(((My Fellow Americans))) #119 – Peter C. Earle (feat. Special Guest Host The Eskimo Libertarian)

DISCLOSURE

FULL TRANSCRIPT TEXT

i’ll be buried in my grave
before i become a slave yes
that is
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but it seems like since that
day we have solely changed
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that is
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but it seems like since
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we have sorely changed
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good afternoon folks or good evening for
those that are on the eastern coast i am
your host tonight the eskimo libertarian
i am not spike cohen um i’m literally
not spy cohen um in fact spike cohen uh
is actually busy at uh he’s in studio
with kennedy on fox business tonight so
even though i’m not spike cohen this
might be what spike cohen would look
like if he had a lot more botox uh maybe
some hair extensions
i don’t know
but anyways so i will be your host
tonight um spike will be conducting the
actual interview so i am playing vanna
white by pressing all the buttons and
making things go live and i will be live
in the comments
so uh you can interact with me there but
the actual interview will be done by
spike cohen
so
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before we get started with the interview
let’s go ahead and pay some bills
so first up
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alrighty and today’s guest is
well i’m gonna let spike cohen introduce
him actually so without further ado
spike cohen folks
all right cool um i will uh i will get
started
right now
folks my guest tonight is an economist
who has spent over 20 years as a trader
and analyst at a number of securities
firms and hedge funds in new york his
research focuses on financial markets
cryptocurrencies monetary policy the
economics of gaming and problems in
economic measurement he has been
featured or quoted in the wall street
journal bloomberg reuters cnbc npr
reason magazine numerous other media
outlets and publications uh he is
currently an economist and author with
the american institute for economic
research one of my favorite groups out
there uh he also has a series of covid
books coronavirus books available right
now on amazon the most recent one being
i even put it up here it is the most
recent one being coronavirus and new
hope so he’s also an eternal optimist
and we’re gonna talk about that ladies
and gentlemen my fellow americans please
welcome to the show mr and soon to be dr
peter c earl pete thanks so much for
being on the show man
one hopes we uh you know a lot of
uncertainty but thanks for having me
is that the new hope that you become a
doctor in the process
you know i mean uh
i’m finishing a dissertation now and uh
starting to talk very very loosely about
defense states but i mean between uh
different uh
lockdowns in different countries and uh
trying to get the dissertation done and
work and family issues you know these
things can be uh somewhat squishy
they’re kind of hard to nail down
wait it’s gonna happen it’s gonna happen
the new hope is coming listen i am very
excited to have you on because we have
talked a lot about macroeconomics uh on
this show but uh we’re gonna get a
chance to talk about how it specifically
is affecting us when it comes to what’s
happening with the supply chain and the
economy right now and we’ve talked
briefly about that with other people on
the show but i’m really i’ve been ever
since i found out that you were booked
for the show i’ve been very excited to
uh to really nail that down with someone
specifically that so thank you again for
being on man i really appreciate him my
pleasure
so let’s get into it um well first of
all before we get started with that i
always like to ask my guests what got
him where they were where they are right
now um and you can start as early as you
want you know i was born at a young age
um but uh
what got you into economics was there
like this aha moment where you realized
this is what you wanted to be involved
in obviously background and in trading
and finances uh or was there sort of a
gradual evolution over time did you just
go where the money was or you know what
what tell us the the peter c earl
genesis story
yeah i mean i didn’t get bit by a
radioactive spider or anything i uh
i when i uh got out of college i went to
work in the financial markets well first
of all as an undergrad i did take one
economics course i absolutely hated it
uh
i couldn’t understand why i needed to
know this stuff it all seemed so arcane
and uh at the time it seemed perfectly
useless uh so
i didn’t realize that when i went to
work in the financial markets and then
uh i was uh kind of an early crypto guy
in 2011 or so when i actually started a
business at one point
i didn’t realize until maybe the mid
maybe about 2014 or 2015 that actually
the threat of continuity between so much
of what i was doing and so much of what
interested me was actually economics and
i liken the change i made from finance
to economics is moving from the
microscope to the telescope so much
broader sort of view um a look at uh
processes which occur at a very high
level although of course microeconomics
is kind of financed anyway in some ways
but uh yeah so so from there uh i i i
was doing my own thing and i went to the
uh or rather i came to the sound money
uh project’s uh annual meeting at air in
2018 and uh
for uh for the cut of my gym and perhaps
for my sins uh they hired me
well you’ve done great work in fact the
most of what we’re gonna be talking
about is featured on the two of the more
recent articles you’ve done uh on with
aier and um it this was actually it was
your article from october 2nd that
actually sparked us reaching out uh to
you to have you on the show because
we’re like yes this is who we were
looking for we were looking for someone
that had a broad grasp of this and was
ready to delve down with it with a jew
in his guest room for an hour um and uh
so i’m really excited about that um now
you have these books uh that came out
it’s a series the most recent one is
coronavirus and new hope i think it
started with coronavirus and uh economic
crisis right and then there’s been a few
since then
yeah there was uh coronavirus and
economic crisis
then coronavirus and economic recovery
uh then there was chronovirus and
disease modeling coronavirus and uh
human rights
coronavirus a new hope and maybe
who knows chronovirus strikes back
chronovirus fights again
chronovirus attack of the variants yeah
uh
that no that’s good no it’s i like that
that you’re building a um
a parallel star wars fanfic universe um
based on what we’re actually
experiencing right now so
tell us a little bit about that series
what you know what you’re are you
basically chronicling
how
kind of taking a step back and making a
kind of dispassionate look of how covet
has affected these different things or
is it just sort of a timeline what what
what are you trying to accomplish with
the series there’s yeah there’s both i
mean uh so there they are most of the
books are the the intro and the and the
conclusion are written by me and i also
write about half
anywhere from half to three quarters of
the articles but i also have articles
that were written by other people at or
in association with air and the first
two uh crisis of recovery actually cover
uh what was happening during the
lockdowns and then what was happening as
things were opening back up the next
three uh disease modeling uh human
rights and new hope new hope also sort
of covers what’s happening in the spring
of 2021
late winter in spring of 2021 but but i
would say that books three and four
which are um both uh
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you know disease modeling and and uh
human rights are more on those topics um
the way that uh quantitative models i
mean many of the same criticisms which
are made about econometrics you could
make about epidemiology
and that’s what disease modeling has to
do with i
was really taken aback when some years
ago long before the coronavirus uh
outbreak before the pandemic
there were scientists saying that they
could learn
about how diseases spread and what
people are likely to do from an event
that occurred in uh world of warcraft uh
with the uh i believe was called the
corrupted blood spell where the way
people uh responded was you know some
hid and some were sort of griefers and
they spread the disease on purpose and i
was really it really disturbed me to
think that uh beyond
making interesting parallels between
what happened in the game in the real
world um it would actually try to base
um real life
uh policy or i mean i hope not a bit
on games so um that’s all in the book on
uh on disease modeling then human rights
really started with an article i wrote
which basically in which basically i
assert that the un
um has basically proven that it has no
teeth and it should probably be
abandoned because
uh with with something like you know 1.5
or 2 billion people under lockdown at
one point
which in the u.s is bad enough in
countries which are uh already uh
subsisting uh
on very low levels of
of of food and that sort of thing very
low standards of living um it’s
devastating and that there would be
starvation and the long-term effects
would be devastating so that’s those two
books are more about what was happening
overall than at the specific time
yeah in fact i’m glad you brought that
up because this is something i said more
than a few times even when the lockdowns
were being threatened
you know this was like i guess maybe uh
late february early march of last year
where i was saying i was still running
for the nomination at that point and i’m
saying folks
what is this going to do to people who
already are relying on almost entirely
from a combination of food aid from
wealthier countries and uh and tr and
either you know tourism trade uh you
know whatever
doing business with wealthier countries
what happens when you shut the economy
down temporarily uh temporarily being
for however many months and you know red
light green light turning it back on and
off like that’s how that works but then
also probably cutting off the aid
because they’re gonna say well we can’t
you know we don’t know the safety
conditions and you know
i we didn’t know what this virus looked
like back then but i thought it was safe
to assume that if you were young and
healthy that the odds were uh you know
unless this was some kind of weird uh
you know uh sci-fi flick where only the
young and healthy are affected typically
the people that are in these countries
tend to be younger tend to not
necessarily be healthier in a broader
sense but they tend to be uh they don’t
have obesity issues that these are the
people who are the least likely to be
affected by the virus itself and it
seems like we’re just throwing away
billions of people uh or at least
hundreds of millions of people who rely
entirely on having other wealthier
countries you know doing business with
them and in some cases helping them
providing them with things what happens
to them and the fact that the initial
response i got from people including
those who consider themselves you know
bleeding heart types was well we’re just
gonna have to figure it out was it made
me realize like oh you don’t actually
like you don’t really care about them
like that that it that wasn’t the
concern you said that it was so i’m glad
you actually brought that up
so so i mean it it starts really starts
in two ways right it starts with either
stupidity or
criminal disregard for human welfare
okay so we had with the arrival of the
virus came these shutdowns that were
locked down state home orders all this
sort of thing mostly in in march and
april that’s really where the story
begins
americans and people around the world
were basically told
you can have an economy or you can have
public health but not both which is
which is by far the fastest dichotomy
since you’re either with us or against
us and
as we start this conversation i want to
say this to two times because it’s
something that i think is one of the
most pernicious um myths to come out of
this and one that
i find a need to repeat every day
governments
not a virus
caused what we’re seeing today
i’ll say it a second time state policy
not stars cove 2 cov2
caused what we’re seeing today
period underscore bold face
almond
no i’m glad i’m glad you’re saying that
i’ve had people tell me we’re going to
talk about this you know well the reason
uh that the the shipping crisis is
happening is because of all the people
that died of covid and i said that’s not
that’s
the fact that you think that you’re
definitely in that realm of people who
in the opinion poll thought that 50
percent of people who get covet die in
the hospital or what like
you know you certainly see this as
something complete this is an economic
issue that was caused by bad government
policy and obviously we’re going to
delve into that absolutely
yep
so um let’s talk about before let’s
define the problem you know getting into
economics you got to define the issue
first and start measuring from there so
what exactly is happening let’s talk
about the symptoms of what are taking
place right now with the economy what
would you say you know you know we’re
looking at you know empty cargo
containers that are are waiting out
they’re not they’re not even clogging
ports they’re waiting outside of ports
they’re not even able to get into the
ports uh you have ships waiting to dock
truckers are sitting for hours or days
waiting to pick up the cargo on the
other end um so there’s obviously a
couple of bottlenecks happening there uh
there’s this
i love to watch the corporate media work
with uh government you know
was it wall street journal or forbes
that put out something saying don’t be
upset just lower your expectations and
it was just like wow okay thanks jeff it
was washington post because like hey
thanks jeff bezos who just got a 10
billion dollar no big contract on
something they didn’t even do i’ll lower
my expectations about what i can have
for the holiday season
what are the what are you you know what
are you seeing beyond this that are the
major issues before we get into the
causes what are the major things that
are happening right now
so
i mean first of all how could you
how could anybody who doesn’t play with
spaceships not have lower expectations
than jeff bezos but anyway
and by the way i’m in huge favor of
private space travel i’m just saying oh
he would be better off being quiet but
there’s a view
and i i don’t want to jump i’m going to
take one step back if you don’t mind
sure there’s a view
that
and it’s among public officials
that economies are like lamps and you
can shut them off and turn them on it
will
with little or no consequences right
yeah so
with lockdowns and then a huge
a huge monetary expansion campaign by
the fed
and then a number of fiscal stimulus
measures which all of that led to
a massive surge in demand
and plummeting supply
right
so you have skyrocketing demand for
people who are bored they’re lonely
they’re worried they suddenly have lots
of disposable income probably less
expenses too they’re not going to work
every day and all that
and at the same time you have plummeting
supply from shut down factories mines
mills stores and all that sort of thing
and what’s interesting is that we saw
the exact opposite of this at the same
time when opec flooded the market
because they had a dispute in prices
and nobody was traveling we saw oil
futures close down 32 dollars a barrel
so on the other side of this you have
skyrocketing demand for goods and
services
tons of money out there and absolutely
nothing no production no distribution
coming out all that sort of thing that’s
the that’s the root cause of all of this
yeah yeah and so the and this so
basically this is central planning this
is absolutely
i remember watching over the last year
with some weird combination of of of
just
misery and and very strong level of shot
and freud except the problem is it’s a
shot and freud where it’s like yeah i
know i’m experiencing it too but you
guys i you you know you’re
it was a huge i told you so we’re it’s a
it’s like the stereotypical we’re all in
the dungeon you know about to be
executed and i get to go ah who was
right here you know like you know great
i was right i wish i wasn’t right but
right you know austrian uh economists
chicago school economists even some
keynesians were saying this is going to
lead to exactly what we’re seeing right
now you’re going to have some things
that are have massive gluts you’re going
to have other things that are greatly
restricted not just where it affects
pricing but where it’s just not
available and then thanks to uh in some
cases price gouging laws there’s just
going to be no supply of it it’s not
they’re going to say okay great at that
price i can’t supply it and so you’re
just going to have a shortage of that
thing you’re going to have all of these
restrictions that made our supply chain
so brittle to begin with are going to
come to light because it’s not going to
be able to ramp up
so earlier this month you wrote before
the public hysterics lockdowns and
stay-at-home orders and even before the
first offloading was delayed nominal
rigidities had ossified u.s poor
operations and made them particularly
vulnerable to even the slightest kinks
in supply chains can can you talk about
the nominal rigidities and and the the
policies that were causing that so we
can dive into that
sure so so the term nominal rigidities
refers to prices that uh whether because
of collective bargaining or whether
because of fixed wages or fixed sale
prices or whatever don’t move they don’t
respond to deployment
to supply and demand or they don’t
respond in the way that they might
otherwise
the sophistication of the modern world
the modern commercial world is very easy
to overlook uh you know the this
incomprehensible variety of goods from
all around the world that are right at
our fingertips within a day or two
has become so reliable that we take them
for granted but when in fact all along
it’s been an extremely fragile
and coordinated dance of sorts so
most we’ll go to the doc work okay most
if not all dock work in the u.s is
collectively bargained right
when i was a kid in the new york city
area we call them stevedores dock
workers right
some of them earn more than doctors do
now
i’m not saying they have skills i’m not
saying they don’t have skills or that
that’s justified but those prices are
not made on the market those prices are
made
by collective bargaining agreements
for years those unions have militated
against upgrading to the type of
equipment you would find on docks such
as in china denmark and a number of
other countries which have
you know extremely sophisticated trade
relationships and a lot of uh sea travel
that sort of thing that artificially
lowers the head count and increases the
time it takes to do work and guess what
this may surprise you but they’re paid
hourly
so
that’s a huge source of of of
nominal rigidities which uh after a few
so
there were exogenous and endogenous hits
that the supply chain took this is an
endogenous one
yeah so this is you know it was
interesting um there was a an article
that came out that talked about uh in
fact i think it was was that your
article was with air where it talked
about the collective bargaining uh that
were like one of the only developed
countries on in fact it was air this
might have been your article
was it
yeah
okay where it talked about the fact that
uh okay so i’ve already quoted you on
the show multiple times so
congratulations um and i actually
ratioed joe biden on his own post by
sharing your article and saying why
aren’t you talking about why we weren’t
24 7 operating to begin with so uh
that’s how my phones are bugged
that’s why
that’s why you’re now on a watch list
you’re
you’re welcome uh but so you know
we were the only one of the only if not
the only certainly the only of the
largest developed countries that was
operating on a on a you know
not a 24 7 schedules like a five-day
schedule 18-5 schedule or something like
that and yeah i’ve been told it’s
something like 5 a.m to 9 00 p.m
something like that yeah yeah yeah so
yes which to them you know that sounds
like a nightmare to it to a union worker
but in in the in the developed world in
the new age economy goods and services
are supposed to be moving all the time
24 7.
not not during expanded bank hours um
and uh and so you know that was an
incredible thing but that’s only as you
pointed out in your most recent article
that’s so funny that’s my article as you
pointed out in your most recent in in
one of your more recent articles that
only makes up now ten percent’s a lot
but that only makes up about ten percent
of the of the actual cause of the
backlog so what are what are some of in
your mind the biggest
causes of this backlog
so another thing is that the unions uh
the dock workers unions have uh
have militated against using
the most up-to-date equipment
so if you take a look at the port
operations in places like excuse me uh
rotterdam
um
amsterdam places like that uh you’ll see
really sophisticated equipment that’s
used uh i’ve been told i haven’t seen it
there’s actually
they’re they’re they’re they’re laser
guided systems which can stack and
remove uh containers from ships and they
move very quickly and very efficiently
um
we don’t have those in the u.s in many
places in most places because the unions
have have basically uh prevented them
from being installed and also a lot of
the work is still done by hand which uh
it i mean
a few people when they’ve heard this
they’ve said that simply can’t be the
case but uh when uh when when uh the
blind administration went to the unions
and said hey can you go from
uh nine five a.m to nine pm to twenty
four seven has occurred in a few places
all they did was increased their working
hours but they didn’t increase the
efficiencies they didn’t improve the
rate you know whether it’s containers an
hour or ships per day or whatever
they’re going to be offloaded so
it’s uh i mean that’s that’s that’s
really the the at the crux of the issue
so this could end up leading to you know
okay great we’ll work this many more
hours but there’s going to be a slowdown
there was a similar thing that happened
in uh france and this was in i’m dating
myself now i want to say this was in
like 2004-2005
where they were having an issue with
their rail workers and uh and that’s all
unionized uh in fact those are i think
actually public employee unions and i’m
trying to remember the exact details but
basically they made them work more hours
so they just slowed the the speed of the
trains down so that roughly it was it
was the same amount so it actually
screwed over the the passengers the
consumers of that product because now it
was taking them longer to get to where
they needed to go uh so nothing was
happening other than all that happened
was that the uh the union workers were
now getting more hours of work and it
was taking longer for people to get to
work so do you think it’s possible that
this could actually be that where it
actually in one way slows things down
because yes they’ve expanded the hours
but there was no actual promise that
there would be an increase in
output or productivity yeah yeah at the
very least it doesn’t help and it
probably more likely it probably makes
things at least a little if not much
worse you know
for decades americans have been told
look for the union label by american and
that unionization was good and right
solitary and that we should we should be
happy to spend more on u.s goods versus
embracing global competition i mean i
think it’s time for it’ll never happen
politicians will never do it but i wish
americans could could somehow say listen
for years we bought your overpriced
goods we put up with the artificial
hindrances
um that politicians directed to cuddle
you against competition
it’s your turn now to give back
act like adults who know the demand
curve slowed down
and and and and and
you know
and
embrace competition even temporarily
even temporarily suspend the minimum
wages suspend the artificial uh
restraints on on headcounts and all that
sort of thing i mean again that chance
of that happening but that’s what i
think should be done
no i i tend to agree with you i i’m
actually not against unions per se i’m
against what they’ve turned into it’s to
me i’m not against unions i mean i think
it’s the right of association all that i
wouldn’t ban unions but i would say
listen you know if you’re going to
require me or if you’re going to you’re
going to basically muscle
the government to make me buy your goods
uh your your your agreements have to be
flexible too this is one of those times
where we should invoke
uh some sort of uh
an emergency valve which says okay guys
for the next six months for next year or
until the backlog of ships is less than
five you know per day or whatever uh
we’re going to bring more people on and
yeah you can call them scabs or whatever
but we’re gonna get this thing going
again
yeah it’s gonna be one or the other it’s
either you get to keep your clothes shop
stuff in place but there’s gonna have to
be some flexibility on your side or hey
let’s reexamine the idea of these closed
shops um right a side note to that and i
don’t know if you know much about this
but apparently either yesterday or the
day before ron desantis uh called for
the ships to just come to florida he
said we’ve got the we’ve got the ports
we’ve got the the workers um and he he
said he was uh or it’s been speculated
that he’s speaking with the people that
have the docs there to talk about
expanding it i don’t know much about
shipping specifically when it comes to
the logistics so maybe you know this
better than me is it possible obviously
longer term expanding a dock or
something like that as a multi-month
multi-year process but if everything
remained as it is is there a possibility
that the center of shipping in the u.s
could ship could shift to the east coast
between the panama canal and just the
differences in rigidity and pricing and
so forth that you could end up seeing
this sort of uh uh
shift from you know california and the
in the western ports to florida and the
southeastern ports as a means of getting
goods uh by ship into the u.s or is that
are there too many geographical things
that would make that not really possible
i mean i’ll give you the economist
answer uh it’s all about the cost it’s
all about the prices if they can make
them at least competitive i mean it’s
it’s it’s worth more to shipping
companies to have goods moving than not
so what they’re seeing right now is
untenable the question is whether this
becomes whether a move or a change to
florida is semi-permanent or permanent
and that all depends on the cost right
now i think many of these firms uh many
of the big shipping firms and and the
firms that are sending goods through
through on on
tankers or rather cargo ships and that
sort of thing they want this stuff to
get going and i think uh if they knew it
was temporary they might be inclined to
eat some of the higher cost just to just
to sort of smooth over things and keep
their supplier relationships happy and
content but um it’s really if they can
make the cost if florida can make the
cost decisively lower and really sort of
cut into uh these overhead costs that
are so sticky uh and and
represent such rigidities in the cost
structure yeah i could see that
happening sure i mean it’s happened to
the airlines
yeah it has definitely happened with the
airlines and you could you know even if
it takes a few extra days to get here
from you know instead of california
compare that to being stuck at sea for
some of these boats have been there for
like a month and a half like so you know
you make that comparison it’s a
no-brainer obviously so i was just
curious of your thoughts on that because
i literally found out about that like
yesterday evening um right before we did
our show last night and uh and i thought
well okay that maybe that that you know
we may end up seeing where florida
becomes uh if not the shipping capital
at least takes quite a bit of the of the
uh of the the the juice from from
california the profit share uh the
market share from california um right
these are the problems with what happens
when the ships get here and how they’re
being processed and that’s been a
problem for a while
but
we reached a crisis that didn’t seem to
be something that had been slowly
happening over the course of several
years we suddenly had a crisis or at
least if it was building up it wasn’t
over the last generation this was a an
issue that happened in a relatively
pretty short period of time
i am of the belief that the biggest
cause for this massive influx and and
the problems would then
the reason that we can’t rise to adapt
to it is because of all these things
that are in place all these policies and
we could even go further and talk about
how california is not allowing any uh um
truck made before 2013 to get on i mean
there’s there’s endless endless policies
we could talk about that are causing
problems but that’s why we haven’t been
able to rise to the to the the demand
that’s been coming
this influx to me feels like this is
what happens when you play red light
green light with the economy not just
here but around the planet with these
lockdowns and stay-at-home orders and
mandates and everything else
also possibility that this is
at least domestically but possibly in
other countries as well uh the result of
vaccine mandates where people you know
say okay fine i won’t take the vaccine
so you’ve got to find someone else to do
my job am i off here or is or are those
lockdowns and other policies
caught what caused this massive influx
and the problems related to
it sure so
there’s as i said before there’s
exogenous and endogenous uh
explanations for what’s happening i mean
right certainly certainly the the the
mandatory vaccinations and people who
only
a few weeks back uh maybe four or five
weeks ago six weeks ago stopped
receiving government aid really sort of
kept a part of the labor force at bay
but um you know there’s other things too
for example uh we had there were three
events i covered in one of the articles
there was the ever given getting stuck
in the suez
um and there were a couple of uh uh
chinese port closures and what what i
think
because you can’t be an expert in
everything uh but i think a lot of
people fail to fail to understand is
that
one of these events
where a giant ship gets stuck in the
suez for six days it backs up 400 say
ships
all of these things are not additive
they’re multiplicative where
one day delay becomes 6 becomes 30
becomes when does it happen
and so that’s that’s that’s that’s a big
part of it is that these are these are i
mean without getting too into this part
these are extraordinarily non-linear
functions
um they’re they they the delays are
almost like uh derivatives where one
dollar equals three and then you lose
another dollar and it’s 12 and then it
goes like that so so that’s really
what’s happening but everything from
those delays to the nature of the
shipping containers themselves right now
are causing these delays
i mean i don’t think i put that in any
model because i’ve spoken about what’s
happening with shipping i don’t believe
so yeah i was going to say i’ve this is
the first time i’m hearing of that i
don’t think that was in there yeah so of
course there’s a finite number of
shipping containers in the world and
they’re made by only a few companies and
this company tries to make them at a
rate that kind of replaces the ones that
are too old they last about 12 years and
they’re they’re a miracle of the modern
commercial world because you can take
this one container fill it with stuff it
can travel by truck to a ship
get offloaded onto a train be taken to a
barge i mean they’re compatible with any
number of forms of transportation and
what’s happening is that
as
ships are being offloaded
as cargo and containers are coming off
of ships
it’s going so slowly that they’re
filling up warehouses
and so many of the shipping companies
and many of the retailers are saying
don’t take my stuff out of the shipping
container because i don’t know if i’ll
get another one back
so the shipping containers are starting
to be used as makeshift warehouses or
mini warehouses and what’s happening is
that now there’s a shortage of
containers
and some of them also by the way are
just floating in the middle of uh
or not in the middle but off the coast
of uh california and other places
meaning that they’re not being filled up
with the product to go somewhere else
and yeah right right i mean i mean a
container in hand is worth two on the
board so if you’ve got one you know the
the the uh the standard operating
procedure right now is don’t give it up
until the stuff comes out and more stuff
goes in
so you said there are only a few
companies making this thing now
you’re correct that it is a a wonder of
the modern age it’s also a
shaped piece of metal or a series of
pieces of metal
why are there only a handful of
companies making this
so i haven’t looked deeply i would look
too too in depth on that issue um i i i
wonder if it’s a uh a low margin
business or uh if there are more likely
uh some sort of uh obscure arcane
transportation requirements that
only a few
companies maybe have the
concession for something like that i
don’t actually know
maybe i mean yeah now i have something
else to write about so thanks
coronavirus and shipping containers um
no but but here’s the thing i i i would
suspect that it’s probably a combination
of both that you’ve got some kind of
weird uh you know policies centrally
planned policies that are you know
making it where only a handful there
might even be some ip protections here
um or eye protections i know it’s like
atm machine um but also um
yeah i mean metal costs a fortune right
now so it might be that one of these
things would cost a million dollars to
make right now so everyone’s just making
do with the ones that they have or
something like that but that’s also the
problem of a policy issue there’s a
particular route for which using a
storage container used to cost i believe
a thousand to fifteen hundred bucks
and now the cost is over twenty five
thousand dollars
to give an idea of like uh scarcity
pricing and action
that was a few weeks ago it might have
it might have come down some but uh if
it has not much
so when it was how long ago was it that
it was a thousand to fifteen hundred
bucks are we talking like
uh so let’s see
ever
the the sewage canal blockage was i
think april march or april and then you
had a port close in july and then
another port closed in
august so i’m going to guess it was a
thousand dollars as early as the start
of this year
early late late winter early spring
something like that
yeah i hope you’re if your watchers are
interested i can look it up i can do the
research yeah
i’m interested in it interesting and by
interested i mean horrified i hope that
that 25 000 was like some weird spike in
price that’s coming down and that that’s
not a slope that’s happening because
geez
oh man well it’s just it’s a specific
it’s a specific route so it’s you know
it might be an obscure route where
there’s not a lot of dropping anywhere
but either either way okay or something
due to magnifice for something to
increase you know 20 something fold
uh shows exactly how high demand is and
how uh how slow supply is coming to
satan
right and that and this is the problem
with
pulling levers on the economy uh i don’t
know if you watch squid game i actually
don’t watch squid game but i’ve seen the
scenes of squid game where the doll is
facing away and and says uh uh i don’t
know if it’s counting or it’s no it’s
playing
green light yeah red light green light
but but when it turns around uh turns
its head around anyone that’s moving at
all gets killed
so this should be like that game except
every time it turns around and people
get killed it goes i can’t believe that
happened
how did who did that and then turns
around and does it again that’s
what the government’s been doing they’ve
been playing this game of simon says
with the economy and then when
businesses fall apart when entire
sectors of the economy are in chaos when
you know people can’t get needed goods
and services when the price of basic uh
needs and necessities is reaching an
employee where an increasing number of
americans who even who are on food and
other types of subsidies still can’t
afford what they need at some point you
have to admit that maybe
having a small handful of people pretend
that they can decide how everything’s
going to work without any price
signaling involved at all maybe that’s
not the best way to do it
could not agree more absolutely
well thank you um so so far so far by
the way the bind administration’s
brilliant idea is to find uh is to find
it was to find ships that are floating
off the coast of southern uh and central
california a hundred dollars per
container per day
yes that’s their that’s the miracle uh
solution that they’ve come up with which
by the way
a panamax class ship
carries what’s called their capacity
they called teu 20 foot
equivalent units which is one container
13 000 teus comes to 1.3 million dollars
per day
so that’s the fine that the the the
panamax uh uh
class ship carrier is going to pay per
ship 1.3 million
per day which i guarantee you most of
these days are full so that’s that’s the
level of uh sort of creative policy
making that the mind administration has
they’ve finally taken the uh
anti-homeless policies of many metro
areas and and applied it to
the the boats waiting to unload their
products and i i mean i can’t imagine
who’s gonna have that price unloaded to
them certainly wouldn’t be the consumer
but where they’ve been saying basically
we’re gonna stop homelessness by making
it illegal for you to be homeless here
basically you know we’re gonna we’re
gonna except the fines are you know 100
bucks and you know a night in jail or a
day and you know a couple days in jail
and then get the hell out of whatever
this town is um now they’ve they’ve
successfully found a way to apply that
uh heartless and and uh uh
counterintuitive policy to shipping
containers amazing
if anybody should be paying fines it
should be every public official who who
thought that the uh that the economy
could could work like a lawn mower and i
mean that that should be the form of
reparations if there’s reparations that
should be made it’s from public
officials who to to to small business
owners who were ruined by these
ridiculous policies which were as i said
before based upon an absurd false
dichotomy
that’s my personal view
no i listen i agree with you i
the problem here pete isn’t that there’s
a a blo a uh a bottleneck of of getting
the goods they’re just loitering
they’re just being a bunch of lazy nerdy
well loiterers just loitering out at sea
that’s
it’s incredible no no they know that
because they get paid by uh you know by
the minute such so i mean the whole time
this is by the time by the way the whole
time this is going on the crews of those
ships are are only outfitted for a
certain amount of time so the initial
ones have come into shore buy more food
come back out they have to put things
behind i mean the the knock on effects
of this are incredible i mean i i’ve
already written about how lockdowns are
accountable for
4 000 increases in pokemon card prices
and the collapse of prices of natural
cheese so i mean there will be books
written about this hopefully one by
myself in the coming years about
everything that this silly decision
to make people choose between public
health and having an economy led to
yeah this is that false dichotomy do you
want to be sick or do you or do you want
to be healthy or do you want to be
prosperous because we all know that poor
people have the best health outcomes
right like it’s definitely proven that
if you choose poverty over uh over
health or poverty over over sickness
that you know that you end up being much
healthier that way right i mean human
beings human beings used to live to be
150 years old and then after the
industrial revolution now we only lived
about 70 or 80. it’s a shame yeah it’s
terrible you would think we’d figure it
out at this point but you know who has
time to figure it out when you’re being
a lazy bum out there on your fruit on
your ship refusing to unload your you’re
good that is in it’s just
astounding yeah they’re opposite they’re
difficult is what it is they’re being
churlish is what they’re being um
this is i i it is incredible to to see
this the thing is
we get frustrated and exasperated
i don’t think that
i think maybe the politicians are stupid
i don’t think that the actual people
crafting policy are this stupid and you
can we can we can have this debate uh or
or have your thoughts on this you know
the the how much of this is is uh just
stupidity and how much of this is
malfeasance where do you think that
falls in how much of this is people who
want to see this these crises that they
can then exploit for more control and
how much of it is just people that are
idiots and really truly don’t get that
their centrally planned ideas are
constantly failing and constantly making
things worse
yeah so there’s a there’s a line that uh
von mises uses in um
in uh economic calculation the socialist
commonwealth and i just i would say that
what we’re seeing now is what mises
phrase groping in the dark looks like
this is what groping in the dark looks
like okay so as for as for uh
your question uh i’m allergic to
conspiracy theories however however
there’s nuance to this
uh i do believe
that a lot of politicians are flatly
stupid i do believe that they are
uh sort of uh automatons who are put
into office uh
and really they do the work of lobbyists
and they’re willing to say anything and
do anything and they have their interest
groups and all that
but i also believe
you can know
that a policy is likely to lead to
certain outcomes and kind of hope they
don’t but know also that you have every
excuse available and then most people
will give you a pass because they they
politicians and governments take
recourse to lines of argument that as a
social scientist i can’t take right they
can always lobby counter factuals well
you know what if we hadn’t locked down
everybody would be dead it would have
been like walking dead or something you
know
nine tenths of the world would be dead
they can say well you know we uh we
thought there might be problems but you
know how big business is in their
profits they got to get their profits
and that sort of thing so i
i do think i do think certainly that
some things are done on purpose i also
think there’s a there’s what i would
call just incredibly impre depraved
indifference where they do things and
they say if it works out great if it
doesn’t we’ve got every line in the book
so kind of somewhere between the i like
it you found the centrist position
between the the third position between
uh being total idiots and being
mendacious in that they’re like yeah you
know this it’s probably there’s a good
chance this isn’t gonna work but i have
cover and of course there’s always the
old tried and true well this would have
worked if the other party had worked
with us
or
if you’re in the minority position you
know this would have worked if they had
done it right but if you know we had
been in charge we would have done the
lockdowns right
right i mean
it surprises me sometimes i’ve been a
small libertarian for a very very long
time
and i still try to try to analyze
economic issues dispassionately
but what surprises me sometimes is
uh
most libertarians rightly and
appropriately and based upon history uh
uh correctly identify the fact that
governments really can’t do anything
right they can’t plan things all that
but yet they give them credit for
erecting massive complicated
conspiracies which
involve hundreds of people and all sorts
of interest groups and i say
i’m not saying they’re not evil enough
to do that i’m saying they’re not
designed to do that
he was calling me out there because i so
i tend to i look at these things and i’m
like
someone has to know this is doing this
and they’re they’re good with leveraging
it so i’m of the opinion that you’ve got
this sort of massive group of idiots
that are just doing terrible things and
a handful of evil geniuses that are
planted in various positions in there
who are like yeah i’m gonna use this
that’s sort of my i guess you’d call it
conspiracy theory but i i do think you
know that’s a little more nuanced than
conspiracy theory i hear what you’re
saying yeah yeah i i but but no but
you’re right i mean it’s like these
idiots are ruining everything by design
it’s like well it’s one or the other so
no i i i do get you there the one thing
i i’ve i
have not heard nearly enough about and
actually we already even before you
wrote this article we wanted to talk
about this and then when you wrote the
article we all looked and said this this
is why we got peter c earl he’s already
he is pre-gaming our episode to talk
about this so your most i think this is
your most recent yeah this is like three
days ago i believe this your most recent
article to fix the shipping crisis start
by repealing the jones act we talk about
the jones act
so much on this show and i talk about
the jones act so much on my social media
out in public appearances i will say the
jones act and unless there’s a puerto
rican or hawaiian or alaskan there
cheering uh everyone else like what the
hell is the jones act i’m like and or
they’ll go yeah the jones act that sucks
i agree we should end the joke they
don’t know what the jones acted so
but unless you’re again puerto ricans
people from guam people from hawaii
people from alaska especially
yeah ship builders
they are they are acutely aware of what
the jones act is now for everyone on the
show who somehow doesn’t yet know what
the jones act is even though i keep
talking about it talk to us a little bit
about the what the jones act is first
and then we can dive into how it is a
major contributor to what’s happening
right now
so the jones act uh is a
1920 act uh the jones act is actually
part of the maritime shipping act i
believe it’s called
basically
it restricts
foreign owned vessels from loading cargo
in one u.s port and unloading it in
another
so what it does is
it doesn’t restrict now we should be
clear it doesn’t restrict foreign ships
from dropping off at a number of ports
or picking up at a number but what it
does is it prevents them from acting
like a bus pick up here drop off there
pick up there and so on uh which is
called a cabinet or
some people say
right
which is intercoastal trade so in order
to do that a ship has to be american
four times it has to be
manned by americans owned by an american
company built by an american company and
flying under the u.s flag which if it
sounds restrictive it sure is
yeah no it’s super super restrictive and
we actually so it’s uh it was in 1921
and i know that because we i did a post
on the 100 year anniversary and why it
needs to die and just the sheer amount
of suffering it’s caused here and
frankly around the globe but especially
here um you want to talk about
opportunity costs
it
is it is impossible to measure
what we could have been you know that
meme where it shows this like futuristic
world and it said it’ll always be like
some like obscure thing this is what the
world would have been like if we had
listened to ron paul or if we you know
whatever like it show but that is
potentially what the world could look
like had the jones act not been passed
or at least certainly in the u.s the u.s
has the
most what they call effective or usable
shoreline that has access international
access because we also have the
mississippi so we have the entire uh we
have all of uh alaska although only a
small part of alaska is actually what’s
considered effective or usable because
of the arctic um but then you have
hawaii uh and you have um and you have
all of the the west coast you have all
of the east coast and and the gulf coast
and then you have the mississippi which
goes from the top to bottom of the u.s
in the great lakes with canada but then
you have all the way down that goes all
the way and goes out to the gulf so
long story short the u.s
should have the most vibrant robust and
active maritime industry on earth with
no peer and instead because of the jones
act the us has
arguably no maritime industry is almost
entirely just receiving goods and and
maybe some shipping out there’s no inter
as you mentioned like intercoastal uh or
intracoa i always confuse those two no
tr we even have the panama canal there’s
everything in place for the u.s to do
the vast majority of its shipping by
ship and instead because of the jones
act we are reliant on uh rail and road
which leads to crumbling infrastructure
because we overuse our rail and road for
things that should be done by ship which
are which is not only uh uh which is
only more environmentally friendly but
also cost less it’s still the most cost
efficient thing so long before any of
this happened it has been why we are not
even wealthier and more prosperous and
why the goods and services aren’t even
cheaper it’s a major reason for why uh
more and more of us are buying things
from other countries because it’s
actually cheaper to have it shipped from
another country here on a foreign vessel
than have it brought here brought from
another state here by truck or by rail
ins i like i
ah i could do this for 30 minutes the
dumbest dumbest thing so
question
how is it specifically affecting
what we’re going through right now
so uh
what you were saying before about
alternative alternate timelines uh it
reminds me of some years ago someone
told me that that uh if coal was oil the
us would be saudi arabia
like a similar thing to how we could
have an incredible uh uh uh
maritime business here with more
competition and that’s right so
you know the longer you write and i’ve
been writing for some time now the more
you find that a lot of people look at
words but they don’t actually read
and i say that because i got so many
angry articles uh so many angry emails
rather my on my article saying that
um
suspending the jones act wouldn’t help
and that’s and i even said the article
is the first thing that should be done
people said you need to do more than
that
i mean i can only write the article
yeah
so
how first of all how dare you think that
the only problem we have right now is
the jones act writer of 17 000 books
about coronavirus
sorry go ahead right so so
if the idea that ships
operating competitively on a more
flexible basis
if the idea that that wouldn’t be
helpful or that rather would be helpful
isn’t clear
we i can give a few statistics i’ve
looked these up since then in some of my
replies to emails
the cost of an american medium tanker
to build one is three times the
worldwide price
for the same ship
three times as much
okay
the cost of operating an american flag
vessel is between two and three times as
much as the identical ship flying under
a liberian or any other flag
okay most people don’t really care about
that so here’s something that hits you
and i
to ship crude oil from the gulf coast to
new york
is three times the cost to ship from the
gulf coast to eastern canada which is
further away yep
okay that’s five dollars more per barrel
or 15 cents up to 15 cents per gallon of
gasoline who pays that you
me everyone else it’s protectionism of
the rankest form and the fact that
little old me wrote an article and i
actually got people sending me articles
from these maritime and shipping unions
shows me that it’s an extremely sore
spot and probably one should we should
be poking a little more
yeah oh we should be poking this thing
until it bleeds out i this yes the
you’re talking about something three
times as much to bill again talking
about multiplicable fat
multiplicable
factors uh
i think i said it right the first time
multiplicable factors uh three times if
something costs three times here and
then three times there you have to
multiply that so
also
these are businesses who measure their
margins on single and double digit
percentages right so it’s like if
something costs eight percent more it’s
untenable to do it that way because of
the margins you’re operating on
300 margins are like two hundred five
hundred percent no yeah
it’s just done you’re done
okay so uh
it is
there’s the opportunity cost
again i i get
this way i get apoplectic talking about
this because i immediately start
thinking about what
this country would look like minus the
jones act especially if it had never
happened forget if it had been ended 10
20 30 years ago much better off but if
it had never happened we had this
vibrant thriving maritime industry here
we would not be talking about shipping
container problems right now we would
not be talking about problems with
getting from point a to point b we would
be talking about how all these other
poor schmucks how hard it is for them to
get places i mean it is immeasurable to
talk about and then that would work
towards the passenger travel industry
because again just because this is
related to goods and services
by the way jones act does that apply to
shipping people from one side to the
other or is it just uh
is that just goods and services as i’m
saying that i’m not sure
i must be honest i don’t know somebody
asked me if it applies to cruise ships
too i don’t think so because i still
recall
people get on and off of cruise ships in
uh in bayo new jersey and in baltimore
and florida but i might be wrong
i’m pretty sure it does not apply
i i think it doesn’t too but there’s
still a carry-on effect in that if we
had a more vibrant ship building
industry that would mean lower cost of
ships overall because there’d be a
higher demand for a higher demand and a
higher supply meeting it there’d be more
liquidity in that market so you would
have more access to boats which
inevitably would work its way towards
passenger ships as well so it’s there’s
still that knock-on effect there there
would be a troubled effect in prices and
cost structures exactly well
and i mean it’s it’s adjacent it’s
literally the same industry it’s just
one’s applied to people one supply so
there’s no way that wouldn’t also work
its way over to that um
this was originally designed to protect
a very powerful shipbuilding industry in
this country a little bit of historical
perspective when the jones act was
passed prior to the jones act being
passed the u.s was the leader in the
maritime industry because again we have
the most usable shoreline and
especially after the panama canal was
built there we owned the waters right
like it wasn’t just the navy that owned
the waters the u.s merchant marines the
u.s industry of of of ship and including
shipbuilding and part of that was
because ships were also made out of wood
back then um and so going into the you
know late 1700s 1800s into the early
1900s most boats were made primarily or
entirely from wood and we had an endless
supply of soft lumber to be able to make
these these boats to be able to do this
so we had for many reasons the greatest
shipbuilding industry now uh post uh
world war one
there were suddenly some threats to that
industry you had other countries that
were building up their ship building
industry there were there were com
companies in other countries that were
building up their industry they were
seeing this shift away from uh wood and
towards steel and there was some
uncertainty whether we were going to be
able to uh compete and the response to
that instead of rising to the occasion
and continuing to uh compete and thrive
was to uh rent seek and push for
cronyism and protectionism and that’s
what happened with the jones act fast
forward to today there’s i think like
what two or three american shipbuilders
who between them make a new ship every
couple of years is there even an
industry
who is protecting this at this point
like who is the powerful group or
industry that’s protecting this at this
point
yeah i mean there’s a couple of entities
but they fall into two
mother’s prices don’t seem to come down
the way say technology and other prices
do so
if you must look for silverlight
a lot about the economy around them
yeah i and i that’s my hope is that uh
and hopefully is that is the new hope
basically a bunch of people going oh hey
wow maybe maybe the government does suck
that is that the new hope in in new hope
i don’t think i said that explicitly but
it’s never far from my
it’s it’s never it’s never two words
away uh it has more to do with just uh
how quickly reopening was embraced and i
i drove from uh nashville to memphis
through arkansas to dallas and as i got
deeper south uh in in march or april i
guess it was uh i found that more and
more people were just they were just
tired of the nonsense yeah and uh there
were more handshakes and there were more
people running around on the beach even
when it was pouring rain which i thought
was you know usually people run for
shelter and it was just this sort of uh
sort of a
rebirth of sorts going on but uh the
book covers a number of topics i don’t
think i explicitly say that people are
more more aware of the perniciousness of
the dangers of central planning and of
government power but that’s definitely
the case anyway whether or not i say it
that’s definitely what’s happening
yeah i it’s obviously easier to show
someone how lockdowns are hurting them
or even how a vaccine mandate which has
that that corollary effect of of people
not working which leads to reductions in
supply it’s easier to show that than
something like the jones act but if
you’ve already got them on that that
pipeline of wow does government suck at
everything they plan you can be like
yeah it’s even worse and get them all
like you know like that guy in the uh
always sunny in philadelphia episode
where he’s you know showing them the
things on the team he’s like yes you
know what so i i think that that’s i
think there is that that potential or
that or that hope as you put it or they
could just go on a drive uh we you know
uh with me up 95 and every time a truck
goes by i go that could be on a boat um
and and start talking about the jones
act that’s a good point that’s a really
good point yeah yeah
yeah and then the wish that they had had
died during all of this before they had
to take that trip with me um so but
you’re you’re absolutely correct the the
watching it has been very interesting to
watch even as we’re now seeing covet by
the way covered waves i don’t know if
you agree with me on this but they’re
not going away we’re this is endemic
this is not a pandemic uh that the hope
is going to be around forever it’s going
to be around forever or a very long time
until we start having gene therapy like
crispr where they can actually go in and
make us completely immune to and and
then that means not only is covid going
away but the cold is going away the flu
is going away cancers are going away
which i mean that will eventually happen
i i do believe that’s eventually gonna
in the meantime it’s not going away and
and watching with each of these waves an
increasing number of people saying yes i
think people should be safe yes i think
we should be you know taking we should
be making safe but an increasing number
of people are saying you can’t mandate
this away you can’t lock this away you
can’t absolutely you can’t
it’s not going away and and we have to
come to that that reality and i it you
know
it’s they could do that they could
mandate it away but then we have to be
happy having an extremely rapid and
and and pronounced lowering of our of
our standard of living
well to the point of dying i mean yeah
if you made everyone stay in their house
for about three or four weeks yes covid
would probably go away or at least be
greatly reduced it would also kill tens
of millions of people in this country
alone uh so so but yes we would get rid
of covet you know we’d be able to say we
did it we saved the day and like the
buildings are all burning um so yes i i
agree with that so before i let you go
and this is i wish this is one of those
episodes i wish we’d go on three hours
about this because i now want to like by
the way would you like to come back
maybe in the future because i want to
have this conversation about quite a few
things so i hope you would like to come
back on in the future i’d love to
well thank you well before i let you go
uh pete thank you so much for your time
and i want to give you a chance to give
your final thoughts plug your books talk
about any upcoming stuff uh you might
want to mention that book you wrote
about anarchy back in 2014. i you know
it’s up to you uh uh whatever you want
to talk about uh anything that you want
to say anything you feel like we didn’t
have a chance to talk about uh as long
as you want uh p pr soon to be doctor
and i say soon to be professor but you
know we’ll see
peter c earl the floor is
yours
yeah i mean but my only closing thought
is that we are we’re currently in the
we’re currently in the throes of what’s
really the largest human engineer
demonstration of chaos theory in social
science history right and it’s
continuing to go on
and uh
as long as it’s going i’ll keep writing
about it i have some more things in the
works uh i can be followed at twitter my
twitter handle is
l1knb i know that sounds weird if you
search for pete
earl early l one knb stands for let a
thousand nations bloom which is a
statement of very very uh you know
profound uh individuality it’s meant to
be very uh individualistic and uh
i’m on uh p i’m on amazon.com i have an
author page peter c earl e-a-r-l-e and
if you want to send me a message tell me
how little i know
pete.earl at aiar.org you can find me on
the air website and if anyone out there
in particular on twitter would like to
is absolutely certain that we are
heading for hyperinflation
do me a favor send me an email let’s say
if you believe hyperinflation is going
to
occur within the next two years send me
an email and let’s let’s discuss the
terms of making a very friendly but
public bet over it
okay
he again he’s calling me out so i
because i do no
so i i am of the belief that we are
potentially on the beginning curve of
what will lead to hyperinflation if
something doesn’t change and it could be
in a two or three year period and i may
be wrong i i hope that i’m i desperately
desperately hope i’m wrong
sure sure no i i
so my response i mean i don’t know how
much time i’ll just say this quickly i
think hyperinflation i’ve written about
hyperinflation in regular
uh scenarios i wrote an article in 2013
about hyperinflation in diablo 3
which occurred there for real economic
reasons but basically hyperinflation is
an interesting topic it’s very exotic it
rarely happens i mean you don’t need a
hyperinflation to destroy your life
destroy a nation destroy the economy
a mere and very unsexy 20 percent per
year will do the trick ask any of my
argentinian friends what 15 inflation
per year looks like over time i mean
i can’t say we’re not heading for a
hyperinflation i strongly believe we’re
not but i also know that uh and this was
not at all targeting you uh us by people
who have that debate hyperinflation
right around the corner i’ve said i
doubt it for a few reasons but
hopefully hopefully i’m wrong
no hopefully no hopefully you’re right
no hopefully you’re right
hopefully you’re probably nowhere near
hyperinflation because like you said
just double digit information
yes hopefully hopefully i’m wrong that
we’re without some major
change sea change in policy two or three
years away from you know things doubling
in price every every couple weeks or
every couple of months i i i i i
yeah listen
double digits over month over month is
it might not be hyper but it’s enough to
wreck everything so it maybe just takes
a little bit longer so
hopefully we’re both wrong and joe biden
is gonna build back better and
everything’s gonna be okay
because i i there are times when people
like you’re wrong man libertarians are
wrong i’m like i hope we’re wrong we
keep being right and i hate it like i
want joe biden to be right
i’ve never been as right as since i
began to espouse
libertarian views
exactly and the misery that comes with
it so um so
pete thanks so much for coming on man i
really appreciate it this was a
fantastic topic
i definitely want to have you on it
again in the future but thank you again
for coming on
thanks very much it’s great to be here
have a great day
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brings light to kindness
all you need is a sign put a cease to
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sometimes darkness is all i find you
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