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May 5, 2023 - The Ben Shapiro Show

01:09:41

Why Economic Collapse Is Imminent

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	Well, folks, Joe Biden and company, they keep telling you that your money is safe.
	And here's the reality.
	If you have your money in a bank, the money isn't just going to go away.
	The FDIC has basically now stated that they will fill in any depositors who whose bank goes under.
	But that's not really the issue right now.
	The real issue when it comes to a lot of the regional banks is that people are taking their money out of the regional banks because the rate of return that you get on your savings in a regional bank is not nearly as much as the rate of return that you are going to get from a so-called money market account.
	When you put your money in a money market account, you're going to be getting like a 5% rate of return.
	When you put it in the bank, you're getting like a 0.1% rate of return after inflation.
	Which means, why would you leave your money in a regional bank?
	And the reason that those regional banks have to guarantee those low rates of return as opposed to higher rates of return is because they don't actually have the asset base in order to pay you at a higher rate.
	And herein lies the problem.
	Because if people keep drawing their money out of those regional banks, the regional banks are going to go under.
	If the regional banks go under, liquidity is going to start to dry up.
	If the liquidity starts to dry up, there's no more investment in businesses.
	If the investment in businesses stops, you have the 2007-2008 recession all over again.
	According to USA Today, story by Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy.
	With the failure of three regional banks since March, and another one teetering on the brink, will America soon see a cascade of bank failures?
	Bloomberg reported Wednesday that San Francisco-based PacWest Bancorp is mulling a sale.
	Last week, First Republic Bank became the third bank to collapse, that's the second largest bank failure in American history, after Washington Mutual, which you'll remember collapsed in 2008.
	After the demise of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in March, a study on the fragility of the U.S.
	banking system found that 186 more banks are at risk of failure even if only half of their
	uninsured depositors, again those are the people who stand to lose a part of their deposits
	if the bank fails, right, people who have more than $250,000 in their account at these
	banks because the FDIC is only supposed to insure up to $250,000 of deposits, they're
	lying. I mean they will now insure pretty much all deposits.
	But if half of those people decide to withdraw their funds, these banks go under. Most
	bonds are currently paying a fixed interest rate that becomes attractive when the
	interest rates fall.
	But the problem is that all of these regional banks basically trusted the federal government.
	Moral of the story, folks, do not trust the federal government because the federal government is there to aggrandize itself at the expense of everybody else.
	So a bunch of banks took all of their assets, they put them in bonds, figuring that the federal government was not going to increase interest rates tremendously over the course of the next couple of years.
	Inflation was a thing of the past.
	We lived in the new modern monetary theory universe.
	In which you could just spend endless amounts of money and inflation would never hit.
	Inflation hit, and now all of those banks have an asset base that is just garbage because the federal government has devalued the bonds in which all of those banks put their money and investments.
	As the USA Today points out, many banks increased their holdings of bonds during the pandemic when deposits were plentiful, but loan demand and yields were weak.
	For a lot of banks, those unrealized losses will stay on paper, but others will face actual losses if they actually have to sell those securities for liquidity or other reasons.
	So, we could be watching a run on those banks pretty soon.
	And you can see that as the stock market opens.
	Regional bank stocks tumbled on Thursdays despite assurances from the Federal Reserve that the banking system was on solid footing.
	PacWest Bank Corp dropped by about 50%.
	PacWest said in a statement after midnight Eastern time on Thursday that its core customer deposits were up since the end of the first quarter and that it hadn't experienced any unusual deposit flows since the collapse of First Republic.
	But that doesn't mean there won't be a run on the bank.
	Western Alliance is another bank whose stock has been hit hard.
	It fell by 38%.
	Christopher Marinak, an analyst at Jannie Montgomery Scott, described the nosedive in bank stocks as a temper tantrum, according to the Wall Street Journal.
	It's not really a temper tantrum when all of the regional banks are sinking all at once.
	In fact, there's so many short sales on these regional banks at this point that the federal government is thinking of coming in and stopping short selling.
	That is the rumor on the street today is that the federal government is afraid that short selling is going to lead to a cycle wherein people start selling off the stocks in anticipation that these regional banks are going to fail.
	And if that happens, then the possibility of raising new liquidity through issuance of new stock goes away as well.
	This isn't the only risk to the economy right now.
	Again, these are all the wages of bad governmental and fiscal policy.
	When you inflate the currency with endless spending and shut down businesses for two years, when you decide that it is imperative to jack up the amount of money in circulation in order to quote-unquote help the people at the bottom, even though those people are the hardest hit by inflation, the costs come due.
	In economics, gravity always applies.
	According to the New York Times, Amit Saro, professor of finance at Stanford Graduate
	School of Business, quote, our nation's banking system is at a critical juncture.
	The recent fragility and collapse of several high-profile banks are most likely not an
	isolated phenomenon. In the near term, a damaging combination of fast-rising interest rates,
	major changes in work patterns, and the potential of a recession could prompt a credit crunch not
	seen since the 2008 financial crisis. Back then, amidst a housing market bubble, lenders had handed
	out high-risk loans to people with poor credit histories.
	When the market collapsed, so did many of the banks that made those loans.
	That caused the Great Recession.
	This time, the epicenter is different, but the result may be the same.
	Lost jobs and widespread financial pain.
	And then this professor at Stanford Business School explains the rapidly increasing interest rates that are undercutting the asset value of all of these regional banks.
	And then he says there's another area of looming concern that could also spark a panic, the commercial real estate sector.
	Commercial real estate loans worth $2.7 trillion in the United States make up about a quarter of an average bank's assets.
	Many of those loans are coming due in the next few years.
	Refinancing at higher rates increases the risk of default.
	If a lot of people have taken out loans and then they have to refi those things and the rates are higher now because the interest rates are higher, then presumably a lot of people are going to go under.
	They're not going to be able to actually afford their mortgage in the commercial real estate sector.
	Rising interest rates depress the value of commercial properties, especially those with long-term leases and limited rent escalation clauses, which also increases the likelihood of owner default.
	In the Great Recession, for example, default rates rose to about 9% up from about 1% as those interest rates went up.
	This time, the damage to the sector threatens to be far, far greater.
	The COVID-19 pandemic led to a huge jump in remote working, with over 40% of the U.S.
	labor force working remotely by May 2020.
	The return to in-person office work has been slow, so the commercial real estate sector is over-leveraged.
	Signs of distress are already visible, particularly in offices.
	By the end of March, the equity value of real estate holding companies, or REITs, focused on the office sector had declined by nearly 55% since the beginning of the pandemic.
	And then there's a longer-term risk too, says this professor.
	After the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, the government took substantial actions guaranteeing all deposits, regardless of size, to restore trust in the banking system.
	But this creates a massive moral hazard.
	What incentive do bank executives have to take smaller risks with depositor money if they believe the government is going to simply protect those depositors over time anyway?
	So, the systemic risks to the banking system continue to exist, and those are exacerbated by the fact that the government continues to spend endless amounts of money.
	We'll get to that momentarily first.
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	Okay, so all of this, as I say, this economic crisis that is going to happen, it will because there's just no way to avoid it.
	The only question is when.
	Exacerbating that is, of course, the government's wild overspending problem.
	Now, the reality is that one way that you could bring that back into focus is to cut the amount of government spending.
	That's what this debt ceiling battle is all about.
	But the reality is that Joe Biden doesn't want to cut the spending.
	He wants to continue spending.
	They continue to maintain the radical Keynesian notion that the way that you maintain a thriving and healthy economy is to blow extraordinary amounts of borrowed money into the economy.
	But you don't need to do that right now.
	And there's a new unemployment rate out right now.
	And what it is showing is that the unemployment rate remains really low, that the jobs market continues to be incredibly robust, which means inflation is not going to come down anytime soon.
	That is particularly true, again, given the fact that Joe Biden maintains that he wants to continue spending endless amounts of money.
	The fact that he will not even discuss going back to 2022 levels of spending is an amazing predictor of exactly where we are going to go fiscally here.
	The Wall Street Journal points out, Greg Ip, that a debt deal would actually help solve the country's inflation problem, but the chances of a debt deal are really, really low at this point.
	Joe Biden simply wants to continue spending up to wazoo.
	He doesn't want to cut discretionary spending.
	He doesn't want to restructure entitlements.
	Nothing.
	In fact, it's become a taboo in American politics to talk about restructuring the entitlement programs that are actually driving the national debt in a major way.
	Meanwhile, Democrats keep saying that they really don't want to negotiate.
	Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, he says default on the debt may actually happen.
	So we can stack that on top of the list of fiscal problems facing the United States.
	What did McCarthy promise?
	Exactly.
	And I think that adds another sidebar to this that makes it more difficult, far more difficult, and changes the landscape.
	I will tell you that before I was worried, because we have done this before, as you write, Joe, but I'm going to tell you I'm very concerned that there's enough people out there that want to see this default happen on our debt, that in fact may happen.
	Okay, well, if you don't want it to happen, you know what would be a great thing is to put pressure on Joe Biden to come to the table and actually negotiate over the future of the economy in the United States.
	But he's not going to do any of that sort of stuff, Jon Tester.
	Democrats have no interest in doing that sort of thing.
	The game in politics is to avoid responsibility at all costs.
	When it comes to the economy, the reality is that a thriving economy with a serious future requires the government not to make endless promises and spend endless amounts of borrowed money and then inflate the currency in order to fill in that gap.
	But that's precisely what has happened here.
	And it's going to continue to happen up until we hit that cliff.
	And here's the problem.
	The reason that I can't predict a date is because it's going to look more like a cliff than it is like a gradual decline in the economy.
	It's not going to be a gradual stagnation of the economy.
	There will come a point where depositors are just not holding up these regional banks anymore and they collapse.
	And the liquidity drives up like that and all of a sudden things get real bad.
	So my advice, by the way, what I've been doing, diversify.
	Diversifying would be the smart move in this particular economy because no one's going to take responsibility enough to actually solve the problems, which is sort of the theme of today's politics is not avoiding responsibility at all costs.
	Speaking of avoiding responsibility at all costs, the city of New York continues to want to have it both ways.
	They don't actually want to police crime, but at the same time, they want to pretend that if they don't police crime, that there won't be people who try to defend themselves.
	In fact, the attempt by many mainstream hard-left Democrats to normalize living in garbage conditions is truly amazing.
	It really is.
	There's now an attempt to suggest that you are only a believer in equity if you are willing to allow yourself to be victimized on the subway.
	This has become an actual talking point.
	Representative Jamal Bowman, Democrat of New York, he had some statements about Jordan Neely.
	We spoke about Jordan Neely yesterday.
	Jordan Neely is this 30-year-old, mentally ill, repeat criminal, 44 arrests, most recently arrest warrant outstanding.
	before beating up a 67-year-old woman.
	And he was on the subway and he was threatening people and shouting in their faces and apparently preparing to get violent when he was taken down and put in a submission hold by a 24-year-old Marine.
	He then died.
	And so this has turned into the media's usual game of, is this systemic American racism?
	Is this all about the evils of white people?
	And as I said yesterday, it isn't about that.
	What this really is about is a city that refuses to actually police crime because policing crime might look racially disparate.
	Here's Representative Jamal Bowman suggesting, of course, that this is indicative of the evils of the United States.
	I'm born and raised in New York.
	I rode the trains my entire life as a child.
	You often see people who are unhoused have episodes.
	And I couldn't help but think of the like 10 other things that could have been done before this person decided to wrap his arms around Mr. Neely's neck and choke him to death.
	The entire world saw it.
	The entire world saw him be choked to death.
	It's on video.
	So let the DA do his investigation, but the investigation is going to include this video.
	I mean, that's amazing.
	What else could have been done?
	Okay, first of all, there are plenty of resources for people who are mentally ill in the city of New York, at least in terms of having a homeless shelter or a place to go.
	The biggest problem is that people who are schizophrenic, people who need mental help, those people are not taken off the streets, thanks to people like Jamal Bowman.
	And instead, the left has settled on a theory when it comes to this, which is that you, the normal tax-paying citizen of the United States, must undergo the gauntlet of being abused in public areas by people who are mentally ill drug addicts or criminals.
	This is something that absolutely must happen.
	We'll get to that momentarily first.
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	So as I say, I guess the goal here for the left is to normalize being abused on the subway system.
	Roxane Gay, who again, there's a running gun battle over at the New York Times on who is the worst columnist.
	And there is rich competition over there.
	It's like the Kentucky Derby of terrible columnists.
	But Roxane Gay is definitely one of the front runners.
	She has a piece today in the New York Times titled, Making People Uncomfortable Can Now Get You Killed.
	Quote, increasingly, it is not safe to be in public, to be human, to be fallible.
	I'm not quoting breathless journalism about rising crime or conservative talking points about America falling into ruin.
	The ruin I'm thinking of isn't in San Francisco or Chicago or at the southern border.
	The ruin is woven into the fabric of America.
	It's seeping into all of us.
	All across the country, supposedly good, upstanding citizens are often fatally enforcing ever-changing arbitrary and personal norms for how we conduct ourselves.
	And then she writes about a series of events in which people engage in no crime, as in the case of Ralph Yarrow in Kansas City, or somewhat minor crime, as in the case of a person who shoplifted and then ended up getting shot.
	But then she gets to Jordan Neely.
	Quote, on Monday, Jordan Neely, a Michael Jackson impersonator, experiencing homelessness.
	Experiencing homelessness.
	Everything is passive.
	And now everything is passive.
	You are unhoused.
	If you're a mentally ill person who's living on the streets, Not because there are no homeless shelters, but because the city will allow you to live on the streets and you do so.
	You're now experiencing homelessness or you're unhoused.
	It's somehow the fault of the society for not giving you a house or something.
	He was yelling and, according to some subway riders, acting aggressively on an F train in New York City.
	Well, not according to some riders, according to all the riders.
	I don't have food.
	I don't have a drink.
	I'm fed up.
	Mr. Neely cried out, I don't mind going to jail and getting life in prison.
	I'm ready to die.
	Was he making people uncomfortable?
	I'm sure he was.
	But his were the words of a man in pain.
	He did not physically harm anyone.
	I mean, avoid all the reports of Jordan Neely apparently attempting to push people onto the subway tracks over the course of the past few weeks.
	The consequence for causing discomfort isn't death.
	Unless, of course, it is.
	A former Marine held Mr. Neely in a chokehold for several minutes, killing the man.
	News reports keep saying Mr. Neely died, which is a passive thing.
	We die of old age.
	We die in a car accident.
	We die from disease.
	When someone holds us in a chokehold for several minutes, something far worse has occurred.
	Well, I mean, first of all, we're going to have a medical examiner, I am sure, who's going to have to determine whether an underlying condition led to Neely's death.
	Meaning that a normal person who's placed in a submission hold gets knocked out.
	They don't die.
	The same sort of stuff, again, happened in the George Floyd case, where the situation was obviously exacerbated by the fact that Floyd was high as a kite and had pre-existing health conditions.
	But that's not really the point.
	The point here is that you as a citizen, it is up to you to simply undergo the gauntlet of being on a New York City subway.
	And being abused is just part of being in a civilized society now.
	To be truly civilized means that you as an innocent, law-abiding citizen, you must accept being abused.
	I want to show you some video.
	This is from 2022.
	from 2022. This is what riding the subway in New York is actually like.
	You can see people moving down the subway away from a person who is.
	And then, this looks like a black young woman who literally grabs the hair of another person of color, who's sitting there saying, help me.
	No one's helping her.
	No one's helping her.
	This young woman is now grabbing her by the hair and then throwing her.
	And now walking down the car, shouting at herself.
	Now climbing the window of the subway.
	Trying to kick out the window of the subway.
	According to Roxane Gay, that person... What's the problem?
	This is just what it looks like to live in a civilized... Now, you may think to yourself, this looks like what it's like to live in an uncivilized society, where anarchy tends to reign.
	This is a... It's sort of a...
	Recidivism to the bad old days of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s in New York City that led to the election of Rudy Giuliani and then a crime decline in the city of New York.
	But this is what is being normalized.
	And again, it makes you a good person to accept it.
	So, for example, there's a woman named Emma Vigeland.
	She's on the Majority Report, I guess.
	And she had a clip going viral today talking about how if you want to feel safe on public transit, this is bourgeois.
	And you have to suppress those bourgeois feelings.
	You have to make yourself feel OK about being abused on the public transportation system.
	I was hit at one point sitting on the subway by a man who was having a mental health episode.
	He sat next to me and he was elbowing and kind of flailing around and hit me in the face and in my body.
	And it was jarring, right?
	The idea that I would want him to be hurt in any way, I just didn't want to be near him in that moment because I understood something was going on here.
	But, like, my fear is not the primary object of, like, what we should be focusing on right now.
	It's the fact that this person is in pain.
	And so, like, the politics of dehumanization privileges The bourgeois kind of concern of people's immediate discomfort in this narrow, narrow instance, as opposed to larger humanity and life.
	It's really frickin' twisted.
	Being beat up, being physically abused is now being part of the larger spectrum of humanity.
	Isn't that wonderful?
	You are expected by the hard left to now undergo being abused on the public transit system in order to create a more diverse and wonderful society.
	I mean, good luck with this pitch, guys.
	Seriously, good luck to you in all your future endeavors.
	Because let me tell you something that nobody likes.
	Right, left, center?
	Being yelled at, beat up, assaulted on the subway system.
	Nobody likes that crap.
	Nobody's into it.
	So if this is the new idea, is that to be tolerant, diverse, and humane, you have to allow yourself to be abused by schizophrenic homeless people and drug addicts, then I wish you all the best.
	God bless you.
	We'll get to more on this in just one second first.
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	All right, so, by the way, it is amazing to note what gets covered by the media, what does not get covered by the media in the case of this particular subway death.
	The New York Post has a piece by Nicole Gelinas pointing out that 27 people were violently killed on the subway system in New York City since March of 2020.
	No progressive outrage.
	Why?
	Well, because this one fit the narrative.
	The narrative was white man, black, quasi-victim.
	Before Neely's death, 27 people lost their lives to murder in the subway.
	Many of them, like Neely, were homeless young people.
	Before 2019, it took 15 years for New York to rack up 28 murders on the subway, not three.
	As Nicole Gelinas points out, where were AOC and all of her fellow leftists when homeless soccer player Hakeem Maloney, 32, was murdered by a stranger as he slept on the subway in November 2021?
	Where were they when Claudine Roberts, 44, also sleeping on the subway, was fatally knifed by a stranger earlier that year?
	I mean, the answer is nowhere.
	Because that's the way this works.
	If it fits the narrative, then it becomes a national news story.
	But the underlying theme to all of this is that you, as a civilized human being, are expected to simply avert your eyes when it comes to crime, when it comes to homelessness, when it comes to odd, terrible behavior, all in the name of, as I say often, atomistic individualism.
	Somebody else is living their happiness.
	And if they impose on your space, well, it's your job to simply stand back and allow that to happen.
	Which presumably is why you have, I mean, this presumably is why you have San Francisco now having to deploy the National Guard, according to the New York Post.
	Things have gotten so bad in San Francisco that they've now brought in the National Guard and California Highway Patrol this week to combat trafficking and drug-addled zombies in the city.
	Four days later, sources told The Post deals are still going down in the streets anyway.
	The struggling city has finally announced it would take a tougher stance on crime after an exodus of retailers plagued by theft, dwindling tourism, and 200 overdose deaths in three months.
	Mayor Lyndon Breed said using CHP officers and the National Guard as support to curb drug trafficking is the aggressive step the city needed to take.
	But remember, one of the reasons that this is happening overall is because of the tolerance for drug-addled behavior on our streets and the tolerance for drug use overall in our society, which has risen in tremendous fashion.
	By the way, this is not unlinked.
	A lot of this is linked to the rise in marijuana use.
	This has become a taboo subject, because back in the 1990s, you were a fuddy-duddy if you said that marijuana use was bad.
	And that actually, marijuana could be addictive to people.
	And if you suggested that marijuana use was both a gateway drug and also addled people.
	If you said any of that back when I was growing up, in the late 90s, early 2000s, you said any of that stuff, you were uncool.
	That was the thing you weren't allowed to say.
	Marijuana was exactly the same as alcohol, except milder, and with some mild health benefits.
	There's only one problem with that, which is to absolute tripe, it is nonsense, it is not true.
	Pretty much all the warnings of those conservative fuddy-duddies have now come true.
	According to the UK Daily Mail, Marijuana may be driving a surge in schizophrenia cases among young men, a major government-funded study suggests.
	Researchers backed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse estimated 30% of all schizophrenia cases in men aged 21 to 30 are linked to cannabis addiction.
	Overall, across all age groups, the analysis of 6 million people found 15% of diagnoses in men and 4% in women could be attributed to the drug.
	Dr. Nora Volkow, NITA director and co-author of the study, said the results called for urgent action and demanded people think twice before smoking marijuana.
	But we were told that, again, marijuana is the cool kid's cigarette.
	Cigarettes are really bad.
	You can't have those smoked in public places, but you can walk through Denver and the entire city is now covered in a smog-like blanket of marijuana smoke.
	And all of that is supposedly good.
	It was a lie, okay?
	All of this was a lie.
	The idea that schizophrenia and marijuana were not linked, or that it was non-existent, it was just not true.
	Another study shows that teens who smoke cannabis are six times more likely to get schizophrenia.
	But again, this was supposed to be an activity linked to personal fulfillment.
	So you have a drug-addled generation of people.
	They are high on everything from marijuana to Adderall, who are told by their elders that this is the highest expression of individual autonomy, and that all of society must make way for their personal behavior.
	And then we are surprised when our cities are falling apart?
	This should not be a shock at all.
	And there's a philosophical underpinning to everything that is happening with our younger generation, ranging from the skyrocketing rates of mental illness, to homelessness, to drug use.
	There's something going on in our society, and that is the complete fragmentation of the social fabric, the exploding of our social fabric, the exploding of the idea of norms, of decency itself.
	This, I presume, is why the Surgeon General has now put out a report.
	The Surgeon General of the United States has now put out a report on what he calls the epidemic of loneliness and isolation.
	Now, first of all, the Surgeon General is doing, like, an amazing job.
	First, you isolate everybody in their home for two years, and then you put out a report on the surging epidemic of loneliness.
	Well done, everyone.
	Just genius-level stuff here from the Surgeon General.
	First of all, this is not a public health issue, loneliness.
	It isn't.
	It's a spiritual issue.
	It has public health ramifications, but it's a spiritual issue.
	What's hilarious about this report is that the Surgeon General looks everywhere, including under the bed for the sources of all of these problems, but never at any point does the government suggest, oh, maybe it was us.
	Maybe us undermining the social fabric, both economically and in terms of communal standards.
	Maybe that is part of the problem.
	So Vox.com sums up what is in this Surgeon General report on the epidemic of loneliness and isolation.
	They say that loneliness and social disconnectedness are a serious threat to physical and mental health.
	It says social isolation effects on mortality are equivalent to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.
	Social isolation, an objective measure of lacking connection to family, friends, and community, and loneliness, a subjective measure of feeling disconnected, contribute to a person having a higher risk of heart disease, stroke, anxiety, depression, and dementia, and make people more susceptible to infectious diseases.
	And this ripples out to the broader community.
	So the main takeaways of the report include the idea that 1.
	Americans are lonelier and more isolated than ever.
	Half of Americans say they experience loneliness, according to several recent surveys.
	Less than 40% said in a 2022 study they felt very connected to others.
	In the 1970s, almost half of Americans, 45%, said they could generally trust other people.
	Today, less than a third say the same.
	The amount of time Americans say they spend alone every day has risen by nearly 30 minutes from 2003 to 2019, and then increased another 20-plus minutes in 2020, which was during the pandemic.
	The amount of time young people aged 15 to 24 spend with their friends in person dropped by nearly 70% from 2003 to 2020.
	Some of the risk factors?
	That make you more prone to loneliness and isolation?
	discrimination include quote being a racial or ethnic minority or identifying as LGBTQ
	experiencing discrimination having a lower income and living alone.
	Well I mean perhaps the correlation is reversed.
	I mean perhaps this is not because of this.
	Maybe it's not your race that is leading to a sense of isolation.
	Maybe it's the social breakdown in communities that are disproportionately minority that is leading to a sense of isolation.
	It's a correlation, but the causation doesn't run from society's discriminating against you and therefore you're isolated.
	Maybe it's that there are underlying social ills that are leading to this epidemic of loneliness and isolation.
	The second big takeaway from this report is that loneliness and social isolation negatively affect a person and a community's health, which of course we already knew.
	And then the Surgeon General suggests how the United States can begin to address its loneliness epidemic.
	So they recommend six pillars.
	You ready for these?
	One, strengthen the social infrastructure.
	More communal spaces, more social activities, better infrastructure to help people access them.
	Oh, so like midnight basketball, that'll solve it.
	Two, develop pro-connection public policies that account for the need to foster connection from transportation to education.
	Maybe public transit will do it!
	Public transit, more subways and buses.
	Because as we've seen on our subways, things are going amazing.
	Did you see the sort of social connectedness that you were looking for in that subway?
	Where people were being grabbed by the hair and dragged around?
	Mobilizing the health sector, train healthcare providers to identify people at risk of isolation and better equip providers to connect patients with the other forms of social support they may need.
	Reform the digital environment by requiring more transparency from big tech.
	Deepening our knowledge.
	Ah, well that obviously means more government funded studies.
	And cultivating a culture of connection using all the vectors available from politics to entertainment to reinforce the values of connection and reduce polarization.
	Okay, so you may notice that there is one thing above all that the government really should be doing when it comes to reducing isolation and loneliness.
	One thing above all, and that is to go away.
	The government should go away because the government has created a destructive cycle that has replaced the social fabric in the first place.
	I'll explain in just one second.
	First, let's talk about how you can reconnect.
	One way you reconnect, as we'll discuss momentarily, is actually through God, okay?
	You actually need a higher purpose in combination with others.
	One way you can personally connect with God is through Halo.
	Regardless of your religion, we all need a little more peace in our life.
	Halo is an incredible app that offers a unique approach to prayer and meditation, unlike other meditation apps.
	Hallow is tailored specifically for people of faith to deepen their relationship with God.
	The Hallow app is filled with studies, meditations, reflections, rooted in Christian prayer practices.
	I have a bunch of Christians, obviously, who work at this company.
	A huge percentage of my audience is Christian.
	And let me tell you, go back to church and use Hallow.
	You can pray alongside Mark Wahlberg, Jonathan Rumi, who portrays Jesus in The Chosen, even some world-class athletes.
	You can access that number one Christian podcast, The Bible in a Year with Father Mike Schmitz, on Hallow.
	Hallow helps you maintain a daily prayer routine.
	With features like progress tracking and streaks, you can stay motivated,
	make prayer a regular part of your daily routine, set prayer reminders,
	invite others to pray with you and track your progress along the way.
	Now, I take time out of my day three times a day to pray.
	You should do the same using Hallow.
	If you're looking to deepen your relationship with God and improve your mental and emotional wellbeing,
	try Hallow for three months free at hallow.com slash Shapiro.
	That's hallow.com slash Shapiro.
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	convicting a murderer coming this summer.
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	OK, speaking of the breakdown of the social fabric, So the Surgeon General has this report talking about all the ways the loneliness epidemic is destroying the country, and all the solutions are things like, what if we, like, built you a dorm and then we forced you into a common space to hang out with all the other people?
	What if we actually made you ride public transit?
	What if we created midnight basketball leagues?
	Here's the deal, guys.
	Leave people alone and let people go back to church.
	There are a couple of major things that have happened via the government that have destroyed the social fabric in this country over the course of the last 60 years.
	One is the replacement of social connection with government incentive structures.
	And I'm talking economically speaking.
	See, in a normal religious community, the way that it works is that you demonstrate you have skin in the game.
	The skin in the game is you go to church, you go to synagogue, you engage with your community, you're part of the PTA, right?
	And by showing that you have skin in the game, what this means is that when you fall on hard economic times, your friends help out, your family helps out, your kinship structure helps out.
	This is traditionally how communities were built.
	The government came in and said, this is unfair.
	We don't like this anymore.
	Because what it's basically saying is that you have to buy into the system in order for you to receive back.
	Now, the government replaced that with a new deal, which is you have to buy into the government system in order to receive back.
	If you really want to receive, then you have to give all authority to the government and you have to cut out the social fabric, which is precisely what people did.
	Again, all of the economic support systems that were built, rooted in duty, The entitlements that you got were just an aspect of the duty that you had to the community.
	And if you disconnected the strings between you and the community, well, the entitlements went away.
	What this meant is that people actually were able to balance the entitlements and the duties.
	Well, when the government came in and said, you have no more duties, not to your friends, not your family, not to anybody, the government is just going to pay for you.
	What it did is it destroyed the economic incentive structure for people to join religious communities and it fragmented these communities.
	And you may think, well, you know, that's better because now people are liberated.
	Question, do people feel liberated?
	Or do they just feel atomistically divided from the rest of society?
	The evidence is in and the evidence is clear.
	So that's problem number one.
	The government, through welfare programs, has basically destroyed all social incentives for kinship structures, community networks, and religious communities.
	That's one.
	Two, the government has actively promoted a social culture in which subjective individualism is the only way to think about yourself.
	The way you are supposed to think about yourself is not with regard to your community.
	The government will step in and tell you that your local community is not allowed to regulate itself along homogenous lines, ideologically homogenous lines.
	You live in a religious community and you don't want that weed shop opening in your neighborhood?
	Well, the government may have something to say about that.
	You live in a religious community and you don't want a strip club opening down the street?
	Well, you know, that may be a violation of free speech.
	It might be.
	This kind of destruction of the social fabric by the government and then the consequent atomization of society, not particularly shocking.
	That, of course, has been exacerbated by other features of the American landscape, including social media.
	Which has allowed people to abandon those local in-person structures where you actually feel social connection.
	The place where I feel the most social connection on a personal level, and this is true for virtually everybody in the Orthodox Jewish community, for example, is Sabbath.
	On Sabbath, you go to Shul.
	At Shul, you hang out with your friends, your kids, your friends' kids.
	You spend literally the entire day being part of your community.
	And then if you are part of a robust Orthodox community, it's not only on Sabbath.
	But this is, of course, true of Christians on Sunday.
	This is why the idea of blue laws and Sabbath laws, in which people basically took off the day, that was a very good thing, societally speaking.
	And we got rid of all of that stuff.
	And we replaced that with this idea that you can make friends all across the country, right?
	You can do this using Facebook.
	You can do this using social media.
	Well, those aren't friends.
	Those are just people who are online and lonely and bored, just like you.
	And they have no actual stake in you because you have no duty to them.
	See, the thing is, If you actually wish to create a social fabric, it is reliant not on goodwill.
	It is reliant on goodwill that is built upon a mutual sense of values, sharing, and duty.
	That is where the social fabric is built.
	See, I have goodwill for a lot of people out there.
	Randos.
	I have goodwill for them.
	I give charity to them all the time.
	But let me tell you something.
	If they don't buy into the same dutiful system that I am a part of, the level of connection I have with them is very, very low.
	And the government has basically exploded that.
	The notion that you have a duty to your neighbor is now governmentally imposed by dint of the government gun.
	Right?
	The way that you're going to help your neighbor is by paying into the welfare system, and if you don't pay into the welfare system, the government will come arrest you for tax evasion.
	That is not the way that it typically used to work.
	The way that it used to work is there were social pressures for you to join the religious community and be part of a purpose-driven community with a higher value system.
	And by doing this, this meant that you are now engaged with everybody else.
	The government came and they destroyed all of this.
	All the intermediate structures of society that sociologist Robert Nisbet talks about 50, 60, 70 years ago, all of those have been completely undone.
	And there's the Surgeon General being like, well, but if we do build some buses, then we'll fill that back in.
	Well, you know, the backlash to this is all starting now because it turns out That the crystallization of this atomistic individualism, the crystallization of this subjectivism, has now entered the advertising marketplace.
	And it was one thing when this was the soft background to our society, it was one thing when we could feel it happening, we could feel the social fabric fraying, but you didn't see somebody just ripping the social fabric in half right in front of you.
	When people could deny that this is what they were doing when they're like, well, you know what?
	Yeah, yeah, the social fabric is good, but that's just the natural consequence of development.
	That's just it's sort of a thing that that happens.
	And I mean, do you really want to go back to the bad old days when you were expected to go to church?
	And that sort of that kind of soft inculcation in individualism, atomistic individualism without regard to community, that could happen.
	But when you see the the.
	culture in front of your face, taking the social fabric, and then just taking a box cutter
	and shredding it right in front of you, that's when the backlash begins.
	And this is what we are now seeing.
	So one of the reasons that you're seeing this with regard to Bud Light,
	and this is Bud Light is a great early bleeding indicator of this.
	So Bud Light was a great American company.
	It was a great American brand.
	It was a brand that was built on basically the flag and horses.
	That was the entire marketing campaign for Bud Light.
	It was the Clydesdales, right?
	That's what everyone remembered about Bud Light.
	He's really cute commercials during the Super Bowl with the Clydesdales and some dude with an American flag.
	That was going to be Bud Light.
	And then Bud Light decided to hire as an influencer, a man pretending to be a woman.
	And at that point, everybody went, okay, guys, we have nothing in common with you.
	Literally nothing.
	Not only that, we think that you are actively fostering the fraying of the social fabric.
	Because if we don't even share basic things like men and women exist, then we have nothing to share.
	And so Bud Light tales have absolutely cratered.
	And good for, honestly, good on us.
	It's an optimistic sign for American society.
	Good on Americans for not buying Bud Light.
	Apparently, their sales have dropped like 20%, leading the Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO, Michael Ducaris, to have to speak about the decline of Bud Light sales on an actual conference call.
	Here is what he said.
	One challenge is what you call the misinformation and confusion that still exists.
	We need to continue to clarify the facts that this was one camp, one influencer, One post and not a campaign.
	And repeat this message for some time.
	Okay, so they're just going to keep claiming now.
	They have to back off this thing.
	They're going to say it was just one post, it was an influencer, it was not a campaign.
	Well, good luck to you.
	You're going to have to do more than that.
	I'm glad that you guys are backing off.
	I'm glad that you have realized that you can't go this far and slap Americans in the face with a wild bout of social leftism.
	But it ain't gonna help.
	Bud Light tails apparently are down 26.1% for the week ending April 22nd compared to the previous year.
	They were down 21.1% for the week prior.
	In fact, here is some video from Fenway Park.
	There's a Bud Light stand over there.
	You can see it's a fairly busy park.
	There is no one at that Bud Light stand.
	Guys, this is so funny and bizarre.
	Look at that.
	That is the Bud Light.
	That is every single Bud Light stand.
	Look, there's no one... No one, no one is going to the Bud Light stand.
	There's lines for the stand right next door.
	No one at the Bud Light stand.
	That is not... That is not shocking.
	That is the way this is gonna go.
	Because the American people, it turns out, we don't like having the fraying of the social fabric thrust directly in our face.
	So Bud Light is trying to walk it back.
	Keep it up.
	Keep it up, America, because this is necessary.
	Meanwhile, again, the gap between the elites who actively promote a culture in which the only thing that matters is that subjective feeling of inner sexual fulfillment, the gap between the elites and everybody else is growing and growing.
	This is particularly true in the fashion industry, so anthropology has now jumped on the bandwagon.
	But, the backlash is coming too.
	So anthropology released a photoshoot with a dude.
	This is a dude who is now wearing anthropology dresses.
	Now, my wife loves this stuff at anthropology.
	I'll tell you one thing, we're not shopping at anthropology anytime soon.
	Because guess what?
	We are not fans of brands that patronize women by pretending that men can act like women or be women.
	It's ridiculous.
	Hey, by the way, this particular Instagram post by Anthropologie got such bad response that they had to shut off the comments.
	Here's the post.
	Here's this dude, and he's wiggling around, and then he's gonna do this thing where he waves a dress at the camera, and boom, now he's wearing another dress!
	Isn't this amazing?
	Men wearing dresses.
	Ah, the bravery.
	Now he's gallivanting around in another Anthropologie dress.
	Women, wouldn't you like to look like this semi-muscular man gallivanting around?
	You don't feel patronized at all, right?
	Oh, and now he's wearing another dress.
	Isn't this exciting?
	Just really, really solid stuff right here.
	Again, the more that the left-wing culture decides to thrust their ideology of social decay in our face, the more people are going to fight back against it.
	And I am here for it, man.
	I really am.
	And you should be here for it as well.
	For sure.
	By the way, this is also going to happen with regard to TV.
	So... Okay, so there's a show called Ted Lasso on Apple TV.
	Very popular show.
	The first season was pretty charming.
	The basic idea of Ted Lasso was that it was an American, an optimistic, can-do American, who goes to London because he is almost mistakenly hired.
	He's actually, he's hired as a football coach.
	He's an American football coach in America.
	He's hired as a soccer coach over in London.
	And this happens because the owner of the team basically wants to tank the team.
	And it turns out that Ted Lasso is actually a really good coach because of that can-do, optimistic American attitude.
	So the whole first season is about the kind of culture clash between these dour Brits And this optimistic American who's kind of dumb but also kind of smart because he has this kind of folksy wisdom to him.
	Well now, Ted Lasso has completely caved in on itself like a dying star.
	The last season is absolutely unwatchable.
	And you watch, Ted Lasso, it's not going to last as a cultural phenomenon because of this.
	Because of this, people do not like it.
	People are annoyed by it.
	In fact, here's a clip from... You want to know why Ted... So I watched the first couple of seasons of Ted Lasso.
	It's gotten progressively worse.
	This season of Ted Lasso is one of the worst things on TV.
	It is truly, egregiously bad.
	Doesn't mean the critics don't love it.
	The critics, of course, love it.
	Because the critics love anything that promotes social leftism.
	There's not a laugh line.
	There's nothing funny.
	Every episode is now a lecture about social justice.
	Every single episode is a lecture about social justice.
	Guess what Americans don't like?
	This crap!
	Here is a scene demonstrating just how bad the show has gotten.
	Nah, bro.
	And if you don't want your private pictures out there, just don't take naked pictures.
	Yeah.
	Especially being famous.
	What?
	Come on, man.
	Don't f*** with that, Calburn.
	No, man.
	The only people to blame here are the d*heads who steal your s* and put it online.
	That's why I delete all the photos on the phone.
	Swear down.
	Especially because I'm famous.
	Hey, listen, I'm with Jamie on this one.
	You know, whenever I have a relationship end, I ask the girl to go through my phone, delete any photos, videos, whatever she wants.
	Bro, for real?
	Yeah, yeah, I'm being serious.
	You know, one girl actually deleted Candy Crush.
	That's the laugh line.
	I was devastated.
	That's the laugh line.
	Hey, hold on.
	Once someone sends you a photo, don't you own it?
	This is ridiculous.
	Copyright law on private photography is quite murky.
	It's not about the law.
	It's about doing what is right.
	We're getting a lecture.
	Oh, good lord, this is terrible writing.
	Good lord, this is awful, awful, awful writing.
	What does that have to do with the decaying of the social fabric?
	Again, everything that was supposed to be built around common values like, say, shared patriotism, which is what Ted Lasso's first season was built on, instead it has now been derided and moved to the side in favor of whatever is the Me Too crap that you seek to push in a soccer show.
	And the ratings will go down because the American people are not up for this sort of stuff.
	Just watch it.
	Just watch it happen.
	Meanwhile, in terms of decaying the social fabric, there are a lot of Americans who believe that there are so many people in positions of power who decry this sort of stuff, but actually are in favor of the decay of the social fabric.
	This is particularly true when it comes to illegal immigration.
	So the fact is that there are a wide variety of perspectives with regard to legal immigration.
	There are people who believe that legal immigration is a problem because it undermines the domestic American workforce.
	I'm not a big believer in that basic idea, but I understand it.
	There are people like me who believe that if you wish to come here and engage in the American bargain and you have a skill set to offer to the American people, we should welcome you with open arms.
	But when it comes to illegal immigration, it is very clear that no country worth its salt can have an open border.
	And so when you have elites who are effectively advocating for an open border or effectuating an open border, When that happens, a lot of people are going to look at that elite class and say, you guys don't seem to care very much about the social fabric.
	In fact, we think you're lying.
	We think that you're in favor of the fraying of the social fabric because you literally don't care about changing the constituency of the country for people who are crossing the border illegally without any screening procedures of any real weight whatsoever.
	So this is why people are down on the Biden administration with regard to the illegal border crossing numbers.
	There's been a sea change in how immigration is dealt with in this country.
	Basically, in 2012, Barack Obama, in pursuit of re-election, decided that he was going to try to appeal to Hispanic voters on the basis of DACA, right?
	He was going to say that the Dreamers, people who are young people who've been brought here when they were kids, and now they've grown up but they were still here illegally, that those people should be legalized in some way, and he was going to override the Constitution and just do it using power of the pen and power of the phone.
	And his basic idea was these are the dreamers.
	And don't worry, people who are south of the border now, they're not going to look at that and then just cross the border.
	This is what he said publicly.
	Now, the question is, did you believe him then?
	Or was this a giant magnet that creates a sucking sound, taking up everybody south of the border up north of the border?
	And the answer is now in.
	And the Democrats have not mitigated their policies on the border in any way, shape or form.
	And so the immigration crisis continues to get worse.
	It's going to get absolutely egregious this summer.
	So much so that even Kyrsten Sinema, a newfound independent in the state of Arizona, she used to be a Democrat, now she identifies as an independent.
	She blasted Corine Jean-Pierre for saying that the border is secure.
	She says, no, the border's not secure.
	More action needs to be taken.
	So it has to be legislative action.
	We're going to continue to call Congress to do that.
	So obviously the border is not secure.
	Anyone with eyes can see that.
	And anyone who lives in a border state like I do, born and raised in Arizona, actually takes offense at comments like that.
	Because they're just factually not true.
	The reality is that border communities in my state are suffering already.
	And that's before the end of Title 42.
	And this is why people are questioning what exactly are the Democratic priorities here, so much so that you're starting to see Democrats actually adjust their message.
	So just a couple of days ago, Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, he was ripping on Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas.
	Greg Abbott, of course, has been sending busloads of illegal immigrants to New York City.
	Why?
	Because those illegal immigrants, they will cross the border, and then Abbott will say, where do you want to go?
	And many of them will say New York, and so say, here's a bus ticket.
	And Adams basically suggested that Republicans down south, that they are racist and that is why they are sending illegal immigrants and migrants up north to places like Chicago or New York.
	Here was Eric Adams just a couple of days ago.
	Governor Abbott sent asylum seekers to New York, black mayor.
	To Washington, black mayor.
	To Houston, black mayor.
	To Los Angeles, black mayor.
	To Denver, black mayor.
	He passed over thousands of cities to land here.
	And so I don't think El Paso, I don't think Brownsville, Texas, I don't think any of those other cities should have to bear the weight of the failure of Washington, D.C.
	So it was wrong.
	It's a little difficult to hear Adams here, but what he's actually saying is that Abbott is targeting black mayors.
	It's not just northern Democrats.
	He's targeting black mayors in New York City.
	So, yesterday, he had to walk that back.
	He said, he said, I'm not saying that Greg Abbott is a racist.
	The reason he has to walk this back is because it's very obvious that the Democratic Party at a national level is responsible for the crisis.
	And now local Democratic leaders are going to have to pay the price for bad Democratic policy nationally.
	Here's Eric Adams walking this back.
	He has been busing, even today, busing thousands of migrants to this city.
	But you said this week that he's sending them to black-led cities, your city, Washington, D.C., Chicago.
	Are you saying here that he is doing this because of the race of the mayor of the city?
	Well, let's be clear here.
	It was placed in quotes on one of the front pages of our paper that I called him a racist.
	It was placed in quotes.
	I never said that.
	I mean, I didn't say that you called him a racist, but you said he was sending it to all black-led cities.
	Right.
	I want to be clear.
	I said the front pages of the Post, not you.
	That's what they stated.
	What I'm making clear of the fact, not based on my opinion, he sent them to New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Denver, But also Philadelphia, which has a white mayor.
	All of the, all of the, I have not received any reports from Philadelphia.
	He actually is sending, I mean, uh, Ron DeSantis sent illegal immigrants to Martha's Vineyard.
	So it doesn't have anything to do with race, but Adams then was finally forced to rip into the White House over their handling of immigration.
	Again, it turns out that people don't like this stuff.
	Democrats have been escaping the guillotine, electorally speaking, because Republicans keep running bad candidates.
	If Republicans ran good candidates in any area, they would be much, much more competitive with a Democratic Party that seeks to undermine the social fabric.
	This is why you're seeing Democrats run away from their own positions in their own party now.
	It is not about asylum seekers and migrants.
	All of us came from somewhere to pursue the American dream.
	It is the irresponsibility of the Republican Party in Washington for refusing to do real immigration reform, and it's the irresponsibility of the White House for not addressing this problem.
	Brownsville, Texas, El Paso, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, we should not be burdening the weight of this problem.
	Okay, finally he goes out of his way and after slapping Republicans in Congress for no reason, he decides to go after Joe Biden.
	And Democrats are increasingly going to be forced to deal with the consequences of their own actions because it turns out they have real ramifications for the society in which we all live.
	Okay, time for some things I like and then some things that I hate.
	So, things that I like today.
	So, there's a phenomenal movie from 1952 called Ikiru by probably the greatest director of all time, Kurosawa.
	It is a phenomenal film.
	If you've never actually spent some time with Kurosawa's oeuvre, you should.
	It's spectacular.
	I mean, we're talking about, he's most famous for doing Rashomon, but Rashomon isn't close to his best movie.
	Ikuru, I think, is probably his best movie.
	The basic movie is about a bureaucrat in Japan who finds out that he has, that he's dying, that he has like six months to live.
	And he tries to discover sort of what meaning he can find in the six months left.
	And he becomes dedicated and obsessed to the idea that he is going to build a park for children.
	It's a very quiet film.
	It's a beautiful film about what it is that actually makes a difference in life.
	So they remade this film last year.
	They retitled it Living, which is what Ikiru means in Japanese, to live.
	They remade it with Bill Nighy.
	They put in color.
	They set it in early 1950s Britain, is what it looks like.
	And it's quite good.
	It's almost a shot for shot remake, but for those people who can't stand black and white film or don't want to read subtitles, it's really good.
	Here is the trailer for Living.
	Mr. Williams.
	A little on the frosty side, perhaps.
	Not too much fun and laughter.
	Brother like church.
	What is it up?
	Small wonder I didn't notice what I was becoming.
	Dad, you alright?
	Now, he's tremendous in the film.
	He's really, really good.
	He's nominated for Best Actor.
	Nah, he's tremendous in the film, he's really, really good.
	He's nominated for Best Actor.
	I don't know how.
	Do you think we should alert the police back?
	The film is really good.
	What will the police get if he's a couple of hours late for work?
	The real message of the film is that it's the small everyday activities we do that make people's lives better that actually make life worth living.
	This is the social fabric building stuff, right?
	He spends his entire life being a faceless bureaucrat in a government office and basically passing the buck, passing the ball on.
	He says at one point in the film that it was his entire goal to be a gentleman.
	Okay, and then it's really quite a conservative film because the original is quite a conservative film.
	discovering that he is that he has a fatal disease the first thing he does he
	goes to kind of a seaside town he thinks about committing suicide but then he
	doesn't do it and he hooks up with a fellow who sort of leads him into the
	nightlife and shows him going to kind of different nightclubs and all the rest of
	the sort of stuff and he finds that for one night of this this is not fulfilling
	that essentially if you live your life in pursuit of hedonism if you live your
	life in pursuit of that that sort of fleeting pleasure it's not meaningful
	The only meaning that you're going to find is working with your community to make life better for others.
	That is the main meaning of life.
	It's quite a good film.
	Again, you should watch the original, and then you can watch this one as well.
	I prefer Kurosawa's direction, mainly because he was maybe the greatest director who ever lived, but living is really good and worth the watch.
	Okay, time for a thing that I hate.
	Alright, a couple of things that I hate today.
	So, we begin with an amazing video of a woman named Olivia Pichardo.
	She's apparently the first woman to play NCAA Division I baseball.
	And so she threw out the first pitch at a Boston Red Sox game, did Olivia Pichardo.
	It didn't go amazing.
	Here is a Division 1 NCAA baseball player who throws like a, I don't know, JV high school boy?
	Is maybe the way to put this?
	Here we go.
	And that is a wild pitch.
	That is to the backstop.
	Everybody cheering.
	Yeah, that is not a good pitch.
	She laughed it off.
	It says she definitely showed some velocity in front of the cheering Boston crowd.
	I'd love to get a radar gun on that.
	Seriously, I'd love to know what the radar gun is there.
	Apparently she bats lefty and throws righty.
	She has had one at-bat.
	She got in a bat against Bryant University when Brown was down 10-1 in the bottom of the ninth.
	It is not reported how that at-bat went.
	I'm going to assume it didn't go amazing, because if she'd hit a home run, I feel like it would have been in the story.
	Okay, they had to turn off the comments on this video, too, because it turns out that people were saying that she throws like a girl.
	Now, to be fair, she does not throw like most girls.
	I mean, she has good pitching motion.
	That's fine.
	She also is a woman, which means that her top velocity, the fastest a woman has ever thrown a baseball, being clocked, is like the mid-80s, which does not make you the varsity at a high school baseball team these days.
	But she was throwing out the first... So, again, we all have to pretend that women throw the same as men.
	They do not, on average, they do not remotely throw the same as men.
	Like, not at all.
	The average woman, by studies, the average woman throws a baseball slower than 999 out of 1000 men.
	The average woman... That is not a shortcoming of women, by the way.
	That's just because men and women are built differently.
	The average man...
	In fact, all men cannot push a baby out of them.
	Like, there are plenty of different physical qualities to men and women.
	The fact that we have tried to obscure this by saying, ah, well, you know, she's a girl, she's playing Division I baseball.
	By the way, it actually is a great sort of rebuttal to the idea that men and women compete on the same footing.
	It's a major story when a woman, a biological woman, competes with the men and has one at-bat.
	Would it be a major story if a man competed with the women, or would he just be beating up on the women?
	Like, imagine a Division 1 NCAA baseball player, male baseball player, playing on the women's baseball team.
	We're talking like Babe Ruth numbers, man.
	So, you know, just the latest indicator.
	Okay, meanwhile, one more thing that I hate today.
	So, apparently, Amber Heard, also known around these parts as Amber Turd, she is now in Aquaman 2.
	So I guess the rule is that you can be so insane and also apparently abusive that you take a dump in your husband's bed and call it the dog's dump.
	And also, like, film violent exchanges with your husband.
	Like, cutting off part of his finger and stuff.
	And it's totally cool.
	And it's totally fine.
	So Amber Heard doesn't miss a beat.
	I just want to note here the absolute hypocrisy of Hollywood.
	They're the biggest lie.
	They pretend to have some extraordinary level of moral superiority.
	I would like to see one iota of your moral superiority.
	For like one second, it would be amazing.
	According to the LA Times, Amber Heard's fleeting appearance in the new trailer for Aquaman 2 has made quite a splash at CinemaCon 2023.
	During the movie industry events in Las Vegas, Warner Bros.
	debuted the preview for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which will see Jason Momoa and Heard reprise their roles as aquatically gifted heroes and love interests Arthur and Mira.
	The trailer hasn't been released to the public yet.
	The studio confirmed Wednesday that Heard is in it.
	Apparently rumors of her cameo in the trailer surfaced after Johnny Depp's supporters were pointing out that she's a terrible person.
	Because she is.
	And so apparently they've tried to minimize her role, but they're leaving her role in there or something.
	And if you imagine a man who was, like, you know, abusing a woman to the extent that, like, part of her finger got cut off, do you think he gets cast in the... So, I would say that, except for the answer might be yes.
	I mean, the answer actually might be yes.
	This is how crappy Hollywood is.
	Like, I want to say that it's a sexist double standard, but it may not even be a sexist double standard.
	So long as you can claim that you're a member of a sexual minority, you're fine.
	Ezra Miller.
	Is starring in the new flash film.
	Now, the new flash film looks great.
	Also, Ezra Miller is like a crazed insane criminal apparently.
	Allegedly.
	I mean, this is a person who went missing for months in August because of complex mental health issues.
	He was cited in Vermont with felony burglary last year after state police investigating an incident involving several bottles of alcohol being taken from a resident found that it was probably Miller.
	In 2020, he made headlines after a recording surfaced in which he was choking a lady outside a bar in Iceland.
	No charges were filed.
	He was arrested twice in Hawaii in 2022, one for disorderly conduct and one for harassment.
	And because he declares that he is a they, that he is either suffering from multiple personality disorder or has no actual gender, this person is like a wild abuser.
	Ezra Miller.
	And he's still in The Flash.
	Again, choking women.
	Charged with disorderly conduct and harassment.
	accused of grooming in June 2022. According to court documents filed on June 7th in Standing
	Rock Sioux Tribal Court and obtained by People, attorney and activist Chase Iron Eyes and his
	pediatrician wife Sarah Jumping Eagle claimed Miller had been manipulating and controlling
	their daughter, Tokata Iron Eyes, who uses she-they pronouns and goes by Gibson, since the
	two met at a Standing Rock reservation event in North Dakota back in 2016.
	They claimed that Miller groomed their kid from the age of 12 after taking an immediate and apparent innocent liking to them, adding that Miller exhibited a pattern of corrupting a minor, allegedly drugging their kid over the years and displaying cult-like and psychologically manipulative and controlling behavior.
	Same month, another parent came forward with allegations against Ezra Miller.
	So, um, and they're going to go ahead with all of this.
	So the flash just goes ahead.
	Again, the rule in Hollywood is that you are, if you are wildly abusive and a terrible person, I guess so long as you identify as a they, you're fine.
	This was Johnny Depp's original mistake.
	If Johnny Depp, just in the original trial of Hammer Heard, had said, hey, hey, let me tell you, I'm actually bisexual.
	Everyone would be like, oh my god, hero!
	Hero, cast him some more.
	We need more Johnny Depp.
	It's like the all-purpose shield.
	Amber Heard is bisexual, so she gets to, you know, play victim.
	And then, I guess, be cast in Aquawoman 9 or something.
	And meanwhile, Ezra Miller is grooming children, allegedly.
	And he's okay, because he is a they.
	Man, what a get-out-of-jail-free card this whole gender identity thing has become.
	Well, folks, the economy is in a state of disarray.
	Obviously, we are on the precipice of a possible banking crisis, and gold is now hitting high points again.
	Joining us on the line to discuss this is Philip Patrick.
	He's a precious metals specialist and spokesman for Birch Gold Group, born in London, earned a degree in politics and international relations at University of Reading, and spent years as a wealth manager at Citigroup in London's Wall Street before Moving on to Birch Gold in 2012.
	Obviously, Birch Gold's a major sponsor of the show, and we thank them for their business.
	Philip, thanks so much for joining us.
	I really appreciate it.
	Thank you for having me.
	So let's talk about the current state of the markets.
	Gold has been climbing pretty significantly here because of all the unrest in financial markets.
	What do you think the chances are of this banking crisis getting worse?
	Look, we've seen in just the last few weeks three of the four largest bank failures in US history.
	And obviously, the problem First Republic ran into is the same problem that Silicon Valley Bank had,
	which is essentially they bought long-term treasury bonds.
	And since the Fed has been raising interest rates, it's put a squeeze on their capital.
	Now, According to the FDIC, the banking system was undercapitalized by $620 billion at the end of 2022.
	Every time the interest rates go up, so do those losses.
	Now, First Republic had about $20 billion of losses, which leaves at least a $600 billion hole in banks' balance sheets at the moment.
	For a little bit of perspective, in 2008, 25 banks failed.
	So far this year, the three banks that have failed had more capital than all of those 25 banks combined back in 2008.
	So there's no easy resolution.
	I think things will get tougher before they get better, and there may be some more victims along the way.
	Philip, I mean, it's obvious the Federal Reserve is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
	On the one hand, it doesn't appear that inflation is going to come down to the 2% level anytime soon.
	They raised the basis points in a 25 basis points in their last Fed meeting and other
	hinting that they may put a pause on that, which is amazing because again, those inflation
	rates are still stuck in like best available scenario, like 5%, two and a half times what
	they are supposed to be.
	But they also understand that if they continue to raise the interest rates, then they are
	essentially devaluing all of the bond assets that are being held by these regional banks,
	which means that if there's any sort of deposit withdrawal and people are withdrawing not
	because they're afraid their deposits are going to go away, but if they move their money
	from the bank to a money market account, they're making 5% as opposed to almost zero.
	And so they're pulling their money out of these regional banks, which means these banks
	are going to have to sell off assets that are essentially valueless because of the federal
	government.
	The federal government doesn't have a lot of choices here, but to inject more liquidity
	into the economy, but to facilitate more sales, but to spend more money, which of course exacerbates
	This is a rock and a hard place.
	It is absolutely spot on.
	And the second SVB came down, it was clear to me that the Fed would choose saving the banks over combating inflation.
	And I think that's the decision that they'll make time and time and time again.
	And we're seeing it now.
	I don't think they're going to raise rates much more.
	I think the 2% Federal Reserve target for inflation will be a pipe dream for the foreseeable future.
	And I think it ends in the same way with money printing.
	So I think you're absolutely spot on.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, so we're looking at Janet Yellen, meanwhile, telling Congress that the United States will begin bouncing checks on June 1st.
	It is unclear which way this is going to go.
	I mean, right now, Joe Biden and the administration seem to feel no pressure whatsoever to actually negotiate over the debt ceiling.
	The Republicans are asking for Pretty minor cuts in the grand scheme of things.
	They would actually like to cut back to 2022 levels, which, last I checked, is not cutting back to 1997 levels.
	And the Democrats are kicking back against this, the White House is kicking back against this.
	What do you think are the chances that we actually go into a default, at least for a little while, just so everybody can get their political win?
	I mean, let's see.
	But by the way, I agree with you.
	The plan is was what McCarthy put forward was eminently reasonable.
	2022 spending levels was the third highest budget in history.
	This is very, very far from austerity.
	So I think it was definitely an olive branch.
	And the Biden administration's position is is unconscionable, quite, quite frankly, to say, hey, we're not going to negotiate.
	We need we want sort of a And no condition increase.
	We want to be able to spend what we want is bonkers, given the situation we're in.
	I mean, it's unconscionable, like I said.
	So look, I think it's a game of chicken.
	I don't think they're going to allow a default.
	I think it's going to be dealt with as it has been the last couple of times, which is, you know, a deal at the last second before midnight.
	And I think to a degree that the Republicans will be forced to capitulate.
	That's how I see it playing out.
	But we'll see.
	So, let's talk about the possibility of recession.
	Obviously, it's on everybody's mind.
	Some economists are putting the chance of recession at 2 in 3 at this point.
	Meanwhile, Jerome Powell's like, no, we're avoiding it.
	It's all going to be fine.
	Basically, it doesn't look like a recession until it does.
	So, is a recession at this point unavoidable?
	Look, it feels that way.
	Obviously, only the National Bureau of Economic Research can officially declare a recession, and they usually do about 12 months after it starts.
	Look, the Fed won't use the word recession, but they've been using the word soft landing,
	right, which I think is Federal Reserve speak for recession.
	Whatever they call it, I think we're going to get it.
	And you look at all of the big leading indicators, I think it's fairly clear.
	The conference board's leading economic index for the U.S.
	fell by 1.2 percent since its lowest levels before, since before the pandemic.
	We've seen, of course, the two in the 10 year Treasury yield curve invert first did 13 months ago.
	Typically recession will follow about 12 months after there was a very damning report, of course, from the International Monetary Fund that was just released forecasting global growth 50% lower than average.
	They think it'll take five years to recover, just back to average level, and that most of the growth will be coming out of China.
	So recession does feel imminent, and it doesn't look like it'll just be domestic, but rather global in nature.
	So, given all of the facts about the economy, given the state of the economy right now, what is the smartest strategy in terms of diversification?
	Look, I think everybody needs to be looking at precious metals in climates like this.
	Last year, central banks globally buying gold at record prices.
	2022 was the biggest year for central bank gold buying in history, and I don't think it's a coincidence, right?
	We've got massive money moving away from dollar-based trade.
	We've got International transactions now moving away from dollars brazil russia india china pushing to do so we have inflation domestically we have air coming out of a stock market bubble all of these things don't bode well for stocks bonds the dollar shorter term and in those climates that's where precious metals become very important
	Inflation drives them up.
	Market corrections tend to drive them up.
	So they're very conducive as a hedge in climates like this.
	And I think everyone needs to be looking at precious metals for 2023 and the short to medium term.
	Well, folks, Birchgold is the sponsor of the show.
	Obviously, if you wish to buy your gold the way I do from Birchgold, text Ben to 989898.
	Get your free info kit on gold.
	Again, text Ben to 989898.
	All right, guys, the rest of the show is continuing right now.
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