Dave Smith and Robbie Bernstein dismantle Bernie Sanders' $16.3 trillion climate blueprint, mocking exaggerated extinction claims and criticizing the moratorium on nuclear power despite its zero-carbon benefits. They argue that taxing fossil fuels to fund 20 million government jobs merely redistributes wealth without creating new money, rendering the goal of 100% renewable energy by 2030 economically nonsensical. Ultimately, the hosts conclude that Sanders' agenda is a pretext for expanding state power through fear-mongering, ignoring global realities where China and India will continue polluting regardless of American sacrifices. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Honest Support and Mocking00:15:04
Fill her up.
You're listening to the Gash Digital Network.
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We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
Here's your host, Dave Smith.
Hello, hello.
What's going on, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
Of course, I am the most consistent motherfucker you know, Dave Smith.
And as always, I'm joined by Robbie the Fire Bernstein, king of the caulks.
I wish you wouldn't curse at the beginning of the episode.
I mean, it sets a bad tone.
We're supposed to be one of the leading Christian conservative podcasts, and just to say motherfucker right up at the front, it's going to offend some people.
You know, you're probably right, but let me ask you this: sure.
Is it consistent?
It's definitely consistent.
All right, then.
I rest my case.
I rest my case.
I am the most consistent motherfucking Christian conservative you know.
And if people can't handle that, then they're going to have to deal with that.
So I was thinking, Rob.
Yes.
For today's show, I thought we might do one of these episodes where we hone in on one topic and we talk.
Maybe toward the end, we'll throw a couple other things.
Better be an important topic.
Well, it is.
Better weren't.
It's a good episode.
It's a good one.
Okay.
And it is.
Rob's mail pattern balding.
Now, let's really deal with this.
Are you going to wear hats?
Are you going to shave it down?
What's the plan going forward?
No, I'm kidding.
I mean, that is the biggest concern of the fans.
If you look at the YouTube videos.
A lot of our YouTube comments seem to be laser focused on that issue.
But you know what, bro?
I think you look good.
I think people get too worked up about it.
I've moved on.
It's a them problem at this point.
Yeah.
Your problem is just do they have the right sandwich bread at your local bodega?
That's your problem.
Yeah.
No, that's not the topic.
But the topic that I wanted to talk about today involved our favorite political candidate, Bernie Sanders, who, of course, that's not, that was not my best Bernie Sanders impression.
But Bernie Sanders yesterday unveiled a new proposal.
And it is Bernie Sanders' Green New Deal.
It's his version of the Green New Deal, which he was a co-sponsor on, but you know, it's even greener.
This time, back with a vengeance, even greener.
And he, you know, he co-sponsored the original Green New Deal, but that was like a non-binding resolution that even when Mitch McConnell called them to vote on, they were like, it don't make us vote on this, you dick.
So it was kind of, that was all silly.
And of course, we talked about that in the past.
Didn't Sanders himself say that that was a malicious move?
Wasn't he one of those things?
When he himself said that I don't remember if malicious was the word, but he was very critical of Mitch McConnell.
He said it was nasty and vindictive.
Yeah, asking them to vote for the resolution that he co-sponsored.
A little bit strange, if you ask me, but he's put forth a new plan.
And look, Bernie Sanders is, I mean, the polls fluctuate a little bit, but he's pretty much been the second place guy for most of the presidential race.
He is, in my opinion, the guy with the most stable support.
And what I mean by that is just that I genuinely think like all of the like the Joe Biden support, even though Joe Biden is technically in first in the polls as of now.
Although, again, you know, Jeb Bush was in first place at one point.
Doesn't necessarily mean all that much.
But the truth is that Bernie Sanders has an army of committed people who aren't going anywhere else.
They call themselves Bernie or Bust.
Like we are Bernie Sanders supporters.
Joe Biden, his supporters are like, because he's the most electable or he has the most name recognition or he's the frontrunner.
If someone else emerged as the most electable, had a name, is the frontrunner, they could easily just go to that person.
Whereas Bernie Sanders, people would not just go to someone else.
So if Kamala Harris came on as the person, a lot of Biden's support could easily go over there.
You won't see a lot of Bernie Sanders support going over to Kamala Harris until the primaries are over.
And even then, maybe not that much.
We'll see.
But so when he puts this proposal forward, there's something that's kind of serious about this.
And I thought maybe this would be a good chance for us to just talk more broadly about our feelings about climate change, the Green New Deal.
I know we did an episode, we've done a couple episodes on climate change.
We did an episode about the Green New Deal when AOC first proposed it.
I'll be honest, we were pretty much just mocking her relentlessly.
I didn't take it very serious.
But maybe this time, this is something that we should take a little bit more seriously, actually jump into it and look at it.
And I thought maybe this would be a fun episode that some people could share around if there's somebody else who you want to kind of convince to maybe just be open-minded and take a look at climate change through a different lens than the one that you kind of hear pretty dominantly everywhere else.
Uninhabitable.
Well, that's right.
Well, that's actually a good place to start.
It is something that seems to me that it cannot be overstated.
Like you can exaggerate the effects of climate change to no limit.
And there doesn't seem to be a lot of people calling you out for it.
Now, Donald Trump famously or infamously said once that climate change is a hoax.
The whole thing is basically a hoax.
And this gets, he gets ridiculed for this left and right.
Like that is such a, you know, how can you just pull that out of your ass?
This is a hoax.
That's crazy.
You're reckless and insane and living in a fantasy land.
And by the way, not just, it's not just people in the media or people in politics or environmentalists or things like that.
One of the things about climate change that I've always found very interesting is how much people, like regular people, will tend to just parrot these talking points.
Although, as I'm going to get to, I'm not sure they actually believe what, you know, the most extreme voices are saying.
But so anyway, Donald Trump says this thing is a hoax.
Don't even worry about it.
That's crazy.
It gets ridiculed in the press all the time.
However, as you said, Bernie Sanders has claimed, and he once again claimed yesterday as he unveiled this plan, that climate change is going to make the world uninhabitable for his grandchildren.
He had previously said uninhabitable for our children.
So he's moved it back a generation, at least now.
He said uninhabitable for our grandchildren.
But I wonder, you know, why is there...
Just a full generation that he was off for.
I mean, if you're trying to...
Even that would seem like a pretty big deal.
But planning for the end of the world and off by a full 60, 70 years, you might want to.
It's not a tiny mistake, for sure.
Am I eating like it's ending tomorrow or in a couple weeks from now?
I got to know these things.
But look, if the world was going to be uninhabitable and you were like, okay, it's not going to be in 20 years, but it's going to be in 50 years.
You still might go, okay, well, he did get something kind of right.
So we'll give Bernie the benefit of the doubt on that one.
However, it's like the level of that statement that the world...
Now, I feel like sometimes with Bernie Sanders, he's a bit hyperbolic.
This is like Bernie Sanders likes to say quite often.
He uses the phrase starvation wages.
He goes, a bunch of employers are paying starvation wages.
Now, doesn't that kind of have a definition to it?
A starvation wages isn't just something you say of like, I feel like you should be paid more.
You know, a serious person like Bernie Sanders, who's a senator, was a mayor, is a president, a top-tier presidential candidate, you would think that starvation wages might mean that people can't afford to eat.
But of course, that's not what he means by it.
He just means like, well, you know, they can't make ends meet or something like that.
It's not that people are actually starving.
So he just kind of says starvation.
So I do wonder sometimes whether Bernie Sanders, when he says climate change is going to make the world uninhabitable for my grandchildren, actually means the literal definition of the term uninhabitable, because it would seem that uninhabitable would mean our species is going extinct.
And if that's true, that's a pretty big deal.
That's, whoa, hey, I got a kid.
I have some people who I care about.
I don't want our species to go extinct.
Not that soon.
That's something that we should definitely address, if true.
Now, just in case you're not sure whether Bernie Sanders was, you know, speaking in hyperbole or not, Elizabeth Warren made it very clear.
She said that climate change is going to lead to the extinction of all life on this planet.
It's a really good thing that, ands, or buts.
It's a good thing that Jeff Bezos is trying to figure out space travel.
So they better make sure that Amazon's profits are up and that we can get that guy more money.
Now, I'll be honest.
He's working on it.
I understand that I started this program by saying when we talked about the Green New Deal from AOC, we basically just ridiculed and mocked her, and we were going to take this a little bit more seriously.
And I'll be honest, we've been ridiculing and mocking already quite a bit.
So I'm going to try laying out the facts.
It's just hard when somebody says the world's going to end.
You know, that is an extraordinary claim.
And to me, that requires extraordinary evidence.
Elizabeth Warren, she's got to look out for her own, the Native Americans.
And, you know, they're the most reliant on the earth.
They're going to be the first to get wiped out.
So she doesn't have a choice but to address this one.
That is a good point.
She's got to be on top of it.
That is an absolutely fair point.
She has got to worry about her people first.
She is Indian first.
America's second.
America's second.
Maybe.
America will be lucky to get second place in Elizabeth Warren's country.
So look, I just wanted to point this out because particularly, I know a lot of, you know, look, I know a lot more left-wing people than I know right-wing people in my personal life.
I'm a Jew from Brooklyn.
I'm a stand-up comedian who lives in New York City.
That's just the world that I'm in.
And there is, I know a lot of people, I'm sure, if they were like left-leaning or people who are whatever.
I don't even want to put a label on you, but people who don't see this issue the way that we do.
I'm sure they'd listen to this.
And already you're kind of like, yeah, you're, you know, you're kind of mocking this stuff, but what the fuck do you know about it?
You're not a climate scientist.
This is the science.
And everybody else who doesn't agree with this is a science denier.
Okay.
Well, let me just say in response, number one, you're not a climate scientist either.
Probably.
The odds are pretty good that I got that right.
There is a chance that someone listening to this is a climate scientist.
And I apologize to you, but I'm going to venture to say that's a small percentage of the population.
And the truth is that there's a lot of bullshit out there about what the climate scientists actually say.
And people go, you know, it seems a little bit convenient that they go, well, all the scientists are in agreement.
There's complete consensus on this.
Except for the ones paid by ExxonMobil.
Well, right.
Don't forget about that.
Well, but that's exactly it.
And then if you point to any of the scientists who are like, no, they don't agree with this at all.
And by the way, it's not like one or two.
There's like tens of thousands of them.
And if you can point to any of them, they go, well, they're either junk scientists or they're on the payroll for big oil.
And then you also got the problem of the distinctions.
The distinctions in modeling is, is there climate change A and B, is climate change in any way corresponding to human activity?
Or is it just because the world goes through different temperature periods?
And the truth is that there's a lot of disagreement the more levels you add to it.
Right, the kickers.
It almost be like, and I'm not the one who came up with this.
I heard someone else made this, but I apologize.
I won't be able to credit them because I can't remember who it is.
But it's almost like if you got a group of scientists together and you said 90 something percent of them agreed that vaccines have side effects to them.
And then you took that information and you went, see, 95% of scientists agree that the MMR vaccine causes autism.
And you'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, what?
No, That's not at all what the actual scientists are saying.
This is like three steps removed from the idea that like, yes, there is a consensus that the globe is warming a little bit, but that doesn't mean at all.
And here's the truth.
You can't find any scientific consensus at all that supports anything like what Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren are saying.
That's the truth.
There is no group of reputable scientists out there.
Debating Climate Deaths00:15:25
Even take the UN guys.
Even that group of scientists, there is nobody out there who is saying that our species is going to be extinct in the next few years.
Now, some of them might say the sea level is going to rise a few inches, okay?
And some of them might say there'll be some economic hardships for it, but nobody is saying that our species is going to be extinct.
And if you have, let's say, even if you have a scientific agreement amongst some groups of climate scientists that say, hey, you know what?
This, the climate, let's say there's a group of people who do agree, and there are certainly some scientists who will say that climate change is a problem, that man-made factors are contributing to it, and that we should take some action now.
Or, you know, sea levels are going to rise.
There's going to be hardships and it's going to be more difficult if we wait till a little bit later.
Like that's the reality of the situation, right?
There's a lot of scientists who believe that.
If you have one guy saying this whole thing is a hoax and one other guy saying the species is going to be extinct in two generations, they are both way off base from what this consensus actually is.
Of course, science doesn't work on consensus, I know, but I'm just saying.
So it's interesting that only one of them seems to be hammered for this and the others are completely in the clear.
Like just imagine that Donald Trump at a debate in front of the same moderators that Elizabeth Warren said climate change is going to lead to the extinction of all life on earth.
He said it was a hoax.
He would be hit with like four follow-up questions.
They just let her go on that.
So that's one thing to pay attention to right away.
No, I was just going to, you know, like when Bernie, you were saying none of the scientists agree with Bernie.
You know, they're sitting around.
They're like, dude, we were just trying to profit off some carbon credits and control a little more of the economy.
You went way too far with this thing.
Well, even right.
And there's definitely some of that.
I mean, look, you can say that big oil contributes some money to some scientists.
I mean, I'm sure there's some truth to that.
But how about all of the money that flows in on the other side?
I mean, there's a whole bunch of like government grants and things like that that you will not get if you're writing a scientific paper about how climate change basically is completely overblown.
But if you're right on board with the narrative, they're going to love it.
And it's the same reason why so many politicians jump, like they love the monetary philosophy of Keynes, why they love the moral philosophy of Rawls, because they're justifying them getting more power.
There's a real perverse incentive there.
And climate change is this thing where like we need big state action.
So it seems like the state is a little bit biased in terms of being the ones who get to decide which side of this issue they fall on.
I think your average person as well, it's almost like a Stockholm syndrome where people like to kind of be able to control their lives.
And we don't like the idea that weather is completely chaotic or like, you know, a storm hits and people want to go, oh, this is our fault.
It's global.
It's our fault.
Because what's nice about saying, hey, it's our fault is that you can control it.
And if you do some things, you can make it better.
And it's just not true.
There's fucking freakish weather patterns.
It's happened before we were here.
It'll happen after we're gone.
Well, I think it's a lot of people.
It'll have volcanoes.
It'll have nothing to do with us.
Well, that's true.
And that's volcanoes, no one's really doing much about.
But look, let me just say this.
Even Michael Malice made this point once.
A lot of people credit it to me, but it was Michael Malis who made this point.
He said, if global warming is the threat that Bernie Sanders says it is, if it's going to make the world uninhabitable for your children and grandchildren, then why are we spending any time talking about the minimum wage?
Why are we spending any time talking about income inequality?
I mean, I'm not saying maybe not no time, but shouldn't climate be like 90% of what you're talking about at least?
I mean, if you're really saying it's this level of an existential threat, then this, you know, again, it's like if a meteor is about to hit Earth and we start arguing over top marginal tax rates, it seems like you're not really taking this meteor threat seriously.
And I'll tell you, these were some numbers, and this is from the New York Times.
So they said, and this is where I go, even though a lot of people like to say they agree with this because it's kind of like, you know, you're following and you go, well, I'm pro-science.
And if you don't agree, then you're anti-science.
Okay.
And I've been told all the climate scientists agree.
Amongst registered voters, climate change ranked 17th on a list of 29 important issues.
Where was debt?
Like 30th?
I don't know.
I don't have the whole list in front of me, but I would put debt, you know, way at the top.
I'm sure you would too.
But they put climate change 17th amongst registered voters.
So it doesn't really seem like the general public is really buying into the idea that our species is about to be extinct.
Now, amongst moderate and conservative Democrats, it was the eighth most important of 29 issues.
So a little bit more, but I'm sorry, still doesn't seem like you're really buying on some gut level.
You're not really buying that our species is going extinct or it wouldn't be eighth most important.
And here is actually the one that I found the most interesting.
Amongst liberal Democrats, it was the third most important.
So even amongst the left part of the Democrats, people aren't treating this as if it is.
I think, and this is just my guess, maybe I'm wrong about this, but it seems to me that what people like about this is that it's a tool that you can hit Republicans and people on the right over the head with and say, see, I'm pro-science.
You're not pro-science.
And so you kind of got to put it up there in important issues, but you're not making it number one.
And this, to me, and I commented on this during the last Democratic debate where, you know, climate change comes up about 30, 40 minutes into the debate, and everyone's saying, you know, we're all going to die.
And you're like, so then why do we talk about health care for a half hour first?
I mean, think about the nature of healthcare.
If we're all going to die in a few years anyway, wouldn't that be number one?
And then we'll start worrying about this healthcare program later?
This doesn't seem to add up.
Now, you could say this is just, look, we are all about to be killed from climate change.
And this is just the fact that people are being irrational or something like that, I suppose.
But the ones who are the leaders who are proposing this stuff, even they don't seem to be like, look, if I thought there was something that was going to possibly end our species within my daughter's lifetime and anything else got brought up first, I would be like, this is insane that we're not talking about the other thing.
And none of them did that.
None of them seemed to do that.
In fact, there was discussion over the Democrats having a debate on climate, like that being one of the debates.
There was talk about having a Democratic climate debate.
And the DNC voted against it.
Because it's stupid.
So they rejected a proposal to hold a presidential primary date dedicated to climate.
They voted 17 to 8 against the idea.
Some environmental activists were upset about this, but that's the truth.
So I don't know.
It would seem like if you really believe this, we should devote a debate just to that.
I don't know.
That's my take on it.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
Anyway, I guess that I'm just not.
I think I would really challenge people, if you're sold on the climate change thing, to just go look up the other side of it.
Go actually look into what even the UN reports were actually saying, because none of them say the things that like the AOCs of the world like to repeat that, you know, that were done in 10 years or whatever it is.
To lay out the argument against it, there's kind of four factors.
First one is I think the way that they model these things are somewhat just based on fictional assumptions.
You have the same problem in economics.
Sometimes they go, hey, we're going to assume blank, and then the whole thing is based off some assumption, which is just an assumption.
So like the end resort of the model was based off an assumption, which can just be wrong.
From what I understand of these climate models, is that they just kind of throw some assumptions in and then they come out and go, hey, here's what's going to go on at the end.
But it's not like the science of that is a tad overstated.
Well, here's the truth is that even by the UN scientific panel's latest report, they basically said, and I don't have the exact quote in front of me, but they basically said that we can't predict future temperatures with any degree of certainty.
There you go.
They said, they go, there's just too many factors.
The climate's too complicated.
We can't predict what we're doing.
But even though we can't predict with any certainty, here's what we think.
And by the way, we have no evidence of the fact that this is actually man-based and isn't climate-based.
And also, here's another like just crazy thing.
You can go Google this one, but this one's just crazy.
They've also monitored that there's been like a global dimming.
And there have been some scientists that said that if we didn't have global warming to counteract global dimming, we would have had a fucking ice age.
Well, that's so too.
It's not even clear that we would be better off.
Look, understand.
Look, I'm the first to admit there are far smarter people than me who are far more qualified than me who make predictions and say this is what's going to happen.
And some of them completely disagree with what I'm saying right now.
The only point I'm making is that far smart.
Well, some of them might, but far smarter people than me also thought we'd hit peak oil in the 90s.
You know, some of these experts had all types of environmental catastrophes that were coming up.
The population crisis, the idea that we were going to all run out of resources and food and all of this stuff.
There were lots of predictions made in the 60s, 70s, 80s.
None of them came true.
And the simple fact is that a lot of times these really brilliant people will lose a sense of humility.
And they'll be like, look, I'm so much smarter than all of these people that I can tell you what's going to happen in the future.
And the truth is that there's so many different variables, so many different factors that it's very hard to predict how complex systems are going to evolve in the future.
It's just very difficult.
However, I do like to look at data when you can to maybe kind of help yourself predict this.
I'm not a big data guy.
I'm not like really a strict empiricist.
I'm more of an a priori type guy.
I'm more of a guy who likes to work off first principles.
However, I did find this one chart to be quite stunning and something that we should look at.
So this is global deaths from climate and non-climate related catastrophes.
I apologize because some of you guys are listening to this as audio.
In fact, the vast majority of you guys listen to this as audio only, but I'll be able to describe this graph for you.
So the blue is climate-related deaths.
Imagine, have you ever been to a water park?
Yeah, yeah.
Now imagine the scariest ride at a water park and you're coming down it and you're like, I'm definitely going to fall out of this because we're basically just going in a cliff down.
Okay.
That is climate-related deaths.
So this is from things like floods.
Can you make it a little bigger so I can read the just the things under there?
So this is from floods, droughts, storms, wildfires, extreme temperatures.
This is from 1920 to, you know, somewhere in the posterior.
I mean, it's just collapsed, collapsed down.
So it must be technological developments.
Well, I mean, certainly, right.
And you can point out that someone could make that argument.
They could be like, well, Dave, this is just because we're more, you know, we're living in better houses.
We have better technology.
Epidemology.
That's the point.
Exactly.
So the point is kind of that if you're really worried about people dying, if the argument is that the world's going to be uninhabitable for our children and grandchildren, or that every species is going to go extinct.
That's my Elizabeth Warren.
Here, let me try a better one.
Every species go extinct.
Many moons.
So if that's really the point, it's like, I don't know.
It seems a little bit crazy.
Doesn't looking at that chart kind of make you feel like we might have lost perspective here if we're getting hysterical right now about people dying from climate-related deaths.
And to everybody who says, you know, like all these climate catastrophes are due to environmental changes.
Well, those environmental changes that you're talking about are directly related to technological advances, right?
Like if we don't have an industrial revolution, I don't think we're emitting as much carbon as we are now, right?
I think that's a safe point to make.
I think we can all agree on that.
So what all of this carbon emission, because trust me, you know, we're emitting a lot more carbon than we were in 1900.
And so all of this technology has resulted in that.
Climate deaths going from way up there to way down here.
I think that's something you got to grapple with.
And then the inverse of that is the tremendous risk, especially to poor people, if we stop using cheap fossil fuels that is the fuel to economic development, pulling people out of poverty, and what allows for the technological developments you just saw in that chart that actually are keeping us from dying because of weather-related incidents.
Emissions Rates and Poverty00:02:12
Listen, the most underreported story of our times, the most, the thing that doesn't get discussed at all, I mean, relatively speaking, that should come up all the time, is how great the globe is doing today.
You can talk about all the problems we have in America right now with Trump being president or immigration crisis or what, you know, what's look, look at the global poverty rate is better than it's ever been.
The infant mortality rate is better than it's ever been.
The standard of living across the globe is better than it's ever been.
These have all happened.
And look.
Death rate, one, like the death rate one to 100,000 and violence rates down basically.
Oh, yeah.
Huge, huge.
And these are like not, now, look, a lot of this is because we live in America and we're like, whatever.
But and so much of this has happened in China, India, in parts of Africa.
But the truth is that China industrializing, India industrializing, this has pulled probably close to 2 billion people at this point out of backbreaking poverty, like out of like $2 or less per day, you know, like extreme global poverty.
And that's really, really good.
It's also the same thing that's led to carbon emissions going up.
So I also think that's really important for people to not just cast aside.
Like the same, this is something that the left has got to grapple with because they are the ones, there's like environmentalism and really caring about poor people.
These are two things that are at the core of the identity of most leftists.
Like I really care about both these things, but you've got a problem there when they're in real conflict, when the thing that has pulled people out of the worst levels of poverty has precisely been increasing carbon emissions.
Pregnancy Complications and Tech00:02:19
And that's, that's, look, I'm on team people.
Like, that's who I care about.
I don't really care about like if like there's going to be parts of the natural order that are damaged, but people have technology to survive and thrive.
I'm okay with that.
And by the way, we're actually more on the side of science where everyone's like, hey, you don't believe the scientists?
Like, no, I got a lot of faith in science that if we keep burning this coal, we keep burning this fuel, we got cheap sources of energy.
If there is some fucking climate change, they'll figure it out.
They'll figure out how to take it.
I mean, I think I've brought this example up before on the show, but there was my wife's cousin was pregnant.
Her pregnancy overlapped my wife's pregnancy.
And she had an emergency-induced labor.
There was like major complications in her pregnancy.
So she was supposed to have her kid around the time that my daughter was born.
And they had the baby like three months early.
That's right.
Or something like that.
It was really.
She got an abortion, though.
It was.
Yeah.
Well, in New York for sure.
Yeah.
Not in Alabama.
In God's country.
But it was a really horrific situation.
They had major complications.
The baby was born.
Baby was a little, it was like a pound and a half.
An ultra.
And the baby was all, yes.
A super, super premature baby.
Baby's fine.
Baby's fine.
Got through it.
Is doing great.
It's really like an unbelievable.
And here's the thing where you just go, when me and you were born around that age, in like the 80s, the baby dies.
Now, that's the difference between technology.
You know, it's not just some abstraction of like, well, do you think technology might, you know, eliminate jobs?
Or do you think are we too reliant on our cell phones and blah, blah?
Yeah, there's lots of bad things you could say about technology.
How about your baby dying or being alive?
That is a very, and that really had an impact on me where you go, man, that's pretty incredible, man.
Thank God we have the technology we have today.
Now, I'm not relating that to carbon emissions, but the point I am making is that the technological advances in India and China, that is having real human effects on real people like that.
Like there are people who would have starved to death who are not now, who are living like decent lives.
That shit is real.
Nuclear Energy Plans00:09:16
And you can throw that out the window because of some like kind of this religion of environmentalism.
Like fuck that shit.
I'm on team babies survive.
The other thing is that like, okay, so we've just laid out, hey, there's reasons to be skeptical about climate change and that also clearly burning fossil fuels helps fuel economic development and it is huge for poor people.
They're not getting by without it.
But now, here's the craziest thing.
One of the biggest things that kind of sparked the awareness of climate change was Al Gore put out a video and he won a Nobel Peace.
This was a video.
It was a movie.
He won a Nobel Peace Prize.
He was in theater.
This was a little bit before videos.
But yeah, he put it on Netflix.
He put it on a movie film.
And he won a Nobel Peace Prize for the film while at the same time, somehow angling in politics to be the chief regulator or the chief owner of the carbon credits that he's trying to force businesses to have to buy.
So essentially, you couldn't have a more perverse incentive for trying to convince everybody there's profits in him convincing people that there's climate change.
And even so, even with that, the world fucking Nobel Peace Prize people come along and go, oh, this is the greatest contribution that anybody's made, despite the fact that if it's totally not true, he stands to profit and become one of the richest people ever.
Yeah.
So to look at the system and go, oh, they're definitely giving me the right information and nobody's looking to profit on this.
That's just stupid.
That's clearly.
What's so frustrating about that is that you'll have these people like Bernie Sanders, particularly, who we're going to talk some more about today, whose critique of the fossil fuel industry, excuse me, the fossil fuel industry is that they're driven by profit.
So the same people who are so skeptical about anyone in the market being driven by profit completely turn a blind eye to somebody using the government system to make massive profits.
We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars.
Do you remember that chapter in Stockman's book about all the green energy initiatives from Obama?
I recommend going to read it because so for all those people who go, hey, climate change is a threat.
So at the very least, it would make sense for government to start investing in green technologies because maybe they can solve some of these problems.
Maybe if the government gets ahead of this and starts doing its research and making its investments, we can solve some of these problems.
Go read that chapter.
It's fascinating.
It's about all the companies that government gave money to and how they got zero back on their investment while some private companies actually created some new technologies and became profitable.
So the idea that government can even make some of the right moves here and invest in the right technology, even that's just not true.
Yeah.
No, absolutely.
And I highly recommend that chapter as well.
I recommend everything David Stockman writes or says or blesses life.
And can we talk about nuclear power?
Well, we will.
We will get into nuclear power because it also, sure.
I mean, I guess, you know, we could talk about that now.
And that's not a bad way to transition into Bernie's plan that he put out the other day, which is like a very bold plan.
Maybe not quite as bold as some of the details of AOC's plan and some of the details that she answered in her frequently asked questions on her website and then took down and then claimed it was a dirty right-wing talking point to address any of the things that were up on her website.
Because she remembers she threw a staffer under the buzz and was like, what?
No, we're not going to give money to people who don't feel like working.
That's crazy.
But yeah, sure.
So Bernie Sanders, within his plan, and this is a bold plan.
We'll get into the details in a second, but it's just since you brought it up now.
He also, and keep in mind, these are the people who are saying that climate change is going to, you know, eradicate our species.
He puts a moratorium on nuclear energy.
Now, if you really believed that fossil fuels were this big contributor to something that was going to kill all of us, wouldn't you be like clamoring for more nuclear energy?
No.
No, we don't like that either.
And quite simply, because that has been a scare tactic, a big talking point of the left for decades and decades that nuclear energy is very dangerous.
And they're just not going to give up on that.
They're not going to say, oh, we were wrong about all that.
And here's what's particularly weird about that.
Firstly, I believe nuclear power is zero carbon.
So if you're really concerned about the risk of carbon, this is one of the few proven things that could actually work.
And then the other thing that someone has to just explain this to me.
But so I don't think we build any new nuclear power plants at all.
And while we don't build any other nuclear power plants, there's some countries that get a lot.
Like France gets a ton of energy, I believe, from its nuclear power.
But here's the crazier part.
The military uses nuclear power like in submarines.
Like they've got like, you know what I mean?
So they have the technology.
I think they even have like now really like almost the equivalent of backup generators that work off of nuclear power that they can use for military sites.
Right.
So they must have some incredible technological developments in nuclear power that our military relies on.
They've got it.
It seemingly, I guess they got something figured out when it comes to fueling things with nuclear power.
But when it comes to the general population and getting us energy that's not car, they're like, well, we're not going to use the technology.
I mean, I'm kind of talking out of my ass.
I don't have a full understanding about what the Army has, but I do know that they're using nuclear power for like submarines and their most advanced technology.
And at the same time, they've outlawed that technology for any of our consumption while it being the number one thing that could end, I guess, carbon emissions and then telling us that we have a threat of carbon ending humanity.
Yeah, it seems pretty obvious to me that if you really believed that climate change and carbon emissions were the threat that you claim they are, then you'd be like, look, I don't really like nuclear energy, maybe, but I'm not going to put a moratorium on developing nuclear energy in my energy plan.
I mean, come on, we got to get practical here.
But practical, not Bernie Sanders' strong point.
Now, Sanders, so yesterday he released his plan.
It's a $16.3 trillion blueprint as described by the New York Times.
Now, for a little bit of perspective, I think Joe Biden had planned on spending a little over a trillion dollars.
Elizabeth Warren, something like $2 trillion.
Bernie Sanders is like, motherfucker, we're spending $16.3 trillion.
It is unbelievable.
There is no limit to the amount of your money that Bernie Sanders is comfortable spending.
How much is that per person?
$50,000?
I don't know.
I'd have to do the math, which is not my strong suit.
But we did get a lot of money.
Here's the easy way to figure that out.
I think the current U.S. debt is like $19 trillion total, something like that.
No, it's like $21.
$21?
I'm in the right ballpark.
$21, $19.
Let's go $21.
You're in the right ballpark.
It's still off by an enormous amount of money, which is just the nature of our debt.
That's also just the way I'm dumb, where it's like $19, $21.
It's the same thing.
What are you talking about?
I was basically right.
I think I've heard the number as being $44,000 that everyone, that that's like everyone piece, everyone's piece of it.
So it's not that fun.
What is it?
It's probably $40,000 per person if you enact this.
Maybe.
I don't know.
I'd have to look up the numbers on that.
But I was on Kennedy last night and guy Benson was breaking down the numbers and it was just between his Medicare for all, free college, and this Green New Deal or whatever he's calling it.
You mean he's not focusing just on this one thing?
Oh, no, we also need free college.
We don't need to just save the species.
We also need them educated.
So free college, Medicare for all, and this climate change plan, the total was over $50 trillion over 10 years.
So about $5 trillion a year.
It's not like a lot more than doubling what the annual budget is.
Not the deficit.
The entire budget.
And it's not like a lot of the workforce is retiring now and has been promised things like pensions and health care.
Forget that.
They're all going to get it.
We just got to tax the top 1% to the top 1%.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
So, by now, here's the thing that really drives me crazy too: is that it'd be one thing if you were like, hey, we're all about to die, so we got to sacrifice a lot.
Now, this is, I've made this point when AOC came out with her original Green New Deal, but it's as applicable to Bernie Sanders.
Um, so it's one thing if you go, hey, we're all about to die, so we really listen, I know you got to tighten your belt.
You're gonna have to, you know, Rob that foot-long sandwich is gonna become a six-inch sandwich.
I know, I seven and a half, I like seven and a half.
I got already, I've already gotten uh, I've ensured that Rob's not on board with this plan, right?
But it'd be one thing if they said, Hey, you're gonna have to tighten your belt, like, hey, America.
I'd almost have a certain level of respect for them if they were like, Look, we need to spend all this money, and so, like, hey, you know how you have fucking like 20 different shirts?
You can deal with three shirts, you can deal with two meals a day instead of three, you can deal with this.
Hey, this is how your grandfather lived, this is what they did.
I mean, AOC said, This is our World War II, referring to climate change.
It's like, and she goes, We need an effort like that to fight it.
It's like, well, to fight World War II, we had to spend enormous amounts of money, and far more than that, we had to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of American lives, something in the neighborhood of 60 million total lives, you know, for World War II.
It's like, hey, people are going to die, but this is that important.
And that's just the people who died.
I don't even know the number of people who were like wounded or traumatized or whatever they would call it back then, whatever they would call it in 1942.
Shell shocked.
They would go like, oh, he's got a case of the facts.
Yeah, it wasn't post-traumatic stress.
Cheaper Costs and Regulations00:07:57
Yeah, no, it definitely wasn't that.
They go.
This guy came back from war, a little light in the loafers, if you know what I mean.
But, you know, okay, it'd be one thing if you're like, oh, this is going to be a fucking sacrifice.
But no, no, no, no, says Bernie Sanders.
This will, Bernie Sanders' favorite term, this will pay for itself.
It will pay for itself.
This is what drives me bonkers.
The idea that this will pay for itself.
And I really, I hope to maybe if anybody, if people do share this episode around, because I know a lot of people who listen to this show, and I get it, it's the nature of all of these types of shows nowadays.
You end up to a large degree preaching to the choir.
People who feel the way you do end up listening to this podcast, you know, and people who feel some other way listen to other shows.
It's not like a huge portion of our audience are like Rachel Maddow's viewers who just dipped in for a little bit.
This is the nature of the internet and the podcast revolution and everything.
People kind of go into their own quarters.
But that's why I was saying I hope maybe people could share this with some people who don't feel this way because I would just don't you think the idea of spending $16 trillion on something and the idea that it'll pay for itself, like that this won't cost you anything.
Dave.
Doesn't that kind of ring as like doesn't seem, that doesn't seem right.
Can you put a price tag on the feeling of doing the right thing?
Well, no.
Hugs, smiles, and just knowing that you did what needed to be done.
Is there a price tag?
But I accept that.
I accept that maybe you have to sacrifice to do the right thing, but don't fucking tell me it's not a sacrifice.
Now, Bernie Sanders says this will pay for itself in two ways.
I'm sure he worked out the details.
I mean, he loves the math and the figures.
Absolutely.
So in two ways, he said this will pay for itself.
And these are his plans.
Number one, they're going to put a tax on fossil fuels.
That always helps the economy.
Absolutely.
How could it not?
I mean, that's not going to slow economic development in any way.
So hold on, let me get this.
Will we increase environmental regulation overall?
Oh, yeah.
There's going to be drastic increases in environmental regulation.
By the way, just to put that into perspective, when Trump said he was going to roll back, you know, like the EPA, that was one of the big things that fueled the stock market going up and even led to conversation of, hey, I think there might be enough economic growth here that we can raise interest rates.
So understand that there's a heavy correlation between economic growth and reduced environmental regulation.
Oh, yeah.
And so the idea of taxing and more environmental regulation leading to some sort of a payment or growth is just, you know, that's, that's, you're in la la land.
Yes.
And of course, Bernie Sanders makes these wild claims like we will be 100% renewable energy by 2030 and complete decarbonation by 2050 through his massive spending plan.
Now he did each other in what year?
What year does the cannibalism start because you're all poor?
He left that out.
However, so Bernie Sanders' campaign estimated that roughly $3.1 trillion would be generated from, quote, making the fossil fuel industry pay for their pollution through a new but unspecified fee and also eliminating subsidies.
So what they call subsidies are really tax credits.
But anyway, so he's saying that he's going to get $3.1 trillion from a new tax on people on the fossil fuel industry.
Now, you might say, what is that really in comparison to a $16.3 trillion price tag?
But it's actually worse than that because I mean, think, like, I try, this is like the basic economic stuff that I'm actually surprised is not just more obvious to people.
I mean, I've found like maybe it's me, maybe I'm getting something wrong, but I remember when I first, and I was just kind of open at the time.
I was a left-wing guy who got convinced by the libertarian philosophy.
But when I first found Austrian economics, it was like as I started reading it, and I was almost starting with, this can't be right.
So let me read more about this so I understand how it's wrong.
And I got convinced.
I got convinced along the way.
One of the best compliments, by the way, that I ever got was fair.
And I get a lot of people who tell me that I introduced them to these ideas, but there was one guy recently who said he saw a video of mine.
I think he saw me on Rogan, and he was like, I was intrigued by what Dave was saying, and I wanted to listen to more of him to prove him wrong.
And eventually, he ended up winning me over.
And so, and there was something about that that I really appreciated that because that was my path as well.
Like, I was like, I found Ron Paul, he was talking all this anti-war stuff.
I was like, man, he is dead on about these wars.
And then he kept talking about the free market.
And I was like, well, let me hear him out on this because he's so good on the war issue, but obviously something's got to be wrong with this.
This can't be the right answer.
And then I just was eventually like, no, you know what?
I didn't find out what was wrong.
He convinced me to come over.
But anyway, it seems to me like this stuff is so obvious.
But for whatever reason, a lot of people don't see it that way.
But if you go, okay, don't worry, it's going to pay for itself because we'll generate a few trillion dollars by taxing the fossil fuel industry.
Well, what does that do to tax the fossil fuel industry?
I mean, do you think that those costs aren't going to be passed on to the consumers?
Do you think that's not generating any new money?
That's just taxing you even more money.
They might as well say they're taxing you.
Look, think about it this way, okay?
So my mother-in-law lives in New Jersey, in a little suburb in New Jersey.
And me and my wife, we live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
And we talk about every time we're there, we talk about how much cheaper everything is.
Like, it's not only that they have a house and they pay less for their mortgage than we pay rent for our apartment.
It's like you go to the grocery store and you're like, oh man, this is a dollar cheaper and this is $2 cheaper and this is cheaper and this is cheaper.
You go to the liquor store, everything's cheaper.
Whatever you do, anything you do there, it's going to be cheaper.
Whether you're buying a lamp or groceries or gasoline, like everything's cheaper.
Now that is, and we all know this because the rent's higher in New York, right?
So if the rent's higher for a grocery store, do they charge a cheaper price for their product, the same price, or a more expensive price?
I mean, just look at it.
See?
No, I mean, it's like, right?
So it's obvious that if their costs are higher, they have to raise their prices to accommodate for that.
So whether it's rent or a Bernie Sanders fee, it doesn't matter.
They're going to pass those costs on to the customer.
If they don't have those costs, they won't pass them on to the customer.
That's that.
Like, you know, you can just have this model where you go, well, they'll just be so greedy, they'll pass the costs on anywhere.
It's like, yeah, and then they'll get undercut by a competitor.
So, no, there, but if they, if, if you pass these taxes, the idea that this isn't going to cost people anything, it's like, no, this is just, this doesn't pay for anything.
This pays for zero.
Jobs, Taxes, and Rising Prices00:15:54
This is just, come on.
This is, this is going to be passed right along to you.
And it's just going to mean people paying more for their, you know, their energy needs all around the board.
It's going to cost people more to fill up a tank, a gas.
It's going to cost people more to heat their homes.
All of the things you use fossil fuels for is going to end up costing you more.
So that's nothing.
The other thing, Bernie Sanders says, and this one just really, I don't know, this is probably my favorite.
But he says that it's going to create, I believe the number was 20 million jobs.
Let me make sure.
Yes.
He says that it's going to create 20 million jobs.
And this is part of how it's going to pay for itself.
You see, because there'll be 20 million jobs created.
And therefore, the taxes from those new 20 million jobs, you got to count that.
Those are all new taxes.
Now, of course, forget the fact that none of these numbers are going to add up to the $16 trillion that this plan.
But the idea that the government can just create jobs and then those taxes will pay off what the government is spending.
I mean, this is just, I just, I challenge people, please.
Just think this through.
Just remove yourself from whatever political ideology you have and think this through like a human being.
Okay.
Now, first of all, just, and this is one of the things I loved about Austrian economists is that they just give you a lot of times.
If you read Murray Rothbard, if you listen to Bob Murphy or you listen to any like a good Austrian economist, they'll give you kind of thought experiments and ways to think about things that you go, oh yeah, that's a good, you know, it's like, so the government, the idea that the government can just create jobs, it's like, okay, yes, in some sense they can.
But then really, couldn't we just always have 0% unemployment?
Right?
I mean, the government can just give everybody a job.
Let's just sign a law tomorrow.
Everyone's got a job.
Economy fixed.
Why are we even like, you know, but then you'd go, well, you know, the Soviet Union had 0% unemployment.
Everyone had a government job and the economy collapsed.
And not only did the economy collapse, but like the economy collapsed after like multiple, you know, like famines and people starving and like really bad, like really not a good economy, right?
So the fact that the government can just give you a job, it's like, okay, but that doesn't really do anything, right?
I mean, if we just fucking, if we just drafted everybody into the army tomorrow, right?
Let's just say everyone's drafted into the military.
Now, leave aside the moral issue of the fact that you're like, oh, I have to go be a part of the military and I don't want to do that, but whatever.
Everyone's drafted into the military.
We're all in the army tomorrow.
It's like, okay, everyone's got a job.
We have full employment.
And then, you know, like a month later when we're all starving to death, we'd be like, what's happening?
We had full employment.
Why is our economy so bad?
It's like, well, nobody's making food.
Nobody's like trucking food.
There's no grocers.
Everyone's in the military.
So this is not working so well.
So the idea that you can just create these jobs and this will, but the idea that government creating jobs will lead to tax revenue that will pay for something.
It's like, oh my God.
I think about it like this, right?
Let's say you had a household, right?
Let's say you have like a household where the father works, the mother's a housewife, and there's two kids.
Maybe they're like 10 or 11, something in that age, right?
And they're sitting around the kitchen table and they're like, wow, we're really falling behind on the bills.
We're having some tough economic times.
Like we only have one job in this house.
The father has a job.
And let's say he makes $1,000 a month, just to keep the numbers easy, right?
So the father makes $1,000 a month and he's sitting there with his wife and he's like, man, we do not have, you know, this is not good.
$1,000 a month is not enough money for us to live a good economy.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to create some more jobs.
I'm going to hire both the kids to do yard work or whatever.
I'll pay them each $100 a month and I'm going to hire you to do whatever the fucking dishes or something like that.
And I'm going to pay you $200 a month.
Now we just went from having one job to having four jobs.
Hasn't our economy like taken off?
This is incredible.
And you go, you know, someone might come along and point out, well, no, you're still bringing in $1,000 a week.
You're actually just moving money around.
This isn't creating anything.
These are imaginary jobs that you just made up.
Nobody's actually gone out and started creating anything that you can sell to others that is producing value.
You're literally just, you're just playing around with your own money.
There's still only $1,000 a month coming into this house.
And then you went, no, Don't.
I have a scheme.
I'm going to pay for this program because I'm going to tax my kids and my wife on their earnings.
And then it'll pay for itself by bringing it back in.
Because now I'm taxing them, let's say, 40%.
So I'm getting 40 bucks from kid A, 40 bucks from kid B, and 80 bucks from my wife every month.
So look, I got all this new money coming in.
And wouldn't you kind of be like, yeah, none of this is all nonsense.
This is insane.
There's no more jobs.
There's no more wealth.
These taxes are completely made up.
You had to spend money in order to recoup a little bit of it in taxes.
This is bananas.
That's Bernie Sanders economics, more or less, except with a more successful household.
100%.
But the other thing that's just funny about it is: so, like, if you print $1,000, you know, and you hand it to someone and then you tax 40% and you got 40,000, you know, you get $40,000.
So if you just don't give him the job, you increased your revenue by 60%.
Oh, yeah.
So that's Bernie Sanders.
So by Bernie Sanders' concept of how the government can make money, if he just gets rid of the jobs, just print the money, he just increased his revenue by 60% to the 2008.
But that's exactly right.
You don't want jobs just for the sake of jobs.
Jobs are a means to an end.
There's going to be a lot of jobs.
You're going to have to have the guy who can operate the breadline, the person who can keep them on the breadlines.
There's going to be a lot of new jobs that are going to have to be filled.
It's my version of an old Milton Friedman quote.
But I mean, I'll change it around just for my own sake, but I am crediting Milton Friedman for the concept.
But every time you see somebody using a bulldozer, you know, understand that you could have 10 people using hammers or shovels or whatever.
You know, like you, you could create a lot more jobs if you took away the technology, but you're actually much better off to have one person utilize technology and do that job.
You don't want just more jobs.
You want it to be done as efficiently as possible, more productivity.
Like think, just think it through, right?
What makes us wealthy?
What's the difference between us and Central Africa?
And no racists who listen to the group.
I'm not going in that direction.
But what makes it a what makes it more, you know, the difference between us and any real poor country, like a poor country that has nothing.
What is it?
It's the stuff.
It's the stuff that we have.
Like we have better houses and food and medicine and electronics and just all the things you can name.
It's all the stuff.
That's what makes us wealthier, is that we have all of these things.
So it's not about having more people work to produce these things.
It's producing them as efficiently as possible.
It's like, as you said, it's the production.
That's what matters.
And the production, particularly, of things that people want, that people feel make their lives better.
That's what matters.
So the idea that you can, you know, this is probably the thing that bothers me the most about the Bernie Sanders plant.
It's like the idea that all of this, we can spend all of this money and it'll just help itself.
You know, I watched, actually, just recently, just the other day, but I watched the, because I had seen part of it, but I watched Bernie Sanders on Rogan's podcast.
And, you know, it was hard to get through.
Ew.
It was also weirdly Bernie Sanders.
Well, it's not even sleepy.
I think he just spoke in his like NPR voice.
You got to understand, Bernie is a fucking 80-year-old lefty who's still.
Lizzie's fun.
He's all ranty and angry in percentages, but that's.
Well, Joe, you have to understand that the top 1% of the 1%, you know, he's spoken this weird way the whole time.
But what I wish, you know, I don't, a lot of people give Rogan shit at times for not pushing back more on his guests.
I don't.
I don't agree with that.
I think that it's like, it's cool what he does.
One of the things that Joe does that's I think really cool is that he gives people a platform and he just kind of, he really does try to almost just drop his preconceived notions and just have a conversation.
And then if he smells something that's like, ah, that seems like bullshit, he'll push back.
But sometimes he doesn't.
Sometimes he does.
You know, it's like, I like what he does.
But I wished there was a little bit, there were a few times where I just couldn't help but think, oh man, I wish Rogan had just said this.
And here's the thing that I almost wish.
If you get in a conversation with a Bernie Sanders type, this is the old, I mean, I'm sure most people listening have heard this like line of thinking, this reducto ad absurdum before.
But if you, if somebody's saying, you know, the minimum wage should be at least 15 bucks an hour.
And it's someone like Bernie Sanders.
You can't even say to him, like, yeah, but what about somebody whose value is only $8 an hour or something like that?
Or you can't, you know, get it.
All I would like to hear Bernie Sanders respond to is the old, why not 20?
Why not 25?
But in all seriousness, why not make it $100 an hour?
Why not make the minimum wage $100 an hour?
I mean, people can't really live off 15 bucks an hour, not live a good life, not the life me and you want them to live.
So let's make it $100 an hour and that's it.
Nobody works for less than $100 an hour.
Everybody, you know, now everyone's got a good job.
What's the problem with that?
And just make Bernie Sanders acknowledge that at a certain point, there is a problem.
It's not as simple as, do you think people should make more or not?
There is a point where you'd go, well, we can't make it 100.
Well, why not?
Why can't we?
Because by the way, that's the same reason we can't make it 15.
So why can't we make it 100?
Oh, well, here's the problem.
Okay, what is that fucking problem?
And the same with like this government spending.
It's like you go to a point, you're like, what would be the limit that we couldn't spend?
What would be the limit of jobs that we couldn't create?
I mean, why not?
Why spend another $16 trillion on climate change?
Why not another $100 trillion on climate change?
Is there anything that you think this, you know, this market can't sustain?
I mean, if it's going to pay for itself and creating these government jobs are all going to pay for themselves, why not have $100 trillion that pays for itself?
Oh, because here's the reality of the situation.
And even Bernie Sanders, it's the same thing I was saying at the beginning where even these people who say climate change is going to kill the world, but it's the fourth most important issue.
Okay, so then you know it's not.
Here's the truth.
The government jobs are paid for by the taxpayers.
That's who pays the salaries of the government jobs, the taxpayers.
They pay the government workers.
So you want to add more and more government workers that doesn't pay for itself.
That just charges the taxpayers more.
What Bernie Sanders is proposing, which as Guy Benson did the math last night, is about $5 trillion, it's a little over, but $5 trillion in additional spending every year is going to, the only way it works is going to be with enormous tax increases on everybody, on everybody.
And even then, I don't know if you could do it because what he's talking about spending is it's not like Scandinavian level spending.
This is way beyond, way beyond.
This shit, this shit is, it's not even, you know, like I said this about the Green New Deal, and I'll say it about this, and I think we'll wrap up on this, but it's not even that you would destroy the country or bankrupt the country or turn us into a third world country, which all of that would happen if these plans were actually enacted.
But what you would do is start a revolution.
You'd start a civil war because people will not stand on it.
Yeah, look at France and the gas prices.
Literally, just from a little gas tax, you had the yellow jacket movement rise up.
You want to put all this shit in there?
See, listen, real quick.
Just have the same stuff as the Green New Deal with the no planes and having to take down the energy inefficiency.
Well, he says we're going to be, I mean, look, I don't know if he specifically laid that out or not, but he did say that by 2030, we'll be carbon neutral, I believe.
And then by 2050, we'll be completely carbon free.
So hold on.
No, I'm sorry.
By 2030, completely renewable energy and complete decarbonation by 2050.
So I guess theoretically, in the next, you know, 30 years, we could invent an airplane that doesn't run on carbon, but we sure as fuck don't have them now.
So more or less.
But the truth is that, as you saw, like as the point you just made about France, this is, look, let's say you just thought, morally speaking, let's say you took any of this Bernie Sanders shit and or any of this John Rawls shit, even though John Rawls contradicted himself when he talked about international, you know, international issues.
But let's say you took the logic of what he was saying on a national basis or Bernie Sanders and applied it to the world and went, oh, wait, you know what?
I completely agree with the idea that inequality is a moral issue.
And I completely agree with the idea that people who have more should be forced through the state to give to people who have less.
And therefore, I think everyone in America has to give away 95% of what they have to the third world, which, by the way, is, I think, is very consistent with that whole line of thinking to go, okay, well, you think the rich here have to help the poor here, but you know what?
The poor here are better off than the poor in fucking Central Africa and Asia and all other different parts of the world.
So I'm going to say we have to tax everyone, upper, middle, and lower class people in America and send all that money to Central Africa.
Solving Inequality Problems00:06:12
We're going to do that.
Now, you could, whether you justify that position morally or you're against the position morally, right?
Like some, I really think it would be quite easy for somebody who's a Bernie Sanders supporter to, how could you not justify that in a way?
I actually don't, I still haven't heard an argument against that that was satisfactory.
Rawls' argument was ridiculous.
Like he was like, well, different nations act in different ways.
And that's it.
It was like, okay.
So you're justifying the redistribution here, but not there.
It makes no sense.
And Tom Woods made this famous video where he was like the one question Bernie Sanders can't answer.
And it was basically this.
Why shouldn't we redistribute our money to the rest of the world?
But let's say there was somebody who you could make the argument.
I think we should.
Like a Bernie Sanders supporter.
Yes, that's consistent with our logic.
And then someone like me or you could make the opposite argument and be like, well, no, people have a right to what they've worked for.
You don't have a right to steal it from them.
And what we really should do is teach the third world how to do what we did.
We say, hey, here's the blueprint that we followed.
If you want to follow it, be our guest and then you can be wealthy too.
However, whatever your philosophical view is, in reality, you would have to realize that there will be a bloody civil war before you implement that policy, right?
Before you get everyone in America to give up 95% of what they have and go back to living a fucking lifestyle that no one in this country has lived since 1890, people are going to be like, no, I'll fucking start shooting people before that.
I know I would.
So like this will, there would be a bloody civil war, a revolution before you ever got to this point.
And that's the truth with Bernie Sanders Green New Deal, with AOC's Green New Deal, with all this climate change shit.
I think it's all based off of fear-mongering of this thing that isn't even real.
Not to say that there's no such thing.
I'm not convinced that man-made, you know, like that man-made derived carbon emissions don't have some impact on the climate.
I don't know if that's true or not.
Quite possibly it is.
But it's not, our species isn't about to go extinct.
None of these like fucking crazy predictions are accurate.
And this plan, and here's the crazy thing, and maybe this will just be the final thought, but this is the thing that's really, really the most insane, is that even if you believed the most pessimistic of all the predictions, okay?
And even if you, and now let's understand, by the way, that this is a real sacrifice.
This isn't just we'll pay for itself, right?
So even if you thought that the species is going to go extinct, let's say, let's say not even the scientific predictions, the Bernie Sanders Elizabeth Warren predictions, even if you thought those were correct and you were like, so we're going to take on this massive sacrifice in order to deal with this problem, wouldn't the next reasonable question be, so will making these sacrifices solve the problem?
Right?
Isn't that a reasonable question?
Well, the answer has got to be, by any reasonable standard, no.
No, it won't.
Because unless you think China and India and Russia are all going to have a Green New Deal, then you're fucking, then this does basically nothing.
This won't stop any of that from happening.
So you're asking people to make all of this sacrifice and it won't even achieve the end you want.
And here's the more sinister part of it, right?
Is that you go, so you're asking people to make this tremendous sacrifice and it's not even going to achieve the goal that you like, it won't stave off this thing that you're talking about.
It's still going to come because the number one polluter isn't even us.
It's fucking China.
And surprisingly, none of you guys are real hawks on China.
Like they're not, none of them are like, China's killing the world.
They don't seem to have a problem with that.
It's all we're the bad guys, you know?
But so none of that's going to happen.
And the idea that China and India, who literally just started pulling people out of poverty, the idea that they're going to go backwards, they're like, I don't think so.
Like I said on the last one, China's not about to have their green leap forward.
They already had the great leap forward.
And they're like, no, we're not doing that again.
But so if you believe that, right, once you start to realize that, you go, oh, so this wouldn't even solve the problem.
So then what's the point of even trying?
Oh, but isn't it convenient that Bernie Sanders, a lifelong socialist, a socialist way before there was even this climate change thing, Just happens to be sliding in his preferred system of government under the guise of climate change when it wouldn't even solve the problem.
So we won't solve this problem that he's alluding to, but we sure would get more of the government that Bernie Sanders has wanted for the last 40, 50 years, whatever it's been.
Something pretty sinister about that, right?
Like it's it's like if I were to start going to you like, oh my god, the world's gonna end tomorrow.
We're all gonna be dead.
And you were like, wait, what?
No, there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that.
And I go, and that's why we need to drastically shrink or eliminate the size of the state.
You're like, wait, but that's always been what you wanted.
Now you're just using this new fear tactic to get what you wanted to begin with.
Well, that seems to be what Bernie Sanders is doing.
All right.
So that's my take.
That's Rob's take on Bernie Sanders, the Green New Deal, this new climate change nonsensical proposal.
Luckily for us, Bernie Sanders doesn't really seem to be running for president.
I think he's just running for a new book deal.
All right, go listen to Rob's podcast.
Run your mouth.
Follow him on Twitter at Robbie the Fire.
Follow me on Twitter at ComicDave Smith.
Don't forget, I'll be debating Nicholas Sarwalk, the chairman of the LP, on September 10th at the SoHope Forum.
Go to thesohopeforum.org for tickets and other information.