The Auron MacIntyre Show


Can Trump Ban Usury？ ｜ Guest： Matthew Williams ｜ 1⧸14⧸25

Topics
housing affordability issue usury discussion high interest rates and credit availability
Hosted by
Auron MacIntyre
Guests
Matthew Williams
Mentioned
Donald Trump JD Vance Matthew Joe Biden Prudentialist Matt George W. Bush Orange Man Bad Blaze Unlimited Tucker Carlson Benjamin Boyce Aaron Bushnell Bernie Moreno Sam Harris Zoran Mandami Charlie Kirk George Floyd Gerald Ford Ben Shapiro Larry Fink and 15 more

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5

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2

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Hate speech

8

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Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we discuss why Donald Trump has returned his focus back to domestic policy and what that means for the economy. We are joined by the Prudentialist, Matthew Karpf, to discuss the impact this could have on the economy and the midterms.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
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00:00:30.360 Hey, everybody. How's it going? Thanks for joining me this afternoon.
00:00:33.380 I've got a great stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy.
00:00:37.540 Donald Trump has pivoted to the domestic after a big blow up over the Venezuela strike.
00:00:44.460 Trump seems to have returned his focus to the United States, recognizing that domestic policy is king.
00:00:51.100 Something that his constituents are absolutely looking for is gains, especially in the area of standard of living and affordability.
00:00:57.880 So Trump has made two big announcements recently.
00:01:01.260 One is his intention to restrict the purchase of residential property by finance, large conglomerates, corporations to ensure that single families,
00:01:13.200 the average person have more affordable housing, that it's not all being gobbled up and they're being pushed into the rental economy the way that it seems like many large corporations have been trying to move our real estate market.
00:01:25.400 The other big announcement he made is that he intends to cap credit card interest at 10%, effectively eliminating usury, a huge change, I think, and ultimately one that he can't unilaterally make.
00:01:40.080 So we're going to be discussing why he's announced these changes, what it would take to actually get this stuff done, and what the underlying principles are for the American people.
00:01:49.540 Joining me today to discuss that is, of course, one of our favorite co-hosts, the Prudentialist.
00:01:54.560 Matthew, thank you so much for coming on, man.
00:01:56.340 Yeah, thank you, Oren, for having me on again. It's always a pleasure.
00:01:58.640 Of course. So, like I said, there's been these two announcements, and we can't really look at them without separating, obviously, the current events that are going on.
00:02:08.600 Now, in one way, the Trump administration got a rude awakening and got snapped back to domestic policy by the events going on in Minnesota.
00:02:16.500 Everything that's happening with ICE and the pushback against agents after we had, I think, what is an entirely justified shooting of a terrorist who attempted to kill an ICE agent,
00:02:27.540 but has continued to return focus away from the foreign policy sector and back to what's happening domestically here in the United States.
00:02:36.740 Also, guys, I should say, we are pre-taping this.
00:02:39.340 So, if we're talking about this like, you know, we don't know what's already happened, if some major event has happened, this is going to come out on Wednesday, and that's why.
00:02:48.200 We don't know. Also, obviously, we can't take any questions due to that.
00:02:52.160 But, Matt, looking at both of these actions, these are things that you and I have ultimately said would be great ideas.
00:02:59.720 Many people, I think, in the new right have asked that we see a return to focusing on building that ability for families to form, to, you know, own houses, young people to acquire houses.
00:03:10.980 They're more likely to have children, more likely to have larger families.
00:03:13.920 When they do that, obviously, we both know that debt is a massive problem with everyone, but especially young people in the United States.
00:03:21.280 So, I see both of these proposals as rather positive suggestions.
00:03:25.300 However, these are obviously things that the president can't just do on his own.
00:03:29.160 Even with executive orders, it seems like there's very little, you know, latitude for him to make significant policy changes.
00:03:36.540 So, what do you think is ultimately going on with a presentation of both of these concerns back to back?
00:03:42.540 For me, it seems like he's setting the agenda in order to make the case for why he and the Republican Party should stay in power, at least in Congress, throughout the midterm election.
00:03:52.360 I think that this pivot has coincided on top of numerous elections in which Democrats have done very well in.
00:03:59.940 We saw numerous gubernatorial sweeps from Democrats across the country, as well as mayoral elections, not just in New York, but also in the Miami-Dade area as well, where I think it's the first time in like 30-something years that Democrats have taken office.
00:04:13.500 And a lot of these campaigns that Democrats have been focusing on has been primarily on the issues of affordability and the ability to have their quality of life see an overall improvement, whether it's due to claims of inflation or the amount of economic opportunities that are available.
00:04:30.680 Democrats everywhere from Zora Mandani to Amy Acton in Ohio, who was running against Vivek Ramaswamy, has been championing on the issues that people who work hard should be rewarded for the labor that they've put forward into the economy and into the system, and that system should work for them.
00:04:46.520 And to me, it echoes a conversation I had not too long ago with some friends I have in my historical society here where I live, and the topic of Charlie Kirk had come up.
00:04:58.060 And the last appearance he had on Tucker Carlson I thought was very eerily prophetic because it's the affordability issues, it's the questions of does the system ever really serve me at all, and if it doesn't, then I'm going to go vote for people that I would never vote for before, or I would support those that have no real support for my interests or my identity at heart, but say that they're actually going to do something about it.
00:05:21.740 And people who say that they're going to do things are going to be much better than those that are talking about it or tweeting about it from the purchase of power.
00:05:28.040 So I think it's very positive to see Trump return to domestic issues. Obviously, that is where all things really do matter for the American voter, especially as we come up on the 26 midterms in the primaries.
00:05:39.620 And so I think that we're going to see a State of the Union address probably in the next couple of months, and that these actions are going to be his charge to press on Congress to do so.
00:05:49.400 I know that he announced that he's going to do the credit card, you know, interest rate cap at 10%. He wants to announce that on January 20th, on the anniversary of him being sworn in, and I don't know if he's planning to go further with that with the State of the Union, I don't know yet.
00:06:03.380 But I think it just comes to show that some of the issues that he's been promising on during the campaign, I think he's trying to come up with a legislative agenda to secure the victory for him and his party come the election.
00:06:14.400 Yeah, these are largely conversation starters, I agree with you. And that's wise, because one, it sets the stage, lets Congress know where they should expect things to be directed, it builds the expectations of the average person, it changes the discussion inside the news media.
00:06:33.460 And even if you're not going to immediately be able to achieve these things, your constituents are going to feel better knowing that you're talking about them, working towards them.
00:06:40.400 But of course, these are all going to be large mountains to climb. Now, a lot of people have started to ask me for predictions, hey, it's the new year, you know, what do you think is going to happen here?
00:06:48.460 What do you think is going to be the big deal coming up? And I've given the same answer every time I'm asked is, look, the thing that's going to be every president's problem, left, right, Republican, Democrat, is going to be affordability.
00:06:59.320 I mean, I don't have to tell you this, I probably don't have to tell our audience this, but our economy is a runaway train, right? Like there's simply, there is no escape from kind of the democratic problem.
00:07:09.320 You know, you and I, I think I've even read Nick Land's zombie, you know, democracy, you know, the zombie apocalypse, you know, essay where he just talks about, you know, democracy is just like ravenous horde looking to consume everything.
00:07:23.680 And you have a serious problem where in any kind of vote based political order, the ability to promise people stuff is really the key thing. I know Republicans hate to hear that, but it is true.
00:07:36.100 Patronage is what makes politics work. And so in a democratic process, whoever offers more stuff is usually going to win in the long term. And of course that works, but it also creates long term problems because you're printing and spending to try to get all of this.
00:07:52.000 And there's all the advantages built in for who gets to move first on the money and manipulate the interest rates. And so you're just going to constantly have the scenario where, you know, the boomers want their house values to go up and corporations continue wanting to be able to use the advantages of leverage and all these things. 0.54
00:08:07.560 And so inflation is just going to keep happening. We can blame Republicans. We can blame Democrats. We can blame abstract principles and social policies and monetary theory.
00:08:18.700 But at the end of the day, this is just responding to the political marketplace, right?
00:08:22.680 Like this is what the people think they want, and this is how politicians deliver it to them. And there's just no way to escape from that cycle. And so the trick is really to kind of blame your opponent for why the affordability crisis continues to happen, even though it's going to happen, whether it's under Republicans again or Democrats.
00:08:41.160 However, if you can make these minor policy changes, then you can at least better the lives of some people you can adjust and address some level of the problem.
00:08:51.300 And that's worth doing just because the ship is sinking slowly doesn't mean you don't plug as many holes as you can bail out as much water as you possibly can.
00:08:59.760 And so let's look at these two policies. The easy one first. I think this is the easier one to sell, the easier one to try to get through Congress.
00:09:08.800 It's the harder one for the Democrats to fight back against. And that is the housing affordability issue, right?
00:09:13.820 Like nobody except corporations wants corporations to own homes. Like it just doesn't make sense unless you're one of these diehard libertarians or conservative that just vomits out whatever free market rhetoric you got fed back into you at one point.
00:09:27.540 Right. Everyone can think about why having a black rock or whatever these these large investment firms holding large amounts of real estate and forcing people in the rental market.
00:09:39.460 Everyone understands why that's bad. And so even the Republicans, I think, can be pushed on board, can be guilted into it.
00:09:46.980 And the Democrats reflexively want to fight back against everything Trump does. But what possible argument can they have against this? Right.
00:09:53.640 Like this is just exactly their kind of complaint or like maybe they want to abolish private property altogether.
00:09:59.180 But other than that, how do they even argue against the idea that corporations shouldn't be able to own residential real estate?
00:10:06.560 I mean, that's going to be the really good question is, is how do you steel man, you know, the the ongoing purchasing of homes or vast swaths of real estate or even where I live?
00:10:19.340 I know that the neighboring counties around me have a lot of farmland that has been bought up because of the outpouring of both like the various suburbs and cities that are now being eaten alive by either the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex or if you're even further south, like the greater Austin area.
00:10:35.580 Like there's no left, you know, no area left for a lot of suburban sprawl.
00:10:40.380 And instead, a lot of it has been turned into apartments and a lot of it has been an avenue for real estate.
00:10:45.720 Or I know it's been sort of a boogeyman to discuss the question of like private equity or anything like that.
00:10:50.600 But I mean, it is a very easy sell rhetorically that we are going to ban the usual boogeyman left, right and center that kind of would all agree that like, yeah, actually,
00:11:00.400 I don't think that these guys have the average American's interest at heart, which is things like BlackRock or the rest, despite the fact that, you know, in the previous administration, they were quite all over the place in terms of policy.
00:11:11.660 So I think this move is going to be an interesting one.
00:11:14.840 And I know that he's not really going to be able to do it without, you know, Trump, as he had said in his Truth Social post, he says he'll be calling on Congress to codify it.
00:11:24.020 He says he's going to be immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single family homes.
00:11:30.400 I think that it in much I think this is a much better direction rhetorically and politically than the question over 50 year mortgages that was proposed just a few months ago.
00:11:39.760 But of course, you know, the ongoing question is going to be how many of these homes are going to be available?
00:11:45.100 What are we actually doing?
00:11:46.760 There's so many questions that remain to be seen.
00:11:48.600 But in terms of, you know, legislative support, a lot of Trump allies have already moved forward on this.
00:11:53.400 He says, I think it was Senator Bernie Moreno from Ohio.
00:11:57.280 He had said that he wants to introduce legislation in the Senate to do so.
00:12:00.800 So I think that already you're going to be to be moving forward on that.
00:12:03.900 And also, I think it's sort of a bipartisan win if he wants to go that route.
00:12:07.200 I know the Democrats tried to do something similar in 2023.
00:12:11.980 However, you know, it was narrow votes.
00:12:13.800 And of course, the question of special interests always arise.
00:12:16.180 So I think that it's just going to be what major shifts or turbulence is the housing market going to see by doing this?
00:12:23.680 And if so, is this going to open up, quote unquote, Main Street again?
00:12:27.560 Are we going to see more local realtors do this rather than large corporate ones?
00:12:31.280 And will we see that move in other sectors of the economy?
00:12:34.280 I don't know.
00:12:35.080 But I think that saying that, hey, this is no longer going to be a rental property.
00:12:39.060 And this is going to be something where, you know, there are home loans and other predatory systems in place that prevent, you know, Americans from actually getting homes.
00:12:47.700 Then, yeah, I mean, let's go for it.
00:12:49.440 Let's let's see what this does for the average homeowner.
00:12:51.880 Yeah, I really think this is a winning issue just across the board and not just because it's been a hobby horse of mine for a while.
00:12:57.840 But like I said, I just can't imagine a coherent argument from the left other than Orange Man Bad about how you can really oppose this,
00:13:07.040 which means your real enemies, funny enough, on this will be from the right.
00:13:11.140 I'm sure that you'll have some chamber of communist Republicans or, you know, wildly ideological free trade guys who will try to push back against this.
00:13:19.560 But I don't think their arguments will be strong.
00:13:21.480 I think the biggest block for this, sadly, will be, as you point out, how closely this administration has worked with many of those financial institutions, BlackRock, Blackstone.
00:13:32.640 I mean, BlackRock, you know, Larry Fink's having to, like, what, buy Ukraine at this point, right?
00:13:36.740 Like, we're literally working out a deal with him right now to see how much of Ukraine can be sold to BlackRock.
00:13:42.520 So is an administration and probably a Congress that is largely, you know, in bed with these organizations going to tell these organizations,
00:13:52.560 no, you can't buy, you know, this stuff?
00:13:55.100 Are they going to have to offer these people some kind of carrot to go along with the stick?
00:14:00.380 You know, these are all questions that I think are what would really impact the ability to move this forward.
00:14:06.740 However, I will say watching every congressman, like, squirm as they're forced to attack their big donors or openly choose their donors over the basic sanity of allowing families to own homes.
00:14:18.600 Because, you know, that's an exercise worth going through, even if I guess you can't ultimately secure that.
00:14:23.400 So, like I said, I think that's the easier one.
00:14:25.460 I think that's the one that's easy to justify, hard to argue against, would have the most support, would be the most difficult for even the average Republican to fight back against.
00:14:34.600 It would really just come down to whether politicians would defy their donors, which is actually the largest of all rules, I understand.
00:14:41.960 But at least it's just the one instead of, you know, a multiplicity of issues.
00:14:47.180 Now, the other suggestion is the credit card one.
00:14:50.960 And I think this one's interesting for a few reasons.
00:14:53.280 One, Joe Biden was famous for being, like, a huge fan of the credit cards and fighting for credit card companies.
00:14:59.860 So it's good rhetorically for Trump.
00:15:01.640 He gets to rail against that.
00:15:04.460 Two, I have suggested that there is a serious problem with usury several times.
00:15:10.240 Now, that's not because I'm a great moral philosopher or rocket scientist.
00:15:14.900 It's because I can read the Bible and also other sources of moral wisdom.
00:15:20.500 And they uniformly say that usury is a problem.
00:15:23.900 They all note that this is a dangerous thing to consistently engage in.
00:15:30.020 But every time I suggest that perhaps usury is not the best, like I even cited Aristotle at some point, pointing out the problems of usury.
00:15:38.480 I get just absolutely attacked on all sides.
00:15:42.600 I get attacked by people who say, oh, well, you're just wanting to go back to the Stone Ages or the Middle Ages.
00:15:49.700 Maybe the Middle Ages. 0.61
00:15:51.000 But, you know, you're out there trying to destroy all of human progress as if compound interest is the key to human progress.
00:15:58.860 I get, you know, people who are economic libertarians.
00:16:02.160 I get free traders.
00:16:03.440 I also weirdly get people who say any pointing, and I promise I'm not making this up.
00:16:08.880 I was accused of it several times.
00:16:11.220 Anyone suggesting the restriction of usury is somehow anti-Semitic.
00:16:15.280 Like somehow that's like an anti-Semitic trope.
00:16:18.280 I don't know why.
00:16:19.480 The Bible says don't do it.
00:16:21.100 So there's that.
00:16:22.840 So it's in the Old Testament, by the way.
00:16:25.260 That's where that dictate comes from.
00:16:28.380 It's not like it's just a New Testament thing.
00:16:29.880 And so I think it should be clear to like lots of Christians that usury is bad. 1.00
00:16:34.900 But the minute I bring it up, and this is always the funniest thing, I always get, well, how do you know what usury is?
00:16:40.060 Like how do we know how much is usury?
00:16:42.700 Which is so weird.
00:16:43.860 It's like all of a sudden Christians become these like moral relativists whenever you talk about financial instruments. 1.00
00:16:49.140 Like they're just like, how could you know?
00:16:50.660 Who are you to say?
00:16:51.560 Like I think we can use common sense.
00:16:54.560 Like usury is the over offering of interest, right?
00:16:58.100 Like if I'm paying more, if there's more in interest than I could possibly ever pay off,
00:17:03.180 if we're putting so much compound interest on something that it's going to put people into long-term debt slavery, that's usury.
00:17:12.080 But maybe that's 20%.
00:17:13.920 Maybe that's 15%.
00:17:14.900 I think 10% is actually a pretty good number, actually. 0.55
00:17:17.400 I think that's a reasonable number.
00:17:19.740 It gives institutions enough to get a return on their investment for lending to people.
00:17:25.380 But it's not so much that it would make it impossible for the average person to catch up with that debt at some point.
00:17:31.420 I think actually 10% is quite a good middle road number.
00:17:35.160 I would have gone a little lower.
00:17:36.400 Others would have gone a little higher.
00:17:37.400 But I think that's a reasonable one.
00:17:39.100 So what do you think about, I guess, the larger discussion on usury?
00:17:43.160 And then we'll get to like the practical application of if they could ever actually get this done.
00:17:47.240 Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty, it's one of those third rail topics, or at least it's a word that becomes a third rail topic in American politics.
00:17:57.920 And I think a lot of it has to do with the American political scene being very much charged with any form of accusations of bigotry or, more recently, anti-Semitism when it comes to the right.
00:18:08.820 We've already witnessed that on the left a lot since October 7th.
00:18:11.920 It played a large part, I think, in the 2024 election, at least in places like Michigan.
00:18:16.180 We saw how that went for Kamala Harris in various parts in that state, especially due to various immigrant populations. 0.79
00:18:23.200 The same thing also, too, when it comes to like the broader scope of these, both these questions, both the interest cap, but also the question of like housing, is that the nitty gritty remains to be the ultimate question on these issues.
00:18:35.980 I mean, firms that own 100 or more single family homes, according to an article I was reading on CNBC in preparation for this discussion, says that, you know,
00:18:44.640 that's about 2% of the nation's single family housing stock.
00:18:48.680 It also raises some interesting questions of like, well, if we're banning them, what else are we going to do to alleviate home prices?
00:18:54.560 How much is available?
00:18:55.620 And this is going to, of course, imagine, like you had said, be conversation starters.
00:18:59.180 And the same thing when it comes to the credit card question, or at least for capping interest rates on credit cards at 10%.
00:19:05.240 I know that the Federal Reserve plays a small role for what the rates are for them, which is then calculated alongside the borrowing rate based on a user's credit history.
00:19:15.000 And are they considered a risky person to borrow or lend money to?
00:19:19.100 And there's a lot that goes into it.
00:19:20.640 So, I mean, it's going to be a question of like, well, what does that really mean?
00:19:24.280 I think that when we also look at our financial system today, everything has been incredibly financialized.
00:19:29.960 I mean, we have witnessed that things have gone from tangibility to the question of like owning.
00:19:35.620 And it was funny.
00:19:36.460 I was talking with Benjamin Boyce not too long ago, and he said, I became a homeowner.
00:19:39.960 And then he had to put homeowner in, you know, scare quotes, so to speak, because...
00:19:43.960 I saw a piece of paper that says the bank owns a home.
00:19:46.080 Yeah, the bank owns a home.
00:19:47.280 Exactly, right?
00:19:48.000 Like, you don't really own that home.
00:19:49.400 And even then, it's going to be set for years and years and years until you pay that off.
00:19:52.900 But I mean, on the question of credit cards, too, I mean, the question of enforcement becomes really interesting
00:19:56.720 because there are so many not bank accounts, but are acting like bank accounts nowadays.
00:20:03.580 Things are not so tied to usual brick and mortar financial institutions or even large corporate ones like Wells Fargo and the rest.
00:20:12.520 Because everything nowadays has a way for you to get a card.
00:20:15.280 I can get a card through PayPal.
00:20:17.140 I can get a card through other sort of payment apps and Venmo and all the rest.
00:20:20.760 And while those operate, of course, through various similar, you know, payment processors, you know, you can technically treat that as a bank account without actually having a formal bank account at your, you know, local credit union or at a large banking institution.
00:20:33.200 So, I mean, the question of enforcement becomes an interesting one.
00:20:35.640 But also, at the same time, it opens up so many other third rail discussions about credit and about who gets lended to and who is lending.
00:20:45.380 Because when we look at, say, there's a lot of videos out there on social media that show how individuals will buy a used car and get an auto loan and the financial paperwork that they all fill out.
00:20:58.780 One, most people are not financially literate.
00:21:01.080 That is a huge problem in this country is that we have a substantial lack of financial literacy.
00:21:05.460 I'm sure that that is going to be an interesting thing to break down if you're to break that up on American demographics.
00:21:09.840 But nevertheless, on top of that, you also have the issue of that you do have risky, you know, people who want to, you know, get access to credit.
00:21:19.040 And what do you do with that?
00:21:20.480 Are you going to ban them from that?
00:21:22.300 And that's already a question that's being raised.
00:21:23.980 I imagine that someone could easily raise a 14th Amendment kind of lawsuit about, you know, the Equal Protection Clause and their access to things or even along civil rights lines.
00:21:33.500 So you're touching the third rail, of course, about, you know, touching our financial institutions, which everything has become over financialized.
00:21:40.460 We don't regulate things like Clarina. 0.95
00:21:42.240 We don't regulate things that can be at ridiculous rates.
00:21:45.720 We don't look at, you know, the consequences that they have.
00:21:48.640 And of course, now this wanton amount of online gambling, it's a whole other discussion for another time.
00:21:52.560 But I think that, you know, trying to put some kind of regulatory pressure on the very question of whether you want to call it usury or if you want to call it the over financialization of everything, it really does show that the Trump administration is looking at something that is quite serious,
00:22:09.400 which is that, you know, even Black Friday, you know, details from this last holiday season really does come to show how bad everyone was using buy now, pay later kind of things for their equipment.
00:22:23.260 This isn't like layaway, you know, back when you and I were younger or our parents wanted to save up and pay for something like a ring or whatnot.
00:22:29.720 Now it's just anything and it's instantly in your hands and that's how it's going to be.
00:22:34.200 And then the consequences of whether or not you pay becomes a whole other discussion.
00:22:37.700 Then who's left holding the bag?
00:22:39.860 So, I mean, these are good things to have conversations on and I hope to see more policy focus on this question later.
00:22:46.360 But it is it's good to be discussed.
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00:23:12.800 Yeah, you Zoomer kids don't remember the people showing up to JCPenney's to put down 50 bucks on, you know, something for six months before they finally owned it in the layaway program.
00:23:25.620 Yeah.
00:23:25.980 No, there's a lot of really interesting, I think, and deep problems wrapped up in this.
00:23:31.200 It seems like a very small issue.
00:23:32.920 It seems like a, you know, okay, you know, 10%, you know, whatever.
00:23:36.380 Like, actually, there's so many things wrapped up in this, and you kind of highlighted a few of them there, so I want to pull that apart a little bit because I do think there's some fascinating issues to think about.
00:23:47.300 The first one is the way in which, as you say, over-financialization creates this really interesting dynamic that puts a way more emphasis on financial literacy.
00:23:59.840 Because when we say financial literacy, there's a certain amount of, like, okay, how to write a check and how to, you know, keep a bank account and apply for a loan and get insurance and these kind of things.
00:24:11.080 Things that they used to kind of teach you in school to some degree, but less and less, that happens.
00:24:16.760 But one of the things is that one of the reasons you need more financial literacy is you've increased financial complexity, right?
00:24:23.380 So if the average person just needs to, like, save money in a bank and work, those are pretty basic things, right?
00:24:32.580 Like, maybe you have to learn how to get a bank account and write a check, but relatively, you can figure that out.
00:24:38.140 That's not super complicated.
00:24:39.680 But the more you financialize, the more you move things into this realm where you need to be making these investments and hedging things and figuring out the tax shelters and, you know, the IRAs and do you want a Roth or do you want a traditional?
00:24:56.000 Should you be moving into gold?
00:24:57.700 What about Bitcoin?
00:24:58.740 What are the restrictions?
00:24:59.680 The more you are forced to interact with these things because of the complexity of the financial market, the more financial literacy becomes critical, right?
00:25:08.920 And the higher level of financial literacy you have to achieve just to keep the basics up.
00:25:14.380 And this becomes a class issue because the rich are going to be the ones who are more familiar with these complex financial instruments.
00:25:22.180 And those who are not in those classes are much less likely to have the ability to understand that.
00:25:30.840 And that can be a huge hindrance for the average American.
00:25:34.460 Most people can't spend a large amount of their time learning everything about financial markets and the way they should be manipulating their money to stay ahead of the game.
00:25:44.320 So if you're one of these people who is on top of all of that or you can pay someone enough to be on top of that for you, then you gain a first mover advantage and an advantage of complexity on the rest of the economy.
00:25:56.380 You have a built-in, baked-in advantage over everyone else you're competing with.
00:26:01.360 There's also the issue of race when it comes to credit.
00:26:06.480 Famously, there are different classes.
00:26:09.720 There are different groups who are less likely to have good credit.
00:26:14.160 And when you shrink that credit cap, you're also shrinking the number of people banks will lend to, right?
00:26:20.000 Because, okay, I'm probably not going to lend to you if you're high risk at 10% because there's just not enough return for you to take that risk.
00:26:28.520 At 30%, well, maybe I will because even if you don't pay off the whole thing, I'm still going to make a decent amount of money off of you over time.
00:26:36.260 Maybe it's worth taking that risk.
00:26:38.160 And so a lot of minorities and others who might have bad credit will be stuck at the margins.
00:26:43.520 Now, all of a sudden, they won't get those loans.
00:26:45.740 Now, in my mind, you shouldn't have gotten those loans at all.
00:26:47.980 The interest rate was so high that it was always a bad move for you to take that loan.
00:26:52.700 And so the fact that you get access to that loan at 25% instead of 10%, that's not actually an advantage for you.
00:26:59.120 But in the mind of many, just not having access to credit is the problem, right?
00:27:03.480 And this ties us back to the last thing I want to say, which is that when you have really a decent amount of interest rates on loans in general,
00:27:13.420 when you have a high degree of leverage because of the percentages and the availability of credit, that drives up the price of everything, that it creates inflation.
00:27:22.300 Why are homes more expensive?
00:27:23.600 Well, there's a lot of reasons, but one of them is that more people can get mortgages and they can get mortgages for longer, which means they can pay more for houses.
00:27:31.100 So you have to compete with more people over the price of the house and they can offer more money on the house.
00:27:36.780 And this is true of cars and this is true of everything because the more people can get leverage, the higher prices they can pay for basic goods, the more the price you're going to have to pay as well.
00:27:48.060 And so there's this like credit spiral that happens and you can see this in the housing market and to a large degree, the booms and busts of the housing market are also booms and busts in credit availability.
00:28:00.020 And so when you have a lot of money chasing houses out there, the prices shoot through the roof and that's what creates a large amount of your housing inflation.
00:28:07.900 You see, again, same thing with colleges.
00:28:10.020 The fact that kids can take out $200,000 loans for a school is why those schools can charge that much money.
00:28:17.060 If they couldn't get access, if people with no job history and no actual property couldn't get $200,000 loans, we wouldn't be seeing the ridiculous tuitions that we're seeing.
00:28:30.940 So just across the board, the availability of credit creates in many ways the affordability problems it's meant to solve.
00:28:37.760 So I know through like a lot of stuff out there, but just wherever you want to tackle it, what about these many different issues that the high interest rates or availability of credit create?
00:28:48.260 Yeah. And I mean, this is the thing that most people aren't going to be aware of.
00:28:52.200 And it's something that has been often talked about since I was young, and I'm sure the same thing for you, that we ask ourselves questions like, well, when are the things that we learn in school are going to be applicable?
00:29:00.680 Or I wish that the, you know, my regular W-2 tax form for the average wage earner was something that was taught in school as well.
00:29:08.760 And I mean, those are obviously an education question, but also a parental one as well.
00:29:12.860 We have a lot of, a lot of things in our culture, at least, has abdicated parental responsibility.
00:29:18.620 And a lot of that, of course, has a lot to do with, you know, the dual income trap that has often been discussed, but it's also now a necessity in order to be able to afford, you know, your family or your home and your lifestyle.
00:29:31.560 There's a question of decadence in there, but I'm not someone who promotes the idea of downward mobility as being honorable.
00:29:36.840 And at the same time, you also have the issue and the question of just, like, America is not a place where, you know, we could rely on swift problems to financial issues.
00:29:48.060 I mean, this isn't like the savings and loan crisis of George H.W. Bush's time either.
00:29:52.420 It's much more massive.
00:29:53.620 It's much more complex.
00:29:54.660 And a lot of it is predicated on perception and belief more than, you know, anything that might be written on paper.
00:30:00.700 This is why we put so much stock, at least for when it comes to policymakers and economic writers.
00:30:06.300 We put so much emphasis on, you know, consumer confidence than anything else.
00:30:10.280 And, you know, access to credit or a credit history becomes vitally important for every person who is trying to apply for an auto loan or a home loan or even just applying to live in an apartment while they go to school or live closer to their job so they're not commuting so far.
00:30:27.300 I mean, it's something that affects every slice of life and access to it becomes a question of necessity and not so much like, well, I don't really need it right now.
00:30:35.740 I can afford and live within my own means.
00:30:38.120 And it becomes quite a debilitating situation to be in, especially for younger people.
00:30:43.960 And, of course, America is in a weird place because the younger and younger generations under the consequences of both immigration and our policies of preferring, you know, diversity when it comes to, say, small business loans or home loans and things from the Clinton administration to things that have been brought on by Biden.
00:31:01.800 I don't know what Trump has touched on these issues either, but it's like you're again, like I mentioned earlier, there's so many third rails that this like just intersects and cross cuts into that it becomes this Gordian knot.
00:31:12.520 And I think that you have to start somewhere, which I think is what the Trump administration has announced on doing this, is that they're going to start laying the blade on one part of the knot and seeing what else comes frayed or comes open and we can address and talk to those issues.
00:31:25.220 And I'm all for that because it needs to be done.
00:31:28.400 Yes, there should be more financial education, but also at the same time, we have a culture where we have instant gratification.
00:31:34.780 We have the issue that no one reads the end user like license agreement when it comes to installing a new operating system or a new program or anything on their phone or applying for things.
00:31:46.480 But also, it doesn't matter if you have good credit or bad credit.
00:31:49.400 I mean, I check my mail every couple of days and all the time you see littered advertisements in my apartment in the trash where it's just like all these like credit card or loan applications and checks that you're magically pre-approved for that no one is really going to read all the fine print or what the interest rate is on there.
00:32:09.940 And again, it's the same thing with like, well, America is the only country in the world where we allow pharmaceutical industries to like openly market their drugs on the TV airwaves where other countries don't do that.
00:32:19.600 And so a lot of this does boil down to what we had mentioned earlier.
00:32:22.340 There's going to be a lot of special interests in mind that comes forward into this.
00:32:25.880 There's going to be a lot of questions as to how do you even start to address the over financialization of everything.
00:32:32.200 There was a great take where it says, you know, most of the economy is entirely vibes based.
00:32:36.580 It's not really what's on paper, what your output is.
00:32:39.360 It's what you can convince investors and consumers that the product is actually good for you or good for your portfolio.
00:32:44.860 So it has to come down to the fact that there needs to be, I think, in the same way, a Gerald Ford moment where the state of the union financially is not good,
00:32:52.980 whether it's the American government's like our sovereign debt problem and our debt to GDP ratio, but also just that the average American is both those who are considered middle class and otherwise that have voted for Trump in the past on economic issues,
00:33:07.320 whether it's the issue of trade or re-industrializing America.
00:33:10.800 It's like, okay, these are good things.
00:33:12.240 And of course, once we deport more people and the issues that we're talking about here, whether it's the credit issue or the housing issue alleviates,
00:33:20.320 you still have the longstanding problems that institutionally there is so much rot that we have accepted as a feature that you have to start somewhere.
00:33:29.020 And I think that this kind of conversation is very good because it's the kind of economic populism that Trump has championed on in the past,
00:33:36.520 but it's the exact same kind of economic populism that his political rivals have been outflanking Republicans on for years
00:33:43.680 that so many lock, stock and barrel, traditional national review style Republicans don't want to play because that's against their economic orthodoxies or their own first principles.
00:33:54.680 Well, and that's the real issue, right? Because I think you're right exactly that both these issues are home runs because the way,
00:34:02.780 not only because they're good for people, which should be the first concern, but also politically they're winners because the narrative is just right there for you, right?
00:34:11.640 Like this is economic populism. We're going to undercut the Bernie Sanders, the AOC messages.
00:34:17.380 You know, we're going to come in. They can't, they might say these are insufficient or something,
00:34:20.880 but they can't argue about the quality of either of these. They can't say, oh, well, you know, this is, this is hurting the little guy, that kind of thing. Right.
00:34:29.780 So I think that they are both, you know, optically good, they are strategically good and have the virtue of also being good for the people.
00:34:38.300 The largest problem, I think with the second one, with the credit card company will be conservatives.
00:34:43.020 I think that's going to be the hardest thing, not just because I'm sure the credit card companies own large amounts of politicians,
00:34:48.420 but just generally, genuinely, there seems to be among many, you know, national review, free trade,
00:34:55.660 even, you know, mainstream Christian conservatives seem to think that like just open-ended interest rates are just,
00:35:03.360 that's what freedom is. That's what liberty means is allowing a company to charge 40% on a credit card,
00:35:09.000 you know, to charge 2000% on a payday loan. Like that, that's what economic liberty was talking about.
00:35:13.580 That's Adam Smith right there. And so, you know, I think the largest pushback he's going to get are
00:35:19.640 from people inside his own constituency or not his own constituency, but inside his own party.
00:35:24.840 And that creates an interesting dynamic because we have watched this conservative civil war unfold.
00:35:31.560 And it's largely been over Israel. Like, we'll just be honest. It's very clear that there's a neocon wing
00:35:38.700 and they expect large amounts of loyalty to Israel and they perceive the new right as personified with like
00:35:49.020 J.D. Vance as the successor of Trump to be in somehow in opposition to this, despite, you know,
00:35:56.120 the very angry protestations of many America firsts that that's not the case.
00:36:01.580 And so you have the scenario where they have already been trying to push back against,
00:36:06.040 they've been trying to play this game where they're like, well, we're on Trump's side,
00:36:09.960 but we don't like Vance or we don't like the new right. We don't like the people around him.
00:36:13.980 So they're trying to like control MAGA, rebrand it, you know, gain, gain control of it.
00:36:20.180 No, MAGA is actually about foreign adventurism and, you know, infinite war and support for Israel. 0.68
00:36:25.460 That's, that's what MAGA was always out about, you know, at the, at the outset.
00:36:29.680 But the problem is like, if Trump comes in with something like this, they're going to have to go
00:36:35.700 harden the paint against it, right? Like I don't see a lot of the neocons. I don't, I don't see a
00:36:40.520 Ben Shapiro celebrating the capping of, of credit cards at 10%. I don't think Max Abrams is going to
00:36:47.840 be running around celebrating this as a pro Trump guy. And so this is going to, I think in a way,
00:36:53.320 this is kind of an interesting way to smoke out some of those guys because they're going to have to go
00:36:57.560 directly at Trump to counter this, right? Like, and that's going to, you know, they've been trying
00:37:01.560 to play this no man's land game. We're like, no, we're the real, never Trump or we're the real
00:37:05.760 Trumpers, even though we were all never Trumpers before. And like, you know, you guys are the ones
00:37:09.880 betraying Trump, but if they're going to be arguing and attacking Trump's principles, when it comes to
00:37:14.880 credit card companies, I think they're going to have a harder time holding themselves up as like
00:37:19.620 the paragon of, you know, economic populism or something. Yeah. And I mean, we've saw this as well
00:37:26.000 during the COVID era. I mean, there is the question of spending. And like I had mentioned
00:37:30.840 earlier, there's just so many issues about these proposals that are going to once again,
00:37:36.620 reiterate the same debates that we've had previously. And I mean, again, they're not bad
00:37:41.120 debates to have. I mean, obviously the health of the American economy is like a very important one to
00:37:46.340 like look into and we shouldn't be taking that so lightly. We obviously really need to be heavily
00:37:51.820 looking into and considering where are we going from here when it comes to the state of the United
00:37:56.420 States economy, but also the average person's ability to afford a home and everything. And
00:38:01.200 those debates I think are going to be had more on the right than they are on the left. The left is
00:38:05.880 very straightforward about what they want to do, which is either to overregulate anything. So their
00:38:09.980 own special interests have regulatory capture or to engage in economic redistribution policies. And as
00:38:15.540 we've seen with, you know, the people ones or in Momdani's team that primarily affect white
00:38:19.680 people. And of course, with it being New York, that's probably also going to affect a large
00:38:24.080 portion of American Jews that live in the New York City area. I mean, like that's just a very 0.98
00:38:29.460 blunt thing that they're probably going to be doing about that when it comes to who is footing the bill
00:38:33.780 for these things. And so I think that when you're looking at the debate or even the, you know,
00:38:38.420 claims of this being a canard about, you know, bigotry or racism or whatever, the question is going
00:38:43.460 to be like, you know, where the focus needs to be primarily above all things, the health of the
00:38:48.340 American worker and the health of the American citizen. And that's really where our priority
00:38:52.620 should be. The government's duty is to take care of and to be sovereign over its citizens
00:38:56.820 and provide for its commonwealth. And if we're not doing that, then the question of legitimacy
00:39:01.400 and sovereignty remains to be held. And we have to really remind the audience and remind the listener
00:39:06.680 here that, and you and I have said this in other places, but again, like this is the first
00:39:11.200 relatively competent right-wing administration of our lifetimes. And it feels like a drop in the bucket
00:39:16.480 about how bad things are and addressing all issues at the same time is going to take years. It can't
00:39:21.660 be done in one single presidential term. That's why there's been so much attention about the quote
00:39:25.820 unquote new right, J.D. Vance, and all these accusations about who he associates with or who
00:39:30.480 he follows on Twitter and what he says, either to defend the administration and its actions or the
00:39:35.140 rest. But when we look at the health of the country overall, there is so much work that needs to be done.
00:39:40.500 And Trump is offering, I think, at least an economic platform for good or for bad. It is going to be
00:39:46.300 offering the Republicans, I think, a much needed CYA because they haven't done anything in the two
00:39:51.280 years that they've been in office. You've signed a few pieces of legislation, including the one big
00:39:55.620 beautiful bill, which is good for the Trump administration and especially good for the
00:39:58.880 Department of Homeland Security. But overall, I mean, Congress has done very little and it's pretty bad
00:40:05.000 when former congressmen and former speakers of the House have said, you know, Congress has really
00:40:10.280 been riding on the president's coattails and hasn't really been doing much about their own agenda
00:40:15.900 and putting forward a reason why they should be reelected. And so Congress has largely abdicated
00:40:21.360 its responsibility. More things get done that are to the antithesis of the American interest and the
00:40:26.500 American people than anything else. And while, you know, God bless him in his final days, former
00:40:31.340 Senator Ben Sasse had said it best during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings in 2017, Congress has
00:40:37.040 effectively abdicated its responsibility. It writes shell pieces of legislation, which directs the
00:40:42.860 executive branch to do things. And when the executive branch does something that the American
00:40:46.680 people don't like, the Supreme Court becomes the politics of last resort in the United States.
00:40:51.600 And this is why we've seen SCOTUS be more active than ever, because it really does seem that the
00:40:55.620 only way that the Trump administration can legally enshrine any of its actions or its interests
00:41:00.860 is through the Supreme Court, because Congress doesn't want to do its job. And so if the president wants
00:41:06.260 to establish an economic plan and focus on the domestic issues, especially on two big hot button ones,
00:41:12.140 like interest rates and affordability of a home, especially when he has been considered to be
00:41:17.360 the affordability president and to be the guy that wants to make the economy work again,
00:41:22.660 then he needs to do this. But he's also going to need a party that isn't going to try to impeach
00:41:26.840 his secretaries and his cabinet positions every other day for the rest of his two years in office after
00:41:34.220 the midterms. Yeah, it's just obvious that Congress is over, right? Like technically,
00:41:41.440 it'll still be there and have power and vote thing on things and obstruct the president or not at 0.86
00:41:49.340 moments. But in general, the idea that we're like going to deliberate on stuff and work it out and
00:41:56.280 then pass meaningful legislation. I think that's just kind of done, right? Like we can't even pass
00:42:00.800 budgets anymore. We're lucky if we can get continuing resolutions through Congress at this
00:42:05.440 point. So I mean, we're, we're, you know, we're talking about the, the, the community relations
00:42:11.060 services yesterday and the, and it just got photocopied into a new budget. It looks like
00:42:15.820 like that, that's kind of the level of bureaucracy we're at is it's so impossible to get anything done
00:42:20.400 in Congress that you can't even just get like language in a budget or appropriations, continuing
00:42:26.760 resolution solved, you know, like that, that's how impotent Congress has become. And of course,
00:42:31.960 you know, we've talked, you know, quite a bit about the amount of authority that's been transferred
00:42:35.940 into the bureaucracy because Congress can't make decisions when it comes to things that are supposed
00:42:40.440 to be expert, that kind of stuff. And I talk about that a good bit in the total state, if people want
00:42:44.740 to read my book. So these are all issues that have faced Congress for years. And I think these are just
00:42:50.200 what happens as you move towards an empire, you know, as you, as you move away, like the Republic's
00:42:55.840 done democracy is kind of just a shibboleth at this point. Uh, it's really just, uh, the only thing
00:43:01.360 that can really be done is, you know, the, the momentum of the bureaucracy, the authority of the
00:43:06.420 executive, and then the decisions of nine people on the court, uh, when it comes to actually having
00:43:12.580 some large scale deliberative body trying to move legislation drafted that I think that's more or less
00:43:19.080 done. And so that creates this dynamic where, you know, Trump is just trying to find avenues that he
00:43:26.440 can, you know, use his power to, to move anything and hope that the courts just kind of agree with
00:43:33.460 them or don't block them. That, that is kind of just the game that is now being played. Congress is
00:43:37.580 largely irrelevant. And I think that's going to be the case going forward. And I don't think Congress
00:43:42.440 is going to be held accountable for this. I think people are just going to call for the president to do
00:43:46.480 more. People are going to want to see the president take more authority, take more action,
00:43:51.440 possibly defy courts, you know, to, to get things done. I think you're going to see more and more
00:43:55.800 call for that kind of stuff. And so the interesting dynamics going to be, you know, what, what happens
00:44:00.940 there, but, uh, you know, before we go, Matt, I'm going to, I'm going to do something that, uh,
00:44:05.880 I should never do. And I'm going to do it twice. So, sorry, first, I'm going to ask you to make a
00:44:09.660 prediction and I'm going to ask you to make a prediction about the future in the past, because we're doing
00:44:14.400 this, uh, you know, we're, we're pre-recording this, so we won't have all the information. So
00:44:18.180 not only are you having to make a prediction, you're having to make it in, in, in the fog of
00:44:21.980 war. However, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you this with everything going on in Minnesota.
00:44:28.140 Uh, obviously we don't want to need to rehash everything we've talked about on the show,
00:44:31.780 the shooting and whatnot, but there are continued protests happening. There are people being arrested.
00:44:38.120 Uh, there is violence still going on that as severe, obviously no one is dead, uh, yet, uh,
00:44:44.080 in Minnesota again, from, from conflicts with ice, but it's very clear that the left is continuing
00:44:48.740 to try to build this George Floyd situation into a new, like winter of love, I guess is what we're
00:44:56.040 looking for here going into, uh, you know, uh, different elections and whatnot. Do you think
00:45:01.500 that that's going to continue to escalate? Do you think that the, there just isn't the passion?
00:45:05.980 It's too cold. We don't have the NGO mobilization, or do you think they will get this off the ground
00:45:11.020 and we will see continued violence in Minnesota?
00:45:14.980 On Minnesota, I think that there will be not just in the state of Minnesota, but in other places in
00:45:20.140 which ice is operating the revolutionary mindset of a lot of protesters and paid activists or those
00:45:26.780 that have gone to be quote unquote legal observers, uh, which has been with the national lawyers
00:45:30.780 guild. And if you want to read Burroughs's book, days of rage, you'll understand that that has
00:45:34.240 basically been a legal arm to be eyewitnesses on the ground for various left-wing, uh, terror and
00:45:39.720 actions, uh, in the past. So I'm not really surprised to see that this has taken place.
00:45:44.580 Um, furthermore, you know, I know that we're talking about this in the past, but I think that
00:45:48.520 it has been safe to say that a lot of revolutionary groups and a lot of people who want to put the
00:45:53.500 law enforcement officials in the immigration and customs enforcement people up on the line,
00:45:57.740 they want questionable optics and use of force, uh, because that mobilizes them,
00:46:04.260 that galvanizes them and that does it. Um, but we also have trained to actually produce it like
00:46:08.500 that it's not just that they went like they specifically have manuals and guidelines and
00:46:13.300 training classes. Yeah. This is not a layman's organization. This is very much direct and in
00:46:20.540 your face about this is planned. There's a lot of money involved and that's something that the DOJ
00:46:25.100 really does need to go after. I do foresee that there will be, uh, probably more violence in the
00:46:30.800 future on these questions and that there's also going to be the very ugly question in place about
00:46:38.500 where the responses are going to be. Will there be more violence? I am afraid to make this prediction
00:46:44.260 because I could obviously no one wants to be wrong, but I, my I'm, I'm cynical because I think
00:46:49.100 that they want it to escalate. They want it to escalate that way. When things warm up after this winter
00:46:53.760 passes, they have all these litanies of names that they can go off of and, and do it. Um, however,
00:47:00.940 you know, the, the woman who had been, uh, shot by the, the ice officer, you know, it's not going to,
00:47:06.760 no one's going to really riot in Minneapolis in the middle of January. It's too cold. And also it is a
00:47:11.880 white lesbian, which again, if you're a white lesbian and you're on the left, you probably know somewhere 1.00
00:47:16.900 in the back of your head that you are not valued, uh, because of your race and because of your 0.94
00:47:21.760 identity, um, than say a black person is. And so it's going to be like an Aaron Bushnell situation
00:47:27.680 where you will be forgotten, or you will be a person who they will argue that you shouldn't
00:47:32.700 say rest in power over despite you dying for a supposed left-wing cause. Um, you're not Captain
00:47:38.080 Marvel, you know, like this isn't a superhero movie where the 90 pound woman can somehow take on a 1.00
00:47:43.380 bunch of, you know, train armored law enforcement agents and win. Um, as we saw what happens, you know,
00:47:48.060 if you try to pull those things, there will be lethal consequences to them.
00:47:51.760 And I think that the administration above all things in the wake of this violence and any more
00:47:55.340 that follows, it really needs to tell its agents that we're on your side. You know, Andy Ngo who
00:48:02.200 has almost been killed for his reporting on Antifa over the years had done some research and someone
00:48:06.720 is threatening to hack or has a list of all those that have applied to be in ICE and with DHS since
00:48:12.060 the Trump administration started. There is nothing stopping that list from coming out. And there's
00:48:16.220 nothing stopping a new democratic administration from leaking that list to friendly and Antifa
00:48:21.680 adjacent organizations to go after you and your families. So the administration needs to send a
00:48:26.720 message right now. Not only are we supporting the officer who took these actions, but we will be
00:48:31.240 supporting all of our agents against any threats to their home or their family or their person.
00:48:36.700 Because if not, once they're out of office, the sword of Damocles is well over them and it's
00:48:40.700 probably going to fall on their necks. So my prediction is, is yes, there will probably be more
00:48:44.360 violence. There will be more rioting potentially if it does escalate in the spring as things warm up.
00:48:48.360 But I think that there should be body cameras on every DHS and every ICE agent in the country who
00:48:54.300 goes out on these raids because we saw that with police body cameras. This was a champion thing on
00:48:58.780 the left and it has more or less validated every single use of force by police officers almost every
00:49:03.740 single time. So I think that the same should be done for those trying to kick out the people who
00:49:08.780 should not be in this country to begin with. And if you want to die for the people who shouldn't be
00:49:12.880 here, then I don't have a country to share with you. I'm sorry. You have chosen the side of the 0.93
00:49:17.420 invader. And I don't have as much sympathy as I probably should for you.
00:49:21.560 Yeah, it's really important. If they hadn't had that cell phone camera footage from the officer
00:49:27.000 who was struck in that attack, we might be facing a very different situation. So yeah, absolutely
00:49:33.140 something that needs to be available should be made public immediately so people can know what's
00:49:39.900 going on and the deceptive practices that many of these people are engaging in to generate exactly
00:49:45.220 the type of situation you're talking about. All right, guys, we're going to go ahead and wrap this
00:49:48.800 up. Once again, this is pre-recorded. So sorry, but we cannot take your questions today. If it's
00:49:55.000 your first time on this channel, please make sure you subscribe on YouTube. Make sure that you click
00:49:59.920 the bell, notifications, all that stuff. If you want to get these broadcasts as podcasts, you need
00:50:03.780 to subscribe to The Orr McIntyre Show on your favorite podcast platform. Matthew, if people want to
00:50:09.160 follow your work, where should they be going?
00:50:10.680 Sure. You can find me on Twitter at Mr. Prudentialist. You can usually find the amphibious
00:50:15.360 profile picture that I have on there. I'm also on Substack, theprudentialist.substack.com. There'll
00:50:20.120 be a lot more essays in the works coming in for this year. I want to be really focusing on writing
00:50:24.820 more. I want to keep that muscle as strengthened and as trained as possible. It says I'm on the air
00:50:29.420 so often with people like you and your gracious invitation. Alongside that, I have a YouTube channel by
00:50:34.220 the same name. I am often covering a variety of literature that is important to our political thought
00:50:39.220 and today. A week from now when this comes out, I will have covered Georgia Sorrell's
00:50:43.940 Reflections on Violence with my friend Dime as we have to show Do You Even Read? From there,
00:50:49.160 there will just be more essays and things like that coming out both for the channel but as well
00:50:53.920 as on Substack. As always, I'm grateful to have you on. Last but not least, I'll be on the upcoming
00:50:59.480 issue of Frontier Magazine with Blaze Media. I'm looking forward to that being published.
00:51:03.820 Excellent. Excellent. Of course, guys, if you want to read Matthew's articles along with all
00:51:07.940 the other great Blaze content, of course, you need to not only be a Blaze subscriber but you
00:51:12.260 need to have access to that Blaze Unlimited. You need to have that VIP upgrade so you can
00:51:16.980 get that nice, beautiful, luxurious magazine in your hand every quarter. So make sure that
00:51:22.440 you check that out. Thank you once again, everybody, for watching and as always, I will talk to you
00:51:26.220 next time.