Dave Smith analyzes the coronavirus crisis, predicting a Great Depression caused by shelter-in-place orders and criticizing government bailouts that ignore long-term economic damage. He recaps the Democratic debate, condemning Tulsi Gabbard's exclusion and Bernie Sanders' failure to adapt his Medicare for All rhetoric while demonizing pharmaceutical companies. Smith argues Joe Biden was despicably dishonest regarding regulations and predicts Sanders will soon endorse him, warning of an era defined by easy money, martial law, and expanded government intervention replacing community solidarity. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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The True Cost of Response00:11:25
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.
Hey, what's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I'm still out of the studio, still doing a little bit of social distancing out here with my in-laws.
But I hope everybody's doing okay.
Hope everybody is staying safe and getting through these wacky times that we have entered.
Still a little bit surreal feeling.
Kind of feels like we're living in a movie.
Who knows what's going to happen from here?
But for today's episode, I thought we would recap the Democratic presidential debate.
There was a debate the other night in the midst of all this craziness.
And, you know, there's still a presidential election going on.
So it still seems like something worth talking about.
I did, before we even get into the debate, there were a couple other thoughts that I had just on the whole coronavirus situation and everything that's been going down.
It really is, you know, the insanity continues.
And there's been talk of a shelter-in-place order going into effect in New York City.
And this is part of the reason why I didn't want to be in New York City because it seemed like this was a possibility of starting soon.
Now, there's conflicting reports as of right now from what I'm saying.
It seems like the mayor indicated it might happen.
Then the governor said it's not going to happen.
But it's not clear.
They were talking about it.
They were speculating that tomorrow would be the day.
So anyway, we'll see.
We'll see what happens with that.
It really is, it's very hard for me to get to grapple with what is really going on here and what the correct response would be.
You know, it seems to me like there are these two conflicting issues.
So there's the issue on one hand is containing the virus.
And the issue on the other hand, I think, which is becoming more and more apparent, is the economy.
And those two issues kind of seem to be at odds.
Now, to contain the virus, it seems like I guess the best thing to do would be to shut everything down.
And people have been doing a lot of that.
Shut everything down.
Every business, quarantine everybody, nobody leave their home, everything like that.
However, what we've been doing with this already, I mean, this is going to just be devastating to the economy.
And the economy isn't just some abstract idea.
These are real people's lives.
And there's just going to be tremendous damage that's going to be caused by all of this stuff.
I really think at this point, assuming that we keep going in the direction we're going now, I think we are going to leave all of this in either a steep, steep recession or another Great Depression in this country.
I think that's what we're headed toward right now, unfortunately.
And you just wonder, it's kind of hard, maybe impossible for anyone to completely weigh out the costs versus benefits of this situation.
But you wonder, like, is it really worth it?
Is it worth it to just destroy the economy, which will have real, you know, real effects on many people's lives?
You just wonder if it's worth that to contain this virus.
And I don't know.
I really don't know.
But there seems to be no question that that's the direction we're going.
You know, the virus is, you know, seems to be a real problem.
I know I've heard some libertarians out there who are really getting into the conspiracy stuff.
I don't buy into that.
I think this is real, and I think it's a particularly dangerous virus.
I know that the death tolls haven't been that high so far, but it seems like a lot of experts really, really think it can skyrocket very quickly.
Now, I don't know.
You know, maybe it is being overplayed.
I mean, there will be some things that I hear where it just seems hard to believe.
People are saying, like, in five days, the hospitals are going to be overwhelmed.
And you're like, but they're not at all overwhelmed right now.
But you're telling me in five days, this is all going to be this huge problem?
You know, I don't know.
It seems hard to believe.
But then again, there's enough experts out there who seem like really, really concerned with this.
So I wouldn't want to just dismiss it.
But that being said, the more you see what the government response is to all of this stuff, whew, man, this is going to be really, really costly.
Like, it's just going to be incredible.
I think it's hard for any of us to really put this into perspective right now, what the costs of the response to this are going to be.
Now, again, I'm not saying that I know for sure that it's not worth it, that the trade-off isn't worth it.
I'm just saying that these costs are going to be tremendous.
And everybody better buckle up for that because this is, you know, there's a lot of people here who are going to be hurt, hurt very bad by all of this stuff.
So there's, you know, it's funny because right away, and we talked about this on the last episode immediately, of course, right away, what does the federal government do?
Well, they have a massive handout to the banks because that's how you handle any crisis, right?
And now there's talk about, you know, a temporary UBI.
Donald Trump said he was in favor of that, cutting checks to people.
I've heard things proposed like, you know, suspend all mortgage payments and rent payments and things like that.
I just, you know, it's hard to not see the problems with all of these proposals.
And, you know, I understand the desire to want to tide people over in the short run, but I don't think a lot of these people really think through the implications of people, you know, if everybody just doesn't pay their mortgage, just doesn't pay their rent for months at a time, what effect that's going to have long term on the economy.
And it's not as simple as like, oh, okay, so all mortgage payments, and you have to do both, right?
If you just suspend all mortgage payments, well, that really only helps out people who are homeowners.
And, you know, a lot of people don't have mortgage payments, right?
So if you're going to help out the people who are most desperate in need, you'd have to suspend rent.
But you can't suspend rent and not suspend mortgages because a lot of people pay their mortgages off collecting rents.
So, okay, so you're suspending all of that.
Now, of course, the first thing is that there's a lot of people.
I know there's like these impressions out there that it's just the greedy capitalist or something like that who's the evil landlord.
But there's a lot of people who make their money off of rental properties, like that's kind of their business, and who get by.
They're not like, you know, hanging out on yachts and just partying it up.
It's like people who, you know, need rent money coming in in order to live.
So now you're robbing all of those people of their income in order to help other people.
And the problem with the mortgage stuff is that it's not just like, oh, then the banks don't get their money.
You know, like, oh, people aren't paying their mortgages.
So banks, these mortgages have been chopped up and sold around.
They permeate every inch of securities in this country.
So what you're talking about is devastating people's 401ks, things like that.
You know, there's just going to be a lot of damage.
It seems to me like the best solution is still to say like, hey, let's repeal the income tax.
Let's repeal the payroll tax or at least freeze it.
You know, like give everybody a year, a year of doing away with income tax, payroll taxes, sales taxes.
Let people keep more of their own money.
Freeze the penalties on retirement accounts so people can access those accounts.
It's funny that a lot of the people, you'll see like, I know left-wingers like to point this out a lot.
Well, you'll see those like studies where they're like, you know, most Americans don't have like $500 put away for an emergency or something like that.
And the truth is, if you look into the details a little bit closer, that doesn't account for like credit cards and things like that, which, you know, is not, I mean, that should count for something, like people have, you know, access to these funds in an emergency.
But there's still, there's a fair point to be said for that, you know, like, wow, people, that's kind of freaky that people don't have more of a nest egg.
Like, and, you know, basically what that is is that the savings rate in this country is abysmal.
Again, might have something to do with the fact that the Federal Reserve has had a policy for the last 15 years of doing everything they can to destroy the Americans' saving ability.
So that might be something you want to check out if you're interested in that subject.
But the truth is, another thing that people don't really look at is that many, many millions of Americans actually do have a nest egg.
They do have money put away.
It's just that because of the casino financial crazy rules that we live in in this country, they're put in retirement accounts where you get hit with insane taxes and fees if you take that money out before your retirement.
But I don't know.
Perhaps this would be the time to allow Americans to access their money that they've been saving and waive those taxes and fees, which are pretty much all government mandated.
So that just seems to me like that would be a reasonable proposal that isn't guaranteeing that we're going to destroy the economy.
But I got to say, this thing looks like it's going to be bad.
It's going to be really, really bad.
Tulsi Gabbard and the Economy00:02:57
And, you know, well, anyway, I'll keep giving you my thoughts on it.
And I really am in this situation interested to hear a lot of your thoughts on it as well.
So please, you know, tweet at me at Comic Dave Smith.
You know, post on Facebook.
We got our part of the problem in our circle group going there.
So let me know because I'm curious to get more feedback from other people and hear what your guys' thoughts are on this.
Okay, so moving on.
There was a presidential debate the other day.
We could get into some of what was said there.
It was one-on-one, the first one-on-one between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.
Of course, you know, they found a way to screw Tulsi Gabbard.
out of being in the debate.
She did qualify under what the rules were to be a part of this debate.
And then once she hit that qualification, they changed what the qualifications were in order to keep her out of it and keep it as a one-on-one.
Because if there's one thing the Democrats do not want, it's to make any one of these debates interesting or substantive.
So they managed to keep Tulsi Gabbard out of there, who, of course, from the beginning of this thing has been pretty much the only really interesting voice that the Democrats had.
And it is, you know, it should be noted and just, you know, like more people should make a big deal out of it.
And Bernie Sanders, you would think, should have at least said something about it.
I mean, it's really just, he's such a phony, that Bernie Sanders, man.
It's just anyway.
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Applying Old Talking Points00:09:32
I mean, look, feel however you feel about Tulsi Gabbard's positions.
And you can say like, oh, she should have dropped out and she doesn't really have a chance of winning this thing or whatever.
Okay, fine.
But look, I mean, this is just wrong to do this to somebody.
Like, you're going to say, well, this is what it takes to get into the debate.
Then she hits that number and then you're just going to change it.
And the fact that they would treat, you know, like all the Democrats' issues that they claim to care about, you're treating like a woman of color who, you know, was a member of the military who served her country.
All of these things, you see, it counts for nothing once you don't have the approved opinions.
And in this case, the approved opinions is that you have the nerve to question whether the U.S. government should go on these fucking mass murder campaigns in order to choose who the leader of all these foreign countries are.
And the fact that she says like, hey, you know, I think we should actually slow it down with those mass murder campaigns to overthrow governments that we don't like.
That's enough.
That's enough to be like, okay, well, now we're going to work against you.
We're going to do everything we can to not allow you to have a voice in this race.
We're going to, you know, you know, slander you and call you a Russian asset and all this other stuff.
And any decent person, no matter what your policy views are, should acknowledge that that's an outrage.
And so it's, it's crazy to see that more people aren't.
All right.
So the debate was a one-on-one, Bernie Sanders versus Joe Biden.
In many ways, this debate to me marked Bernie's last chance, his last hope.
I think he needed something big to come out of this.
I think this was a lot of the Sanders people, this was their hope.
They were like, well, look, Joe Biden's very unimpressive, to say the least, in these things.
He does not do a good job.
And if he has to have 50% of the time or something close to that, like he's going to have to talk a lot more than he has been talking.
And he could have a moment where he just blows this whole thing because no question about it, Bernie needs some type of game changer in order to get back in the driver's seat to have a chance at this nomination.
And in my opinion, he didn't get it.
He did not get it.
Joe Biden, you know, he's never, you're never going to say Joe Biden did a good job at one of these things, but he was, you know, on a Joe Biden curve, he did a good job.
He was adequate.
You know, he didn't, he was bad, but he didn't bury himself.
And so that's, you know, was, I think, good enough for Joe Biden.
And I think that that just blew out the last flickering glimmer of hope that Bernie Sanders could have potentially had to do anything, to have any shot at getting this nomination.
Bernie Sanders is already, if you listen to him, he's already in rollover and die mode when they start asking him, he's going to support Joe Biden.
He's going to endorse him.
He's going to do all the same shit he did for Hillary Clinton.
That's just going to happen.
It's, I think, a matter of time now before he gets out and endorses him.
So the debate opened with a big discussion about the coronavirus.
And it was, I mean, it really was something to watch that here.
You have like this situation where the whole country's scared.
Things are being shut down.
People are really suffering.
Like people all over the place are really suffering due to the response to this virus.
And that's not to mention the people who are sick and dying from it, which thankfully aren't very large numbers as of right now.
But so you're like, okay, well, we have a serious crisis in this country.
We need real leadership.
And you turn on your TV and you see Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.
I mean, that's just, there it is.
There's America in 2020 for you.
Oh, man, we need some real leadership.
We need some people who have it together.
All right, what do you have for us?
And you go like, okay, we got an 80-year-old socialist who had a heart attack this year.
And he's the guy who's better at these things.
Like, he's the more serious guy on these debate stages.
And then you have Joe Biden, who just, I mean, he really just looks sleepier and older every time you see him.
But he did, as I said before, I thought he hung on.
You know, he didn't, you know, have the huge fuck up that Sanders would have needed in order for him to have a game changer and swing momentum back in his favor.
So they start off talking about the coronavirus.
Oh, by the way, and of course, it was audienceless.
It's just in a CNN studio, like just in a TV studio instead of being in one of these big, you know, like theaters, which is strange, and no handshaking and stuff like that.
So all of it was, you know, a little bit, a little bit bizarre.
But, but they start off talking about the coronavirus.
And man, I thought, I mean, I just thought Bernie Sanders was embarrassingly bad.
Just, he was just terrible.
As was Biden, but I just want to start with Sanders first.
But so Bernie Sanders, he really, sometimes he has these moments where he really exposes himself as the one-trick pony that he is.
Like, really just, you know, like, it's like he's got these talking points.
He's got these seven talking points that he likes to stick to.
He says the same thing every time you hear him, which is, you know, fine.
I guess I'm not going to knock him just for that.
Some people could claim that's him being consistent, but he has no ability to adapt to what the different situation is.
He just tries to fit everything right back into his initial talking point.
So right away, you know, they're talking about the coronavirus and he's talking about how, you know, we need Medicare for all and healthcare should be a human right.
Now, I thought Joe Biden actually had a pretty good, a successful line on him when he just pointed out that, you know, Italy has a single payer healthcare system and their whole country is on shutdown right now.
So having a single payer healthcare system doesn't seem like it solved this problem.
I mean, at least it's not obvious on its face that that would have been, you know, that would have made the difference here.
And then Bernie Sanders, he continues to just try to fit everything back into his socialist talking points.
And he says at one point, you know, if you're a multi-millionaire, you know, you're not worried if you get the coronavirus.
You're going to be, you're going to be taken care of.
And it's like, what?
What?
I mean, this is the exact situation where that bullshit does not apply.
Like, that does not apply here.
You could be a billionaire.
If you have a weakened immune system and you're over 65 and you get the coronavirus, you're in trouble.
It's very scary.
And so it just wasn't accurate.
And he keeps going, you know, through all of these things that, you know, the problem is that if people get the coronavirus, they shouldn't, you know, they shouldn't, it shouldn't cost them anything.
That, you know, the problem is that everybody should feel free.
Like, you know, if you basically like that the uninsured, you know, won't be able to go to the hospital to get tests because it could cost them a lot of money.
It just seemed to me like he was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
Like it doesn't, look, if you actually are looking into this situation and what it means, it doesn't seem that any of this is really addressing the coronavirus outbreak.
Like first of all, it's not even clear.
In fact, I've read some people who have straight up said it's a bad idea that if you think you have the coronavirus to go to the hospital right away.
Like for example, someone like me, right?
If I'm like a 36-year-old guy who doesn't have any underlying health issues or immune system issues, if I were to show signs of the coronavirus, let's say I have symptoms, it's not clear at all.
And in fact, as I said, I've read some people who say you absolutely shouldn't go to the hospital.
Because even if you have it, you're probably what you'd want to do is self-isolate yourself, try to not spread it to anybody else because you're probably going to beat this thing.
Now, if you go to the hospital, you increase the risk that you're going to spread it.
First off, you're going out in public to get to the hospital.
Then you're going to a hospital where there are many people who are in the much higher risk category of where getting the virus could actually kill them or do permanent damage to them.
So again, it's just, it's not really clear that this makes any sense that the issue is people being insured versus uninsured in this particular case.
So he's just kind of trying to apply his same old talking points to a new situation.
And it just seemed forced to me and it didn't come off good.
Uncomfortable Truths About Hospitals00:03:56
At least that's how I took it.
And I don't think that the problem really is that there's, well, if you get the coronavirus, you're not going to have to pay for the test or you're not going to have to pay for your hospital treatment.
That doesn't seem to be the major problem right now.
The major problem is people are losing work because everything is shut down in order to contain the coronavirus, which is a very separate problem that Medicare for all ain't going to do anything to address.
So that, you know, so now Biden gets up there and his response, which Biden, by the way, even though I know I know that I said earlier that Joe Biden didn't, he didn't have a horrible performance grading on a Joe Biden curve, but the truth is that Joe Biden, it really is amazing.
The guy can't answer one question without stumbling in some way.
I mean, he's just, you know, in a situation like this, it's not exactly, I don't think it's very comforting to people who might be looking for a leader to be able to kind of handle the situation that the guy can't answer one question without stumbling.
But what he did, then his response to it, which I just find so, it's the thing that makes me the most infuriated.
Well, maybe not the most, but it's a thing that makes me infuriated about politicians and particularly, you know, in a presidential election season.
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You know, we need leaders.
Like human beings need leaders.
I would argue we don't need rulers, but we certainly need leaders.
And people naturally look toward leaders, especially in a situation where people are scared and there's some pain going around.
And Here, you know, what you have when you have this kind of governmental system is people end up looking to politicians to be the leaders.
And they're like the worst people you could look to.
Because any decent human being or decent leader, even if they were running for an election, they would say like, well, I'm here to be to be a leader of men, and I'm going to give it to you straight.
Why Politicians Fail Leaders00:15:28
I'll tell you some uncomfortable truths.
And so Joe Biden now in this situation, he promises that you will be made whole.
This is what he says over and over again.
Your rent will be covered.
Your bills will be covered.
No one's going to lose anything over this coronavirus.
What a despicably dishonest thing to say to millions of people who are looking to you for answers.
I mean, just lie to them.
Just lie right to their faces.
We're going to make you whole.
I mean, that is, it is just despicable.
First off, look, me just personally, I've lost thousands and thousands of dollars this month.
Two different gigs.
I had one corporate gig that was canceled and SkankFest got postponed.
So I mean, I've lost, who's going to make me whole?
Like getting that money back from anybody.
I mean, it's obvious that the truth of the matter, like any decent, honest person would look at the American people and say, look, this is going to cost everybody something.
We're all going to take a hit from this.
This is going to be rough and we're all going to have to tighten our belts and we're going to have to come together and try to get through this.
It would just be so much more honest and helpful for someone to just tell the truth in this type of situation.
And of course, you're not going to get that from politicians in a presidential election year.
Anyway, you know, so that was Joe Biden.
It's really, this is the thing that he wouldn't admit that.
And what Bernie Sanders won't admit, like, you know, is that it's not true.
This idea that millionaires and billionaires, I mean, they're fine no matter what.
It's just not true.
I mean, there's a lot of people who are small business owners right now who might technically be millionaires.
By the way, being a millionaire in 2020 doesn't mean you're like partying it up on a yacht somewhere.
It also depends how you define millionaire.
Like, does that mean someone who owns a business that's worth a million dollars theoretically if they sold it tomorrow?
Does it mean you have a million dollars, you know, liquid in a savings account or something like that?
Does it mean that if you took your, you know, your whole net worth, like the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of your business, the value of your 401k, the value of your, you know, like stock portfolio, all of that equals up to a million?
Because if you're saying like net worth of a million dollars or over, there's probably, you know, quite a few people who are technically worth over that who are getting by, not doing like phenomenally well.
I think this is something that's hard for people who really don't have any money to understand sometimes.
But like if you're like a 50-year-old who's got like $700,000 in a retirement account and a $300,000 house, let's say, okay, well, technically that adds up to a million dollars, but that doesn't mean you're like taking four vacations a year and just like popping champagne and living it up.
That guy could just be kind of getting by.
He just kind of barely has what he needs to maybe retire before 70.
And like, you know, is besides that, like maybe month to month with his payments and things like that.
And there's a lot of people who fall into that category.
So it's very dangerous when you just go, oh, the millionaires, you know?
But the truth is a lot of people would technically have a net worth of over a million dollars who are small business owners who are just getting destroyed.
Like they're worried about losing it all in this shutdown environment and how much this is hurting businesses right now.
So of course, though, I guess Democrats just are not allowed to ever acknowledge their pain or suffering or anything like that.
So, yeah, so anyway, it was just a whole lot of them trying to force their, you know, narrative on the situation.
And then, of course, one question was asked of Joe Biden, point blank, has regulations and red tape at all hampered the response to the coronavirus to which he simply said no.
And that's what you're dealing with here, the level of liars, like the level that you will look right into a camera and just bullshit.
And even old senile Joe Biden knows better than that.
He knows that there's, he knows for a fact that there's been, I mean, there was recently a New York Times article that really covered this in detail, but this has been, it's been a disaster.
The overregulation, the stupid regulations, how hard it is to move, how hard it is for federal government bureaucracies to adjust to a situation like this.
And like a good chunk, probably 70% of the federal government's response has just been cutting red tape so that hospitals and doctors and insurance companies and all of this can actually try to figure something out.
Then, of course, Bernie Sanders goes into demonizing the pharmaceutical companies, which is just so insane right now.
So insane that Bernie Sanders goes off.
I think I mentioned this briefly, his tweet on the last podcast, but he doubled down on it in the debate.
He already starts demonizing pharmaceutical companies.
Now, pharmaceutical companies have nothing to do with this problem.
Now, I'm not a big fan of them.
I think there's way too much cronyism in the pharmaceutical market and all that stuff.
Sure.
But to blame them, first, there is no cure.
There is no vaccine for the coronavirus as of now.
And we're all really hoping that they develop one.
So right away, you're going to start demonizing the people who might be able to do it.
And then this economic ignoramus just says this thing where he's like, you know, he doubles down on the tweet where he's like, this is not the time for profiteering.
You shouldn't make one nickel if you come up with the cure and you should distribute it to everybody.
Okay.
So great idea, Bernie.
Let's just remove all of the incentives for the people who could help this situation to maybe help it.
That right there is like the democratic socialist mindset.
I guess I can kind of understand where that might sound appealing to like a 17-year-old.
But how adults actually look at that?
I mean, what little understanding of economics you must have to have to look at that and go, yeah, that's true, that they should have to invest all of this money, all of these resources into something where they can't profit from it.
That's really going to incentivize somebody to figure this out.
They have to then probably open themselves up to lawsuits.
They have to worry about the distribution of all of this stuff.
They have to go through all of that and just know there'll be no reward for doing that because that's how human beings work.
That's really what's going to motivate a company to pursue trying to cure this.
No, I mean, the much more reasonable response that understands human nature and how an economy works is like, hey, pharmaceutical companies, if any of you can solve this problem, you're going to get filthy fucking rich off of it.
So go solve this problem.
Go solve it now.
You solve this problem now.
You will have the gratitude of the entire nation.
You're going to profit immensely from it.
Now you've really incentivized people to go solve the problem.
Now, I don't know if it's going to be that easy to do it, but that would be your best bet.
That's what you want to shoot for.
Anyway, after that, the debate just kind of, I don't know, it just kind of went on and on with just nothing very interesting was really said.
At one point, you know, they at least talked about the Federal Reserve, although no one was really critical of it.
Bernie Sanders was somewhat critical, but not really in any kind of meaningful way.
I did think it was interesting at one point that he got Joe Biden defending the banker bailout of 2008 and how, well, it was absolutely necessary or it would have brought down the economy.
And really, Bernie Sanders was just ill-equipped to present an argument why that is not, in fact, the case.
And it would have been nice if you could have had someone up there who could have really pushed back on that and explained to the American people how, in fact, that was not at all necessary to bail out the banks.
And, you know, it's hard for me to not have my libertarian fantasies of like David Stockman up there, someone like that, to just really explain, you know, why this was all just such a crock.
The idea that we needed to bail out the big banks in order to help out the little guy.
Like the best thing we could do for you is just make sure that Jamie Dimon doesn't lose anything.
And we did that just because we love average Joe Sixpack so much.
That's why we had to bail out these big banks.
I mean, if you just think it through on its face, wouldn't you think, and it's unbelievable because I know people, like I know, like good people and adults who just kind of take that at face value.
Like, yep, well, they had to do that, had to bail out the banks.
But if you just think about it on its face, right?
If you were to say, like, okay, well, you know, whatever, like the last four presidents have all had treasury secretaries who worked for, you know, Goldman Sachs or one of the big, you know, investment banks.
They all come, you know, go to the Federal Reserve, Goldman Sachs, then they come into the Treasury Department.
And in this crisis, the Treasury Department decided they have to bail out all of their friends.
That's the only way to save Joe Six Pack.
But wouldn't you at least think to yourself, man, you know, that really, I'm going to need to hear a really good explanation for why that's what has to be done here.
Oh, and by the way, they're all going to be allowed to keep their bonuses and they're all going to still live extravagantly and all of that.
Like, what?
Doesn't that at least smell a little bit fishy?
But it's really, it's unbelievable and kind of disappointing how many people are willing to just kind of accept that.
Like, yeah, well, this is what we're being told.
So obviously, you know, if the banks go under, everything goes under.
It's anyway, that's really a shame.
I don't know.
I don't really know what else to say.
There wasn't too many more, you know, interesting moments.
Joe Biden promised that he would pick a woman as his vice presidential candidate.
Isn't it just, you know, I don't know.
It's like we're living in serious times here.
Like we might be looking at a dangerous outbreak of a virus.
We might be looking at another Great Depression.
Like these are real possibilities right now.
And in the midst of this, what an unserious, you know, group of leaders we have all around.
Just what an unserious group.
That here's your thing.
Well, I promise I'll nominate a woman as my vice president.
Doesn't that make me such a great guy?
So essentially what Joe Biden is saying is if there was a more qualified man, he won't pick him.
He'll pick a woman instead.
That's the promise that he made.
Bernie Sanders stopped short of promising that, but he said we're leaning in that direction or some stupid shit like that.
But it's just, you know, it's really fucking, I don't know.
It's depressing, and not that politicians are any better in other countries, but there has been something about this whole thing.
Moving away from the debate, I guess, just a bigger point.
There has been something just kind of disappointing about the whole, like, I don't know if this exposes something about the American healthcare system.
I'm certainly not a fan of the American healthcare system.
But to me, it does seem like it exposes something about American culture, which really isn't great.
And, you know, you see like these videos of people on Italy, and they're kind of singing from their balconies, singing opera, and people, you know, at least seem to be kind of like, okay, well, this is bad, but we're going to make the best of it and come together.
And you'd want to see something like that in America.
And it's really disheartening to see, you know, women fighting over toilet paper at a supermarket.
Now, I understand that doesn't, you know, demonstrate the entire country, but wouldn't you think maybe like this would be the time where people would be like lending somebody a roll of toilet paper or something like that?
Not, you know, this kind of scrappy, like, I don't know, just consumerist selfishness, you know, that I'm sure some would blame on capitalism inaccurately.
But anyway, so that was been disappointing.
So the presidential debate to me, that was my take more or less, was that I think this was a knockout blow for Bernie Sanders.
I think he needed, or maybe not a knockout blow for Bernie Sanders, but he needed a knockout and didn't get it.
And he's running out of time now.
And I think he ran out of time.
And my expectation is that very soon you're going to see Bernie Sanders end his presidential campaign, endorse Joe Biden and start campaigning for him.
And, you know, Joe Biden, as goofy and crazy as he is, he just might be the next president of the United States of America.
I think that, you know, I've been saying all along, I think that Donald Trump, you know, had this locked up.
But I would always say, barring some huge event or barring a recession, which will be a game changer.
And I think that game changer is here.
This is going to, I just don't see how we're going to come out of this, not in a steep, steep recession.
And you're going to see now, you know, this is going to be, if we weren't already in it, we are going now to enter into, I believe, a different era in American politics.
This is going to change things one way or the other.
And this is why I think that people who are like downplaying the whole situation are getting it wrong.
Now, maybe even the virus isn't going to be that big of a problem.
God, I hope they're right about that.
And I don't know.
That I wouldn't even be against downplaying.
But what you have now is we are going to enter the time of unbelievable easy money.
I mean, if you thought 2008 was something, there's going to be an unbelievable amount of money injected into the system.
You're going to see bailouts all over the place.
Quite possibly, you are going to see universal basic income come in.
You're going to see martial law in different places in the country.
You're going to see all types of government, like crazy government intervention that we never, that we never saw even after 9-11, even after the financial crisis.
I think this stuff is all on its way.
And I am very concerned about what this country is going to look like after this whole thing shakes out.
I mean, people are really just, this is almost the perfect situation to get people to just accept a, you know, huge bailouts, martial law cracking down on all sorts of individual liberties and a drastic expansion of the welfare state.
Government Overreach Sticks Around00:00:40
And if you know anything about government overreach, there's a crisis, the government overreaches, and then the crisis goes away, but the government overreach doesn't get rolled back at the same rate.
Like that stuff tends to stick around.
And that to me is like, it's scary to think about, but I think this is the world we're living in now.
So unfortunately, I think that's the reality.
All right, listen, I had a few technical glitches through this episode.
I'm going to try to fix those up and see what's going on.
But I hope this gets out in decent shape, and I will record some more later on today or early tomorrow morning.