Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:00]
| Good morning, Mr. Bo. Hello. Good afternoon for you.
|
Ivan:
[0:05]
| Well, that's volume is very low. Can you talk again?
|
Sam:
[0:09]
| Hello, hello, hello.
|
Ivan:
[0:10]
| Okay, yeah, my volume was very low over here.
|
Sam:
[0:13]
| Okay, let me...
|
Ivan:
[0:14]
| Okay, so Manu has a birthday party this afternoon, so...
|
Sam:
[0:19]
| Limited time?
|
Ivan:
[0:21]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[0:21]
| Okay. Let's get this thing started. When's your drop-dead time for ending, so I can watch the clock?
|
Ivan:
[0:28]
| Let's just try to make it, you know, let's just try to keep it under 90 minutes. I'm going to skip doing a butt first so we don't get dragged too long.
|
Sam:
[0:38]
| Okay, so 1130 my time.
|
Ivan:
[0:40]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[0:41]
| Okay. Okey dokey, let's get going. Blah, blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[0:47]
| He turned 13 yesterday.
|
Sam:
[0:50]
| That's got to be a lie. There's no way.
|
Ivan:
[0:52]
| I wish it were.
|
Sam:
[0:57]
| Okay here we go congratulations on having a teenager god yeah, Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, August 2nd, 2025. It's just before 17 UTC as we're starting to record right now. I'm Sam Mentor, Yvonne Bowes here. Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:39]
| Hi. Hola.
|
Sam:
[1:45]
| So, as usual, our plan will be to do a quick segment on non-newsy stuff. I have a couple movies Yvonne is skipping because he needs to get out of here.
|
Ivan:
[1:54]
| I will make just one quick comment, which is the only thing that I can comment, well, comment is that I crossed through immigration twice this week. Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:08]
| How many times were you arrested?
|
Ivan:
[2:10]
| I was not arrested. I will say, though, that immigration in my—I crossed immigration in Puerto Rico to go from the Dominican Republic into Puerto Rico, which that was very uneventful. There's nobody there, and right now there aren't that many international flights going to San Juan, so it's, you know, that was uneventful. But when I got back to Miami, I did get through quickly because I still have global entry, so I can get through it relatively quickly. But they changed some of the process for global entry, which is a little bit weird. It still went fast, but holy shit, that place was chaotic. I mean, that was, it's the chaos that I expect sometimes to see around the holidays and something like that when a lot of people are traveling. But for a regular just Thursday early evening holy shit what a chaotic immigration area I mean I see people like get, something bad happened it was just the the lines were worse than i ever remember and i'm assuming that's because they're just being more, assholic about the whole thing yes um and um that.
|
Sam:
[3:36]
| Is the assumption i would make too.
|
Ivan:
[3:38]
| But but you know the global entry part was you know uneventful so because you've.
|
Sam:
[3:44]
| Got yeah you're a u.s citizen you've got global entry you've got your path by the way some Some countries, they're not hassling you.
|
Ivan:
[3:51]
| No, no. Yeah. Because global entry, hell, I don't even have to show my passport to go to global entry. It's just, it's right now completely facial recognition. You scan your picture, you know, that you, you, that you walk up to a kiosk that recognizes your face, an agent, you know, then, then you, you get on this line where an agent goes and says, uh, Ivan, yeah. Looks at the picture, compares you. Just they double check and just let you go. That's it. That's all that happens. because it used to be that you had to scan your passport and do all sorts of things hell i don't even have to fill a customs form anymore the customs declaration or anything i don't feel a declaration it's just walk up do that and done so that that gets that done relatively quickly but but man it was just it just looked like sheer chaos so that was the only thing that i i got And it's the first time I've had to cross through immigration since the new regime. And it is correct. You know, it is correct to call it now a regime. I don't see any other proper adjective.
|
Sam:
[5:03]
| Yeah. Yes. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[5:07]
| So anyway, so that's it.
|
Sam:
[5:08]
| Shall we go? I got my two movies and then we can move on. We can do my two movies really quick. Like, we will not allow extended discussion on either of you.
|
Ivan:
[5:21]
| The reason is my son has his birthday party this afternoon. He's turning 13. So, therefore, I need to skedaddle.
|
Sam:
[5:29]
| Absolutely. And, you know, important milestone. Important milestone. Now a teenager is now going to cause you unknown amounts of trouble.
|
Ivan:
[5:38]
| Fuck me. Jesus Christ.
|
Sam:
[5:43]
| Yes, yes, yes. Okay, so the first of my movies is another one of these AFI top 100 movies I've been working my way down through since 1998. In real life, you know, not this list, we're actually in, the next one I watch will be number three. So I'm almost at the end. Okay. But this is number 17 from the 1998 list, which, interestingly, they re-ranked it in 2007. It dropped all the way to 65 for the 2007 list.
|
Ivan:
[6:18]
| That's a steep devaluation.
|
Sam:
[6:21]
| Yeah. So I guess they determined there were a bunch of things that somehow in the nine years between 1998 and 2007 made it less wonderful, I guess. Anyway, the movie was The African Queen from 1977.
|
Ivan:
[6:42]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[6:43]
| Actually, sorry. No, no, no, no, no. African Queen from 1951. 1951. I misread. There was a television version of this in 1977, but that is not what I watched.
|
Ivan:
[6:56]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[6:58]
| So, look, this is, I don't know. Like, I'm thinking maybe the 65 is better than the 17, okay? It was a fine movie. It was based on a 1935.
|
Ivan:
[7:10]
| I think it was just overrated when they first did the...
|
Sam:
[7:12]
| I don't know. Look, here's the thing. Look, the plot, let me read you the beginning of the plot from Wikipedia, of course. Samuel Sayre and his sister Rose are English Methodist missionaries in German East Africa in August 1914. Their mail and supplies are delivered by a small steamboat named the African Queen, helmed by the rough-and-ready Canadian mechanic Charlie Allnut, whose coarse behavior they stiffly tolerate. Yes, Allnut.
|
Sam:
[7:46]
| When Charlie warns the sires that war has broken out between Germany and Britain they choose to remain in Kungdu only to witness German colonial troops burn down the village and herd the villagers away to be pressed into service, when Samuel protests he is struck by a soldier and soon becomes delirious with fever dying shortly afterwards Charlie helps Rose bury her brother and they escape in the African queen and then the rest is what happens to them as they try to get out of German West Africa and back to British-controlled territory or whatever. That's the plot of the movie. Let me give you one particular thing you can imagine might be one of the things why this did not age well. A 1950s movie set in 1914 14, Africa.
|
Ivan:
[8:45]
| Sounds like it could be quite racist.
|
Sam:
[8:49]
| There are definitely racist components here. You know, there's just the natives, when they are portrayed, are not really portrayed as people, you know, is the fundamental thing. You know, they're sort of running around, they're doing their thing, they're like hooping and hollering. And, you know, they, they are not really, they're not characters. They're not like a significant part of things. They're just sort of background of, oh my God, they're in wild Africa, you know?
|
Sam:
[9:21]
| And, you know, other, you know, and so, yes, I, I imagine this is one of the reasons why from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, this was dropped a bit in the, in the rankings. Having said that, you know, there's still like, it's an interesting dynamic between the two main characters. It's got the whole sort of thing of the sort of uptight religious woman and the sort of wild macho river guy, you know, and, you know, they, you know. Fall for each other as you would expect and then there's some like world war two or sorry world war one background stuff between like what's going on between the british and the and the germans and the you know the war background stuff because they get involved in the back and forth with that.
|
Sam:
[10:22]
| And i i would say i'm giving it a thumb sideways it was fine i'm not sure it deserves number 17 on this list. Frankly, I don't know. Well, obviously.
|
Ivan:
[10:31]
| I don't know if it really deserves 65. Apparently a lot of people agreed with you because they dropped it like a rock the next time around.
|
Sam:
[10:39]
| Yeah, I'm not sure if it really deserves 67 or 65 or whatever the hell it was I said. But, you know, 65. It was an okay movie. It was entertaining. I laughed at a few moments. The dynamics between these two were comical. It was sort of 1955 stylized, too. You know, if you think about old movies, it's not going for realism per se. They're sort of exaggerated characters, and that's fine. You know, anyway. That's all my thoughts on this one. Do you have any thoughts on this one? I'm guessing you've probably been scanning the Wikipedia page.
|
Ivan:
[11:20]
| I never watched this movie. No, I decided not to scan the Wikipedia page on it. But I, I, I, but I've never heard, I, I, you know, no, I had heard of them.
|
Sam:
[11:30]
| Oh, I should mention since I didn't, it's Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, which of course that's part of why, like, this is a famous, like two famous actors from that era.
|
Ivan:
[11:42]
| Extremely famous. I mean, there are multiple movies on this list that is.
|
Sam:
[11:46]
| You know. And who are famous for like their interactions as well.
|
Ivan:
[11:50]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[11:50]
| And so, this is undoubtedly a big part of why it was on the list was just because it was the two of them.
|
Ivan:
[11:56]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[11:57]
| Anyway.
|
Ivan:
[11:58]
| Well. All right. So, thumbs sideways on this movie, right?
|
Sam:
[12:02]
| Yes. Thumbs sideways. All right. And the next up is? Jurassic Park 3.
|
Ivan:
[12:09]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[12:10]
| I previewed that these two would be the movies last week.
|
Ivan:
[12:13]
| I say again.
|
Sam:
[12:16]
| You never made it past the first two.
|
Ivan:
[12:18]
| Never. I mean, and again, the second one I didn't even watch I Know in its entirety. I'm pretty sure I never did. I watched bits and pieces of it when it was on linear movie channels back in the day. But it never attracted me watching it from beginning to end. I just didn't find the, I just didn't pique my interest. So, three is like, I mean, shit, if I could complete two, forget three. It's kind of like Fast and the Furious. I watched the first one. I've never even, I don't, I have no, I know there was like 10 of them or something like that. I don't think I've watched intentionally a minute of any past the first one.
|
Sam:
[13:06]
| Well, Jurassic Park, as you know, just last month released their seventh. So they're on seven now.
|
Ivan:
[13:14]
| Yeah, that's right. For God, that's right. Jesus.
|
Sam:
[13:18]
| And I have not watched past three. Like, this is as far as I've ever gotten, so I will probably eventually watch the rest. But, you know, look, okay, I will once again read the first two paragraphs of the plot summary from Wikipedia, and then give my further thoughts.
|
Sam:
[13:38]
| Paleontologist Alan Grant struggles to secure funding for his Velociraptor research, where he attempts to prove his hypothesis. They were intellectually and socially advanced. Instead, he finds himself rebuffing the public's obsession with the events on Isla Nublar and the InGen Incident in San Diego. That's the first two movies. He receives encouragement to continue from his now-married ex-girlfriend, Ellie Sattler, and his assistant, Billy Brennan, who uses 3D printing to replicate a velociraptor larynx. Wealthy couple Paul and Amanda Kirby offered to fund his research in return for a guided aerial tour of Isla Sorna, claiming they have permission to fly there.
|
Sam:
[14:24]
| Alan reluctantly agrees, flying there with Billy, two of the Kirby's mercenary associates, Udesky and Cooper, and their pilot Nash. When the Kirby's try to have Nash land the plane, Alan protests and is knocked unconscious by Cooper. He awakens to find they have landed, and the Kirby's refuse to leave until a Spinosaurus approaches them. They attempt to escape, but the dinosaur attacks their plane during takeoff and kills Cooper. The plane crashes in the forest and the spinosaurus kills nash and swallows paul's satellite phone the survivors flee encountering a tyrannosaurus which is promptly defeated by the spinosaurus as the humans escape and then of course the rest of their adventures on the island continue there is a revelation on the motives of the rich people who brought them here in the first place etc etc etc and yeah i i'm sorry you.
|
Ivan:
[15:22]
| Know you just you just described.
|
Sam:
[15:23]
| This and you.
|
Ivan:
[15:26]
| Know i am 100 confident i i no clue i i had no idea that this movie was about had any of those plot points nothing nothing zero.
|
Sam:
[15:40]
| You might have guessed it was about dinosaurs that's.
|
Ivan:
[15:44]
| About the only part I could have guessed correctly, yes. That there were some humans and dinosaurs. That I could have guessed, yes. Other than that.
|
Sam:
[15:52]
| Yeah, look, here's the thing. I'll give it another thumb sideways. It was fine. It was what you expect from a movie with humans running around with dinosaurs. But, you know, it was not. I think I save thumbs down for the movies I truly hate. You know where i'm like not only did i was it blah but it was actually distasteful and i regret ever having wasted my time watching it and i came out of it feeling you know, mad that the movie exists that's what i save thumbs down for this this is a thumb sideways is it was just sort of like, okay, generic, dinosaurs chasing humans around as the humans try to get out formulae whatever you know it was a it was it's only 92 minutes long so it's not one of these mega like two minutes.
|
Ivan:
[17:00]
| Long that's awfully short i mean especially i think the original jurassic park was over two hours for sure.
|
Sam:
[17:08]
| Right now now you're gonna have to make me check it i'm gonna have to yeah it was 127 minutes the original yeah.
|
Ivan:
[17:16]
| It was a yeah it was a long movie i mean what the heck.
|
Sam:
[17:20]
| And jurassic park 2 was 129 minutes so this was at the time this was the shortest jurassic yeah it may still be i don't, but is it you know if you want to kill an hour and a half it was fine to kill an hour and a half you know it i wasn't upset by it but you know there are plenty of better ways you could spend an hour and a half but you know if you're bored and you just want to stick a movie on and and watch it like it is fine like i don't regret i don't regret having watched it i'm not upset by having watched it. It just wasn't anything special. Completely routine, sort of by the numbers. Dinosaurs chase people. Some people die. Some people live. Obstacles in the way as they try to get out. You know, I'm... There you go. Okay. That's all I got. Shall we move on? That's all you got. Take a break and do news stuff?
|
Ivan:
[18:20]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[18:22]
| So break time. Here we go. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
|
Break:
[18:30]
| You're listening to this podcast. Do you like it? No. Do you want to support the show? No. Well, after you have subscribed to the show, followed us on Facebook, and told all your friends they should be listening to, what else can you do? I won't subscribe! You can help fund our Patreon at patreon.com slash curmudgeonscorner. Patreon is a way you can throw us a few bucks a month to help out with the expenses of the show. You know, web hosting, equipment, a little bit of advertising to promote the show, and maybe every once in a while some much-needed sedatives for Yvonne. At different contribution levels, you can get a mention on the show, our Curmudgeon's Corner postcard, or even a Curmudgeon's Corner mug. Fun stuff. Not fun. In any case, the contributions help tell us that you enjoy and appreciate the show. I really, really hate curmudgeon's corner! Are we worth a buck a month? No! Five bucks a month? No! Or if you are nuts about us, maybe even more?
|
Break:
[19:43]
| 100 billion! Billion dollars! Even though you don't have anywhere near a billion dollars! If we're worth anything to you at all, send it our way at patreon.com slash curmudgeon's corner. Alex hates, really, really hates, Carmudgeons Corner! That's really mean, isn't it? But I hate Carmudgeons Corner. But I really do!
|
Sam:
[20:09]
| Okay, so before we move on, though, like since that was about the Patreon and everything like that, have you received the postcards yet?
|
Ivan:
[20:18]
| I actually, I got back from my trip and I just grabbed the envelope from the mail yesterday.
|
Sam:
[20:25]
| There you go. So this is, we owe a couple people postcards and I have.
|
Ivan:
[20:30]
| I just showed, for those of you not watching that video, I showed Sam the envelope on video.
|
Sam:
[20:37]
| Yes. Yeah, and I put my little tiny notes on the postcards, and now they're with Yvonne to put his notes.
|
Ivan:
[20:45]
| What was I supposed to put on these postcards?
|
Sam:
[20:46]
| Just a little note saying thank you or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[20:49]
| Oh, okay, right. Okay, yeah, that's it. Okay, all right, got it.
|
Sam:
[20:53]
| You know, or you can do something more creative. You can do whatever you want with them.
|
Ivan:
[20:57]
| I could, you know, apply on it like some glue.
|
Sam:
[21:04]
| Sure, sure. That would work well in the mail on a postcard.
|
Ivan:
[21:08]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[21:09]
| You know, just put glue on it, stick it in the mailbox, see what else attaches to it on the way. Right. You know? Now, if you do anything interesting with them, take a picture. Okay. And share before you.
|
Ivan:
[21:20]
| Like, I'll see what I, I'll see what my creativity brings to.
|
Sam:
[21:24]
| Or you can do what I did and give a very. Which my creativity sucks. My, my, mine was very boring. Maybe I'll get. It was like, thank you for listening.
|
Ivan:
[21:32]
| In order to make it make it even more boring maybe I'll get chat GPT to write what I'm going to say.
|
Sam:
[21:37]
| There you go exciting stuff anyway because we mentioned the Patreon and at various levels you get various things one of those levels is a postcard and we owed a couple people a postcard for like months.
|
Ivan:
[21:50]
| It's a very nice postcard yeah it's good you've got a picture of us you know and stuff it's nice yeah I mean I don't know if that's actually nice now that I think about it but you know it is what it is.
|
Sam:
[22:02]
| Okay von so start us out what newsy thing do you want to talk about first this week there's been lots going on.
|
Ivan:
[22:09]
| You know as i i was checking my apple news app on the computer yeah and the first headline there grabbed grabbed right now.
|
Sam:
[22:18]
| This very second.
|
Ivan:
[22:19]
| As we're recording yeah you know because i i did mention some stuff different stuff on i said you know in this in the topics we put down to tariffs i put down about jobs more epstein i i said more stuff about reshoring you know uh job reshoring but i was looking at the economic stuff but then here's the thing uh this headline from nbc news summed it up tariffs alarming job numbers and a high-profile firing a wild week for the economy, And that, I think, from the economic side, is what summed up this week. This week was insane. You know, this week was insane. And the whole thing is, the main problem with it is, it's all self-inflicted. The entire reason the week was wild, it's not because, you know, certain things happened that they had to react to. No, this is all due to the policies of disadministration.
|
Sam:
[23:29]
| Isn't that pretty much true for everything since January 20th?
|
Ivan:
[23:34]
| Yeah, but look, I will tell you that outside of the financial crisis, Or like this, you know, because the dot-com implosion was an impact back in the early 2000s. But what really triggered more, you know, economic issues in that downturn, early 2000, 2001, was September 11th. Okay, so that was a huge, huge external shock, okay, we had. And also the Enron and WorldCom financial scandals, okay? That happened where massive fraud was uncovered on two of the darlings of the stock market at the time. You know, and so those things were things that the administration had to react that were external factors, okay? Okay. Everything that just happened this week, the tariffs are self-imposed.
|
Sam:
[24:50]
| Okay? Yes.
|
Ivan:
[24:51]
| They're the ones that started this wild ride with the global economy with the stupid tariffs, okay? The job numbers are a result of the tariffs, okay? And the dope bullshit.
|
Sam:
[25:07]
| Before moving on from that, like explain a little bit more why jobs are.
|
Ivan:
[25:12]
| Well, what I'm saying, well, what I'm saying is that when I'm reading, I'm going first just through the headline of the things that happened. We can get the details about that later. But we're talking about job numbers and the firing is also a result of this administration, the way it handles everything, where the only thing that matters is loyalty. And so, and they don't want to hear bad news. So how do they deal with bad news?
|
Sam:
[25:45]
| The, they fire the person coming up with the numbers.
|
Ivan:
[25:48]
| Right? Or like, what happened to Tulsi? What happened to Tulsi? She went and she said, Hey, Iran's not a threat. What happened then?
|
Sam:
[26:00]
| They started distancing her and then she went and produced like a report on, Russia or something to like said what they.
|
Ivan:
[26:08]
| Wanted to hear.
|
Sam:
[26:09]
| Yes. So she learned her lesson.
|
Ivan:
[26:12]
| Right. She was like, what am I talking about? Wait, I'm supposed to produce actual information? No, I just got to say whatever the fuck they want to hear.
|
Sam:
[26:20]
| And I presume, I mean, they've, you know, the replacement at, what's it called? The BLS, Bureau of Labor and Statistics. The replacement is, of course, going to be like, okay, we got the message. Only good numbers.
|
Ivan:
[26:36]
| So, yeah, I mean, you know, and the whole thing that happened is that, you know, the last few months that I've talked about job numbers coming out, a couple of times we had had in advance ADP that does a report on private sector jobs.
|
Sam:
[26:58]
| ADP is that payroll company that processes tons of paychecks.
|
Ivan:
[27:02]
| Which is the largest processor of payroll in the United States. Okay. I mean, they do payroll for so many companies. As a matter of fact, I was just literally talking to a customer this week that did a product that competed with ADP this week. And basically, they told me that they were exiting the business.
|
Sam:
[27:24]
| Because there's no point in competing.
|
Ivan:
[27:26]
| Yes. And basically, you know, handing it over to ADP. They made some agreement with them related to that. So that's how big they are in this space. And the reality is that it's a space that is consolidated and it's a space that margins are thin. OK, it's payroll processing. You want to talk about the dullest fucking thing that there is. This is basically just you get these files, you calculate the pay, you take out the taxes, you you set you submit the fucking paychecks. And then you people get W-2s, okay?
|
Ivan:
[28:05]
| Basically all there is. And so they have, because they have so many customers, okay? They have been doing, for the last few years, I wonder how long it's been. It's been a few years. This private jobs report that kind of like, that comes out usually just before the government labor report. OK, and the last few months, the report from ADP was that this economy, the jobs market was bad. OK, that's what they had been reporting the last couple of months. Now, remember that the one thing is they only track private sector. OK, but a couple of times the report had come out the last couple of months from the government. The one thing that always stood out to me is like, huh, they're showing a lot of public sector hiring in this report. That masked the bad private sector jobs report okay.
|
Sam:
[29:06]
| Well and wait a second let me just ask a question there a lot of public sector hiring isn't like trump like firing everybody at the well but you gotta remember listen.
|
Ivan:
[29:18]
| But but part of it part of this was, You got to remember that they do this. You remember, it's not just federal government.
|
Sam:
[29:27]
| There's also state and local.
|
Ivan:
[29:29]
| Right. So who knows, right? I mean, exactly where the data is coming from. But one of the things about these reports is that first they do some statistical analysis. They do some stuff. And then usually then later, these reports get corrected when all the data actually comes in. So you get a preliminary number. And then later, when all the information comes in, they do a corrected number, okay? So the last, this report, they issued corrections for the last couple of months. And those corrections eliminated a lot of the supposed job gains the last couple of months. Were really we just had with this report now the worst three-month stretch for job creation since take a guess sam.
|
Sam:
[30:20]
| Pandemic era trump's last administration who.
|
Ivan:
[30:24]
| Was president then sam.
|
Sam:
[30:25]
| Well apparently biden because every time you yeah every time you hear about that stuff it's always biden you know these days but or obama yeah like no it was uh it was donald trump but it was.
|
Ivan:
[30:42]
| Donald trump so right now we just had.
|
Sam:
[30:44]
| But wait no wait wait yvonne what i have i have heard that these numbers were made up by a democratic appointed yeah person who was out to make the trump administration look bad and so these are all bullshit.
|
Ivan:
[31:03]
| Now yeah sure uh-huh right and so the one thing is yes that's exactly what they said and they proceeded to fire this person who by the way that position actually requires senate confirmation and.
|
Sam:
[31:18]
| I believe i saw that this is one of the people who's converted but converted confirmed by like 80 something votes it was a it was a bipartisan everybody was like yeah they're good because this is one of those positions that is intended to be a technocrat intended to be somebody who's not political who you're hiring them because they're actually an expert in the field and they know what they're doing and blah blah blah and so anyway it was 80 some votes which isn't like marco rubio's 97 or whatever the hell he got but you know it's still pretty good and uh i i've seen a bunch of comments from previous office holders of that job, from republican administrations including donald trump's first term talking about how bad this is and how this is the wrong thing to do and how this person is good and blah blah blah yeah so anyway now.
|
Ivan:
[32:17]
| Now the the numbers with the corrections by the way the numbers what they did to kind of match what ADP was publishing. Okay, by the way.
|
Sam:
[32:27]
| Right. So what you had, let me make sure I got this right. What you had was the private company's numbers that they put out originally months ago were actually closer to right than the original government estimates.
|
Ivan:
[32:42]
| Correct. Yes.
|
Sam:
[32:43]
| So if anything, the government was erring in the direction that made it look better first. And then corrected it later.
|
Ivan:
[32:53]
| Yes. Yes. And one of the things that what I've observed happened with this and why this happens frequently is because some of those statistical assumptions, you know, are based on trends. And the trend had been good on jobs, right? Well, because we had, you know, when Trump took over, you know, we had had a good job trend, okay? There had been good job creation. All of this shit started happening because, you know, we have a psychopath in the White House. And so, you know, now all of a sudden, as all the data that they collect came in and they made the adjustments, they realized, oh, shit, we're doing bad. Like, really bad.
|
Sam:
[33:43]
| Yeah, okay. But at the same time, didn't we have good GDP numbers and stuff like that going on?
|
Ivan:
[33:50]
| Okay, the GDP number, okay, was also inflated in large part due to the wild swings we've had in trade because imports dropped a lot and imports, you know, imports dropped by an inordinate amount. And imports are a negative on trade. But when all of a sudden you've had an artificially low import number, basically it was a result of a whole bunch of companies going and front-loading inventory, okay, in the earlier months. They front-loaded inventory because of the worry about the tariffs, and then when the tariffs were announced, then they stopped importing shit. But this is just one of these statistical, you know, one of these events that is causing the statistical numbers to show poor ported strength when what it is, it's just showing the wild swings being caused by this trade war.
|
Sam:
[35:11]
| So, cause I'll tell you, this is, this is one of those things. And we've talked about this before in terms of like timelines and in terms of worst case scenario talk and stuff like that. But the, the impression for the person who's not into it on a day-to-day basis, I think is continuing to be. All of these people have been playing chicken little, saying the sky is falling since the day Donald Trump was sworn in, but we're not seeing the collapse yet. And so they're full of shit. We're seeing some good numbers here. We're seeing some good numbers there. Even where we see bad numbers, they're not that bad. And so.
|
Ivan:
[35:58]
| I don't know what the hell they're. Listen, I don't know what the hell they're watching. But this week, anybody, almost any company that deals with imports, hard products and shit, starting announcing multi-billion dollar hits from tariffs in their bottom line. The last one to announce, yes, it was Berkshire Hathaway, Ford, GM, Stellantis, some company that imports a lot of stuff and sells it online. You know, all of them all of a sudden said, we're getting hit one after the other. OK, one after the other. The companies that didn't get hit are cloud providers. OK, people that sell software because they're not tariffed. It's not product. It's not copper. There's no steel in it, whatever. So they're not getting hit by this shit.
|
Sam:
[36:57]
| Basically, service companies are doing fine.
|
Ivan:
[37:00]
| Correct. Service companies are doing fine. And Apple, in large part, people believe, even though some are saying, eh, it's not really. Some people are front-loading iPhone purchases. Now, in Apple's case, they actually had good China numbers. There were a whole bunch of other things in it. And some people are saying, well, actually, the carriers were getting pretty aggressive with deals. So there's more than that. But most every other company that has to import something, starting announcing that we're getting substantial profit hits. Okay. And Sam, let me tell you something. I've been working in corporate America for 30 years. You know, around there, almost. Getting closer. I've never seen any company I've worked at where they get a $2, $3 billion hit in the bottom line. And they just say, we're good. We're not going to take any action.
|
Sam:
[38:12]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[38:13]
| They're going to do something. Whether it's layoffs, whether it's price increases, they're going to do something to offset losing billions. They're not going to just sit on their fucking hands and do nothing. And, you know, I don't understand who the hell thinks they're just going to sit. You know, so, yeah, they're saying, well, I haven't seen the implosion. Well, you know, this happens in stages. OK, this isn't just, you know, you know, people have like I've said this before. Delayed effects. OK, on things people just cannot understand. They cannot. You know, it's just, it's 90 plus percent of the people are incapable of grasping that when you do something in April, they think, oh, nothing blew up. And then six months later, kaboom. Oh, well, that couldn't have been what happened in April. And I'm like, fuck, Jesus Christ, idiot, fucking moron.
|
Sam:
[39:21]
| You know, it's amazing our species ever figured out, like, how pregnancy works.
|
Ivan:
[39:28]
| Yes! You're like, how the fuck did this happen? Wait a minute. How come you're having a baby? What the fuck? Whoa! Nah, it couldn't have been that. Come on. No. What? Wait, what? No. No, no, no. That's impossible. Look at that, of course, the baby. What are you talking about?
|
Sam:
[39:48]
| Yeah, exactly.
|
Ivan:
[39:51]
| So, another thing that came out, two things, wait, wait. Powell also announced that they're not cutting rates.
|
Sam:
[39:59]
| Mm-hmm. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[40:01]
| You know, yet. But here's the problem, Sam. PCE, which is the, oh, God, it's a whole set. PCE is, uh, the PCE is the Personal Consumption Expenditure. Let's see. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait. Let's see. In inflation. Hold on. Let me get... Okay. Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index. Okay. All right.
|
Sam:
[40:31]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[40:32]
| So the PCE is known for capturing inflation or deflation, across a range of products that people buy. Okay? That is rising.
|
Sam:
[40:45]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[40:46]
| It hit like 2.7. Okay? It's going in the wrong direction. And so you've got declining jobs and you've got prices going up. So the Fed is caught in a pickle because if you loosen rates, it's going to spur inflation. The problem right now, specifically in the one market that could be heavily influenced by lower rates is housing. Okay? Housing demand has been constrained because of high rates. Housing demand has also suffered from low inventory. And so, if you go with a Greenspanian lowering of rates, okay, that fucker would ignite inflation in a way that we haven't seen since the 1970s.
|
Sam:
[41:47]
| Oh, that sounds fun.
|
Ivan:
[41:49]
| That's the problem. And that's the pickle that you're caught in between. So this is why Jay Powell is sitting there with his moron in the White House and his idiotic advisors yelling at him to cut rates. And I'm like, ah, so what the fuck are my choices? Hey, I unleash inflation like we haven't seen in decades. Or, you know, if I don't do that because he's not cutting tariffs, which, by the way, the tariffs are what's causing the employment problems. Nothing else. There's nothing else.
|
Sam:
[42:32]
| Okay, connect the dots right there. Is it because the higher prices cost less sales, cause less revenue, cause sales?
|
Ivan:
[42:38]
| How can you, as a company, decide to invest right now in a project given the uncertainty created by this? You are going to hold off on any investment decisions that would be affected by these tariffs right now. Yeah, you know, nobody is going to rush to go and reshore manufacturing because of the policy uncertainty. Because what happens if in six months he changes the tariff again? And then you spent you're in the middle of spending billions to build this manufacturing plant that all of a sudden you're going to have to shove up your ass.
|
Sam:
[43:28]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[43:29]
| Nobody with this much uncertainty is willing to invest and spend. If you've got your copper with a 50% tariff, if you've got tariffs on steel, if you got tariffs on your products, the first thing you're going to do as it hits your bottom line is hold back hiring. Because that's the one thing you can control the fastest.
|
Sam:
[43:58]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[43:59]
| You're going to say, uh-uh-uh. We don't know what the fuck is going on. All non-essential hiring. You freeze. You delay. You do whatever. That's the first fucking thing you're going to do. And until there is, and right now, the tariffs at where they are, this week, based on this Friday, are only one-third less than the Liberation Day tariff number. So it's still a ridiculously high tariff level.
|
Sam:
[44:33]
| Well, and just on how this is being spun again, like, there's a lot, I mean, look, people are talking about how much better it is than those Liberation Day numbers, as opposed to how much worse it was than where we started.
|
Ivan:
[44:51]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[44:51]
| And it's like, wait a second here. This is sort of your classic bait and switch. Like, you know, we're going to charge you like $100 for this thing that's normally worth $5.
|
Ivan:
[45:06]
| So I switched you from a catastrophe to a disaster.
|
Sam:
[45:10]
| We're going to cut it to $80. Now you're happy, right?
|
Ivan:
[45:13]
| Exactly. I mean, that's pretty much it.
|
Sam:
[45:18]
| Well, and look, a lot of these countries are sort of, it does seem like there's a rush of these people to at least give verbal agreement to these sort of letters of like, okay, you're at 15 or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[45:34]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[45:34]
| You know, just to like get Trump off their backs and make it not 25.
|
Ivan:
[45:38]
| Right. And none of these are any actual trade deals. Nothing that's been agreed to has been a trade deal. A trade deal is usually a 2,000-page document, okay? The UK framework that they agreed to recently and framework with Japan, Korea is less than 20 pages. It's just a framework. It's just, it's just a, I said, it's basically a letter of intent.
|
Sam:
[46:05]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[46:07]
| And as I explained to people, like.
|
Sam:
[46:09]
| With some things in, by the way, like the EU one has, they've already admitted some of the things that the EU promised to do isn't like actually.
|
Ivan:
[46:16]
| That's never going to happen. It's not just the EU. All of them, yes. All of them. Look, going back, going back to the trade deals that he made back in his first term, all of these were, you know, Trump said, well, the deal with Japan includes a 500 billion dollar down payment. And everybody was like, down payment. The fuck is he talking about this so-called agreement? OK, letter that makes this commitment has nothing, nothing, nothing to make sure that that that that that headline number that they committed to investing happens or doesn't include shit that they were already going to do or whatever. It's just bullshit.
|
Sam:
[47:03]
| Mm-hmm. I mean, and this goes to, look, this is Trump's regular MO on all kinds of things. First of all, he cares about the optics, not the substance, number one. So he wants to be able to wave the piece of paper around and say, look, we have a deal. It doesn't actually matter what the deal is. And and then second you know on tariffs specifically donald trump just wants tariffs like he doesn't care if the end result is just every place in the world has 15 he just wants the tariffs you know and then average.
|
Ivan:
[47:43]
| Effective tariff that we had went from somewhere between zero and two percent to 18 it's basically like they just added an 18 sales tax.
|
Sam:
[47:51]
| Right i mean the But other people pointed out, like, most coverage still does not cover it that way. You hear it occasionally. But, like, this is the biggest tax increase ever that I remember.
|
Ivan:
[48:11]
| Ever.
|
Sam:
[48:12]
| You know, like, the world where Republicans were anti-tax, I mean.
|
Ivan:
[48:19]
| Listen, Republicans right now stand for nothing. Nothing, nothing, Sam, nothing. They don't even stand against pedophilia. Nothing. They don't even stand.
|
Sam:
[48:37]
| Yeah. I mean, and, and look in this particular case, again, Trump somehow manages to finagle this messaging. I mean, I'm sure the vast majority of people in this country still think like China pays the tariffs.
|
Ivan:
[48:56]
| Oh my God. You know, always the dumbest fucking line ever.
|
Sam:
[49:02]
| You know, the fact that this is fundamentally a tax that Americans pay on goods they purchase, yes, if you are paying attention and watching the right channels and reading the right sources, you will hear people say that. But I don't think it's penetrated to the general public.
|
Ivan:
[49:23]
| It's not going to enter their pocketbook.
|
Sam:
[49:25]
| Yes. Which, as you said, this is one of those delay factor things.
|
Ivan:
[49:29]
| Building and building and building. And companies have delayed it, Sam, but part of it has been.
|
Sam:
[49:36]
| Delayed it and phased it. And phased it. Because this is important, too, because there is, if you, like, let's say you're jumping the price of something from $10 to $20. You're doubling the price.
|
Ivan:
[49:51]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[49:52]
| But if every couple months you increase it by $1. So it takes you 10 months or a year to do that doubling and, people sort of acclimatize to it. Now, that's still a pretty fast increase. They'll probably notice that.
|
Ivan:
[50:08]
| Listen, they'll start noticing it. Because that was kind of like the price increases that we had a couple of years ago.
|
Sam:
[50:16]
| You can, if you spread it out long enough, people notice less. Now, they still will eventually notice, but it's different than you double it in one day.
|
Ivan:
[50:30]
| Let me tell you something. For the vast majority of MAGA folks, which really are in the lower side of the income spectrum, this is a much bigger hit to their income than it is for folks like ourselves. They have already started noticing it big time, okay? And they will notice it even worse, okay, as this starts going through. There is no way that they're not going to notice the kind of pain that's coming. Okay. Because it's coming.
|
Sam:
[51:06]
| It's coming. The one I've started to hear about in the last couple of weeks, echoing the eggs thing from before, is beef.
|
Ivan:
[51:14]
| Beef.
|
Sam:
[51:14]
| You know.
|
Ivan:
[51:15]
| Beef is soared.
|
Sam:
[51:17]
| Beef is soared. And Donald Trump, just one of the ones he announced was even higher tariffs on Brazil.
|
Ivan:
[51:24]
| Which is one of the biggest beef exporters to present to the United States.
|
Sam:
[51:28]
| Right. And so, yeah, beef prices are going up.
|
Ivan:
[51:32]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[51:33]
| And, and, and, you know, these are, these are these red meat Americans who like beef is like, you know, somehow more macho than like eating chicken or pork or something. So like, you know, beef will hit home, I guess. I don't know, but.
|
Ivan:
[51:50]
| But yeah, it's a cascade of things like right now between Powell, the whole interest rate mess, between inflation, between the tariffs, between the bad job numbers, and hey, did we forget about Epstein?
|
Sam:
[52:08]
| Well, yeah, maybe in the next segment. We're doing econ right now.
|
Ivan:
[52:13]
| You know, but by the way, let's be clear about this. Trump right now is trying to flood this, you know, everything with all of this shit in large part to distract.
|
Sam:
[52:29]
| Try to move the story along.
|
Ivan:
[52:32]
| Yes. He's trying to move the story from the whole Epstein thing. He is determined to try to move the story and which is why this week was wild. And we've got a ballroom, Sam.
|
Sam:
[52:46]
| Okay. If we're moving on from econ to everything else, why don't we go ahead and take a break? And then when we come back, we'll just do everything else.
|
Ivan:
[52:56]
| But, you know, before I would like to just summarize.
|
Sam:
[52:59]
| Yeah. Okay. Summarize. Summarize the wild week.
|
Ivan:
[53:03]
| I'll summarize the wild week in how I felt about this. And I'm just like, we are being run by the biggest fucking bunch of morons ever put in charge of anything ever. Like somebody yesterday on Bloomberg came on. They asked him, well, Peter Navarro said, well, let me be clear. I've never thought that anything coming out of Peter Navarro's mouth is worth anything because he's just wrong on everything.
|
Sam:
[53:38]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[53:41]
| That's it.
|
Sam:
[53:42]
| That's it.
|
Ivan:
[53:43]
| Fuck Trump. Fuck his people. Fuck them all. I hate them.
|
Sam:
[53:48]
| This has been a theme now for like a decade.
|
Ivan:
[53:52]
| I didn't realize Hunter Biden felt exactly like I did. Holy shit. Jesus Christ.
|
Sam:
[53:57]
| Yeah, yeah. Okay. We talked about him last week. I know, I know.
|
Ivan:
[54:00]
| But I'm still like always like just surprised, you know, just like until I heard him. I'm like, shit. I mean, Jesus Christ. I mean, might as well just. You could have AI put my face on him and said, oh. Look at that.
|
Sam:
[54:12]
| You should just swap you out. See if Biden will adopt you.
|
Ivan:
[54:15]
| I mean, I'd like to hang out with Joe. He's a nice guy. Probably tell somebody, you know what?
|
Sam:
[54:22]
| And your family can have hundreds.
|
Ivan:
[54:23]
| Let me tell you something. Can you have a hanging out one day with Joe over at the house when he's got the grandkids and whatever and everybody over there cooking or whatever, hanging out with that? Probably a good time. No. I would say it would be a lovely time.
|
Sam:
[54:36]
| There was a video clip this week that was going around of him like just dropping into some random ice cream shop to get some ice cream. Yeah. So.
|
Ivan:
[54:44]
| I mean, that would be a lovely time.
|
Sam:
[54:46]
| I would, you know, we could do a reality show with you in Biden's family and Hunter in your family. See how the swap worked out.
|
Ivan:
[54:58]
| Well, that would be interesting. With my family, I think Hunter might be in for a rude awakening.
|
Sam:
[55:08]
| Okay, here comes a break. It's another Apple Dream. Oh! Randomly chosen from the 72 currently available Apple Dreams. This is Apple Dream 2. Very, very old Apple Dream. Here we go.
|
Break:
[55:22]
| Here is a dream for Alex. I've already forgotten most of it. Mom and I and you were in Mozambique, where Grandma Ruth lived for a number of years. And I think we were just visiting, but maybe we were living there. But we needed to go home. Grandma Ruth was there, too. And we needed to catch the airplane back. And then we realized we had two different flights and we were worried about how to get mom to her flight and then we realized my flight was only a couple hours after her flight and so we thought that maybe we should just go to the airport together but then we realized we'd have to have someone to take care of you because we couldn't just leave you at the airport while we both left and went back to the United States. And then I woke up. I think there was more to it than that. But I don't really remember anymore. Bye.
|
Ivan:
[56:27]
| So it's not convenient just to leave a child at the airport. It doesn't really work.
|
Sam:
[56:34]
| I don't see why not. I mean, you know.
|
Ivan:
[56:36]
| We just say, hey, just stay here. And, you know, like ticketing, you know, before security in that area. and says, you know, just wait here and we'll be back.
|
Sam:
[56:47]
| We'll be back in a week. Have fun.
|
Ivan:
[56:49]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[56:50]
| You know? Yeah, just usually like a food court or something.
|
Ivan:
[56:54]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[56:55]
| They can eat, their bathroom.
|
Ivan:
[56:57]
| In some airports, they're even open 24 hours. I will tell you this. My wife went through Seattle Airport a couple of weeks ago because she went to this thing that she was going to like.
|
Sam:
[57:08]
| In Vancouver or wherever.
|
Ivan:
[57:10]
| No, no, no. She went back. she met with some people they were going on this thing to the Washington she hates Seattle airport, all the lounges were full all the restaurants were full everything was full everything's under construction she came back she was in a really pissy mood she said I hate this fucking airport.
|
Sam:
[57:31]
| I apologize for the people of Seattle.
|
Ivan:
[57:35]
| I'll let her know that you're transmitting your apologies. Okay, so very good.
|
Sam:
[57:41]
| Okay, so shall we just essentially do a lightning round of all the other crap on our list from this week?
|
Ivan:
[57:46]
| Sure.
|
Sam:
[57:47]
| Okay, one thing I will start with that just, we haven't talked about on the show in a long, long time, but just to put it out there, it is still horrible in Gaza.
|
Ivan:
[57:58]
| Oh, God.
|
Sam:
[57:59]
| You know.
|
Ivan:
[58:00]
| It's worse!
|
Sam:
[58:02]
| This week.
|
Ivan:
[58:03]
| It's worse!
|
Sam:
[58:03]
| This week, we're talking a lot about starvation and the fact that Israel hasn't let very much food in for a couple months. And so now.
|
Ivan:
[58:11]
| Hey, but you know what? I'm sure that Harris would have done much worse.
|
Sam:
[58:16]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[58:17]
| Look, I am sure that she would have made sure that they got nuked by now. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[58:23]
| Yes. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[58:25]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, Harris probably would have gone out there with a gun herself and started killing babies.
|
Sam:
[58:30]
| Probably. Okay. Yeah. So, look, what has seemingly changed this week is a dam seems to be breaking in terms of both international and U.S. Public opinions on this thing. And I shouldn't say a dam breaking. I mean, it's been moving in this direction for a while. It just seems to be accelerating. Accelerating we've got a few countries now saying they're gonna recognize the palestinian authority as a state uh it either right away or in a few months depending on what israel does things like that like i you know canada the uk i think a couple others and look this is basically a symbolic thing. It's not going to make too much of an on the ground difference.
|
Sam:
[59:22]
| But it's, it's a step that most of sort of the industrialized Western countries have not done. Like a lot of other countries have like, you know, most of sort of the non-aligned third world, third world is an outdated concept at this point but like most of those non-eu not non-us most of those countries have already taken this step years ago you know to recognize the palestinian state but sort of the core western group of countries has not and part of the reason is that they have always stated that should be part of a negotiated peace settlement that israel takes part in and basically these countries are saying it's absolutely clear at this point that Israel has no intention of ever going there, And so we're going to go ahead and take this step to try to give a little bit more weight to the Palestinian side and also to, you know, basically register our disapproval.
|
Sam:
[1:00:31]
| And we also see like polls of Americans in terms of who do you sympathize more with, the Americans or the Israelis, are now heavily on the Palestinians or the Israelis, are now very... Much tilted towards the Palestinian side being the side that's being sympathized with. And look, I think this is, I mean, honestly, I've been there for a long time, even before October 7th. But when you have something like October 7th specifically, it's like clearly, Hamas was in the wrong on what happened in October 7th. They made an unprovoked attack on civilians that wasn't even going to really make any progress towards their theoretical political goals, at least it seems this way. It seems like it's played out this way. But then, Israel's response has been so far disproportionate to what happened.
|
Sam:
[1:01:36]
| I mean, I forget the latest totals, but the number of people killed is obscenely high. Yep. And like, so like orders of magnitude higher than what Hamas killed on October 7th. And a significant portion of those killed have been children. It's like, and, and you are, you see these pictures of them basically leveling huge parts of the Gaza Strip completely, like no buildings left standing. And you know so yeah the sympathy has has shifted now has that translated into changes of what's happening on the ground no it has not yet even in terms of like the u.s congress somebody pointed out that while while the like for instance let's talk about democrats for the moment because republicans are a whole different story but on the democratic side it's now like if you survey Democrats.
|
Sam:
[1:02:40]
| It's like 70% or something are like Israel's gone too far we have to be taking harsh actions against Israel to rein them in we should be doing sanctions, we shouldn't be selling weapons to them anymore, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, In terms of Democratic people in Congress, it's like only 20% or something have that view. And so we still have, you know, we don't have, you know, majorities even within Democrats, let alone overall, to like change policy. And Donald Trump is certainly not going to change policy. You joked about Kamala Harris, but I suspect at this point she would have shifted some. I mean, even, you know, the whole thing against Biden was he was he was clearly displeased with what Netanyahu was doing, but he was trying to keep it private.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:34]
| He was trying to influence a lot of pressure on them and had been able to like.
|
Sam:
[1:03:40]
| You know, the one that's happened so far. Biden negotiated. Exactly. Hostages. Exactly.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:47]
| And he had been able to pressure him to stop some of the most vicious stuff and just, you know, to stop a lot of these things to try to, like, make this more targeted, what they were trying to do. He really did put a lot of pressure. But let's be clear about this. Once Biden is gone, Netanyahu has basically done whatever the fuck he's wanted to do. And Trump has done absolutely nothing to stop him from being completely, completely, you know, unconcerned for the lives of anybody living there at all.
|
Sam:
[1:04:18]
| Now, to be clear, in just in the last couple of weeks, Donald Trump has, for instance, said, oh, yeah, there are obviously people starving there and that's bad. Wait, wait, wait. I just want to say this, which Netanyahu to this day is denying. He's saying that it's a lie and people aren't starving. So Trump has gone against him in that sense, but he's not doing anything. But he has sort of...
|
Ivan:
[1:04:47]
| But you know what?
|
Sam:
[1:04:49]
| He's expressed some displugged.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:51]
| Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what? That had to meet the sound of the standard Trump thing that happens, that he listens to the last person to talk to him.
|
Sam:
[1:05:01]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:02]
| Where he must have talked to somebody and whatever, and they said that, and all of a sudden he said that, then three days later, like, forget it.
|
Sam:
[1:05:09]
| Well and the key is as far as we have seen he's not actually putting pressure on netanyahu to change anything other than verbally saying like yeah this kind of sucks and.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:20]
| That he sent food.
|
Sam:
[1:05:22]
| Yes and oh because nobody had thanked him for the food nobody.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:25]
| Thanked him for the food because i mean he's just never thanked enough for everything he does for us.
|
Sam:
[1:05:30]
| Okay anyway gaza is horrible. It continues to be horrible. Next up, you pick one.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:36]
| Well, I was gonna, well, I forgot one thing. Well, one thing to cover on the, on the tariff side that I forgot to mention.
|
Sam:
[1:05:45]
| Which is very important.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:47]
| You know, Trump is very good at making foreign politicians be popular. That hate him.
|
Sam:
[1:05:53]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:54]
| And so in Brazil, you know, this whole thing, the row with Brazil and like with Bolsonaro and him trying to impose serious, you know, higher tariffs on Brazil because they're prosecuting him. The president of Brazil, Lula, whose popularity wasn't that great. He actually is now over 50% popularity, thanks to Trump.
|
Sam:
[1:06:16]
| Nice.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:17]
| I mean, so Lula is thanking Trump because he stood up to him and basically said, fuck you. You know, you want to do these tariffs? Let's go. Come on. And his popularity is soared. So there you go. All right. So next subject on this. And by the way, he also blinked on some of the Brazil tariffs.
|
Sam:
[1:06:41]
| Of course.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:42]
| Yeah. You know, we buy airplanes from Brazil and shit like that. And all of a sudden, oh shit. Yeah. Well, anyway.
|
Sam:
[1:06:50]
| Just on that, since you mentioned the exemptions on certain things, another report came out this week that i believe you forwarded around on the curmudgeon's corner slack about how you know there are all kinds of exemptions for one thing or another or another and yeah what what what is there rhyme or reason behind the exemptions no oh what's what's going on i'm.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:14]
| Sure that what i said is like listen take take take a you know cross a list of donors to trump versus those exemptions And I am sure that that will answer your question.
|
Sam:
[1:07:27]
| Yes. And this is something that we said from the very beginning, by the way. It's like, don't even watch the tariffs. Watch the exemptions. Anyway, go ahead. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:37]
| More Trump Epstein, Sam. So what, you know, so this week, Trump trying to tamp down the issues with Epstein went and said, what was it that he said? He said that Epstein stole Virginia. And I'm sorry.
|
Sam:
[1:07:57]
| How do you say her last name?
|
Ivan:
[1:07:59]
| And I feel bad because this year, you know, they mentioned that she committed suicide this year. And I know that a lot of this stems from the abuse, the abuse that she was subjected to by these monsters.
|
Sam:
[1:08:14]
| And by the way, not just the original abuse, ongoing abuse.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:19]
| Ongoing, ongoing, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:08:21]
| Um like you know the original physical abuse happened you know decades ago but on an ongoing basis anybody who does this kind of thing and goes up and again sort of quote goes public goes up against powerful people whatever they're getting death threats all the time they're getting you know their motivations questioned they're getting this that this is why like it you know lots of people never come forward because when they do it's it's it's an incredible act of bravery to actually come forward in one of these cases especially when the perpetrator is famous but honestly even when they're not because all kinds of people will just impugn your own motives and and try to say you're you're just making it up you're out to get them money like trying to ruin this money something.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:14]
| Whatever blah blah blah yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:09:16]
| So uh but.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:17]
| But then this fucking trump monster goes and says that epstein stole her from her from him.
|
Sam:
[1:09:27]
| Yes, I mean, to be honest, like if you listen to the video clip on Air Force One, you know, he says they were asking him, what was the origin of your beef with Epstein that caused you to sort of break up his friends? Now, there have been various stories in the past about what was responsible for this. In some cases, Trump was saying it was just because he was a creep. In other cases, and the one that seems to be the most collaborated with additional evidence from other people— Corroborate.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:00]
| Corroborate.
|
Sam:
[1:10:01]
| Well, it was actually that it was a real estate beef. There was a property that Epstein was trying to buy, and Trump found out about it.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:10]
| And then Trump went and bought it.
|
Sam:
[1:10:12]
| Trump went and bought it at a higher price, but Epstein was mad that Trump bought it out from under him. But Trump was mad that he had to pay more because Epstein was bidding on it in the first place. Blah blah blah that seems to be like the stuff that is the most evidence for the actual reason of their breakup but this time donald trump said it was because he was poaching people from mar-a-lago, and you know he was he was stealing my employees but no he didn't volunteer the virginia thing at first someone on the plane one of the reporters asked him was one of these people virginia and he's like i'm not sure i think yeah probably yeah i think so yes it was that that's sort of the way he said it you know so it wasn't sort of him coming out and definitely saying like i broke up with him because he stole virginia gillif gillif whatever fuck anyway he wasn't saying it was specifically because he stole that woman. He was talking about a pattern of him stealing. Jiffrey. Jiffrey. Jiffrey. And then when asked if she was one of them, he said, yes, I sort of think so, probably. The timing does not line up. If you look at this, like they continued to be friends for years after this supposed incident. So it doesn't really make sense.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:40]
| But the problem is that I think that everything, you know, everything that he says is a lie. So I'm sure that that and remember that that Trump has had this thing where he has beefs with people's pissed off about something. Then he goes back and his friends with him and then he goes back to being pissed. So God only knows if he was pissed about that. But then he came back or whatever. Then he was pissed. You know, but but but but.
|
Sam:
[1:12:01]
| And the other thing about it that got people, like Virginia Gilliff, say it again?
|
Ivan:
[1:12:09]
| Jeffrey. Jeffrey.
|
Sam:
[1:12:10]
| Virginia Jeffrey. Her family came out and said the thing that disturbed them most about this whole thing is how he was basically describing her as if she was property. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:23]
| That was stolen. Yes. That's the way that he described it. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:12:26]
| And so, like, if you were.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:28]
| Which goes back to the whole sex trafficking.
|
Sam:
[1:12:31]
| Yes. And just to be clear, Virginia herself had repeatedly said that she was not abused by Donald Trump herself. You know, she had been asked that question multiple times. She had named other people, most notably not just Epstein himself, but Prince Andrew from the UK. So she had named other names, but she was asked about and said specifically, I never had those kinds of interactions with Donald Trump himself. But she was recruited from Mar-a-Lago. She was working at the spa in Mar-a-Lago at first, and that's where Epstein and Maxwell recruited her, where Maxwell met her. And, Which brings up the question. Now, I've heard some conflicting reports on exactly what she was doing at the spa. Like, I mean, she might have just been a front desk attendant or whatever. But the bottom line is, why are you hiring teenagers for that anyway?
|
Ivan:
[1:13:35]
| Well, why is he buying beauty pageants with, like, teenagers? Why is he hanging out and, like, going and, like, oogling them one day or, like, changing their clothes? You know, as everybody has mentioned publicly. why is he going and having parties where all of a sudden he invited people like you know luther campbell from two live crew that he showed up where he was so he was like he saw these girls he saw they were half naked he saw that they were like so young and he realized what the fuck is this thing and decided to turn around and leave right.
|
Sam:
[1:14:08]
| Yeah it's not like there isn't a chain of circumstantial evidence around Donald Trump liking his girls young too.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:17]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:14:19]
| And apparently the deal he made with Ivanka at some point when she was growing up was that he would, from that point forward, never date anyone younger than she was. And he talked about on Howard Stern or something, how this was a big sacrifice because as Ivanka aged, you know, he was shutting himself out from a huge part of his potential market. So, okay. So, yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:48]
| Oh, and let's not forget, what happened this week to Ghislaine Maxwell?
|
Sam:
[1:14:53]
| I was going to go there next. So she got transferred to- To Club Fed! To Club Fed. And apparently they had to put in special override exemption, whatever, because she wasn't actually eligible for the nicer, lower security prison. because she's a sex offender.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:13]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:15:14]
| You know, those facilities are basically intended for like white collar criminals, et cetera. And being a sex offender is not considered part of that, which by the way, I just want to also put out there, a lot of people are making sure they point this out, but I want to be one of them. There, a lot of the coverage of Maxwell talks about her sort of facilitating Epstein and like recruiting girls for Epstein and delivering them to him and to the other men in that circle. And that is absolutely true. That happened. She was convicted of that. But it's also important to note, she also directly molested these girls.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:57]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:15:58]
| Like it is part of the evidence on record in the trial. Yes. There are plenty of witnesses who have testified to this that very often she would actually be the first one to molest these girls.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:11]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:16:12]
| And sort of warm them up for Epstein or whatever. And, you know, so her, her whole modus operandi was that she would go searching in, you know, lower income areas, people with, you know, single parents, troubled teens who were like in trouble for other things already. She would befriend them. She would talk to them about how she thought they could be models and she was going to hook them up with like modeling agencies and maybe Hollywood and blah, blah, blah. And you fill their heads with like how she's going to make them like an amazing success and help them out in their careers and help them out financially and all this kind of stuff. And then she would molest them herself and then she would deliver them to Epstein and then she would deliver them to other men that were in that same circle.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:07]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:17:08]
| You know, so she is, Yo, All of this, there appears, we seem to be sort of working our way up to some sort of Donald Trump pardon or commutation of Maxwell in exchange for presumably her, at the very least, saying Donald Trump had nothing to do with this. And perhaps also, while she's at it, pointing the finger at some Democrats, you know. And we had a situation where I can't remember if this happened by the time we talked last week or not, but high up officials from the DOJ interviewed her alone, which, by the way, is completely nonstandard in any sort of way as well. They gave her limited immunity to do so normally if you were going to interview somebody like this you would make sure the people interviewing her were people that were intimately familiar with all the details of her case already so that they could do things like catch her in any lies know the right places to ask questions all this kind of stuff oh by the way they fired the person who would have met that criteria.
|
Sam:
[1:18:21]
| Jim Comey's daughter, who happened to be the one prosecuting both Epstein and Maxwell, they fired her a couple weeks ago. She would have been perfect for that if you were actually going to do this in a good faith sort of way, which they are clearly not. Instead, they bring up one of the Donald Trump cronies, I forget which one, to do the interview. The interview, there's no record right now in terms of where their notes on the interview was there a recording was there anything it was it just him in a room with her, you know, we don't know those details. Now, maybe there, maybe there are all, you know, all that we just don't know. And. You know, and this is all put in the thing of, we're going to get to the bottom of it. But come on, you know, and clearly the.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:10]
| We're going to get to the bottom of it. And somebody shared with me a meme that showed, you know, he's going to get to the bottom of it. And they showed OJ on a picture on the side said, yeah, I'm going to find the killers.
|
Sam:
[1:19:24]
| Yep. look there there is no public evidence of direct wrongdoing by donald trump at this point but he continues to act guilty you know and you know this whole movement moving her to the low security federal facility blah blah blah i mean it it just looks like a proof of good faith essentially look Maxwell. You know, we're going to give you this right now just to show you if you can give us more, maybe we'll give you more too. You know, and who knows? This is just speculation. We don't know what's happening, but it all looks bad and it's all keeping things in the news. So like, if the goal is to make this disappear, Donald Trump is doing it exactly the wrong way. There's also been, by the way, a congressional subpoena for more of the materials that apparently have to be delivered by the 15th. We'll see if that actually happens. But yeah, we're 100% Streisand affecting this. Where Donald Trump himself is keeping this in the news more than anybody else. Yeah. Like if he had just shut the fuck up and been quiet, like, I'm not saying it would have blown over completely because a lot of MAGA folks were upset.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:48]
| A lot of MAGA folks are still upset. Let's be clear about this. All of this is distracting from we don't listen to this whole thing. What was the whole purpose of how this all started? How did this all start? What was the main thing? There were, because this administration was going to?
|
Sam:
[1:21:08]
| Release all the files.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:09]
| That's right. Where the fuck are the files, Sam?
|
Sam:
[1:21:12]
| No, no, but my point is just that Donald Trump has made this worse. Right. You know, if he had been quiet, it wouldn't have gone away completely. But by the fact that he himself keeps talking about it and keeps saying more things.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:27]
| On and on and on.
|
Sam:
[1:21:29]
| You know, it's keeping it alive. It's giving more fuel to the fire. It's making him look more and more guilty, even to some of his own supporters. I mean, you know, we don't see like him, you know, we have not yet reached the magical moment where all of MAGA suddenly decides Donald Trump is a fraud. But we're working on the edges.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:55]
| We're working on the edges.
|
Sam:
[1:21:56]
| You know, so the other thing I will mention on this is that Bruce on our Commudgeons Corner Slack left us a comment saying, you guys are missing the whole point of this Epstein thing. The real point is people think Epstein was hired by a foreign intelligence service to set all these people up, or the CIA, but most people apparently think it's Mossad, to set all these people up, gather blackmail evidence, and then manipulate all of these important Americans.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:32]
| And look, what I said, and my first reaction is that there hasn't been a single shred of credible evidence to point towards that. I mean, look, the first people that really did a thorough job that exposed Epstein and basically led him to being arrested, okay, back, you know, back in the late 2010s, okay, was the Miami Herald. And they had done a very authoritative, very thorough investigation into Epstein, interviewed so many of the victims, 60, 70 of them. I mean, their investigation, it's one of those things that you rarely still see being done by a local newspaper. OK, and it was extremely authoritative. It was extremely detailed. They gathered the evidence. And during that entire time that they went through and gathered that information, not one single iota shred of evidence came forward that it had anything to do with that. The main thing for Epstein was how this all started was him ingratiating with himself with people with money by providing the girls because a lot of these people liked the girls.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:47]
| And this would give him access to more money because he was one that didn't start with a lot of money. He didn't have that kind of money. But the first guy that he targeted that he was very close relationship with, and there's been a lot of questions about, is Leslie Wexner. Leslie Wexner is the guy that was the owner of the limited. You know, he was he was the driving force of town at Victoria's Secret and all of these other companies. This is where he had ingratiated himself with and through managing some of his money and doing investments getting money with them this is where where his main source of money first came and then he parlayed that into other money and other connections and this entire thing with the girls was a he liked it b it was his way of like sharing with his friends and getting money out of them.
|
Sam:
[1:24:36]
| So there are a couple things here, just to circle back to the foreign intelligence for a second. First of all, like, this is an Occam's razor thing. There's a plenty good explanation without involving, like, the Mossad. Yeah. You know, you don't need it to explain everything that happened here. Second, people have pointed out, in a lot of the legal cases so far, if there had been an intelligence connection, you would have expected U.S. Intelligence to actually intervene in some of those cases to exclude certain evidence or to guide it in some way. And there's no evidence of that having happened. So yeah, I think you've got, you don't need any of that for this to happen. This is fairly straightforward. There's also fairly limited evidence at this point that there was a specific blackmail scheme in place, as opposed to, like you said, Yvonne, just him sharing with his friends. Now, obviously, given who some of his friends were, there was opportunity for blackmail. But it seems like that evidence isn't there. Maybe that some of what is in the files that we'll find out if they're all released, blah, blah, blah. We don't know.
|
Sam:
[1:25:59]
| The other thing, though, is the financial element. There are several senators, I think Senator Schiff was one of them, I could be wrong, who was pushing and saying, look, we really do need to do a more thorough investigation of the financial side of this. Because there is a lot of question on exactly where, how, when he got his money, and was it all above board, et cetera. And it's just a, that would be a good place to investigate further. And apparently that just has not, like, what has happened so far in the criminal trials didn't need that to go after the charges they were specifically going after.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:43]
| Well, plus, let's be clear, though, you know, the only person who went to trial was Ghislaine. I mean, Epstein didn't go to trial. He committed suicide before he got to fucking trial. Well, at least we think he committed suicide. I mean, because even I'm like a little bit. I mean, I always believe that 100 percent. But right now, still, we still don't have clarity on this whole thing about the missing minutes in the video anyway.
|
Sam:
[1:27:02]
| Right. Okay. Well, we are now at the time that you said you needed to stop, Yvonne. So let's wrap things up. The only other thing that I will save for another week is Kamala Harris has reemerged on her book tour. And so there's commentary on that and what her intentions are. She's not going to run for a governor in California. Maybe she'll run for president, but she says not yet. She's just doing other stuff right now. And of course, she's hawking the book. And people have reacted to that in various ways. Another day. Another day.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:39]
| I'm going to say this. Look, this was like Kabbalah. I'm not fucking reading a book about that damn campaign. I really don't fucking care. I don't want to rehash it right now.
|
Sam:
[1:27:49]
| Yeah. Anyway, we will have plenty of time to talk about election 2028 as things develop. We got election 2026 first. So anyway. Okay. Curmudgeons-corner.com. You can go there. You can find our archives. You can find transcripts. You can, you know, listen to old shows if you want. You can find all the ways to contact. That would be our archives. I'm being redundant there. I know. I'm sorry. You can find all the ways to contact us, except TikTok. I still have not linked TikTok. I'm still way behind on posting clips to TikTok. I'm still on the week where my car died. Like, I posted one video from that week. I usually post three videos per show. I've got two more yet to post. I've got one chosen. I'll probably push it out after we're done recording. I've told myself I'm going to like put one video out a day until I'm caught up, but I haven't been meeting that target. Anyway, you can always contact us and of course our Patreon where we can, where you can give us money and giving us money is good because at various levels, you will get like, you know, mentioned on the show. We will ring a bell. You'll get a postcard like Yvonne is working on right now. He's going to do something amazingly creative.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:06]
| Woo!
|
Sam:
[1:29:07]
| Like some sort of massive arts and crafts. Oh, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:10]
| This thing will be worth millions.
|
Sam:
[1:29:13]
| Exactly. Like, you know, it'll be jeweled with diamonds.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:20]
| You know, this whole thing, diamonds are being so devalued now with all these artificial diamonds, you know? So it's not exactly right now. I got to probably need to use like gold leaf.
|
Sam:
[1:29:30]
| There you go. Gold leaf. There you go. Gold leaf. styled yeah yeah got a Donald Trump this is.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:37]
| 20 25 yes you're gonna get a Donald Trump style postcard yes.
|
Sam:
[1:29:42]
| Yeah anyway yeah you get a postcard you can get a mug you can get like stuff you know it's fun but most importantly at two dollars a month or more we will invite you to the curmudgeon's corner slack or we'll we'll do that for free if you ask you know but you know we love for the two dollars anyway you know anyway on the curmudgeon's corner slack yvonne and i are sitting around chatting we're always sitting right when we're when we're dealing with the slack we're sitting i mean i could be walking maybe but most of the time most of the time i'm sure we are we are sitting around a campfire with s'mores talking on the curmudgeon's corner slack, Yeah, no. Anyway, so Yvonne, what is something that we discussed on the Curmudgeon's Corner Slack this week that we have not discussed on the show at all and would entice people to join the Slack?
|
Ivan:
[1:30:36]
| Okay, look, I shared this. Nobody made a comment on this.
|
Sam:
[1:30:39]
| So nobody cares about it, so you're bringing it up.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:41]
| Apparently, but I am going to bring it up. Taste testing battery-flavored tortilla chips, okay? They're there you know this these marginally tastier than licking an actual nine volt battery so some company went and like tried to create chips that taste like how it tasted when you went and i'm sure that i'm not the only one that did this i've absolutely done this you know put your tongue and licked the two ends of a nine volt battery and he actually went the guy went that actually bought a 9-volt battery and licked it, okay, just to compare the flavor of the chips. I think in summary, let me see. It says here, let's see. It's been a while since I last licked a battery, so in the name of science, I bought my own. Licking a 9-volt battery is probably safe. The Rewind is clearly that it does not recommend or condone licking, biting, or otherwise ingesting real batteries. But I figure if it's good enough for my colleague, Sean, it's good enough for me. I found the experience pretty unpleasant. A small, sharp shock and lingering metallic aftertaste. Not what I usually look for in a tortilla chip.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:51]
| Rewind's taste, that's the brand of the chips, is a little less intense. There is a sharp, acidic flavor at first, but it's milder than I expected. I love salt and vinegar chips, and I've had packs that make me wince much more than these. What stands out a little more is that there is a mineral taste underlying it all, an odd tankiness that isn't a million miles from battery metal. The chips themselves are a little thinner than I like. I prefer a more substantial crunch for protein chips, but aren't bad at all. So there you go. Apparently, these guys developed a chip... Kind of, sort of, tries to bring to the tortilla chip the taste of licking a 9-volt battery.
|
Sam:
[1:32:33]
| I was just looking around to see if I had one, like, just sitting on a shelf.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:37]
| I have one, and I am not licking it.
|
Sam:
[1:32:38]
| If I had turned to the left to my shelf and actually seen one, I would have licked it right now.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:45]
| No, no, I know where I have my 9-volt batteries. I'm not doing it.
|
Sam:
[1:32:49]
| I mean, I know I've got some somewhere. I just don't think they're within reach of where I'm sitting right now. But you know i did see a video on tiktok this week as well it was probably an old one being recycled but it had a slight variant on this it had some like woman probably around 20 years old like college aged woman with a metal nose ring and and she decided that sort of like, you had two ends sticking one out of each nostril yeah and so of course she decided oh god she.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:23]
| Put She connected the 9-volt battery to the fucking... Oh, God.
|
Sam:
[1:33:28]
| Yes, exactly. She connected the 9-volt battery to the nose thing. And it worked out just about as you would expect. Oh, shit.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:36]
| No, shit.
|
Sam:
[1:33:40]
| Anyway, this is how you tested to see if a 9-volt battery was still good.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:46]
| True.
|
Sam:
[1:33:47]
| How strong was it? You don't need some fancy electrical tester. You just stick it in your mouth. Well, not in your mouth. You lick the terminals.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:54]
| You just lick the terminals. You lick the terminals. You don't swallow it.
|
Sam:
[1:33:57]
| Yeah. And you know, it's sort of felt, it's one of those feelings that, yes, it's unpleasant. But somehow you're drawn to it.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:08]
| I, look, I did it once and was cured.
|
Sam:
[1:34:12]
| You were cured after one try?
|
Ivan:
[1:34:15]
| Yep, never again.
|
Sam:
[1:34:16]
| I must say, I have done this many times in my life, not just once.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:21]
| No, I did it once, but I said never again.
|
Sam:
[1:34:23]
| To be fair, this was not something where I decided, oh, this is cool. I'm going to do it for fun all the time.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:28]
| That reminds me about the same thing. It's like, look, things that I've done like that electrically once, never again. A, lick the battery. B, also, like, when I was little, put my finger in between the prongs as I went to plug in something into a socket and get shocked by that. Yeah, that's also unpleasant. I said, that's never happening again.
|
Sam:
[1:34:49]
| When you're dealing with AC power as opposed to DC power, there are serious health risks. You can get burnt. You can have heart issues. You can die from that. now most of the time you'll get lucky and you're like i i've i've been shocked by ac house power on a variety of occasions and i clearly have not died but you know i'm lucky also that varies like depending on like part of the world like in places that have 220 voltage it's worse than places that have 110 or whatever like we have or 120 i forget whatever whatever it is like some places in the world have double what we have or you know and you don't want to do that with like your your you know some u.s outlets are high voltage for major appliances and things like that you don't want to be you know trying to stick your tongue in between the plug and the wall no no no no absolutely not be safe whatever but but yeah nine volt battery you know it's probably not going to kill you you don't want to swallow it.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:48]
| You don't want to swallow it.
|
Sam:
[1:35:49]
| The other batteries you don't want to swallow that are particularly bad. You know those little button batteries.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:53]
| The little, yeah, the little button batteries. That's it.
|
Sam:
[1:35:55]
| Because if you actually swallow them, they can destroy your intestines.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:02]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:36:02]
| Like that's a major, like go to the ER right now if you ever accidentally swallow one of those. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or if your pet swallows it or whatever. It can be, you can die a long, painful death from, you know, destroying your internals. In your digestive system.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:20]
| Let's try to avoid doing that. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:36:22]
| So wait, you, you are not advocating opening a food truck that is 100% battery flavored foods.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:29]
| Correct.
|
Sam:
[1:36:30]
| No, I don't think it'll be success. No actual batteries either. Little, little bowl of button batteries as like candy appetizers.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:38]
| No, no, no, no, no.
|
Sam:
[1:36:40]
| Just like, just like some places give you those little mint.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:42]
| Hey, let's wrap them in chocolate. Yeah. You know, let's go try to kill some people. Yay.
|
Sam:
[1:36:47]
| Let's not. Just in case anybody's listed who might want to throw us in jail, we're not actually going to distribute batteries at Halloween inside the candy. No.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:00]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:37:01]
| Not happening. Okay, we are done. Thank you, everybody, for joining us yet again. Have a great week. Stay safe. All that kind of stuff. And here comes the goodbye music. Well, first, we have to say goodbye. Goodbye.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:14]
| Goodbye.
|
Break:
[1:37:17]
| Thank you.
|
Sam:
[1:37:46]
| Okay, have a great birthday party. Say happy birthday to Manu for me.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:51]
| All right, I will.
|
Sam:
[1:37:52]
| Later.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:53]
| All right.
| |
|
