The Culture War - Tim Pool - Overspending, Welfare & BLOAT Will END The US w⧸ Conor (Counterpoints) & Cameron Barrett

00:00:00.000 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Culture War debate show, I guess.

00:00:13.520 Sometimes we do discussions.

00:00:14.660 We try to have civil discussions, but sometimes they get heated debates.

00:00:18.720 And moving forward, we are planning on having many of these shows live, pre-recorded, simply

00:00:24.020 because we wanted to do it live.

00:00:25.980 We're like, how do we do a show live Saturday night?

00:00:28.220 It's not really something you can do.

00:00:29.060 So tomorrow night, we are going to be pre-recording the next episode of the Culture War live with

00:00:32.860 the studio audience, and we're allowing our audience members to come up and join the debate.

00:00:36.260 So moving forward, this is our pilot.

00:00:38.300 We're going to figure out how we do it.

00:00:40.140 So it's going to be chaotic, but don't worry.

00:00:42.340 Alex Stein will be joining us to make sure that if it is chaotic, we can blame him.

00:00:46.640 It's going to be fun.

00:00:47.600 But today, we're going to be talking about overspending, government bloat, welfare, and

00:00:53.780 these policies that will bankrupt or destroy the United States.

00:00:57.640 And I've got a couple gentlemen with me.

00:00:59.000 Sir, would you like to introduce yourself?

00:01:01.340 Yeah.

00:01:01.620 Hi.

00:01:02.080 Great to be back.

00:01:02.880 My name's Connor.

00:01:03.680 I'm a science fiction, political, and philosophy nerd, Marine Corps, and law enforcement veteran.

00:01:06.580 I think the easiest way to identify my politics is a never-Trump Republican.

00:01:10.600 Funnily enough, I was on this stream a few weeks, maybe a month ago or so, arguing that

00:01:15.960 we needed a state and statism and welfare and all that kind of stuff.

00:01:19.520 But I think that the left can go way too far with this stuff, and you can effectively bankrupt

00:01:23.880 or destroy a society if you're not careful.

00:01:25.580 So that's what I'll be arguing today.

00:01:27.260 Right on.

00:01:27.720 Sir, who are you?

00:01:28.960 Hey, everyone.

00:01:29.680 Go by Iconoboy on YouTube and all the things.

00:01:32.260 I have a substack, iconoboy.substack.com.

00:01:34.220 I do a show with Pisco, actually a soon-to-be reoccurring guest on the TimCast.

00:01:40.820 And so I'm here to defend the welfare state and government spending.

00:01:45.020 And my preview for my audience was I never miss a chance to defend big government.

00:01:49.540 So that's why I'm here.

00:01:50.180 Well, here's my question for you.

00:01:53.140 Are you a small government guy?

00:01:55.120 Relatively speaking, but there's, of course, essential functions for the government that

00:01:58.700 we should be performing.

00:02:00.020 And that's where I get into trouble and fight with libertarians and ANCAPs.

00:02:04.060 So this is interesting, because you're like a medium government guy.

00:02:06.460 I'm a medium government guy.

00:02:07.380 Versus a big government guy.

00:02:08.480 Exactly.

00:02:09.000 Yeah, Connor said that he's like, I'm looking forward to this opportunity to shift this

00:02:13.400 conversation a little bit.

00:02:14.520 Yeah, because no offense to him, but I checked out the comments underneath my thing, and they're 0.99

00:02:18.660 like, oh, this statist, leftist, communist piece of garbage. 0.98

00:02:22.440 He's arguing for indefinite spending. 1.00

00:02:25.480 What an a-hole.

00:02:26.520 And then it's like, guys, like, no, I do have reasonable positions to allow.

00:02:30.060 I must admit, too, when people call me a statist, because I say things like, I'm okay with public

00:02:35.480 expenses for roads.

00:02:36.740 Yeah.

00:02:37.120 And then they're like, oh, no, private tolls.

00:02:39.600 But that's socialism.

00:02:41.020 Let's start with the biggest government ever.

00:02:43.700 What does that mean to you, big government and spending?

00:02:46.080 Do you mean like deficit spending and unlimited budgets, or what?

00:02:49.000 Yeah, I joke about big government, obviously.

00:02:51.520 I mean, I think that, in principle, government should be as small as possible.

00:02:54.740 I mean, obviously, you shouldn't have more government than you think you might need.

00:02:57.940 But obviously, it's a debate about, you know, what the institution should really look

00:03:01.660 like and how expansive they should be.

00:03:03.460 You know, I happen to believe in a pretty big welfare state.

00:03:06.480 You know, I think that part of the conceptual reason why we would always need a welfare state,

00:03:10.360 essentially, no matter what, is that one of the reasons why the bottom 20% are, the bottom 0.95

00:03:15.280 20%, you know, they're poor, is because they're overwhelmingly people who just don't work or 0.93

00:03:20.160 they have trouble accessing the labor market, right? 0.93

00:03:22.520 So we've got unemployed people, caregivers, elderly people, children, disabled people,

00:03:27.980 students, right?

00:03:28.620 And so, fundamentally, in a market capitalist system, whether you like it or don't like

00:03:32.820 it, there's not really a clean way, clearly, you know, from across history, for essentially

00:03:38.840 the market to get income to these people.

00:03:41.740 And as well, since these people are unequally distributed, right?

00:03:44.480 So if we were to imagine the same, you know, two people, right?

00:03:48.060 You know, identical twins.

00:03:49.360 One makes 70 grand.

00:03:50.300 The other makes 70 grand.

00:03:51.120 They live in the same city.

00:03:52.280 One of them lives completely alone, just in a studio apartment.

00:03:55.120 And then the other one has, like, a child and a disabled spouse. 0.92

00:03:58.580 Well, even though they have the same income, the person who has a child and a disabled spouse, 0.98

00:04:02.820 which, you know, arguably is no, you know, through no fault of their own, or at the very

00:04:06.560 least, we might say that children and people with disabilities should be taken care of, 0.99

00:04:09.420 that person's going to be much poorer, unless we provide disability benefits, child allowances,

00:04:14.520 things like that. 0.99

00:04:15.200 Well, let me ask you, or why not just let them die? 0.98

00:04:18.280 Well, I mean, of course, that is always... 0.91

00:04:19.940 Thank you, Fabian.

00:04:20.720 Yeah.

00:04:21.380 That is an intuition some people might have.

00:04:23.260 I mean, I happen to, you know, I believe in a state.

00:04:26.320 I believe in having a government.

00:04:27.820 I believe in, in some senses, collective responsibilities, you know, communitarianism and things like

00:04:34.260 that.

00:04:34.620 And so...

00:04:35.000 Oh, you're a communist.

00:04:35.960 Yeah, yeah, of course.

00:04:36.980 No.

00:04:37.160 I am kidding.

00:04:37.940 No, I believe in community, right?

00:04:39.120 And I think that part of believing in community is having these sort of, you know, democratic procedures

00:04:42.820 for voting for taxes and voting for institutions that distribute money to these people.

00:04:47.680 And obviously, the proof is in the pudding, right?

00:04:49.820 You know, when you have a welfare state that's well-functioning, children aren't in poverty.

00:04:53.400 The elderly aren't in poverty.

00:04:54.580 People with disabilities aren't in poverty.

00:04:56.160 You know, the poverty rate in general just completely flatlines when you have a well-functioning

00:05:00.180 welfare state.

00:05:00.880 And that's not what necessarily the U.S. has.

00:05:02.980 But I think that we should tend towards that direction, not strip away all these benefits.

00:05:07.420 But my argumentation effectively is going to be that, like, we have this schism in the

00:05:12.000 United States of America politically, culturally, et cetera, et cetera.

00:05:14.640 Some may call it a civil war at times.

00:05:16.980 But the issue is that in order for a welfare state to work, you need fiscal conservative

00:05:22.420 and social conservative instincts.

00:05:24.500 So one of the things that I see most often criticized about the welfare state, about Scandinavia,

00:05:28.680 about the Pacific Northwest, about California, is perverse incentive systems where you effectively

00:05:33.320 get people who are—I'm just going to say it—parasitic, dysgenic. 0.94

00:05:38.460 And those might be, like, words that are loaded where it's like, oh, you're a fascist 0.98

00:05:41.660 or whatever.

00:05:42.260 But when you have generation after generation after generation that are on social benefit

00:05:45.840 programs, they're not getting better.

00:05:47.520 They're not integrated into the economy.

00:05:49.300 They're taking wealth that could be used for more productive measures, et cetera, et

00:05:52.700 cetera.

00:05:52.800 We have to look at that, and we have to look at that as a systemic failure.

00:05:55.820 And so that's where I don't begrudge fiscal conservatives who say, we've sent billions or

00:06:00.440 trillions of dollars on these programs, and the stats have stayed almost the same, or social

00:06:05.280 conservatives who are saying that we are incentivizing degenerate behavior.

00:06:09.140 So how do we have a system that protects the weak from just being tossed out without creating

00:06:14.900 generational dependencies?

00:06:16.780 Bullying.

00:06:18.000 Bullying?

00:06:18.740 Yeah.

00:06:19.280 So this is a—it's going to be mostly a cultural argument because I think that people can already

00:06:23.540 identify that we're arguing about, like, how big should the state be and what services

00:06:27.040 should it be—should it provide.

00:06:28.340 I have very specific, like, thoughts on that.

00:06:31.480 But the thing is, like, what I get frustrated with, with the left, with liberals, with progressives,

00:06:37.540 with leftists, is that they don't seem to have any taste for saying, hey, no, you're

00:06:43.260 actually screwing up.

00:06:44.000 Hard drug use is terrible.

00:06:45.780 Being a single parent, while not always your fault, is sometimes your fault.

00:06:49.920 And here's all the pro-social behaviors that you should be taking part in, and then we should

00:06:53.700 prioritize those as a society.

00:06:55.120 And obviously, we're having a sensible conversation between sensible people, but as soon as we

00:06:59.460 leave this room, we're kind of bombarded with messaging that says, oh, this is cis-heteropatriarchal.

00:07:05.420 This is right-wing—this is the gateway to fascism.

00:07:09.380 When realistically, most people kind of have these social incentive structures in their

00:07:13.300 lives, and they see the benefits and the downsides.

00:07:16.180 I'm not so sure you guys are going to disagree on a lot of these, right?

00:07:19.360 You don't want—

00:07:19.980 I can get pretty spicy pretty quick.

00:07:21.600 But you don't want dependent generations that aren't actually contributing, do you?

00:07:26.220 Well, it's an empirical question, right?

00:07:28.060 So I think that where Connor is mistaken, and I think where a lot of people are mistaken

00:07:31.040 on this, is that if we were to look at people who were born poor, right?

00:07:35.280 So people born in kind of the bottom 20th percentile of people.

00:07:38.460 This is a pretty poor group of people.

00:07:39.980 I mean, they consume—it's about—last time I checked the data, there's about 1.6 people

00:07:44.020 on average, obviously, in these households, they consume about $30,000 worth of things

00:07:48.560 on an annual basis, right?

00:07:50.120 So about, you know, call it $18,000 per person.

00:07:53.280 So this is a pretty low-income group of people.

00:07:55.080 If we were to track those children and say, well, where do they end up as adults?

00:07:58.380 You know, what you find is that the majority of them end up in a higher quintile than when

00:08:02.460 they were born, right?

00:08:03.480 And that's only after one generation.

00:08:05.220 So typically, between maybe 35% and 45% of people end up staying in the bottom 20th percentile,

00:08:11.140 you know, as they—

00:08:12.300 Sorry, can you say that one again?

00:08:13.820 What specifically?

00:08:15.020 The people who stay in it.

00:08:16.800 Yeah, it's about 35% to 45%.

00:08:18.280 Now, that's only after one generation.

00:08:19.900 So if we were to, you know, go from the parents to the children to the grandkids to the great-grandkids,

00:08:25.660 this sort of exponentially decreases, right?

00:08:27.480 So in terms of the people who stay on benefits, the overwhelming majority of people who are

00:08:32.220 on benefits kind of fall into two categories, right?

00:08:34.880 We've got people who actually just need temporary help, and so they stay on benefits temporarily.

00:08:39.120 Take food stamps, for instance.

00:08:40.240 I think the average person stays on food stamps for less than a year.

00:08:43.020 Right?

00:08:43.340 Now, the people who stay on food stamps long term, they're overwhelmingly the people that 1.00

00:08:48.180 I describe in this group, not including the unemployed, right?

00:08:50.900 These are people who simply struggle to work or have, you know, essentially an inability

00:08:55.240 to work.

00:08:55.620 They have disabilities.

00:08:56.440 They're elderly.

00:08:57.200 You know, they have caregiving responsibilities at home, and they don't have financial support.

00:09:02.600 And so if we really want to support people into work, the best thing that we can do is

00:09:06.940 get rid of the means tests.

00:09:08.380 We can universalize these programs, and we can afford to do that if we just had a better

00:09:12.680 tax system.

00:09:13.540 But kicking people off of their benefits, especially with this concept of, well, I want to prevent

00:09:18.640 generational poverty.

00:09:19.480 Number one, generational poverty, especially after multiple generations, is really not

00:09:23.860 that common.

00:09:24.980 And to the extent that it is, it's because these people have essentially ailments, right?

00:09:29.420 They have disabilities.

00:09:30.880 They're just old at a certain point, right?

00:09:32.740 Like, you know, these things happen, and it plunges people into poverty.

00:09:35.700 Yes.

00:09:36.180 Sorry, go ahead.

00:09:36.600 Do you guys believe in evolution?

00:09:38.240 I do.

00:09:38.880 I do.

00:09:39.540 That wasn't a trick question.

00:09:40.560 I know some people don't.

00:09:42.120 And I ask this because we would then concede that humans are constantly in the process of

00:09:48.460 evolution.

00:09:49.020 Evolution is not like one day a duck has a baby and it's an alligator, right?

00:09:53.740 Over long periods of time, genetic traits do confer changes in a species, in an animal.

00:09:59.100 And so I'm curious if you think it is, I suppose, macro enough that if you have a group of people

00:10:08.660 that are incapable of producing more than they consume, if you prop up this group of people,

00:10:13.920 they will create more people incapable of producing more than they consume.

00:10:18.540 Well, this is a J.F. Gary Eppie argument.

00:10:21.760 And I'm not saying it's a fact.

00:10:23.500 I'm asking J.F.

00:10:24.220 He's asking the question.

00:10:24.980 I mean, I think that...

00:10:26.240 Well, can I address something real quick that you just said, though?

00:10:28.700 And then we'll do the genetic evolution.

00:10:30.980 Yeah.

00:10:31.500 So the...

00:10:32.780 Or social...

00:10:33.780 Excuse me.

00:10:34.420 Social evolution.

00:10:35.480 So, okay.

00:10:36.300 I hear what you're saying where you're saying that over generations, 35 to 45 percent of

00:10:40.280 the people actually end up staying on it.

00:10:41.760 And as a result, over the course of a matter of time, there's going to be less and less

00:10:44.600 people on it or the people have more opportunities to get off of it.

00:10:46.300 That was just people who were...

00:10:48.300 They stayed poor.

00:10:49.220 Not necessarily people who stayed on benefits, but that would be even less people.

00:10:52.420 But while I was researching this, because obviously there's, I would say, a liberal

00:10:56.760 or progressive bias to search engines.

00:11:00.560 One of the things that I found is that with the stickiness of social benefits, oftentimes

00:11:04.600 what happens is people, they will...

00:11:06.340 Because there are time limits stuck to these social benefits, oftentimes around five years,

00:11:11.500 what happens is people will go off, go on, go on, go off, et cetera, et cetera.

00:11:15.840 And so it's effectively this wave of them doing it and getting to Tim's point about whether

00:11:20.960 or not we're incentivizing an antisocial element of our society.

00:11:24.460 That's actually specifically what I'm arguing about, because I think that there's a resentment

00:11:27.880 from the middle class and the working class who are just barely surviving, paying bills,

00:11:33.020 getting by, all that kind of stuff.

00:11:34.620 And then they see this, I hate to say it, but true, parasitic class of people who are jumping 1.00

00:11:39.800 back and forth on benefits over and over again.

00:11:42.220 And sometimes it is intergenerational.

00:11:44.420 Even in your own statement, it's 35 to 45 percent.

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00:13:13.400 After one generation, right?

00:13:14.920 So the point that I say...

00:13:16.260 But doesn't that carry over to subsequent generations?

00:13:18.500 And so as a result, majority of people are getting off of the benefits,

00:13:21.520 but there's still a third that stay on?

00:13:23.240 Well, I'm just talking about people who stay in the bottom 20%, right?

00:13:25.960 So it's, again, the people who stay in the bottom 20%

00:13:28.460 is necessarily a bigger group of people than are actually on benefits, right?

00:13:32.160 Or at the very least, we could say that the kind of people that you're describing

00:13:34.980 is a smaller group than the entirety of the bottom 20%,

00:13:37.600 because not everyone takes benefits.

00:13:39.320 You know, we have a very complicated system for even getting the benefits.

00:13:42.440 Obviously, as a veteran, you can probably relate to that somewhat, right?

00:13:45.760 It actually got better in the past decade, believe it or not.

00:13:47.820 Well, thanks Biden and Trump, I guess.

00:13:50.080 It's gone down, the consumption of welfare?

00:13:51.880 What do you mean?

00:13:52.480 I was just talking about the VA, Veterans Affairs.

00:13:54.580 Oh, right.

00:13:54.840 So basically a decade ago, I would have had all the nightmare stories

00:13:57.740 that everybody was talking about.

00:13:58.800 You walk in, you can't see anybody, you get a six-month appointment.

00:14:01.380 You know, they basically just say, hey, hopefully you don't kill yourself.

00:14:04.700 Good luck.

00:14:05.700 That's what I experienced like 10 years ago.

00:14:07.340 In Canada?

00:14:08.120 Yeah. 1.00

00:14:08.440 They'd be like, hey, maybe kill yourself. 0.74

00:14:10.920 Well, I mean, you know. 0.55

00:14:12.560 I'm going to write that down because that's another.

00:14:15.100 That is where ultimately I end up going with my question.

00:14:19.320 Yeah, because are we incentivizing bad behavior? 0.92

00:14:22.300 And then at the end of the day, are we saying, hey, maybe kill yourself?

00:14:24.740 But Connor, I think we have to stay clear with, again,

00:14:28.320 what I think is the fundamental purpose of the welfare state, right?

00:14:30.760 So we have to look at this group of people, right?

00:14:32.980 Unemployed, caregivers, elderly, children, disabled people, students.

00:14:36.080 There's no bad behavior in any of that list of people, right?

00:14:39.420 But I think that fiscal conservatives and social conservatives

00:14:41.380 wouldn't necessarily have that beef with it.

00:14:43.020 What they would have beef with is, number one, 0.94

00:14:44.500 the parasitic people that we're talking about.

00:14:46.180 And number two, they would have questions about, like,

00:14:48.120 how do we enable society in order to actually support these people?

00:14:51.020 Fiscal conservatives, there's some of them.

00:14:52.400 I hate them viciously.

00:14:53.820 They're like, well, not with my tax dollars. 0.99

00:14:56.520 Those people drive me crazy and up the wall.

00:14:58.280 But social conservatives basically say, as an example,

00:15:01.360 we're talking about, you know, this 35% to 45%.

00:15:04.900 And you're not saying that all of them are bad.

00:15:06.620 Some of them are disabled.

00:15:08.420 Some of them are taking care of family.

00:15:09.480 Overwhelming majority.

00:15:10.620 Yeah.

00:15:10.760 Yeah, but the point is that what social conservatives are concerned with

00:15:14.900 is that there does exist a subclass of people

00:15:18.900 who effectively just use benefits as their employment.

00:15:22.380 And so they bounce on and off of the system over and over again.

00:15:25.760 There's multiple reasons for that, right?

00:15:27.160 So there's multiple reasons for that.

00:15:28.960 So obviously, like you said, benefits are complicated.

00:15:31.760 Some people fall off.

00:15:32.620 Different administrations come in.

00:15:33.840 So people fall off and get back on benefits.

00:15:35.520 Now, again, I have to keep going back to this is a minority of people.

00:15:38.980 And of the people who stay on benefits, again,

00:15:40.780 the overwhelming majority are these people that I just described.

00:15:43.000 Now, for the people that you're describing,

00:15:45.160 it's kind of like, oh, these able-bodied people

00:15:47.100 who don't have any sort of responsibilities.

00:15:49.200 They might not be able-bodied.

00:15:49.860 They might be, sorry, real quick.

00:15:51.660 There are people who, we were talking about evolution,

00:15:55.400 which obviously I don't think that you can do that in a few generations.

00:15:58.140 But there are people who are legitimately disabled.

00:15:59.960 But the reason why they're disabled is because they have bad life habits. 1.00

00:16:02.980 They have drug addictions.

00:16:04.080 They have lower back pain because they're obese.

00:16:06.280 They do things that effectively ruin their lives physically, mentally, spiritually.

00:16:12.160 And then they expect people to perpetuate their existence.

00:16:16.260 And I think that's what a lot of people get frustrated by.

00:16:18.560 It's not just a physical issue.

00:16:20.400 It's also like a spiritual, motivational, cultural issue.

00:16:23.760 Let me just step away from the genetic component of what I asked.

00:16:28.680 But also, as you mentioned, the social component.

00:16:31.160 If there are people, you know, I'm not going to say if.

00:16:33.400 There's a viral video where a woman says, here's the food I make for my seven-year-old.

00:16:37.940 She's morbidly obese.

00:16:39.280 And she's taking a bunch of chicken nuggets.

00:16:41.200 And she's doing like 50 nuggets. 1.00

00:16:42.940 And then she's like putting oil on them and then deep frying them. 1.00

00:16:45.920 And then she's putting like whipped cream on ice cream. 0.57

00:16:48.240 She's like, this is what I give to my kids every day.

00:16:49.980 If you have bad practices outside of genetics, their children are going to be on benefits too.

00:16:56.240 And then a society that says, don't worry, it's fine.

00:16:59.100 We got you.

00:17:00.360 Eventually, you get a lot of these people that will create more people.

00:17:03.680 You know, I know fertility is down.

00:17:05.780 But presuming that people are going to have children, they're going to perpetuate that cycle.

00:17:10.260 Yeah.

00:17:10.440 Well, I mean, again, so we have to kind of segregate the conversation here.

00:17:14.020 Including, I can kind of include what Connor just said about people with disabilities who might have.

00:17:17.620 Maybe it's their fault that they're disabled or something like that. 1.00

00:17:20.520 But so obviously, if you wanted to say, well, we should have certain rules by which people qualify.

00:17:26.260 Like obviously, if you were to say like, oh, I sprained my ankle.

00:17:28.880 So give me $1,000 a month in disability.

00:17:30.800 Right. 0.80

00:17:30.900 I think most people would say, well, that does sound a little ridiculous. 0.90

00:17:33.320 Right.

00:17:34.220 And so you might have a list of rules.

00:17:35.700 And every country that has disability benefits has different qualifications.

00:17:39.080 And some things count and some things don't.

00:17:41.060 So, you know, you have to figure out the details here.

00:17:42.960 Right.

00:17:43.440 But at the end of the day, what I'm making an argument for is kind of twofold.

00:17:46.680 Right.

00:17:46.840 One is the principal argument that we need a welfare state to support people with all of these groups of people.

00:17:54.220 But obviously also, inclusive of that, people with disabilities.

00:17:57.280 Right.

00:17:57.580 The market fails these people.

00:17:59.620 We cannot leave the market to its own devices.

00:18:02.200 These people will just be poor and in poverty.

00:18:04.460 Quick interjection.

00:18:05.140 Did you hear about fraternal societies in the early 20th century?

00:18:08.660 I did hear.

00:18:09.420 I did watch that debate.

00:18:10.700 Yeah.

00:18:11.200 My response would just be that I think that people, anarchists who rely on that are, I think,

00:18:15.860 misunderstanding a lot of that history.

00:18:17.720 That's being polite.

00:18:18.640 Can you be ruder?

00:18:19.520 Well, I mean, it kind of goes to your point, though, Connor.

00:18:21.680 When you said that, you know, we need this culture of just like bullying people and telling people to,

00:18:27.600 you know, I hate to say pick themselves up by their bootstraps. 0.99

00:18:29.520 But, you know, similarly, like we just need to tell people to like, man, go get a fucking job. 0.99

00:18:33.820 Right. 0.99

00:18:34.140 That kind of thing.

00:18:35.240 Now, I think that in general, we can kind of do a time series here and look at when we didn't have welfare.

00:18:41.780 Right.

00:18:41.980 When we didn't have welfare, this kind of culture did exist.

00:18:44.780 And getting welfare benefits was a political, you know, trial and experiment.

00:18:48.560 People advocated for it.

00:18:49.580 People shot it down.

00:18:50.860 Eventually, we get Social Security.

00:18:52.200 Eventually, we get Medicare.

00:18:53.220 Eventually, we get Medicaid, all these kind of different things.

00:18:55.080 Right.

00:18:55.700 Now, pre-welfare, you saw so much riding like this.

00:18:59.220 Right. 1.00

00:18:59.420 There was this culture where, oh, if you have to take any money from the government, you're just a bum, lazy piece of garbage or whatever. 1.00

00:19:05.640 Right. 0.98

00:19:05.880 If you have to take money from charity, you know, some conservatives say, oh, well, charities will just fill the gap that welfare takes. 0.88

00:19:11.180 Well, back when we had the kind of culture you're describing, people said, even if you take money from charity, you're a bum loser and you shouldn't do that.

00:19:17.280 And charities are, in fact, bad because it creates the kind of culture that you're talking about.

00:19:20.680 Now, the last thing I was going to say, one last sentence, was that we had that culture and poverty was really high.

00:19:27.640 Right.

00:19:27.840 We had a high, high level of poverty.

00:19:30.100 Once we institute state welfare benefits, guess what?

00:19:33.380 All the people who qualified for them, the poverty rates declined precipitously.

00:19:37.080 They continue to decline all the way up until the 90s and 2000s when benefits kind of bottomed out.

00:19:41.540 So, honest question. 0.92

00:19:43.640 Why not let them die?

00:19:45.040 Well, philosophically, like I said, I mean, I have a kind of intuition about, you know, a sense of community and a value of human life. 0.79

00:19:52.500 Right.

00:19:53.160 Now, you know, I'm not a religious person.

00:19:55.200 Right.

00:19:55.540 So, you know, people have different justifications for their moral views.

00:19:58.220 But, you know, I think just letting somebody with like a disability starve and die and live a worse life. 1.00

00:20:03.440 I guess selfishly, you could say that by forcing there was an interesting study about Social Security that talked about this.

00:20:09.920 By having Social Security benefits, for instance, it allows elderly people to live more independently from their parents or from their, not their parents, from their kids, I should say. 0.84

00:20:19.300 Yeah, from their families.

00:20:20.280 Right.

00:20:20.660 Now, some conservatives might say that that's a bad thing.

00:20:22.460 I was literally about to say that.

00:20:24.640 But at the same time, a lot of conservatives, like I saw Dennis Prager make a video similar to this where he said, well, actually, the thing that we want is for people to be individualistic.

00:20:32.340 You know, we want people to kind of atomize.

00:20:33.800 Now, that's a debate in the conservative community.

00:20:35.480 My only point was that by not having these benefits, we create a lot of financial burdens for the broader community.

00:20:41.480 And I don't think that living in a, you know, forcing elderly people to live in the house of their children necessarily means that you have better or worse community. 0.95

00:20:47.780 It just means elderly people are living in higher levels of poverty.

00:20:51.300 Right.

00:20:51.480 And I think that's just bad.

00:20:52.640 Or the children live in the house of their parents.

00:20:54.060 You've kind of steered it for a second.

00:20:55.600 So I want to I want to steer some of this.

00:20:58.460 OK, so one of the you actually kind of steered into a point that I wanted to make.

00:21:02.960 So support people who the market does not support.

00:21:06.760 OK, I am a statist.

00:21:08.280 So ultimately, I do believe that women who are raising children are not like drags on our society.

00:21:15.400 They're actually a pro-social component of our society.

00:21:17.560 And it's important that they raise healthy, happy, productive children for all of our sakes and especially the sake of the future.

00:21:23.540 Now, if we wanted to say because I feel like we could circle the, you know, the well, there's all these people who actually do deserve these benefits.

00:21:33.140 I think that a actual principled social conservative, if they think about it for 30 seconds, they don't want women to be starving.

00:21:40.020 They don't want the kids to be starving.

00:21:40.960 And they do want people to who are productive to kind of get back into society, reintegrated and supported.

00:21:48.200 OK, I think those if a social conservative thinks for more than 30 seconds, they'll do that.

00:21:51.980 Fiscal conservatives, maybe not so much now because they'll say not with my money.

00:21:56.420 Now, that being said, we're talking about pro-social and anti-social behavior, which I think is like another component of this.

00:22:01.000 We're not just making fiscal arguments.

00:22:02.760 We're not only talking about taxes, debt, all that kind of stuff.

00:22:06.480 The other thing that we're talking about is pro-social stuff.

00:22:08.700 And what's actually interesting is this is something that I bumped into during research for this is since the advent of the welfare state, which I guess we could say is like the 40s, I guess.

00:22:16.720 We've actually seen a drop in labor force participation rate, which is effectively people who participate in the economy.

00:22:23.620 But the place where it was most pronounced was actually men over the age of 55.

00:22:29.200 So all the boomers who are telling us, like, pick yourself up by the bootstraps, you know, you've got to work until you're dead, never take social benefits, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:22:36.400 If you actually look at it, you see old people effectively stop working as soon as they hit 55, and you see like a 20% decrease.

00:22:44.440 So I wanted to point out that irony.

00:22:46.920 Why is that ironic?

00:22:48.320 Why is it ironic?

00:22:49.120 You're saying it's ironic for the conservatives.

00:22:50.920 Yeah, because that's the generation that tells us the most that we just need to work our butts off, whereas they are the people who are participating in the economy less and less.

00:22:58.360 So I have a question.

00:23:00.440 When Social Security was first launched, I believe it was five workers were needed to prop up one recipient.

00:23:08.460 Based on the scale of benefits and the buying power, as of today, it's 2.1 on average.

00:23:14.460 It's the latest data that goes into paying a Social Security recipient.

00:23:18.020 People on Social Security do not get paid enough to actually sustain a standard of living.

00:23:22.000 And we expect by 2035, Social Security to reach not necessarily insolvency, but the point at which it can only pay out what goes in, which is 77%.

00:23:32.200 So either they have to increase taxes or they have to cut Social Security.

00:23:37.760 Now, on top of this, Gen Z is smaller than the millennials, and Gen Alpha is about half the millennials.

00:23:46.460 Estimated around 40 million people.

00:23:48.180 And to end, if we want to extend the generation by a couple of years, the high estimate may be 48 million.

00:23:54.820 Yeah.

00:23:55.360 In 10 years, we are not going to have a labor force that can fund a welfare state.

00:24:00.380 Sorry, if you'll let me drive for a moment.

00:24:02.440 So this is where we need to change the expectations, at least in my opinion.

00:24:05.960 We're going to have to do this just for survival, okay?

00:24:08.880 We're going to have to reset expectations around what people can materially expect out of the state and what they can expect out of the economy.

00:24:14.860 We are going to have to become extended family units again.

00:24:17.340 We are going to have to work together as a community in order to survive.

00:24:20.200 We are going to have to adopt pro-social behaviors from the early 20th and late 19th century just to survive.

00:24:25.060 Because that's an economic calamity that literally, if we try to pay for people to live in 1,400-square-foot single-family homes by themselves,

00:24:33.140 they're going to end up eating cat food and their pets because they're not going to be able to survive.

00:24:36.300 On Social Security, yeah.

00:24:37.960 We can't rely on the government benefits.

00:24:40.360 This is effectively like an economic implosion.

00:24:43.080 And I've eaten cat food before.

00:24:45.260 Cat food.

00:24:45.800 I have, indeed.

00:24:46.320 In order to survive or as a joke?

00:24:48.020 At a party, someone bet $20 for someone to eat cat food and I did it for free.

00:24:51.680 It looks suspiciously like tuna.

00:24:52.980 So, I mean, it's not impossible.

00:24:54.360 Literally is tuna.

00:24:55.640 And there's no salt, so it's very bland.

00:24:57.660 Okay.

00:24:58.400 Well, hold on.

00:24:59.140 No one needed to know that.

00:25:00.320 But I want you to...

00:25:01.320 So, Econoboy, so far, you've argued that the people that I'm targeting or want to target are the parasitic elements of society are not that big of a deal.

00:25:12.520 It's not a big deal.

00:25:13.260 So, but what Tim kind of said...

00:25:14.760 Just to be clear, it's not that it's not a big deal in some conceptual sense.

00:25:18.300 It's just that if you just look at the people who are consistently poor, it's all these people who I would say don't exactly exhibit bad behavior, right?

00:25:25.800 But this is actually...

00:25:28.240 Tim kind of brought up a point that I...

00:25:29.520 I don't agree with that, but...

00:25:30.580 Yeah.

00:25:31.160 Tim brought up a point that I think is very pertinent to the conversation where, effectively, like, it's the conservatives who are pro-natal.

00:25:37.680 We want kids.

00:25:38.440 We want the human species to perpetuate.

00:25:40.000 We're the people who, like, want pro-social behaviors to be implemented over and over and over again.

00:25:44.440 And hopefully we'll be around as a species in 100,000 years.

00:25:46.860 So, if we're looking at a, I don't know what you said, like a 40% cut in the population, something like that.

00:25:53.260 So, there are 72 million millennials, 69 million Gen Z, 40 million Gen Alpha, and Gen Alpha is ending this year.

00:26:00.520 Caveat, Gen Alpha is slightly shorter than previous generations.

00:26:03.800 So, if you want to add a few years, because this is based on labor cycles of 18-year-olds, then we could estimate Gen Alpha to be about 48 million, or let's just say the next generation of workers.

00:26:16.760 We're also currently right now facing what's called the demographic cliff, because when the Great Recession happened, a dramatic drop in fertility occurred those two years, which means for the next couple of years, we're expecting a major drop-off in 18-year-olds.

00:26:29.960 So, currently, right now, we're facing a gap of 16- to 18-year-olds.

00:26:34.580 So, that's entry-level work and labor for businesses, and we're starting to see businesses actually close, because they can't find entry-level labor.

00:26:42.980 And if you look at the population distribution, there's a natural element to this of the boomers into the X, right, because the baby boomed post-World War II, and then X being a smaller generation. 0.68

00:26:54.240 However, what I'm saying is, if this S-curve distribution is going down, then it kind of doesn't matter what we're arguing about from a welfare state perspective.

00:27:03.100 We literally will not be able to afford it without automation, without, like, extreme amounts of automation.

00:27:08.340 But, real quick, sorry, just a quick point, automation still is going to be owned by someone, and that means new taxes on automated systems.

00:27:17.600 One proposal is that if Uber intends to fully automate its fleet, they would have to pay a substantial amount of taxes.

00:27:25.140 People are saying, like, 30% on top of-

00:27:27.860 Effectively payroll tax for robots.

00:27:29.920 Yes.

00:27:30.760 Well, yeah, look, I mean, those are many different conversations.

00:27:33.240 I think that we, again, have to segregate the conversation.

00:27:36.680 So, fundamentally, even if you have a declining population, and for some reason we don't want to let in immigrants, and obviously we, you know, I think there's some analysis on that.

00:27:43.780 We can let in pro-social immigrants.

00:27:45.300 I'm a civic nationalist, ultimately.

00:27:46.540 My point is, like, even if we were to assume, like, obviously I think immigration is a solution to that problem, especially, like, in the medium term, essentially.

00:27:52.720 Now, even if we don't agree with that, right, even if we say, okay, we're not going to let in immigrants, and, you know, the population's declining, 1.00

00:27:59.020 we still have fundamentally two things that enable the welfare state to exist, right?

00:28:04.780 We have an amount of money and distribution of income in society.

00:28:08.520 There's still going to be workers.

00:28:09.660 There's still going to be people with disabilities, the elderly people, this and that, right?

00:28:13.500 And we're still going to need a way to give them some level of money.

00:28:17.140 Now, obviously, you might say, you know, similar to Japan, right?

00:28:20.740 We might have, like, a declining population.

00:28:22.880 Prices are going down instead of up.

00:28:25.040 Deflation's happening.

00:28:25.720 We might need to cut benefits for that reason, or because maybe tax burdens would get so bad for the economy or whatever. 0.91

00:28:31.800 Yeah, yeah, whatever.

00:28:32.480 That's a very practical conversation.

00:28:34.700 But principally speaking, there's no reason to think that, oh, because we have a declining population,

00:28:39.420 even if we don't let in immigrants, which is the big caveat, and I guess technology doesn't get substantially better, right? 0.75

00:28:44.780 So those are two big caveats, that we would obviously just get rid of, like, the entirety of the welfare state,

00:28:50.020 or we would substantially cut it back to a quarter of what it was.

00:28:52.560 Because, no, like, we would still have a pretty sizable welfare state under those circumstances, and we should.

00:28:57.400 You know, we should have one.

00:28:58.380 Well, okay.

00:28:58.720 So now we're talking about policy, but you've given me a couple of things.

00:29:02.920 So I stand by what I said earlier, which is effectively we need to reimagine what the golden years look like,

00:29:11.320 which is right now it's effectively having your retirement from – this is a boomer thing.

00:29:15.980 This isn't even a millennial thing.

00:29:17.620 Millennials don't think they're going to retire.

00:29:18.820 They think they're going to work until they're dead, but the boomers, they effectively think that with social benefits plus retirement, 0.81

00:29:27.140 they should be able to spend two decades effectively not working,

00:29:30.500 and they should be able to maintain their 1,500-square-foot house on a quarter-acre lot.

00:29:34.720 I don't think that's going to happen anymore.

00:29:36.660 I think that the way that we – and maybe it shouldn't because it's probably, relatively speaking, antisocial.

00:29:41.620 What probably should happen is we should get more used to extended family groups living in properties next to each other,

00:29:46.900 family compounds, all that kind of stuff.

00:29:49.020 Now, that doesn't mean that you need to be in tenement housing like the 19th century where you're sleeping with your wife 0.74

00:29:54.420 and then your parents are in the next room.

00:29:56.500 Like Willy Wonka.

00:29:57.320 Yeah.

00:29:57.740 No, you don't need to have your – I forget grandpa's name, but you don't have grandpa in three degenerates sleeping with grandpa in bed all day two feet away from you.

00:30:06.700 That's not what we're talking about.

00:30:08.060 But at the same time, we're going to have to find a dignified shift to this.

00:30:10.760 And this is where I'm going to challenge the fiscal and social conservatives in the chat.

00:30:13.940 I don't feel they're ready to have that conversation because they're typically the people who are doing better economically.

00:30:20.260 So they will still be able to afford that life through their income.

00:30:24.240 And so they're basically saying, well, the rest of society can buzz off.

00:30:27.340 But what I'm saying is that population collapse, immigration as a stopgap, and then the money distribution being taxed so heavily that we can still support our welfare state, 0.52

00:30:39.580 these are meteors that are coming for our culture whether you like it or not.

00:30:43.340 That's not true, though, because, again, we can look at societies that have higher rates of taxation, more generous retirement benefits, right?

00:30:52.340 Well, I don't know about – I don't know how much Scandinavia tax is to fund their pension system, honestly.

00:30:56.240 It depends.

00:30:56.960 I was just thinking specifically about Germany, right?

00:30:58.640 So Germany has, I think, 10% payroll taxes.

00:31:01.900 Obviously, here we have about 6.2%.

00:31:03.980 That's on the employee side.

00:31:05.360 Then the employer side, 6.2%.

00:31:06.840 In Germany, I think it might be 10 and 10.

00:31:08.700 And so we have examples of societies that have substantially higher payroll taxes to fund social benefits, right?

00:31:16.080 And we don't see, like, oh, the economy collapses.

00:31:19.360 We don't see, like, oh, so many terrible antisocial things happen in these countries because of the high payroll taxes.

00:31:25.960 In the United States, right, we could do two things to fill this gap that you're talking about.

00:31:30.440 And so, like Tim said, in 2035 or 2033 or whatever year it is, benefit – you know, the trust fund is scheduled to decrease, right?

00:31:38.780 So it's scheduled to go to zero.

00:31:40.420 All that means is that the accumulated money from Social Security, the trust fund aspect of Social Security, goes to zero.

00:31:46.820 It doesn't mean we don't have any money for Social Security.

00:31:49.000 I'm just explaining for the audience, right?

00:31:50.360 And then if that happens, benefits go to 75% of their current levels.

00:31:55.160 So we can still pay out 75% of the inflation-adjusted benefits come 2033, 2035.

00:32:01.960 Now, if you wanted to raise all of that money with our current demographics, right, all you'd have to do is get rid of the cap on Social Security, right?

00:32:09.260 So right now, there's a cap.

00:32:11.000 If you make more than $150,000 a year, you don't pay any extra Social Security tax on any of that income.

00:32:16.440 Very regressive way to do things.

00:32:17.760 If we got rid of that cap and then we said, you know, we might have to say, oh, you know, our tax is going to have to go up on the employer side to 7% or 8%, right?

00:32:26.820 We keep the statutory rates the same for the employees.

00:32:29.100 We increase it on the employers.

00:32:30.780 And we've solved this entire gap.

00:32:32.660 And this is not calamitous.

00:32:34.320 Well, just one second.

00:32:35.160 This is not calamitous.

00:32:36.220 This is not, you know, a Great Depression is going to happen.

00:32:39.560 None of that.

00:32:40.380 And if we're smart and we just allow in immigrants, which we've been doing, there's 50 million foreign-born people that live in this country, 0.98

00:32:46.180 we would completely avoid even the tax increase.

00:32:49.380 Are you familiar with the Laffer curve?

00:32:50.740 Yeah.

00:32:51.360 So that right there just throws your premise into question.

00:32:53.780 No, it doesn't, Tim.

00:32:54.400 Because the Laffer curve, the idea of the Laffer curve is you raise taxes to such an erroneously high level

00:33:00.900 that people all of a sudden start dropping out of the labor force precipitously.

00:33:04.680 Not erroneously high level.

00:33:05.740 An example I can give you that I personally experienced is in Cook County, when they raise the taxes by 0.25%, contract labor left to do Bache County.

00:33:14.260 Well, that's because of an anti-competitive tax measure, not because taxes were too high.

00:33:18.300 Obviously, if you have free flow of labor and capital, like between counties do, you have to be more sensitive about your tax planning.

00:33:24.060 So you're going to need tariffs to maintain this.

00:33:26.200 I don't know.

00:33:26.640 There's no tariffs between a county.

00:33:28.040 No, no, no.

00:33:28.540 If you're talking about a national employment tax, right?

00:33:30.980 If we're going to say that there's free movement of labor and various different jurisdictions have different tax rates,

00:33:36.600 then you've got a competition, but you need a 7% increase in labor taxes.

00:33:40.820 No, no, no.

00:33:41.400 It goes to 7%.

00:33:42.720 It's already 6.2%.

00:33:44.200 I'm talking about like a less than 1% increase, right?

00:33:47.220 I mean, this is not a calamitous thing that you guys are describing.

00:33:49.800 So real quick, do you believe in free trade?

00:33:53.080 Yeah.

00:33:53.700 Okay, so then everyone goes to Mexico.

00:33:54.900 No, no, free trade is not the same thing as people can easily shift their entire domestic production base and their entire labor base.

00:34:01.620 I don't know if that would be easy, but why wouldn't they?

00:34:03.380 If you're talking about a company that generates, say, $10 billion per year in revenue, and they're looking at 0.75%, they will spend that money and go to Mexico.

00:34:12.120 We've seen it happen for 30 years.

00:34:14.040 Well, no, no.

00:34:14.620 So what you're talking about is much more on the margin.

00:34:17.500 Right now, we have a service-based economy, a consumption-based economy, right?

00:34:20.800 So even if like a lot of manufacturing and stuff, we've already seen this happen.

00:34:23.900 A lot of manufacturing goes overseas.

00:34:25.720 It's not as if we've seen GDP go down.

00:34:29.000 We haven't seen recession after recession because of the manufacturing decline.

00:34:32.800 Let me ask you some questions real quick.

00:34:34.060 Yep, go for it.

00:34:34.780 You said we're a service-based and consumer-based economy.

00:34:37.220 Sure.

00:34:37.980 How is that funded?

00:34:40.280 Like what do we produce that generates the products to be consumed?

00:34:44.360 What do you mean?

00:34:45.780 What do we produce?

00:34:46.440 Well, if we're not a manufacturing economy, what are we consuming?

00:34:49.940 Oh, well, we're consuming a lot. 0.99

00:34:51.220 Well, a whole bunch of different shit, Tim. 0.99

00:34:52.520 We're housing and food, electronics. 1.00

00:34:55.920 Well, you don't consume a house.

00:34:56.840 Houses are hard assets.

00:34:58.380 Well, houses are an asset, but also there's a depreciation to a house because as you consume

00:35:03.120 the house, quote-unquote, it goes down in value.

00:35:05.960 Like lumber and aluminum and these materials?

00:35:09.180 Yeah, yeah.

00:35:09.460 I mean, obviously there's a—when I say you consume a house, I don't mean in some literal

00:35:13.140 sense.

00:35:13.700 So let's—we'll try this again.

00:35:15.140 So we're talking about houses, and you say there's a depreciation.

00:35:18.200 Houses need to be repaired or someone's got to be hired to do that.

00:35:20.280 This requires materials like steel.

00:35:22.200 Sure.

00:35:22.580 Okay, well, we don't manufacture that.

00:35:23.860 We're importing it.

00:35:25.100 Okay.

00:35:25.800 So what are we giving to these foreign countries so that they give us steel in return?

00:35:29.900 We're giving them dollars.

00:35:30.980 And what do they do with the dollars?

00:35:32.460 Well, they either invest it in, you know, U.S. securities, U.S. assets.

00:35:36.560 I mean, they do something with it, obviously, that you would normally do with U.S. dollars.

00:35:40.200 So let's bring this down to the root of the phrase equinemia, which I'm sure you're familiar

00:35:45.600 with, right?

00:35:46.180 No.

00:35:46.700 It's the root of economy, which means household management.

00:35:48.800 Okay.

00:35:49.040 If you live in a house where you don't produce anything and you have a universal trade

00:35:55.260 currency for your house—I know you don't, but let's just say for your house, you're

00:35:59.160 like, hey, if I give you this currency, you can come to me and buy stuff, but you don't

00:36:05.220 make anything in that house.

00:36:06.960 Repairs are needed.

00:36:08.500 So you go to someone and say, I don't make anything, but I need steel for my house.

00:36:12.900 I'll give to you, Mr., you know, Chinese national who makes steel.

00:36:16.380 You give him currency for your house.

00:36:18.600 What he buys from you is going to be the rights and control of your house, your land,

00:36:24.700 your properties, because you don't make anything to exchange.

00:36:27.400 This is actually what we've been seeing in the United States with China buying up large

00:36:31.060 swathes of farmland.

00:36:32.360 We go to China and we give them U.S. dollars in exchange for their labor.

00:36:36.220 We then bring those products from China, and it's not just China, but largely China.

00:36:40.880 They then give us—these are not just hard products, but also the resources need to make

00:36:48.980 other products in the United States.

00:36:49.960 So famously, like bicycles, for instance.

00:36:52.120 They'll say, assembled in the USA, but the metals actually produced and manufactured in

00:36:57.160 China and shipped here.

00:36:58.120 So you think you're buying an American product, but you're not.

00:37:00.920 China then takes those U.S. dollars and says, hey, America is not producing anything.

00:37:05.080 They're a service-based consumer economy.

00:37:07.400 So what can we buy from them?

00:37:08.940 Their labor? 0.92

00:37:09.900 In exchange.

00:37:10.680 Hold on.

00:37:11.400 Our labor is cheaper than American labor.

00:37:12.920 We don't need that.

00:37:13.960 So what do we do with these U.S. dollars?

00:37:15.300 What we've seen over the past 30 years, they've been buying up large swaths of our land and

00:37:19.720 housing.

00:37:20.540 They then rent it back to our own citizens.

00:37:23.120 If you do not produce something, but promise labor or value in exchange for a resource,

00:37:29.700 the only thing you have to sell is the clothes off your back, and that's what this country

00:37:32.860 has been doing for 30, 40 years.

00:37:34.980 Well, Tim, part of a service economy is the idea that like your construction services,

00:37:40.480 for instance, like we still produce a lot of housing in this country.

00:37:42.900 I'm not really sure what the point is.

00:37:43.560 China doesn't need to buy services from us.

00:37:44.680 Their labor is cheaper than ours.

00:37:46.100 Well, Tim, that's just the trade intensity of the economy.

00:37:49.080 You still have this entire domestic economy that's based on not just services, but also

00:37:53.020 you're still producing some things.

00:37:54.140 So let's go back to the main point I said of the resources we need for those services

00:37:58.200 to exist are produced by foreign countries for which we give them money.

00:38:01.780 They don't need to buy our service from us because their labor is cheaper.

00:38:04.600 What will they buy?

00:38:05.640 We don't produce raw materials for the most part, so they're not going to buy from us.

00:38:09.200 They don't need our service.

00:38:10.440 Wait, this is complete misuse.

00:38:11.460 The United States produces a lot of raw materials.

00:38:14.980 Indeed, it does.

00:38:15.660 We do make a lot of intermediate goods and capital goods and things like that, right?

00:38:19.240 But we are a service and consumer economy, meaning the majority of what we are trading

00:38:23.600 between ourselves is the services, not the raw materials.

00:38:26.960 Steel plants have been closing across this country quite a bit.

00:38:29.740 We call the Pittsburgh Steelers a Steelers because they made steel there.

00:38:32.180 They don't make steel there anymore.

00:38:33.180 Tim, circle this back to the welfare state.

00:38:35.740 We've gone a little bit far along here.

00:38:37.500 The point is this.

00:38:38.980 Yeah, what's the point?

00:38:39.860 The value of the economy is being extracted, and we are not going to be able to maintain

00:38:44.500 a welfare state when our assets are being bought off our backs because we don't produce anything

00:38:49.020 anymore.

00:38:49.160 Well, no, no, no.

00:38:49.960 Okay, so I get the misunderstanding now.

00:38:51.840 So no, just because you trade, that doesn't mean that value is being extracted from your

00:38:56.020 economy.

00:38:56.380 Obviously, when people buy things from other countries, they're assuming that there's some

00:39:00.140 value added to buying those products, right?

00:39:02.120 So they might sell raw materials, but we use those materials to whatever.

00:39:05.100 We ship lumber in from Canada.

00:39:07.320 We use that to build a house, right?

00:39:08.660 So what can China buy from us if their labor is cheaper than ours and they're producing 1.00

00:39:14.180 largely our raw materials?

00:39:15.380 Well, you can look up what China buys from the United States.

00:39:17.460 They're buying our land.

00:39:18.660 Well, they don't just buy land, obviously.

00:39:20.580 They buy a lot of intermediate goods.

00:39:22.280 They buy services from us, right?

00:39:23.640 Corporate securities, control of our corporate systems, our land, our hard assets.

00:39:28.120 If you don't produce things to trade, which we are producing, which we are not producing

00:39:33.060 to keep up with the consumer economy, you will end up with them buying your hard assets

00:39:37.280 from you.

00:39:37.860 Okay.

00:39:38.240 So if you'll indulge me, econo boy.

00:39:42.080 So I think that this is, even if you think that it's all going to be okay, it's all going

00:39:46.620 to come out in the wash, et cetera, et cetera.

00:39:47.880 There is an underlying anxiety of the American economy, which is what is the American economy

00:39:52.540 actually backed by?

00:39:53.920 Now, this is a mistake that I actually think Trump makes.

00:39:56.020 So, you know, throwing a little shade to the right, is that the main thing that we do

00:39:59.580 is services, and we also do defense.

00:40:02.200 We are the American, you know, we are, for better or worse, the world police.

00:40:06.280 Quick side note.

00:40:06.820 So when I see, yep, Trump did brag famously that we were selling weapons to Saudi Arabia

00:40:11.960 in exchange for lots of money, good for our economy.

00:40:14.320 Based.

00:40:14.920 So anyways, but the point is, so this is actually where I get frustrated with the Trump admin,

00:40:19.080 though, because they're effectively saying, we don't need soft power.

00:40:22.160 Why do we need to be involved in East Africa?

00:40:24.000 We don't need soft power.

00:40:25.240 Why are we involved in West Africa, Asia, whatever.

00:40:27.420 Right, because we're talking about the welfare state here.

00:40:29.560 We will move back to it.

00:40:31.640 I just want to make this point because I think it's important.

00:40:33.540 Just fair point.

00:40:34.400 That is a great point.

00:40:35.980 We do manufacture weapons and the best of them.

00:40:38.500 Right.

00:40:39.020 So the point is that everybody wants to be our friend because we manufacture the best

00:40:44.020 weapons and we know how to deploy them.

00:40:45.520 And sell them to both sides.

00:40:46.280 So what I would, well, sometimes, but so we can move back to the welfare.

00:40:50.140 I have no problems moving back to welfare, but I want to make this point is that the underlying

00:40:53.820 anxiety of the American conservative, I think, even if they're not able to articulate it,

00:40:58.460 is that effectively we're selling tax software to the international economy.

00:41:03.680 That's actually something that my mother does. 1.00

00:41:05.400 But realistically, eventually, those economies are going to complexify to the point that they

00:41:10.980 can produce their own domestic software and they're not going to need American software

00:41:14.080 in order to do it.

00:41:15.220 This is to the tunes of billions of dollars, by the way.

00:41:17.420 Well, Connor, that's a misunderstanding.

00:41:18.480 Sorry, guys, listen, I listened to you for 10 minutes.

00:41:20.300 I want to make a whole point, OK?

00:41:21.720 I know I'm a very verbose person, but I've also been very patient.

00:41:25.200 So the other thing, though, that backs the American economy is defense.

00:41:28.320 And so the reason why I get frustrated with the Trump admin is because, in my opinion,

00:41:32.560 you see Marco Rubio in a meeting.

00:41:34.060 It looks like he wants to eat a gun.

00:41:35.340 I think the reason why he wants to eat a gun is because America is giving away its soft

00:41:39.260 power.

00:41:40.020 And then also, in our hard power, the MAGA movement is not interested in flexing international

00:41:44.760 soft power.

00:41:45.340 And so I look at the American economy, which is primarily like digital services in the

00:41:50.300 defense industry.

00:41:51.180 And if we're not selling our hard power, and if digital services will be replaced by domestic

00:41:55.880 competitors eventually, what the hell is the American economy backed by?

00:41:59.360 And I worry about that for the future of the next American century.

00:42:01.920 Just real quick to pull it all back, just to connect this.

00:42:04.300 The reason that this came up is because how do we fund a welfare state is the question.

00:42:08.940 And if the economy is in this state.

00:42:10.940 Yeah, and I can answer.

00:42:11.540 So I think we hear a lot more talk like this in small countries, right?

00:42:17.140 So small countries will phrase it like, well, we need to learn how to climb the value chain.

00:42:22.340 We need to climb the value chain, right?

00:42:23.880 And so what they're essentially saying is kind of similar to what you guys are saying,

00:42:27.360 is like, we need to find ways to be able to export goods that people want to buy, because

00:42:32.500 we want to get foreign currency reserves, and we want to invest in foreign capital, things

00:42:36.600 like that, right?

00:42:37.280 We need to be able to import the things that we need for machines, right?

00:42:39.660 And so if you wanted to talk about, hey, we need a coherent strategy for the United States

00:42:44.620 to innovate, to climb the value chain, to produce things that people need, I don't necessarily,

00:42:50.520 I mean, I don't know who would really disagree with that.

00:42:52.560 Again, that has nothing to do, that's just a completely separate conversation from the

00:42:56.880 welfare state.

00:42:57.420 Now, if you wanted to make the case that, oh, well, the welfare state is limiting our ability

00:43:02.800 to produce technology, that would be a very difficult argument to make.

00:43:06.540 So I think what Tim and I are kind of poking at, maybe not masterfully, but we're poking

00:43:12.340 at it, is that in order to have enough wealth, resources, money, time, energy, in order to

00:43:18.600 create the welfare state, you need to actually have goods and services produced that you're

00:43:22.700 selling to people who are interested in purchasing them.

00:43:24.720 Another thing that I forgot a moment ago, in order to say that it seems like our economy

00:43:28.900 is backed by, is being the world reserve currency, and also being heavily invested in the security

00:43:35.720 of the international energy industry, effectively oil and petroleum.

00:43:39.420 And so the thing is, if we see people drifting away from us, for instance, Iran, with Russia

00:43:43.960 and China, then let's say that Saudi Arabia, BRICS, all that kind of stuff, they're moving

00:43:48.600 away from our currency.

00:43:50.120 And this is, again, where I get frustrated with the current administration, is that it seems

00:43:54.640 like we're hurting ourselves, and potentially these precarious things on which the entire

00:43:58.960 American commercial empire is built, is kind of like, the floor is being pulled out underneath

00:44:03.520 us.

00:44:04.040 Now, if we want to move back to welfare, to just like, how do we create this kind of

00:44:06.960 thing, and we just want to say, we are going to make enough money that we can tax in order

00:44:11.480 to create a welfare state, what does that look like?

00:44:13.560 We can do that.

00:44:14.580 Small point.

00:44:15.060 I'm just saying, this is the underlying anxiety.

00:44:17.080 Well, but I don't, again, I don't think the anxiety is totally relevant.

00:44:20.200 So, for instance, there's only one country where we have, you know, a global reserve

00:44:23.820 currency, right?

00:44:24.500 You know, it's America.

00:44:25.500 America has, you know, the global reserve currency, right?

00:44:28.560 Now, obviously, a lot of other currencies are held in reserve.

00:44:31.360 America just dominates that, essentially.

00:44:33.460 Now, when we look at all these other countries that are not the global reserve currency, Australia,

00:44:39.920 Norway, the UK, you know, New Zealand, they have huge welfare states, right?

00:44:45.640 They have bigger welfare states, more expansive welfare states than America does, right? 0.97

00:44:49.540 And so, when we try to link these two arguments and say, oh, well, if we don't have the global

00:44:53.720 reserve currency, and if we have even more massive deindustrialization, that's going to

00:44:58.200 cause us to not be able to have, you know, some adequate level of welfare state, why don't

00:45:03.140 we see that in all these other countries?

00:45:04.780 This is where I get pissed at MAGA. 1.00

00:45:06.120 I'm sorry.

00:45:06.520 This is where I get pissed at MAGA. 1.00

00:45:07.960 Is the reason why all those countries that you just listed, I think, are comfortable with

00:45:12.140 the United States as the global reserve currency is because our involvement in the

00:45:16.720 energy industry internationally, our involvement in security internationally, and they look

00:45:20.280 to us as the world leader.

00:45:21.540 So, that's where I get pissed at the current administration because it feels like they

00:45:24.200 want to give away our position.

00:45:26.080 And then I think that, eventually, if it got bad enough, there would be these orbiters,

00:45:32.140 orbiting nations that would say, why are we deferring to the United States? 0.94

00:45:35.760 They're psychotic and they're giving up their power and they're screwing us over. 0.97

00:45:38.640 And so, that's another one of my anxieties. 0.60

00:45:40.300 We pay for a lot of security of a lot of countries around the world.

00:45:42.700 Well, but, Tim, even that, people make that argument, oh, their welfare states are subsidized

00:45:46.600 by our military expenditure.

00:45:48.560 You know, look, how much money do we spend on the military?

00:45:50.380 We spend about-

00:45:50.920 3.5% GDP.

00:45:51.760 All right.

00:45:52.040 We spend about a trillion dollars a year in terms of total defense consumption, right?

00:45:56.320 They're mostly at 2 or 1.5.

00:45:58.180 All right.

00:45:58.660 And so, we spend about, yeah, exactly, Connor.

00:46:00.560 So, we spend about 3.5% of GDP on our defense industry.

00:46:03.480 And obviously, that includes all the international security that we provide.

00:46:06.220 If we were to ask all these countries, we've got countries like Iceland and Norway and Australia

00:46:10.880 that are spending, you know, 45% of GDP on all their different government programs, right,

00:46:16.420 which includes their own militaries, obviously.

00:46:17.780 If we were to say, oh, yeah, you know, if you tick that up to 46.5%, what, is Australia

00:46:23.340 going to completely collapse?

00:46:24.980 Their welfare state's not going to be sustainable?

00:46:26.340 No, obviously.

00:46:27.460 The question just because-

00:46:28.580 You agree with that, Connor.

00:46:29.640 Okay.

00:46:30.020 I agree with that.

00:46:30.740 Thank you.

00:46:30.860 But then the question is, what does their 3% look like versus our 3%?

00:46:35.280 Because our economy is so large, 3.5% looks like, I don't know, F-35s.

00:46:40.440 It looks like special forces who have every techno gizmo.

00:46:43.560 3.5% of the Australian economy, sorry, Australians, it looks like trucks. 1.00

00:46:48.460 You know what I'm saying?

00:46:49.120 You still have cooperation between defense-

00:46:51.320 Of course.

00:46:52.380 But all you're doing, sorry, real quick, all you're doing is you're showing me why I'm

00:46:55.700 pissed off at Trump.

00:46:56.740 That's all you're saying.

00:46:57.820 I just want to ask a question.

00:47:00.940 There is a point at which you tax people too much and the system collapses, yes?

00:47:06.700 You say again?

00:47:09.720 I'll phrase it this way.

00:47:10.580 When you socialize too much, does the economy eventually collapse?

00:47:13.040 The answer is yes, because we've seen it dozens of times throughout history.

00:47:15.640 Venezuela being a recent example.

00:47:16.520 Well, it depends on, obviously, how you're socializing things and also what kind of taxes

00:47:21.040 that you're using.

00:47:21.720 Now, if you wanted to say, hey, you know, the United States doesn't have an optimal tax

00:47:25.860 code, I would agree, right?

00:47:27.140 On my sub stack, I released the Left Needs Better Tax Policy article series where I talked

00:47:31.320 to this fact.

00:47:33.360 But even if we were to look at suboptimal tax codes, right?

00:47:36.280 You know, look at, you know, like the Nordic countries, all the five different Nordic countries,

00:47:39.900 right?

00:47:40.060 They have things like payroll taxes and income taxes and wealth taxes and inheritance

00:47:44.980 taxes and income taxes, right?

00:47:47.460 You know, these are forms of taxation that are not necessarily optimal.

00:47:50.040 And they're forms of taxation that they have that are way higher than our current levels

00:47:54.540 of taxation.

00:47:55.140 The last thing that I'll say, Connor, is that, again, we don't see this sort of deleterious

00:48:00.680 collapse of those economies.

00:48:01.860 They actually have higher GDP per hour work than we do.

00:48:05.240 Right.

00:48:05.600 But this gets into something that we brought up earlier, which is immigration and integration.

00:48:09.960 So I think that what's effectively happened over the past century without an explanation

00:48:14.260 to the American people or the developed world is that we saw birth rates all trend towards

00:48:19.460 two per 100,000.

00:48:20.980 And effectively, even if you look at West Africa, East Africa, all that kind of stuff,

00:48:24.180 they might be at four right now.

00:48:26.000 They're trending towards two, right?

00:48:27.940 And then a lot of developed countries.

00:48:30.040 Yeah, exactly.

00:48:31.040 The current, I think we're at 1.66 as a nation, which includes Hispanics who have a higher birth 1.00

00:48:37.640 rate than, you know, the North European Caucasian population.

00:48:42.160 So then this gets into immigration and integration.

00:48:44.060 You say, well, we can use immigration as an economic stopgap in order to, you know, offset

00:48:50.120 some of these costs that we're going to have, or these challenges that we have with the welfare

00:48:53.720 state.

00:48:54.220 But then what I'm going to say as a, I know that not a lot of people in Chad believe me,

00:48:59.700 but I do have conservative tendencies.

00:49:02.000 As a conservative, I'm going to say that integration, if you're going to have immigration,

00:49:06.780 integration has to be a core component of that.

00:49:09.440 We need to have a national message.

00:49:11.100 What does it mean to be American?

00:49:12.200 What do we believe in?

00:49:13.500 What are our principles?

00:49:14.700 And we also have to force people to integrate into that because as an example, our labor

00:49:18.760 force participation rate hovers around 60% right now, which by the way, decreased substantively

00:49:23.920 since the 2008 market collapse, because I think people stopped believing in the economy

00:49:28.120 as much.

00:49:29.080 And then when you look at the Scandinavian countries, the Scandinavian countries, as an example, 0.93

00:49:33.340 I know I'm picking the high example, but I'm going to be a dick about it.

00:49:36.000 Sweden is at like 70%.

00:49:37.880 There's literally like a 10% difference.

00:49:40.140 Oh, in terms of labor force participation?

00:49:41.600 Labor force participation rate.

00:49:42.780 But that's kind of my point, though, right?

00:49:45.300 So I want to make a couple of points, right?

00:49:47.680 Sorry, real quick.

00:49:48.460 This is a directed question.

00:49:49.800 Okay.

00:49:50.280 How do you bump labor force participation rate by 10%?

00:49:56.600 Well, so you've kind of fallen into one of my points, right?

00:50:00.220 So that's what I was going to say, was that if we look at those societies that have much

00:50:04.380 more generous welfare benefits, they have higher labor force participation, both in general

00:50:08.620 and also prime age, and they also have higher employment rates, right?

00:50:11.620 So just generally more people going to work.

00:50:13.180 Now, it's fair to say that if you have a generous welfare state, it's not going to cause people

00:50:19.380 to just, all of them are just going to collapse out of the job force because we're going to

00:50:23.260 get on these generous benefits.

00:50:24.440 That doesn't happen in the countries that have very generous benefits.

00:50:27.540 So to your question...

00:50:28.180 I would argue that that's because of culture.

00:50:29.800 Well, no.

00:50:30.920 So to your question...

00:50:32.460 You're going to have to address that specifically.

00:50:33.980 I would argue that they have an industrious culture, and you said no.

00:50:37.120 Why?

00:50:37.500 I don't know.

00:50:37.820 So I think that for the most part, obviously, I'm sure culture has an effect on the margin,

00:50:41.780 right?

00:50:41.980 But the big things, right?

00:50:43.620 So why is labor force changed over time?

00:50:45.700 Look at America, right?

00:50:46.920 America, in terms of prime age labor force participation, right?

00:50:50.040 So people between 25 and 54, the people who really should be working if you want your economy 0.99

00:50:54.340 to be healthy, that's at record levels in America.

00:50:57.080 Record levels.

00:50:58.420 Record high, I'm assuming you're saying.

00:51:00.440 Well, record high, yeah.

00:51:01.340 Okay.

00:51:01.560 I mean, I don't know the difference, but...

00:51:03.020 Well, record low would be the opposite.

00:51:04.760 So I would be worried if you were like...

00:51:06.140 No, record levels.

00:51:07.040 I don't know if the...

00:51:07.680 It might be a little bit weird, the audio here, but...

00:51:09.700 Sorry, real quick.

00:51:10.760 There is a story, though, that did come out recently.

00:51:13.060 I would obviously have to look at the statistical data rather than just a random editorial.

00:51:17.360 But there was something saying that effectively, like, the next generation, I guess it's

00:51:21.780 alpha, as they're coming into the workforce, there's like 25%, like,

00:51:27.400 not in education, employment, or training.

00:51:29.520 So Gen Z is split right now with the oldest Gen Z around 26, 27 years old.

00:51:35.680 Yeah.

00:51:35.860 And then the youngest, I think, are early teens.

00:51:38.000 Yeah.

00:51:38.200 So the mid of Gen Z is supposed to be entering the workforce right now, but we're seeing a 0.99

00:51:41.520 lot of...

00:51:41.880 They're called NEETs.

00:51:43.060 Yeah.

00:51:43.200 Not in education...

00:51:45.360 Employment or training.

00:51:46.280 Right.

00:51:46.420 There you go.

00:51:47.180 And so, listen, for the sake of the argument, I'll track you wherever you're going, but

00:51:52.680 that news story is an alarm bell because I would make that almost an exclusively cultural

00:51:58.280 argument.

00:51:58.720 The reason why I asked about the point at which, if you tax people too much, the system

00:52:03.160 breaks, is that we are going to have, in 10 years, 58 million boomers projected, 70-ish

00:52:11.840 million millennials.

00:52:13.180 I know millennials aren't dying of old age, but there's general mortality.

00:52:15.680 It's kind of sad.

00:52:16.560 And Gen Z will be around 68 million.

00:52:18.680 So we're going to need a labor force to support, in 10 years, the boomers on Social Security, 0.97

00:52:27.180 50 million, but there's only going to be 40-some-odd million Gen Alpha to begin entering

00:52:33.540 that workforce.

00:52:34.540 The solution then for that issue is going to be, we are going to have to tax people more.

00:52:40.400 Or immigration.

00:52:41.640 Indeed.

00:52:42.280 Or immigration.

00:52:42.880 But immigration doesn't solve the problem.

00:52:46.360 It does band-aid some of it.

00:52:47.740 The issue with mass migration, as we've seen from the Democratic Party, which is largely

00:52:52.420 unskilled labor, is that labor force of a country is going to be divided by a wave of

00:52:58.240 from high skill down to low skill.

00:53:00.600 You can't just flood the low skill bracket and leave the mid to high skills.

00:53:05.320 Which is why I argue about integration, which is I think that these are largely, listen,

00:53:10.000 but it's not integration.

00:53:12.840 You can have a Chinatown where they only speak Chinese if they're producing things to 1.00

00:53:16.940 trade with other people.

00:53:17.840 The issue is normally the way the labor force expands is that a new generation enters the

00:53:23.780 low skill portion of the workforce and then gains those skills over time.

00:53:28.260 And then some people jump to the high point.

00:53:30.640 Some people are geniuses. 1.00

00:53:31.900 Some people are dumb. 0.99

00:53:32.560 But if you flood 20 million non-skilled labor, you're going to keep seeing a collapse of 0.99

00:53:38.800 the mid-range and the high range, meaning all of the higher level functions are going to

00:53:43.540 be strained and collapse, and you can't have everyone fighting over the same jobs in the

00:53:47.780 low skill market.

00:53:48.080 You got it, boy, if you'll indulge me.

00:53:49.600 And so when I say integration, I don't specifically mean Asians in Chinatown need to speak English,

00:53:55.120 right?

00:53:55.680 What I mean is that they need to go to, well, not the Asians in particular, right? 0.99

00:54:01.440 Let's be real.

00:54:02.480 They go to school a lot.

00:54:03.280 Yeah, like 80% of, we're talking about Hispanics.

00:54:05.800 80% of immigration into the United States is going to be Hispanics, right? 0.95

00:54:08.800 So what I'm talking about with integration is we need to look at school, and I hate that 1.00

00:54:14.320 conservatives are retreating from school.

00:54:16.140 We need to look at that as a socialization apparatus in order to prepare the next generation

00:54:20.940 for the workforce.

00:54:21.580 And we have looked at it that way for a very long time.

00:54:24.460 My frustration with MAGA and some of the walking away from education movements and the gutting

00:54:30.920 of the DOE, we don't have to get into details.

00:54:32.840 But the reason why I get frustrated with that is because effectively what you're saying is

00:54:36.000 everyone, every man for himself.

00:54:38.300 And so we have people who are going to be homeschooled.

00:54:40.820 We have people who are going to go to private school.

00:54:42.180 They might do well individually, but when we're talking about on a culture-wide basis,

00:54:46.840 if we're decreasing the quality of education, then effectively what we're not doing is we're

00:54:50.620 not socializing that next generation, and we're making it more difficult.

00:54:53.400 You're saying that flooding the bottom tier?

00:54:55.000 I would want the bottom tier within two or three generations to be climbing to the higher

00:54:59.280 echelons.

00:55:00.080 Why not?

00:55:00.880 I'm Irish.

00:55:02.040 I'm a mud-dwelling, bog-dwelling, rock-flowing...

00:55:05.100 From Ireland?

00:55:05.800 No, but...

00:55:06.560 And how many generations has your family been here?

00:55:08.260 Three or four.

00:55:09.000 Three or four generations of social development.

00:55:11.580 You can't take people who grew up on farms and ask them to go code.

00:55:15.000 It doesn't work.

00:55:15.840 Sure, but that's what I'm talking about, a three or four generational project.

00:55:18.640 Well, it's a nation-building over 100 years.

00:55:21.120 Yeah.

00:55:21.520 Well, obviously, if people...

00:55:22.720 We're going to have an immediate problem that immigration won't solve. 1.00

00:55:25.280 Sure.

00:55:25.880 Well, obviously, immigration has its own issues, right?

00:55:28.740 So you do have to have a sort of methodical and thoughtful immigration process.

00:55:32.900 But again, these are all separate conversations, right?

00:55:36.620 So, oh, you know, the welfare state...

00:55:37.640 I don't think so, bud.

00:55:37.900 You say that, but I don't think they are.

00:55:39.860 Okay, so do you agree...

00:55:40.640 But you cannot advocate for mass spending on welfare while ignoring the collapsing labor

00:55:45.860 force, the fluctuation in the tax base, and the wealth resources.

00:55:50.640 Well, the welfare state...

00:55:51.480 You say increase the taxes because we can make up for the wealth.

00:55:55.020 Well, hold on real quick.

00:55:55.780 You said that you can increase...

00:55:56.960 You held up real quick several times.

00:55:58.880 Okay.

00:55:59.240 So let me just...

00:55:59.800 I'll write it down.

00:56:00.640 Yeah, write it down.

00:56:01.340 Um, the point is to say the welfare state is a question of distribution, right?

00:56:07.900 That is the question of the welfare state.

00:56:09.820 We've got all these groups of non-workers.

00:56:11.680 We've got...

00:56:12.100 And I don't want to repeat them, but, you know, the six groups that I mentioned...

00:56:14.400 All the ones that we actually care about.

00:56:15.620 Right.

00:56:15.860 So we've got all these groups of non-workers, people who struggle to work, things like that.

00:56:19.620 And then we've got all these people who are working.

00:56:21.620 Whether we have a declining population, de-industrialization, struggles to climb the value chain, questions about

00:56:28.460 the tax code, whatever, right?

00:56:30.680 Those are all relevant questions.

00:56:33.320 Those are all reasonable questions to ask, okay?

00:56:35.880 But the question of the welfare state is how do we want to distribute the income that we

00:56:41.300 have in society?

00:56:43.040 I assume we wouldn't suggest that in 30 years we're going to have no income, right?

00:56:47.360 Sure.

00:56:47.680 We're going to have a ton of people working and a ton of these non-workers.

00:56:51.460 The rates hovered around 50-50 essentially for the last, you know, fucking like 40 years

00:56:56.280 or something like that, right? 0.88

00:56:57.180 And it was lower back in the 1940s and 50s because women didn't work. 1.00

00:57:00.680 And so, you know, for all those reasons, that's why I keep bringing it back.

00:57:05.140 I understand you guys' questions.

00:57:06.980 But fundamentally, we need the welfare state, even in a society with all those problems that

00:57:12.980 you're talking about.

00:57:13.560 And I would argue that even in that society, we should have a relatively expansive welfare

00:57:17.380 state.

00:57:17.700 Perhaps relative to the time, because maybe there's less income and maybe we have depreciation

00:57:22.340 and stuff, but we still need a wide welfare state. 0.98

00:57:25.260 Okay.

00:57:25.480 A substantive amount of these, though, are not questions.

00:57:27.520 They're statements.

00:57:28.180 They're problems that you and I are coming up with that are effectively going to affect

00:57:31.180 the way that we said.

00:57:32.160 And then you're using what I would say is pretty sanitized language in order to describe

00:57:36.300 things that are actually kind of like worrisome to the fiscal and social conservatives of

00:57:41.260 the country.

00:57:41.680 But I can agree, Connor.

00:57:42.600 That doesn't change my point.

00:57:43.600 Hold on, hold on, hold on.

00:57:44.620 So you're saying something like, well, it's a distribution issue.

00:57:49.320 It is.

00:57:49.780 Okay. 0.63

00:57:50.280 I'm not stupid.

00:57:51.200 So what I see when the population goes down and that we only have so many options, which

00:57:57.420 is immigration, and you say it's a distribution issue, what you're saying is more taxes.

00:58:02.560 Well, for better or worse, fiscal, I would love to hear how we need to increase distribution

00:58:09.680 without increasing taxes.

00:58:11.200 Applicators like in Star Trek. 0.89

00:58:12.560 Well, we're not there yet.

00:58:13.980 So we're not there yet.

00:58:15.840 We're not there technologically.

00:58:17.560 So then the question becomes, so you're saying it's a question of distribution.

00:58:20.100 You're saying like, oh, we can just increase this tax, like, you know, 0.75%.

00:58:23.320 People won't even notice.

00:58:24.420 It's not that big of a deal.

00:58:25.380 Who cares?

00:58:25.920 Not what I said.

00:58:26.460 Well, I feel like I remember that from about 30 minutes ago.

00:58:29.500 But the point that is that I like to think of myself as a fairly rational, statist, Burkean

00:58:38.220 conservative some of the time.

00:58:39.940 People hate that, but that's the way that I feel.

00:58:42.880 Everyone else is to the right of me on this issue.

00:58:45.140 They want more fiscal conservatism.

00:58:46.900 They want less taxes.

00:58:48.300 They don't want more.

00:58:49.020 Well, these are not incompatible conversations.

00:58:51.580 It's an issue of volume.

00:58:53.240 So if the excess resources generated per person is, let's just say, like 1% of a labor unit,

00:59:00.800 whatever that means.

00:59:02.020 Let's say a human requires 80 labor units. 0.92

00:59:07.060 I'm using a fictional thing to represent value.

00:59:09.740 And they produce 100.

00:59:11.920 That means one person doing work will provide an excess of 20.

00:59:15.060 Now, hold on.

00:59:15.760 Now, that person wants that 20 for themselves.

00:59:18.900 That's, I get to go to the movies.

00:59:20.540 I don't have to work on the weekends.

00:59:22.220 So when we decide we're going to tax a portion of the units they produce, if we take one unit

00:59:28.920 of labor from that person, they might not notice and say, okay, fine, at least I got enough

00:59:31.780 time off on the weekends.

00:59:32.580 But that one is not going to sustain a single individual.

00:59:35.260 If you have 100 million people and they're all working, you're now generating a ton of

00:59:40.640 excess labor, which can be distributed as a welfare state.

00:59:44.040 But with a population collapse, your volume is going to decrease and the total amount will

00:59:48.860 exponentially decrease that you can support in a welfare state due to a decrease in volume.

00:59:53.800 In standard business, this requires a price increase.

00:59:56.160 You can either sell one million widgets for a dollar or you can sell one widget for a million

01:00:01.160 dollars if you want to pay your bills.

01:00:02.560 Yeah.

01:00:02.700 So, Econoboy, the question is, is your answer to that problem, because Tim and I have brought

01:00:06.800 this problem up repeatedly, is your answer effectively automation, integration, better

01:00:12.100 tax structure?

01:00:13.080 Well, yes and no.

01:00:15.440 So I already said about 45 minutes ago or something like that, pretty close to the beginning

01:00:19.020 of the conversation, that it's entirely possible that if we become South Korea 20 or 30

01:00:25.720 years from now, right, where we have just...

01:00:27.320 Demographically, you mean?

01:00:28.440 Yeah, demographically, right?

01:00:29.400 So we're very skeptical on immigration.

01:00:32.020 People aren't having kids, right?

01:00:33.800 And we have this huge demographic imbalance.

01:00:36.080 It's very possible that we'll have to cut benefits because of some fiscal sustainability

01:00:40.080 issues, right?

01:00:41.080 Like, eventually, you probably don't have enough money to distribute at current levels.

01:00:44.700 But, you know, we have benefits that are tied to inflation.

01:00:46.760 And if deflation happens, you know, you just lower the benefits commensurately, right?

01:00:50.620 It's all about achieving what we think of as a relative standard of living.

01:00:53.780 And when I say relative, I mean to the time.

01:00:56.520 So it's possible that what you're saying does happen.

01:00:58.480 Maybe in 20 or 30 years, nobody's having any kids.

01:01:01.400 Innovations go down.

01:01:02.660 We're just kind of poor, right, for various reasons.

01:01:05.440 You know, we just don't have the money to redistribute like we used to.

01:01:07.760 And so we'll have to adjust our expectations of what basic needs means, like you said.

01:01:13.460 But that's not a comment on how much, relatively speaking, within societies we should distribute

01:01:19.400 to people who are struggling with these things that I talked about.

01:01:21.940 So why are you so hopeful?

01:01:24.160 It pisses me off.

01:01:25.300 No.

01:01:25.840 Well, I'm not hopeful.

01:01:27.220 It's just...

01:01:28.020 Optimism.

01:01:28.480 Yeah.

01:01:28.960 He's like, it'll be fine.

01:01:30.520 We'll figure it out.

01:01:31.180 We'll dial it in, guys.

01:01:32.260 And I'm just like, what?

01:01:33.000 Okay, think about it.

01:01:33.480 What?

01:01:33.840 Like Tim said.

01:01:34.540 Like Tim said.

01:01:35.160 So let's say that we have, I don't know, like we have $5 trillion that we want to redistribute,

01:01:40.880 right?

01:01:41.180 And we, you know, maybe about that's what government's going to get, right?

01:01:43.660 We should before, I don't know how much time we have, but...

01:01:46.100 Another hour.

01:01:46.340 Okay, so then we will talk about debt, servicing the debt, all that kind of stuff.

01:01:52.580 Let's say that we have $5 trillion that we want to redistribute.

01:01:54.880 That's what we can kind of like afford, quotation marks.

01:01:57.180 Sure.

01:01:57.820 And we distribute it based on, you know, these different groups that I talked about.

01:02:01.640 And like, maybe we have some military needs or whatever that is.

01:02:03.980 And we go into the future and all these calamitous things happen. 0.96

01:02:06.960 And let's just say, God, you know, damn, we can only raise $4 trillion, right? 0.91

01:02:10.860 Like that's like the most we can raise. 0.98

01:02:12.320 Well, distributionally, there's no reason to think that we would all of a sudden not have

01:02:17.260 unemployment benefits.

01:02:18.180 We would not have retirement benefits.

01:02:19.860 We would not have maybe a basic income.

01:02:21.800 We would not have student benefits.

01:02:23.460 Maybe those benefits just have to go down some amount, right?

01:02:25.860 But fundamentally, just last thing, we need welfare and we need a lot of it, relatively

01:02:31.480 speaking, to prevent all these people from living in poverty.

01:02:34.100 I'm not a minarchist or an anarchist.

01:02:35.480 I was going to say this real quick because you brought up U.S. debt, so I brought up the U.S.

01:02:38.560 debt clock.

01:02:38.980 Look, I think it's fair to say that we've already traveled well beyond the capability

01:02:43.900 of the welfare system.

01:02:45.580 And now the ship is sinking and we're planning like it's not.

01:02:50.020 122% debt to GDP.

01:02:52.360 Japan's at like 240.

01:02:53.800 You know, we have, I mean, there's, you have to look at sort of taxes as a percent of GDP.

01:02:58.720 Like how much does the United States tax compared to other countries?

01:03:01.620 The reason, the only thing I was going to say was the reason why we run such high deficits

01:03:05.280 is because we just choose to.

01:03:07.000 Like we could obviously tax more and solve the fiscal problems that we have and we could,

01:03:11.120 you absolutely could.

01:03:12.160 So I was, let me tell you, you guys know how far away from the city we are right now.

01:03:18.480 Sure.

01:03:18.820 We're not, we're not in the, in the sticks per se, like in the central West Virginia where

01:03:23.100 you're five hours from the nearest city.

01:03:24.740 Sure.

01:03:25.040 No, about an hour.

01:03:25.800 And there's some, there's Winchester.

01:03:27.120 It's a town of, I think, what is Winchester?

01:03:28.460 30,000, 30 or 40,000.

01:03:30.980 That's the closest city to us.

01:03:32.860 Martinsburg, I think is like 10,000.

01:03:34.800 So we're about an hour and a half outside of any major metro, probably a little bit more.

01:03:39.620 Well, to be fair, we're an hour from Frederick, I guess, 300,000.

01:03:44.460 A bungalow in a rural area.

01:03:48.040 How much do you think that costs?

01:03:50.340 Based off of the current economy, 300 grand.

01:03:52.360 You're wrong.

01:03:53.580 More?

01:03:54.480 What do you think it is?

01:03:55.900 When you say bungalow, you just mean like a really small house?

01:03:57.820 Yeah, like a thousand square foot house.

01:03:59.300 Bungalows are single story, thousand square foot homes. 0.74

01:04:01.820 In what?

01:04:02.140 In central West Virginia?

01:04:03.200 Right.

01:04:03.580 We're not in central, we're in the eastern panhandle, so we're not that far.

01:04:05.720 But how much do you think a bungalow goes for in this area?

01:04:07.600 Oh, right here?

01:04:08.180 Well, in this area, we're right outside of D.C.

01:04:09.880 I mean, I don't, you know.

01:04:11.080 An hour and 40 minutes outside of D.C., you mean?

01:04:12.880 It's still going to be really expensive because you have all these people commuting in.

01:04:15.740 If it's a half million, I want to take a hammer.

01:04:17.980 It's $600,000. 1.00

01:04:18.760 Yeah, I want to take a hammer and hit myself in the head. 0.99

01:04:20.320 That doesn't surprise me, yeah. 0.97

01:04:21.360 So how is a young person who's getting an entry-level job in the city, how do they start a family

01:04:26.620 and buy a home?

01:04:27.760 And I'll tell you why this number matters.

01:04:29.820 How much do you think a bungalow cost three years ago in this area?

01:04:33.360 Oh, yeah, like $200,000.

01:04:34.440 $200,000.

01:04:35.180 Yeah.

01:04:35.440 There was a house not far from here that we were looking at.

01:04:38.200 It was two.

01:04:38.960 Are you getting depressed?

01:04:40.280 The Gen Z producers are throwing up right now. 1.00

01:04:44.000 Guys, I'm looking at the Gen Z producers.

01:04:46.180 I don't know. 1.00

01:04:46.460 Yeah, you're screwed. 0.98

01:04:47.100 Sorry, guys. 0.97

01:04:47.640 There was a bungalow in this area for $250,000 three years ago.

01:04:55.000 Now it's $600,000.

01:04:55.980 Yeah, that was a steal.

01:04:57.320 And it's crazy because back then I was like, there's no reason.

01:05:01.100 I don't need investment properties.

01:05:02.620 I'm not going to buy it.

01:05:03.220 I was encouraging other people.

01:05:04.420 Talking to my brother like, hey, maybe you should buy this one.

01:05:06.020 He didn't.

01:05:06.980 We went and looked at it.

01:05:08.640 Now it's $600,000.

01:05:09.820 Yeah.

01:05:10.000 And I went and looked at a house the other day, also in this area, and it's $450,000 and it's dilapidated.

01:05:17.420 Anyway, sorry.

01:05:19.100 My ultimate point is with the debt-to-GDP ratio, the lack of new workers coming in, and the taxation level we're at right now, you cannot take more from Gen Z already. 1.00

01:05:32.040 I disagree.

01:05:33.180 You disagree?

01:05:34.180 These people can't afford to start families.

01:05:35.900 They can't afford to buy homes.

01:05:36.860 And you're saying, let's take more money from them.

01:05:38.300 Well, let me explain, Tim.

01:05:40.320 Blood from a stone.

01:05:41.320 You mentioned Japan earlier.

01:05:45.220 And Japan's actually a great example to talk about what Tim's talking about.

01:05:48.000 So Japan, declining population, crazy debt-to-GDP, right?

01:05:52.460 High standard of living.

01:05:53.220 Very, very high standard of living, and very affordable housing.

01:05:56.200 How do they accomplish that?

01:05:57.180 They just have a way...

01:05:57.760 All the dead people.

01:05:59.000 No, no, no.

01:05:59.780 They just have a way, way more efficient and better system for building housing, right?

01:06:05.100 And so, you know, to the point that Tim's making, it's not that what Tim is saying is an unreasonable thing to care about, right?

01:06:11.460 Like, obviously, affordable housing is important.

01:06:14.140 But we're linking all of these different conversations.

01:06:16.840 Oh, we have a high debt.

01:06:18.080 We might have a decreasing population.

01:06:20.040 Housing is more expensive.

01:06:21.780 That's completely irrelevant to the fundamental point of we need to distribute money to non-workers.

01:06:27.500 And I agree. 0.99

01:06:28.960 Fuck, we need a better tax code. 0.99

01:06:30.440 We need a way better system for building housing. 1.00

01:06:32.240 And population decline is a problem.

01:06:34.180 But even if I take all those things to be true, we still need to give a lot of money to these people.

01:06:40.740 So let me say this.

01:06:41.780 I agree that I'm a fan of welfare systems.

01:06:45.380 Communists.

01:06:46.200 I personally...

01:06:47.620 I consider myself to be kind of like a liberal, but liberal these days just means, like, do you agree with their worldview or not?

01:06:54.720 Sure.

01:06:55.360 So if I said something like, you know, I personally got unemployment benefits before, and it really helped me.

01:07:00.320 I lost my job through no fault of my own, went through a lawsuit, and while I was in this limbo period for several months, I filed for unemployment and kept up with it, followed the rules, and they paid me like $100 a week, some ridiculous amount of money.

01:07:13.000 But that fed me, and I'm appreciative of that system.

01:07:16.320 I've also worked for homeless shelters, and I have personally met many homeless people who, through no fault of their own, ended up losing their property, losing their job, but quickly turned things around when given the opportunity.

01:07:26.820 But that is the minority of homeless people.

01:07:29.760 Most homeless people are homeless because they cannot not be homeless, and a lot of them want to be homeless.

01:07:36.120 So, for instance, there's a group that calls themselves the Avrats in Washington.

01:07:42.060 These are young people who refuse to get off the streets. 0.97

01:07:45.320 They want to be a part of this group.

01:07:47.660 They receive welfare benefits.

01:07:49.120 They'll stand outside of us.

01:08:19.060 They'll tell young people, I got $200 in food benefits.

01:08:23.840 I'll buy whatever you want.

01:08:25.780 Just give me $100.

01:08:27.100 And then young people, not always young people.

01:08:29.640 This is big in Seattle.

01:08:30.840 They'll be like, deal.

01:08:31.880 I get $200 worth of groceries for me, and you get $100 for heroin.

01:08:35.280 And that's what they end up doing.

01:08:36.240 Tim, obviously, we're now talking about mechanically, how do you distribute benefits?

01:08:44.020 And how should we prevent people from using benefits for drugs or whatever?

01:08:48.760 Or people say, if you give child allowances, what if the money doesn't actually go to the children?

01:08:53.020 Right?

01:08:53.640 And here's what I'll say.

01:08:54.420 I'll make a big point, and then I'll directly address your point.

01:08:57.120 The big point is, there's just so much research on this.

01:09:00.460 There's so much research on what do poor people do with the benefits that they get?

01:09:04.800 Right?

01:09:04.980 What do they do?

01:09:06.000 Right?

01:09:06.340 And the overwhelming amount of that money, right?

01:09:09.200 Like 90, 95, 99% of it, right?

01:09:11.960 Depending on the program, goes towards just the things that poor people need to live.

01:09:16.440 It goes towards rent.

01:09:17.720 It goes towards food.

01:09:18.800 It goes towards their car payments, right?

01:09:20.860 Or whatever their circumstances are.

01:09:22.760 Now, to the exact type of person that you're talking about, Tim, which is a huge minority

01:09:27.140 of the people that are receiving benefits.

01:09:29.260 I mean, think about it, right?

01:09:30.000 There's 70 million people on Medicaid, another 70 million on Medicare.

01:09:33.340 There's hundreds of millions of people in this country who are receiving some kind of

01:09:37.660 cash payment or government benefit, right?

01:09:40.620 The minority of the people that you're talking about, how should we handle them? 1.00

01:09:43.860 I mean, I can tell you what some other countries do.

01:09:46.040 Like, for instance, I think it's in Finland, you get cash benefits, which is called your housing

01:09:50.520 allowance, but it's just cash, right?

01:09:52.460 It's meant to go towards your housing expenses.

01:09:54.780 There are some people who have a history of not paying their landlord and just irresponsibly

01:09:58.940 using the money.

01:09:59.680 They have terrible credit.

01:10:01.440 And so the state comes in and says, okay, we're just going to directly pay your landlord,

01:10:04.600 right?

01:10:04.760 Because we can't trust you with cash.

01:10:06.680 So there is some paternalism and things like that that these systems probably require.

01:10:11.400 But that's not...

01:10:12.320 I certainly wouldn't...

01:10:13.420 I don't know that you're saying that.

01:10:15.340 Some conservatives will say, and that's why we just shouldn't have these benefits, right? 0.97

01:10:18.960 And that's ridiculous.

01:10:19.860 The solution would be anybody receiving government health benefits should be required to be on

01:10:24.000 a specific diet and engage in specific exercises.

01:10:27.080 Well, in Econoboy, to kind of move it, because I feel like we're dancing around this point

01:10:30.400 repeatedly, Tim and I, unfortunately for chat, are statists. 0.80

01:10:35.840 So they're like, oh, this is just three filthy communists having a conversation about communism, 0.96

01:10:41.080 right? 0.98

01:10:41.480 That's what they're thinking.

01:10:42.780 Which degree of communism do you want?

01:10:44.320 Right.

01:10:44.800 So, you know, to your point, I accept that some level of government redistribution needs

01:10:50.540 to exist.

01:10:51.020 I think Tim accepts that as well.

01:10:52.260 So we're filthy communists compared to the chat.

01:10:54.500 So you making that point again, you're not going to find argumentation.

01:10:57.980 But what I think that...

01:10:58.920 But it sounds like what Tim brought that up as like this sort of inherent...

01:11:02.960 It seems like it's sort of inherent criticism of the welfare state, right?

01:11:05.900 And it's like, that's just very much not a reason to be skeptical.

01:11:10.280 This is the concern.

01:11:11.020 May I?

01:11:11.920 So this is the concern, though, is that we have seen perverse incentive systems destroy

01:11:17.960 economies, okay?

01:11:19.380 So as an example, Venezuela, it was effectively like a mono... 0.94

01:11:23.900 What would you call it?

01:11:25.140 Like a mono-commodity economy for a long time.

01:11:27.980 Generous welfare state.

01:11:29.340 But what happened when their commodity was oil?

01:11:31.800 What happened when they kicked out all the capitalists?

01:11:34.140 And what happened when the oil economy didn't do what they were predicting it to do?

01:11:38.380 It effectively destroyed their economy.

01:11:40.320 And so as a result, you have people who are starving, all that kind of stuff.

01:11:43.620 That's something that I absolutely want to prevent here.

01:11:45.560 Same thing with...

01:11:46.520 I can tell you how to prevent it.

01:11:47.440 Well, sure.

01:11:48.260 Let's talk about that momentarily.

01:11:49.780 But if we look at Maoist China, if we look at the Soviet Union, if we look at historical

01:11:54.040 examples of socialism, I think you identify as a social democrat, the socialism has been

01:12:00.380 disastrous through command economy flubs.

01:12:02.480 Now, not just that, but we also see micro-disasters.

01:12:06.740 So if we're talking about like California or the Pacific Northwest, I've had these conversations.

01:12:11.120 I know it's anecdotal.

01:12:12.280 However, they're not pleasant places to live in certain regards, even for the ultra-wealthy.

01:12:17.660 My family, I hate to bring it up, but I have a family member who the husband makes around,

01:12:22.700 you know, probably more than $150,000.

01:12:25.480 The wife makes more than $150,000 or whatever.

01:12:27.520 But because they were living in the Pacific Northwest in a major urban center, they effectively

01:12:31.400 had to walk through drug-addicted homeless people who were being subsidized by the state,

01:12:35.180 who made the common areas less livable.

01:12:37.900 And so that's where the intent behind what you're saying can be 100% noble.

01:12:42.120 Let's take care of homeless people. 0.96

01:12:43.820 Let's get them food. 0.79

01:12:44.900 Let's make sure that they have clean needles so they don't pass diseases. 1.00

01:12:47.560 But there are rotted urban centers inside the United States of America, particularly in,

01:12:53.440 let's say it, left-leaning cities, where the perverse incentives have overtaken the original

01:12:58.960 noble intent.

01:12:59.960 And so that's what I think a lot of people are worried and scared about.

01:13:02.400 Well, look, I wouldn't put, you know, I wouldn't want Gavin Newsom to be in charge of designing

01:13:06.800 my ideal welfare state.

01:13:08.320 Sure.

01:13:08.740 I don't think, I think that there are a lot of...

01:13:11.260 Some Swedish guy.

01:13:11.920 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

01:13:12.880 We need some Swedish guy.

01:13:13.920 But no, I mean, yeah, there's a lot of problems within, I think, democratic politics with regards

01:13:18.020 to how we talk about these things.

01:13:19.540 And certainly the solutions, it's ironic because, like, you have a lot of Democrats that they're

01:13:24.980 like, oh, we need to do this, that, and the other to prevent exactly what you guys are

01:13:27.960 talking about.

01:13:28.440 But the answers are actually a lot simpler, right?

01:13:30.560 So I advocate for things like universalizing welfare benefits, having an efficient tax code.

01:13:36.320 You know, you talk about homeless people in these urban cities, right?

01:13:39.040 One of the things that I find so interesting, when you see, like, people who travel to Nordic

01:13:46.360 countries, and they come back, one of the first takeaways that they have is, there's

01:13:51.220 just no homeless people.

01:13:52.340 What the hell? 0.93

01:13:52.860 Like, I thought you go to a major city, there's just a shitload of homeless people. 0.98

01:13:55.540 So hold on, real quick meme. 0.90

01:13:56.860 They freeze to death.

01:13:57.860 Continue.

01:13:58.520 Well, no, because there's a lot of homeless people in cities like Detroit and stuff,

01:14:00.960 right, that are very visible, right?

01:14:02.260 They also freeze to death, but continue.

01:14:03.720 But they're very visible, right?

01:14:04.960 I mean, you get what I'm saying.

01:14:05.920 Like, that's not really true.

01:14:07.220 Same thing with Canada and a lot of those urban centers, right?

01:14:09.420 So it's like, well, what are those countries doing, right?

01:14:12.040 It's not that they don't have people that struggle with housing, but what do they do?

01:14:15.340 They offer pretty generous benefits to people to get into housing.

01:14:18.920 They offer a housing-first approach to people.

01:14:21.180 They do jobs training.

01:14:22.360 Like, there's just like this sort of holistic benefit.

01:14:24.440 And they tend to have either a non-market system or an efficient market system for distributing

01:14:30.100 housing.

01:14:30.620 Like, it ends up being very affordable.

01:14:31.680 Take a city like San Francisco, right?

01:14:33.820 A city like San Francisco will dump a ton of money, like nominal dollars.

01:14:37.420 Into public housing.

01:14:38.900 Oh, we're going to build public housing, and we're going to let homeless people live there.

01:14:42.080 And then they're not homeless.

01:14:43.360 They'll get on their feet and all that stuff.

01:14:45.020 One of the biggest problems with these cities is not the fact that they want to offer benefits,

01:14:49.480 right?

01:14:49.660 Which is kind of, it seems like how we're framing the conversation.

01:14:52.460 It's not the benefits themselves.

01:14:54.100 It's the fact that in San Francisco, the zoning ordinances are so ridiculously constrictive

01:14:59.220 that to build like 100 units of public housing costs $100 million or some ridiculous amount,

01:15:04.560 right?

01:15:04.800 And so that's a problem holistically of governance, right?

01:15:08.880 But it's certainly not a problem with the welfare state or the idea that we would offer

01:15:13.800 things like cash benefits, clean needle exchanges, like all those things that you just mentioned.

01:15:18.680 I want you to hear me, okay?

01:15:20.440 I'm hearing you.

01:15:20.800 This is a safe space amongst three communists who are all discussing how to distribute the

01:15:25.580 economy, okay?

01:15:26.240 This is a safe space, all right?

01:15:27.340 To share the wealth.

01:15:28.100 Yeah, right.

01:15:28.660 So we are talking about how we distribute these things, but I think that, so for instance,

01:15:33.760 exactly what you're saying with housing.

01:15:35.560 There are a lot of well-intended left-leaning people, liberals, Democrats, all that kind of

01:15:40.280 stuff, and they talk about things that I think are criminally insane as if it's completely

01:15:44.320 normal.

01:15:45.140 One of them is the NIMBY movement, right? 0.93

01:15:47.280 Or the YIMBY movement, right? 0.58

01:15:48.560 So not in my backyard versus yes in my backyard. 0.57

01:15:51.040 You think YIMBYs are insane? 1.00

01:15:52.100 I think YIMBYs are a little insane. 0.99

01:15:53.480 Okay.

01:15:53.880 And so the reason why is because the cities, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, right?

01:15:59.340 The biggest cities in the world or whatever.

01:16:00.940 They're already very claustrophobic, tens of thousands of people crammed together elbow

01:16:04.560 to elbow, all that kind of stuff.

01:16:05.840 Their solution to housing costs in these already very claustrophobically built cities that

01:16:10.160 people want to live in for, I would say, intangible reasons because they want to be

01:16:14.500 cool.

01:16:14.800 They want to be in New York.

01:16:15.680 They want to be in Los Angeles.

01:16:16.640 They want to be in Miami.

01:16:17.740 Their solution is to take a 1,500-square-foot apartment and then split it up into three 500-square-foot

01:16:23.660 units.

01:16:24.280 That doesn't sound like human thriving to me. 0.97

01:16:27.400 That sounds like a rat's nest.

01:16:29.860 So that's where the intent of some of these policies, it's like we need to think more

01:16:33.940 comprehensively about the kind of lives that we want to build for human beings, and I

01:16:37.220 feel like the left sometimes, generally speaking, has very terrible ideas.

01:16:41.020 When we talk about major cities-

01:16:42.120 You're saying it's only an effect of governance, which I agree with, but the governance matters 1.00

01:16:46.120 because what's popular on the left, some of it's incredibly stupid. 0.99

01:16:48.980 Well, look, if we're talking about, we have an immovable object and an unstoppable force 0.99

01:16:53.880 here, right?

01:16:54.460 We have a shitload of people who want to live in LA. 0.94

01:16:57.240 My autism and your autism. 0.91

01:16:58.580 Right, yeah.

01:16:59.360 We have a shitload of people who want to live in LA, and we obviously have a limited geographic

01:17:04.680 area, right?

01:17:05.840 And so the natural solution to that, that YIMBYs would suggest, is build densely.

01:17:10.160 Now, obviously, hey, if you want to have a 2,000-square-foot home in the middle of LA,

01:17:14.080 it's just going to be really expensive, right?

01:17:15.580 Even if you do the policies that YIMBYs are talking about, right, you're going to have 1.00

01:17:18.340 to pay a lot more for a huge apartment.

01:17:20.920 But I don't know that that's necessarily bad for people's culture or sense of community.

01:17:24.420 Look at a city like Tokyo, biggest city on the planet.

01:17:26.960 It's an insanely sprawling just metropolis, right?

01:17:30.980 They have very affordable units.

01:17:33.040 They have units that are much more expensive, but it's very, very densely built.

01:17:36.800 When you go to places like that, everyone who visits there, people who live there, there's

01:17:40.180 a, not famous, but, you know, he's a Noah Pinion, Noah Smith.

01:17:44.480 He's a guy who blogs a lot.

01:17:45.540 He actually lives in Japan most of the time in Tokyo.

01:17:48.240 You know, they don't talk about, like, I guess in some sense, it's like, oh, I wish I had

01:17:51.840 more space in some intrinsic sense. 0.77

01:17:53.480 But it's like, damn, it's so nice to live in a dense area with, like, all this stuff around 0.96

01:17:57.460 me. 0.98

01:17:57.660 There's so much to do.

01:17:58.920 That's the reason why people go to cities like that, right?

01:18:01.000 You can't have your cake and eat it, too, and be like, I should have a $100,000 home

01:18:06.320 in a place that millions of people want to live. 1.00

01:18:09.240 No, I, okay, I agree with you that that's a stupid impulse. 0.99

01:18:12.280 And so, just to add to that, the problem with a lot of these cities is they require civil 0.99

01:18:16.920 servants to live in those city boundaries.

01:18:19.840 So then you end up with problems in Chicago.

01:18:22.020 You're talking about, like, in New York, they're like, you have to live in New York to be a

01:18:24.620 police officer.

01:18:25.280 I believe it's true for most jurisdictions.

01:18:27.420 San Francisco, for instance, if you want to be a cop there, you've got to live in the city

01:18:30.280 limits, good luck.

01:18:32.180 They don't pay you enough to afford a house there. 0.99

01:18:33.960 Well, that's dumb. 0.99

01:18:34.480 I agree with that. 0.99

01:18:34.880 We could argue that this is an issue of governance, though.

01:18:36.900 So, for instance, like, this is, here's your commie take of the day.

01:18:40.420 I think that there effectively should be affordable districts within the country, or excuse me,

01:18:46.740 within the city, where you just know that your working class is going to work there.

01:18:50.700 So, for instance, like, New York City, one of the most expensive, beautiful cities.

01:18:54.460 Well, not beautiful. 0.97

01:18:55.460 It's actually a rat's nest.

01:18:56.720 But it's one of the most sought after, is what I was looking for, cities on the planet.

01:19:01.980 You know, basically, swaths of Brooklyn should be held for the working class, because they 1.00

01:19:06.880 are the people who make the city run, and they should not have to have a three-hour commute

01:19:10.580 in order to make it.

01:19:11.780 But hold on.

01:19:13.400 Project housing has typically failed.

01:19:16.580 Yeah, I agree.

01:19:17.040 But, Tim, project housing has failed because...

01:19:20.200 Other reasons.

01:19:20.780 Well, yeah, we just don't do it right, right?

01:19:22.860 I mean, like, I think that, for instance, when you look at Singapore, Singapore is a very

01:19:25.860 densely populated...

01:19:26.660 And it's a city, right?

01:19:27.580 So I think a lot of people say, oh, we can't Singapore apply to the country.

01:19:30.520 We're talking about cities here.

01:19:31.920 If you want to argue that we should cane people in public for violating the law...

01:19:35.780 Yes.

01:19:36.340 Conservative take, yeah.

01:19:37.300 No, no, no.

01:19:37.640 That's what Singapore does, and that's why they... 0.97

01:19:39.440 Well, that's not why they have a nice urban downtown.

01:19:41.920 That's not why they have affordable housing, though.

01:19:43.560 Sure.

01:19:44.320 But it actually is.

01:19:45.080 It's just a benefit.

01:19:45.620 No, it's not, Tim.

01:19:46.320 Come on. 0.93

01:19:46.640 That's ridiculous. 0.99

01:19:47.060 Yes. 1.00

01:19:47.140 If you spit gum, you can be caned. 0.81

01:19:49.540 If you don't flush a toilet, you can be caned.

01:19:51.420 He's talking about affordability, not necessarily whether or not it's a nice place to live.

01:19:54.520 No, my point is, the authority structure is completely tied to its economic structure.

01:20:00.780 I didn't make my point.

01:20:02.660 So let me tell you, I went to Singapore, and they had a problem with a bunch of, I think

01:20:05.940 it was Filipino and Indian people, who had come then to be used as cheap labor.

01:20:09.860 They were told, you will do this or else.

01:20:12.400 And when they started protesting, they arrested them all and beat them publicly in the street.

01:20:16.200 So when you get cheap slave labor from foreign countries to maintain your standard of living 0.55

01:20:20.280 under threat of mercilessly beating them in public, you can maintain those standards of

01:20:23.620 living.

01:20:23.800 No, that's not true.

01:20:24.640 So when we look at it, the reason I brought up-

01:20:26.700 I'm sorry for laughing because I'm agreeing with Singaporeans, but sorry. 0.73

01:20:29.300 No, but the reason I brought up Singapore was not to talk about like their entire justice

01:20:33.220 system, obviously.

01:20:33.860 They have a very sort of draconian set of regulations on a lot of things, which I'm sure a lot of them

01:20:37.940 we wouldn't necessarily agree with.

01:20:39.660 Like their drug policy, for instance, is extreme.

01:20:41.500 Your house can't fall apart in a place where they beat you for your house falling apart.

01:20:45.040 Well, no, I don't agree with that.

01:20:47.600 Did you know that they checked the toilets in Singapore?

01:20:49.980 Don't use Singapore as an example.

01:20:50.940 Let's just move on.

01:20:51.580 No, no.

01:20:51.800 We're not going to move on.

01:20:52.720 Okay.

01:20:53.020 In Singapore, there are people where if you leave food on the table, they can report you

01:20:58.240 to the police and you can get in trouble for this.

01:21:00.400 Usually it's a fine.

01:21:01.760 It is considered improper if you don't flush the toilet and people actually look.

01:21:05.580 So if you have a house and there is gum on the sidewalk, that's illegal.

01:21:10.420 If you have housing in the United States, what do we end up seeing?

01:21:15.520 It gets trashed.

01:21:16.620 It falls apart.

01:21:17.420 And we're required to pay for services from the public coffers to fix it.

01:21:20.980 In Singapore, they beat you in public.

01:21:23.360 So Tim, the reason I brought up Singapore was not to talk about their civil society,

01:21:28.420 you could say.

01:21:29.200 You keep trying to cut out.

01:21:30.920 No, no, no, no.

01:21:31.320 You won't let me make a point.

01:21:33.280 Absolutely, I will not.

01:21:34.220 Because you keep changing the subject.

01:21:36.240 You are trying to act like the social order.

01:21:38.540 Oh, you're not going to let me make a point.

01:21:39.660 Connor said.

01:21:40.040 No, you're not going to let me make a point.

01:21:41.120 You keep changing the point that the social order of a society is connected to its spending.

01:21:47.500 Houses in Chicago are falling apart.

01:21:50.200 And because their public housing has fallen apart in Chicago, because people mistreat the

01:21:54.020 properties, do drugs, and fire guns at them. 0.81

01:21:56.500 If you did that in Singapore, you would be beaten in public.

01:21:59.580 So what Singapore does is not just that, Tim.

01:22:02.400 You'd agree they don't have one policy.

01:22:03.860 What Connor said was, I think that working class people should be able to live in city

01:22:07.520 centers without all these different bidding wars happening, and they just essentially

01:22:11.360 get priced out of the area.

01:22:12.640 How does Singapore do that?

01:22:14.120 Well, they don't do that by beating people with canes.

01:22:17.120 They have a non-market public housing system, right?

01:22:21.360 So that's the thing you wouldn't let me make the point on.

01:22:23.660 That's the point, right?

01:22:25.140 That you have to have all of these things together.

01:22:26.980 You have to have an efficient system for building housing, obviously.

01:22:29.940 I guess if you're Tim or Connor, maybe you, I guess, need to have some crazy stuff, right?

01:22:34.560 Who maintains the house?

01:22:35.360 The individuals that live there, and obviously some public as well.

01:22:38.100 Okay, so let's break this down.

01:22:40.080 You have public housing.

01:22:41.520 Yeah, yeah.

01:22:41.980 It has to be maintained by somebody.

01:22:43.720 If someone can't afford to buy and maintain a house, who pays to maintain it?

01:22:48.220 The state.

01:22:48.760 The state.

01:22:49.300 Okay.

01:22:49.400 Now, in Singapore, if you don't maintain your property, they will beat you in public.

01:22:53.760 In Chicago, if you don't maintain your property, it just falls apart and there's drugs and guns

01:22:57.520 everywhere.

01:22:57.880 Singapore.

01:22:58.860 I want to, he's passionately making a point that I thought was an overview of what we

01:23:05.700 were going to talk about today, which is effectively, you know.

01:23:08.560 Wait, Connor, do you agree with me on the point that to do what you're talking about, you

01:23:12.520 need a system of public investment?

01:23:14.560 Yeah, of course.

01:23:15.200 Okay.

01:23:15.520 Well, we agree, actually.

01:23:16.360 But, hold on, there's a point here that I think Tim is making, very passionately, that

01:23:21.180 I agree with, which is effectively that if you're going to have a welfare state, you

01:23:25.580 need a level of what's considered, particularly in America, socially conservative enforcement.

01:23:31.800 Because what happens when you, what we're worried about, what we're talking about, when we're

01:23:35.200 talking about entire areas of LA being overrun with the homeless, when we're talking about

01:23:39.660 the Pacific Northwest having all these issues with needles on the street, when we're talking

01:23:42.860 about San Francisco having human feces and that just being like a normal thing.

01:23:46.360 What we're talking about is we're talking about the state intervening in order to try

01:23:50.440 to make people's lives better, but not feeling like they have the authority to enforce, like,

01:23:55.740 equality or standards.

01:23:57.500 And so that's where I don't think that you can have one without the other.

01:24:00.380 Well, obviously, like, to address your points, both of your points directly, right, when it

01:24:03.880 comes to, like, oh, what do we do with these people who are just on drugs and they're 0.72

01:24:06.660 fucking everything up in downtown for us? 0.98

01:24:08.460 Yep. 0.88

01:24:08.660 Well, obviously, look, I mean, I think, look at the city of Houston, actually.

01:24:11.580 You're about to get accused of being a Nazi, but...

01:24:12.940 Well, no, no, no.

01:24:13.940 I mean, look at the city of Houston.

01:24:15.400 The city of Houston, they decreased their homeless population by about 50% over the last

01:24:21.420 12 years.

01:24:22.060 And the city of Houston is a city with a revenue cap, right?

01:24:24.400 They literally cannot raise taxes to, like, infinite levels because the people say you

01:24:29.380 can't do that, right?

01:24:30.040 So they had to figure out a creative way to do this.

01:24:31.440 What they did was they had a camping ban mixed with public housing for homeless people.

01:24:37.220 And essentially, they said, hey, if you're homeless and there's room in the shelters,

01:24:41.280 you've got to go to the shelters.

01:24:43.300 And then the shelters are connected with, like, resources for homeless people.

01:24:46.180 Hey, rehab, clean needle, you know, all this kind of stuff, right?

01:24:49.680 And that decreased the homeless population by, like, 50%, right? 0.97

01:24:53.140 Now, to be fair to Tim's point, we didn't do that by beating the shit out of homeless people 0.98

01:24:57.280 on the street. 0.95

01:24:57.860 But we did say you have to do certain things and there's certain obligations that you have.

01:25:01.440 I don't necessarily disagree with that.

01:25:03.500 My only point about Singapore was that they have a huge system of public non-market housing,

01:25:08.520 which is one of the fundamental ways that you can extend affordable housing to people

01:25:13.840 in addition to those behavioral things you're talking about.

01:25:16.220 So let's pull this up.

01:25:17.540 Pruitt-Igoe, probably the most famous instance of failed public housing.

01:25:21.620 And why did it fail?

01:25:23.120 Crime, vandalism, juvenile delinquency.

01:25:25.800 I agree.

01:25:27.040 If we were to create a massive 33-building, 11-story complex housing cheap for people

01:25:33.360 who can't afford it to replace tenement housing, it can work if you go to the people who are

01:25:38.360 destroying it and mercilessly beat them in public when they do.

01:25:41.640 Because that's how Singapore maintains what you're talking about. 0.89

01:25:44.520 You keep...

01:25:44.920 Econoboy wants light beatings. 1.00

01:25:46.460 What about the city of Houston, Tim?

01:25:47.540 You keep trying...

01:25:48.540 What about the city of Houston, Tim?

01:25:49.700 You keep trying...

01:25:50.260 What about the city of Houston, Tim?

01:25:51.260 You keep trying to exclude...

01:25:53.360 With compassion.

01:25:54.120 ...the enforcement of law from the things we're spending money.

01:25:56.260 I didn't.

01:25:56.720 I just said you need an enforcement of these things.

01:25:59.180 I just don't think beating them in the street is right.

01:26:01.160 What about the city of Houston, Tim?

01:26:01.820 I agree.

01:26:02.600 We don't need to beat them in the street.

01:26:04.360 The point I said was don't use Singapore as an example because that's how they enforce it.

01:26:07.840 I used Houston as an example.

01:26:09.280 Then we agree that if Houston has social enforcement, you will lose your house if you vandalize it.

01:26:14.380 You will be kicked out, then people stop doing these things.

01:26:18.100 We have in these cities like Portland, needles all over the street.

01:26:21.220 You can compromise on compassionate beatings.

01:26:23.700 Well, Tim, I mean, obviously, I don't know that...

01:26:25.700 Look, I'm not...

01:26:26.620 I'm from Texas, not Portland, right?

01:26:28.660 So maybe I...

01:26:29.240 I remember I had a friend...

01:26:30.100 This is a funny story.

01:26:30.660 I had a friend who...

01:26:31.380 She lived from Texas as well.

01:26:33.260 She worked in San Francisco for a while, and she's super woke, liberal, socialist type.

01:26:38.540 And she comes back from San Francisco, and she's like, you know, honestly, they're way too far.

01:26:44.040 Like, they're a little bit...

01:26:44.800 They're way more woke than even, like, your Texas socialists, I guess, which is kind of funny to think.

01:26:48.380 So I'm from Texas.

01:26:49.020 I'm not from San Francisco. 0.80

01:26:50.120 If you say, hey, you know, you can't, like, start beating the shit out of people and breaking windows and doing drugs if you're going to be in social housing, I'm not going to have a huge problem with that.

01:27:00.940 If we look at the city... 0.96

01:27:01.840 Compassionate beatings.

01:27:02.380 Well, yeah.

01:27:02.840 If we look at the city of Houston, which is why I use that as an example, this is a city that can't raise a lot of taxes.

01:27:09.220 They have to come up with creative solutions to do things, and they did that.

01:27:12.280 And obviously, they did that without the extreme social policies of Singapore, right?

01:27:16.280 But still enforcement.

01:27:17.400 Well, but, Tim, I've never said we shouldn't enforce...

01:27:19.840 I didn't say you did.

01:27:20.460 I said, well, don't use Singapore as the example because they do. 1.00

01:27:23.060 Tim, what did I use Singapore as an example for?

01:27:24.740 Public housing market.

01:27:25.740 Yeah.

01:27:26.320 And I said, don't use it as an example because they maintain it by beating people in public.

01:27:30.360 Through vicious beatings, not compassionate beatings.

01:27:32.000 They also maintain it through public investment.

01:27:34.700 Okay.

01:27:35.220 Okay.

01:27:35.340 We're three communists here sharing our love of communism.

01:27:38.400 This is sarcastic for the sake of the Clippers.

01:27:40.020 Say it one more time, and that'll be the last one.

01:27:41.140 You don't need to spend as much money on property when it's not being vandalized because you

01:27:45.540 beat the people mercilessly in public if they do.

01:27:48.440 Okay.

01:27:48.940 If the cost of Pruitt-Igoe was $100 million to fix because of the vandalism, and the cost

01:27:53.860 to fix the Singaporean is $1 million because of the merciless beatings, one can be sustained

01:27:58.620 and one cannot.

01:27:59.380 Yes.

01:27:59.680 We need to be centristed.

01:28:00.420 I must say this, I must add, I can solve the gang violence and shooting problems in

01:28:05.280 Chicago like that.

01:28:06.580 I'm curious.

01:28:07.520 Constitutionally?

01:28:08.240 No.

01:28:08.520 If the punishment for shootings in Chicago was they would force you to wear a diaper

01:28:16.740 and a baby bonnet and make you crawl across Roosevelt Avenue while saying, I'm a big baby

01:28:21.940 boo-boo on camera while everyone got to watch and throw popcorn at you, not a single one

01:28:26.020 of these people would commit that crime.

01:28:27.400 I disagree. 0.67

01:28:27.960 There's sexual fetishists out there that would enjoy this. 0.96

01:28:30.200 You're correct. 0.56

01:28:30.780 They want to bring back the tomato and-

01:28:32.300 My point is-

01:28:33.520 Public shame.

01:28:34.200 A lot of what people assume is gang violence in Chicago is actually honor shootings.

01:28:38.280 Sure.

01:28:38.700 When people feel disrespected, they kill each other.

01:28:40.560 And this is a total aside.

01:28:41.400 I just wanted to bring it up in the context.

01:28:42.620 No, you're right.

01:28:43.120 If we did have cruel and unusual punishment, and what I mean by that is not torturous, maiming

01:28:48.560 or anything like that, but literally, we're going to make you wear a diaper and bunny hop

01:28:51.580 down the street, and then you're done.

01:28:54.120 Sure.

01:28:54.380 That's all you do.

01:28:55.400 Over one weekend, people would be like, hell no, I ain't come in that car.

01:28:59.040 But Tim, this is where we get into an argument about authoritarianism versus liberalism

01:29:02.780 or libertarianism philosophically, where are we talking about an individual society where

01:29:07.680 people are free to live with maximal liberty, or are we talking about an authoritarian society?

01:29:11.720 And here's the thing.

01:29:12.640 As much as I'm for compassionate beatings, I'm a huge fan of this, I still like living

01:29:19.080 in a relatively speaking free society.

01:29:20.980 This is why I can travel to see you.

01:29:22.400 This is why I can speak my mind on a public platform, all that kind of stuff.

01:29:25.780 And so I'm looking for the balance between freedom and security, and I'm trying to do

01:29:31.080 that as best as I can.

01:29:32.180 And that's kind of what we're arguing about from a policy perspective.

01:29:35.560 But, Econo, you say that I'm dragging away from things, but I'm going to drag it away

01:29:39.300 one more time, okay?

01:29:40.580 So let's say that ideally, in major metropolitan areas, we allow cops, firefighters, EMTs, and

01:29:48.720 retail and service workers who actually make the city function to live in low-cost housing

01:29:54.280 so they can make the city function, okay?

01:29:56.340 I get it.

01:29:57.020 Socialism, communism, whatever.

01:29:58.240 Check and spurg out. 0.68

01:29:58.960 However, if we see a collapse, a correlated collapse in the birth rate, where our major

01:30:05.420 urban centers actually have, I don't know, a less than 2.15 birth rate, what I would probably

01:30:12.080 say is that that's bad urban design.

01:30:14.580 It's a bad culture, and we shouldn't be incentivizing it.

01:30:17.800 And I do think that the United States, not just the United States, I think the entire

01:30:21.360 globe needs to stabilize from a population perspective in order for us to be a species.

01:30:28.740 We can tie these two things together, right?

01:30:30.300 So, for instance, I think there was some evidence out of France.

01:30:32.880 They studied their child allowance program, right?

01:30:35.540 So it's like, hey, when you give people cash, like one of the reasons why people don't have

01:30:39.140 kids, right, is because, well, they just don't feel like they can afford it, right?

01:30:42.320 Obviously, that's a big reason.

01:30:43.300 Or they might have less kids than they otherwise would have.

01:30:45.120 Isn't that kind of like a, sorry, continue, but I feel like this is like a reported thing

01:30:49.240 versus like a demonstrated thing, but I'll listen.

01:30:51.400 Well, I was about to get to the evidence, right?

01:30:52.700 So France had this child allowance program, and they essentially, whatever, some mumbo-jumbo

01:30:57.700 with the study design.

01:30:58.360 I don't want to get into it.

01:30:59.040 But they found that this actually increased the number of French people by like millions

01:31:02.600 of people over a long period of time, right?

01:31:04.780 What did?

01:31:05.780 Well, their child allowance.

01:31:06.560 Arcelest beatings.

01:31:08.080 We agreed on compassionate beatings, Tim.

01:31:10.180 Their child benefits programs, right?

01:31:11.540 Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that France has like this booming population.

01:31:15.960 It just means that they'd have a much lower than otherwise population if not for these

01:31:20.660 benefits, right?

01:31:21.400 And so the welfare state is perfectly compatible, especially when we're talking about the birth

01:31:25.240 rate.

01:31:25.860 You know, look, paid parental leave.

01:31:27.560 How do we optimize that?

01:31:28.580 Well, I can tell you, right?

01:31:30.100 Paid parental leave, cash benefits when you have kids, having, you know, baby boxes that

01:31:34.640 we send to people, you know.

01:31:36.660 How do you reconcile that?

01:31:37.980 Public school.

01:31:38.400 How do you reconcile that?

01:31:39.260 So, for instance, like all of these things, I think any sensible social conservative should

01:31:43.020 be for.

01:31:43.680 You should be for high quality early childhood education because you want a smart population.

01:31:47.600 You should be for high quality education because you want a productive population.

01:31:51.460 You should be for people getting socialized and becoming intelligent and all that kind

01:31:55.000 of stuff and getting a good education.

01:31:56.580 So these things I'm perfectly fine with.

01:31:58.080 But what I'm asking, though, is an optimization because what you're talking about.

01:32:02.580 Well, I can tell you.

01:32:03.100 Let me answer your questions.

01:32:04.180 Real quick, real quick, just because I want to complete a thought.

01:32:06.680 You're saying that it increased millions of people.

01:32:09.420 So there are millions of people who were born through social welfare programs that would

01:32:13.560 otherwise not have been born.

01:32:14.960 That's awesome.

01:32:16.200 Is it still below 2.15?

01:32:17.920 Because if we're below 2.15, I think we have a problem.

01:32:20.460 Yeah.

01:32:20.660 Well, Connor, obviously.

01:32:21.340 So we can look at the most extreme example, perhaps Hungary, right? 0.70

01:32:24.840 So Hungary spent on just family benefits, right? 0.58

01:32:27.780 They spent like 6% of their GDP.

01:32:29.860 We said earlier in this conversation, the United States spends 3.5% of its GDP on its

01:32:33.380 military.

01:32:34.240 Right.

01:32:34.480 So imagine twice the U.S. military.

01:32:36.460 That's the effort that the Hungarians are putting into getting people to have kids.

01:32:40.100 As a pro-natalist, I will accept this as a part of your plan. 0.96

01:32:42.240 Right, right.

01:32:42.940 Now, I think, look, I think we should have very generous child benefits.

01:32:46.000 But obviously, it's not a panacea, right?

01:32:48.600 For instance, like one of the reasons why...

01:32:50.440 Didn't they bump up temporarily by like 0.1 or 0.2, and then they drop back down?

01:32:54.400 Yeah, it has like an all-else-equal effect.

01:32:57.640 Like there's more people having kids in Hungary than otherwise.

01:33:00.280 But obviously, it doesn't completely reverse the problems.

01:33:04.120 You know, a lot of it is culture.

01:33:05.320 Like, why do Mormons have more kids in Utah than like people in Texas? 0.99

01:33:08.640 Well, they have...

01:33:09.080 They're going to populate the stars.

01:33:09.800 Right.

01:33:10.300 Yeah.

01:33:10.800 Well, they have this sort of conservative fundamentalism.

01:33:13.420 And they, you know, on average, let's say they want to have more kids.

01:33:15.940 So what you're saying is we should lie to people and tell them that if they have

01:33:18.960 a ton of kids, we will all populate the stars.

01:33:21.120 Yeah, well, I mean, that's what I'm saying.

01:33:22.760 Like, I do agree.

01:33:24.380 Texas?

01:33:24.880 Taxes.

01:33:26.440 That's kind of what Hungary does. 0.76

01:33:27.720 And it doesn't...

01:33:28.240 It still doesn't have...

01:33:29.340 It doesn't reverse the effect.

01:33:30.960 Tim, I agree with it in principle.

01:33:32.860 But that's exclusively going to affect like the most intelligent people who are...

01:33:37.500 If you are married.

01:33:38.360 Two or three.

01:33:39.120 If you are married and have at least two children, no taxes.

01:33:42.820 Well, but Tim, again, that's kind of what Hungary does. 0.95

01:33:44.780 And it doesn't...

01:33:45.540 It just doesn't...

01:33:46.120 Like, financial reasons are only...

01:33:48.100 Still don't think it should be done.

01:33:48.860 Well, yeah, but financially, like, financial reasons are only so big a portion of why people

01:33:54.160 are not having kids, right?

01:33:55.500 Sure.

01:33:55.840 And so even if we have a lot of benefits, they're not going to have a ton of kids altogether.

01:34:00.020 I think that, you know...

01:34:01.280 Do you believe getting on a culture...

01:34:02.960 Sorry, I know we're talking about economics.

01:34:04.260 It's your strong suit.

01:34:04.980 But getting on to culture, I feel like there is a antenatal popular, like, wing, especially

01:34:11.920 on social media, of the left, where, like, liberals and progressives effectively say,

01:34:16.920 your life is for you.

01:34:18.640 There's no afterlife.

01:34:19.960 So what you need to do is you need to maximize your pleasure in this life, and you need to

01:34:23.040 minimize your pain.

01:34:23.840 Yeah.

01:34:24.120 And so as a result, don't have kids.

01:34:25.820 Sure.

01:34:25.920 And so I think that this combined with the technologies of condoms and the technologies

01:34:29.860 of birth control, that partially contributes to it.

01:34:33.780 So for my thing, it's like, are you pronatal?

01:34:36.940 Are you going to have kids?

01:34:38.080 I mean, well, yeah, I don't want to talk about my family planning, obviously.

01:34:40.880 Well, I want to.

01:34:43.200 I'd hope I'd have kids one day.

01:34:44.780 Okay.

01:34:44.980 But anyway, the point is, though, is that...

01:34:46.740 How old are you?

01:34:47.800 I'm 28.

01:34:48.620 Okay.

01:34:48.960 Yeah.

01:34:49.240 So not an old man like Connor over here. 1.00

01:34:51.560 Yeah, but I have two kids.

01:34:52.680 I have two kids.

01:34:53.600 I actually do want to stress this, too.

01:34:55.880 Fully admitting, I just had my first kid this year.

01:34:59.100 28 is old to have a kid, historically.

01:35:01.080 Yeah, yeah.

01:35:01.560 I mean, obviously...

01:35:02.400 I'm way old.

01:35:02.860 Yeah, historically, that's true.

01:35:04.660 I mean, you know, but I think when we talk about collapsing birth rates, actually, that's

01:35:08.120 a good segue, is that when we talk about, like, birth rate collapse, what you find is

01:35:13.740 really not that people are just...

01:35:16.660 How do I put this?

01:35:17.420 It's not that people are, like, deciding to have less kids necessarily.

01:35:20.680 When you look at birth rates by age cohort, right, you see that...

01:35:24.920 It's delayed?

01:35:25.660 Well, essentially, what you find is that the reason why we have birth rates declining is

01:35:30.380 because teenagers aren't having kids anymore.

01:35:32.440 Which is...

01:35:33.200 Overwhelmingly, the reason why birth rates are declining is because we don't have teenage

01:35:36.320 pregnancy.

01:35:37.040 20-year-olds aren't either.

01:35:38.160 Well, 20 to 24 are going down as well.

01:35:40.640 And part of that is because, you know, women entering the workforce, getting an education. 1.00

01:35:44.940 I think that this is why it kind of bumps into what Connor was saying earlier, which

01:35:48.100 is, like, look, at the end of the day, the welfare state cannot solve all issues.

01:35:52.360 And when we're talking about, like, oh, women aren't having as many kids because they're 1.00

01:35:55.940 deciding to work and get educations.

01:35:57.320 I mean, like, what are we supposed to do about that, guys?

01:36:00.660 Well, I mean, I don't see any women. 0.89

01:36:03.240 But basically, my wife, thankfully, was like, hey, I love having kids.

01:36:08.080 I like taking care of them when they're young.

01:36:09.460 I want that to be my priority.

01:36:10.840 And we just meshed on that.

01:36:12.720 I've been very fortunate.

01:36:14.200 You know, despite not being a rich man, my wife hasn't had to work since 2020.

01:36:17.760 You mentioned the liberal idea of maximize your pleasure, minimize your pain.

01:36:22.560 Hedonism.

01:36:22.960 But I think the issue is that if you've never had a kid, you don't realize how much more,

01:36:28.400 like, enjoy.

01:36:28.780 It's so much deeper.

01:36:30.100 It's so much deeper.

01:36:31.240 Like, I'm going to embarrass my wife right now.

01:36:33.380 She was looking at our baby daughter and started crying because of just how much she loved the

01:36:38.160 baby and how cute she was. 1.00

01:36:39.060 And I started laughing.

01:36:39.860 And then she smiled.

01:36:40.660 And it's like, that is a degree of joy and happiness you don't experience without kids.

01:36:46.460 And people are being told not to do it.

01:36:47.880 Women are being told to go get jobs instead.

01:36:49.360 Instead, I've got to be honest, I kind of feel like when you look at a man or a woman

01:36:55.900 looking at their children, or I'll tell you one of the most horrifying things.

01:36:59.400 There was a viral video several years ago of a man holding his teenage son who died.

01:37:03.620 And the sound he was making was like the wail of demons emerging from it.

01:37:09.200 It was horrifying.

01:37:09.960 Like, the amount of emotion you get from children is being cut out from people who don't understand

01:37:15.860 it.

01:37:16.400 And we're telling women who have biological restrictions that men don't have to go get 0.99

01:37:21.280 jobs instead.

01:37:22.300 To go get educated and get jobs.

01:37:24.260 And I'm fine with education and jobs for women, so long as they're aware the idea of 0.99

01:37:28.300 having it all is not the same for women as it is for men. 0.66

01:37:31.320 Women have time that men have... 1.00

01:37:33.500 Robert De Niro had a kid.

01:37:35.320 He's like 70 years old or whatever.

01:37:36.360 If you'll indulge me, a quick emotional aside, okay?

01:37:40.940 I served in the military.

01:37:43.240 I enlisted in 2006.

01:37:44.280 I got out in 2010.

01:37:45.800 Very intense.

01:37:46.580 Very cool experience.

01:37:47.480 It made people I loved.

01:37:48.680 Very overall crazy thing.

01:37:51.780 Got my four-year degree.

01:37:52.980 Became a law enforcement officer.

01:37:54.200 Served for four years there.

01:37:55.260 Also very intense.

01:37:56.600 Very crazy experiences.

01:37:58.140 When I help...

01:37:59.000 I'm a rational person.

01:38:00.200 I try to rationalize my emotions away from me.

01:38:02.860 Where if I feel a feeling, I try to process it real quick, figure out what it is, and

01:38:07.040 then push it away.

01:38:08.120 When I had a child, I was not able to rationalize my emotion.

01:38:11.620 It's so overwhelming.

01:38:13.120 It's so powerful.

01:38:14.640 That, yeah, I'm tired.

01:38:15.820 Yeah, I'm grumpy.

01:38:16.640 Yeah, I'm rude. 0.99

01:38:17.440 Yeah, like all this kind of crap. 0.96

01:38:18.740 But the kids are such an overwhelming, emotionally deep kind of thing that I think that getting 0.99

01:38:24.840 drunk and trying to hook up with chicks or whatever, it's all... 1.00

01:38:27.240 No offense to anybody in chat, but it's bullshit. 1.00

01:38:29.920 And I'll just add to you, like, if that was not the case, human beings would have died 0.99

01:38:34.160 off a long time ago.

01:38:35.180 Sure.

01:38:35.560 Well, I mean, I think to you guys' point, this is, I think, in some sense where people

01:38:40.140 from the left kind of come from, where we have this sort of solidaristic empathy for

01:38:45.260 that kind of situation, right?

01:38:46.580 Like, I think children especially are the most defensible group to give welfare benefits 0.97

01:38:51.020 to, right?

01:38:51.560 Because obviously children don't choose to be born into poor families, even to the extent

01:38:54.800 that we might think that they're going to be poor later in life because of generational

01:38:58.140 poverty, well, there's still a really, really strong reason.

01:39:01.360 There's a very strong intuition, I guess, that most people have that, look, children

01:39:05.120 just don't fundamentally choose their circumstances.

01:39:07.580 And so they should be very well supported by the community.

01:39:10.480 And in this case, I'm using the state as kind of a proxy of the community that you get

01:39:13.540 some sort of basic benefits when you're born as a child.

01:39:16.540 But I would just extend, and to the point that you guys are making, I would extend that

01:39:19.300 same thing over to all these other groups, you know, people who have disabilities that

01:39:23.360 aren't within their control.

01:39:24.720 They should get a lot of support.

01:39:25.820 I'm a communitarian as well, not a communist, a communitarian.

01:39:29.120 Yeah, yeah.

01:39:29.460 And so that's what, exactly.

01:39:31.100 So if we agree fundamentally on that kind of thing, like you said, it's just really a

01:39:34.160 question of, like, how much should the benefits be?

01:39:36.900 And I mean, I think mechanically speaking, I was just going to say mechanically speaking,

01:39:41.460 the best way to do these things is just to have a system of essentially universal cash

01:39:45.880 benefits.

01:39:46.220 And then for some, you know, if you have disabilities like extra costs, you just have special benefits

01:39:50.220 layered on top of that.

01:39:51.060 But the fear is if we have a hedonistic, nihilistic society, then what are we incentivizing?

01:39:55.800 So what I was going to say is, I'm actually happy with the large welfare state, as long

01:40:01.260 as it's enforced with requirements, and we don't tolerate hedonism and abuse to an extreme

01:40:07.980 degree.

01:40:08.540 I think a lot of people, even on the right, would agree with, here's a guy who was a

01:40:12.220 carpenter for 20 years, and then he lost his hand in an accident, now he's struggling

01:40:15.620 to work.

01:40:16.540 Let's help that guy out. 0.99

01:40:17.480 Most people are going to be like, okay, and the guy's going to say, I will, he says, I

01:40:19.860 will do any work that I can do.

01:40:21.780 I'm so grateful to all of you helping me.

01:40:23.800 Then there's a morbid, lubious, homeless person saying, I refuse to get a job.

01:40:28.300 There's going to be a line where it's like, conservatives and most people are going to

01:40:32.120 say, I think most people are going to say, I will gladly help anyone who is trying to

01:40:36.500 help themselves and they need a lift up, but I don't like the abuse.

01:40:39.700 Before you jump in, Connor, let me just respond to that.

01:40:41.500 So a lot of conservatives will say stuff like that.

01:40:43.500 They'll say, I'm not saying you're a conservative, but a lot of conservatives will say stuff

01:40:47.340 like that.

01:40:47.700 They'll say, oh, well, I'll gladly help the deserving poor, the people who really deserve

01:40:53.240 their benefits.

01:40:53.960 But then there's this group of people who, I don't know if we agree necessarily, but

01:40:57.380 that is a minority of people who get benefits, like a very small minority.

01:41:01.800 Most of these people that I'm talking about, again, I don't think there's necessarily bad

01:41:04.340 behavior.

01:41:04.600 I think you're wrong.

01:41:05.340 Well, the evidence, I think, would speak against that.

01:41:08.820 But the point is, though, is that when we start to say, oh, well, in order to achieve

01:41:14.200 benefits, right, you have to whatever, like you have to fill out so many job applications

01:41:19.160 and you have to do drug tests and you have to do X, Y, and Z kind of different benefits

01:41:24.240 tests and means tests, right?

01:41:26.000 That's a burden that's applied to everyone who applies for those benefits.

01:41:30.680 You would eliminate those?

01:41:31.560 Well, yeah, and what we end up seeing, and the reason I would eliminate them is because

01:41:34.920 what we end up seeing is more government bureaucracy, right?

01:41:38.960 We see more people who are paid just to file paperwork.

01:41:42.040 We see those government...

01:41:43.240 We spend more time tracking the benefits.

01:41:45.080 We spend more time, you know, administering benefits to government employees.

01:41:51.360 And what we see is the deserving poor that Tim is describing that so many conservatives have

01:41:55.080 in their head, they are disproportionately the victims of stuff like that because their benefits

01:41:59.800 end up getting cut.

01:42:00.440 In 2002, 39.3% of Medicare beneficiaries were obese, a marked increase from 32.5% to 97%.

01:42:08.960 In 2018, 42.8% of adults age 60 and over were obese.

01:42:13.880 This is not...

01:42:15.240 There is an issue of you don't take care of yourself and then demand I pay for it.

01:42:19.980 But Tim, let me ask you because this is funny.

01:42:21.860 This gets back to the Singaporean thing.

01:42:23.800 I've been called an authoritarian before because I think that we should incentivize certain behaviors

01:42:27.840 and we should punish other behaviors.

01:42:29.360 A weight tax?

01:42:30.340 Yeah.

01:42:30.680 Would you make the...

01:42:31.980 A weight tax?

01:42:33.140 That's a real thing.

01:42:34.380 Maybe not a weight tax, but would you incentivize...

01:42:37.760 Yes.

01:42:37.880 For instance, let's say that we have welfare recipients who are receiving thousands of

01:42:41.640 dollars per month or whatever.

01:42:42.800 Would you say, hey, as a part of this, you need to show up to physical training Monday,

01:42:46.220 Wednesday, and Friday, 6 a.m.?

01:42:47.240 Absolutely.

01:42:47.380 100%.

01:42:48.540 Hi.

01:42:50.360 Let's pause real quick.

01:42:51.300 Dude, I would love to see welfare beneficiaries working out on the side of the highway at

01:42:55.020 6 a.m.

01:42:55.200 They don't get in the highway.

01:42:56.140 They can be in a park.

01:42:57.620 So let's break it down.

01:42:58.540 I'm laughing, but I'd love it.

01:42:59.260 There's no such thing as a free lunch.

01:43:00.920 Sure.

01:43:01.260 There are a lot of people who need help and I want to help them.

01:43:04.360 I make donations.

01:43:05.440 In fact, for tomorrow's culture war, I'll be donating $10,000 to wounded warriors and

01:43:10.140 $10,000 to Tunnel to Towers.

01:43:11.920 I did that because Destiny offered $10,000 for the debate between Will Chamberlain and

01:43:16.280 Pisco Liddy.

01:43:17.140 I offered to do it on the culture war. 0.97

01:43:18.760 He then backed off and said, I'm not giving money if Tim Pool's involved.

01:43:21.540 So I said, I'll double it and help out more veterans and more first responders.

01:43:25.460 I want to help people who I think deserve it.

01:43:27.160 I'm a big fan of Tunnel to Towers.

01:43:28.940 Don't know as much about wounded warriors.

01:43:30.360 That being said, you want me to pay for your Medicare, but you won't eat healthy and

01:43:34.580 you're morbidly obese? 0.97

01:43:36.020 You are basically taking my money, spitting in my face. 1.00

01:43:39.260 That is offensive. 0.96

01:43:40.020 So if they said, if you came to me and you were homeless and morbidly obese and said,

01:43:46.140 I need help.

01:43:46.860 I said, here's what we're going to do.

01:43:48.680 I am going to give you a place to live and you're going to drop 50 pounds.

01:43:52.840 And if you do not work out with me every day, I will kick you out.

01:43:58.100 That's how I would personally do it.

01:43:59.880 I think that is fair.

01:44:01.280 The Marine in me is saying yes.

01:44:03.660 If it's bad, I think one thing to underscore is that if it's bad for poor people, it's

01:44:08.100 bad for everyone, right?

01:44:09.080 Well, working out is good for you.

01:44:10.640 Well, being morbidly obese is obviously bad no matter what.

01:44:12.760 And I think with healthcare specifically, you tied it to Medicaid recipients.

01:44:16.700 We have a completely, in some sense, a socialized healthcare system, right?

01:44:20.660 Because you either have private insurance, which is obviously cost sharing, or you have

01:44:24.720 public systems, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, the VA, all that stuff, right?

01:44:28.220 And so pretty much no matter what, we have this sort of communitarian, like we're subsidizing

01:44:34.000 from the healthy to the sick.

01:44:36.080 And so we have a generic problem with people being obese, right?

01:44:40.340 And so if that's the case, then you'd want to have these kind of requirements probably

01:44:43.880 for everyone, right?

01:44:44.780 You want to have, you know, you want to tax on healthy foods and you'd want to say-

01:44:47.780 Taxes for healthy people.

01:44:48.800 But this is where people get pissed, though, okay?

01:44:51.440 So for instance, talk to a libertarian guy named Lactoid.

01:44:54.920 You know, talk to Fabian Liberty or whatever.

01:44:56.920 Yeah.

01:44:57.100 If you're doing all of the right things, if you're working, taking care of your family,

01:45:01.860 taking care of your community, and paying your taxes, people should leave you the hell

01:45:04.980 alone.

01:45:05.480 But that's what insurance is, though.

01:45:06.780 Insurance is like inherently, like, when you need it.

01:45:10.360 Okay, but I want to-

01:45:11.500 But I'm trying-

01:45:12.140 Listen-

01:45:12.480 There's no avoiding subsidizing people-

01:45:13.680 I like the fat poor people working out at the park idea, okay? 1.00

01:45:16.500 I think this is brilliant.

01:45:17.600 Now, whether or not it would ever get instituted is a different question.

01:45:20.340 But the point is that, like, yeah, like, if you're going to take from society, we're

01:45:25.320 reciprocal creatures.

01:45:26.480 We're competitive creatures, but we're also cooperative.

01:45:28.820 So if you want to cooperate, then you have to give, not just take.

01:45:32.160 One of the notes that I took is that, especially on the right, but definitely on the left as

01:45:36.820 well, we don't- we always talk about, like, privileges and rights.

01:45:40.460 We don't talk about duties, right?

01:45:42.480 And here's the thing.

01:45:43.500 Like, even if you're a liberal or a libertarian, you probably have, at minimum, voluntary duties

01:45:48.020 to your community, to your family, et cetera, et cetera.

01:45:50.180 If you're a statist like myself, there's probably compelled duties to your society.

01:45:54.100 And so that's where you've been very great.

01:45:56.480 You've agreed with compassionate beatings.

01:45:58.120 That's awesome.

01:45:59.400 But there are people of your ilk who want to give all the money, but not have any of

01:46:06.480 the duties.

01:46:06.960 It's like when a parent is spanking the child and saying, it hurts me to do this.

01:46:10.960 It hurts me more than it hurts you.

01:46:13.200 Well, but that's kind of my point.

01:46:14.640 I think that- oh, I didn't hear a great response to the insurance thing.

01:46:18.620 Like, with the healthcare industry specifically, right?

01:46:20.260 We're all in a big pool, essentially, right?

01:46:22.820 There's no way to not basically subsidize someone's unhealthy decisions, this and that.

01:46:26.820 Obviously, if you might make unhealthy decisions.

01:46:28.460 Like, some people, maybe through the course of exercise.

01:46:30.440 Like, maybe your preferred form of exercise-

01:46:31.780 I'm technically a little bit overweight.

01:46:33.300 Well, I can respond.

01:46:34.440 Well, I was just gonna- the last thing, like, maybe your preferred form of exercise, like

01:46:39.360 me, right, is like doing jujitsu and wrestling. 0.99

01:46:41.120 Like, that's a dangerous fucking sport. 0.98

01:46:42.640 If I, like, bust my knee doing jujitsu, like, I am- I'm exercising, right? 0.99

01:46:46.880 I'm doing a responsible thing.

01:46:48.400 I'm good.

01:46:48.780 I'm gonna go with that.

01:46:49.540 Well, but here's the thing, though, is that once we start saying, you can do some-

01:46:54.500 like, some disabilities are your fault, but some aren't.

01:46:57.180 I didn't have to do jujitsu.

01:46:59.040 I didn't exercise a certain amount.

01:47:00.460 Again, this is a burden that's applied to everyone, even the deserving poor.

01:47:04.660 And what ends up happening in practice, when we see all these different tests done, from

01:47:09.080 state-level experiments, to cities, to federal benefits, to different countries, what ends

01:47:13.180 up happening is not solving the problems that you're talking about.

01:47:16.640 We don't see obesity rates go down amongst poor people when things like that are implemented.

01:47:20.340 What we see is the deserving poor that you want to actually help, they just aren't able

01:47:25.280 to access their benefits.

01:47:26.580 It just means you need a better system.

01:47:28.600 I agree.

01:47:28.960 For health insurance.

01:47:29.560 A better system of distribution, which we do agree on.

01:47:33.060 For health insurance, it's private.

01:47:34.820 Your rates go up or down, depending on your life factors.

01:47:38.180 When I apply for health insurance, they're like, do you smoke?

01:47:40.540 No.

01:47:40.800 Do you drink?

01:47:41.320 No.

01:47:41.600 Do you exercise?

01:47:41.920 Yes.

01:47:42.120 They're like, your rate's cheap.

01:47:43.860 Taxes don't do that. 0.99

01:47:45.060 Taxes say, one size fits all.

01:47:46.680 And then you get a bunch of people getting money from me, and they're intentionally being

01:47:49.700 like, I ain't gonna work out.

01:47:51.000 Now, as for the jujitsu thing, I'm talking about, are you putting in a reasonable effort

01:47:56.280 to try and be healthy?

01:47:57.980 If your disability is that you have no legs and you struggle to do aerobic exercises, so

01:48:04.080 you're lifting, you can still eat better.

01:48:06.060 And I think part of that welfare should be, when it comes to healthcare, proper education

01:48:13.780 on how to be healthy.

01:48:15.360 So that means your doctor shouldn't just be saying, you ate too much, your benefits are

01:48:18.040 gone.

01:48:18.460 No, it should be saying, for this week, we want you to try and hit these calories per

01:48:21.620 day.

01:48:22.140 We're gonna check your vitals next week.

01:48:23.560 And if we see that you're not improving or that you're doing poorly, you're gonna put

01:48:27.880 your benefits in risk.

01:48:28.180 You think everyone should do that, though, right?

01:48:29.360 But Econo...

01:48:30.080 Everyone should.

01:48:31.040 But if you are getting my money, it's a requirement.

01:48:33.260 Yeah.

01:48:33.540 So what Econo said, which I did here, which is you're adding...

01:48:38.000 You have to structure these things properly, where if you're adding these things, you're

01:48:42.100 effectively adding an administrative cost to the distribution of the benefit.

01:48:45.700 And so realistically, for instance, do we want to hire a retired drill instructor to meet

01:48:52.000 up with homeless, obese people Monday, Wednesdays, Fridays?

01:48:55.140 Well, you want to pay him $60,000 a year in order to work out fat people?

01:48:57.980 I guarantee you...

01:48:59.020 I mean, I think it's hilarious.

01:48:59.940 I want to do it, too.

01:49:00.740 I just don't know if the rest of the American public wants.

01:49:02.680 Because they're wrong.

01:49:03.280 The amount of money we will save on healthcare costs by having one trainer train people

01:49:09.040 is more than we would spend on their healthcare.

01:49:11.240 Listen, you're just no longer a liberal.

01:49:13.080 That's all.

01:49:13.460 Well, but again, I think...

01:49:14.500 When we think about it...

01:49:14.980 I don't know what I am, but I'm telling you, if we're going to spend...

01:49:17.980 If we spend $10,000 per person on 10 fat people, and we can cut that down to a $40,000 loss

01:49:24.660 by hiring one $60,000 drill instructor, we good.

01:49:27.940 Well, I mean...

01:49:28.740 And they're happier and healthier.

01:49:29.580 Listen, I used to joke that I was an authoritarian centrist.

01:49:32.200 I'm an authoritarian centrist.

01:49:33.500 You're coming along for the ride, so I'm not hating.

01:49:35.500 This is perfect.

01:49:36.280 I would love to have Arlie Ermey working out fat people down at the local park.

01:49:39.460 That'd be great.

01:49:40.120 It's not authoritarian if they're asking for my money.

01:49:42.280 In exchange for my money...

01:49:43.780 It's voluntary.

01:49:44.120 You have to exercise.

01:49:46.300 And it's not always about exercise.

01:49:48.240 Some people can't.

01:49:49.340 A guy who's got brittle bone disease...

01:49:51.660 Right.

01:49:51.860 We need to make sure that you are being as healthy as possible.

01:49:55.020 We're giving you Medicare and Medicaid.

01:49:56.460 When you go to the doctor, if the doctor says...

01:49:58.800 And I know that there's going to be corruption in doctors, but if the doctor's like,

01:50:01.080 you are overweight, you are overweight, however, I do understand that your arms are broken and

01:50:06.400 your legs are broken.

01:50:07.520 We are not holding that against you.

01:50:08.980 We are going to maximize.

01:50:10.800 It's about being responsible with the money being gifted to you when you can't provide

01:50:14.940 for other people.

01:50:15.860 Well, here's, I think, the difference between you and I, Tim, is that I think what it's

01:50:19.020 more about is just what's the best way to do the things that you want to happen, right?

01:50:23.480 Like, okay, we have this problem.

01:50:24.960 We have a bunch of obese people.

01:50:26.840 I think the last time I saw was about 10% of our healthcare expenditure could be related

01:50:30.600 to problems with people being obese, right?

01:50:33.000 So about one and a half, 1.6% of GDP or something like that, right?

01:50:36.820 Which, you know, is a lot of money, obviously.

01:50:39.020 And so it's like, okay, well, what's the best way to reduce people's obesity and also extend

01:50:44.160 the benefits that we think that they need?

01:50:46.060 It's not conditioning benefits on a minority of the population.

01:50:50.400 It's not a minority.

01:50:51.240 It was, okay, to be fair, 48% is a minority.

01:50:54.200 You can call it a plurality.

01:50:55.340 Well, I'm talking about like of the obese people, right?

01:50:57.420 So of people on Medicaid who are obese, like that's 25% of people or something like that.

01:51:02.300 First of all, if we're correlating social security people over 65 and saying half are obese,

01:51:09.200 we can do a blanket assumption that if they tend to receive social security benefits, then

01:51:13.780 there's going to be a same demographic breakdown.

01:51:15.360 However, I'd actually argue obesity is probably higher because that's why they're collecting

01:51:19.520 benefits, because they are ailed by their obesity.

01:51:23.320 As you mentioned, obesity is a large factor in why people are suffering medical issues.

01:51:27.380 Well, all I was going to say was that the best way, like when people are obese, it's because

01:51:31.100 they have easy access to a lot of very sort of dopamine hitting foods, you could say, right?

01:51:36.040 And so the best way to solve that problem is not to, again, like if we have this aggregate

01:51:40.440 problem with obesity, which obviously we do, the best way to solve that problem is not,

01:51:44.600 oh, a minority of the population should have to go to exercise facilities or lose their

01:51:48.440 benefits.

01:51:48.980 The best way to solve that problem is, hey, universal system of health benefits, right?

01:51:53.580 Which lowers administrative costs, which means there's less government bureaucrats, which 1.00

01:51:57.160 is a simpler administration.

01:51:58.460 It saves costs, obviously, because the government can negotiate those costs.

01:52:01.540 That's cheaper on that end.

01:52:02.580 And then on the back end, if I was just going to say on the last thing, on the back end,

01:52:05.320 the more efficient thing to do is to make unhealthy practices more expensive for everyone.

01:52:10.440 That might mean, you know, taxing sugar or, you know, having, you know, taxing sort of

01:52:15.980 caloric density of foods.

01:52:17.620 Like, these are how you align the incentives properly and efficiently.

01:52:20.580 You keep saying minority, even though it's not an established fact.

01:52:23.440 So, I will just read some data points.

01:52:25.380 Wait, what?

01:52:26.240 You keep saying-

01:52:26.740 He's talking about how many people are fat.

01:52:27.800 You are saying a condition should not be based on a minority of people.

01:52:30.880 Let me give you the data.

01:52:31.720 Tim, you said people on benefits who are obese.

01:52:33.840 That is a minority of people.

01:52:35.560 There is, you just read it out.

01:52:36.940 You said, what, 40% of Medicaid recipients?

01:52:38.820 That's not-

01:52:39.020 No, 48% of people over 65, to which I said, likely, people over 65 who are on medical benefits

01:52:45.120 probably are more obese.

01:52:46.380 Guess what?

01:52:46.860 It's 80-

01:52:47.140 You said Medicaid just now, earlier.

01:52:49.160 You didn't say people, you didn't say elderly people when you were reading from the AI or whatever you're

01:52:52.820 reading from.

01:52:53.700 You are incorrect.

01:52:54.960 It was 40% of people over 60 in 2018.

01:52:58.720 And I said, if we extrapolate that, we can assume that you have about a plurality or half

01:53:03.480 of the people over 65 on benefits are at that number.

01:53:05.920 But it's probably higher.

01:53:07.680 That's why they're getting medical benefits.

01:53:09.000 So, you think of all the people-

01:53:09.600 I'm going to read-

01:53:10.200 I'm going to read-

01:53:10.520 Of all the people in this country, you think most people are on benefits and obese?

01:53:15.620 84%.

01:53:15.980 I just pulled it up.

01:53:16.680 You want me to read it?

01:53:17.120 No, no.

01:53:17.600 How about I read it?

01:53:18.980 You guys are-

01:53:19.860 Among older adults with obesity, 84% have multiple chronic conditions, which is the

01:53:25.400 leading cause of death among those 65 and older, affecting 32.5 million adults over 65, type 2 diabetes, cancers, likelihood of mobility limitations and disability, elevated

01:53:38.820 health care costs and potential need for long-term care.

01:53:41.880 That's the point.

01:53:42.880 If you are over 65 and getting medical benefits, it is because you are- obesity is a very likely

01:53:49.100 contributor to this, considering half of people over 65 are obese.

01:53:52.960 I'm telling you, this is not passing in the villages of Florida, by the way.

01:53:56.140 We might be-

01:53:56.560 They are getting wasted on golf carts. 0.52

01:53:58.460 They are not going to show up to fat, poor person golf-

01:54:01.100 You know, they're not showing up to PT.

01:54:02.800 Harley, Ermie in the park.

01:54:04.020 Yeah, no, that's not happening. 1.00

01:54:05.480 You scumbag, get on the ground! 1.00

01:54:06.780 I'm not saying it's not a good idea. 1.00

01:54:08.020 I'm just saying that it's not going to work.

01:54:09.360 Well, it's just that we might be talking past each other.

01:54:10.740 When I say minority of the population-

01:54:12.420 You're saying the general population over a certain age is fat.

01:54:14.700 Right, right.

01:54:15.060 I'm saying of the people who are getting medical benefits, obesity is a significant contributor

01:54:22.820 to this.

01:54:23.500 Like Medicare.

01:54:24.020 Not a minority.

01:54:24.560 Obviously-

01:54:25.140 Like Medicare or Medicaid.

01:54:26.000 No, but I already said earlier that obviously a big portion of the cost that we spend as a

01:54:30.400 health care system is because people are obese.

01:54:32.920 What I'm disagreeing with Tim on is that, okay, we've got a population of people that are on

01:54:36.880 benefits, right?

01:54:37.880 We've got a population of people that are obese.

01:54:39.740 We have an intersection between these two people.

01:54:42.140 That intersection is not most people, right?

01:54:45.320 Now, if we were to say, hey, we have this problem where 10% of our health care costs are

01:54:49.340 related to people being obese.

01:54:50.920 Well, if that's the case, then we shouldn't only focus on people on benefits and who are

01:54:56.540 also obese.

01:54:57.400 We should focus on all people who are obese. 0.97

01:55:00.240 And the most efficient way to do that is to have a universal system of public health insurance

01:55:04.420 and making it more expensive to live that kind of lifestyle.

01:55:07.540 I have heard both of you.

01:55:09.360 I think that a substantive amount of this will not be possible because of the freedom that

01:55:13.040 American citizens enjoy and enjoy.

01:55:15.280 That's probably true.

01:55:15.820 The libertarian argument against you would be the people who are not on the government

01:55:20.380 dole, who are not receiving public benefits, should not be compelled to any kind of behavior

01:55:23.920 because they're not receiving any kind of benefit.

01:55:25.560 So even if you're obese, but you pay your taxes and you're not on government benefits,

01:55:29.500 you shouldn't have to show up Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

01:55:30.960 But when it comes to health care specifically, they are still taking out of collective pots

01:55:35.140 of money.

01:55:35.680 Agree.

01:55:36.160 Either public or private health insurance.

01:55:37.780 But private and choose.

01:55:38.400 You and I can break bread on the fact that during elementary school, middle school, high

01:55:44.200 school, physical training shouldn't just be some guy smoking a cigarette telling your

01:55:49.180 kids to walk around the lap a few times.

01:55:50.940 It actually should be, this is how you do a push-up. 0.81

01:55:53.020 This is how you do a pull-up.

01:55:53.940 This is how you lift weights.

01:55:54.880 This is the way your cardiovascular system works.

01:55:56.540 Like all that kind of stuff.

01:55:57.940 PT, physical training, should be a course that we take very seriously in America.

01:56:03.180 I got one you'll like.

01:56:04.120 For military preparedness as well.

01:56:05.720 Here's one.

01:56:06.480 In order to graduate high school, you should be required to do three months of basic training.

01:56:11.040 I have the opinion that...

01:56:12.920 Compulsory service, basically.

01:56:14.000 Listen.

01:56:14.660 Not compulsory military service, basic training.

01:56:16.940 Well, but that's a...

01:56:18.160 You're compelling adults to do a certain kind of state-mandated activity.

01:56:22.680 You do realize they already do that for high schools.

01:56:25.240 Well, no, obviously...

01:56:26.320 So my high school in Chicago required community service to graduate.

01:56:29.740 Yeah.

01:56:29.980 Yeah.

01:56:30.140 No, I'm not saying...

01:56:30.700 I'm not saying what you're...

01:56:31.400 I'm just...

01:56:31.740 I'm framing it in that way.

01:56:32.980 You're just saying, hey, in addition to the time after high school, you should have

01:56:37.280 an extra year.

01:56:37.960 I mean, like I think Switzerland has a couple years.

01:56:40.540 I think Taiwan has the same thing where you can do like community service.

01:56:43.160 All right.

01:56:43.440 All right.

01:56:43.880 One month of basic training.

01:56:45.760 My high school in Chicago...

01:56:47.120 That's not enough to learn anything.

01:56:48.160 Three weeks.

01:56:49.320 That's not enough to learn anything either.

01:56:50.800 All of...

01:56:51.520 Three months is good.

01:56:52.320 All of the high schools where I grew up required 20 hours, I believe, of community service.

01:56:56.160 Which is almost nothing.

01:56:56.920 That's like a weekend.

01:56:58.380 Sure.

01:56:58.840 Well, it was...

01:56:59.340 It's better than nothing.

01:56:59.860 It was usually two weekends because you do like four hours a day.

01:57:02.380 You do it over the summers.

01:57:03.420 Yeah.

01:57:03.580 And then I was...

01:57:05.040 When I was younger, I was like, you can't make me go and do some random community service.

01:57:08.320 How dare you?

01:57:09.040 Now I'm older and I'm like, it's not that we're trying to force you to do something painful.

01:57:13.380 It's that we are...

01:57:14.500 You're going to high school for a purpose.

01:57:16.140 Mm-hmm.

01:57:16.360 To be the best you can be, to be healthy and fit.

01:57:19.140 And public school is paid for from my money.

01:57:22.760 So if you want...

01:57:23.820 First of all, there's a lot to fix.

01:57:25.660 You shouldn't be compelled to go to high school.

01:57:27.220 They do.

01:57:28.300 If you do choose to take public benefits to go to school, I don't think it's unreasonable

01:57:32.700 to say, hey, at 18, when you're graduating, for that summer, you're going to go to basic

01:57:37.940 training.

01:57:38.460 You're going to be stronger.

01:57:39.700 You're going to be faster.

01:57:41.040 You're going to be smarter.

01:57:41.980 And you're going to come out to the workforce the best you can be.

01:57:44.080 Okay.

01:57:44.640 I'll give my hot takes since we're wrapping up and giving hot takes or whatever.

01:57:48.760 So what I would do is you don't have the franchise.

01:57:51.620 You don't have the capacity to vote unless you do two years of military, peace corps,

01:57:57.700 or volunteer style, like working for an NGO, or retail or restaurant, because I swear

01:58:03.900 to God, retail or restaurant is so brutal that, you know...

01:58:07.320 Let's be serious, because I would agree with you if it was service in some capacity.

01:58:12.080 Sure.

01:58:12.480 Meaning you've got to provide some kind of community service.

01:58:16.140 So that could be police officer, EMT.

01:58:18.200 It could be firefighter.

01:58:19.060 It could be a nurse. 0.99

01:58:19.560 It could be a doctor.

01:58:20.280 It could be working in a shelter.

01:58:21.560 It could be something.

01:58:22.180 It doesn't have to be the military.

01:58:23.600 But in some way, you provide a service to your community.

01:58:26.920 To the community.

01:58:27.100 And we're never going to be able to get that in the United States of America, barring

01:58:30.800 an actual governmental collapse.

01:58:32.320 But I do think we would be better if we did it.

01:58:34.580 And that actually is a liberal concept.

01:58:36.760 People don't understand that.

01:58:37.700 Not a libertarian.

01:58:39.080 Starship troopers.

01:58:40.380 Read it.

01:58:41.100 Service guaranteed citizenship was, you don't have to if you don't want to.

01:58:44.720 All rights are afforded to you, but you don't get a say in how we run government if you

01:58:48.060 don't contribute to that.

01:58:49.580 It's not authoritarian in any sense of the imagination.

01:58:51.240 So I would actually, I would agree with, if you want to vote, you've got to do some

01:58:55.760 kind of civic duty.

01:58:57.640 Sure.

01:58:58.200 Well, when the government collapses, you and I can put our heads together.

01:59:00.740 We can rebuild society and this will be a part of it.

01:59:02.800 Agreed.

01:59:03.360 Fat camp. 0.93

01:59:04.000 Poor people fat camps. 0.98

01:59:05.500 Compassionate beatings.

01:59:06.400 And also service guarantees citizenship.

01:59:08.080 We're going to wrap up now.

01:59:09.000 Also, if you guys want to give your final thoughts before we go.

01:59:12.040 Yeah.

01:59:12.400 So, you know, we did jump a little bit all over the place, but I am happy that we were

01:59:15.980 able to agree on compassionate beatings for people.

01:59:19.020 And then also on poor people fat camp.

01:59:22.120 You know, I think that was.

01:59:23.260 We did.

01:59:23.800 I don't know that.

01:59:26.260 But, you know, my name is Connor.

01:59:28.700 If you enjoyed, you probably hated my last experience based off of the comment section.

01:59:32.320 However, if you enjoyed this show or if you enjoyed me in the previous one, type in Valor

01:59:38.260 Media Network, common spelling, V-A-L-O-R.

01:59:41.420 That is a new channel that's starting up.

01:59:43.420 It's a bunch of first responders, military veterans who are all hanging out, talking shop,

01:59:48.220 trying to be better men, trying to make the world a better place, all that kind of stuff.

01:59:51.960 I'm live there Monday through Friday, you know, five hours a day, five days a week.

01:59:56.380 So if you enjoyed it, please come over and check us out.

01:59:59.180 Thanks for having me.

02:00:00.200 Yeah, sure.

02:00:00.840 My name is Akanaboy.

02:00:01.640 It was really fun being here.

02:00:03.960 You know, I do want to shout out Matt Brunig.

02:00:05.720 He's been a pretty influential.

02:00:06.960 I was very pro-welfare before I got onto his writings, but he helped crystallize a lot of

02:00:11.220 things.

02:00:11.620 And so if you're interested in reading more about that, you can follow his stuff at the

02:00:15.100 People's Policy Project or obviously my stuff at kanaboy.substack.com.

02:00:19.720 It was a really fun conversation.

02:00:21.280 And yeah, I think my closing thoughts on this general argument would be that, look, there's

02:00:26.600 a lot of people in society who don't work, who can't work, who, you know, we think

02:00:30.260 like children would have some sort of very fundamental right to benefits.

02:00:35.360 And we need to give benefits to those people to help them.

02:00:37.980 And certainly the most effective way to lower poverty is to do those things.

02:00:41.780 And that's pretty much what I tried to crystallize and argue for here.

02:00:45.620 And, you know, hopefully that was a, you know, at least a good, a good summary.

02:00:50.460 It was fun.

02:00:51.300 Right on.

02:00:51.760 We're back tonight at 8 p.m. for youtube.com slash TimCastIRL.

02:00:56.200 It's going to be fun.

02:00:57.240 Don't miss it.

02:00:58.000 We'll see y'all then.

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The Culture War - Tim Pool

Overspending, Welfare & BLOAT Will END The US w⧸ Conor (Counterpoints) & Cameron Barrett

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