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Can someone buying a pair of shoes in Peru trigger a depression in Poland?
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And the answer is yes.
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Because if there's a tipping point, if if I And that's exactly what happened in Jamestown and and Plymouth, is that people started dying.
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Yeah, we we want people to be adaptable, to check, to be able to confront new situations and thrive in them.
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And they were eating shoe leather, uh rats, digging up corpses in some cases.
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Hey everyone, welcome back to the show.
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My name is Vadim, and today we have with us again Dr.
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Doc Cardell.
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He is an economist and he wrote the book Why Socialism Struggles.
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A few weeks ago we talked about how he got his PhD degree about socialism and why he would like to stop it.
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So today we go deeper into his book.
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Dr.
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Cardell, welcome back to the show.
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Happy to be here, Vadim.
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Yeah, so I started reading your book and have more new questions.
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I would like to go and uh uh talk about it with uh with you.
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Let's start uh with the evidentiary versus uh philosophical economy.
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Sure.
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So in your book you you talk about evidentiary economics.
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Can you explain uh what it means in uh in simple words and why do so many people prefer like philosophical economists or those utopian dreams?
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Yeah.
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Um too many people start with an idea of what they want and then try and form everything to fit their idea.
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And so, like um in my latest series of articles, I'm looking at the DSA's platform, the Democratic Socialists of America, and it looks like a wit wish list handed to a genie.
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It it it bear they don't say anything about how they could make this happen, anything about what the evidence says about past efforts to try this.
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Evidentiary economics starts with the idea of we aren't going to start with a belief, we're gonna start just by looking at evidence to see what works.
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And I think that that's the most reasonable way to approach almost anything.
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I mean, you always want to start with what you know is true and what will actually work, and then you have to change your ideas to match reality.
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I mean, we can say we'd like to have a world where there's unicorns jumping around out there, but there aren't any.
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And I have to adapt my thinking to the fact that there are unicorns jumping around out there.
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And so, yeah, it's it's simply a matter of looking at the evidence first, not looking at your ideology first.
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And that's often the problem.
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I mean, even for a lot of economists, they start out with an ideology, build a whole economic system in their mind about how to you know put this all together, but it's all based is it based on air.
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There's no evidence to support it.
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Yeah, true.
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Yeah, and I also was surprised that uh all this idea with collectivism and uh socialism was uh uh implemented in uh those first American colonies, right?
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Yes, it's exactly right.
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Yeah, that's it was six sixteen hundreds or something, like you wrote that uh early American colonies, right?
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They they tried collectivism and they tried uh it was Jamestown and uh Plymouth.
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Yes, and uh the the Mayflower colony, yeah.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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So what happened when they tried uh uh when they uh when they tried uh uh collectivism and shared everything in common?
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Like how did private and eventually how did private property save them from starving?
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Yeah, it well it was a it turned out it was a disaster.
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Um it immediately spawned resentments and jealousies because the the the young men particularly were working far harder than anyone else, and the the the wives of many of the men were essentially having to cook and so on for other people, and so their husbands got resentful.
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Um and Bradford in his journal, one of the governors, said that it it suited the drones just fine.
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That is, the people that were perfectly willing to sit around and do nothing uh really liked it because everybody else was doing the work and they were getting an equal share of the food and everything else.
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And that's one of the first things that always happens with socialism or any kind of collectivist enterprise is that it removes incentive.
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People learn really quickly that there's no reason why they should work because they don't get anything extra for it.
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They don't get anything for it, particularly, they just get what everybody else gets.
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And and in fact, when I was a kid, I guess I was probably at 12 or so, um I remember a woman, I don't remember who it was.
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It was a teacher maybe or a neighbor, I honestly don't remember.
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But she
Load full transcript
was telling me how wonderful communism was, and I listened to her for 10 or 15 minutes, and I said, Well, that'll never work.
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And she said, What do you mean that'll never work?
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And I said, Well, you're expecting people to behave like saints, and they they won't do that.
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They aren't gonna work hard and do everything that they the right way, and then let everybody else take the benefit for it.
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It just every organism in in the world, every organism, not just people, yeah, has to pursue its self-interest in order to survive.
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If you don't, if you don't pursue your self-interest, uh you'll die.
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And that's exactly what happened in Jamestown and and Plymouth, is that people started dying.
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And they were eating shoe leather, uh, rats, digging up corpses in some cases.
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Um yeah, I mean, it got really, really bad uh until the governor said, okay, we're gonna stop this, we're gonna give everybody their own plot of land, and you just do it.
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And that turned everything around.
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Once there was private property, the people that worked hardest got the most crops, the people that would didn't want to work very hard got the least uh in the way of food and such.
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And so things eventually corrected themselves, and the colonies both survived.
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But it was a very close thing.
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Another month of that, and the the they probably would have been wiped out.
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Wow, that's crazy, yeah.
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Yeah, so human nature is uh always wins, right?
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Always That's right.
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And that's what we mean by evidence.
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I mean, the the people that uh promote socialism or communism or however we want to phrase it, um it's like John Lennon's song, Imagine.
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You know, imagine there's no heaven, imagine there's no borders, imagine there's no wars, and you can imagine all that stuff all you want to, and that's fine.
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But he titled the song correctly.
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It's imaginary.
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And you can't use imaginary stuff to build an economy because you have to acknowledge that people are people and they're gonna keep doing what they do.
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Um, you know, like another one of the things in the Democratic Socialist America's platform is to do away with the police.
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You know, I don't know what world these people have been living in.
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They believe that if there aren't any police, everyone will suddenly be good.
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We have, you know, 15,000 years of recorded history that says the exact opposite is the truth, is the fact.
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Yeah, there will always be people who will exploit other people at any cost.
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And how they can just ignore 15,000 years of history and say, well, if we if we do it differently this time, if we're just nice to these people, everything will work out okay.
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And that's the the same thing is true of their foreign policy.
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They say we're gonna get rid of the military.
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Yep.
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If we were with the military, we wouldn't have a country in six months.
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Because yeah, there are bad people out there, just bad governments out there, just like there are bad people out there.
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And the only thing that keeps them in line is the threat of force.
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And yes, do I wish the world weren't that way?
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Of course I do, but it is that way.
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And my wishing it to be some other way isn't going to change that.
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Um, I'm I was small for my age when I was growing up and had a problem early on with bullies.
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And I learned real quick what the answer was.
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I took karate lessons, and after six months of that, people didn't bother me anymore.
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All I had to do was punch one or two, and the word got around.
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Don't mess with him, he can hurt you.
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And so, again, is that the is that the nice way things we'd like what we would like things to be?
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No, of course not.
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But it is what it is, and we've got to deal with the evidence.
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Yeah, interesting.
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I don't know where where people get these ideas is either childish or incompetence, or I don't know how to call it, because and many people support it, that's even more scary.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Doctor, let's uh talk a little bit about um why uh predicting uh economic predicting fails.
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So you studied 30 years of Federal Reserve data, and you found they are right only for 40, 46%?
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Yeah, 46%.
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46% of the time.
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Yeah, of the time.
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Uh why is it impossible to predict an economy?
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And also, can you explain uh chaos bubbles and black swans?
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Sure.
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This question, yeah.
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Um well, there's there's three main reasons.
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One is that it's a chaotic system.
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Uh-huh.
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Economics, by its nature, is a chaotic system.
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What that means, most people don't really have a good understanding of chaotic systems, but what makes a chaotic system chaotic is that in a non-chaotic system, you can look at independent variables anything.
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Time, money, pick something, and when you put it on a graph, it will lead to only one conclusion.
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In a chaotic system, the same event, the same time, the same amount of money could lead to 40 or 50 different conclusions.
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And so picking one of those becomes impossible.
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And a guy named Lorenz, uh in 1972, was able to prove that the weather was a chaotic system, and that we would never be able to predict it more than a couple of weeks out.
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No amount of any any improvement in measuring or anything else could ever do it.
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And the reason that's true is because every system, chaotic systems, have tipping points, places where the tiniest little thing can push things one way or the other.
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And his famous quote was Can a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil precipitate a tornado in Texas?
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And the answer is yes.
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Because it's it sounds crazy.
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You say, well, how can a butterfly make that big a difference?
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And the question the thing is, is there's a tipping point.
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There's there becomes a point when will there be a hurricane or will there not be a hurricane or a tornado or whatever?
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And all it takes is one more molecule going one direction or another, one more slight breath of air going one way or another for the system to fall hurricane or no hurricane.
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And that's that's what the butterfly's wings could do.
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And exactly the same thing is true in the economy.
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I could make a similar statement and say, can someone buying a pair of shoes in Peru trigger a depression in Poland?
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And the answer is yes.
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Because if there's a tipping point, if if a if Poland's economy at some point in time is such that just one tiny little push could turn it one way or the other, yes, someone buying that pair of shoes could do that.
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And so in any chaotic system, prediction bec becomes basically impossible because there are too many tiny, tiny inputs that can change everything overnight.
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And then you mentioned two other things that can cause problems with that, and that are first of all, asset bubbles.
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Asset bubbles are things like the 2007 housing crisis in the US.
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Um people started buying houses in what are what's called flipping them.
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Uh and and pretty soon the system got out of hand.
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Nobody predicted it, but we had a huge crash in in the economy.
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And it took four or five years to get over it.
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And any kind of an asset bubble can do that.
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We did this saw the same thing with tech stocks in the uh year 2000.
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Um and the first one was in Holland in the 1400s, the tulip bubble.
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People were buying tulips and flipping them and created an asset bubble where the price went up and up and up and then crashed.
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Boom.
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And so uh that's another thing that's you can't predict, and it can throw your your predictions way off.
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And finally, there's a thing economists refer to as black swans.
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These are events that are so rare that people don't really know they even exist.
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In fact, they're named after the idea that in Europe people always thought black swans were impossible.
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There it was it was like everybody knew that.
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There was no such thing as a black swan until somebody found one.
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Yeah.
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And then suddenly everything had to be rewritten.
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And black swans exist in the economy as well.
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Uh the pandemic in uh five or six years ago uh is an example of that.
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Nobody predicted that, but the economic consequences were dire.
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And and so those are three things that make it absolutely impossible for anybody to predict where the economy is gonna go.
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Now you might say, well, who cares about that?
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Well, the problem is that in socialism or communism or fascism, collectivism, all of those things are based on the idea that someone can plan the economy.
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And so if I can't predict, if I can't know what's happening, how can I possibly plan?
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Right.
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And so if if they were to start a socialist government here in the U.S.
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and come to me and say, okay, Dr.
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Doug, uh we're we're gonna hire you to plan the economy.
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We want you to tell us how many cell phones to make, how many cars to make, what kinds of cars to make.
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Tell us everything we need to buy, build, make, and then we'll go do it.
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Well, the first problem is that many of those things have very, very long lead times.
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That is, it might take five years to gear up to make a new kind of a car.
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And that was why the Russians and the Chinese had five-year plans, because they understood that your plans have to be five years out.
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And some things you can do a little faster than that, maybe a year or so out.
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Uh-huh.
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But here's the problem, and here's here's how you can easily picture a chaotic system.
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In order for me to plan, I have to know what nine billion people are planning to do.
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Yeah.
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And the reality is, I don't know what my wife is planning to buy tomorrow.
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That's right.
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Yeah.
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I don't know what I may have to buy next week.
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How can I possibly predict what nine billion people are going to want?
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And in fact, we see it happen all the time in a capitalist economy.
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Companies go out of business because they predicted wrong.
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The difference is, is when a government does it, they're betting the entire economy.
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In capitalism, the upside is if one company guesses wrong, predicts wrong, and they go out of business, all the other companies are still functioning.
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And so the economy itself doesn't crash, that one company crashes.
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And another company tries, another company tries, and about a third of the new companies go out of business fairly soon, a couple, three years.
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And so why do we want the government making those same kind of bets with our money and doing it on such a huge scale that one crash and the whole economy goes?
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It doesn't make any sense.
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So that that's how um a free market organizes itself.
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That's why it organizes better than central planner, right?
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Yes, that's exactly right.
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Um you could sort of think of it like this if if you're driving an aircraft carrier at 30 knots and you want to turn left, that left turn is going to take two, three miles before you can actually execute that left turn.
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Because you've got this giant aircraft carrier with huge momentum that is very, very hard to steer.
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Now imagine that same mass, but built out of speedboats, and they're cruising along at 30 knots, they can turn on a dime.
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That's the difference between a government economy and a free market economy.
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All those little companies can react far more quickly than one giant government entity.
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And they do.
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Some of them don't make it, some of them go out of business, but many of them adapt and adapt really, really quickly.
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Um, and you see it happening every day.
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How many times have you gone to buy something and found out that product was no longer available?
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How many times have you gone to buy something and found out there's a much better product now that just came out three days ago?
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And I'm actually I'm a musician, and I actually spent a lot of time today working with a new music program that just came out, and I found it's far better than the one I've been using for decades.
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And so I'm gonna switch over to that.
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And um, and so yeah, adapt being able to adapt to life is a critically, critically important thing.
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And it's it's it's true for individuals as well.
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Um, a lot of the people that are out there struggling, and I know there are people out there struggling, and I it that's sad.
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I hate to see it, but a lot of the reason is is they have they have they're not adaptable.
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They've they've made fixed plans, and as things in life change, they are resistant to making the changes necessary to adapt their lives to a changing environment.
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Um and we see that all the time.
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I mean, we hear a lot of talk about AI right now, and AI is definitely definitely gonna have to require that people make some adaptations.
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Now, I think in the long run, it's probably gonna be fine.
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And the people that adapt the quickest will do the best.
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The people that are the slowest to adapt will be the most hurt by it, and so one of the things we need to do when we educate people is to try and help them become very, very adaptable and not um set their lives on a path that is unchangeable.
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Now, obviously, you have bought into that.
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You're doing a job right now as we're talking that didn't exist 10 years ago.
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Oh, yeah.
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And so there was no such thing as having a job as a podcast host 10 years ago.
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There weren't any podcasts.
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And now there's thousands of them.
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And um, and so you have shown that you can you you can
succeed by adapting to a changing world.
00:22:13.440 --> 00:22:20.880
And you know, I don't know what you came out of before this, but but obviously you've made changes, and that's what people have to.
00:22:21.119 --> 00:22:22.559
We have to train people to do that.
00:22:22.640 --> 00:22:29.119
We have to teach, educate them to see that the world is a dynamic place, it's changing constantly.
00:22:29.359 --> 00:22:36.880
And every organism, again, we're not just talking about people, every organism has to adapt to survive.
00:22:37.039 --> 00:22:39.119
That's what killed the dinosaurs.
00:22:39.920 --> 00:22:44.319
They were too big and slow to be able to change when the climate changed.
00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:55.279
And so the the kings of the world for 165 million years died off because they couldn't adapt.
00:22:56.319 --> 00:23:17.839
The other thing that troubles me about education uh with helping people do better in the world is the the the secret to success and what capitalism really wants people to do is a really simple thing, but most people don't get it.
00:23:18.960 --> 00:23:24.400
People start by thinking they should work for a living, and that's not true.
00:23:24.720 --> 00:23:27.599
They should create value for a living.
00:23:27.839 --> 00:23:28.319
Yep.
00:23:29.119 --> 00:23:38.160
Because, yeah, I mean, so the way I would like to teach people is first of all, find out your talents.
00:23:38.559 --> 00:23:41.519
Find out what you're really, really good at.
00:23:41.839 --> 00:23:44.799
And in in schools, we do a very poor job of that.
00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:47.039
We don't help people find what they're good at.
00:23:47.200 --> 00:23:51.599
In fact, we pass people along when we should be failing you in certain things.
00:23:51.759 --> 00:23:53.519
Failure is a good thing.
00:23:53.759 --> 00:23:56.960
Failure is a message that's telling you change direction.
00:23:57.680 --> 00:24:08.640
And in fact, most guided missiles uh you know that are going to shoot down an incoming missile, do that by a constant state of failure.
00:24:09.119 --> 00:24:13.920
They move along in one direction until they see that they're going the wrong direction.
00:24:14.079 --> 00:24:20.960
Then they course correct, and then they end up going wrong again because they go too far the other way.
00:24:21.039 --> 00:24:22.240
So they course correct.
00:24:22.319 --> 00:24:26.480
And so they're making this zigzaggy sort of pattern toward the target.
00:24:27.039 --> 00:24:31.359
That's the way life actually works for all organisms again.
00:24:31.599 --> 00:24:34.960
You start out doing something and you're gonna get off course.
00:24:35.200 --> 00:24:37.039
We call that failure.
00:24:37.359 --> 00:24:42.799
It's not, I wouldn't call it failure, it's it's an opportunity to learn.
00:24:43.119 --> 00:24:49.359
And if you show me somebody who's never failed, then I'll show you somebody who's never accomplished anything.
00:24:49.759 --> 00:24:58.960
Because the chances of you going through life, never having the course correct, are abysmally low.
00:24:59.440 --> 00:25:07.440
So, what we want people to do is find out their talents, find out what they're really good at, and then to find their bliss.
00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:18.240
Find out what they really love doing, and then take their talent and their bliss and put them together to create value for other people.
00:25:18.720 --> 00:25:24.960
That's the whole secret to success, and that's what capitalism wants for us.
00:25:25.359 --> 00:25:28.319
And in fact, you and I are doing that right now.
00:25:28.880 --> 00:25:35.039
When I got up this morning, I didn't go, oh, I've got to go to work this afternoon, I've got to go do this podcast.
00:25:35.279 --> 00:25:36.960
And I'll bet you didn't do that either.
00:25:37.039 --> 00:25:38.319
I got up, I was excited.
00:25:38.640 --> 00:25:46.799
All day I've been looking forward to coming on this podcast today because I knew that you and I were going to create value for our listeners.
00:25:47.279 --> 00:25:50.319
And that's what that's what this is all about.
00:25:50.559 --> 00:25:59.599
That's what capitalism wants us to do is to go out there and create value for others, help everybody succeed by creating value for them.
00:25:59.920 --> 00:26:05.279
And you know, some I some some folks I know actually call it blessing other people.
00:26:05.440 --> 00:26:07.920
And I can I can get behind that too.
00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:12.079
The idea here is what we're trying to do is help others.
00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:23.920
And people get upset about the ultra-wealthy, but man, most of those people got ultra wealthy by creating value for other people.
00:26:24.559 --> 00:26:33.599
Um, I'm on a PC right now, I don't know what you're on, and I live out in the middle of nowhere, and I'm on a satellite.
00:26:33.839 --> 00:26:39.200
And so I couldn't be talking to you right now if it weren't for Bill Gates and Elon Musk.
00:26:40.400 --> 00:26:48.559
So why should why in the world should I be upset with them for making money by making my life better?
00:26:49.039 --> 00:26:51.279
It's just fuzzy thinking.
00:26:51.440 --> 00:26:52.400
Yep, yep, yeah.
00:26:53.039 --> 00:27:01.920
And it turns out the 10 richest people in the world right now are all Americans, and every single one of them got rich by creating value for others.
00:27:02.079 --> 00:27:11.200
None of them were born rich, none of them got rich by hook or by crook, every single one of them got rich by helping others.
00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:15.759
And so Jeff Bezos is another good example, creator of Amazon.
00:27:16.079 --> 00:27:19.039
Um people complain he's just too rich.
00:27:19.759 --> 00:27:21.200
What does that mean?
00:27:21.440 --> 00:27:27.519
What he did was create a system that has made every American two to three thousand dollars a year richer.
00:27:29.839 --> 00:27:31.039
How is that possible?
00:27:31.200 --> 00:27:36.000
Yeah,
because now we can order stuff online, we save gas, we save time.
00:27:36.160 --> 00:27:39.920
Due to Amazon's buying power, we save a lot of money.
00:27:40.240 --> 00:27:47.200
And so we're two to three thousand dollars a year better off, and we're gonna be mad because he got rich.
00:27:47.920 --> 00:27:58.960
And if the socialists get their way, they will tax somebody like Bezos out of existence, and we'll lose that two to three thousand dollars a year.
00:27:59.519 --> 00:28:04.400
So these people are shooting themselves in the foot.
00:28:04.640 --> 00:28:24.079
You know, they're they're trying to put in place things that are really, really bad and are gonna cause all kinds of problems that are hard to they're like they're like Karl Marx, he believed the value comes only from hard work, right?
00:28:24.319 --> 00:28:30.400
Yeah, not and yeah, and and it's just crazy.
00:28:30.559 --> 00:28:35.759
I mean, he thought that the only value in anything came from labor, hard work.
00:28:36.240 --> 00:28:43.359
And what people don't understand about value is nothing has value.
00:28:44.240 --> 00:28:50.160
Value is not something that exists in things or in labor or in anything else.
00:28:50.480 --> 00:28:54.160
Value only exists in the mind of the consumer.
00:28:55.119 --> 00:28:57.440
And how do we know that's true?
00:28:57.599 --> 00:29:01.359
Well, you and I are dressed differently right now.
00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:04.240
That betrays our values.
00:29:05.359 --> 00:29:12.240
That says that we if if you and I valued exactly the same thing, we would look like clones right now.
00:29:12.720 --> 00:29:14.240
But we don't.
00:29:14.720 --> 00:29:28.079
And if you were if if our listeners right now think about their ten closest friends and family members, do you all drive the same kind of car?
00:29:29.359 --> 00:29:32.079
Do you all watch the same TV programs?
00:29:32.400 --> 00:29:34.880
Do you all listen to the same music?
00:29:35.359 --> 00:29:38.319
Do you all wear the same kinds of clothes?
00:29:38.640 --> 00:29:41.440
Do you all date the same kinds of people?
00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:45.039
Do you all go to the same church?
00:29:46.400 --> 00:29:54.720
Do you all anything you want to pick, and you will find out even the people you're closest to are nothing like you.
00:29:55.359 --> 00:30:07.279
Now, you may have some values in common, but if you look at all the different values you have, you'll find out that you are very, very dissimilar.
00:30:07.680 --> 00:30:15.359
And if the argument were true that things had value, we would all obviously then value the same things equally.
00:30:15.680 --> 00:30:16.319
Yeah.
00:30:17.039 --> 00:30:19.440
And clearly that's not true.
00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:28.720
So again, the people uh of a socialist mindset are just fuzzy thinkers.
00:30:28.880 --> 00:30:37.440
They they imagine stuff that isn't even remotely true and is ridiculously simple to disprove.
00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:40.880
But sadly, most of them stick to their guns.
00:30:41.119 --> 00:30:53.759
They're so convinced, they're so into their own head that their idea is the right one, that there's no amount of evidence that seems to be able to change a lot of their minds.
00:30:54.240 --> 00:30:54.880
Yeah.
00:30:58.160 --> 00:31:00.400
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
00:31:01.200 --> 00:31:03.839
So um another question.
00:31:04.079 --> 00:31:25.680
Um socialists, they uh often uh promise uh like many many politicians in in general, free health care, like student loan forgiveness, and many young people view this as a good thing.
00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:30.880
Is this uh also true socialism or something else in your in your opinion?
00:31:31.359 --> 00:31:33.039
Yeah, it's it's it's part of this.
00:31:33.279 --> 00:31:36.720
In fact, those things are in the Democratic Socialist Platform.
00:31:36.799 --> 00:31:45.839
Um, and in my latest series of articles, um I I'm actually going through the platform art item by item and disproving it.
00:31:46.079 --> 00:31:52.880
But yeah, first of all, the I what they're saying is first of all clearly not true.
00:31:53.039 --> 00:31:55.039
There's no such thing as free.
00:31:55.920 --> 00:31:59.119
So what is the hidden economic cost of these promises?
00:31:59.519 --> 00:32:00.880
Yeah, that exactly.
00:32:01.200 --> 00:32:02.559
Nothing is free.
00:32:02.720 --> 00:32:18.000
I mean, unless let's take health care, unless the hospitals and doctors and nurses and everybody running the show is willing to do that for no pay, then maybe you could somehow make it free.
00:32:18.319 --> 00:32:28.960
But these people have to be paid, rent has to be paid on buildings, you have to buy operating tables and MRI machines, all of that takes money.
00:32:29.119 --> 00:32:33.039
So the only question becomes who's paying the money?
00:32:33.279 --> 00:32:36.160
It's not free, somebody's got to pay for it.
00:32:36.480 --> 00:32:46.880
And that's one of the problems with the DSA's website, their platform, is they don't even hint at how they're gonna pay for this stuff.
00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:49.519
Yeah, they just say it's gonna be free.
00:32:50.160 --> 00:32:53.759
And and it's just impossible.
00:32:54.000 --> 00:33:05.680
Um, the the amount of money it would take to do what they want to do would take five or six times current GDP.
00:33:06.559 --> 00:33:15.599
In other words, if we took ever all of our production and and pushed it in that direction, it wouldn't be enough to pay for all the things they want.
00:33:19.440 --> 00:33:20.079
Yeah.
00:33:21.759 --> 00:33:22.400
Wow.
00:33:22.720 --> 00:33:30.240
So also uh anti-capitalism in uh education and uh and culture, it's also a big thing nowadays.
00:33:30.319 --> 00:33:43.759
So we see teachers unions uh passing like resolutions to dismantle capitalism and um they also blame capitalism for like even climate change and inequality.
00:33:43.920 --> 00:33:48.960
And uh why is it growing so much in schools
and universities nowadays?
00:33:49.440 --> 00:33:50.079
Yeah.
00:33:50.960 --> 00:33:58.319
Part of the problem is capitalism is is misunderstood.
00:33:58.720 --> 00:34:07.759
Uh most of the things that people don't like about capitalism are things that really have nothing to do with capitalism.
00:34:08.800 --> 00:34:10.719
Let's take a quick look at healthcare.
00:34:11.360 --> 00:34:15.679
Um my grandfather was a physician.
00:34:17.440 --> 00:34:30.079
And he had a house, I'm gonna guess it was probably fifteen, sixteen hundred square feet when I knew him uh before he passed away.
00:34:30.159 --> 00:34:31.519
He had a six-year-old car.
00:34:34.079 --> 00:34:36.639
Um n by no means rich.
00:34:36.719 --> 00:34:47.760
And he was a a repu reputable uh physician with a great reputation, actually helped work on uh tuberculosis uh research.
00:34:48.320 --> 00:34:51.039
Um but didn't get rich doing it.
00:34:51.519 --> 00:34:57.920
Um you know, it was upper middle class, maybe, uh but certainly not rich.
00:34:59.599 --> 00:35:01.360
Now what's happened with healthcare?
00:35:01.519 --> 00:35:08.800
Well, the government got involved and started uh encouraging insurance.
00:35:09.760 --> 00:35:19.760
Now people thought, well, insurance is a good idea, and it can be, but it can also be a problem, particularly when it's all done through your employer.
00:35:24.079 --> 00:35:25.679
Well, here's the problem.
00:35:26.239 --> 00:35:44.639
When whenever you do anything, insurance, government regulation, anything that separates the producer, the hospitals, the doctors, the nurses, from the consumer, the patient, bad things will happen.
00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:48.079
And here's an example.
00:35:49.199 --> 00:35:54.800
My wife is scheduled to have knee surgery, get a new knee, uh, in about a month.
00:35:55.840 --> 00:36:02.639
Now can I shop around and find the best deal for knee surgery?
00:36:04.159 --> 00:36:04.480
No.
00:36:05.840 --> 00:36:09.519
I have no idea what that knee surgery is gonna cost.
00:36:10.159 --> 00:36:17.519
And worse yet, after it's done, I won't even be able to find out how much it did cost.
00:36:19.280 --> 00:36:21.760
Because insurance just pays it.
00:36:25.599 --> 00:36:31.199
Because it means since I can't shop around, I'm not gonna look for the best deal.
00:36:31.360 --> 00:36:37.119
And if I can't look for the best deal, the healthcare providers can charge whatever they want.
00:36:37.519 --> 00:36:37.920
Right.
00:36:38.159 --> 00:36:41.039
Because they know I don't have a choice.
00:36:41.280 --> 00:36:44.400
I can't find out who who's offering the best deal.
00:36:44.559 --> 00:36:46.639
So, and so what do I do?
00:36:46.800 --> 00:36:51.119
My choice is find the very best knee surgeon I can find, and that's who I go to.
00:36:51.280 --> 00:36:54.400
Because I don't care how much it costs, I'm not paying for it.
00:36:55.440 --> 00:36:59.039
And you can't have an economic system that works that way.
00:36:59.119 --> 00:37:05.360
And so now, and I'm not slamming physicians or nurses, but they're making way more money than they used to.
00:37:06.880 --> 00:37:07.280
Yeah.
00:37:07.679 --> 00:37:12.480
And and people say, well, why does health care cost so much?
00:37:12.639 --> 00:37:15.360
And the answer is because government got involved.
00:37:15.840 --> 00:37:18.400
The other thing you mentioned was education.
00:37:18.719 --> 00:37:20.480
What happened with education?
00:37:20.800 --> 00:37:31.360
Well, back when I was in high school in college, um, I was able to get a part-time job and work my way through college.
00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:34.400
I didn't have to get student loans or anything, no problem.
00:37:34.559 --> 00:37:37.519
Then I went to a private school that wasn't cheap.
00:37:38.159 --> 00:37:40.320
Um but no problem.
00:37:40.480 --> 00:37:44.320
I was able to get through it just fine.
00:37:44.639 --> 00:37:49.039
And and a couple of scholarships, I should say, too.
00:37:49.199 --> 00:37:56.559
But but no, I didn't need to get a bunch of you know hot hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans.
00:37:56.800 --> 00:37:59.119
Well, then why do you have to today?
00:37:59.360 --> 00:38:04.320
Well, back in the set late 70s, the government decided everybody should go to college.
00:38:04.800 --> 00:38:08.159
And so they started implementing student loan programs.
00:38:09.039 --> 00:38:12.639
Now, what is a student people think, well, that's good, isn't it?
00:38:12.960 --> 00:38:18.719
No, it's not, because again, what we've done is we've separated the producer and the consumer.
00:38:18.960 --> 00:38:24.960
Now the colleges know that the consumer isn't paying.
00:38:25.199 --> 00:38:32.800
They can just get a loan, and they aren't going to think about the consequences, they're just gonna get that loan and pay the university.
00:38:33.039 --> 00:38:34.159
So what happens?
00:38:34.480 --> 00:38:39.920
Universities' prices went up eight times faster than inflation.
00:38:42.400 --> 00:38:43.519
Eight times.
00:38:43.760 --> 00:38:48.800
Now think of and what did we get for our money?
00:38:49.039 --> 00:38:50.880
The education is not better.
00:38:51.039 --> 00:38:56.960
In fact, there's actually evidence that less money is going to students now than it did before.
00:38:58.000 --> 00:38:59.519
Where does the money go?
00:38:59.760 --> 00:39:06.400
Well, administrative and professoral salaries are way higher than they used to be.
00:39:08.159 --> 00:39:12.480
And a huge amount of it goes into buildings.
00:39:12.960 --> 00:39:22.800
I mean, when I was in college, we had a you know, a student union with a like a few pool tables and that kind of stuff, you know.
00:39:23.039 --> 00:39:32.159
Now they every one of them's got climbing walls and ice waterfalls and all kinds of crazy stuff that has nothing to do with people learning.
00:39:32.239 --> 00:39:35.599
It only has to do with making fancy, fancy stuff.
00:39:35.920 -->
00:39:36.559
Yeah.
00:39:36.880 --> 00:39:46.400
And so because government got involved and separated the producer and the consumer, the prices went through the roof.
00:39:46.639 --> 00:39:53.519
And that's exactly what's going to happen to all of the stuff that the DSA wants to make free.
00:39:54.000 --> 00:39:57.599
Because when you make it free, it means the consumer's not paying.
00:39:57.840 --> 00:39:59.280
Somebody else is.
00:39:59.599 --> 00:40:07.440
And if the consumer isn't paying, the price is going to go up and up and up and up until nobody can afford anything.
00:40:07.760 --> 00:40:16.320
And I mean, I don't know what to tell these people except to look at the real world.
00:40:16.800 --> 00:40:17.119
Yeah.
00:40:17.519 --> 00:40:23.679
If if socialism was so great, why aren't they moving to North Korea?
00:40:24.239 --> 00:40:27.119
There's already socialist countries in the world.
00:40:27.360 --> 00:40:29.599
Why aren't they moving to Cuba?
00:40:30.079 --> 00:40:34.079
They there are socialist countries they can right now go to.
00:40:34.320 --> 00:40:40.480
In fact, if you if they wanted to move to North Korea, North Korea would probably pay their way.
00:40:42.079 --> 00:40:44.000
They'd probably love to have you.
00:40:45.840 --> 00:40:53.360
But the people in North Korea are risking their lives, and some of them are getting killed every day trying to escape.
00:40:53.679 --> 00:40:54.239
Escape, yeah.
00:40:54.480 --> 00:40:57.119
And the same thing applies to Cuba.
00:40:57.679 --> 00:41:07.599
There are people trying to swim or take tiny rafts from Cuba to the US in hopes of getting here and getting to have a better life.
00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:11.840
And so that's the real that's the evidence.
00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:13.679
That's the real world.
00:41:14.079 --> 00:41:15.280
Yeah, Doctor.
00:41:15.599 --> 00:41:20.159
So how should parents talk to their children about free markets?
00:41:21.039 --> 00:41:25.679
It probably comes from family from like from childhood, I guess.
00:41:25.920 --> 00:41:28.320
Or from student years.
00:41:28.960 --> 00:41:33.599
Yeah, I think well, I think the first thing is to help them with the education, like we've talked about.
00:41:33.920 --> 00:41:43.760
Help them understand that this idea of preparing to go out and get a job is not a great idea.
00:41:44.400 --> 00:41:47.599
You want to be preparing to go out and create value.
00:41:48.079 --> 00:41:52.239
And you want to be able to do it very adaptively.
00:41:52.800 --> 00:41:56.960
You know, again, back when I'm I'm 78 years old.
00:41:57.119 --> 00:42:12.239
Back when I was a kid in the dark ages, most people were able to plan a career where they would go out, get whatever credentials they needed, get a job, and they would stay there for the rest of their working life.
00:42:12.880 --> 00:42:15.199
Those days are pretty much done.
00:42:16.159 --> 00:42:19.840
That's really unlikely to happen for most people now.
00:42:20.400 --> 00:42:29.440
And so you want to find ways to create value using your talents and your bliss with an eye toward adaptive adaptivity.
00:42:29.760 --> 00:42:35.039
So, what are you going to do when what you were doing before doesn't work anymore?
00:42:35.440 --> 00:42:40.079
And so, 10 years from now, will you and I be able to be doing this?
00:42:40.320 --> 00:42:41.840
I have no idea.
00:42:42.480 --> 00:42:44.880
There may not be any podcasts.
00:42:53.280 --> 00:42:54.159
Who can guess?
00:42:54.320 --> 00:42:57.679
That's the whole point, is that we don't know what the future holds.
00:42:57.840 --> 00:43:01.280
And so we have to be adaptable.
00:43:01.519 --> 00:43:10.559
And um, it's a lot like being able to be in good physical condition.
00:43:10.800 --> 00:43:16.079
I run, I lift weights, and I do all those things because I want my body to be adaptable.
00:43:16.320 --> 00:43:20.880
I know that I, you know, I'm gonna face challenges, particularly as I get older.
00:43:21.199 --> 00:43:27.199
And as I do those things, I want my body in a position to be able to adapt.
00:43:27.360 --> 00:43:30.480
And I mentioned a minute ago, my wife was gonna get knee surgery.
00:43:30.559 --> 00:43:33.840
Happily, for my wife, she stayed in good condition.
00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:38.880
And so at her age, she can easily tolerate knee surgery.
00:43:39.440 --> 00:43:51.199
And and uh a lot of people our age are turned down for surgeries like that because we're they they aren't in good enough physical condition to be able to handle it.
00:43:51.599 --> 00:43:59.760
And so, in fact, I just was talking to somebody just yesterday because they were talking to my wife about knee surgery, and they said they were trying.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:09.199
Turned down for it because they they they weren't they w they would have to have a general anesthetic and they weren't healthy enough for a general anesthetic.
00:44:09.440 --> 00:44:10.000
Yep.
00:44:10.159 --> 00:44:10.480
Wow.
00:44:10.800 --> 00:44:18.480
And so in every aspect of life, parents need to teach their kids to be adaptable.
00:44:18.800 --> 00:44:25.760
And you know, part of that that it's kind of sad that kids today are never bored.
00:44:26.880 --> 00:44:34.320
I think it is would be really helpful for parents to ensure that kids spend some time being bored.
00:44:34.559 --> 00:44:36.480
Now that sounds crazy.
00:44:37.039 --> 00:44:40.800
But again, when I was a kid, we got bored a lot.
00:44:40.880 --> 00:44:43.199
And so we invented stuff.
00:44:43.920 --> 00:44:45.519
We used our imaginations.
00:44:45.679 --> 00:44:48.719
We did all kind we play we invented games.
00:44:49.280 --> 00:44:54.159
We played games with stuff that that it wasn't intended to do.
00:44:54.480 --> 00:45:00.880
We uh I it happened that we had a garage that my dad never used.
00:45:01.039 --> 00:45:03.679
I don't I don't even remember why he didn't, but he didn't.
00:45:03.920 --> 00:45:15.119
And as a result, we used
it like we we would put on shows, we have magic shows and plays and get neighborhood kids together and do all kinds of stuff like that.
00:45:15.360 --> 00:45:17.760
Um that's how I learned how to play guitar.
00:45:17.840 --> 00:45:18.719
I'm a musician.
00:45:18.880 --> 00:45:27.679
And uh when I was about five, I just thought it would be cool to fill the boredom by learning how to play something.
00:45:28.000 --> 00:45:41.280
And and too too many young people today, their time is constantly absorbed in in stuff that doesn't require them to think, to imagine, to dream.
00:45:41.840 --> 00:45:46.159
And those are the things that help adapt becoming adaptable.
00:45:46.400 --> 00:45:52.320
Is that when when you're forced to go, what am I going to do now?
00:45:52.400 --> 00:45:53.760
I'm kind of bored.
00:45:54.400 --> 00:45:59.199
You have to adapt and say, what have I got available that I can use to have fun with?
00:45:59.440 --> 00:46:03.360
What have I what have I got available that I can use to make myself better?
00:46:03.679 --> 00:46:06.320
And now I mentioned a minute ago lifting weights.
00:46:06.400 --> 00:46:13.599
One of the things you know, when I was a kid, weights were getting a weights that was way outside my family's budget.
00:46:14.239 --> 00:46:15.840
And so I built them.
00:46:16.559 --> 00:46:23.440
My first set of weights was a pipe and and two empty paint cans filled with concrete.
00:46:24.639 --> 00:46:28.000
And that's how that's what I started bench pressing with.
00:46:28.719 --> 00:46:32.079
And over time I I built heavier and heavier weights.
00:46:32.239 --> 00:46:43.840
And and so, yeah, we we want people to be adaptable, to change, to be able to confront new situations and and thrive in them.
00:46:45.920 --> 00:46:48.079
Yeah, yeah, totally agree.
00:46:48.239 --> 00:46:48.880
Yeah.
00:46:49.440 --> 00:46:53.920
So also, Doctor, in your book you criticize chronic capitalism.
00:46:54.000 --> 00:46:59.840
Uh you mentioned monopolies, uh, subsidies subsidies, and uh bad government rules, right?
00:47:00.079 --> 00:47:08.079
So how do how do we fix chronic chronic uh without giving power to socialist planners?
00:47:08.719 --> 00:47:13.440
Yeah, and and you asked earlier why people don't like communism.
00:47:13.840 --> 00:47:15.519
I mean capitalism, sorry.
00:47:15.679 --> 00:47:19.199
And a lot of the reason they don't is for the reasons you just mentioned.
00:47:19.440 --> 00:47:19.599
Yes.
00:47:20.159 --> 00:47:24.320
Um are there people who abuse capitalism?
00:47:24.639 --> 00:47:26.480
Are there bad capitalists?
00:47:26.639 --> 00:47:28.320
Are there greedy capitalists?
00:47:28.480 --> 00:47:29.440
Yes, of course.
00:47:29.599 --> 00:47:29.920
Yeah.
00:47:30.320 --> 00:47:33.199
There are bad people in every walk of life.
00:47:33.360 --> 00:47:41.119
There are bad doctors and lawyers and podcast hosts and and and bad writers.
00:47:41.280 --> 00:47:47.519
Uh and and so there are people who will exploit others at any price.
00:47:48.159 --> 00:47:53.920
And and it's the job of government to stop that.
00:47:54.960 --> 00:48:04.079
So the when people get upset with capitalism, in almost every case, it's really government's fault.
00:48:04.320 --> 00:48:06.719
Because government should be stopping that.
00:48:06.960 --> 00:48:28.400
The analogy I use in my book is if I'm sitting in my home and some burglars come and start stealing my stuff, and I call the police, and the police show up, and I get excited, okay, now it's gonna be cool, but the police start helping the burglar load stuff into his car.
00:48:28.639 --> 00:48:29.280
Yeah.
00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:32.159
Now, am I upset with the burglar?
00:48:32.320 --> 00:48:33.519
Yeah, sure.
00:48:33.840 --> 00:48:35.840
But I'm a lot more upset with the police.
00:48:36.239 --> 00:48:37.280
The police, yeah.
00:48:37.519 --> 00:48:40.159
Because they were the ones that were supposed to help me.
00:48:40.400 --> 00:48:45.039
And that analogy works really, really well with crony capitalism.
00:48:45.360 --> 00:49:00.079
If people are if capitalists are exploiting people, are doing bad stuff, if government doesn't intervene, or worse yet, government actually helps them, which they do.
00:49:00.159 --> 00:49:02.239
I mean, that's what a government bailout is.
00:49:02.320 --> 00:49:07.440
It's a company that's not going well, so the government steps in and says, Here I'll help you.
00:49:07.679 --> 00:49:08.800
That's nuts.
00:49:09.280 --> 00:49:16.719
That's the government doing stuff to make bad capitalists do okay.
00:49:17.119 --> 00:49:17.679
Yeah.
00:49:18.000 --> 00:49:21.119
There's nothing wrong with companies failing.
00:49:22.880 --> 00:49:23.360
Yeah.
00:49:23.519 --> 00:49:33.280
In fact, if you look back at history, all of the original Dow Jones 30 are no longer in the Dow Jones 30, and most of them are out of business.
00:49:34.400 --> 00:49:35.679
Things change.
00:49:36.159 --> 00:49:50.239
And there's companies that are the biggest in the stock market right now Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Nvidia, Intel.
00:49:53.360 --> 00:49:56.639
Fifteen years ago, most of those companies didn't even exist.
00:49:57.039 --> 00:49:58.159
No, yeah, true.
00:49:59.760 --> 00:50:23.199
And so um what we wanted is is government uh in my previous series of articles before the the ones on the democratic socialists, I did one comparing the uh the uh economy to the environment and how the government's role should be the same in both.
00:50:23.679 --> 00:50:35.199
And over the last hundred years we learned that treating the environment as something the government could manage was a disaster.
00:50:36.320 --> 00:50:48.800
We made tons and tons of of interventions into the ecology, the environment of the world, and over and over again we made it far worse.
00:50:51.199 --> 00:50:58.480
What we've learned since then is the appropriate role for government in the environment is to guard it.
00:50:59.039
--> 00:51:06.159
Not try and manage it, not try and butt in, but to try and keep other people from messing it up.
00:51:07.119 --> 00:51:09.679
So is it good to have anti-pollution laws?
00:51:09.840 --> 00:51:10.480
Of course it is.
00:51:10.639 --> 00:51:11.199
That's great.
00:51:11.360 --> 00:51:13.519
That's exactly what the government should be doing.
00:51:13.679 --> 00:51:17.199
They should be keeping other people from messing with the environment.
00:51:18.559 --> 00:51:22.159
That's exactly what should happen in the economy.
00:51:22.480 --> 00:51:25.199
The government shouldn't be trying to fix stuff.
00:51:25.440 --> 00:51:26.960
They aren't good at that.
00:51:27.199 --> 00:51:31.440
What they should be doing is keeping other people from messing with it.
00:51:31.679 --> 00:51:41.199
The crony capitalists, the people, the men people that want to create monopolies, the people that want to control the market and keep other people out of it.
00:51:41.840 --> 00:51:55.599
And in my book, I uh, as you mentioned, I've got like a whole chapter on it where there's just lots and lots of examples of the bad stuff some capitalists have done to try and control the market for themselves.
00:51:55.920 --> 00:52:07.760
And again, there are bad people that will exploit things in any way of life you want to choose, and capitalism is no exception.
00:52:08.079 --> 00:52:14.800
The job of the government is to guard us from that, and the government fails at that miserably.
00:52:16.719 --> 00:52:18.079
Yeah, understood.
00:52:18.159 --> 00:52:19.679
Yeah, true, true.
00:52:20.639 --> 00:52:21.440
Uh, Dr.
00:52:21.599 --> 00:52:24.480
Cardell, next question about the flip tax.
00:52:25.679 --> 00:52:29.760
You propose a new tax called the flip tax, right?
00:52:29.840 --> 00:52:35.840
So, how how would this tax stop market bubbles and help long-term investors?
00:52:36.800 --> 00:52:44.159
Yeah, we I call it the flip tax, which stands for Federal Long-Term Investment Protection Tax.
00:52:44.559 --> 00:53:05.599
And what it does is it it's it's kind of like a capital gain gains tax, except it's on a sliding scale, so that if you buy an asset and try and flip it a day later, if you make any profit on that investment, the government will take all that profit.
00:53:05.920 --> 00:53:10.159
But they won't take back the original investment, just the profit.
00:53:10.719 --> 00:53:12.079
Now, why?
00:53:12.559 --> 00:53:16.719
Well, first of all, because flipping things creates bubbles.
00:53:16.800 --> 00:53:20.079
But second, it's what's really fair.
00:53:20.320 --> 00:53:28.159
Because if I buy something today and sell it for a higher price tomorrow, I didn't add any value.
00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:34.800
And I should only be getting value for creating value.
00:53:35.679 --> 00:53:41.360
Now, if I invest for the long term, I am creating value.
00:53:41.519 --> 00:53:49.599
I'm buying stock in companies, let's say, and keeping it in there and helping that company grow and create better and better products.
00:53:49.840 --> 00:53:54.559
So I'm part of that company's effort to create value for others.
00:53:55.199 --> 00:54:08.239
Now, what the flip tax does is over time, let's say now you buy something and you sell it a year later, well, now they'll still take a pretty good bite of that, maybe 80% of the profit.
00:54:08.400 --> 00:54:14.480
Again, not the not the the the initial investment.
00:54:15.039 --> 00:54:19.519
And if you add value, that doesn't count.
00:54:19.679 --> 00:54:37.760
So, in other words, if I buy a house, let's say, for$100,000 and add$50,000 of improvements and then sell it for$170,000, the only profit I'm taxed on is that 20%, that that$20,000.
00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:44.880
Because the$100 I paid for it and the$50,000 I use to improve it don't count.
00:54:45.199 --> 00:54:50.079
Because that's that's value I actually put into it.
00:54:50.880 --> 00:55:00.960
And so, but then on on the flip side, if I keep an investment, let's say a house, okay, like I've had my house for what uh almost 30 years now.
00:55:01.440 --> 00:55:09.360
And at 30 years, that would mean if I sell my house tomorrow, any profit I make on it would be tax-free.
00:55:09.599 --> 00:55:10.239
Yep.
00:55:10.960 --> 00:55:20.079
Because my investment has helped the housing market, and my keeping it for this length of time has helped the housing market.
00:55:20.239 --> 00:55:21.920
So I've created value.
00:55:22.159 --> 00:55:24.800
Of course, I've also put a lot of money into it.
00:55:25.760 --> 00:55:29.360
But and in fact, today I got to put some more money into it.
00:55:29.440 --> 00:55:37.280
I had to spend a lot of time today out with my tractor repairing a washed-out road or long driveway in.
00:55:40.800 --> 00:55:41.119
Yeah.
00:55:41.360 --> 00:55:41.679
Yeah.
00:55:41.840 --> 00:55:59.039
So to paraphrase the Beatles, one of the things that that people should use as a like a watchword for how to run life is, and in the end, the value you take should be equal to the value you make.
00:56:00.800 --> 00:56:08.159
That's what we want to be doing is creating value for others and then being fairly compensated for that.
00:56:08.400 --> 00:56:08.960
Yep, yeah.
00:56:09.119 --> 00:56:10.159
And yeah.
00:56:10.639 --> 00:56:16.960
So, and also we can say that taxing consumption is better than taxing income, right?
00:56:17.360 --> 00:56:18.320
Yes, of course.
00:56:18.400 --> 00:56:18.719
Yeah.
00:56:18.960 --> 00:56:30.559
Um a flat tax of some sort um is by far the best way to do things because whatever you tax is something you're punishing.
00:56:31.199 --> 00:56:34.960
You're making it so people don't want to do it as much.
00:56:35.280 --> 00:56:51.519
So when you tax income, you're making it so that people are more reluctant to progress because they they move up in tax brackets and they don't get as much out of each additional dollar as they got out of the last one.
00:56:51.920 --> 00:56:57.440
If you're taxing consumption, then you're taxing excess spending.
00:56:57.599 --> 00:57:10.000
And so the rich would still pay if they go out and buy a you know$500,000 Maserati, they're gonna have to pay a big hunk of tax on that.
00:57:10.400 --> 00:57:16.320
But you're not punishing them for making money, you're punishing them for spending money excessively.
00:57:16.559 --> 00:57:21.599
And so a flat tax is a far fairer way to go.
00:57:22.079 --> 00:57:25.679
And it punishes the right thing, it rewards the right thing.
00:57:25.840 --> 00:57:26.480
Yeah.
00:57:28.079 --> 00:57:28.719
Yeah.
00:57:29.679 --> 00:57:30.400
True.
00:57:30.639 --> 00:57:31.519
Thank you.
00:57:31.760 --> 00:57:34.159
And uh last question for today, Doctor.
00:57:34.559 --> 00:57:44.000
If a young person is listening and watching now and leaning towards socialism, what is one thing you want them to understand today?
00:57:44.639 --> 00:57:47.360
One message to young generation.
00:57:48.079 --> 00:57:50.559
Well, there's there's a lot.
00:57:50.719 --> 00:58:02.480
And so I guess not to put uh not to plug too much, but read my website, dogcardell.com, and you'll find a whole lot of arguments.
00:58:02.719 --> 00:58:03.119
Yep.
00:58:03.360 --> 00:58:06.960
Or buy my book, Why Socialism Struggles.
00:58:07.280 --> 00:58:14.000
Both of those things will give you tons of information that and evidence.
00:58:14.400 --> 00:58:16.559
It isn't just Dr.
00:58:16.800 --> 00:58:21.119
Doug's ideas or my imagination or anything like that.
00:58:21.280 --> 00:58:24.320
I provide lots and lots of evidence.
00:58:24.880 --> 00:58:41.440
And I guess among the most important things are if you're a young person, find out what your talents are, find out what your bliss is, and then go out there and use your talent and your bliss.
00:58:41.599 --> 00:58:48.000
Take what you're good at and what you love, and get out there and start creating value for other people.
00:58:48.480 --> 00:58:49.760
Yep, okay.
00:58:50.000 --> 00:58:51.280
Thank you, Doctor.
00:58:51.519 --> 00:59:01.599
Thank you again for uh being with me today, and thank you for my uh so much um for first of all for writing a book.
00:59:01.679 --> 00:59:05.440
It's really gives so so many answers.
00:59:05.840 --> 00:59:19.360
And to those who uh uh listening or um watching now, uh all the um uh link to the website and to the book will be down in the this in the description.
00:59:19.679 --> 00:59:21.840
And thank you for watching.
00:59:22.239 --> 00:59:23.360
Bye bye.