Dylan Ratigan #1458

0:00Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applaud those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like. And that's exactly what growth therapy is here for. No is therapy that works covered by insurance. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Growth connects you with thousands of high-quality license therapists across the US, offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity or availability, and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the

1:03national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growththerapy.com-booknow. That's growththerapy.com-booknow. Growththerapy.com-booknow. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Still waiting in line? Again? That's time you'll never get back. Save time and money with stamps.com. Over 4 million businesses have skipped the line with stamps.com. Join them to save up to 90% off-carrier rates from your computer or phone right now. Print postage for certified mail, register mail, and packages in seconds. Then schedule a pickup right from your home or office. For a limited time, go to stamps.com and use code podcast for a free welcome gift. Texas and fees apply. What's up everybody? Just want to let people know. Provide a quick update that all of my conversations go on Substack. Both video and audio, ad free early. So if you like what I'm doing, want to support my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber

2:05and you can listen early and ad free. Also I've been getting some requests about can you still listen on Apple, Spotify, and other platforms. Once you become a paid subscriber on Substack, it'll provide you an RSS feed. You can then take that feed, take that link, and then listen to it on all those platforms as well, ad free. So I appreciate all your support and thank you very much. I'm the Substitut of Coffee and Mike. Dylan Radigan is created and hosted fast money at CNBC and is known for his rant in 2011. He talks to 2008 GFC, the lack of trust in government, Gen Z, video games, only fans having a spiritual awakening, the bond market, and much more. Please subscribe, like, and share this podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, the Mike is on. I welcome Dylan Radigan.

3:12Dylan, we spoke for about a minute and a half before we turned this thing on because we were already going back and forth, back and forth. And I'm like, I'm laughing, not because of the humor. There's nothing humorous about what's going on in the world, but I'm laughing because of the way you're saying it. And I'm like, well, let's turn this on. We got to grab this. So thanks for doing this. No, no, it's a pleasure. And to share the joke with everybody, with all of your viewers, all I was saying was, if you're somebody who's into not sleeping and being kept up at night by any list of things you want, would want to worry about from currency collapse to bond rates spike, to residential real estate implosion, to AI super death, we have a full California pizza kitchen buffet of things to worry about. So I think the only thing you can do is laugh a little bit because at the end of the day, we're all people and we're all here.

4:13And it's worth enjoying being together no matter what the situation is. And obviously, worst case scenario is not always the most likely case scenario. So we'll see where this goes. Yeah. And this is my second conversation today. So let me, let me date stamp this really quick. It's today is the 15th of September. And I had Philip Pilkington and Dave Column on earlier. And who I connected with Philip through Chris Martensen. And that's how I connected with you is also through Chris Martensen. So Chris Martensen has become like the Kevin Bacon for me, a podcast, lately, of meeting new people six degrees of Chris Martensen. I love that guy. I love that guy. And then Dave Column has become my new Twitter friend. So there's some sort of a mafia developing here. Well, and Dave has been on my show. I think we were joking around like 85 times now or something. And I've had him and Chris together several times for joint conversations. And to hear those two go back and forth is just, again, I don't know if fun is the appropriate word because what we're talking about. But to hear them go back and forth, it's just, it's fantastic.

5:13So maybe, maybe we'll have one with you and Dave. That would be fun as well. I would love that. Yeah. But Philip and Dave and I were talking, you know, we were talking about energy lockdowns and shortages and AI and the Fed and, you know, not the happiest of things. So, you know, this is going to be my, my, my double, double header today for these types of topics. But to me, it's the most relevant thing out there. I mean, I've seen people say, talk about Sydney, Swini or other things that I'm like, man, do we not wake up to what's happening now? Do we learn anything over the last four or five years or maybe people can't handle this? No, definitely not. We haven't learned anything in the last 5,000 years. So we sure as hell haven't learned anything in the last five years. Did you feel after 2020 that people became more awake? I did for a moment, but I see what's going on now. I don't, I don't think people realize, like you say that you say currency collapse?

6:1699.9% of people have no idea what, what, what that means in America. Yeah. It, which is kind of funny because the American version of, I won't say collapse, but the American version of rapid currency decay is not, this, the, is inflation. Okay. If, if $50 worth of groceries in 2015 cost you $150 today, your currency has collapsed. Okay. If, if getting the same house costs a million five today and it was $500,000 20 years ago, the value of your currency is declining. And, and so the thing is, normally with a currency collapse in the traditional financial sense, it's vastly more dramatic because currencies, as you well know, price versus other currencies. And so the only value of a currency is its value relative to another currency. And so there's sort of these famous currency collapse of the Russian rubles collapse. Well, what does it mean the Russian rubles collapse?

7:17It means that the rubles value against the dollar, the rubles value against the Chinese currency, the rubles value, and the yen declined substantially. Or the peso collapsed, which happened in our lifetime. There's a, there's a peso collapse. What does that mean? It means it value, and now the dollar is not in a collapse by any measure relative to other currencies. It benefits from all these things everybody knows about reserve currency status, safe haven status in a chaotic world. But the currency doesn't have to collapse for the value of the currency to decline. The only thing that has to happen for the currency to decline is you need more of the dollars to buy the same thing that you bought yesterday for more money today. And that's been happening in a spiral that was set in motion during the financial crisis in 2009, like a, like a, like a subterranean atomic detonation that took a month, or actually a month, that took a decade to radiate up to the surface.

8:19And then when COVID happened, it compounded it. And it's been spiraling ever since. And then we've got a president now who's taken it upon himself to exert an insane tear of strategy and an even more insane war in Iran. So you put together the Obama administration basically covering up the entire financial crisis by hiding all the debt inside of the US currency. Nobody felt it was silent but deadly. It's like a, like the world's wickedest fart. Then you have the more obvious inflation of the Biden era COVID madness, which everybody saw was more obvious. It actually brought this president into office, right? It was, it was partially in response to that only for this president to basically exert completely discretionary policies in the form of the Iran war and tariffs that have compounded the two preexisting conditions. And so it's not about currency collapse in the sense of, oh, the dollar doesn't buy what

9:20it used to in euros or yen or RMB in China. Most people in America could care less. What matters is if I pay you $10,000 today, how much house, how much food, how much car can you get? Because I can tell you the amount of house food and car you can get for a dollar today or $10,000 or $100,000 today is substantially less than it was six years ago or 10 years ago. That is the currency collapse. And it actually is more frustrating because while the, anybody who acquires money as income is being destroyed, but anybody who's wealthy and owns assets because they don't hold their wealth in the income that they generate or in the money that they make and spend, that they rather hold their wealth in physical commodities, stocks, bonds and real estate. Those people are actually getting more and more wealthy as a result of this phenomenon

10:22at the direct expense of the majority of the population, which is why I think so many people are frustrated. This isn't at the way it always goes though. Regular people always have to pay. And you bring up 2008. I had just moved to Arizona and I'm sorry for my audience here. I haven't heard the story again, but I think it's important for Dylan to hear it from me. You know, I had just moved to Phoenix in 2006. So and I was working in retail banking at that time in a small little, one of those outskirt towns where people couldn't afford to live in Scottsdale. So they moved to the outskirts and the real, no anthem, which was right off the I-17 on the way between Phoenix and Sedona. But you know, it was a, they had the country club neighborhood and the regular neighborhood and they considered the regular like the slums, even though they weren't. And you could buy a golf cart and drive it around in town. Yeah. And the sun sets in the world. Oh yeah, absolutely. But you know, the homes, I mean, they were, you know, the values of them were, you know, way went from half a million to 200,000 when the market tanked.

11:26And that was my first exposure because people would come in, they would come into the bank like physically walk in and I had never seen fear before in people. I mean, I was 20, 29, 30 years old at the time, but you look back on that period and the wealth transfer that occurred. Unbelievable. I mean, it's the first time I've, and nobody was held accountable for it or very few people. Not only were they not held accountable, they were empowered and enriched by it. Quite the opposite. And someone was still in those positions. Most of them. Jamie Diamond. Yeah, no, the entire banking CEO class and the entire board member, they're all wealthier than ever. But again, the thing that's interesting to me is because I think people fall into their sort of political lens. Camps, you know, they're like, oh, it was the Democrats. Oh, it was the Republicans. Oh, it was Obama. Oh, it was Biden. Oh, it was Trump. And that actually is to all of their, or, or, or, it was the bankers or whoever that is actually to their direct advantage.

12:28The reason Donald Trump was able to become president was because he very credibly made a case that he was not going to be as abusive and corrupt as Barack Obama and Joe Biden. The Democrats ran their entire political campaign, not on a democratic process. They didn't even have a primary. But rather on the corrupt belief that they could vilify Donald Trump and that they could do basically whatever they wanted in an abuse of the American people on the belief that America would never invite back Donald Trump. Then Donald Trump comes in on the basis of being a corruption fighter, which is what we all want, right? There is no more appealing message for a political leader today than a credible leader who says they are in a position to fight corruption and they have a planned to fight corruption. That's what we all want to hear. So it's a very winning message. And so there's an irony in running on that message. And now I look at the Trump presidency and what I see is someone who says, well, it's one thing for the sort of nice under the table corruption of Obama or Biden.

13:34But it's almost like they were losers. Trump's like, you guys don't know how to do corruption. I'll show you how to do corruption. Like, oh, you made $10 million. Oh, you sold the painting. Oh, you gave a Hillary gave a speech. You made $2 million. Okay, how about this? $2 billion crypto, right? It's like, we went from a small time corruption to big time corruption on the way to try to fight corruption. Now I don't want to be overly pessimistic here because I'm sort of sounding very doom and gloomish for understandable reasons, I guess. But I do believe we are setting up for a massive anti-corruption. I will call it anti-corruption activism in the United States. I believe is going to become an incredibly powerful force over the next two years. Explain that. What do you mean by anti-corruption campaign? So I mean, my belief, and maybe I'm naive, but my belief is that the American people, so look, if you look at the unpopularity of Donald Trump, which is historic, you would

14:36think when you have an incumbent president that is that unpopular, that the opposing party might be more popular, not true. So just because people don't like the Republicans in Donald Trump and the way they're running the government is doing nothing to drive support for Democratic agenda, Democratic politicians and Democratic leadership, certainly not with me and not with most of the country based on the polls. So then where does that leave the majority of the country, the majority of the country, does not trust Democratic or Republican party leadership to do anything that's beneficial to the country. The expectation is that you're just handing back and forth the keys to the car between a group of special interests for them to enrich themselves, whichever side it may be. And so I believe my hope, I will say, and I believe in even my omission, because as you know, I just returned to regular journalism three or four weeks ago after 15 years off. And so I'm with the reason that I came back into the game on a daily basis in a fairly

15:37aggressive way is because I believe the anti-corruption agenda is the only agenda. So if a politician steps forward and says, oh, I'm going to take care of health care, I'm going to create jobs. I'm going to give you money. I'm going to create process of some bullshit about prosperity, some political bullshit about prosperity. I don't believe there's an American voter that believes it. And so if you look at the how you restore trust, the only way you restore trust is with a radically transparent government. Don't believe anything that I say. I will show you everything that I do. And a radical anti-corruption agenda that ranges from term limits to gerrymandering, to packaging all the bills into one bill. There are so many things. So a process tells you what it is. And we've fallen into this scenario where we're looking for a person. We're like, oh, it trumps my guy. He wouldn't fuck me over or Biden's my guy.

16:38He wouldn't fuck me over. And people get into this sort of cult of personality with these leaders. But even let's assume the best intention from all the leaders just for the fun of it. The system itself is designed to be corrupt. And so, and you can see that. So if you and I are, if you are, just partners in an LLC, we're going to do a real estate deal in in. I'm Serena Williams and I'm healthier on row. I've lost 34 pounds in a year with GLP1's diet and exercise. In row, you can access GLP1 options, including the first FDA approved GLP1 pill for weight loss. Go to row.co slash journey to see if you qualify. 14 to 20% average weight loss in one year in non-diabetic with obesity or overweight with a weight-related medical condition versus 2.2% to 3.1% in placebo art. RX only to stay informed about serious side effects. Go to row.co slash safety. Still waiting in line? Again? That's time you'll never get back.

17:38Save time and money with stamps.com. Over 4 million businesses have skipped the line with stamps.com. Join them to save up to 90% off carrier rates from your computer or phone right now. Print postage for certified mail, registered mail, and packages in seconds. Then schedule a pickup right from your home or office. For a limited time, go to stamps.com and use code podcast for a free welcome gift. Taxes and fees apply. In Arizona, we're going to buy a house together with using an LLC. And you have half of it and I have half of it. But I never tell you what houses we, and I'm, let's say I'm the manager. And I never tell you what houses we're buying. I never tell you the price at which we bought them. I never tell you how much money we have. I never tell you how much money we lost. And just once in a while, I'm like, oh, hey, Mike, you know, here's a check. This is, this is your share. But I don't give you any books and records or any visibility to anything that's happening. Is that a system that you're going to trust?

18:39Is that a system that any businessman is going to trust? Of course not. And that's why in private business, we have a lot of disclosure because it's the only way to generate trust. What we don't have from the US government, whether it's in the budget, whether it's in the way the sausage is made with legislation and all the payoffs with the lobbyists, or whether it's the lack of enforcement for the laws that are on the books, is it's all completely opaque. And everything that gets talked about is everything from why the other guy, why it's Biden's fault, why it's Trump's fault, why it's Sydney, Swini's fault, why it's Taylor Swift's fault, whatever. It's all about sort of, it's all about the illusion and distraction. And I believe the American people are done with it. And I believe that they're done falling for the cult of personality. And I believe that they're ready for a legitimate anti-corruption agenda in the vision of Teddy Roosevelt. And that means a highly believed nothing that I only don't watch what I do, not what I say.

19:43And that, and the thing is, we have the technology now. For all the chitchat about the blockchain and artificial intelligence, well, you know what the artificial intelligence is perfect for in all these data centers is mass dynamic disclosure and filtering and analysis of every single penny that goes into the US government. It's flow through the government. It's flow out of the government. The ability to audit the US government has never been higher. And so a political leader that can come in and legitimately say your entire government is corrupt. Your entire Congress is corrupt. I'm running for president on that basis and that basis alone. And my only agenda is to apply state of the art technology to ensure maximum radical transparency and disclosure and then anti-trust law to break up the monopolies in a way that

20:44you can then trust me. And I know you'll never trust me because why should you? You should not trust another political leader for 100 years. But what I will do is I will disclose everything on a dynamic website, on a regular basis, and I will be public every single day. I'm not going to do press conferences, I'm not going to do press events. I'm going to be in front of the American people every single day while I'm the president of the United States and while I'm in front of the United States, as your president, I'm going to be constantly disclosing everything I'm doing in my number one agenda is a mega audit and a mega disclosure of the flow of everything that's going through this. It's all the false promises of things like doge, right? And I mean, again, what I'm saying is not some revolutionary concept. It's rhetoric that's been used. It's lies that have been used by politicians in the past. Trump used it with Musk and Doge as part of his presidential campaign. It doesn't get implemented. And so what we need is a leadership that actually has both skills and tools to implement it

21:45and that actually will implement it. My hope is that as the era of sort of lesser of two evils, lousy Democrat versus lousy Republican voting really reaches an all-time low in terms of anybody's willingness to engage in it, that it will open the field for a new set of political voices in this country. You're much more optimistic than I am, I will say. How do you think I sleep at night? You sleep better than I do. I have to tell myself fairy tales. If I tell ghost stories, I won't sleep. I've got to believe in some fairy tales, Mike. What do you think is going to happen? You know, I don't know what is going to happen. But I also think, I think when you say, are people done? That's an interesting question because are they done or are they just so poor that they're just pissed? Are they still in that blissfully unaware category?

22:47And also, if they're poor and pissed, are they just withdrawing from the system? I think there's a quiet resistance going on. I think it started in 2020, maybe it started before, where people are just not buying, they're just not buying what the government's telling. There's no trust to your point. So how do you restore that? I can't see, this is just my opinion here. I can't envision politicians, they don't want their party to stop. Why would they put term limits on themselves? They would never let that happen. Nobody wants to turn the lights on when you're making money. I'd love for these things to happen, but I just don't see it. And you just see the only reason that I think is the only thing that's the reason I think it's possible that I'm sorry to interrupt you is I just feel like the Trump corruption is so blatant and so egregious. And the Democratic Party unpopularity is so high, even in the context of this egregious corruption, that the only way forward for any politician is to run a campaign, an anti-corruption

23:54campaign that enrolls the American people against both parties. Even if it's from inside the party, the way that Trump ran against the Republicans, inside the Republicans, whether it's a Republican running against the Republicans on a landing corruption agenda or a Democrat running against the Democrats on the A-Cruft in agenda, I feel like a good politician who does that could have a chance to succeed. I'm not saying it's going to happen. I'm saying that there is fertile ground for that in a way that has never been before. But then do you ever ask yourself the question, let's say that person's out there, would the powers that be ever allow it? First of all, why would he or she want to do that? Why would they want to subject themselves to that, the scrutiny and the mental anguish that they get put through? But the other thing is, would the powers that be allow it, whoever they is, which I don't subscribe to, to me it doesn't matter who they is anymore? Sure. But would they allow that to occur? And the truth and the honest answer is probably not.

24:56Which is why the only chance it would have is not even so much about the political, it would require a mass uprise, a mass organization of the American people would be the only, and this is again clearly a fairytale, a mass organization of the American people that's so overwhelming that it doesn't matter who the politician is, that you're not worried about finding the right guy or the right gal or the right group, that it doesn't matter who the leadership is, that the angry mob is so activated and so clear in what it wants, that whoever steps into the crosshairs is going to be held to that standard. That would be the only way I could imagine it would happen. Where then it's not about whether they take out this particularly charismatic leader or that person or would let them, no, they'll never let it happen. So one, the parties would never let it happen, and two, they, whoever they are beyond the parties, they'll never let it happen. But if there is such a surge of organization in the American people around the singular

25:59idea of anti-corruption, not, not any policy concept, because there's so much debate about this and that and the war of this and healthcare of this and it's a mess. But 90% of the American people don't want to corrupt government. There's obviously a universal agreement right now, trust is at an all time low in all the institutions, the financial institutions as well as the government institutions. And the latest Gallup poll to the degree to which anybody trusts polling agencies came out with an 89% distrust or 89% believing that the US government is completely corrupt. Those are big numbers. To your point, the more, maybe the path, the more, the oxen's razor, the more likely path is despondency and disengagement, which is kind of I think where you're worthy inertia is to your point. Well, and yeah, people aren't going to be holding signs saying I'm resisting.

26:59They're just going to be quietly resisting or checking out of the system. I mean, I was talking to a friend of mine about this and we were talking about the price of oil and the price of diesel because this was my biggest concern when the war started at the end of February. I put it on acts. I said, I don't remember exactly what I wrote. I said, anybody have the pre-February 2020 feeling right now where this is going? I got like quarter million views, which is I don't usually typically get that kind of traction for a post. But with that, where we're at now, where this thing is heading, it's like people, if they start seeing, trying to buy their local gas station and they see the gas go from, I'm in Arizona, 460 to all of a sudden it's 510, 530 on on. That is going to terrify people. Scare them. Then what? Right? Like, what will that do to the city? And you're saying the only response is to hold up, to become less, to become poor and isolated is the path for most human beings.

28:00Well, they're just not going to be able to afford things. So I was saying in reference to everything's a grift in this country, too. We're living a griftocracy everywhere you go. $5 here, $10 there, insurance, health, homeowners, rentals, auto insurance. But just the insurance is all of them. And then the insurance never pays the claim. So then you had, so talking about gas and cars, you know, it's like, it's auto insurance. And, you know, and again, I pay my insurance, I pay all my bills, I file my taxes, disclaimer, but you know, people are people going to be just withdrawing, say, I can't afford the insurance, auto insurance. I'm just not going to pay. I'm not going to pay for health insurance. I can't afford it. Screw it. Homeowner's insurance. The list goes on and on. But that withdrawing from the, that quiet resistance or just withdrawing from the system, I can envision more and more of that.

29:02Less people paying the taxes. I mean, obviously that, that, that, it's hard for me to argue with you on that point, because of the logic is so sound. But the irony is that that actually is to the advantage of the elite that are extracting vast wealth from the country. How so? Because they have no resistance. There's no political, like if everybody, if you, if you and I are in a, if you and I are arguing over a pile of marbles, and I stay in the room and argue with you and wrestle with you and you stay in the yard, or eventually I just get so weak and so tired that I just leave the room, you take all the marbles. One could argue that the strategy of destroying the middle class and impoverishing an increasing percentage of the country is an explicit political strategy by the elite as a way to make, to

30:04reduce resistance to their corruption. Well, and to demonstrate that there is no difference between the parties. I mean, subtle differences, a little bit here and there, but, you know, this annum, like nothing has changed. In fact, you could, you could even make the argument, things are worse now. Well, you could make the argument, things are worse now than what they were when Biden was in office. We're in another world. Mathematically, they are worse. Gross rate prices are higher, gas prices are higher. I mean, there's not even a question. And think about how fucked up you have to be to be worse than Joe Biden. I don't even know where he was for four years. Well, here's the, here's the, here's, here's another thing that I'm going to say. No, no, I'm just going to say, you know, talking about Joe Biden. I mean, who would have ever thought, you know, Hunter Biden is doing the mediator. Yeah. If five years ago, if you'd have put Vegas odds on that, what would that have been? One million. And look at him today. It's unbelievable.

31:04The world world. It's a star. So there's a, there's a, they did a financial study of accounts of fidelity, investment accounts of fidelity years ago. And they found that the best performing accounts were accounts that were owned and managed by people that had died because they didn't take, they didn't do anything. Which made me think about Biden. It's like, if you, if you thought it was bad to have an auto pen and a, and a, and a senile man as the president, well, why don't you, and openly an active master of corruption as the president might be worse. Does it make you wonder though, based upon that? And I'm going to go back to 2008 for a second because that, that to me was my first exposure to the consolidation of the financial institutions, which is government as a whole consolidating. And you saw all these banks that went away, Wacovia, Washington Mutual. They had all these boutique banks here in Phoenix and Scottsdale that have like two branches that got swallowed up.

32:04But to your point, how much, how much power does that person have in the chair to where the machine is moving this in a certain, a certain direction regardless? Almost none. Almost none. You know, that's why the only thing that, that, that, the only thing that can save a country that's in the situation that America is in is a grassroots political movement that is anti-corruption that forces a break. So the best comparison in American history to the situation that we're in right now is the late 1890s and the early 1900s, let's say between 1890 and 1910, those 20 years will be the, the biggest similarity in American history to that. And that was a moment when most of the country was very poor. This podcast is supported by your Southern California key dealers. Living in Southern California, your SUV needs to do a little bit of everything. From the daily commute to weekends at the beach, road trips to Palm Springs and family adventures in Big Bear.

33:06That's why having the right SUV matters. Kia has an SUV built to fit just about every lifestyle, with traditional gas, hybrid, and all electric models. Across the lineup, you'll find sophisticated design, rugged capability, generous cargo space, available seating for up to seven, and on select models, driving range of more than 600 miles. One model that really stands out is the all new 2027 Kia Celto's. It's a small SUV with big SUV capability, featuring class leading interior space, unavailable turbocharged engine, and available multi-terrain all-wheel drive. Whether you're navigating city streets or heading out for a weekend in the mountains or along the coast, it's ready for wherever life takes you. Whatever your lifestyle, Kia has an SUV designed to fit your needs. Learn more at Kia.com or visit your Southern California Kia dealer. Hi, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Are you looking for a beach read this summer? May I suggest your big wireless bill? It's got suspense, mystery, and slightly flat, emotional arc, and a shocking twist where

34:07you realize you've been overpaying the entire time. Fortunately though, Mint's story is better. Every plan $15 a month. It's not unlimited. That's it. Happy ending. Zero tiers. Give it a try at MintMobile.com slash switch. Up from payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 month plan required, $15 per month equivalent to taxes and fees extra. Initial plan for money greater than 50 gigabytes, me slow, and network is busy. Sea terms. Most of the country was, you know, abused one way or the other. And most of the means of production of the country were owned by very few people. And so, and this is sort of famous rich people from the past, right? Rockefeller, Carnegie, names like this. And those people owned the infrastructure of the country at that time, which is the, they owned all the one standard oil owned all of the oil. You know, um, Rockefeller owned all of the railroad companies, right? So owning all the rails and all the oil and all the steel, you own the whole country because that was the core assets of building America at that point in time. It was Rhodes, Bridges, buildings, this sort of thing. That's forward and that infrastructure is not steel, oil, um, and railroads.

35:13That infrastructure is computing power and computing algorithms and technology, which you see with mosque, Bezos, Zuckerberg people like this are the modern equivalent of that. And what happened was a political leader came to the forefront in the form of Teddy Roosevelt and Teddy Roosevelt ran a political campaign on behalf of the American people to break those that, to, to, with the explicit agenda of ending the corruption of that concentrated power and breaking up those companies. And I only tell that story as a sliver of hope for my fairy tale that it is possible for political, let me put it this way. The laws are on the books in the United States of America today to break up these monopolies. Now here's the risk, right? When you're in a situation where you have an openly corrupt country or it could be, you

36:13know, I'll use the country because it is, but it could be any situation. The knee jerk reaction is for people then to say, oh well, we've got this, all this private corruption, these oligarchs and blah, blah, blah. And then there's a political faction that comes in and says, we need to put the government in charge of everything to solve this, right? That's the knee jerk. And that will be your Bernie Sanders, your AOC, all this garbage. And then they create the false choice that it's like, well, either you can keep this sort of repacious corruption in the private sector or you can hand the keys to everything over to me at the government and we will make it okay. And no one in their right mind trusts the first system, they know it's openly corrupt. And no one in their right mind trusts the second system because they know that that's just another small group of people that are going to self deal in their way. But there's a third option. And Teddy Roosevelt knew there was a third. Teddy Roosevelt didn't say the US government is going to take over this steel business. The US government is going to take over the railroads.

37:15The US government is going to take over the oil industry. He said the US government is going to use its legal authority at the Department of Justice under the Sherman Antitrust Act. And we're going to use the legal authority available to us at the DOJ to break up these monopolies, which is a critical function of a healthy capitalist system. Once somebody controls every piece on the monopoly board and everybody else is paying rent every time they roll the dice, the game is over. And so the only way to reset the game is with antitrust action. And that's what Teddy Roosevelt knew. And Teddy Roosevelt didn't transition America from repacious, concentrated wealth of ancient capitalists that had steel oil and railroads. He broke them up. It can be done. And that's what I'm recommending now. I wrote a piece I've been writing on Substack every day. I wrote a piece the way out exploring this exact idea. And this is not just my idea.

38:16My favorite Supreme Court's justice is this guy, Lewis Brandeis. And this is his theory. He said, listen, first of all, don't bring anything to the Supreme Court that you can solve somewhere else. The best people to solve any dispute are the people that are closest to the dispute. If there's a dispute in Phoenix, solve it in Phoenix. That is a dispute in Arizona, solve it in Arizona. Don't bring it to the basics. Every problem should be solved by the people that are closest to the problem that it should only radiate beyond that to the degree to which it must in incremental fashion. Once all the problem close to where it is. And two, don't tell me that I only have two choices, which is private corruption or public corruption. When I know there's a third path, which is break everybody up and make people own their failures. And that's what Obrac Obama had the opportunity to do in 2008 and 2009, which would have created an economic renaissance in the United States, even if it would have punished the bankers. But instead, Barack Obama covered up everything the bankers did, betrayed the American confidence

39:20in any moral authority of the President of the United States or the government, and opened the door for Trump to basically do it better than he did. My point is, Mike, it can be done. It's been done once before. Well, I think, too, people need to look from within. I mean, it's unbelievable how we've become victims, everyone's a victim these days. And there's zero accountability and you don't see it at the top. And nothing I can say is going to change that. But if people look from within and they held themselves accountable and they stop using the victim card in every which way, it'd be amazing how much progress we could make in this country. I believe this. I don't think I've ever stood this on here before. I think we could overcome almost anything if we started that. This would make the country so much stronger. Government might be afraid of it if people on the ground were doing it. That, to me, is a solution and yet nobody wants, everyone wants to point fingers. Everyone wants to blame somebody else. Don't you think that's a spiritual challenge?

40:21Like, what you're talking about, when I hear you talk about people taking ownership of whatever their situation is and then incrementally making decisions to control what they can control and not worrying about who's fault, who to blame from their personal relationships to their government? And in order to take sovereignty over your own life requires a spiritual experience, in my opinion, that one, you're here for a blink of an eye. And regardless of your circumstances, that your future in your life is much more vested in how you view the world and how you relate to the world rather than relieving yourself of any responsibility for anything and saying there's nothing I can do about my life because of what the Republicans are doing or because of what the Democrats did or because of what the governor did or what my husband did or because of what my mom did or because of whatever

41:24my boss did. And it's, by the way, it's not to say that your boss, your husband, your wife, your governor, your president might not be a mother fucker, but saying that doesn't solve your problems. And it takes a spiritual revolution to transition to self-direction away from self-victimization. Well, I think that's where the disconnect people, misinterpret or misunderstand me when I say at the top level, I can't control. I mean, if they'd asked me about the Middle East going to war with Iran, I would have told no, but nobody called me. But what I can control is what I just said. And people don't want to hear that because I use the line, they want to go back to their lattes and yoga mats and they want life to be like 2019, but that's just not reality. We're not going back to that.

42:27But you can, I mean, I think about all people that just, they use substances or get high or anti-deprived, all these things to mask pain because they can't deal with stuff. And I'm not sitting here and saying, you get stuff thrown at you, it's tough to handle. But we've become a couple of months. I don't want to hear about you taking Novakayn at the dentist next time, big man. I want you raw dog in your next dentist. I just don't go. I don't trust them. I'm always trying to upsell you, speaking of griftocracy. They're upsellin' you. But no, I just, I feel like we've become such a, we're always masking rather than dealing with uncomfortable truths. But I don't, thoughts on that? No, no, I agree. I think if we want to sort of get to the root of the problem, like I was talking about if we walk out of the room, if we're fighting over the marbles and one of us walks out of the room, the other one takes all the marbles, well, the, the, the, the, the, the, the American

43:33epidemic of gambling. Oh, god, gambling, gambling. I mean, nothing, or up to gambling. I, I, I a family of Las Vegas and they've been in the since the 70s and I said, that city is done, done, because you can do, did degeneracy, that's right in front of your face now? On your phone. And not only sports, it's not even limited to just, I mean, there must, there must have been a reason growing when I was growing up in Ohio that you can only gamble in two states when I was a kid in New Jersey and Nevada. There had to have been a reason for that at that time. Yeah. But, but the interesting thing is when you trust the government and people, like, that's why the, the, the, the Trump phrase, make America great again is so emotionally compelling and persuasive because it's, it, it taps into a nostalgia in the lizard brain of American people to a time when they felt like they could trust.

44:33To me, that's, people say, what does he mean when I make America great again? You know, it wasn't that great or this and that, whatever, okay? No, no, but what, but I don't think it's really about like what was it? Like, what was the job or what was it? It was, give me a country I can trust again. And when you have a country that you can trust, then you trust the government to make moral rules like, let's restrict gambling. Let's restrict the accessibility of pornography. Let's restrict the accessibility of drugs. Not because of some anti libertarian desire to control human beings, but because of a self knowledge that exists in anybody who has two cents in their brain, that human beings are very, one were one DNA strand away from a chimpanzee, okay?

45:36And so, and accessibility is one of the greatest barriers to behavior. And so if I make gambling porn and drugs less accessible, by definition, less people will do it. And if I know that widely accessible gambling porn and drugs is going to lead people to the sort of default, the primitive default position of, of, of, of using those things as a painkiller, that, that very fact becomes actually a mechanism of power for the elite. The surest way to prevent the organization of an anti corruption, anti trust, political upsurge that demands every politician comply with the new standard, is a level of sovereignty and self engagement that is directly prevented by a daily lifestyle of gambling, weed, and

46:42drugs. And blame to your point. So if I blame everybody else, I take no responsibility for myself, and then you layer into that because human beings are pack animals, we're like wolves, right? We want to be around each other, we want to be in groups. We're more confident, like if I want to go do something by myself, I'm a little nervous, I'm like, I got to call Mike, see if he wants to rob this bank with me, I don't want to rob a bank alone. At least Mike worked at the bank, he might know where the, where the, the, the back door is or something, you know? And so, or at least I'm a little more confident if I've got some people with me, right? And so I think the other thing is, you have the, the factors of blame and then the other lifestyle discussion, discussion that we've talked about, but you also have the atomization of the phone. And so you, because the, you remember you have technology companies that have invested trillions of dollars of optimizing for triggering the human dopamine cycle to block you onto

47:42your phone, clicking through it, we all do it without even thinking about it. And then I'll say, you really just been 20 minutes and I've been flipping through these fucking reels. I don't even like any of these things. I'm not even interested in what I'm looking at, but I keep my thumb keeps hitting, hitting the next one like a, like a lot, maybe the next one will be good. It's totally insane. And so you've been technologically engineered to be isolated from every other human being, including your spouse, including your children. How many couples do you know that sit together and they both look at their phones? People go to, husband and wife go to dinner, they both sit on their phone. Siblings, brothers and sisters on their phone, mothers and daughters both on their phone. Those people are being separated. And so when you separate people, they become weaker, they feel more vulnerable. Then they're getting their own custom new speeds. So nobody's dealing with the same body of information anymore. Everybody's getting an algorithmic feed of information that's most stimulating to their

48:43pre-existing beliefs. And so they're going into this pain spiral and then they're in search of painkillers. Scrolling on the phone is a painkiller. Blaming other people is a painkiller. Down the list, painkillers are painkillers, right? Born to painkiller, gambling to painkillers, all these things are gobimine hits. And so what we really have is a crisis of isolation and painkillers in the literal and metaphorical sense to your point that when you have a crisis of isolation and painkillers in the broads definition of a painkiller, what is that? That's a spiritual crisis. Because what is a spiritual experience? This podcast is supported by your Southern California key dealers. It's hard not to notice how many electric vehicles are on the 405, 101 and 10 freeways these days. Better technology, convenient charging and longer driving range are making the switch

49:44to electric more practical than ever. Kia offers three all electric models that combine performance, technology and capability. With compatible DC fast chargers, they can charge to 80% in less than 30 minutes, making it easier to get back on the road. One model that really stands out is the 2026 Kia EV9. It's an all electric SUV with three rows of seating over 300 miles of all electric driving range and the capability and technology you'd expect from a modern SUV. Whether it's your daily commute to Burbank or a weekend drive to Ohio, the EV9 is built to fit the way you live. If you're ready to make the move to electric, Kia has an EV designed to fit your needs. Learn more at Kia.com or visit your Southern California Kia dealer. Hi, I'm Katie Duke. And I've been a nurse for over 20 years. Listen, I used to think that I was my most stylish in my 20s, but honestly, styling confidence only get better with age.

50:45And that is why I love figs. These scrubs are beautiful, comfortable and they are built to last. They're not those boxy scratchy uniforms that we all started out in. No, no, no. These fit perfectly. They feel amazing and the quality is just wow. My favorite color? Burgundy. It's chic, it's timeless and it's even the same color as my apartment because I'm kind of obsessed with it. And I love adding custom embroidery to make my scrubs as personal as my style. And since I work in telehealth, my embroidered figs even double as my ID badge. It's never too late to reinvent yourself or your scrubs. Get 15% off your first order at WearFigs.com with the code FigsRX. That's WearFigs.com code FigsRX. You're 15% off your first order. A spiritual experience has nothing to do with an organized religion, although that works for people. I've noticed that whatever your road there doesn't matter. A spiritual experience is coming to the awareness that you are not alone.

51:50Once you understand that even when you are by yourself, you are not alone, you don't fall so quickly into the despondency of that illusion of isolation. And when you stop falling into the despondency of that sense of isolation, then you feel more confident to do what Mike is saying, which is to take responsibility for your life. But when you are in the illusion of isolation, you feel extremely weak and you seek out pain killers. What's the solution? A spiritual experience. What's the spiritual experience? The realization that you are not alone. And I think it's even I should become a minister. How am I doing? Well, I was going to say, you know what I think, I think just having this conversation and talking about this, you know, if not that I'm changing the world what I'm doing,

52:52but you know, living this life, I don't like, there's a lot of terms I don't like, like living with purpose and some of that life coach stuff. I just kind of corny a little bit. But you know, but setting that example of like holding yourself accountable, that's all you can do on the ground level and try the best you can to find those types of people. Yeah. You know, people don't always say go further and say like you're putting yourself out there and you've been doing, you've done a lot, I've researched your podcast before I came on, like you've done a lot of work. You do a lot of work. And it's an important work because so many people are in such isolation and they're thinking things that they think that they're the only one that's thinking it, that to see someone who is relatable, and you know, you can easily be interpreted as a father role, and an uncle role, and a buddy role, and a brother role. So he was relatable who's sharing having the similar struggles or relatable struggles

53:57and relatable conclusions is a very profound way to help people know that they're not alone. Yeah, I think that, I think 2020 was a real accelerator on isolation and for people just to be completely separated and just in front of the TV. You know, the other thing we didn't talk about is video games. That's another. Yeah. That's another pain killer. Those things are like casinos too. I mean, I grew up on the original Nintendo when you had the cartridge and the game ended. But now these things run. And here's the other thing too. You know, I was thinking about this, you know, in relation to video games and this whole idea of you own nothing and like it. I mean, video games now are going on monthly subscriptions like everything else. You're not going to, there's no, there's no game to hold anymore. Everything is subscription. Which goes to your point of the grift economy and the lack of possession, right, where you have an ownership class and an asset ownership class and then a rent, a render of fee,

55:05a fee paying class fee fees for life. Well in the consolidation that's going that in 2008 exposed me to this, it was my first exposure. This is well, the consolidation, like I said earlier, and the centralization that's now occurring, right, where the government has just has just moved in and they're just slow taking over at the state is getting more involved, taking over more and more and more and more and then tighten the grips on regular people. I mean, 2020 just destroyed the middle class. I don't even know what's left of it. I know. I mean, I completely agree. I completely agree. I mean, the, the damage, talk about isolation, the damage that was done in the pandemic period and the degree to which it empowered the asset owner class to take command of this country is catastrophic. Again, my, the thing, 18 by only my hopeful point is people get it, people understand, people

56:06know, people know. To your point, they may not do anything about it. They may not feel like they can do anything about it, but they know. Do you feel like we're, we're this, with the rising price of diesel, rising prices of oil, this war continuing, continuing and then, you know, in further expanding. Do you think people have an understanding? Do you think people realize where this is heading? No. Where do you think this is heading? I don't. Well, we know where this is heading. So the best comparison that I can give you in recent history is 2011. Can you raise the basic cost of life, meaning cost of gasoline, cost of bread, cost of eggs, cost of cheese, fruit? There's a line of human beings in the world, in every country, including in the United

57:09States, where as that cost moves up, they get priced out of it. As the percentage of people who can no longer afford to drive, or to travel as far as they used to, as the percentage of people that can no longer afford to buy groceries goes higher, society becomes chaotic. And they solved the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. What they did was print trillions of dollars. No one in the United States really felt it, other than a relatively small group. But commodity prices, specifically soft commodity prices, things like soybeans, wheat and corn, skyrocketed in price. No one in America really cared.

58:12But Egypt, which had a huge impoverished population, suddenly went across the tipping point of the percentage of the population in Egypt that could buy a loaf of bread. And when you get to the percentage of the population that's consequential that cannot buy a loaf of bread, what happens is people go into the streets and become violent. And so I don't know if you remember the Arab Spring in 2011 and Terrier Square. That wasn't some direct consequence of the US intervention in the financial crisis, in the money printing, which was not felt in the United States, but inflated global commodity prices to the point where the Egyptians spilled out of their homes into the street. So now you bring it here, you got diesel, $10, a gallon in California right now.

59:13Everybody talks about the energy prices, but a bigger percentage of the world's fertilizer comes out of the streets of Hormuz than the percentage of Ben-O'il. And fertilizer is one of the primary variable costs in the production of food. And so one of the reasons you're seeing food inflation where it's at is because of the Iran War driving up the price of fertilizer. And so I believe what you're good, the positive case scenario is you're going to see more people living in groups. You're going to see less people living alone because they won't be able to afford it. And they'll share expenses on housing, share expenses on food. Your best case scenario is many more people living in larger groups of people in the same piece of real estate. That's your best case scenario in the current path. And your worst case scenario is a shocking amount of violence in the streets.

1:00:17When you cut people off, when you cut off people's ability to be mobile and have food, you have a problem. Earlier with Philip and Dave, we were talking about famine versus the idea of famine. And they both said, I don't know that I see that in the United States. You're going to see it in other countries. The potential is greater in other in third world countries. But you're going to have people start missing meals. Maybe their snap benefits are no longer functioning. One thing about famine is they don't have the energy to fight. They don't have the energy for unrest. But when you have people start missing meals, especially on the bottom of the K economy, or bottom of the bottom of the bottom income wise, that's where potential for problems is. And I think if you're in an urban area, you can see a lot more of it, likely to see a lot more of it there. I couldn't agree more, which is all the more reason why I said, again, people like,

1:01:18you've been gone for 15 years, and now you're writing every day, and now you're doing these, you're guessing on podcasts, and I'm sort of back in the mix, like why? And I'm really worried. Things have gotten much worse than I thought they were going to get. Much worse. And we're on the verge of things getting much worse than they are right now. And so I feel like not that I have any ability to influence the outcomes. Obviously, we've talked about that aspect of it. But at the very least, I feel like I have an obligation to my friends and family and the young men and women that are in my family that are in their 20s that have questions about the future that I can at least say to them that I wrote every, I went out and spoke and wrote every single day in a way that I offered my truth and the benefit of my education and finance and in journalism and in politics from 30 years in New York and DC and all that. And I advocated for an anti-corruption, anti-trust agenda and the third way, not government

1:02:23control, not private corruption, Teddy Roosevelt style, break them up and reestablish small groups with resources, which we actually have more recent, we have more, the technology right now is perfect for total centralized control of the economy to your point of whether they own all the video games, they own whatever everything. But the same technology that is perfect for total control of everything right now is also perfect for widely distributed small groups being incredibly productive. The other side of the coin of the technology is that it has the ability to actually release potential at a level that's never been seen before. The young people that you speak to, whether it's in your family or just, you know, in your everyday life, what does the sense you get from them to 20, 30 year olds? And they, do you talk to more men or women? So I mean, the biggest influence I have to nephews in my life, one is 21 and one is 22. And they have, they are the most prominent influence on my life in the sense that I interact

1:03:27with them almost daily. One of them is going to be graduating as an artificial intelligence major from MIT in December. So super elite, best one of the best schools in the country, best major, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And I know him and I know a bunch of his buddies from MIT. So did they give you the sense of optimism of where, where their careers, the potential for where their careers will go? Ask me what, what he says he wants to do when he graduates. What does he want to do? He wants to be a firefighter, a musician, and a poet. Really? Why? Because he believes the technology is so much more dangerous than anybody understands. And he believes that going to take his degree from MIT and get a job at Goldman or Palantir, which would be the obvious sort of trade with a degree like that, is basically signing up a deal with the devil to accelerate the destruction of the world.

1:04:29And that the only thing that has meaning is helping people on a physical human level, firefighter, and maximal human experiences, music and poetry. Now there are other ways to help people that are not firefighter, right? Nurse, you can go down the line. And there's other maximally human experiences that are not music and poetry dancing art sports, right? There's more than, there's more than one way to cut the cake. But their interest is in how do we do physical things that can actually have meaning and purpose to help human beings? And how do we live a life that is maximally human? And my other, the other nephew was in a fancy American university as a finance and communications major, dropped out, moved to Italy to study fashion because he wanted to make women's

1:05:30dresses. Because he's like, at least that's a physical creative, like, why am I going to become a finance bro out of a fancy American university? Because he knows I'm living in Italy. I was like, he was miserable because everybody in the dormitory was smoking weed, watching porn and gambling on their phones and playing video games. And he's like, this college, even though it's a fancy school, sucks because all anybody does is gamble porn, video games and weed. And I was like, well, why don't you move to Italy and go to learn how to make a dress? Which is like, and this is like a very broish surfer dude from Southern California. This is not the sort of person you might pick to go to a fashion school in Milan. And he's doing well. My point is, huh? He's doing amazing. He's like, yeah, he, he, no drugs, no gambling, no, no, no, no porn, no video games. The nice thing about life in Italy is Italy because of its sort of stuck in the past culture.

1:06:33It's very humanistic culture in this country is that it is much harder to atomize. It's very difficult to isolate in this country because there's an expectation of human contact every day from everybody. There's not a culture of isolating in your room on your phone, even in a sort of undergraduate context. Do you think part of that though too is maybe they recognized the fact that they didn't, another example of what I said earlier, they don't want to participate in the standard system. Right? Like I'm 48. So, you know, it's my grandparents, they were the post world war two, they worked in the factories. And that was so that their kids, my parents didn't work in the factories, they got the white collar jobs. Now, you know, my generation and the younger generation, they just don't want to work in the corporate world. They don't want to sit in the cubicle and rot all day. And the highlight is where are we going to go to lunch? Yeah, I mean, for sure it's that. There's no question.

1:07:33You know, that my perception of Gen Z is actually very positive. I actually think that there are greatest hope because I believe that no generation is more focused on humanity than them. You know, people say, well, what's the antidote to the corruption of the boomers and the culture? And my answer is always the humanity of Gen Z. They are not so easily seduced by the things that I'm 54, that my generation and our generation were influenced by. And they were not so enamored of the sort of Instagram influencer generation of the millennials. And they live in a world that is relentless super suit of human connection. They've watched their moms and dads on their phones for years. They watch their older siblings posting on Instagram and shooting Instagram posts for years.

1:08:39And they don't want it. They reject it. I agree with you, especially from the young man. Now, do you feel the same about younger young women? Because the truth is, I don't see that. I don't have an interaction with young women. And I think young women are in a much more, I will say that I think that young women are in a actually even more challenging situation in a different way. Because women more than men, just a young woman, very much respond to the validation of attention. And so, when a young woman can be validated by attention, whether it's healthy attention from within her family, healthy attention within her academic environment or a sports environment. This podcast is supported by your Southern California key adeolars.

1:09:39Around Southern California, it's easy to spend plenty of time behind the wheel. Whether you're commuting from OC or heading to Santa Barbara for the weekend, going farther between fuel stops is something everyone can appreciate. That's exactly what Kia's hybrid lineup is built for. Kia offers five hybrid models that combine turbocharged power with hybrid efficiency, with some delivering more than 600 miles of driving range on a single tank. One model that really stands out is the all new 2027 Kia Tell You Ride Hybrid. It offers seating for up to seven passengers, the confidence and capability of a three row SUV, and a turbocharged hybrid powertrain that delivers impressive efficiency for fewer stops at the gas station. It's ready for weekday errands, weekend getaways, and everything in between. If a hybrid fits the way you drive, Kia has a model designed to fit your needs. Learn more at Kia.com or visit your Southern California Kia dealer.

1:11:04Offers a good for seven days at home pickup, not available in all locations, distance restrictions, and a fee may apply. Or unhealthy attention from whatever, well, unfortunately, what's happened with technology. So it used to be for a woman to get attention. She either had to perform to be in a way that was invited, complimenting support in a real social construct. Even if it was just to be pretty and go to the party and say, oh, you're nice earrings, but it's still a human experience. There's still the need to actually go out and interact. But what Instagram did was it trapped these poor young women in total isolation, where their primary source of validation is publishing pictures of themselves for the dopamine hit of getting likes for having posted pretty pictures of themselves,

1:12:08or even of things that they're looking at, their dinner, whatever it is. And I actually think in the sort of doom loop of being a bro in a dorm, trapped with video games weed gambling and porn, which is a bleak scenario, or being a young woman trapped alone in her dorm, dependent on the dopamine of Instagram likes for her self-worth, that the first problem is actually that the young man problem is actually more solvable than the young woman problem. I believe that it is a crisis. The other thing is you have a situation where because of internet dating, so let's just be honest, men will basically sleep with any woman at any time under any circumstances. I'm being hyperbolic, but they have very little

1:13:12discretion or judgment. Women are, again, on average, much higher threshold for sex and romantic entanglement, a higher filter, with the exception of the most desirable men. Tom Brady, Brad Pitt, I mean, these are the most extreme examples, but the most desirable men have basically a permanent unlimited supply of interested women. But most women don't fall into the trap of falling into the orbit of the most desirable men, because those men were never accessible to them. And so they were very comfortable with the very good looking guy next door. The doctor, the guy that are a 6, 7, 8, not the guy that's a 10.

1:14:13But because of the way internet dating has laid out and because of Instagram culture, a huge percentage of women have now put themselves in the dating pool where they only want to deal with men who are 10s, 6th to a millionaire, gorgeous, whatever the list of sort of idealization is. And those men are happy to entertain those women for brief periods of time. But then those women remove themselves from the dating pool that then relates to anything that would lead to a stable relationship, which means those women, actually, for most of the time, are alone. And at the same time, a huge percentage of men that used to have very viable dating options now have increasingly fewer options because such a huge percentage of the women are all trying to compete to get themselves a 10. So you have increased male isolation and increased female isolation. And the female isolation then plays out through pursuit of Instagram likes.

1:15:18And the male isolation plays out through weed, gambling, porn, and video games. And don't forget the only fans aspect on the on the women's side. The ability to monetize the attention is at an all time high, exactly. Yeah. That's a critical omission on my part, actually. That's a core flaw. You know, going to our gambling rules, like if you trusted the government, you'd say, the only fans illegal, that's not a thing. Ambling illegal or highly managed. I mean, go down the list, right? But in order for a government to establish a moral code, you have to trust it. And when you don't trust the government, the government's standing to a certain moral code collapses. Well, and that's where it comes back to you as the individual, right? Recognizing the state is not if, you know, I want all the things to happen that you've mentioned.

1:16:22But, you know, I don't see it today. But it also means that you can, you know, the impact that you can make on the individual level with accountability. And these are things that we've talked about where I mean, people, they want solutions. Well, here, I just, you know, still named off like 10 of them for you. And it's not lattes and yoga mats. It's a spiritual experience. I want to talk about you, you have time to talk about your subset today? I do. Yeah. The interest rate on chaos and, you know, I'll put all the links for, you know, your substack and X and everything on the show notes when we publish it, when I publish it. But the interest rate on chaos, what went into you writing that and, oh, before you answer that, how does it feel to be back? I'm having so much fun. It's so, so, so much more fun. You know, I've had my own spiritual experience, which is maybe why I'm telling everybody else to have a spiritual experience. The first time I was working as a journalist, I had a lot of success. I had a big TV show and I had

1:17:23a lot of sort of external success. And I was miserable. I was so unhappy in that time, Mike. I got to tell you, I've never been more unhappy than when I was hosting that show and writing that book and all those things. And I've had time to reflect on why I was so unhappy in that moment. But I was incredibly unhappy. And when I think about it, it's because I had an, I invested myself so firmly in the belief that people should do what I thought and what I said and what I believe that they should do what I told them. Like I'm telling you what to do, you should do it. Not the audience, but the government. Like the government should do this with the banks, the government should do this with healthcare. Not because I'm a genius, but because I'm a great reporter. And I found this guy, a tool guwanda, who's solved for healthcare. He's reduced the cost by 50%. His rate, his success rate is 100% higher. I found this guy Frank Sonnenberg at this universe, Solveridge. Like it was obvious that there's overwhelming solutions and that no one

1:18:29is implementing them. And I found that experience profoundly frustrating. And so I went and did a lot of different things, you know, ranging from, you know, very sort of big and aspirational to silly and everything in between. But in coming back into the mix at this moment, I approach with the attitude of service to my nephews, where I expect nothing from them other than that they do the best they can every day to maximize themselves. I'm like, you want to be a, you want to go to MIT and become a musician and a firefighter? Then be a good musician and a good firefighter. And I realized that I needed to take my own advice, which is don't re-enter the world as a journalist to be influential or to be famous or to be loved or to be respected or to have some external response of any kind. Do it as an act of service to share the things that you have learned in your

1:19:36life and the experiences you have had in your life, some of which may help inform at least one other person to help understand something and may be more. And so I think the transition from I'm important, I'm powerful, do what I say, which is a sort of ego-driven mentality, to a mentality of I have the privilege of these experiences and knowledge that I have learned in my, you know, 34 years as a professional. And I have the opportunity to share it in a fairly frictionless way by writing and talking and taking advantage of the generous invitations from people like yourself and Chris Martensen and others who give me a chance to have discussions like this. And there's a freedom in doing it from the perspective of not feeling like you have to believe me or that you

1:20:38have to agree with me or that you have to do what I think or how many views that I get and how many people that I did and as I've had all these so I wake up every morning and I write every morning now. I mean, at first I was like this is cramming right every day I haven't written every day since I was 25 it's almost been 30 years. Like I had to be out of my mind. Like I don't know, you know, I'm like considering how much I break my nephews balls to do all kinds of things every day. I'm what kind of a role model am I if I'm just sort of goofing around running a couple of these businesses that don't really take a lot of my time. It's like not that like it's valuable to me, but it's not really demanding for me intellectually or creatively. Certainly not in a way that brings out the best in me in the way that journalism uniquely draws me out in a way that I don't have the skills for anything else in my life that I do to be able to write and talk. And so I'm like, I'll start writing and it has been a delightful experience and I'm not going to stop. I'm writing every day. Thinking about selling your car start with a real offer worth real money from CarMax.

1:21:43Then take seven days to compare your offer and when you're ready accept your offer and get paid. CarMax will even pick up your car. That's it. No haggling, no hassles, no pressure. Just a real offer worth real money from CarMax. Get all the details in a real offer today at CarMax.com. Wanna drive? CarMax. At home pick up not available in all locations, distance restrictions and a fee may apply. Forming a business seems easy until influencers Reddit and AI give different advice. Legal Zoom helps get it right the first time. Visit today. Legal Zoom provides access to independent attorneys and self-service tools. Legal Zoom is not a law firm. It does not provide legal advice. And anybody who asks me to talk, I say yes. And I look at it as a spiritual act. This is what I know. This is what I think. I'm not going to hide my things. If it's helpful, that's great. If it's useful, you can ignore it.

1:22:49And so that's the mindset that I'm writing with. Which makes me more free. I'm more aggressive in my writing. I say things that I wouldn't necessarily say in the past. Because in the past, I'm like, I don't know if I should say that. I could piss people off. They get me fired. They're managing against the apparatus. For now, I'm just going to say exactly what I think. No one's paying me anyway. By the way, so I don't have a boss. Now, there are some people subscribing on Substack. I'm grateful for that. I don't mean to be disrespectful to that aspect of it, which I very much appreciate. But I approach it from the mentality of service. And so again, I've been writing every day. And the one that I wrote today was the interest rate of chaos. And for those that haven't read it, what went into that article? So I wrote a story maybe a few weeks, two or three weeks ago. That I think was a story of the

1:23:50reason I got on Chris Martins and show, which is now the reason I'm on your show. It's called the most important story in the world. And it was about the bond market. And it was specifically about when I was a reporter at Bloomberg, a fight broke out on the newsroom floor, where one of the editors started trying to choke one of the reporters to death. This is like on a park avenue, like a nice park avenue, like sparkling and glittery and very New York sort of, you know, suited white men arguing about money on park avenue. And so it was not typical for there to be like a choking episode or like a brawl of any kind, but the one broke out. And I was very young. It was maybe 24. I was like, what is going on over there? And they were fighting over the bond market story, because the bond market story was considered to be the most important story in the at Bloomberg at the time. Maybe it still is. And the reason there's such an important story is because it determines the price of everything in the world. And it is the only thing more powerful than the

1:24:55US government. The boss of the US government, the boss of the president, the boss of the Congress, is the bond market. And so the question is, and then the bond market has made a new price levels that we haven't seen in 20 years. So the answer to why the reason I wrote the story that I wrote today was because the bond market moved in a way that it hasn't moved in 20 years. And the bond market is the most important story in the world. And so then the question is, why did the bond market move the most? It's moved. Why are we at a price level? We haven't seen in 20 years. Well, the bond market only moves for one of three reasons. The bond market moves because the economy is growing really fast. And the capacity of the economy to keep up with the growth rate is not high enough. And so the bond market raises interest rates because it's because it knows that there's going to be a need to borrow more money to add capacity to keep up with the growth. That's considered a very good reason for interest rates to go up. This whole, the middle class is booming. There's so much productive activity that demand for money is rising. So the price of money has to rise. That's the

1:26:00good reason for the bond market to go up. Then there's two bad reasons that the bond market goes up. The bond one is because the bond market believes that the value of the currency is in decline by way of inflation. So if they believe the dollar that they're going to be paid back in the future is worth less than the dollar that they're lending today, they charge a higher interest rate. Obviously, inflation is out of control in this country right now. Starting originally under the with the COVID situation, although it was really kicked off by Obama in the boys in 2009. And then Trump just threw, you know, rocket fuel on it with the tariffs in the Iran war. So that's one reason the bond market's up. And then the biggest reason that you really don't want to see the bond market go up is because the bond market doesn't believe your government is trustworthy or operational. The basis, you can't be trusted. It's the same reason that you wouldn't let like you would you would you're either going to lend me money because you know, I really need it

1:27:02because like Dylan's got a hot deal. You know, pay anything to borrow the money from me because and Kerry's going to make so much money. You'll pay 10% because he's going to make 100% that would be a growing economy, right? Two is Dylan's going to pay me back with dollars that are worth much less than the dollars I'm giving him because the currency is falling apart. And three is Dylan can't be trusted. Guys, eluited tick. And so the chances that he doesn't pay you back or the chances that he screws the deal up are higher than average. So you better charge a higher interest rate. And so what the bond market did today is it raised interest rates to the highest level they've been in 20 years, not because the economy's growing gangbusters, but because the bond market doesn't trust the US government at a level that at a highest level in 20 years. And we're suffering from inflation. And I think it's important that we understand what's going on, not just based on our opinions, whatever I said on my sub stack or whatever you said on your podcast or whatever Chris

1:28:05Martensen said on his podcast or down the line, but rather what is the biggest most the deepest most sophisticated pool of money in the world, trillions of dollars, what is their opinion of America as a risk. And they're saying America is riskier today than it's been in 20 years. That's not an opinion. That's not a podcasting opinion. That's not an op-ed. That's not a sub stack. That is a math. That's why I was proud of my one of the things that you do when you're a writer is sometimes you look at you like to look at your little kickers when you write things, you know, and and you get into the the the the spiritual flaw of self celebration, which is not a healthy thing, but but the end of my story today was the bond market doesn't have to win an argument with the president.

1:29:06It just has to set a price. Doesn't care. There's no discussion. The numbers 5% was 4%. Keep it up. It's going to be 6%. Is it now? You know, on and on. Is the United States government then in your opinion or the bond market? Is it the cleanest of dirty shirts? Yeah, it is. But it's on a relative basis less clean than it's ever been. And if you look at the spreads and you look at the rates that are being charged for European countries, which are much slower growth, still have inflation and do have corrupt governments. But the governments in Japan or in Europe are not as openly corrupt as the United States and the inflation is not as bad. So the the delta, the difference between the United States, which is still the cleanest of the

1:30:09dirty shirts to use your metaphor, no question. But the relative dirt is getting closer and closer. Does it concern you at all being in Europe? What's happening? What might occur? Living where you live? No, no, no. I mean, can you be a little bit what should I be? What would what could give me something to worry about? I want a reason not to sleep tonight. We didn't get rid and cover enough over the last hour and 20. I will bring it closer to home. You're going to you know, I'd be able to be more personal. I'm just in general the state of Europe, just you know, with the with the amount of people that have come into all these countries, the bond market, the, right off a few right there. I mean, if they're in worse shape than America, does it say to yourself? Here's it. I mean, I won't speak for Europe. I will speak for Northern Italy, which is where I live. The cost of living in Italy for me is 80% less than the cost

1:31:17of living was in New York. 80%. My grocery bill here compared to my grocery bill when I'm visiting family in upstate New York is half as much. And the quality of my food is 10 times better. So my food is better, my costs are lower. And the so-called immigration crisis, which is for sure real. But is not evidenced in this part of Europe. So I'm insulated from it. Southern Italy has a huge problem. Southern Spain has a huge problem. France has a huge problem. Central Europe, which is where I am is quite insulated from that. And I don't mind having euros instead of dollars at a time when the dollars losing its purchasing power. And but the movie, I mean, listen, I don't, I mean,

1:32:21there's all these things, but the thing that I think that is the most important and most valuable about certainly I'll call it Mediterranean culture. So Spain, Italy, Greece, some of the smaller countries, Montenegro, Croatia. The Mediterranean culture lives on a human first basis. The priority is connection within families and with friends and around food. And I think especially in a world where there is a degradation of the sort of hyperbole of life and the loss into the digital vampires of Instagram and video games and what everything we've already talked about, then being an American who's more vulnerable to those American things of isolation and aspiration for larger material acquisitions. I'm going to have this and I got to get this and I want to get this that being surrounded by people whose primary priority is human spending time talking

1:33:27the way you and I are talking today and how I don't know about you, but I found this discussion from deeply satisfying. And so I get to have conversations like that more when I'm in this culture honestly than I do in a typical American culture. And so I think that there's something valuable in a in a world of digital vampires in a culture that emphasize a human first way of living. What was the last time you were in the United States? August, I come back every, I come back at least once every three, I come back for three weeks every three months. So I'm back on a regular basis. I have family there and I have still have you know, work related interests in New York and all the rest that I still own a home in New York. And so I still I consider myself to be a New Yorker in exile. At some, at some point you know, Mike, at some point I'm coming back. You think you will? There's no point. I mean, I think it's an inevitability. I think my problem is

1:34:31I love America so much. And you know, like one of the stories that I tell my nephews, I'm like, listen, like my grandfather was a Hungarian Jew who came out from the Holocaust. Most of his family was killed in the Holocaust. Only him and his brother. They came to New York. They didn't speak a word of English. And he built this fairly successful business laying carpet in the hotels in New York and ended up marrying an Italian girl from southern Italy that had moved to New York. Sort of very New York immigrant kind of thing. And the trophy of his success later in life was he bought a house on the, uh, I'm on island. And it was like a summer house. And next door, while I was a kid, another guy bought a house about the house next door. And the guy that bought the house was this black guy, which it was the, it was the first black guy

1:35:32ever buy a house in that neighborhood in that town, whatever my grandfather, who has no standing right? He's a Hungarian Jew who didn't speak a word. But he's like, oh, this guy, you know, what's he doing here? I'm like, well, what did I not, I was eight years old. I wouldn't have never, I didn't even think this at the time, but retrospectively. I'm like, what are you doing here? Like, what are they? You know, like, what are you know, if we're going to pass judgment? And so this black guy buys a house next door. I'm like, well, who is this guy? You know, I'm not even asking questions. I'm like over hearing the adults in the kitchen talking about the new neighbor, you know, they're like, oh, well, he's a heart surgeon from New York, you know. And I was interested in medicine as a little boy. I thought medicine was cool. I was like, oh, heart surgeon, that's kind of awesome. And I liked fishing when I was little. And the house was near the water. And so you could go down to the beach and older people would go fishing. But none of nobody in my family, none of my uncles, my grandmother, nobody liked fishing. I was into fishing. And then the doctor loved fishing. And so every day at sunset, the doctor would be down on the bulkhead, you know, surf casting. And so I would sneak down to the beach and be as

1:36:40like fishing assistant and ask him about heart surgery. I'd be like, how do you, you know, how do you open it like, well, how do you do the how does this work? Like how do you even get at somebody's heart blah, blah, blah. Anyway, the point is it gave me a profound message about America that a human being through effort and hard work could change the circumstances of their life. And that was validated whether it was the black heart surgeon next door to my grandfather or my grandfather himself. And I believe America is unique in the sense that it is a only country in the world where the founding belief is that a human being can change their circumstances in a material way through some degree of effort and intelligence in interaction. And that any human being on earth can come to America and become an American. I could stay in Italy for the rest of my life. I'll never be an Italian. But an Italian can move to New York or to America and they can be an American because America is the only country in the world that's based on an idea, not on an

1:37:43ethnic pedigree. And that was very apparent to me as a little boy. And that's why I say I think I'll come back probably one day. Ryan Reynolds here from Mitt Mobile with your summer price forecast. Now, unfortunately, we're seeing rising costs across the country with possibility that big wireless hates you 100%. Now over here at Mitt Mobile, we're seeing sunny skies and dropping prices every plan to just $15 a month. Give it a try at MittMobile.com slash switch. A brown payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 month plan required, $15 per month equivalent to taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow and network is busy. See terms. Thinking about selling your car? Get a real offer worth real money from CarMax. Then take seven days to think it over. That's it. No haggling, no hassles, no pressure. Get all the details in a real offer today at Carmax.com. Want to drive? CarMax. Because there is no other country in the world that represents that idea. And I think that that idea, the biggest reason why my fairy tale has to come true with Teddy Roosevelt and the

1:38:49anti-corruption, whatever is, the world needs at least one country that's based on the credible idea that a human being can change the circumstances of their life. Because somebody who's born in Egypt or Russia or China or Italy or Brazil or you know, Montenegro, doesn't, is not born into a culture where they feel like they can really change the circumstances of their life. They're born into a circumstance. They accept the circumstance. But America represents the idea that one, anybody can be an American and two, anybody can change the circumstances of their life through hard work and intelligence. And I believe the biggest reason why we have to save the United States from this epidemic of corruption and prevent the idea of a government takeover in response to it is to keep the light on for this idea that a human being can change their circumstances because I know one had a bigger impact on my life than my Jewish grandfather who made a life in the United States

1:39:52or the Black Heart Surgeon next door. And I think that that's a critical idea for everybody. Where could people find you, Dylan? DylanRatigan.substac.com. Every day there's an essay and then hopefully on the podcast as a guest with a coffee and a mic. And then on X, your ex account? My ex account is also at DylanRatigan. So it's at DylanRatigan on X and DylanRatigan.substac.com. See, I wanted to end on a positive note because I know you're going to go drink your tea after this and I had to give my inspirational speech there for my dinner. I was just going to say, I was like, you inspired me at the end of that. And the best thing about it is it's recorded. So I have it on a capsule now. I don't have to ask you to recite it. Well, but I need the clip for my presidential campaign. Dylan, I enjoyed this. Thank you so much. I know we made this happen fairly quickly. And I look forward continuing to follow your work and I love to have you back on because I think there's going to be a lot of things to talk about here in the next coming weeks and months. So it would be

1:40:56an absolute privilege. I admire what you're doing. And again, congratulations on the audience that you built in the validation. I think that is obvious in the in the honest and intelligent way you do your work that obviously people trust you. And I think that they should. So congratulations. Thank you so much. And thank you for the kind words and look forward to our next chat. Likewise, my drop. It's 2026. We upgraded our phones, our cars, even our coffee. So why are we still acting like pleasure is negotiable at Pinc cherry? It's not. They've got hundreds of toys that actually deliver. And if you don't know where to start, their mystery boxes make it easy. Go to pinc cherry dot com and use promo code Chelsea to save up to 80% site wide because life is hard feeling good shouldn't be. Pink cherry dot com because everyone deserves pleasure. The crispy chicken crunch wrap slider is back at Taco Bell. The slider size crunch wrap with nuggets inside you love the first time now with the spicy kick you're going to love this time hidden valley Diablo ranch

1:41:59or you could order some crispy all white meat nuggets on their own. Pretty sure you love those anytime every time. Okay, all of the times the crispy chicken crunch wrap slider a brand new classic is back only at Taco Bell. I'm participating in you as Taco Bell locations for limited time and while supplies last. And now he lock versus AGI a splotero AGI gives you cash for a share of your home's future value. No monthly payments. A HELUK is a traditional loan with monthly payments and strict requirements. Splatar over the win. Visit splint.com today and access your home's equity. Your vehicle doesn't just get you from here to there. It's a bridge to the people and places that matter most. It's how you show up for your family, your community, and everyone else that depends on you. That's why for 125 years Firestone has been building tires with one thing in mind to deliver products that are as reliable as you are. Firestone always dependable since 1900.