicians use for these inroads that bother Christians for other reasons, you know, would evaporate.
So there's that element as well, just for, you know, an educated public is going to be able to maintain their liberty better.
But you're right.
It's, I think some branches of Christianity or some variants of it are pretty hostile, particularly to free market economics.
Like they think there's something dirty about profit seeking and whatnot.
So it's, I understand where that's coming from.
Of course, there's a lot of people that think like, you know, the Acts of the Apostles describes a socialist community.
You know, understandable.
You could see where people would think that.
So for me, it's more that, you know, if you're a Christian, you certainly can't put your trust in riches.
But clearly, I think the Bible is not saying that if you're a rich person per se, you know, that's it.
Like, you know, especially in the Old Testament, there's people, you know, rewarded with wealth, and that was a sign of being, you know, walking with God and whatever that they were blessed materially.
So I think it's more a matter of priority.
I, uh, yeah.
I have something.
Can I help you?
I actually did have something.
I lost it.
You got something?
I don't have anything.
What was it?
We do have our final 10 questions we want to ask you.
You want to do that?
Gosh, I can remember my question.
All right.
Let's do it.
Great.
Or do we have any questions from subscribers?
Oh, because they're not on here if we do, unless they're.
They might be mixed in with other questions.
No, we just have the stupid questions.
We have some real questions, but I don't know if they're from the subscribers.
I'm not sure.
He's how organized we are.
Very organized.
Well, it lends some spontaneity to it.
It's good.
Yeah, it's spontaneous.
Do you like movies?
Yes, I do.
What's your favorite?
You like Marvel movies or Lord of the Rings?
But it's Freakonomics.
Freakonomics.
That's his favorite movie.
Is there actually a movie in Freakonomics?
Oh, yeah.
You didn't know that?
Yeah, that's a movie.
No, I didn't know that.
Yeah, based on the book.
Huh?
No, I didn't know that.
I love the Marvel movies.
Lord of the Rings.
I never read the books in the movies.
They kind of seemed the same to me.
And my thing is, I can't stand when there's like the climatic battle scenes at the end when everybody lines up and both just runs at each other.
As an economist, I feel that that's wasteful.
I feel like we can have a huddle beforehand and say, guys, why don't we hide out in the trees and then snipe at them?
It seems wasteful.
Yeah.
And then as a pacifist, you wouldn't like that.
Right.
We would just hide out in the trees.
That's it.
We'd go pick lemons and go make a lemonade stand.
That was actually one question I had.
Yeah, lemonade stand.
As an economist, a man who's got money wheels cranking in your brain all day long, what are ways you're different from the average person?
Like you see a coupon at the store.
Like what do you, what's a different way you conduct yourself at the grocery store with your decisions, stuff like that?
Gas, where you get your gas?
Sure.
Just to finish the train of the other one, like at the end of the Marvel one, you know, when they're facing off against Thanos, what's his face?
Doctor Strange is like pulling, you know, the bubbles are appearing in the circles.
Why didn't he come behind them?
See what I'm saying?
Like he can bring the reinforcements in anywhere.
Why not come in behind him and just start with the market?
Well, even you think about Lithanos' plan that he's going to kill half the population, but doesn't the population double like every 20 years or something?
So his plan, like he would cleanse the universe for like 20 years and then that's his master play.
Right.
Well, that's something, you know, you mentioned as an economist.
So there.
Yeah, you look at that.
Like we like that Thanos is like a good environmentalist or something, you know, that's my dream.
My dream is that like that I would be the hero there because I would get out my textbook and show why more population means more division of labor and it's more efficient.
In other words, we all have a higher standard of living with 7 billion people than if there were just 100 people.
Like if there was a nuclear holocaust and most of the people died off, the survivors would actually end up being pretty poor pretty fast.
Like Will Smith in I Am Legend, he's driving his car around.
What happens when the refined gasoline runs out?
Does Will Smith know how to take crude oil and turn it into gasoline?
I don't know that he's a smart guy, but I don't know.
So that's the kind of thing where it's good to carve that out.
The whole premise of that is wrong.
And also like you're saying for various things too.
So I was thinking I'd be the hero in the Marvel universe and they would take my textbook on population being good.
Spider-Man would like put it on the inside of Captain America's shield.
They would throw it and then somebody would like, I don't know, Marvel, just put it over Thanos' face and he'd have to read it and then he would have an epiphany.
And then just as backup, if he doesn't listen to it, then there's a button you push and it blows up and blows his head up.
He wouldn't press the button.
You hand it off to someone else.
Tony, you accidentally stumble and drop it and the button hits the ground.
Yeah, Tony Stark would push it.
Perfect.
All right, my question.
Okay.
Is it a dumb question?
Wait, what was your question?
Oh, yeah.
You're like at the grocery store, the gas station.
Okay.
Where else do people go?
Hanging out at the Cocoa Lounge.
Wherever you hang out.
The pacifist cigar store.
Yeah.
Men's clothing.
I'm trying to think.
So yes, to answer your question, it happens a lot.
I'm trying to think of it.
So like at the grocery store, just things like, you know, coupons.
Like, you know, did you ever say, why do they have coupons?
Like, if they're going to, I mean, presumably, it's, oh, because they want to sell more at a lower price.
Okay, so why don't they just cut the price then?
You know, what's the function?
Why do they give coupon?
So they're, you know, as an economist, I think the answer is something like, because they really only want to give the price cut to the people that are going to respond to it.
You know what I mean?
So they're actually trying to charge two prices.
Right.
The busy person who's just, you know, coming from work, he's got to run by the store and get some stuff and go home.
They want to charge him a higher price than the person who is going to go to a different store if the price is lower.
That's the person that gets the coupon.
You know, little things like that.
Yeah.
Why do movie theaters, you know, the reason they charge?
A lot of stuff is economists almost overthink things.
Like so stuff that you would think are obvious.
Economists are more like, they don't know why, but they know your explanation isn't right.
So for like, like, why does popcorn cost so much in the movie theater?
An economist will sit there and say, why is that?
And most people go, oh, because they can.
Yeah.
It's like, well, okay, but then why don't they charge you to go to the bathroom then at the movie theater?
You know, because they can do that too.
And you see, you know what I mean?
So it's weird things like where it's more economists.
They don't necessarily come up with the right answer, but they know why your answer is wrong.
Yeah, I remember I talked somebody who owned a movie theater and tell me about the, you know, almost all the money goes back for the movies.
It's almost like the movies are a way for them to get customers in and they make almost all their money from the popcorn and stuff, which is pretty crazy.
It made me like suddenly convicted that whenever I go to the movies, I better buy some popcorn.
Which isn't good for me because I'm really fat.
Well, I got another one for you.
Okay, so like at the grocery store, like you ever notice they play like kind of soft rock and like it might even be a song you like, but it's not the version you know.
It's like real, yeah.
Don't stop believing.
You know, and why is that?
And it's, I believe the answer is because they want to slow you down.
They don't want you to zoom.
You know what I mean?
They want to slow you down so you shop more.
So just little things like that.
Yeah.
That's why they put the milk in the back.
Because I only ever go to the grocery store to get the milk.
Oh, yeah.
You have to walk through bread.
You got to get through all the stuff to get there.
Interesting.
Smart.
Well, let's do our final 10 questions.
If you got time, you got time for this?
Sure thing.
All right.
Go ahead, Ethan.
Have you ever met Christian pop artist Carmen?
No.
Sad.
Are you a Calvinist or an Arminian?
I am very close to a Calvinist that I there's a nigh Calvinist.
Yes.
Yeah, like maybe all but one of the points and I'm sold on.
You don't like limited atonement?
Is that your point you don't like?
Can you guys put this into lemonade stand analogy?
Well, Jesus purchased the lemonade, but did he buy the lemonade for everybody or just for the elect?
Yeah, to answer, yeah, because there's certain, I mean, and believe me, I get where that comes from, but also there's a, you know, like Jesus died, you know, for the sins of the world.
You know what I mean?
There's things.
Yes, to answer your question, that's a sticking point.
You can add one book to the Bible.
What is it?
I suppose I would like one in between, you know, the Old and New Testament, like to just give us an idea, like, what were those people thinking?
You know, like, were they waiting around?
Did things steadily decline?
We're adding a book.
So it'd be called like Hezekiah or something.
Isn't Hezekiah already a book?
Is it?
I think so.
Is Hezekiah a book?
Hey, Dan, is Hezekiah a book in the Bible?
It'd be called Matthew.
Yeah, something new, Matthew.
Yeah.
Matthias.
Well, usually this book, it means like, what's a book you think is so good?
That's funny that you didn't know that Hezekiah was in the book of the Major.
It just sounds like he went to Bible college.
I know.
Well, I'm on the spot here.
Oh, see, I misunderstood your question.
Yeah, it's like if you want to add it.
You mean like I'm supposed to say great expectations or something.
I'm supposed to say human.
Okay, not human action.
But you can do that.
You can make up a book.
I like this.
Okay.
But I want you to name it.
Well, Hezekiah didn't.
Hezekiah.
Hezekierus.
Okay.
Hezekirois.
Okay.
So in this book of Hezekier, they explain what all happened in between.
It's like a prequel.
The midquel.
Yes.
Yeah, mid-qual.
Midquool.
It's like Rogue One.
It's like he took it.
Yeah.
Okay.
We both were going to say Rogue Rogue One.
Yeah.
So it is showing, you know, the Israel's waiting.
You know, they haven't heard from.
So it would be like the only book where I guess God doesn't directly do something, you know, just to kind of know what's going on here, you know, and to see the Izzy Curious story.
Are they getting worried?
You know, are they like, no, no, it's fine.
He's going to, you know, the prophecies are there.
It's curious.
Better call Saul of the New Testament.
Yes.
Maybe.
Better call.
Well, maybe Saul.
King Saul.
King Saul.
Cigars or pipes?
Pipes.
All right.
Who do you hang out with?
You get to hang out with any three people, living or dead.
You can't pick Jesus.
Have a pipe with them.
Have a pipe with him.
Okay.
Richard Feynman.
Is that an economist?
No, the physicist.
You guys the Shirley or Joker, Mr. Oh, he's a famous physicist.
Yeah, I knew that.
He did cool stuff.
No, he was a fun.
You guys, you should check him out.
He's doing some good stuff.
He was a jokester.
He's working on the atomic bomb in World War II.
And he's going around just figuring out how to open the safes of the generals and stuff, like at the Los Alamos sites.
Clever guy.
He'd like him.
I don't know if he had a lemonade stand or what his position was on that.
All right.
So him, let's say, I don't know, John Lennon, sure, why not?
And, oh, boy, Thomas Paine.
How's that?
All at the same time?
Yeah, all together.
It would be an explosive conversation.
Do you believe the rumors that John Lennon became a little more conservative in his later years?
I mean, I wasn't aware of that, but that wouldn't surprise me, just him having a kid and stuff.
Yeah.
There was some guy that wrote a book about it.
He showed all this evidence that he had actually kind of become a little more, he kind of regretted Imagine, apparently, later on.
That was a little young, little young man.
I didn't know that.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Naive.
Even having said all that, I mean, what bothers me, though, like his song Revolution was anti-revolutionary.
You know, I mean, if you actually listen to the lyrics, he's saying, like, he's telling the people calling for violent revolution, like, no, calm down, guys.
And you're not going to get anywhere sharing pictures of Chairman Mao.
For some reason, I've seen conservatives thinking, oh, well, the Beatles were calling for revolution.
You know, William F. Buckley knew, blah, blah, blah.
Like Christian magazines, like explaining to parents what lyrics mean.
There is like, that's the opposite meaning of the song.
Whiskey or beer?
I guess I'll say beer.
All right.
But not IPA, hopefully.
Or lemonade.
You become president.
What is the first thing you do?
I'll say resign.
That's the obvious answer.
And the reason would be, you know, like taking a stand for, you know, hey, I can't take this money.
It's, you know, it's there shouldn't be such a position, that kind of thing.
But then, off in the wings, when I no longer have power, then I would go ahead and give all sorts of ideas about what could be done.
What would your first idea be that you'd give to the president?
I would, I suppose get rid of the income tax.
Nice.
I like it.
I'm voting for Dr. Murphy.
Kyle never votes.
Not a dumb vote.
Oh, Kyle's turn.
Is it my turn?
Oh, what do you order at Chick-fil-A?
I got all the dumb questions.
You got the better question.
We could switch that and we have a better one in place of that one.
What do you order at Chick-fil-A?
I want to know.
What do I order?
I get the sandwich and the fries and the Coke.
It's a simple menu.
It's a simple menu.
We need a very good question.
The choice, I mean, whether you get the fried one or the grilled one, I guess that's the issue.
And so it depends.
It depends how much.
Fingers are sandwiched.
Have you ever been in a fist fight?
That's the one I wanted to put in place of that one.
Have you ever been in?
He's a pacifist.
I know, but that would be like, yeah.
Have you ever been in a pen?
Maybe that's why.
You know, maybe I realized, oh, I don't want to get hurt.
No, the most was a pushing fight.
I don't know if you've ever seen it.
A pushing fight?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, it was like, I don't know.
It was pretty young.
We were playing kickball in the school.
I don't even know what happened.
I was like round in second base.
I think there was some incidental contact.
We were playing the other homeroom, and then like the two homerooms, the benches cleared, and the kid was pushing me.
So I had to push him back, and then the teacher broke it up.
But there you go.
I was hoping it was like at economy school.
Yeah.
When they're arguing over the different models, the different philosophies of economics.
Start pushing each other.
Paul Krugman's right.
Wrong.
One concert.
Oh, wait.
Did I take?
No.
One concert.
I added one.
Okay.
One concert, any band in history.
Who do you see?
I mean, I love the Beatles, so probably them, but also in terms of just the performance.
Like, I would love to have seen Queen in their prime.
Like, I think that would be pretty incredible, too.
Oh, yeah.
That'd be amazing.
Good answer.
Right here, right now, do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?
Yes.
All right.
All right.
We got another one.
We did it.
We have very effective altar calls here at the Babylon Bee.
All right.
Well, did we do it?
I think we did it.
We solved all of the economy's problems through lemonade standard analogies.
The problems of the MCU and the economics there.
Which MCU character would be the best economist?
I'll say Dr. Strange because where he does the real counter into, like, he looks at all the possibilities and then gives Danos the thing.
Like, that's something an economist would do.
Where everyone else will say, that is the stupid.
Why would you do like economists tend to come up with some wacky off-the-wall thing?
And it's because they've really thought through all the alternatives.
So I'll say that.
All the multiverses.
I like it.
Yeah.
So Dr. Murphy has written some books we wanted to mention.
Choice, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism and Lessons for the Young Economist.
And you have a new teaching series out called Understanding Money Mechanics.
Where can people find all that stuff?
If they go to my website, you can see links to it.
So consultingbyrpm.com.
You can get links to all that stuff.
And the money mechanics thing that's coming out from the Mises Institute.
Okay.
Awesome.
All the links will be in the show notes.
We thank you so much for coming on.
Hope you didn't mind all our stupid questions.
Yeah.
And we have more economics questions someday.
We'll have you bring him back.
I'll bring you back.
Okay.
Okay, well, great, guys.
Thanks.
This was fun.
Like I said, to keep up the good work, I like the stuff you guys are doing.
Cool.
Thanks so much.
Thanks a lot.
All right.
Bye.
Thanks, Bob.
That Bob.
What a guy.
Classic Bob.
Not shooting people.
What?
He was like pacifist.
Oh, yeah.
Pacifist.
Remember, we just interviewed him like minutes ago, Ethan.
Yeah, I thought that there's maybe a thing about people named Bob never shoot people looking at the numbers.
Numbering, all the numbers and stuff.
All the numbers and the monies.
Classic Bob.
All right, we're going to do some hate mail.
Hate mail.
I really miss Adam Ford.
So because Ethan published an incredibly racist article while I was gone.
This is directly linked to that article.
Yeah, everybody was mad.
So I come back to this.
Well, it was mostly like this vocal minority on Twitter that always gets mad at us just once in a while.
Like, someone will send them a link to an article and then it'll go and someone will post it to get their 10 retweets about how they're mad at it.
It's always like some denomination, and then it's some guy who looks like kind of hip and has like 1,000, 2,000 followers.
It's always right around there.
And it's always like, what's there?
What are some denominations?
I can never remember any of them.
Anglicans.
Anglicans.
Episcopalians.
You see?
You know them.
Yeah.
Foursquare.
No.
No.
That's Pentecostal.
Yeah.
Nazarenes.
Maybe, yeah.
No.
Maybe.
Maybe.
Oh, you said Presbyterian.
Anyway.
I didn't say Presbyterian.
Oh, you didn't?
Maybe, maybe.
Yeah, maybe mainline like PCUSA with PC.
Be mad at us.
Anyway, so this guy says, imagine taking the one precious life you have and using it to create a racist trash fire website like the Babylon B. Do you think he went back and added words?
Racist.
Like trash.
Like he said, imagine taking one life you have and create a racist website.
And he's staring at his tweet and he's about to click sign and he's like, you know what?
What does racist trash fire look like?
So you're a racist.
And you're like, hey, you're Cletus.
I'm Winkle.
We're drinking beer outside the trailer.
You're like, throw away all that garbage.
We've got to clean up this trailer.
This thing's a mess.
Or maybe you're racist magazines laying around.
You're burning pictures of Obama and stuff.
Yeah, burning in your and all those Song of the South DVDs that we got laying around.
Hey, let's call all the other racists.
Yeah.
They call all the local racists.
We're having a bonfire, Bob.
So they throw all the trash in the fire.
Light it up.
So you take a picture of that, and that, in essence, is what the Babylon Bee is.
That's what the Babylon B is.
It's racist.
And they're all roasting their weenies over it and their marshmallows.
We're just laughing.
We're warming the way.
We're warming the racists with our trash fire.
Telling jokes about Mexicans.
The guys are on the fire, not us.
Yeah, well, because the Babylon B is the racist trash fire.
We're just the warming mechanism.
And we're also getting rid of their trash film.
I get it.
So we're attracting all the racists.
They're rather around us like moths to the flame.
Okay.
Do they?
What if we spread because they're all drunk?
Ooh.
Because of all the moonshine they've been drinking.
There's moonshine all over the ground everywhere, and they're laying around, and then we spread and then we just kill all the racists.
So now the racist trash fire is the hero plot twist.
So he just complimented us.
Thanks, guy.
Well, I liked because I looked at his, I wanted to say something nice to him, but then I just, he was being dogpiled already.
And like, I fully do not support a lot of things being said to him.
People, this is Twitter.
You know, people are on Twitter.
It's great that you like the Babylon B, but you don't got to be a jerk.
But I was looking, and he likes MXPX and Dungeons and Dragons, Kyle.
So, you know, I'd be a fan.
So I wonder if there'd be a way to like set up a fake meeting where he doesn't know who you are and then you guys are hanging out and he finds out and then I just rip off your skin off your skull.
Yeah.
Yeah, and then he's like and see what his reaction is.
Like, what would you say?
Because I don't know how to talk to a guy that does DD.
Like, oh man, my guild.
I loved that guild we were in with the dragon and the spells and the mage.
And now I can't like you.
Something like a spell of darkness has come over me.
Yeah, so we would be like in a dungeon.
We would be going through the dungeon, you know, and we're like getting ready to sounds kinky.
We're getting ready to disarm a trap or something.
We've got the swinging blade trap we've discovered.
I'm about to do it.
I'm like, but wait, but first, how did you vote?
And he's like, and then he would just push me into the trap.
And he would tell the dungeon master, I pushed Kyle's character into the trap.
The dungeon master.
And the trap then ignites and I become a racist fire.
Okay.
I mean, it's just burned.
Your character just dies.
Okay.
So, well, this guy.
Well, if you're listening, this guy know who you are.
Yeah.
Let's come over.
Let's listen to some MXPX records.
If we met and he didn't know that I was Babylon B, I bet we'd get along.
And play some Dungeons and Dragons.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or I don't want to play it.
And burn racists together.
Yeah, I would burn.
I'll burn some stuff.
Some racists?
Sure.
People.
Or at least some racist materials.
Oh, okay.
Except for the Babylon B.
I don't want to burn that because I need a job.
Yeah.
So even though it's racist, you go.
And it's racist because it's got to be asking questions about a 30-second video.
That's all it says.
It's not that bad.
I mean, I'm just saying compared to other races.
Yes.
Spectrum that's down there.
It's no like 1920s, 1930s, Disney cartoon.
That's right.
In terms of racism.
That's right.
Okay.
Moving on to going to our subscriber portion.
We're going to talk about cheese with GK Tester.
And it's going to be wonderful.
And if you're not subscribing, you're really tantalizing to you.
I don't know what is.
That should actually be really fun.
I love that essay.
It's awesome.
I'm just trying to think of cheese puns.
Oh, yeah.
We're still doing those.
No, I don't know.
But I was just mozzarella.
Looking forward to it.
You can't just say the name of a cheese.
A real site.
All right, everybody.
Bye.
Goodbye.
Smoke Chipotle.
Cheddar.
you later the rest of this podcast is in our super exclusive premium subscriber lounge If you're not a Babylon Bee subscriber, go to BabylonB.com/slash plans for full-length ad-free podcasts.
Access to our headline forum.
20% off the items in the Babylon Bee store.
A gift and more.
Please drop us a review on iTunes and share the podcast with a friend.
Feedback and love mail go to podcast at babylonbee.com.
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Kyle and Ethan would like to thank Seth Dylan for paying the bills, Adam Ford for creating their job, the other writers for tirelessly pitching headlines, the subscribers, and you, the listener.