Ep. 542 What do Bernie Sanders and Matt Lauer Have in Common?
In this episode: The Hillary election blame-game reaches a new low. http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/349548-clintons-score-settling-frustrates-democrats Hurricane and survival hacks you need to know. https://www.facebook.com/kimpowellreporter/videos/1316808638430512/ Democrats insist on wasting money on this program while the nation is recovering from, and preparing for, natural disasters. https://www.wsj.com/articles/teen-pregnancy-subsidy-panic-1504738689 Sick liberals are hoping Hurricane Irma destroys this facility. http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/09/why-do-these-folks-hope-hurricane-irma-destroys-trumps-mar-a-lago-home/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LegalInsurrection+%28Le%C2%B7gal+In%C2%B7sur%C2%B7rec%C2%B7tion%29 SPONSOR LINKS: www.PrepareWithDan.com www.BrickhouseNutrition.com/Dan
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Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
Where did that go?
The Dan Bongino Show.
It's time we take off the gloves, okay?
Get ready to hear the truth about America.
Right now we have a party that supports American values, and then there is a party that represents everything America isn't.
On a show that's not immune to the facts, with your host, Dan Bongino.
Alright, welcome to The Renegade Republican with Dan Bongino.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
All ready to go, buddy.
All right.
Yeah.
All right.
Just a quick update here.
Florida is very chaotic right now.
I was leaving the jujitsu class last night.
I had to get some rolling in before this hurricane hits and the lines for gas are just crazy.
I'm going to do a little quick thing later in the show on some quick hurricane hacks.
Because it's really great advice, especially if you live anywhere where there's a potential for a storm, tornado.
But man, get those gas cans.
Get as many of them as you can.
If you put gas stabilizer in the gas cans and you get five-gallon gas cans, it stays good for like 18 months to two years.
And you can just stick the gas in your car in the event of an emergency.
So fuel up, because the gas lines down here You know, or crazy.
Luckily, my wife and I, my Raptor has like a 30-plus gallon tank, so I don't have to really worry about it too much.
But yeah, really bad, getting kind of ugly down here in Florida.
Alright, I got a lot of stories to talk about today.
One of these is really... I mean, can I say, it's really pissing me off.
I mean, pardon my language, folks.
I know it's a family show, but... When is Hillary Clinton just gonna go away?
No, I mean it.
I mean, this isn't good for anyone.
It's not.
And, you know, I get it because sometimes I get emails and people say, and I understand some of the emails, the gist of them are, you know, why are you trying to help the Democrats?
If Hillary's hurting the Democrats, which she is right now, let her keep doing it.
You know, let the political enemy destroy themselves.
You know, the truth of the matter, folks, is that she's not just hurting the Democrats.
She's hurting the integrity of the electoral outcome, too, by continually insisting, Joe, because our new book is out called What Happened?
Yeah.
And Trump's answer to that is, I happened, which is kind of funny, by the way.
Trump happened.
But she's also, through her efforts to blame everyone but herself for running a terrible campaign, she's trying to destroy the legitimacy of the Trump election.
Do you get what I'm saying, Joe?
So this isn't just a matter of, like, she's hurting the Democrats by continually bringing up the past rather than focusing on how they can win elections in the future.
She's also hurting us as well.
So this is a worthy topic to talk about.
And a couple of things that came up.
So excerpts of her book are being released periodically.
And in the book now, she blames everyone.
Macedonian server farms, the Russians, the email scandal.
Her new thing is she blamed Bernie Sanders yesterday.
I guess she feels like she's the only candidate in American history for a presidential, major presidential party who should not have been primaried.
I don't know.
She feels like primaries are now bad things because she lost.
But she says Bernie's attacks were lasting, but there's an interesting new person here she brought into it.
She's blaming now Matt Lauer of NBC.
Now, yes, add this to the list of people.
I mean, Jim Comey.
I mean, the list of reasons Hillary lost outside of Hillary was a crappy candidate goes on and on.
But her point is that Matt Lauer gave her a difficult interview and the difficult interview left some lasting damage.
Oh, I feel so bad.
Now, folks, listen.
I lost an election.
I lost a few of them.
One of them really close, and it really stinks, okay?
But I challenge you to find anywhere in my books, anywhere in my writings post-election, anywhere in my concession speeches, I challenge anyone out there listening, so you don't think I'm speaking with forked tongue here, some kind of a hypocrite, to find any kind of a, oh man, this is, we got screwed, this is unbelievable, The crazy thing is, Joe, in my congressional election, there's some evidence that we actually did get screwed.
But read my concession letter to the congressman I lost to.
You know, you move on.
Right.
When you lose an election, even like the one we won on election day and lost the election on absentee counts later on, like five days later, you move on, folks.
You have to move on.
Because it's more important for the country that they have stable leadership than it is for you to...
Macedonian server farms!
Hillary Clinton eight minute abs!
I mean it's ridiculous.
There's a blame four minute klutz according to there's a blame game forever.
It's always a fictitious nonsensical story.
Just move on.
Now I'm not bringing this up because you know I like to discuss more substantive stuff and Hillary blaming people is nothing new.
Hillary's always been a whiner but I'm bringing it up because I And forgive me, I don't mean, again, I'm not always trying to sell my book, folks, I promise you, but I bring this up in my third book, and it's an interesting topic related to this, which is, you can buy it on Amazon, it's available now, it's not in bookstores until the 19th, but, and thanks to those who did pick it up and reviewed it already.
But there's a chapter in my book where I discuss Hillary and the cops and it's not meant to be like a Jackie Collins inside.
There's certainly things I know I don't share in any of my books and I never will.
But one of the things I brought up that I thought were important because it's having lasting damage on the Secret Service is how Hillary's always been about Hillary.
Folks, when you're around Hillary you understand right away she's not a good person, okay?
Good or bad is kind of a Strange thing that you know character wise because you know what you always talk about There's no perfect person, but Hillary is a more bad than good person.
I guess it's a good way to say it When we used to protect Hillary Clinton out in Long Island, when I was in the Melville office of the Secret Service, Long Island, New York, and she was running for Senate, one of the things I write about, because it's had lasting damage on the service and has to be stopped in the future, is her staff and her, their penchant for doing everything that was about them.
If they wanted the cops to stand off because, oh no, it doesn't look good, we don't want police in a rally because what, people don't like cops?
We could never really figure out what it was.
She's trying to look accessible.
She was causing danger, not only to herself, but to the Secret Service and the cops as well.
Ready?
And folks, I was there.
I saw it.
It became a lasting open sore in the New York field office, Hillary's relationship with the cops.
And if you think I'm making this up, I remember when I was filling in for Mark Levin or Hannity one time, and I brought this up on the air, how it caused a really lasting negative side effect between the cops and the Secret Service in the New York field office.
And a Suffolk County, New York cop who was there when Hillary was running for office called in and said, Dan, I remember exactly what you're talking about.
And yes, we were pissed off.
When it happened.
Their staff folks was always like, oh you need to move those cops, you need to move those cops, you need to move those cops, you need to move those cops.
And after a while the cops understandably got tired of it.
And it became a big problem.
Constantly whining about, oh they can see the cops, as if the cops were some kind of festering sore on their campaign.
Hillary's all about Hillary.
Hillary's always been about Hillary.
And I really, I mean it, I don't write about this stuff in any way to be gossipy.
Believe me, there's enough stuff there.
If I chose to, we couldn't.
I don't.
And I never will.
But it's caused a lasting open sore with the service where now this has become a primary thing and other people running for office who use Hillary's people.
This is important, Joe.
Who used Hillary's staffers to run for other campaigns now see this as acceptable.
Oh, we're going to move the cops.
Don't worry.
It doesn't look good.
It doesn't make her look accessible.
And now the model, in other words, Joe, do you see what I'm saying?
Is continued.
Like you're part of the stage set.
Yeah.
Right.
Yes.
Exactly.
Like it's like the Lion King on Broadway.
Yeah.
Move that lion over there.
Move that fake lion.
These are cops.
These are human beings there to protect your life.
What is wrong with you?
So this Hillary blame game and this disingenuous character assassination of Bernie and other people.
You know, I'm not a Bernie guy, don't get me wrong.
I don't even think he's that great of a guy, be honest with you.
But where she's going with it is totally ridiculous.
That somehow Bernie went after her in some unprecedented fashion as if she's the first candidate to ever be involved in a primary.
That Matt Lauer from NBC who's it was not even a conservative by any stretch who asked her questions about her email and other things that this was also all of a sudden was some big setup designed to take her down.
This is all garbage.
This is all junk and this is indicative of who Hillary is and I think when you read about it in a book one of the chapters you'll be you'll be You're not going to be surprised, but you're going to be shocked at the level to which they took this.
Cops, they gotta hide.
It was a great analogy, Joe.
It's like the Truman Show.
Everybody's acting in this play around Hillary, and Hillary doesn't know it's an act.
They're moving the stagehands.
These are real people.
Alright, I just thought I'd bring that up because I saw that story.
I don't like to get into that kind of stuff because I have more substantive things to get to, but in this case, it's important.
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Okay, an interesting story I saw in light of the hurricane, the Wall Street Journal today, which I'll put in the show notes, always available at Bongino.com.
And if you join my email list at Bongino.com, there's an easy tab, I will send you these stories.
Forgive me for not getting them out.
We've had some hurricanes cause some problems around my house.
It hasn't been easy keeping the show on the air the last few days, folks.
There's a lot of things going on down here.
I've had to button up my house, close the shutters, move everything inside, trying to get gas, trying to get food and stuff.
So I'm doing my best to keep the show on the air, so forgive me.
But I do get to, if you sign up for my email list, I will send this story to you.
It's an interesting one.
So, Joe, we need money right now for hurricanes, for Hurricane Harvey.
And listen, there's a very good debate about where it should go.
I think it should be a state and local issue.
I don't necessarily think FEMA has all the answers here.
It's nice to have some federal presence, but these are state and local issues.
But needless to say, I think, Joe, we can all agree, regardless of our politics, that money is going to be needed in substantial sums to rebuild.
Absolutely.
There's no question.
I mean, these people in Houston have just been decimated, and sadly it looks like we're next this weekend here on the east coast of Florida.
Money is going to be needed.
Money is scarce right now.
We're a nation $20 trillion in debt and we have a $20 trillion budget.
So essentially, we owe every single dollar of what our economy produces every year.
Folks, that's a very dangerous position to be in.
If you had a $100,000 salary and you owed $100,000, you would be in a catastrophic debt position.
Sadly, when it's the federal government, liberals think that's okay and don't seem to care.
So you would think right now we would be focusing on some sense, Joe, of fiscal sanity, right?
Like, hey, we're going to need all this money.
You know, we get the North Korean threat right now going on.
We have these hurricanes.
No, none of that's going on right now.
The Democrats are doubling down on stupid and they want to spend money on ridiculous stuff.
So when I see ridiculous stories that you're probably not going to see covered in the mainstream media, I like to put them out there to highlight larger issues.
And the larger issue here is the Democrats love the idea of national bankruptcy.
They love the idea of national bankruptcy for one reason.
When you can bankrupt the private economy, you can make the government the spender of last resort and the government the allocation of capital.
It's the idea of never letting a crisis go to waste.
Make no mistake, I'm not talking about all Democrats.
I'm not even talking about all liberals.
I'm talking about the radical far left.
The radical far left loves the idea, whether it's through their green movement or whatever it may be, of putting private companies out of business.
When private companies go out of business, who is going to fill the hole?
The government.
Folks, it's no more complicated than that.
For those of you who really believe, and again, I'm not talking about all Democrats, please, so don't email me.
I understand that the majority of Democrats are not looking for their kids to go bankrupt, their country to go bankrupt, and for everyone to starve.
The radical far left is.
The green movement that wants us to stop using fossil fuels?
Joe, I mean, if you stop putting gas in your car and powering your refrigerator, a lot of people are going to die.
That hasn't occurred to the radical far left, or it has and they don't care.
So there is a wing of the party that insists on national bankruptcy, doesn't care.
I mean, this is the most predictable economic crisis in human history.
The United States does not have enough money to pay off its debts right now.
And nobody cares on the far left.
Nobody.
And the Democrats, because they're afraid of their own base in Congress, just vote along for spending, spending, spending, spending, because they want to inflate away the value of a dollar, because it inflates away the value of a dollar of debt, too.
They want to inflate away the dollar, print more money, and they're actually, they're hoping for a national private company bankruptcy so the government could come in and fill the hole.
It's the only explanation for the fiscal insanity going on right now.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean for that really long-winded setup, but here's the story.
So there's an HHS program, which is a cabinet-level office, Health and Human Services, an HHS program that funds programs for teen pregnancy prevention, Joe.
The program has spent an astonishing $800 million and is owed $200 million more in the future.
So, again, from the Dan Bongino file of crappy liberal programs that don't only not help you when you fall on the ground, don't only not help you get up, but as you get up, they actually punch you in the face.
Here's an addition.
So, after spending $800 million on teen pregnancy prevention programs, and now $200 million more is owed, the Trump administration and their HHS, run by Tom Price, have evaluated these 18 programs that are getting funding from you, the taxpayer!
You're paying for this!
And they found out, Joe, that 11 of the 18 had no lasting effect on behavior.
Okay, so we paid $800,000,000 for nothing!
Nothing!
No lasting effect on behavior at all.
$800,000,000 we paid for this and there's $200,000,000 more owed that the Trump administration is saying, we don't want to pay it.
So that's the story in the journal.
The Trump administration, here's the fight.
So I clearly line out what we're talking about.
Democrats want $200,000,000 more.
The Trump administration is saying, hey, we don't want to pay it.
Because this isn't working.
Right.
Eight teen programs.
Now you may say, okay, what happened with the other seven?
Well, a few of them had mixed results, but three of them, Joe, showed a negative effect.
Meaning teen pregnancy went up after the teen pregnancy prevention program money was spent.
So let me get this straight.
Cause we're, this is a pretty sane audience I have here.
We spent $800 million On these 18 programs, 11 of which had absolutely no effect whatsoever on preventing the thing it was supposed to prevent, teen pregnancy, right?
Three programs showed an increase in teen pregnancy.
That's not funny, folks.
I'm only laughing because I cannot get over how liberals are so divorced from reality that they can't even accept like, okay, well, we spent all this taxpayer money.
This stuff didn't work.
You know what?
Let's look at something different, maybe some hurricane relief.
Again, I think the federal government budget should be shrunk, big time.
But even if you're a liberal, Joe, you would think, you would think that they would say, well maybe we could spend it in a better way.
Let's spend it on Harvey relief, let's spend it on hardening up our infrastructure with this North Korea threat.
Nope!
They're not even suggesting that we do that, like reallocate.
They're saying, no, no, we still want the 200 million more, despite the fact that of the 18 programs, 11, no difference at all, and three, teen pregnancy prevention programs increase teen pregnancy.
Now, is that causal?
Probably not.
But it doesn't matter.
The correlational data shows the program doesn't work.
You know, You may say to yourself, why is this?
Well, I just explained to you, the radical far-left base has always been looking for a private sector, free market, bankruptcy, so the government could fill in the hole.
But there's another more pernicious reason here too, that this has kind of lit the spark under the Democrats, because they're fighting this thing.
And quickly, the genesis behind this is There is a doctor that's been nominated by Trump who's going to be working in HHS to manage the teen pregnancy prevention program that's not actually stopping teen pregnancy and is actually, in some cases, more teen pregnancies have ended up after we spent the money on it.
But the doctor was at a Senate confirmation hearing and they're all over this.
The Senate Democrats are all over this, grilling this doctor about this program.
And one of the reasons they're passionately defending this, I always love to explain the why.
And again, I'm talking about the far left, so let me be very careful here.
I'm not going to stigmatize all Democrats like they do to us, because I don't believe all of them believe this.
I think some of them are just blindly following along, Joseph.
The Democrats for years have been in love with sex education because their desire, especially the far left wing of the party, has been to disconnect sex from marriage.
Now, and it's a family-friendly show, I don't need to get into all the details of this, but there's a reason they want to do that.
They have been looking, and this has been a constant thread to our show for two years, they're always looking to disconnect the American family from the American people.
American family, the nuclear family, father, Mother children.
It's been a bedrock American value.
You may say, well, why does the far left, why fight against that?
I mean, what's the political strategy?
Folks, when you're trying to incentivize the growth of the state and have the state be daddy, right?
You can't have an actual daddy, and you can't have an actual God.
So when you look at Democrats, two big, and I'm talking about the far left again, when you look at the far left's two big battles, battles that have been consistent since the post-New Deal days, two things they've always fought, Joe, are God and big R rights.
They're always in a fight against religion, against Christians, against the church, always.
It's a non-stop battle, and the American family.
The traditional American family.
They fight for gay marriage, for the devaluation of the family.
They've been doing this over and over and over again.
You look through the culture, the Hollywood wars on the family.
When you look at that Kevin Spacey movie, uh, was it Kevin Spacey?
I always get the culture.
So my cop friend called me yesterday.
He's like, you in the movie stuff.
He goes, you need to call me before you get on the air.
I'll clear it up.
Was it American Me or something like that?
I don't remember.
But it do the culture, this war on the American family to diminish it, uh, on sitcoms.
American Beauty.
American Beauty!
Yes, yes, good.
Thank God, Joe.
Thank God I got you here, because I always get emails after the show about this.
Like, how come you know so little about culture?
Because I spend zero time on it!
I spend all the time preparing the show, that's why.
American Beauty, you're right.
When you look at shows like, you know, even Married with Children.
And I'm not saying it was a big conspiracy, but it's an effort to make the American family look silly and look foolish.
This has been a culture war and a political war.
The reason they do this is they want to disconnect You know, sex from the American family and its role in procreation in the traditional American family, and make it just a tool of pleasure.
They've always been looking to do this.
I mean, when you see certain people on the far left, and this is a very radical group of even the radical far left, looking to normalize things like pedophilia, sick things like this, they do it because, again, they see sex as only a tool.
They don't want it married to American bedrock family values.
They want those values diminished.
Sex is a tool of pleasure for them.
It's also, you know, abortion fits into that as well.
As a way to use sex as just pleasure and not procreation.
You shouldn't be married to procreation.
You get what I'm saying, Joe?
Sure.
Like abortion's a way of disconnecting sex from the family and procreation.
In other words, sex is a tool for pleasure.
Oh, but if you get pregnant, don't worry, we can handle that here.
You get what I'm saying?
Yeah.
That is another reason why, in the big picture, why it matters.
And again, stories I think you're not going to see anywhere else.
Outside of, say, the journal's coverage of this, because they're not really, you know, these don't really ring a lot of people's bells.
This fits into the larger left's picture.
Their battle against American values, and that is why they so passionately fight for sex education in schools and money like this, for teen pregnancy programs, where they can dictate what happens and what doesn't.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
I read it this morning and I thought, you know, I've really got to put... I know with Hurricane Harvey and everything else going on, you're probably like, well, why?
It's an important story.
Understanding far leftist ideology and the radical far left, understanding the why always matters.
It never goes out of style.
All right.
Now, this is just a quick preparedness segment.
I want to finish with another story I teased yesterday, which is really fascinating for me, at least.
There's this phenomenon going on about stocks and bonds, why they're moving up together.
That doesn't happen, folks.
It hasn't happened.
It's almost unprecedented.
But something's going on right now with the economy.
But I'll get to that in a second.
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All right, folks.
My dad's calling me now.
So worried about me.
Thanks, dad.
But I'm recording the show.
I'll call you in a minute.
But of course by the time he hears this I'll already be on the phone with him because the show will be over.
All right, quickly some hurricane hacks here.
If you are in or around the storm zone, Kim Powell from WinkTV, which is a Southwest Florida television station down here, I know them pretty well because I used to do some guest hosting over there at the radio portion of the building where they're in.
She had a really good piece on Facebook today about some hacks if you live in a storm zone.
And basically, they're not really storm zone hacks as much as they are survival hacks and just some quick things.
And I'll put this in the show notes today.
Now, it is a Facebook link, but I'm pretty sure even through a web browser you can get to it and look at it, even if you don't have a Facebook account.
I'm not really sure how that works, but it's a really good link.
I encourage you to look at it.
Very short video.
But here's some pointers I'll put out first, and then some stuff she adds on later on.
I said the gas can thing's ready.
If you're down in Florida, or if you're in a storm zone anywhere, and you get into one of these gas crisis problems like the people did in Hurricane Sandy up in the Northeast, check out GasBuddy.
Pretty sure they have an app, but you know, sitting there on lines all day for gas stations that have no gas, which people are doing now, can be an issue.
I mean, they're waiting for the gas truck to arrive, but GasBuddy can help you out, vectoring you into gas stations that have gas now.
at least you can get on a line and get some.
Hey, another tip here is, gosh, should I put this, oh yeah, yeah, that's another doozy.
My writing's so bad, I can't even read it.
There's an app called Zello, like hello with a Z.
It's a pretty good app.
Again, they're not a sponsor, I don't make any money off this stuff for them,
but Zello, you can get basically a push to talk function in your phone.
It'll make your phone, if you download the app, it'll make your phone like a walkie-talkie.
Yeah, I heard of that.
That sounds great.
Yeah, people used it in Houston.
Some people like it.
There's been some pretty good reviews I saw on it.
It'll work over Wi-Fi.
I think it works over a cell signal as well.
But if you can't get a call out, the Zello can go to someone.
So if your family members have it too, you can work it like a push-to-talk walkie-talkie.
So good app, a lot of positive reviews.
Again, I have no say in the matter.
I don't own any of the company or anything, but good thing.
Good company to check out, good app to download.
Another thing, if you're having problems getting an internet signal out, so this week I've been on the phone with Gaston, or excuse me, emailing Gaston, to be more accurate, from Conservative Review about ways to get this show out.
I don't want to miss any shows, folks.
I do this for you.
I love doing it and you're entitled to content.
Everybody's got problems right now.
People in Houston that are still emailing me that are flooded out that still listen to my show.
So if you're sitting in a six foot of water flooded house, the least I could do is get the darn show out for you too.
So I've been trying to find ways to get an internet signal because I know we're going to lose power.
And even though my house has a generator, probably 20 APCs in here, batteries everywhere, If the power goes down, it's going to be tough to get a hardline internet signal.
And the way me and Joe do the show, for those of you looking for some inside baseball, is Joe and I record this separately.
You may say, well, how are you talking to Joe?
Well, I am talking to Joe right now over Skype.
Right, Joe?
Yeah, I hear you, Dan.
Joe, what's 2 plus 2?
I don't have the abacus, but I'm going to guess four.
So Joe's right.
So I'm talking to Joe now.
That's not an act.
But the recording you're hearing of Joe, and this is the magic of Joe Armacost, a very talented producer.
Thank you.
Who appreciates all your nice emails, by the way.
Joe is not, the recording you're hearing is not the Skype.
So although I'm talking to Joe back and forth, as you can tell by my little test there, you are not hearing that.
What you're hearing are two separate Recordings.
Me on Adobe Audition recording me, my audio only.
And Joe records his.
I send Joe a file, an mp3 file, and Joe marries him up perfectly so you hear us talking, but you're really hearing two separate conversations.
Is that accurately stated, Joe?
Perfect.
You're hearing two completely separate tracks married up so seamlessly that it sounds like what I'm hearing right now from Joe on Skype, even though we're not recording the Skype at all.
So they call it a double ender in podcasting.
It's pretty common.
So those of you looking into podcasting, it's a great way of doing it without having to spend a lot of extra money on superfluous equipment you don't need.
Why am I telling you any of this?
One, because you listen to the show, but secondly, Because the files are big.
Yeah.
So for me to send it to Joe, I need an internet connection.
So if you're in a storm zone and you're in some kind of a scenario where you need to get a work file out or an emergency something out, you can use your phone.
This was sent to me by Gaston Mooney as a hotspot.
Right.
If you have an iPhone.
Now, I will link, uh, I will, um, You know what, I'll tweet it out.
If you just Google now how to use my iPhone as a hotspot, they'll walk you through it.
It is super simple.
You basically go to settings, cellular, and your phone would be an internet hotspot.
Now, as my wife said, who's the master of the internet, it's slow.
But you'll get something out.
So I'm trying to figure out a way to load that mp3 file through my computer over the hotspot to get it to Joe.
By the way, Dan, we've done that before.
You didn't know it, but I've used that when we were away from our home base.
Oh, really?
Yeah, it will work.
Oh, Armacosta.
See, I should have asked you before I called Gaston.
I didn't even think of it.
But yeah, your phone will work as a hotspot.
Here's some other cool ones.
If you need to store valuables, one of the best places in your house to store it if you think your house may flood.
The dishwasher.
Hat tip, Kim Powell, Wink News.
Why?
Because the dishwasher's soaking wet all the time.
You ever notice it doesn't get on your floor?
Because the dishwasher is insulated to prevent water getting out or in for that matter.
So great tip.
Don't turn the dishwasher on, by the way.
But really, really good tip.
Another tip, baggies Ziploc baggies are great for storing water in your freezer.
Now, listen, hopefully you have bottled water, but if we get into one of those scenarios where water is really, really, really short, it's always good to have extra.
So she's like, listen, put the baggies, fill them with water, seal them up tight, obviously put them in your freezer.
Worst case scenario, you have ice for your cooler.
Worst, worst case scenario, if it melts, you have water if you need it.
Really good pointer there.
Obviously, fill up your bathtub with water.
You can use that water to flush the toilet bowl.
You're probably not going to wind up drinking it unless your bathtub is like super clean before that.
But it's always good to have extra water.
And again, worst case scenario, you can take a bath and drain the water, right?
Fill your bathtub.
Another great place to store ice if you have ice and you're running out of space, your washing machine.
Designed to handle a whole boatload of water, right?
So really good point.
And another point she brought up, which I thought was fantastic, Well, it's about if you're going to leave your house and you want to know if your food is still good, you're not going to know if your refrigerator went off or went on because you left.
So when you come back, if the power kicks back on, Joe, the stuff in your freezer may refreeze, but it may have been thawed for two or three days.
So she had a great tip.
She said, you stick a, you freeze a bottle of water, like take an old Gatorade bottle of water or a bottle, whatever it may be, right?
Freeze it first.
Drop a coin on top of what the ice inside that frozen bottle.
So it's resting on top.
You get what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Stick it in your freezer.
She said, if you come back and the coin's at the bottom, obviously the ice in there defrosted and the coin fell to the bottom.
Don't eat the food.
She said, if the coin's halfway down, It's sketchy, but you may be okay because that means it obviously defrosted a bit and then refroze again before the ice, the coin made it to the bottom.
If the coin is at the top, your power never went off and your food is fine.
So really good pointers.
And again, this is not a survival show or anything, but you know, I'm not going to mess with you folks.
I'm a little worried.
You know, I know I, I don't play a tough guy on TV.
I'm a very vulnerable human being.
I'm a sinner like anyone else.
But, It's getting a little ugly down here.
Hurricanes don't care who you are, dude.
No, they don't give a crap about your politics, your skin color, your religion, your culture, anything else.
And it's a little eerie down here.
And for those of you in Southeast and Southwest Florida, hang in with me down here.
It's eerie.
And a lot of folks down here have never been through a major hurricane, folks.
Remember, Hurricane Matthew last year only hit as a tropical storm by me.
And most of the folks down here haven't seen a hurricane at all.
I mean, I know I have probably 10 neighbors or so on my block.
Only about two or three of them have been through any kind of a substantial hurricane at all.
So it's a very eerie, hard to describe feeling.
But if you come down here, which don't right now, but you know, visit when it's over.
But you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
I got out of that jitsu class last night.
I was like, Gosh, just driving around, everything's boarded up, it's very strange, you know?
Okay, one last story I found really, really interesting, and I have to apologize in advance.
I can't for the life of me find the link, and this has never happened to me before, where I read a story then tease it the day before, and I can't, I don't know if it was Bloomberg or The Hill, So I can't even give a hat tip to the author.
But the premise of the piece I'm going to cover anyway, because it was a good one, and it was about this disconnect and the worrying signs out there between stocks and government bonds that are both going up at the same time.
Now, I get it.
A lot of you probably like, what the heck?
Who cares?
Folks, this is a big deal.
Here's what typically happens in a growing economy like we're supposed to be in right now.
Stocks go up.
Well, why do stocks go up?
Because if there's a, you know, a company out there selling computers and the economy's growing, they're usually selling more computers.
So what happens?
Their profits go up and shareholders, stockholders, people who own the company, they've bought a stock in the company, they want to take part in that.
So they buy the stock of the computer company and what does it do?
Supply and demand.
There's only a limited supply of those stocks.
It drives up the price of the stock.
Not complicated.
I mean, Joe, nothing difficult to understand about that, right?
Computer company makes money.
Shareholders make money because they own the company.
That's what stockholders are.
They're owners of the company.
More people say, hey, I want in on that.
Can I buy a stock?
Say there's only 10 stocks and 20 people want it.
A price war.
Bids up the price of the stock.
The stock market goes up.
Again, Econ 101, nothing complicated.
I only set that up because when that typically happens, the price for government bonds goes down.
Because again, simple supply and demand.
If there's a growing economy, Joe, most people are looking to take part in a free market economy and buy stocks and bonds of free market economy companies, right?
They're not really looking to buy government bonds.
Government bonds have always been kind of a harbinger of safety.
In other words, when the economy goes bad, and if I'm explaining this wrong, stop me, but when the economy starts to go sour, Joe, or there's a lot of warning signs, people start to bail out of the computer companies and the oil companies because they're afraid they're going to lose money.
And what do they do?
They go to government bonds because they know the government will pay them off, that they're safe, right?
Not complicated.
Rarely, if ever, do government bonds go up in price at the same time as the stock market.
But that's happening now.
And a lot of economists are out there going, what the hell's going on?
Now, there's a lot of theories out there.
I'm going to give you two quickly that I think are interesting.
And I've mentioned them on the show before, but they're especially related to this story I saw yesterday.
Number one, folks, this is not a knock on Trump.
I really think he's doing, with the tax cuts initiative and the regulatory push, I think he's doing the best he can right now.
This is not a knock on Trump at all.
But the economy's not that great.
And I brought this up in a show a couple weeks ago about this reserve army of the unemployed.
And one of the reasons the economy is not doing as well as we think it is right now is because wages are not going up.
Or not going up in numbers commensurate with a growing economy.
So, when Joe's... Say, Joe, you're involved with this computer company.
It's selling a ton of computers, right?
When that computer company's revenue goes up, it starts selling more computers.
To sell more computers, it has to produce more computers.
To produce more computers, it usually has to do what?
Pay its employees more.
Right.
Say, guys, listen, we need you to work overtime or whatever.
So what happens is typically you'll see wages and the competition for labor.
Let me give you even a better example.
Let's say it doesn't even say to the employees you need to make more.
Let's just say it says, you guys make the same amount, I'm going to hire 10 more people to make the same amount you're making now.
You get what I'm saying?
Because we need more computers, we're making money.
So what happens?
Competition for workers increases because the computer company needs more workers to come into its computer factory and they all start competing and wages go up.
Folks, wages aren't going up.
They're not going up at least commensurate with the expense, supposedly the growing economy.
And the reason is this reserve army of the unemployed out there.
Now, I told you in a prior show, I know why this is happening and so do a lot of other economists, certainly not a Dan Bongino proprietary theory.
The government safety net is too thick.
You have Obama phones, you have SNAP benefits, you have Section 8 housing.
The government safety hammock has become basically a mattress.
And the wages are not high enough yet, and the economy's not growing enough, where people are willing to give up say $30,000 or $40,000 a year in government combined benefits.
Medicare, Medicaid, whatever it may be.
They're not, well Medicaid's a better example, they're not willing to give that up.
To enter the workforce.
And until those government benefits start to dry up, I know it sounds harsh, people are not going to go and fill those jobs.
So there's not the competition because the computer factory is like, hey, $40,000 to build a computer.
I don't want that.
I'm going to stay.
You know what?
I'm getting $40,000 now from the government.
Until the government benefits decrease to 30, 20, 15 maybe, that guy or woman, not all of them, some of them really do want to work, but some people are going to say, Joe, I'm better off staying home.
Sure, yeah.
So that reserve army of the unemployed out there, And I didn't invent that term, by the way.
But that reserve army of the unemployed is out there keeping wages down because there's not enough of an incentive for them to get back in the workforce.
And as wages go up and incentivize them to get out into the workforce, there's enough people that they can drive down the wages of others because there's not a hot competition.
All of a sudden people start appearing and appearing and appearing and all of a sudden they don't need Joe anymore because five other people apply who were unemployed the day before that wouldn't have been unemployed in a hot economy.
Also, this reserve army of the unemployed, these people don't have a lot of expendable cash to go and spend money in the economy so consumption's a little bit lower.
So the, you know what I'm saying?
Like if you're getting $40,000 in government benefits, let's say you had a job and in a year you were making 50 or 60 because you got a raise, those benefits, that extra money's not there because people are relying on a fixed income of government benefits and it really doesn't give them a lot of expendable cash to go out there and do things that would lead to a thriving economy, which is buying stuff.
So that's opinion number one, is that the stocks and bonds are going up at the same time, and government bonds I should say, Because the economy's really not that great.
And a lot of people in the investor class kind of know it, Joe.
They may not be saying it publicly, but they know behind the scenes that the economy's just sputtering along.
And they still are buying government bonds, Joe, because they're like, let me hedge my bets.
You get what I'm saying?
Secondly, and here's another one, this is a fascinating one, which I could read all day about this kind of stuff.
And it gets addressed by this author, Greg Ip, who writes this, he wrote a book called Foolproof, which I really enjoyed.
But he addresses this a little bit in some pieces in the Wall Street Journal, if you want to look him up as well.
This idea of information technology growing, how information is the new disruptor.
And what do I mean by that?
Folks, sometimes, like prices, for example, prices aren't going up in the economy dramatically, which you would think in a hot economy would happen because there would be this, you know, there'd be this massive demand.
In other words, people are out there with money now and they're competing for a, you know, a limited bottle of Chardonnay, whatever it may be, if you're a drinker, I'm not.
But if you're competing for that bottle in a hot economy, that bottle was worth, say, I don't know, whatever, I don't buy wine, $1,000, and now another guy wants it, he goes, I'll pay $1,100!
You get what I'm saying?
Prices go up.
So you'll usually see an uptick in inflation in a hot economy.
It's not happening, folks.
Prices aren't going up, and people are starting to say, well, why?
Well, a lot of it's related to the first reason I told you, is that people don't have money, because a lot of people still aren't working, so they don't have any money to bid up the price of products.
But here's another interesting reason.
The information is the new disruptor.
What do I mean by that?
Sometimes in a hot economy, some products won't go up in price because a major disruption comes in.
And I think about things like the Henry Ford, right?
It's a perfect example.
Henry Ford figured out a way, when technology was the disruptor, figured out a way to make cars cheap enough so that middle-class Americans could buy them.
They were a completely a luxury item for the one percenters before Henry Ford and the assembly line, right?
Henry Ford comes in, develops this assembly line technology, and he figures out a way through this disruptive technology to make it accessible to middle-class Americans.
Brilliant.
All of a sudden, the prices for the products go down, even though at the time, some of it, you know, it could have been through a hot economy.
So you get it how some products will still, I mean, think about computers, flat screen TVs, even though the economy had a decent run during the, you know, the Clinton and some of the Bush era, right?
Still, a lot of the prices went down because of productivity and technology enhancements.
Where am I going with this?
A lot of folks out there are starting to say, you know, maybe technology's not the disruptor now.
Maybe what's keeping prices down is not the invention of the assembly line to make the car cheaper, but the invention of something like Amazon.
In other words, Joe, like, hmm, there's no new technology out there disrupting.
Well, there is, but that's not having the main effect.
Maybe the effect is that now people all of a sudden have information they just didn't have in the past.
The new disruptor to price signals Is information.
So what do I mean by that, Joe?
Whereas in the past, if you wanted to go buy an emergency radio, let's be honest, 20 years ago, where'd you go?
I mean, where'd you go, Joe?
Radio Shack?
Sears, Radio Shack.
Sears, Radio Shack.
I mean, Sears, you know, largely going out of business.
Radio Shack, didn't they declare bankruptcy?
I mean, you brought up two good examples without even knowing it.
I mean, these are companies that are just not even in business anymore or having struggles right now.
Well, who came along?
Well, Amazon came along.
And the information you had about the price of that emergency radio, Joe.
Joe is up in Maryland.
I know he's in Anne Arundel County.
There was a radio shack on Route 2 up there.
The only information Joe had was by driving into that radio shack and looking at the damn radio.
22 bucks.
Okay, what were you gonna do?
You spent the $22.
Well, Amazon comes along.
Which Joe and I both use, and eBay, which we've used too.
Things like that.
And they provide what?
They provide no new technology.
Well, I mean they do by Portfolio Platform, but they're not making the radio!
You get what I'm saying, Joe?
The technology was not on the production side.
The technology was on the information side.
All Amazon does is say, OK, $22 for Radio Shack?
Yeah, put it on our site.
But I got to warn you, Joey Bag of Donuts, Radio Shack with two Cs instead of a CK at the end, right?
To avoid copyright, trademark infringement.
They're selling it for $21.
Then you go, you don't care.
What do you care?
People go, okay, forget Radio Shack.
I'm going to Joe's Radio Shack with two C's and I'm going to get it for a dollar cheaper.
Information is the new disruptor.
And what made that all possible?
The internet.
Or the interweb, if you... Steve Crowder calls it over at CRTV.
The interweb made this all possible.
Information's the new disruptor.
And the theory is that that's keeping a lot of prices down, and that may have something to do with the low inflation levels and the economy not being as hot as it was in the past, because RadioShack can't now charge $22 anymore, Joe.
It has to charge $21 to compete with Joe's Radio Shack with two Cs.
You get what I'm saying?
Oh, yeah.
So, all right.
Interesting story.
I love economics.
It's my passion.
And I'd appreciate feedback on the show.
Sometimes I get wonky.
Forgive me if it's too much.
But your feedback really helps me direct the future avenue of the show.
So, danielatbongino.com.
Let me know.
Love, hate, whatever.
Reviews on each episode are always appreciated.
And thanks to everybody who picked up my new book on Amazon.
It means a lot to me.
Wish us luck, folks.
Pray for us down here.
I will be back with you tomorrow and hopefully a month Monday.
