The LoCo Experience

EXPERIENCE 243 | Aaron Everitt - Post-Election Recap 2025 - Big Blue Wave! - Maskil Show November 20!

• Ava Munos • Season 5 • Episode 243

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My good friend Aaron Everitt dropped by for a post-election recap episode this week, and I wore my blue Hawaiian shirt to symbolize the big blue wave that swept across much of America.  Aaron and I dig into what’s going on in the economy, and especially in the minds of young people and the working class, and where we might go as a nation from there.  Aaron shared some updates from his creative work, including his podcast and substack - Besides the Revolution - and his collaboration with House Inhabit. 

We also get into a real estate update - westside Fort Collins finally getting the love it deserves! - and we talked about the upcoming 25th Anniversary show of his travelling folk band from his college days and just after - Maskil.  The show is November 20 at The Rialto Theater, and tickets are both available and affordable - get them here.  We always have a lot of fun, and we usually enjoy a couple of bourbons - but today that was just me, as Aaron had band practice after!  So please enjoy my most recent conversation with Aaron Everitt.  


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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. My guest today returning after a significant absence from the studio, it's been in a minute, studio is Aaron Everett. Oh, it was last election.

Speaker:

It was last

Speaker 2:

election with your son.

Speaker:

Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2:

That's, uh, with Emerson

Speaker:

one year ago.

Speaker 2:

Yes. My, the, uh, oh, can you guess the, the symbolism or the, the metaphor in my choice of apparel today?

Speaker:

Well, I see blue, so my guess is, uh,

Speaker 2:

the blue wave.

Speaker:

The blue wave, yes. I think

Speaker 2:

much different tone in the news headlines this morning than it was, uh, a year ago, the day after the election.

Speaker:

Yeah. I've not surprised.

Speaker 2:

No,

Speaker:

I mean, and I don't think it even had anything to do necessarily with, well, we can get into it further, but I don't think it actually had anything to do with. Uh, you know, like sometimes in the midterms you could see where it's the president's sort of,

Speaker 2:

he screwed it up.

Speaker:

He screwed it up. And so the consequences of this, I don't think that's what this was. Mm-hmm. This was, I, I think what's happening in America is really interesting and Trump's part of it, which is this, I want to find the biggest lever I can find to move the machine.'cause the machine is not moving in the way I want it to. And so I'm gonna try my best to kind of keep finding these levers that will do more and more radical things because I need this thing to break, which I think is the sentiment from the people that are voting, those that are actually agitated by the system, those that are young, youthful, uh, if you look at last night's,

Speaker 2:

certainly the mom Dami.

Speaker:

Yeah. If you look at Mom Dami stuff, it was all driven by youth vote last night.

Speaker 2:

And immigrants.

Speaker:

And immigrants in a huge way. And I think. You know, there is an impatience about the system. You, you look, even a year ago, people have this kind of w wild embracing of, Hey, we got a coalition put together. Let's move this sucker. Let's get this thing done.

Speaker 2:

Doge gets rocking, there's

Speaker:

stuff

Speaker 2:

happening. Yeah. And then, and

Speaker:

then

Speaker 2:

Epstein list is coming out. Yeah. And then,

Speaker:

and then the system does what it does, which is just sort of, you know, it just like, and now we're in

Speaker 2:

day 37 or

Speaker:

39, government shut down. And no one really, I mean, I know that there are people impacted by it, but it's always disproportionately impactful of the poor, of the middle class. It's not impacting Bill Ackman or, you know, whoever else at the top of the list. It's, they're not, they're not impacted by this. And so it's really interesting.

Speaker 2:

I could be wrong, but I realized that the No King stuff is, yes. It's a, it's a bit of a. Division inciting mm-hmm. Creation arguably to try to bring about that big lever, but it's also a voter activation mechanism of Yeah. Historic proportion.

Speaker:

Yeah. I mean you, they, this is the, that's a response to turning point for sure. Is kind of their activation. Some of the things that are out there. You have, and the other thing that you have going on right now is an absolute crazy in fight within the Right.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

You have a really, really dramatic Trump

Speaker 2:

attacking Massey and Rand Paul.

Speaker:

Yes. And

Speaker 2:

stuff like that. Like as long time libertarians we're like, but those are the good guys. Suck. Kind of, what are you doing attacking the good guys asshole.

Speaker:

And you have that. And I just think it, the other piece of it that I don't think it anybody's, uh, nobody really wants to give this the credit that it deserves, but there's a real rub with foreign policy and the current. You know, this current iteration of what's going on in terms of people see our focus both in, in an inability to stop what's going on in Russia and Ukraine and our inability really to do any move, any lever in Israel and Gaza. And I think they are, but we know that we keep sending money,

Speaker 2:

we keep trying and we spend a lot of time

Speaker:

and effort on it. People spent a lot of money, we spent a lot of time on it. Netanyahu's been to Washington d DC more than four times now. Right? You, you and our people have been to Israel a ton of times. We've got a bunch of people back and forth with Ukraine. So I think that people are looking at it and going. Wait a second. I, a year ago, I had a lot of hopes that this was all gonna just go, you know, we were gonna get this done and, and I was willing to vote for this guy and his team because we were gonna move the needle. Now I think there are people that haven't moved the needle. I mean, I think, I think there are people that, within the administration that have moved the needle and including some of Trump's policies, but they can't go fast enough for, for what is actually happening to the people on the ground.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

Things are really expensive. You know, houses continue to rise in pricing. You've got real troubles with inflation. Anybody is not great. Anybody, no. Anybody under 40 is going, this system sucks. Yeah. And the people under 20 are looking at it and going, well, what's the point?

Speaker 3:

Right?

Speaker:

I, I've made this bargain, you know, I said this the other day to someone. Our generation made a bargain. We, we listened to our parents and we made the bargain that they had made, which was, well, if you just work hard and you do the right thing, you know, the system takes care of itself and we will trade, we'll have to trade away a few things off of our backs in terms of our taxes and our ex, our economic prosperity for the rest of the world to live at peace, because peace is better than war.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

So that was their exchange. And so we took that exchange. My children aren't taking that exchange. Yeah. They don't, they don't believe that exchange exists for them. Yeah. That, that trade exists for them. That if they give up some of their future for peace and prosperity, that it will exist because they don't know anything else except war.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

My children have grown up in war their entire lives. There's not a day they haven't been exposed

Speaker 2:

to. Yeah. Worth$39 trillion in debt. At least one third of which is because of war,

Speaker:

and every house is$500,000 in Fort Collins, they're going so. What am I trading for? There's not really peace and prosperity and, and I'm not sure that my hard work and taxes and energy and all the things that I'm gonna do if I did give that to you. Yeah, I'm not, I'm sure. I'm sure it's worth it. And so I think that's like a lot of what happened with mom DBE too. Is this Right? Look, we gotta try something else. I need a bigger lever.'cause what was happening sucks. And I don't wanna do this.

Speaker 2:

So what do you think shakes down in, in New York City like, is he really gonna keep the rich people there to milk them harder to pay for all the things he wants to accomplish?

Speaker:

I think if you look at what,

Speaker 2:

because isn't New York's gotta be kind of broke already with all the. Spending and departures and suffer. It's just such a big economy that is not that broke or,

Speaker:

I don't know. It's a big, it's a big system. There's a lot, the finance world can survive tax rates of 50%.

Speaker 2:

Mm.

Speaker:

It really can because

Speaker 2:

yeah, what do they care? They don't make any

Speaker:

sausage. It was all fake anyway. And they can, you know, so, and the way they take their, the way they take their income anyway, it isn't ever gonna be. Taxed at the rate that mom D's asking for, right? It's never gonna go like that. So they'll just find another way to shuffle it off into some, you know, dividend or something else. And those people will be not impacted. The people that will get crushed in this system will always be the same people. The middle class and the poor will be disproportionately impacted by those tax increases because that's how it will, it'll hit them the most. Yeah. If you go get a job and your taxes are higher because you're getting a W2 or whatever, you're gonna find yourself on the wrong side of this conversation. The, the people at the top of this system love it. They're like, they're very happy that it works the way that it does because they know that it just eliminates their competition. Every time a guy like this gets elected, it just eliminates another round of competition for them. So

Speaker 2:

I, uh, you know, I come from a farm family and, and talk about agricultural subsidies and, and whatever, and, and when you do the math, it pretty much shows that. That subsidy is to the people that own the land.

Speaker 3:

Yep.

Speaker 2:

Which generally are the really wealthy already people.

Speaker 3:

Yep.

Speaker 2:

Uh, and some farmers, but most of them aren't as vibrant. You know, the, the real, you know, the people that own the land are people like Bill Gates.

Speaker 3:

Exactly.

Speaker 2:

Uh, he owns a lot of it. And he, by subsidizing agricultural crops and production, then he can charge more rent to the farmers that actually do the work. Yep. And I guess my question is, is how do you, aside from having a French revolution kind of thing, how do you reverse that trend? Like what are some of the actual policies that could actually make it through our current government oligarchy kind of system that would actually make it easier for those poor and middle class to not always get shoved in the. Mud puddle and push to the side regardless of whether the Republicans or the Democrats are the ones that are, because they use different levers, right? Like this lever beats up these people. Yeah. This lever beats up these people. Uh,

Speaker:

I don't know that I have an answer to that, honestly. And I think that's what people are feeling,

Speaker 2:

right?

Speaker:

I think they're looking at this and going, none of this is making sense. I, I can't make this move. You know, I voted, I voted for the wrecking ball, so what happens? It didn't wreck anything. You know? Now I'm gonna vote for this guy and hope that it does this. Yes. Will it do it? I don't, I don't know. I mean, actually, I don't know that anything's gonna happen significantly within New York that will be that different than what it already is. Right? It's a big city. It kind of moves on its own. It's a$62 billion budget. That's the city's budget every year.

Speaker 2:

Oh, wow.

Speaker:

So it's a, it's the 10th largest economy. It just, the city is the 10th largest economy in the world. If it was a nation, it would be.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker:

So, I mean, it's, it's. It's a big deal, but I don't know that this, I just don't know that any of it makes a difference. I think the Mach, it's almost like you're on a train and you can walk in between the cars, but the trajectory and the dis and the destination is established, so you can kind of move back and forth and act like you're doing something, but the train is on its way to a destination. Yeah, and I'm not sure, I don't really know. We're on a 250th anniversary next year of our country. Most empires don't live past 250 years, so we're. We are at that place where I think,

Speaker 2:

do you think we're actually in the crunchy times?

Speaker:

I do.

Speaker 2:

Potentially.

Speaker:

The, it's coming the

Speaker 2:

next five to 10 years could be, or 20 years,

Speaker:

unless Congress can become, uh, effective, which I don't see that happening. Um, you've got, I mean, you'll, you'll have majorities and things that are gonna change with this new kind of gerrymandering stuff that's going on in California. Right. With that proposition that passed last night,

Speaker 2:

filibuster iss probably on its way out

Speaker:

here soon. Filibusters on its way out.

Speaker 2:

Do you think so?

I

Speaker:

think it's probably so. I think so. Which is a dangerous move, but it's a move that, you know, without, that's the point we're at. Nobody knows what to do.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

So you're just starting to take, you're just starting to take all of these things. Well,

Speaker 2:

this whole government shutdown is an interesting case study. It's in itself totally. It's like, well, you know, we could just keep spending the same amount of money we've been doing, but we're using this lever as a, as a tool to bring us back to the bargaining table.

Speaker:

And, you know, the, the. Nobody really knows what any of it does. What, what changed,

Speaker 2:

right? Even if we put a new bill together, a, a Compromise Resolution to fix Obamacare. What would it do? Like what, what would it actually be? The,

Speaker:

well, I know one thing it will do is spend more money.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

You know, like, that's it. That's, we know that to be crew increase

Speaker 2:

the pace by which the train reaches its destination of we're all fucked.

Speaker:

Well, it's sad, but I do think it's, it. I'm just not sure. I've been riding a lot about this lately, which is just, you know, we, we are insisting that we live under this, the premises of rationalist documents, constitution, declaration of Independence, all created in a society that lived within a rational framework. Yeah. Which was, there were, there were things that were self-evident. We hold these truths to be self-evident. Which first line? Right. Uh, you

Speaker 2:

know, nothing is self-evident hardly

Speaker:

anymore. What is self-evident? Nothing. Right. So if, if

Speaker 2:

with our current media and like the challenges totally, and taking in a perspective that isn't colored by somebody else's crayons.

Speaker:

So all the people that stand there and wave their constitutions and say, Hey, you need to listen and behave to this. The people that are going, that are on the other side of, that are the opposite side of that are going, why, what, what is there for me to do in this? There's nothing here. This is a, this is a irrational time and you're asking me to sit down and obey a rationalist document. It just ends up being probably too much for anybody to really be able to pull back together. I think that, I think at the end of the point, I mean one of my great, one of the great lines I've heard lately, which is um, you know. All things come to a stop. But it makes a, it makes a great difference if the stop is above the waterfall or below it,

Speaker 2:

right?

Speaker:

But it always stops. And at what

Speaker 2:

speed you stop

Speaker:

from and what speeds is stop

Speaker 2:

like that. We, as a motorcycle is, we always say it's not speed that kills, it's the rapid transition and speed, uh, that kills

Speaker:

well, and I think your, our country's at that moment, which I just don't know. I don't know how you get away from where it's headed. If you had some state autonomy, if you really had states that could fight into these spaces. But, you know, unfortunately,

Speaker 2:

could we have a constitu constitutional convention?

Speaker:

It's available, but I don't, I don't know if there's enough. I just don't know if there's enough people that really want that to happen And, yeah. Because I think they

Speaker 2:

both, both parties just wanna club the other party with a stick if they get a chance to hold the stick.

Speaker:

I think so. But they all know that they've, they've all agreed to this, to the game's end.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

Which is, well, we'll just do this. Like, we'll put the theater on, we'll put the show on. We'll do the things. And sometimes we'll get a guy that gets really out here, and sometimes we'll get a guy that's really out here, but the machine is moving in the same direction. So, you know, in Washington, most of those guys are not very bright. Most of the politicians are not very bright people.

Are

Speaker 2:

you serious?

Speaker:

Yeah, I'm really serious. I met most of them. I mean, not most of'em, a lot of'em,

Speaker 2:

a lot more than you knew before.

Speaker:

Yeah. And, and they're not bright

Speaker 2:

really. You had your like, that was me. When, when the first George Bush became president, right? Or was it the second one that was more evident? The second

Speaker:

one

Speaker 2:

was evidently, evidently not. And I was like. As a, as a little kid at the time, you know, I was, I dunno what I was 12 or 14 or something like that. I'm fucking smarter than this dude. Can't even say nuclear. You know,

Speaker:

nuclear,

Speaker 2:

nuclear. Um, and, but I, but I realized it broke my meritocracy points in some extent. I was like, oh, this, it isn't really the smartest person in the country that becomes the president.

Speaker:

No, not even.

Speaker 2:

Or a senator as apparently Congress,

Speaker:

what

Speaker 2:

you're talking about,

Speaker:

Congressman. Yeah. None of them are very bright. I mean, some of them are

Speaker 2:

some, gimme, gimme three or four or five that, that you've met that you think are pretty damn smart.

Speaker:

Well, I've met, met Thomas Massey. He's very smart.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker:

So I'll give you that. And I like him. Right.

Speaker 2:

Cheers.

Speaker:

I've met Rand Paul. Nice guy. Very smart, very articulate, you know, sharp.

Speaker 2:

Not as smart as his dad, but whatever.

Speaker:

Not as smart as his dad, but sharp. I mean, but still a sharp person.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Um, you know, I, I think. Uh, beset scent from Tennessee. Yeah. Is a, like a kind of a bumpkin sounding guy, but he's actually pretty bright. Yeah. Beyond that, you know, I've not met Marjorie Taylor Green. I've not met those folks, but I have interacted, at least in the hearing room, didn't interact with him, but at least got to see and observe Bernie Sanders. I got to observe, um, Michael Bennett. I got to observe, you know, a number of people, both Republican and Democrat, and none of them struck me as people who could hold. You'd want to have a long conversation with.

Speaker 2:

Who do you think is the dumbest that you've observed or interacted with?

Speaker:

That's a, that's,

Speaker 2:

sorry. You could make a pass on that question if you want to.

Speaker:

Well, there's, uh, I don't know. You know, it's an interesting thing, the people in the hearing. So when I went to the, the hearings for Kennedy, oh,

Speaker 2:

for RFK?

Speaker:

Yeah. In February.

Speaker 2:

And so to set the stage a little bit. You've gotten your taste of politics from being kind of an early supporter and eventual Yeah. Almost inner circle of sorts with RFK.

Speaker:

Yeah. I have, I was, I mean, I, I never worked for the campaign, but I was really close with the, the campaign I had, the campaign manager's, cell phone and what we talked often and, you know, a lot of people within his sphere of, of people, his media director, all of his video guys, I was in that role. They were sharing

Speaker 2:

some of your essays out there.

Speaker:

Yeah. And whatever. And, and that, and we, you know, when we went to the inauguration, we got to be a, I was a part of their MAHA ball and all the rest of it. So got to be en engaged with politics, I think more than I thought I would ever be.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Honestly.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Um, and so yeah, pretty early adopter to that.

Speaker 2:

So you haven't like concluded wow, these people in Washington DC are actually way more smarter than I thought.

Speaker:

No, no. And when I went to the hearing, it was just so disillusioning. You know, I think what you see on TV or CSPAN is like. You see Bernie Sanders doing his big bluster and his thing, and then, and there's a light on a camera. You can see it, you know, there's a little red, red, red light, and it's some recording. And it's recording Bernie Sanders, and he's making his big scene and doing all of his stuff. And then the camera goes and turns red for RFK sitting at the desk, and Sanders just turns his chair around and doesn't listen to the answer. He's talking to his staffers. It's all theater. Oh my gosh. It's all, and that's, that's so gross. Every Congress person, right? Oh, that's

Speaker 3:

so gross.

Speaker:

Yeah, they're not listening. They're not actually engaging in what the hearing is. It's all there to get the clips they need in order to fundraise off of it or try to persuade somebody in the next election. So the system is dysfunctional at a level that I don't know that anybody really understands. Like we, we live in a very theatrical. Ethos in, in terms of how we see it. We,

Speaker 2:

it's almost like, like I, I think if either you and me, or maybe it was in my blog, I talked about how the Hunger Games

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

At least the people in the Hunger Games kind of had a higher level of recognition of the kind of level of theaters that they were living under.

Speaker:

Oh, yeah. We, we don't know. We, there's an American mythology that we definitely b buy into, you know, the Thomas Jeffersons and the, and the George Washingtons and Abraham Lincolns, all of it. It's all dead and gone, and that America is nowhere to be found. What we live in is a system that is, it's a managerial, it's a management system, is really what it has become. Hmm. We, we have a, there's a managerial class. A lot of people might call this the deep state or the blob or whatever, but it's just a managerial class. They really think that in order to have 350 million people live peacefully, you have to manage it. You have to manage them, you have to control every widget fitted in a spreadsheet. And, and, and if it falls outside of that, then that's, that's, you know, it's like less valuable. It's less valuable. We need to push it together. Right. It's sort of this, I I've been saying, it's like Terry from Soul, the movie where he basically is angry that somebody's missing from his count, his register.'cause the one guy sort of has fallen out of thing. And so, you know, this guy's just running around trying to figure out why his spreadsheet doesn't match, you know, and by the end of it, you know, the, the people that are, the other guys are like, and here's your award, Terry, for the one that you requested. You know, and I think that's kind of what Washington is, just these managerial people that want something done. And it's the hardest part is I've, I've been on a number of conversa in a number of conversations with lots of people from public health, lots of people in politics, and they, and when you talk to them, the, the average citizen really wants something done. They may have different solutions for what they think they, what should be done.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

But they all are sort of in the same trajectory. Hey, something, this isn't, we need do something. Something's off here. Not

Speaker 2:

doing something is not

Speaker:

what we should do. Yeah. Like what we're doing isn't working and we need to do something. Now, my answer might be bad, your answer might be bad. We could debate that, but we both can agree that we should do something. I've been on a podcast called Why Should I Trust You? Which is this. It's a great, really interesting one with people that are doing their public health and Maha people and they're kind of, and they're trying to synthesize this.

Speaker 2:

Oh, now I'm remembering.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I, I came across that the other day. I was like, when did I, when did I start listening to this and how did it come onto my feed?

Speaker:

I think I sent it to you. Potentially.

Speaker 2:

You, yes. Now I remember

Speaker:

very interesting people, you know, doctors who were on the front lines of COVID and Yeah. There were people and, and so you have to sit down in this conversation and it, and they're not easy. You know, I was on one with the guys that all resigned from the CDC. Oh. It was. Really interesting, right? Yeah. I'm, I'm trying to say our points, they're trying to say their points. At the end of it though, both parties were saying something's wrong. Something's wrong in this system, and so we probably need to do something. Mm. Now we might have different solutions about it, but at least we can agree that let's try, we should try something. And that's what I think you're seeing in electoral politics as of last night's results. It was, okay, we tried this, it didn't work, let's go all the way to the other side. Yeah. And get as radical as we can to the other side.

Speaker 2:

So is, is the Republican party screwed in the midterms now as, uh, the, the market exchange, uh, says this morning? Or like, are they things they can do from here?

Speaker:

They Trump won? Did

Speaker 2:

they need to fold on the fold on the government shutdown thing or is that a whole true?

Speaker:

I don't think, no, I don't think that's actually, they're not

Speaker 2:

gonna,

Speaker:

I don't think that's what is bothering people. The government shutdown doesn't bother people. I think most of

Speaker 2:

them barely notice.

Speaker:

They don't, they very few notice. I mean, it, it certainly impacts the poor, the SNAP

Speaker 2:

programs

Speaker:

and stuff. Of course, significant and I don't want to diminish that for people'cause that's a real thing. Agree. But I, but I do. Genuinely think that most people are going, okay, if you can't get yourself to play in the sandbox together, stay shut down until you can figure it out.'cause we don't, we're not just gonna do this to go do this again in six more months. Which is always what happens. Yeah. You know, here's more theater, here's more stuff. Ah, we've got another continuing resolution. Oh. But this time with only 18%

Speaker 2:

spending increase,

Speaker:

it's just stupid. And I think people are not necessarily frustrated by the outcome of that, which is this impasse of, well, we don't have good solutions. Premiums are going up like crazy in Obamacare.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

What, why? Why is that happening? No one can answer that question, you know?

Speaker 2:

You know, one thing that's been curious to me is, so Jill and I signed up for actually the same health exchange Yeah. I think that you referred me to years ago, which is a co-op.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

Right? We send checks to somebody in Florida or Tennessee or it's awesome. Whatever. Every month our prices have hardly gone up.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

In the five years we've been members.

Speaker:

Yeah. I mean

Speaker 2:

it's like 600 bucks a month or something for me.

Speaker:

We started or

Speaker 2:

something

Speaker:

with six children,

Speaker 2:

not even five. Yeah.

Speaker:

We have six, I mean four children, six of us in our family, and we started on that program and it's gone up since then, but I think we started at about 400 and I think we're at 6 75 or something like that. The

Speaker 2:

kids are all

Speaker:

still over. Everybody. Yeah. Everybody's still,

Speaker 2:

oh, maybe ours is only 405.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's crazy.

Speaker:

It's crazy. And it's, and it really works, right? You know, we've, we've worked, we, we've used it for broken arms, we've used it for, I mean, I've had a heart issue, I had That's right.

Speaker 2:

15,

Speaker:

all sorts of stuff. And we've used it for all of it and it's always paid us back.

Speaker 2:

And I'm also motivated to keep my self together. Like I don't wanna rely on that. Yeah. But that's crazy that you and I and tens of thousands of other, hundreds of thousands of other people can have a, be part of a. Insurance approved, or IRS approved. Yep. Whatever the fuck that means for your health insurance. Excuse my language, but for your health insurance. But that is approved and fits. Yep. That can really only be 700 bucks a month for a family of six or 500 bucks a month for a couple.

Speaker:

Yep.

Speaker 2:

Which sounds like here's a great deal comparatively, but Yeah. Yeah. And it just, it's okay. Like that their program isn't going broke.

Speaker:

No, and it works and it's managed well. And they have, they have, you know, we send one check a year to them as an administrative fee,

Speaker 2:

right? Yep.

Speaker:

11 other times of the year we're writing a check to somebody else around the country and it works just great. And it's worked great for, we've been on it. So why doesn't

Speaker 2:

everybody just join something like that?

Speaker:

Well, I don't know. I mean, at the end of the day, that's really what this, these are the problems that America faces that I don't think people have really wrestled with, which is like, wait a second. So. Your solution to the complications with insurance is to give the program to the insurance people to fix the insurance

Speaker 2:

so that we can require insurance for, I

Speaker:

mean,

Speaker 2:

that's just everybody that doesn't need insurance and everybody that does,

Speaker:

that's like drinking bleach and hoping you don't die. You know, it's really stupid.

Speaker 2:

What everybody needs is a little more insurance cost in their

Speaker:

life. Yeah, no, I mean, no one wants this, like, nobody likes insurance. It doesn't function. It, you know, an insurance at this point in our country is mostly a loan. They don't really want to pay. So you pay in all the time. Right. Then they raise your premiums in order to make sure that your, your insurance is, and if Brandon Avery's listening to this, he knows exactly how angry I get about all of this because it's just this, they try not pay. It's perpetual. They don't wanna pay your claim anyway. They're

Speaker 2:

a lot more powerful than you are

Speaker:

and you're kind of stuck. And then once they do pay it, they raise your rates anyway. And I didn't ask for a loan, but I guess that's what it is. I'm not sure what all the premiums I paid all the years before were for, but, but that's where Americans are. I think they're really Yeah. Frustrated by this. And they look at the people that they've sent to Washington and they have really high hopes and good. And look, I, there are things getting done that are really good, but it just will, it'll never feel like enough.

Speaker 2:

The swamp monster will just continue to blob

Speaker:

up. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Uh, no matter how many,

Speaker:

and maybe they'll get some things done, but it's never gonna get ratified by Con Congress. And if it doesn't get ratified by Congress, when we swing back the other way, it's all over anyway.

Speaker 2:

Yep, yep. And they know it all these executive actions on both sides, so that's part of the goal. Yeah. By the way, before I forget, before we get off the election coverage, I do have a gift that you may have seen earlier.

Speaker:

I didn't see all of it.

Speaker 2:

I bought two in, uh oh. This is not gonna fit with the microphone on, but. In, uh, in Hollywood. I bought a couple of, uh, hey, make America great again. Visors.

Speaker:

Here we go.

Speaker 2:

Uh, from a black fellow on the Hollywood, uh, walk of fame area there, and Jill said the red one is basically like a target.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Uh, and I'm not allowed to wear that in public places because it's crazy. Fuckers might just

Speaker:

take you out,

Speaker 2:

tune in on the red hat and take me out.

Speaker:

It's unfortunate. You know, I, I wish we, that that's all part of this whole cycle, Charlie Kirk stuff and the things that have happened with everything, we just are finding ourselves in a situation in which people don't feel listened to and when they don't feel listened to, the results are not good.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

You do end up in French revolutions, especially

Speaker 2:

in young men.

Speaker:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:

You have too many young men unemployment tickets and, uh, stuff to listen to.

Speaker:

You know, one of the best books that I've read lately is called A Monster of Their Own Making.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

And it's by a friend of mine, Jack Bucky, who's uh, guy from u the UK who found himself kind of on the, on a frustrating side of a political issue in the uk. He was labeled The Boy Wonder of the Right of the far Right. He, you know Right. Got pushed into this corner of being a white nationalist. He's not, but that's what kind of happened with media.

Speaker 2:

Right,

Speaker:

right. Ruined his life and you know, he came out of it and he was in, he was a part of the RFK campaign and that's how I met him. Yeah. And ultimately, you know, it was just kind of this crazy thing that's happened that all happened because the government of the UK wouldn't listen to what their grievance were wants

Speaker 3:

saying.

Speaker:

Yeah. I mean, I'm frustrated by the grooming gangs and I was frustrated by my. My classmate, girl classmates being raped. I would like an answer to how we solve this problem.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

And ultimately they didn't.

Speaker 2:

They're like, you're just a racist. You don't

Speaker:

like, like Muslims. Right. They just called him names and

Speaker 2:

he's like, well, because they keep racist raping my classmates.

Speaker:

So like it was really, you know, it's, I'm

Speaker 2:

not really anti-Muslim. I'm just anti-rape rapey.

Speaker:

Yeah, exactly. And what's interesting about the book is just Jack talks a lot about his, just how he's had to walk through all of these things that ruined his life

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

By speaking up.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

And so the consequences for speaking up are too great.

Speaker 2:

It really reminds me of that, uh, what's that suicidal empathy kind of Yeah. Topic from Gad sad or whatever his name is. Yeah. But reflections in the same topic, but from a more ground level perspective here. Yes.

Speaker:

From a young guy. He was 15, 16 years old when all this was going on.

Speaker 2:

Whoa.

Speaker:

And trying to help his high school classmates.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

You know, and, and that, that to me is. But his point and his kind of, I don't know, the, the thesis of the book is ultimately when governments don't listen to you, then all it does is push you to radicalization.

Speaker 2:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

And that's really what. That's really where we're at. Yesterday's

Speaker 2:

election

Speaker:

was too, that's what it is. And I, I don't know that we're getting away from

Speaker 2:

that. Well, and the government didn't listen to the people that put the current administration in either. They didn't release the Epstein list. They didn't follow through with the Doge stuff. Really?

Speaker:

No, they don't. They didn't finish. They, they weren't interested in bombing Iran. They weren't interested in all of these things that are going, look, this just doesn't feel like what you said. You talked about America first. You talked about Make America Great again. You talked about these things that we actually resonated with, dove into and said, yes, I like to do something with that.

Speaker 2:

They didn't cut off illegal immigration just like that.

Speaker:

Yeah, I mean there's

Speaker 2:

those, they just stopped trying.

Speaker:

They, yeah,

Speaker 2:

like they didn't even really have to put any border agents to the border. They just had to be like, Trump's in power now. And all the Guatemalans were like, shit. Turn around. Turn around.

Speaker:

We

Speaker 2:

got there before.

Speaker:

Yeah. But unfortunately that also still, we still see those impacts. I mean, we see it in, oh yeah, you see it in the price of housing. Well, in the election of ami. Yes. You do like

Speaker 2:

probably. A good number of those voters were freshies?

Speaker:

Probably. Yeah, probably so. And I, and I don't know, and again, like the things that, that were promised and talked about, having a voter ID for, for voting like that, you had to have an i a picture ID to vote that you had to, that you had to be an American citizen to vote that you had to do these things. All of that is like not happening. And it won't happen through Congress.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Nothing will happen through Congress

Speaker:

in the, and he might be able to make an executive order, but you'll find some judge anytime

Speaker 2:

me end to getting rid of the filibuster. Now

Speaker:

find, I don't think so. You'll find some judge somewhere that'll stop whatever executive order.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

You know, it's just this death by a thousand paper cuts. So I don't know. We'll see what happens. How do you get off the ride? I don't know.

Speaker 2:

Talk to me about Oh yeah. So that's yours. You can pass it along you to, uh, if you're not scared to wear it in public, um, tell you, maybe you're a visor guy, maybe you're not.

Speaker:

I'll give it to my mom.

Speaker 2:

Um, no, the creative stuff overall. So you're doing, you, you got a podcast with, with, uh, BBY yet, right? The besides, yeah. Jack,

Speaker:

Jack, Bucky,

Speaker 2:

Jack, uh, on the, besides the revolution.

Speaker:

Yep.

Speaker 2:

And then you've got other creative works that you're expanding or,

Speaker:

yeah, I've, um, have

Speaker 2:

expanded.

Speaker:

I've been doing a lot on Substack. I like it a lot. I like, I actually like the whole thing. It's great place to go get long con, long form content. I like it so much more than XI can't even see straight,'cause at least you can read something. And if you don't, it's not just a 10 para, you know, 10 sentence thought. It's like somebody's actually gone outta their way to make a logical argument. You may not agree with the argument, but at least it's readable and okay. And then people are trying their hardest to sort of. Find themselves a publication voice. Yeah. And it's been really cool to sort of participate in that.

Speaker 2:

Wasn't, didn't Barry Weiss go straight to Substack when she got let go?

Speaker:

Yeah,

Speaker 2:

she did that. Got her a nice fact contract, a nice with abc,

Speaker:

a nice contract with

Speaker 2:

C and a big, big, uh, valuation multiplier on whatever the hell she was making on her previous engagement.

Speaker:

Well, that's good. I mean, and I think it, it's probably more the future of media is something like Substack, whether it'll be Substack or something else, I don't know. But I think the future of it is a much more audience to writer or audience to creator, direct to consumer, uh,

Speaker 2:

yeah.

Speaker:

Program. Yeah. Advertising has been the bane of existence for media, to be honest. Totally. From the beginning of time. Yeah,

Speaker 2:

totally.

Speaker:

People don't want pay for the content that it require, that it requires to be a citizen. So the solution has always been that the newspapers charged the right, the business people to do the thing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

That just gets too convoluted,

Speaker 2:

right?

Speaker:

It's made too many messes over here. You're not gonna run this

Speaker 2:

story, Bob.

Speaker:

Yeah, exactly. That'd be

Speaker 2:

be the last ad I ever run in your paper.

Speaker:

That's right. And that's been there from the beginning of, of kind of media in the United States. So Substack is interesting to me because I think it allows people to say, well look, if you like what I'm doing, you can pay me five bucks a month and you'll get a lot of content. I'll write stuff all the time. And you can now, it'll have to sort itself out because people are gonna have to vet whether are a good sources, not probably be,

Speaker 2:

networks are developed over time and stuff.

Speaker:

I even, I think so. Yeah, we're part of this, you know, this group of sub stackers are all together, right. Doing this kind of pub media publication kind of thing. It'll be good. I mean, I think in the long run it'll be really good for media. We're in a really weird moment of it, but that's why I'm participating in it.'cause I think it's, it's very valuable. And

Speaker 2:

what's your station there? You,

Speaker:

so that's besides the revolution is where I write every, like, so Jack and I do a podcast on there, which Great. Substack allows you to do launch.

Speaker 2:

So you own that space. Is that your podcast? But Jack's your guest, but you own

Speaker:

that space. Jack and I kind of started it together. Jack's, he's a writer as well. We

Speaker 2:

trying out to get imprisoned by the, uh, social media authorities in the uk.

Speaker:

Exactly.

Speaker 2:

Or killed by the rape gang.

Speaker:

So he, you know, he and I, he contributes, we both do a pod, you know, we'll do something once every couple of weeks. We'll do a podcast over there. But then I, like when I write and I write a lot, I always publish it there. Or I've actually been doing a lot of guest posting for, uh, house and Habit, which is kind of a

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Larger, uh, Substack that's out there. She. She's really, so

Speaker 2:

that is more like a network almost, where the, she's built a network of writers that's content under her flag of sorts.

Speaker:

Let's, let's guest writers write underneath her stuff. Okay. Um, and I, we had, when we were in California this last week, we actually ended up up having dinner together as families.

Speaker 2:

Oh, cool.

Speaker:

Really nice people. And we just had a, it was a great conversation. I think, you know, she's, she did not. She doesn't come by politics as her first choice. So politics to her is sort of like this interesting sidebar. It was like a side quest for what she normally was doing. She's do normally doing like criminal trials.

Speaker 2:

Oh, interesting.

Speaker:

So she, you know, followed the Johnny Depp trial and the Epstein file trial and the

Speaker 2:

investigative investigative reporter

Speaker:

return. Yeah. And she's very good political

Speaker 2:

analyst

Speaker:

almost, and she's very good at that. But in the middle of that, she's like, I'm really fascinated by politics. It's an Amer, it's a crazy story. I'm really fascinated by Kennedy. I'm fascinated by Trump. I'm fascinated by Biden at the time. And she really kind of threw it out to all of them and said, Hey, would anybody be interested in me kind of coming to your events and writing about'em and trying to do media stuff. I'd like to do that. Kennedy was the only one that let her in at first. Then Trump did, uh, Harris and Biden both rejected her. Her Sure. Uh, sort of, I don't know. But she's a

Speaker 2:

inquiry. Yeah,

Speaker:

she's is a very interesting person. She's in, she's part of the Women's march. The pussy hat march kind of thing. So she's like a, she's a Californian suburban woman.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Yeah. She meets all the demographic values of someone who would be a liberal.

Speaker 2:

Sure.

Speaker:

She would say, have said herself as a self proclaim, proclaimed liberal 10 years ago.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

But as things have changed and things have moved, she's going, well, my team didn't do anything. You know, we got angry, agitated, yelling, but nothing ever changes. We don't make any progress. Yeah. Nothing really happens. The country's going down, like, we're seeing immigration issues in California. We're seeing these things that are happening to us. You aren't solving any of these problems. So she started to be curious about all these other things. Kennedy was that sort of gateway, I guess. Yeah. So she like you, the gateway drug to Trump, I suppose.

Speaker 2:

Right? Like you, she, she fell into the Maha.

Speaker:

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Realm.

Speaker:

Very much so. And, and so,

Speaker 2:

but from a different angle, right? From a very different, you and I both kind of,

Speaker:

yeah.

Speaker 2:

Conservative, libertarian, kind of long-term perspective. Heard from more of that, uh, progressive circle.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And liberalism.

Speaker:

And both

Speaker 2:

classic liberalism.

Speaker:

Classic liberalism. And both people looked at the system and said, it is failing us. I think you and I would say that. Sure. I think she would say that. And you're trying to find some, some hero in the middle of it to fix it. And, you know, you, you can point to'em, try to see if they can do it, and I don't know, she's, I think we all kind of feel an exhaustion. I think that's one of the things in the creative stuff, writing about it. Both of us kind of lamented like there's an exhaustion around talking about politics because it doesn't feel like you're moving the needle.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Um, even though you get your team elected or you do whatever, it's like really frustrating.

Speaker 2:

That's kind of been one of my, you know, as. Both of us have really come from the same space where we were like so sick of party politics that we were Yeah. Throwing our votes away on Gary Johnson and blah, blah, blah. Ross Perot going way back or Yep. Whatever. And like, you get sick of nothing really changing. Like that's it. Even any excitement that was built around the Maha MAGA movement thing and stuff. And you turn the corner and you're like, ah. Now here we are basically kind of the same place we were a year ago.

Speaker:

Well, you know, and, and I know, I know it's happened within the Maha movement, there's, there's a division there of people that were like, they thought that Kennedy was coming, gonna come in and basically undo all of the vaccine stuff and all the, you know. Right. And he started with food and it just infuriated, you know, half of all the

Speaker 2:

vaccine,

Speaker:

half of it. Right. So you, you get this. De debate frustration around like, no, I really wanted my issue to move. And there weren't a lot of people out there that were like, yes, red number five.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

We did it

Speaker 2:

right.

Speaker:

You know, that wasn't a thing, I think.

Speaker 2:

But also RFK is like. You know, like 123,000 kids won't die if we get yellow number four out of the food system. And,

Speaker:

and you don't, you know, so I think there's this like sense in politics that you've got to, the creative stuff's been fun. I, because it has been, it was really cool to like, okay, well we, we do have some people there that are doing some things. I mean, from, from my perspective, Kennedy's doing a good job. I think he's there doing what he can to sort of at least disrupt a system that isn't working. And, and if you listen to, if you listen to even the people in public health, you know, there's again, that same podcast was listening to it this morning and one of the guys is Doctor and Craig, he's Doc, he's great guy. He's totally opposed to RFK as a person, but he's like, but look, they're doing something. They're actually getting something done.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

We don't think that's the right thing to do, but they're actually getting something done. So that should be admired. We should like. Take a look at that and that that's an honest person. Yeah. Saying something Totally. Which is like, yeah, if something's getting done, I, we don't, I don't wanna talk about Tylenol and Al autism and all these things. Right. But, but at least, at least they're trying do something. They're doing something. The ball is the ball's moving down the court, and that is, that will, I don't know. We'll see what happens in that, but I think that that creative stuff was so fun over the last couple of years to kind of do it. I got to meet all sorts of people that I never thought I would meet. Right. Got to be at an inauguration I never thought I'd be at, I mean, it was like really, it was really fascinating.

Speaker 2:

Is that like, would you like to take more of your time into the creative and inquisitive elements, or would you rather re localize a little bit or, yeah. Tell me, I don't know. Because you spent years really as a freelance obscure newspaper article writer Yeah. And stuff like that. A little bit. Or not obscure, but

Speaker:

No, I mean, it was, it

Speaker 2:

was marginal comparison to. Yeah. Or reach, if you will.

Speaker:

Yeah. I don't know. It's an interesting, I like if, if people wanted to come and pay me to do that, if you could make money doing

Speaker 2:

that,

Speaker:

that would be cool. Yeah. It'd be cool.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

But I also, you know, yeah, I saw the, I see the other side of it too, this gal that we went and had dinner with. I look at her life and I'm like, man, it, it's not necessarily greener, you know, the grass isn't necessarily greener. She's got a lot of people attacking her. She's got a lot of people that are

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker:

You know, rude and mean and, and awful and think she's a, a Mossad agent. I mean, it's like crazy stuff, right. That just happens within that, that happens within the world of politics and, and sadly, the government's been so dishonest for so long that no one really. Trust anything. And so everything can become a conspiracy overnight.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker:

You know, Israel could kill Charlie Kirk or whatever it is. Right? Because do you think they did? I don't think so. I think that one's probably the most, what's evident is what's probably happened. It's not, you know, we, I was talking with Jessica again on this thing, this house inhabit person, and she, she said, you know, I went to Utah to look at this place'cause I'm doing investigative reporting. I want, I wanna go to the trial. I wanna like chase this down. And she said Turning Point uses drones with 0.5 lenses, so that makes, look, everything look huge, but when you're really there, she's like, it's a small venue and

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

The shot wasn't that hard. And like there's a pretty close by number of things that like he can jump right off and on the roof and so does it. Is it, are there suspicions about it? Well, would

Speaker 2:

Mosad know that?

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah,

Speaker:

probably. And, and I, you know, I, I

Speaker 2:

don't dunno, I'm not here to plant

Speaker:

Israels. I know. I, but you could. I mean, you, you can. That's where I can see where people get to all of these places Right. As quickly as they do because the government has been so dishonest. Right. We still don't know what happened to John F. Kennedy. We still don't know. Really what happened?

Speaker 2:

Have you been watching, uh, Jesse Wellis at all?

Speaker:

Uh, he see

Speaker 2:

the night. He's Instagram.

Speaker:

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Like he'll write a song about it and like Yeah,

Speaker:

yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Two days after it hits the headlines kind of thing. He's got a new one on, on Venezuela.

Speaker:

Yep.

Speaker 2:

You know what? It doesn't come from Venezuela, cocaine, our Fentanyl, uh, but we sure blow up these boats with kinetic strikes and

Speaker:

it's, it's, uh, I don't know. You know, it's fascinating to think about all the people and you, and you just watch it boy, like you just watch. I'm not terribly interested in doing what everyone else does in order to make money on that deal, which is, if you really look at some of the, the podcasters that are really out there doing things that are trying to make money, they just say bombastic things from their basement and

Speaker 2:

Right. And clickbait stuff, whatever.

Speaker:

Yeah. Yeah. It's very. And it's

Speaker 2:

all, that was what I asked that Mossad question for is just to get to intrigue, see if we can Yeah. Assassination. Use

Speaker:

that clap flower. Uh, it's, I, I, I do think it would be fun to do more creative stuff. I did one, uh, one thing that I actually have really was really proud of in the last little bit was I did interview a mom whose daughter had been kind of gone through a regression in her health from the age, you know, zero to two. She's just a normal baby, normal toddler, and then gets sick and. And they, they end up prescribing a bunch of stuff for her, and she comes out with a brain injury. They, the doctors diagnosed it as autism, which is not Right. Right. Like it's not autism. Right. It's a brain injury caused by something medical, a medical intervention. Yeah. And they, and so I got to tell her story and that one was really touching and really cool. Um,

Speaker 2:

isn't James Merkley I saw a bunch of social media stuff. He's doing some kind of a mini documentary on a one shot kind of thing or something too, but that's a different thing.

Speaker:

Yeah. I don't know. I haven't seen that. You should

Speaker 2:

check in with him on that.

Speaker:

Yeah, I should. No, it's, it's, it's really that was, that's the stuff I'd like to spend time on. I just went out to Sacramento not too long ago to interview four ladies who had been, I, uh, who had been injured by Botox now. Oh,

Speaker 2:

interesting.

Speaker:

So like maybe their own choice. Yeah, maybe their own. They signed up for it,

Speaker 2:

like they signed up for it. But that still doesn't mean you want.

Speaker:

Yeah. And, and they're, they're going, well, we really didn't understand it. It's not really informed consent because of the way that that, that it's presented to us.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

And it's presented as safe and effective, and we all know that story. And so I'm, that one's gonna be really interesting working on that one right now. And I'm really fascinated by those kinds of stories are more interesting to me than, you know, whether or not anybody's moving the needle in Washington.

Speaker 2:

I wonder if there's a place to, um, because I know in your past life you've been like singer, songwriter, creative space as well. Mm-hmm. As like podcaster and writer and muse and whatnot. You could do like cool songs about medical. Tragedies.

Speaker:

I dunno, I haven't thought of that.

Speaker 2:

Botox. Like, it's not just your Botox, it might just make your lips fall off. I don't know.

Speaker:

I felt so sorry for these ladies. Like they're like paralyzed for years. Oh

Speaker 2:

damn.

Speaker:

Like their legs are paralyzed.

Speaker 2:

Oh no shit. Yeah, because it does, that's what it is really is a, is a tranquilizer.

Speaker:

It's the most,

Speaker 2:

it's a paralytic kind of thing, right? A

Speaker:

nerve. Bo Botox is the most toxic substance on earth. Like that's botulism. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Is

Speaker:

like the most toxic substance on earth. It's a little, so put it in your lips. Like there's some things there that you're like, why did you do that? How did

Speaker 2:

this get to be a trend?

Speaker:

But also there's millions of people doing it.

Speaker 2:

So, um, because we're doing a quick turn on here, that was how I drifted into you. See how that transition there

Speaker:

looks good? The music thing,

Speaker 2:

do you have a show coming up? I do a reunion show.

Speaker:

Yeah. This is like, gonna be really fun. So my, my,

Speaker 2:

and we'll drop a link in the, in the show now. It's

Speaker:

my, my cousin and I are both the same age. Luke, I've talked about him a lot on the podcast. Luke and I are, we're the same age. We were born, you know, four months apart, or five months apart. So his birthday was in February and he had his 50th birthday. This is my, our 50th birthday was this year. So we went to his birthday party and it was really fun and we walked out and my wife said, is that what you'd like to do for your birthday? And I said, hell no. I don't want anything like that. I don't have no interest in this. Like it's not what I'm after. And she said, well, what do you wanna do? And so we, we just, I just tend and hawed about it all the way up till my birthday, which was in July. And then we didn't really do anything. We went to some friends to Wyoming and watched a rodeo and it was kind of like, yeah, it was good. It was a really nice time. Like I loved being with my friends. It was, they're my closest friends. It was all just excellent.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. But it's not really

Speaker:

enough. Enough

Speaker 2:

for a 50th birthday

Speaker:

wasn't rah and Anna kept saying, well, do you wanna do something else?'cause you're

Speaker 2:

at least half dead by now. Most likely

Speaker:

More than half dead at this point. Yeah. But. I decided at the same time, I was reminded that one of the albums that I had worked on, which was a very favorite album of mine, was also, we released it 25 years ago in August.

Speaker 2:

That's cool.

Speaker:

And so I was kind of going back through that and I was like, you know, it'd be really fun to just play these again with a band and do it in front of people and try again. Do that. And so I asked Anna if we, you know, what would you think about that? She said, oh, I think that's a really great idea. So we ended up renting the Rialto in Loveland for November 20th. So a couple weeks from now.

Speaker 2:

Yep.

Speaker:

And, um, tickets, we're selling tickets like a regular show. We'll have t-shirts. We have, it's got the whole thing, you know, apparel. What's the band

Speaker 2:

name?

Speaker:

It's called Moscow, which was really maybe a poor choice of a band named, I mean, I have no

Speaker 2:

idea what it means.

Speaker:

Or in the psal, it's, if you, if you read Thesal Oh, sometimes it'll say, yeah, it's like a Moscow,

Speaker 2:

it's, it's a little sonet or a little, uh, rhyming.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Almost like a haiku, but different, right?

Speaker:

Yeah. It's, it's of a skill

Speaker 2:

of David.

Speaker:

It's a skill of David and it, uh, uh, and it really was, it meant contemplative. So it was like the contemplative thought. Yeah. Or contemplative psalm

Speaker 2:

instead of, some of his psalms are very declarative.

Speaker:

Right. So this was like, I'm wondering about who God is or what this is. So it sort of fit, if you're like, really on the inside of baseball in terms of the Bible

Speaker 2:

study. Divinity for a couple years or something

Speaker:

like that, which I had been at the time. So it was, you know, it all made sense but it, but the problem with the name always ended up that we were in Battle of the Bands, but we were always in like heavy metal Battle of the bands because they would read our Neil and they would think it was Mass Kill. And so then we were with like son of Slam and Crutch and all these other bands. You should have been

Speaker 2:

competing against things like a Brothers Fountain and stuff like

Speaker:

that.

Speaker 2:

The hippy campfires.

Speaker:

I was in the hippie campfire stuff, but it wasn't that We were always like, and all the heavy metal guys would be like, you guys are really good, but. Like, why are you here?

Speaker 2:

So,

Speaker:

so all that to say, so in, in order to avoid a battle of the bands, we go, we went ahead and rented the Rialto out and we'd, man, it'd be really fun to try to, we're about halfway sold out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah,

Speaker:

cool. So it would be awesome if we could get it filled, you know, I'd love it. And it's all original music, so everything we're doing is originals. It's all stuff that I've written or Anna has written.

Speaker 2:

Is it a Saturday or Sunday night?

Speaker:

It's a Thursday night, actually. Thursday night. Okay. So it's, try to just try to get people,

Speaker 2:

when this comes out, you're gonna have like five days left to get your tickets, but,

Speaker:

but yeah, hopefully

Speaker 2:

they'll sell em until Wednesday afternoon probably.

Speaker:

Yeah, exactly. Hopefully people can get'em and they'll

Speaker 2:

show up at the door.

Speaker:

You probably could show up at the door probably. You probably show up at the door. I don't know that we're gonna sell out, but it's been really fun to talk. It's totally,

Speaker 2:

yeah.

Speaker:

And it'll be, it'll be great. And I told Anna from the beginning, I was like, look, if there were three people there and it's just our kids,

Speaker 2:

yeah,

Speaker:

it'd be really cool. So.

Speaker 2:

Well, and what's cool is like. We listened to some of those songs a few weeks ago when, when you were kicking my ass at Moy and your first time ever playing Moy. Um, and so they'll be familiar to me even.

Speaker:

Yeah, well it was, it's been, it was cool. It'll be a great like, um, kind of reminiscing as we go, going back through the songs. I'm like, oh, I didn't know that I was this good of a guitar player back then. Uh, I guess I played all the time, but also just been really cool to remember all the stories and the times on the road and the different things we were doing. It was really cool.

Speaker 2:

Any chance of bringing out a next album on it or anything like that, would you?

Speaker:

Well, I think we're gonna do it as a live thing. So we'll take the, we'll take the stuff off the, off the board from the Rialto and I, I've got a young guy that I work with often on, on stuff, and he's gonna do some video stuff and then we'll, we'll mix down an album and see if, if there's anything there. So

Speaker 2:

Reunion tour. I, yeah. Um, I'm gonna call a short break. I know we've only got like 30 minutes left. Yeah, that's great. On, uh, before you gotta go rehearse for my feel. Get

Speaker:

here.

Speaker 3:

Break time.

Speaker 2:

Break time. Um, we promised a real estate update.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Um, what's going on in. Real estate market, just higher prices and less inventory or what's going on with water? Yeah. Gimme some, gimme some nuggies.

Speaker:

Yeah. Um, so interest rates have been on the decline, which is good. They're still six ish, depending on

Speaker 2:

for a 30.

Speaker:

For 30,

Speaker 2:

okay.

Speaker:

It's not crazy, you know,

Speaker 2:

so you can get in the low fives if you're willing to take an arm, but you probably shouldn't because that assumes that our government will get control of inflation in the next 10 years. Which is unlikely.

Speaker:

It's unlikely. Uh, yeah. I mean, you could, there's some programs that are actually the weirdest one. That's the most, the most, the lowest rate is actually jumbos, which is crazy to me. But

Speaker 2:

what,

Speaker:

yeah, jumbos are up in the, they're in the fives, which is,

Speaker 2:

well, the elitist must, should get lower financing rates.

Speaker:

See what I mean? Like, it's just really one of those moments where you're like, this doesn't work. No, it, it is just not right. Like

Speaker 2:

yes, even if it does work, even if the market says it's right, it shouldn't be,

Speaker:

it shouldn't be that, right? It just shouldn't. So anyway, that's kind of an interesting thing that's of lay to,

Speaker 2:

so then what do you have to borrow to have a jumbo now?

Speaker:

Uh, it depends on where you're at, but like, um, anything over pretty much anything. If you're borrowing more than 700, okay, you'll be in the jumbo category.

Speaker 2:

So you heard it here. Kids, uh, just try to do 90% financing in an$800,000 home if it as your first time buyer and you get better rates.

Speaker:

It's

Speaker 2:

not, I dunno, that's what I heard. It's not quite accurate. You're right.

Speaker:

You're actually

Speaker 2:

share it with another family.

Speaker:

I mean, it

really

Speaker 2:

just going on a jumbo with another family and live out at Harmony Club instead of down in Brown's.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Uh, village,

Speaker:

it's, it's so really interesting. So a lot of things are happening in real estate. One thing that's, there's always this trend within Fort Collins of where, uh, what's the most popular place? And it kind of moves around a lot, you know, like for a long time. And Old Town still sort of remains popular, but you, you have all of these other little neighborhoods and for a while, you know, the west side of Fort Collins was kind of like, we wanna live on the east side of Fort Collins. We want Nelson Collins Park, these interstate, stuff

Speaker 2:

like that. Right.

Speaker:

But we're seeing a lot more people that are more fascinated by the west side of town now.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker:

So places like Brown's farm and, um. Miller Brothers and the sort of west side of town is

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Really popular.

Speaker 2:

Even the West Vine bungalows

Speaker:

from back in the day, west bungalows from the day are super popular. So those are like that millennial access to the mountains. Yeah. It's really what it is. Yeah. The millennials are really like, they, they've moved here to live in the mountains. That's what they want. So that's kind of what is, uh, transpiring. If

Speaker 2:

they work in Denver, it's hybrid three days a week at least. And so that, yeah. Extra 15 minutes or 20 minutes to get to the interstate isn't that big a deal.

Speaker:

It's not that big a deal. And I think more than, more than anything, what you're seeing in Fort Collins in terms of the people that are actually living in Fort Collins, a lot more laptop class people anyway. Yeah. You know, people are working from home, doing whatever. Um, the government stuff, uh, were just getting back to getting back to the office. I mean, that was just this year, so you'd had four or five years of pretty much everybody could work from home. Yeah. And if again, Fort Collins, 50% of it's government related work, uh, in town. And so, um,

Speaker 2:

that much,

Speaker:

yeah.

Speaker 2:

For real.

Speaker:

For real. Yeah. I mean, you have more than, almost more

Speaker 2:

if you're including things like

Speaker:

C-S-U-C-S-U-P, puter School District. Right. U-S-D-A-C-D-C, medical, uh, medical is all hospitals. You call that hospitals. I would put them in the governmental class. Yeah. Um, so anyway, if you add all that up, it's probably more than 50% of the workforce now works for the government. Fort Collins. You know, whether that's here or there, I mean, it's a stable thing for the most part, most of the time. Is that, um,

Speaker 2:

like this is a little bit nefarious, but would like to,'cause Fort Collins has always been a kind of a cultural leader, kind of a town Yeah. Because of CSU and other things. Oh yeah. Would, would there be. Like, would people intentionally build up like the federal employment level and that kind of thing, just to be able to influence a town that influences other towns and stuff? Like is that,

Speaker:

well, I think

Speaker 2:

it's, or is it is, does it get the money because it's a cool town already and stuff? Or is?

Speaker:

Well, I think what you find is, and this was happening in the tech sector too back in the day, Fort Collin's a great place to live. So what you're looking for is employees and if you can offer employees a place to live. As a part of their package.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

Right. Well we have a, we have an office here in the very town you love'cause you just went to school here. Right, right. That tends to at least bring down overall costs and pay and that's what was happening in the tech sector. I think that's generally too true in government. Although that's changed in government too, because everybody's on a standardized CPI index and you know, there's not, you don't get to, they don't operate like the, they get raise private. Right. Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 2:

You were continuing.

Speaker:

But I think, um, that has had an impact in terms of just demand in Fort Collins. It's just, it's, you know, you, you always have some, a base of demand.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Where people are employed gainfully, they have kind of future or

Speaker 2:

government job.

Speaker:

Government job. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Oh, those weren't two different things. Oh, those

Speaker:

are

Speaker 3:

two different

Speaker:

things. Sorry

Speaker 2:

to all your government workers out there. I apologize. That was a. Inappropriate Chuck. I know some of you actually are gainfully employed at least 25%.

Speaker:

They, but I do think that's had a lot of impact on work from home and so that you've had Sure. More and more people are like, well, I, I don't have to be accessible to the inner city of the airport. I

Speaker 2:

can,

Speaker:

I can actually just do my job, job wherever I wanna live. That could be up to Pooter Canyon or whatever. So, so I think you're seeing a lot more west side popularity, which is kind of cool. Interesting to see. That's a different change in my life. The west side was always kinda like,

Speaker 2:

eh, the ugly, the redhead stepchild.

Speaker:

Yeah. I would say. And the lower priced housing, were always up against Foothills, weirdly.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Um, that's not the case now, so that's kind of interesting. That's

Speaker 2:

good.

Speaker:

Um, I inventory is up in the lower segments, so if you are looking for townhouses, if you're looking for first time home buying stuff, there's a lot more on the market. Okay. Um, which is good. I think that's a good thing to finally see happening. Still 500

Speaker 2:

grand.

Speaker:

But your entry point is 500,000. Uh, condos are less than that, but HOAs have gotten really crazy'cause of insurance. They've gotten really crazy because of a, a number of other things within HOA maintenance that have caused those to be really, your cost

Speaker 2:

of occupancy remains similar

Speaker:

anyway. Yeah. You know, if you buy 300,000,$350,000 condo, but you're paying$400 a month in HOA fees, that's not uncommon to see right now. Yeah. So a lot of that's kind of troublesome in the, in that lower end markets'cause HOA fees are counted as your, you know, as part of your payment. Sure. And so you're not buying as nearly as much and what's available in single family at that price is either needs a lot of fixing or has is old and has a lot of issues in terms of whether that's piping or lead based paint or bad foundations or

Speaker 2:

whatever. Last time you were here, there, we talked a little about water and like, especially home building over in like severance and

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Things like that. What's the scene and the, and if you know on the whole. Cascadia thing with Greeley and drama there. Yeah. Have you been studying up on, because I imagine it's a big deal for a bunch of people.

Speaker:

Yeah. Well, I mean, everything in the water is so u just, it's fluid. What a good joke. Um, there's a lot going on with water too. So a couple things. Water prices is down, so you seeing water prices between 55 and 60,000. Oh wow.'cause demand isn't there. Sure. So it's helpful for new construction, um, which is good. They're able to put their shares in at a much lower basis. We were at 85,000 this time last year, so that's come down pretty significantly.

Speaker 2:

30% price reduction is

Speaker:

meaningful. Yeah, it is

Speaker 2:

on that part.

Speaker:

And so that's good. I think the, the demand on water remains reasonably high, but the, the interesting thing that's happening with water is that it's so connected to the political process in terms of like development, what's going on. Either it's either with new infrastructure like Glade, the other Cascadia, all these other things that going on, or you have. Governmental pressures that are so significant that like, they don't want new development, governments don't want new development.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

So now you're

Speaker 2:

like, because then they have to get a bunch of water to feed

Speaker:

those

Speaker 2:

people

Speaker:

and water. Right. And the, so then the water price comes down because you can't get it through the process. So there's like, there's no demand for the water because of this. You can't get their, your neighborhood done.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Um, Northwell Water is finally off their moratorium. That was only Okay. It took'em three years to get out of their moratorium. So, um, that's been interesting to sort of see. So they've

Speaker 2:

got more water back available in North Weld

Speaker:

their infrastructure's back to where it's, they solved some of their issues with the dairy stuff that was going on, and they also have a plan for their infrastructure. Okay. Their infrastructure was pretty deficient, so delivery of water was becoming an issue.

Speaker 2:

Gotcha,

Speaker:

gotcha. And Northwell is kind of a, they were. I don't wanna say that they were a poorly run district. That's not what it is. But they were just a, they're a farmer district. In turn, they were above

Speaker 2:

their heads in

Speaker:

terms of

Speaker 2:

complexity

Speaker:

and it was really big. It's a very, very big service area. And they had, you know, to get water where it needs to go.

Speaker 2:

Yeah,

Speaker:

there's a lot of drag in those pipes. And so the getting the pressures and at the same time, those pressures that were once good now have changed because fire departments have all said, well, we've got these bigger trucks and we've got more things. So you need to have higher fire flows. So you can't be in the basin that you used to be in. Now we gotta get your infrastructure up. There's a lot of. C you know, conflicting pressures on Interesting. The system. Um, I think,

Speaker 2:

well some of that hollow, some of the new reservoir expansion really. Mm-hmm. Helps to aim to address that, moving that water over on the north side of the county, kinda.

Speaker:

Yeah. And I, so, so all that is good. It's all, that takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of money. So you'll, you'll see some of the, those impacts in terms of plan investment fees and, and infrastructure fees that'll come on. You still, if you did a cash and lie thing at Northwell, you'd be looking at, for an acreage, you'd be looking at a$130,000 tap with fees and water. Now if you can bring your water, you can bring that number down. But they're, they're still charging in the eighties. Wow. For their cash and lie price. Okay. So, yeah. You know, I think the pressures that are gonna come here are going to just continue to do things that I don't know that are, I don't know that it's great for a community. It's what it will be. Because I think it's, what's the inevitable outcome of sort of the managerial moment we're in?

Speaker 2:

Well, and I wanted to get into Nspa a little bit and Yeah. Glade. Yeah.'cause Fort Collins and at least one, maybe two other communities pulled out of that.

Speaker:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Which is a big part of their juice. They need to get the squeeze available.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Struggle. Is it too much

Speaker:

risk? I just, I don't know. I, I, I

Speaker 2:

like the cost. I saw the cost went up so much from when it was like approved.

Speaker:

Yeah. Yeah. The, the, the whole thing I, and I've said it from the beginning of that, is I just don't know that it'll ever get done. I mean, I, everybody's moving forward as if it's going to get done and it very well could.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

But you just, there's too much volatility and it takes so long.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

That the market, um, you know, and the market to water is municipalities and Totally, that's the customers, that's your customer. Right. And if, if Fort Collins goes, well, what am I, you know, I'm participating in this so that we can have more growth and more water. I don't want more growth, more, I don't want more water. Right. Why I'm not gonna do this, why would I do it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

I don't see the cost benefit, especially if it's, now it's up here and it was down here and I could see some benefit of this, but.

Speaker 2:

Like they, they sold connection. Like it was a thing to protect the citizens of Fort Collins to be for Collins. Well make sure we have enough fucking water.

Speaker:

I know

Speaker 2:

to do stuff like they have this huge department to bring business here, but they've got no lots or resources or utility expansion ability to do it.

Speaker:

I always feel sorry for the guy that's out doing Ava, which is, you know, just, yeah. It's like he's just been stuck in this no man's land for so long and some of it's related to Fort Collins, some of it's related to Elco. It's just, he's just stuck and he just can't do anything. He's been working on it for more than 10 years.

Speaker 2:

Yeah,

Speaker:

and I, I don't know. And he's

Speaker 2:

brilliant.

Speaker:

He's great. Yeah. My, yeah, he told me

Speaker 2:

maybe come January you'd have some good news to report

Speaker:

on the

Speaker 2:

podcast

Speaker:

here. I hope he does. I hope he does. I mean, I hope he does, but I always think about like, that's just a tough, it's doing development. I was just on the phone with my dad on our way in and we were looking at a couple of things and I, he just was like, you know, I just don't know that there's anything to do. You know, you either have to have such deep pockets or be leveraged so high with the banks.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. A quick turn.

Speaker:

There's just, there's just not enough juice in it. And I, and I think all of that has, it's all con, it's finally all sort of coming to its fruition with this idea that you've got, you know, you just have all these complications. You've got, you've got water problems, you've got political problems, you've got, uh, inflation problems, you've got demand problems. All of this stuff is hitting at the same time and it's making real estate challenging. I mean it, great houses still sell great properties and great locations at the right price. Right. Still selling. I could sell my

Speaker 2:

house if I wanted

Speaker:

to. Absolutely. And, and you could sell it for way more than you paid for it, you know? Sure. That's just a real num that's a real thing'cause of where you are. And it's a great house. It's a great location. Those that are in the outliers if you're in severance or outlying of in Eaton. Yeah. Or if you're in, you know, not such a great part of Fort Collins or if you're, you know, someplace in Loveland that isn't as desirable, you're gonna struggle to sell it. Or if the house is dated or if there's issues with it. And I still think we haven't recovered from people thinking that what the number is is what Zillow tells it is. And it's not that it's just, and it moves much faster than Zillow can react.

Speaker 3:

Hmm.

Speaker:

Zillow's turning into more of an appraisal situation than it is like an appraiser's always behind the ball. Right. Right. Zillow's a little bit like that. They're not advanced, they're not out advancing what's actually happening within the market. They can only respond to what's actually happening the day of, and if something's under contract, they don't know that data. If they're, it's just, it's, it's okay. It's like, get you close.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

But unfortunately, they're all much higher than what the numbers in the real market are. So.

Speaker 2:

We've got like 15 minutes left really, of this show. And you know, I've had you on here like five times previous, so we've pulled out all of your crazy experiences out.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

But I'm gonna ask you to get speculative a little bit. Okay. Like, like you were kind of dire, like probably the most dire I've heard you in terms of your outlook for the future and like what happens from here in some of our lead in times. And it wasn't just because the blue wave came crashing. No, no, it had nothing to do that. It's because even if the blues when it, they can't fix it. The reds can't fix it. It's just kind of a, a, a broken suck. Suck banger. Banger that screws poor people in middle class to the benefit of rich people. And that's the way the system is and it's never gonna change is kind of the summary of what I heard.

Speaker:

That's probably a fair summary.

Speaker 2:

So, so like. It's speculation.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Like what, what is that crazy thing? Or absent a convention of states where the reds and blues talk it through, like how can we can better get along together? That's one been one of my theories is if we just hold it more loosely, really minimize the national scope of operations and increase state taxes, drop national taxes so that, and then do some testing, do some modeling, do some local funding of initiatives.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

But yeah. How, I guess two questions. How does that boil down and, and how in, because you're a student and you're, there isn't nobody that's studied systems of political economy more than you That I know.

Speaker:

Yeah. I mean I look, I've got four 20 year olds that live in my house, you know, I mean, basically.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

And, and there four 20-year-old men. Two, or in college two are about to go to college and

Speaker 2:

got two eighteens and 19 and a 22 or whatever, 18, 20.

Speaker:

I got two 20 year olds about to be, oh, there are two 20 ones. And, and then I've got an, an, an 18-year-old and 17-year-old right now. Yeah. But you know, within,

Speaker 2:

effectively

Speaker:

within a moment,

Speaker 2:

plus they all grew up together. So they're basically all the same age in their minds, except for the older ones that are, think they're older.

Speaker:

And what I find really interesting is like, you know, we're, we're fine. Our family's fine. We will be fine, be our, I never wanna be in this

Speaker 2:

your, your grandfather and your. Uncle and dad created generational wealth.

Speaker:

Yeah. At some level and

Speaker 2:

not,

Speaker:

so, it's not like, it's not a sour grapes conversation for us as a family. It's not, it's not what it is, but I feel like I have a, I have a deep responsibility to the people who can't live that way. Right. I, I just feel that, I've always felt that I've, you've known me for 30 year, 25 years. Yeah. It's part of our

Speaker 2:

affinity to each other

Speaker:

even. Yeah. I just feel

Speaker 2:

like I was this poor, dumbass banker that left his job and was serving on the board of the Matthews house. You know,

Speaker:

I think, I think it's imperative that people who have something do something for their community. So this isn't a conversation around like, oh, wo is us.

Speaker 2:

Hmm.

Speaker:

That's not what this is. But I look at our country and I go, there's a whole landscape of 20 year olds and my kids all have their friends over. Right. They're 20-year-old friends, or they're 18-year-old friends. They're 17-year-old friends. And I hear them talking and I hear their sort of disparaging of the system. They're the, and there's a desperation in their voices. Yeah. Like, what am I supposed to do as a young male in America, which used to be this kind of like, well, you do whatever you want.

Speaker 2:

Right. This

Speaker:

is a big, bright future, you know? Yeah. Go

Speaker 2:

buy a

convertible

Speaker:

at a four

Speaker 2:

speed

Speaker:

with a great big, beautiful tomorrow. Yeah, right. All that stuff. But when I hear them talking about it and there's empirical evidence,'cause I'm watching it in a daily basis, like, yeah, hey, if I, my kids wanted to. Buy a house, they're gonna be in their thirties when they buy a house. If they do it the traditional way. Right. If they're, if they go a lot about this just in like, go get a job.

Speaker 3:

Yep.

Speaker:

Go do the things, get a W2, get married, married percent income, try your best and try to do this thing. You're gonna be in your thirties, which means that you're not having, most people don't have children until they have a house.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

So that means that like, we're pushing demographics way out into the future. Right.

Speaker 2:

Which means you'll automatically decrease the number of kids people are gonna

Speaker:

have. That's exactly right. So you'll, you know,'cause when you're young, you'll have, you'll, you'll have four before you realize that they're too expensive. Yes. Uh, and, but that's not like. If you're in your thirties now you start to make, you start to make economic decisions. Right? And you live your life as homo economicus, right? It's just like everything is based on economics. Yeah. And when you do that, then you get more and more frustrated about the situation because you can't ever catch it because all these things go in this direction and you're like, well, like I'm still chasing my down payment. But now the houses have all gone faster because now we're on a, now we're on an exponential scale. We a$500,000 house, a 10% increase on that is a lot of money.

Speaker 2:

Right?

Speaker:

Right. 10% down payment, I gotta save an extra

Speaker 2:

four grand to

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Make a down payment.

Speaker:

That's a lot. And you may, and you may not catch that in time. So, and interest rates may change in that middle of that game and now you're really messed up or whatever. So it tho those things impact those kids. And when I hear their voices of like, well, I don't know if I wanna go to school, then I don't know if I want to, you know, what job will I get? What am I gonna go do? You know, that that is a discouragement to me, and I think that is something that has to be addressed in our country. If we're going to survive, if, if we're gonna do a convention of the states or if we're gonna get motivated, you're gonna have to give these kids some hope that they can do it, that, that they can, that it's worth a fight. Right, because the trade that they've been told is there.

Speaker 2:

So do we have to fight against somebody? Like

Speaker:

do the enemy. You the enemy is the train that you're on, the

Speaker 2:

complacency

Speaker:

train. The complacency, the, the train that's moving in the same direction that you can't undo. You're gonna, we're gonna have to find a place in a, get the train to jump the tracks. Be messy. But I think you have to have that happen in order for, for somebody to say like, we can't continue to move in the same direction. You can't have$40 trillion.

Speaker 2:

Is that like a bust of the, the federal reserve system, even

Speaker:

virtually?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

I

Speaker 2:

think those losing our reserve status as a, as a nation,

Speaker:

I think you're gonna have to see oil detached from the dollar

Speaker 2:

dollar.

Speaker:

I think that's gonna have to happen. I think. Uh, and I think you're gonna, you're starting to see those things happen.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker:

You're definitely starting to see things with, with Russia and China and Brazil, bricks, all that stuff is really happening. And they're not, they're not moving off of that. You know, they may kind of play Right

Speaker 2:

now

Speaker:

we're too

Speaker 2:

powerful for them to really confront directly.

Speaker:

But$40 trillion in debt. You lose your status as something that people trust,

Speaker 2:

right?

Speaker:

What are you doing? What are you doing about this? You know, well, nothing, we're just spending more,

Speaker 2:

right?

Speaker:

Ah, we shut our government down. Okay, well great, so then, but

Speaker 2:

we gotta pay back, pay for everybody anyway. So we actually didn't save any

Speaker:

money, so we didn't do any, say, we didn't do any of that and, and you're not really getting into the disciplinarian discipline of like, okay, you have to live a responsible citizen driven life, the kids.

Speaker 2:

So we need to turn our politicians into ho Homo Economicus.

Speaker:

Well, we a little bit. They need to understand it for sure.

Speaker 2:

Well, they will. Well the dollar loses, reserve currency status and whatever else, I suppose.

Speaker:

And I think they have to, the, the politicians have to listen to the people and then the, and I also don't know if I can blame the politicians'cause I'm just the thing's too damn big.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

It just is such a big behemoth that it's really hard to move. So the only way to do it is to sort of have these really disruptive breaking moments, like the dollar collapses or you have, or do you

Speaker 2:

think we would remain one nation? No. If the dollar broke,

Speaker:

I don't

Speaker 2:

How do you think that would shake down?

Speaker:

I don't know. I mean, may be more regional, maybe more, you know, like these different factions of things. And may, there may be real, real alignments that happen. It's either that that dollar breaks apart or you start to see a movement of secession, like true secession. Right. So there's a good question about like, so now, uh. What is the role of the federal government? And you, you have things like Oregon where all drugs are legalized to the point at which, you know, fentanyl and everything.

Speaker 2:

It was,

Speaker:

they kind of turned away from that away because that

Speaker 2:

was a shit show.

Speaker:

But it's all been sort of like, you know, it's, but that's against the federal law.

Speaker 2:

Totally.

Speaker:

Right. So no matter what it is, even marijuana, Colorado, early, early document that.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

So if that's the case, what other laws are not applicable?

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

Like,

Speaker 2:

well, and what's natural law? That was an interesting thing. Like did, right, did the federal government ever have a place regulating marijuana? I don't know.

Speaker:

I don't know. Didn't

Speaker 2:

seem like it.

Speaker:

And then you

Speaker 2:

necessarily,

Speaker:

so then if you, and if you take that to its logical end, right? It's like, well then, okay, so. If this law isn't, doesn't need to be ab obeyed. What about taxes?

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

Or what about like, so why did we fight a civil war in which there was a conflict over what the law's irreconcilable was between the states?

Speaker 2:

So we wanted common defense and we wanted trade. Yes. And that's pretty much it.

Speaker:

So, so what out of that? So I think you, you're going to either have to see secession, something where someone like a California or someone like Texas, Florida, Texas or a Texas says, we're out.

Speaker 2:

Just out. Yeah,

Speaker:

we're out. We can survive on our own.

Speaker 2:

I'll take my 6% of that debt, I guess, but I don't want it to get any worse before I leave. So by

Speaker:

the only nonviolent way to end it is if, if the states stopped sending their money to Washington first. Mm. The Nixon stuff that happened in the seventies where everyone had to send it to Washington and then everybody has to send it back.

Speaker 2:

Yep.

Speaker:

If the states decided that would be, if, if they would just say, we're, we're done. We're not sending our money to the federal government any longer.

Speaker 2:

Yep.

Speaker:

I think that's the,

Speaker 2:

and if that could be declared by both the progressive states and the conservative states, which it could,

Speaker:

it could,

Speaker 2:

like California has threatened to do that kind of'cause they

Speaker:

and Florida could do the same. Right. So if those two players said, we're not doing this. Yep. And I leave Texas out of it.'cause it's really a, it's just a mess. It's not Texas politics is really messy. But those two are like your beta testing of Yep. The most things.

Speaker 2:

Yep.

Speaker:

The most progressive is California. The, the most conservative Florida. Which, which is crazy. Florida

Speaker 2:

has become that over the last

Speaker:

I know,

Speaker 2:

20 years.

Speaker:

Especially living in

Speaker 2:

Florida. Florida Van Miami. What? They're the conservatives now. What the hell?

Speaker:

But I think if you could do that and they said we're done.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

We're not sending it.

Speaker 2:

And then Utah's like, yeah, we're in. Yeah. We'll, north Dakota's like, yeah, we're in.

Speaker:

And suddenly you'd see this like maybe an amalgamation of more than 38 states, which would get you to a convention.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker:

Um, that's the only non, that's the only nonviolent way out of it. Okay. Okay. If the Petrodollar collapses you, you're gonna have really big troubles. A lot of violence, A lot of, I think it ends up in violence.

Speaker 2:

Internal violence.

Speaker:

Internal violence. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

How do they decide who, I guess whoever controls the military kind of wins, right. Yeah. And

Speaker:

I like, you know, I don't know. And I can't, I don't necessarily speculate about the end. I don't know what that is. But I do think you'll see people just will give up. And so when you give up, then you turn to like desperation. And when you are desperate, you do violent things.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

That So it'll be neighbor to neighbor. It'll be this like, yeah. I mean, it'll be a very

Speaker 2:

strange do thing. It splits up regionally. It actually becomes civil war. Civil war. Like the, yeah. It could be streets of Iraq, whether you're a loyalist or a,

Speaker:

yeah, it could be.

Speaker 2:

Whatever.

Speaker:

It could be. So that's not,

Speaker 2:

you could have that big red target for during those days. Hopefully you don't

Speaker:

need it. I don't, I don't want that to happen. I wanna say that. Like I don't, I don't want that to be the outcome. I don't think that's, I don't think that's the right way, but when I hear 20 year olds and I spend time around them Yeah. And when and when I hear them, it's a very different than when I was 20.

Speaker 2:

No, the optimism is, uh,

Speaker:

I was like, I didn't care.

Speaker 2:

And it took me 20 years to get as cynical as I got.

Speaker:

Yeah. Guys are, when we first met guys, these guys are cynical at 20 18, 25. And they're going, it didn't work. It doesn't work. Right. The system doesn't work for me.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker:

And I'm not gonna make the trade that you've asked me to make,

Speaker 2:

no matter which perspective you're on.

Speaker:

No.

Speaker 2:

Like I don't think you can look at Congress from either perspective.

Speaker:

No.

Speaker 2:

Like the Democrats think the Democratic Congress is retarded, only surpassed by the Republicans and the Republicans think that the Yeah. Republican party is retarded. You can't or surpassed by the Democrats in Congress.

Speaker:

Yeah. You're not gonna,

Speaker 2:

it's a dysfunctional hall.

Speaker:

It's dysfunctional and it really, it's not working. And weirdly, it's dysfunctional to those of us in the populace. It's completely functioning as it's designed. And that's where the rub is.

Speaker 2:

It will create the outcomes that are designed to do.

Speaker:

We're on a train.

Speaker 2:

It's gonna be crazy. Thanks for listening to The Loco Experience.

Speaker:

Yep.

Speaker 2:

Cheers. Got speed?

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Curt Bear

Host