00:00:00
Well, wasn't it What's happening with Tik Tok? Well, they said it's consummated or gonna consummate it or whatever.
00:00:11
Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Carara Swisser and I'm
00:00:16
still in Korea. Hi Scott. Are you enjoying yourself? Yeah, I am. I'm not a big traveler. I'm
00:00:22
not a big traveler. I like going home. You're not a big traveler. You travel all the time. I know, but I like home if I had to
00:00:28
pick. If that makes sense. Does that make sense? Well, that's um you're I assume you're
00:00:34
not. It would be somewhat distressing if if Amanda was listening, you said, "Yeah, I just I like to be away from
00:00:40
home." Well, she's been great. Whether that's true or not, that's the right thing to say.
00:00:45
I miss home. I miss home wherever it happens to be. I can't stand my kids. And then about an
00:00:50
hour into the drive to the airport, I start missing them. I can't Oh, really? I can stand my kids. I miss
00:00:55
them a lot. I do. I do. Oh, well, you're a much better parent than me. I am. Well, that's kind of
00:01:01
You get my point. I'm I'm Do you want me to parent your kids if you'd like? No. Your mo your wife is great.
00:01:07
I could use the help. You know, Trump's coming here and I'm leaving. That's That's one of my favorite parts of this.
00:01:12
He's going to Korea. Yeah. Are you coming here on Let me just say for everybody, Scott's book comes out what day? November.
00:01:17
Yeah, it comes out November I think it's November the 4th. Is that right? Notes on being a woman. Yes. No.
00:01:24
There you go. That's your next one. That's that's what people are looking for from me.
00:01:29
Um, but it's coming out and you're coming on the my podcast. We're going to talk this week. That's right. I just saw that on my
00:01:35
counter. I'm going on on with Cara Fisher. I feel like that's like I have never stayed at your house.
00:01:40
That's what this feels like. It feels very uncomfortable. I'm excited. It's pretty high up now. It's up in the top of the of the charts
00:01:47
getting up there. So, I'll hope they'll sell books, but I'm excited to hear I'm going to read the book. Oh, I have it on
00:01:52
the plane. I'm going to read it on the plane. That's what I'll do. That's one of the things that'll put me to sleep.
00:01:57
No, no, I just want to know what it's like to be a man. It'll be great. Someone asked me what my body count was,
00:02:03
so I started counting and I fell asleep. Get it? Like counting sheep. I see.
00:02:10
All right. All right. You'll get there. You're a little jetlagged, but you'll get there. I know. I'm a little jetlagged. No, I'm just tired. It just was a long day cuz I I I
00:02:16
I have to say the crews here and the people have been amazing. That's the one thing. They're really lovely people. And
00:02:22
um hopefully it'll it'll turn out okay. The TV always makes me There's a lot of waiting in television. I'm kind of glad
00:02:27
to be done with the taping next thing. I was thinking about going to uh Korea for a scrotum lift. I think of it as
00:02:33
lowhanging fruit. Oh my god. All right, we're going to stop. Speaking of plastic surgery, which you love.
00:02:39
Did you hear about this? The tech bros are all getting plastic surgery. They're following in your footsteps. Um some
00:02:44
surgeons have seen five-fold increases demand for men in tech in the last 5 years. Not a surprise, according to
00:02:49
article in the Wall Street Journal. I I don't think it's just men in tech, but apparently so there's a lot of them.
00:02:54
Procedures, mini face lifts, neck lifts, that deep plain thing, eyelid lifts to stay looking youthful in a competitive
00:03:01
job market. I I just I didn't have any work done, but it's, you know, I'm not surprised. Do you think Are you
00:03:06
surprised? Seems silly. Um, no. I mean, I get I've had I get
00:03:12
Botox and I'm sure at some point I'll go into the knife. I think that look, we're in a we're in an ages
00:03:20
culture. I think some of that is good. Uh, and people want to feel youthful.
00:03:25
And I think the standards and the benchmark, there are so many people out there now. I don't know if
00:03:31
you've noticed, have you noticed this? It seems like every young person is hot. And between working out and skin
00:03:38
treatments in New York, all the young people are hot. I think the tunnels have some sort of x-ray or security post
00:03:44
where if you're not hot, you're not allowed into New York. Um, but my sense is the the aesthetic and the benchmark
00:03:50
has gotten so especially for men, right? For men, which I think is it's common more common
00:03:56
here or Brazil or different play or Brazil, I think. Um, but I've noticed a
00:04:03
lot younger and a lot just the way they were in some other countries. Um, a lot younger and a lot more men. Well, that's
00:04:10
the big that's the growth part is that women have always been look men are disproportionately and unfairly
00:04:15
evaluated on their economic viability, women on their aesthetics. So, there's always been an emphasis and women have always spent a disproportionate amount
00:04:21
of time and money on aesthetics. What's the the delta or the change or the uplift in surgery is mostly coming from
00:04:28
men because a lot of it used to be men had to retire at 65 and now they say no
00:04:33
I want to come back and bend to Donald Trump and [ __ ] up Disney and I'm 74 but I want to look 73 so I get surgery. So
00:04:42
guys everywhere are getting if you have the bottom line is the surgical techniques have gotten much better and
00:04:49
and if why look 65 if you can look 57 and if you have money and it's not that
00:04:55
big a risk any longer. It the question I have is why wouldn't you? And some people say well I don't care.
00:05:01
Do do you really do you really not care what you look like? Yeah. So yeah those neck things were men looked
00:05:07
better with the neck. I hate to say it, but I'm not a big I don't like a lot of surgery. Al although they, you know,
00:05:14
it's it's gotten better and better. I mean, that deep plane thing, but um the thing around the neck with the guys I
00:05:20
thought was really interesting is um you know, they look kind of jowlly and then they don't.
00:05:26
Has a lower face left. Yeah, I have less jowls. I was told by the skin people I don't have as many jels. Yeah. No, you're not.
00:05:31
Jowls are coming, of course. or the the the thing around your eyes, sort of the eye sockets and the double folds and
00:05:38
this and that and or the triple folds and the the heavy eyelid. Yeah.
00:05:43
Yeah. Anyway, go ahead. Well, I didn't have any while I was here, but maybe you could when you come anyway.
00:05:48
I'm all I'm I'm for it. I'm a huge fan of it. So, speaking of uh of of Trump being
00:05:54
here, he is actually coming Thursday. He's been in Asia striking all manner of deals, which we'll talk about in a second. Um he he he's he's pulling
00:06:02
tariffs off it looks like or or putting striking deals. But he said he's putting a 10% tariff on imports from Canada
00:06:09
after already cancelling trade talks all because of a TV ad that an audio accurate audio audio of Ronald Reagan
00:06:16
criticizing tariffs. Trump called the ad which was sponsored by the government of Ontario that would be Doug Ford a fraud
00:06:21
and a hostile act. The spot features excerpts from a 1987 Ronald Reagan radio address on foreign trade. the audio is
00:06:27
authentic though it is slightly different order from the original speech. Um but it's what he said. Um he
00:06:33
the the Reagan Presidential Foundation said the ad misrepresents Reagan words but is unexplained was misrepresented
00:06:39
cuz I went back and and listened to the original and it's this it was the intent
00:06:45
but so I guess they shouldn't have rearranged it. But let's listen to some of this ad.
00:06:50
When someone says, "Let's impose tariffs on foreign imports," it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by
00:06:57
protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while it
00:07:03
works, but only for a short time. But over the long run, such trade barriers
00:07:08
hurt every American worker and consumer. High tariffs inevitably lead to
00:07:15
retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars.
00:07:20
Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse. Businesses and industries shut down and millions of people lose
00:07:27
their jobs. I'll tell you, it was nice hearings a president who actually spoke in full
00:07:33
sentences. Um, a Republican one uh Ontario's premier pulled the ad, but uh
00:07:38
it did air in major US markets over the weekend, including during the World Series. Um, talk about this from a
00:07:44
market. This is this Doug Ford who's this conservative who was somewhat proTrump as I recall and now is sort of
00:07:50
like you know smacking him around up there up north. Um talk about from a marketing not so much the essence
00:07:56
because this is what Reagan thought actually but um but about doing this kind of things and why Trump is reacting
00:08:03
like this. Well, look, I I think Canada's never looked stronger. It's just strange to be
00:08:09
rooting for the Blue Jays when they're playing my home team, the Dodgers. It's just Canada, the US's strategy
00:08:18
looks performative, faux masculinity, sclerotic. They're they're dictating trade policy
00:08:24
off of commercials that antagonize the president. It's just and Canada, I
00:08:30
believe, is our biggest trading partner. Some people would say it depends on how you count it. It should be Mexico,
00:08:36
but I mean, one of the biggest problems we have in the United States is housing. And unfortunately because of nimiism and
00:08:44
incumbents who control the government were fond of regulations that made it make it harder for the entrance to buy a
00:08:50
home. And so we've let homes go from 290 to 410. And the you know two of the
00:08:56
largest inputs are gypsum drywall which comes from Mexico and lumber which comes from Canada. So we're going to make
00:09:02
homes more expensive unnecessarily. And Canada just looks more consistent
00:09:08
and unafraid. And I think this has been I think this has bolstered the brand of
00:09:14
Canada. I think they will end up this will absolutely impact their economy negatively for three or four years. They
00:09:20
will figure out different trade routes. It's no accident which they are trying. Of course Carney's headed to Asia as we speak.
00:09:26
Yeah. Yeah. And there's no shortage of of other export nations that'll say, you know
00:09:31
what, we have really good products here too and we're going to do it at zero tariff and let's strengthen the relationship between Canada and Asia and
00:09:38
Latin America. And then those relationships will be really unh hard to undo. And
00:09:43
yeah, the next administration, and I'm trying to manifest this, is going to have to go on essentially a
00:09:49
48-month apology tour. And regardless of how effective that is, there's no way
00:09:54
we're going to be able to compensate for the destruction to these 80-year trade alliances that has taken place over the
00:10:00
last, you know, 10 months. This is just, no one likes to be insulted or have
00:10:05
economic warfare. And why this is just so incredibly stupid is I'll just use an
00:10:10
example. The Kentucky bourbon industry is basically going to be wiped off the map if they're not careful. So
00:10:17
they have stopped buying Jack Daniels. Do you know the margins? The margins on lumber are probably like 10 to 30%. The
00:10:23
operating margins are probably high single digits. Those companies don't trade a big multiples. The public traded
00:10:29
lumber companies if there are any. Whereas alcohol commands 90 points of margin. The majority of restaurants, the
00:10:35
the kind of the ugly secret of restaurants is they try to break even on the food and they make all their money on the alcohol.
00:10:41
On the alcohol. Yeah. Because they'll charge you 14 bucks for a Makaker Mark and ginger ale and it costs them about 60 cents. And so that's
00:10:49
where they make all their margin. And we have some of the best alcohol brands in the world. And when we import them into
00:10:54
Canada and they say no, it's not tit for tat. If we reduce our exports by a
00:11:00
dollar by declaring trade war and they reduce their exports go down a dollar,
00:11:05
it's not dollar for dollar because our margins on our products tend to be higher. Yeah. One of the things is interesting
00:11:11
to me is, you know, from a marketing perspective, Reagan used to be the gold standard of Republicans, right? And you
00:11:17
know, we're showing our age. We remember the age of Reagan, which wasn't as great as people are now making it out to be.
00:11:22
Although some of these speeches are terrific, especially the immigration one, which was one of his last speeches. Um, but you know, the the the marketing
00:11:30
strength of Ronald Reagan is over Mr. Morning in America, which is very different from Make America Great Again,
00:11:36
right? In terms of that was some marketing expertise, the Reagan
00:11:41
administration, but it doesn't work, I guess, except to irritate Donald Trump. I mean, he was an actor and he was very
00:11:48
handsome and regardless of some of his policies. I mean, I I like Ronald Reagan and it's
00:11:54
easy to play Monday morning quarterback, but he refused to use the word AIDS and in a period where anyways, we have a
00:12:00
tendency to decide people in history are either very very good or very very bad. And because history is sort of a crude,
00:12:06
blunt instrument, I mean, if you think about him as the the there are no more Republicans or at
00:12:14
least he was brand Republican forever, right? Trump has completely
00:12:19
long time ago. It's fiscal responsibility. Okay, that's gone out the window. $7 trillion in
00:12:25
deficits from George Washington to George Bush. Since then, it's been $30 trillion. and a Republican tried to convince us and we believed him that we
00:12:32
could go to war and cut taxes at the same time. That was W. And since then, Democrats and Republican administrations
00:12:38
since then have said to the children that are the United States voter right now, no, you can stay up till 2 a.m. and
00:12:45
eat sugar and not have dinner and you don't have to go to school tomorrow and nothing bad will ever happen. Yeah.
00:12:50
So, Americans have gotten used to spending $7 trillion on 5 trillion and believing that everything will be okay.
00:12:56
Okay. So, fiscal responsibility was a touchstone of Republican administrations. That's gone. Um, uh,
00:13:03
low involvement or less involvement, not overarching government combined with personal liberty.
00:13:09
And that was you get to make these decisions and government should not be in your life. And we now have a
00:13:16
government which is essentially a cross between socialism and cronyism. and that is the government
00:13:22
is very involved in corporate decisions, but it's based on who he likes or
00:13:27
doesn't like, who curries favor with him or doesn't. That that could not be more that could
00:13:33
not be more non-Republican. So, I mean, it's the Democrats who on economic
00:13:38
policy and individual rights appear to be more Republican. If I could go back in time, Teddy Roosevelt was all about
00:13:45
the environment. Everything is upside down right now. an embrace of foreign relationships, nonp protectionism was a
00:13:51
very Republican thing. Well, speaking of which, um, on the other tariff front though, US and
00:13:57
Chinese officials have reached yet another framework of a deal avoid 100% tariffs that Trump threatened to impose
00:14:02
uh, Taco Trump. Uh, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant, who really is sort of lost a seems to be undignified now, also
00:14:11
said on Face the Nation that Trump and G are set to finalize a Tik Tok deal this week. Let's listen uh to uh how he
00:14:18
talked about this. We reached a final deal on Tik Tok. Uh we've reached one in Madrid and I
00:14:26
believe that as of today all the details are ironed out and that will be for the
00:14:32
two leaders to uh consummate that transaction on Thursday in Korea.
00:14:39
I'm getting the hell out of Korea before consummation. Let's let's hope not. Um,
00:14:44
so there's that happening, which I think something you talked about needing to happen, the Chinese uh to to come to
00:14:51
terms with China. Yeah. But I don't I don't know what that means. What What if they have a
00:14:56
commercial that pisses them off on the way over? I don't in that 100% tariff. And
00:15:02
um I think that they you know, China definitely has its own problems. I mean what you have to when you're
00:15:09
establishing or trying to understand a battle and doing our game theory, you've got to look at the strengths they have
00:15:14
that you don't have. And China has the advantages of an authoritarian government where the autocrat has
00:15:20
established power for the next 10, 20, 30 years. He's consolidated power. They have the CCP. I don't know if it's
00:15:28
unpopular popular, but I don't think it's very unpopular. The economy there has struggles, but the Chinese, the
00:15:35
Chinese to a certain extent have the same advantage that the Russians have in Ukraine, and that is their willingness to endure and inflict pain on their
00:15:41
populace for long-term interests. Americans, if you know, if AWS goes out and Netflix
00:15:48
goes down, the whole nation is freaks out. China is absolutely willing to put
00:15:54
companies out of business. It's willing to decrease their prosperity, but is not going to be pushed around by America.
00:16:00
And also we have a tendency to think this this administration anyways that it's the biggest customer at you know
00:16:06
rolling up to the bar. We're the third largest trading partner. The Association for Southeast Asian Nations is their
00:16:13
largest trading partner, the second largest. They do more trade with the EU than they do with the US. And they have
00:16:19
already vastly decreased the percentage of trade going to the US. So he shows up
00:16:25
and again this is just a such a common error in judgment and in strategy. He shows up thinking he has cards he
00:16:32
doesn't have and Americans if if inflation pops to five or six% here
00:16:38
Americans are going to freak out. They could go to 15% in China and the Chinese
00:16:44
government has killed tens of millions of its own people or let them starve for what they perceive to be national
00:16:50
interests. M so to think that he can show up and muscle them around, he is totally mis
00:16:56
miscalculating and misappraising his his adversary over there. So I don't trust
00:17:01
him nor any of his team to get a deal done or you know quote unquote a
00:17:06
framework. So we'll wait and see, right? A frame framework of a deal. Yet another what's happening with Tik Tok? I I mean
00:17:13
I don't know. Well, they said it's consummated or going to consummate or whatever. They're going to [ __ ] each other. I don't know
00:17:18
what why he used that word, but presumably it's going to Larry Ellison as is everything. It's apparently in
00:17:24
media. Uh this is the most important element of Ellison's uh me burgeoning media empire of course.
00:17:32
Um you know what's going to happen here? But um I don't know what it means. I guess they just decided h give it to
00:17:37
him. What's the difference? Right? Like we don't need this and if we can get everything else. I mean there was an
00:17:43
interesting I read a lot of the analysis of this and basically what they've decided to do as every other leader
00:17:48
including leader of Japan is to flatter him to compliment him and then get what
00:17:54
you want right essentially and and which is kind of depressing like they've just figured figured him out pretty easily
00:18:00
and uh we'll see the Chinese you're absolutely right are in it for the long haul so we'll see what they have to say
00:18:06
um you know it'll be an the Tik Tok thing is what I'll be paying attention to but we'll see if they um do I mean,
00:18:12
what I think Trump is trying to do, it's so interesting because presidents all start out locally and end up in foreign
00:18:19
places doing these these trips. And I think Trump is very comfortable acting like he's big BOC across the world
00:18:27
essentially. And so these these leaders have figured out a way to to please him
00:18:32
in a it's kind of sad. It's like pleasing an old man, like let's pet him and this and that. So, we'll see. We'll
00:18:38
see what happens here. I Here's my prediction. He's going to go up to the DMZ and go visit his friend um uh in
00:18:45
North Korea. So, we'll see. He's so close. I can't imagine he would, you know, he keeps talking about him. He he
00:18:51
talks about him in a nicer way than he talks about other Americans, which is really kind of depressing given he's a
00:18:56
dictator and not just an autocrat, even worse than that. Well, those are his role models. He's very much about strength. And again,
00:19:03
he's conflates he conflates strength with coarseness and cruelty and authoritarianism. And
00:19:09
that's not it's just a terrible it's a terrible um and the problem is he's been successful
00:19:15
in the short term at it. He's won the presidency twice. Everybody's falling in line behind him.
00:19:20
Yeah. And it's out of the authoritarian playbook. Reward reward the people who are loyal to you. Punish severely the
00:19:26
people who aren't loyal to you. And the 53 Republican senators are all going along with it as are the majority of the
00:19:33
House of Representatives. There's been a few notable breaks. Senator Paul is questioning us bombing boats. We have a
00:19:40
We spend a trillion dollars on our military that's supposed to be so lethal and yet we're now pushing back on a murderous autocrat in Europe. We've
00:19:47
decided to bomb fishing boats. We'll see what happens. We're going to go on a quick break. When we come back, this is a story that I think is not
00:19:53
getting nearly enough attention. We'll discuss the latest crypto pardon.
00:19:58
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00:21:10
Scott, we're back. President Trump has pardoned Shangpang Jiao, better known as CZ, the founder of the crypto exchange
00:21:16
Binance. CZ pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-moneylaundering laws and
00:21:21
served four months in a federal prison while Binance paid $4.3 billion to settle with the Justice Department. CZ
00:21:28
has been working on a pardon for months. There seems to be a playbook here with the Trump people, hiring lobbyists with
00:21:33
ties to Trump and making podcast uh appearances, praising the president. Binance is also a key backer of the
00:21:39
Trump families. This is the key one. Crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, and helped launch its stable coin
00:21:45
earlier this year. In a post on X, CZ said he was grateful to Trump and pledged to help make America the capital
00:21:50
of crypto. I assume Sam Bankman Freed is next. What do you think of this? because we've been talking a lot about how this
00:21:57
focus on crypto with his family um sort of larding itself over in um money and
00:22:04
uh just money really. Well, I think it's important to understand why CZ was incarcerated.
00:22:11
And he was incarcerated because Binance was found guilty of laundering money. And that sounds that sounds somewhat
00:22:18
innocuous, but according to the Department of Treasury, Binance failed to report the following transactions
00:22:25
associated with terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad,
00:22:32
millions of dollars in ransomware transactions. Bance is one of the largest receivers of ransomware
00:22:38
proceeds, transactions associated with child sexual abuse material. So people
00:22:44
hear about sexation and think that is the most heinous crime ever. Well folks, there's a technical technological
00:22:49
infrastructure behind it and money laundering with funds that can't be tracked is part of it and then
00:22:56
transactions associated with drugs fraud and other illegal contraband. His his
00:23:02
official charges were again around money laundering and he'd served four four months and Binance was barred from
00:23:08
operating the US. But here's what they did. Binance received a $2 billion investment
00:23:14
from the Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX. And then Binance decided to accept the investment via World Liberty Financial
00:23:21
USD1 stable coin, which by the way, the majority stake is still connected in
00:23:28
World Liberty Financial USD1 is still connected to the financial wealth and butressing the financial wealth of the
00:23:33
Trump of Trump and his family, which owns 38% of World Liberty Financial. Put another way, make me richer and I will
00:23:42
let the person that a judge and jury and our institutions decided to incarcerate
00:23:48
because he was facilitating transactions to terrorists and people engaged in
00:23:53
child sex exploitation. I'm letting that person out if you agreed to make me and my family
00:24:00
richer. Yeah. And because this feels very circular and complicated and we're so busy watching stupid [ __ ] videos of a
00:24:08
construction project at the at Pennsylvania Avenue, we take our eye off the ball. There's going to be more kids
00:24:15
who are going to be in scams, send naked pictures of themselves, and then be
00:24:21
extorted and then potentially engage in self harm because the people on the other end can find a means of
00:24:26
transacting these payments and this exploitation. you know, if you're watching a Bond movie, CZ is the one he
00:24:32
ends up golfing in the end. Like, he's the moneyaundering, you know, mogul essentially. And so, this is was a
00:24:40
criminal act, this guy. And but we're bombing fishing boats. Most people in crypto think this too, by
00:24:46
the way, FYI. So, it's sort of a, you know, he's they've just decided crypto good no matter what. And it's like
00:24:53
saying banking good or whatever. There's there's all kinds of bankers that are um culpable in these kind of things, by the
00:25:00
way. It's not just limited to to crypto. Um but this is just this was such a
00:25:06
straight line um grift. It's just like absolutely out in
00:25:11
the open. you know, everything's out, you know, when we even if you know, I I agree with you every with all the
00:25:17
handwaving around the the White House thing, which I'll talk about later, but um it's really uh this one really
00:25:24
deserves more attention, especially for what what what this company did, you know, this company did. And I assume Sam
00:25:30
Bankman Freed is next, who is comparatively minor compared to this guy, right? This he was that was just
00:25:36
your basic I made a mess. I didn't realize it. That was his excuse. But I there there's a whole way to get a
00:25:43
pardon from Trump. Yeah. But he doesn't have the power right now. FDX doesn't have the platform
00:25:48
or the power to make the Trumps rich. This is to a certain extent there's sort of I don't want to call it low calorie
00:25:55
corruption. But when Eric goes over and says, "Build a hotel and give me better financing terms and finance it."
00:26:02
Somebody still has to build the hotel. There is some risk. It's corruption. But
00:26:07
what they found is if we're going to be corrupt, let's just figure out a way to pump up, let's go to the top. Yeah.
00:26:12
A synthetic currency that has no value underlying utility. And then we don't even have to report
00:26:18
when we sell it and nobody has to operate it. And we don't even have to pretend that we know how to be in the
00:26:23
hospitality business. We don't have to build it. We just get people to basically funnel money into it.
00:26:28
Massively inflate the market. We sell. Nobody even knows we've sold. And boom. this is the like most elegant, clean,
00:26:34
frictionless form of corruption. So they're like they're like, "Okay, Nancy
00:26:40
Pelosi that does insider trading, but you have to report those trades. Okay, Trump who gets a 747, we actually see
00:26:47
the 747. He's got to fly it around. He's got to justify it." No, this is easier. Nobody even really, there's no records
00:26:54
of this. Uh they as far as we know we think they've made3 to5 billion dollars off these crypto scams but it's even
00:27:00
hard to tell how much money they've made. We don't know how to connect it to we know when the Qatari government says
00:27:06
give us give us NATO like protection after giving the president a $400 million plane we can connect the dots.
00:27:14
But when he launches a memecoin and someone calls him and says, "FYI, tomorrow I'm gonna buy
00:27:20
a billion dollars or a hundred million dollars worth of Trumpcoin, which will take the price up. And if you want to sell some, that's your business, Mr.
00:27:26
President. But in addition, would you mind not shipping Tomahawk missiles to the to
00:27:32
Ukraine for a while? We're not able to connect those dots. There's no public filing disclosure." You know what? Actually, I've heard from
00:27:38
a lot of people. A lot of people in crypto don't love all this stuff because the the the hammer is going to come down
00:27:44
on this industry again. I thought the Biden administration was too slow to to embrace some of the good parts of it. I
00:27:51
would I talked to a lot of crypto people and the reason was because it has such a
00:27:57
proclivity towards what you were just talking about money laundering and uh sexual abuse and terrorism and payoffs
00:28:04
and stuff like that in terms of the dis the ability to disappear a lot of these transactions but it was on its way you
00:28:11
know and and Biden was unnecessarily Biden administration was unnecessarily harsh on uh this group of people but um
00:28:19
I out of I think an abundance of caution. I don't think it was a particular hostility to it. It was just
00:28:24
more of the worries about the downside versus the upside. And I just feel like
00:28:29
the the the hammer will come down on this industry after this is all over. And the second part is I was I've been
00:28:36
told by a lot of tech people that there are people monitoring what is happening
00:28:42
here and there are ways to follow the money. So there's always ways and quietly they're doing that and
00:28:48
eventually some of these people are going to pay. I I we'll see. But you know, it just all you have to do is pay
00:28:54
this guy off to get out. And speaking of which, the one the one that also troubled me was the tech and business leaders um are getting credit for
00:29:01
coordinated effort to stop Trump from sending troops to San Francisco. Mayor Daniel Luri reportedly worked with Sam
00:29:06
Alman, Jensen Wong, uh Mark Beni off, and others to get the president to reconsider. Trump acknowledged the lobbying in a true social post saying he
00:29:13
got calls from friends of mine and decided not to surge San Francisco, as he put it. I find this repulsive this
00:29:19
strategy is that you know I'm not you know I I've been in touch with Beni off recently about this whole the whole
00:29:27
thing with the with the troops and he knows what I think um which is that he should have never called for them but
00:29:34
you know none of you get a thank you for telling a bully not to do something
00:29:39
that's stupid right I don't want my democracy to be run because these guys can call him up or go to a dinner or
00:29:45
give him money um But you know this this was the wrong thing to do for all these
00:29:52
cities and including San Francisco and the fact that the only way it gets saved
00:29:57
is these guys call them like what in the world no one's making decisions based on
00:30:03
the right thing to do. It's based on these incredibly powerful people who have access and then the regular
00:30:09
Americans don't have access to make their argument one way or the other. But this is this is a I find this truly
00:30:16
disturbing. Um and you know none of them has said you should thank me Cara cuz
00:30:21
I'd be like go [ __ ] yourself. Like how dare you that this is the way things are done. I just I find it
00:30:28
something quite vague just disturbing about this this uh this is how this is
00:30:33
how it's done done as they say in um uh K-pop demon hunters. But but Mayor Lurri
00:30:41
trying to enlist local business people to lobby the president to he has to to not set send in the National Guard
00:30:48
and create disruption and terrorize local residents. A kudos to him. I think that's the right
00:30:54
thing to do. I agree. The problem is they're operating in a context that's illegal and non-American. And that is right. That's right.
00:31:00
Barry Goldwater said this. He said we're we're placing too much power in the office of the presidency. The whole
00:31:05
point of a democracy is you have a diffused sense of power such that there's checks and balances. And that
00:31:10
unfortunately you don't go as fast, but it prevents the tragedy of the commons.
00:31:16
And when if you're going to send in the National Guard into cities, there needs to be some sort of oversight or there
00:31:22
needs to be some sort of legal justification or systemic laws that say this is when the National Guard can be
00:31:28
sent into a city and what its mission is. Not, oh, I don't like the mayor here. I don't like the governor here or
00:31:35
Epstein starting to creep back into the news. I need to launch the National Guard or pulse the National Guard into a
00:31:40
city. This is I mean it's just so I I can't imagine and I don't know how much
00:31:46
of it I'm convinced now that you know and I've said this before. We're just going to be so angry at the mind control
00:31:51
that these algorithms have over us and we don't even realize how much. The most upsetting things I see I think
00:31:59
is this true is those is all of that footage of of ICE agents. Yeah.
00:32:04
I just find it the idea that these guys are in masks. Yeah. The idea there is a basic principle that
00:32:11
is so core to our democracy and what is wonderful about America and that is we
00:32:16
target and ideally reward behavior
00:32:23
not their identity. Mh. And that is we say, okay,
00:32:28
I if you're a gay woman and you're great at what you do and you take risks, you can make a lot of money and have a nice
00:32:35
life here. And we aren't going to start rounding up people or asking them, "Are
00:32:40
you born here?" which the ICE agents are doing because they're brown when they're on their way inside on
00:32:46
their way inside to uh, you know, Kroger's. Yeah. Yeah. Every one of these agents seems like a brute, right? It feel I
00:32:53
feel like I'm in some like Steven Seagal movie with bad people like you know the
00:32:58
way they're talking to people and how the the masks and the they look like they've had way too many steroids every
00:33:04
one of them like they it feels so villainous and it's either villainous or you got to be a rich guy to get through
00:33:11
and it feel it does feel unamerican. When I heard that Sam Elman had to call him to call him off, that's that's our
00:33:18
line of defense. Not because it's not I just was like this is ridiculous. Well, it kind of goes to the same thing
00:33:24
now where because of the government shutdown rather than saying, okay, there's a government shutdown. You need
00:33:29
to negotiate with a co-equal branch of government. It's like, no, I'll just get my rich friend to pay the the military
00:33:35
and the people I like in the government. This is not how you're supposed to run a government where individuals where the
00:33:41
president gets to decide, you know, who in the government gets paid and who doesn't and he can call someone and say,
00:33:46
"Hey, I look really bad here. Can you give me $100 million? And by the way,
00:33:52
wink wink, I'll make it up to you with a series of laws that transfer wealth from small and medium-sized businesses and
00:33:57
your competitors to you." It might even not impact the economy that much in the short run because the economy turns on.
00:34:03
But what it does over the long term is a lot of people don't want to invest here. A lot of people don't want to immigrate here. A lot of people don't want to
00:34:09
start businesses because they're worried that they that they're not going to be protected by the rule of fair play and law. I don't think Americans realize how
00:34:16
many really talented people come here and how much capital comes here because they feel that there is a rule of fair
00:34:23
play here. That's what it is. Rule of fair play. I met a guy I met this Russian kid who
00:34:28
came over here and he'd started one of those home delivery companies and he made a bunch of money. He was a successful entrepreneur in Russia. He
00:34:34
had a wonderful life. He said, "Why'd you move here?" He said, "You live in fear in Russia that someone you don't
00:34:40
even know makes a call and your business is done the next day and you don't even know who made the call."
00:34:46
I know. And that's what's effectively we're headed that way, right? I know. I just for some reason
00:34:51
this just stuck in my craw. Thank god Ben didn't text me like you wanted to say thank you. I'd be like go [ __ ]
00:34:56
yourself. I I don't mean that, Mark. But honestly, seriously, this is not the way it should be done. Um, speaking of
00:35:03
things that are are uh in another thing that speaking of robots, which I was just I'm I'm seeing a lot of robot
00:35:09
companies here, by the way. Um, Amazon executives believe the company can replace more than half a million
00:35:15
warehouse jobs with robots because this is where it's heading. I've I I'll go into in a second with robots over the
00:35:21
next several years, according to internal documents obtained by the New York Times. Documents show Amazon's
00:35:26
robotics team has an ultimate goal to automate 75% of its operations. I bet it's even higher. They reveal Amazon is
00:35:33
planning to manage public backlash by promoting a quote good corporate citizen image, participating in community events
00:35:39
like parades and toy drives. Executives also discuss ditching words like automation and AI instead using advanced
00:35:46
technology and cobots, collaborative robots. Amazon says the documents viewed
00:35:51
at the times were incomplete and did not reflect its overall hiring strategy. Um, let me tell you years and years ago and
00:35:58
I was looking for the picture. I was going to show it to some people here. Um, after Amazon bought KA, which was I
00:36:04
thought a critical purchase at the time, it was it was a logistics, it was a robotic, it moved things around the
00:36:11
factory and they Amazon for some reason invited me in to see the factory. And um
00:36:17
I went to see it and watched these KA I think they were KA powered robots moving
00:36:22
stuff around and they had people in the factory but a lot of it was automated obviously and it's pretty cool when you
00:36:27
see them put on labels or put on whatever it was quite an automated factory and I I guess publicly I said
00:36:35
they're never going to they're going to they're moving towards no people in these warehouses. This was about 10 years ago. You could see they're so
00:36:42
smart you could see what they were doing, right? Um, and and I remember uh one of the Kennedys who was representing
00:36:49
uh Massachusetts, I can't remember which one it was, was saying, "Oh, they're going to put an Amazon warehouse in my
00:36:55
district." I'm like, "They're not going to have people in it." Like, and I remember Amazon being calling me and
00:37:00
saying, "Don't be saying that." And I'm like, "But it that's what's it seems so obvious to me." And so, this is where
00:37:06
they're going with these. There there will be no people in Amazon warehouses or very few people. Um, and then
00:37:12
pretending otherwise seems kind of ridiculous because they've really they're really quite good at it and they're a logistics company more than a
00:37:19
commerce company. How and here in in in Korea, I was just in a thing called
00:37:24
Robot Valley. I mean, robotics do not get enough attention compared to AI, but
00:37:30
AI combined with robotics is really like one of these amazing and also terrifying
00:37:37
breakthroughs for humanity, it seems to me. But I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, I agree with you. It's sort of
00:37:43
it's a similar issue to all these data centers that Congress people are excited to get in their district, but the reality is you could turn the lights off
00:37:49
during the day because there's nobody working there. There's some labor involved in building these things, but once they're up and running, they're
00:37:55
just a huge draw on the local electric or power supply and they don't create a lot of jobs. I think robots and
00:38:03
automation are in many ways I it's always it's always the [ __ ] you're not
00:38:08
expecting that impacts you to the upside and the downside. I actually think the more important technology over the next 24 months that would be the best bet for
00:38:15
America is not GPT5. I think it's GLP1. I think that would be a better bet for
00:38:21
America if they put GLP1 in the hands of every obese person in a low-inccome home. And I think robotics, to your
00:38:28
point, are in some ways more important than AI because I think that Jeff Bezos
00:38:35
and Darra Kasahi dream of a lack of drivers and and factory workers. I think
00:38:42
they think, okay, think about the majority of the bad press that Amazon has probably received in the last 10 years. A lot of it is
00:38:49
stories of these delivery men in vans who have pea bottles and aren't aren't paid well and have to hit quotas and
00:38:56
have health insurance. I I got to be honest, I'm here for it. I want I would love to see AI pilots and planes. If you
00:39:04
look at the majority of and it won't happen because of psychological reasons, but if you look at the majority of plane crashes, and there's very few, they're
00:39:09
almost always pilot error. Yeah. And so there will be job creation though. There people there will be
00:39:16
people that have to program and build these things and service them. It'll be a higher wage job. But the story of
00:39:22
America is that the low wage, low value ad production jobs slowly but surely get screened out as we move from an agrarian
00:39:28
to a a manufacturing to a services to a quote unquote innovation economy. I think it's a good thing. The problem
00:39:35
with America is that we're not very good at retraining and supporting the people
00:39:40
on the wrong end of that trade. We're very much winners and losers. like sorry boss it's the hunger games here but I
00:39:46
think it'll be America actually if you look at the economy right now it's a giant bet on AI but there has been some
00:39:53
real investment in manufacturing of our industrial base and I think the only way we compete with China is to have these
00:39:59
types of factories China's way ahead on this stuff I mean all of Asia is in a lot of ways and
00:40:04
again AI gets all the attention but AI combined with robotics is really now there can be let me say there's there's
00:40:11
sort of a thing called human centric robots where it's not replace not just getting our coffee. Okay, that's right
00:40:18
where you go to. But I'm talking what I the stuff I was the exoskeletons to help people walk better, to help the elderly,
00:40:25
like eventually there there's all manner. And one of the things I had a really interesting discussion with Alex
00:40:30
who of is a mechan is mechanical engineering student. He's like why do robotics have like Elon Musk is they
00:40:37
laugh at Elon Musk here in Korea I have to tell you and because he's like going I'm going to make Optimus going to make
00:40:42
these you know humanoid robots. They don't have to look like humans. Like the real changes are in places like what
00:40:49
Amazon has done, which is they're robots. They're just not the robots you think of from science fiction. Um, you
00:40:56
know, doing a hand like Alice was like, why does a dog walking robot have to look like a person? In fact, that's
00:41:02
hard. They fall over the hand. It's funny. Like automation is a very And I think actually automation is not a is is
00:41:10
the right word, right? that's actually instead of calling it advanced technology, it's automation. Um, but
00:41:16
there's there's all kinds of ways robotics are going to affect us and especially when it's when it now like
00:41:21
this one thing I was wearing, it uses AI to collect data in real time about my
00:41:27
body movements which would then calculate how these ro you robots should
00:41:32
be adjusted per person in real time. And it used to be they'd have to be adjusted
00:41:38
individually, but they don't have to anymore. Same thing with cars. Same thing. So the combination is really both
00:41:45
deadly to jobs and at the same time breathtaking in terms of savings like
00:41:51
what it's going to do. So each year and this is this is a thinly veiled ad. I do my predictions
00:41:56
deck and that is sometime in November I put together a deck and I say these are my predictions for the oncoming year in
00:42:02
society, stock market, technology and each year I pick one of the big tech
00:42:08
companies, one of the magnificent 10 or one of the big four actually, Apple, Facebook or Alphabet and I say this will be the best performing stock and this is
00:42:14
why. Last year I picked Alphabet. It's up 60% in the last year. Well done.
00:42:19
Thank you. Pat myself on the back. This year um my pick is probably going to be
00:42:26
Amazon and that is it hasn't it's actually hasn't performed very well the last couple years and but traditionally
00:42:32
their margin expansion has been powered by uh AWS and the unsung hero of the
00:42:39
business and that is Amazon media group running the ads on the platform and they force retailers
00:42:45
to run ads and it's very high margin now the margin expansion is happening in retail for over a decade, the
00:42:52
fulfillment and shipping costs ballooned more quickly than sales, decreasing margins. And then that reversed two
00:42:58
years ago and retail sales are now growing faster than shipping costs. That's cuz they got everyone to use Prime, right? They got everybody in on
00:43:05
on it. They were losing money on Prime, I would assume. But also because robotics and the huge
00:43:10
investment they've made in robotics is finally delivering operational leverage. Amazon expects to save about I think
00:43:17
about 13 billion dollars from 2025 to 2027 as a result of automation. And
00:43:23
assuming no change in Amazon's enterprise valued IBITA to multiple I can as you can tell I'm doing a lot of
00:43:28
work on this that translates to roughly $200 billion extra in enterprise value. Plus it
00:43:35
expects to sell twice as many products in by 2033. I think all the investments they've made
00:43:41
in automation coupled with robotics and AI, they're about to get huge leverage.
00:43:46
So whereas ads and AWS have added all the margin, I actually think retail is about to be where they expand their
00:43:53
margins. That's interesting. I think it's going to go across our envi the entire
00:43:58
country. Actually, when I at one time I was visiting um we would finish up on this, but um Kentucky and they were
00:44:04
talking about silicon holler and all this stuff and bringing back coal. remember Trump was a big black hole. And
00:44:10
I remember I stood up and I said, "They're going to bring it back by robots. What do they need you for? Like
00:44:16
you get sick. You have like you get it's bad for you to be mining coal." And I
00:44:21
again I was cut off like don't say that. I'm like, "Well, of course they're going to use robots like or or whatever the
00:44:27
automation. I don't care what word you use." But what's astonishing is how good
00:44:33
Korea and China and all these countries are and they're really making investments in robotics and you're
00:44:39
absolutely right Amazon has been far ahead of any other uh there are lots of
00:44:45
manu that that's how we return with manufacturing but it's not going to be with people at all
00:44:50
but I would describe the last few years in terms of robotics as it relates to the retail as the investment phase and
00:44:55
it hasn't delivered it's been expensive and it hasn't delivered the leverage average yet, but I think that's pivoting and switching.
00:45:01
And the stock, even though it's up 20% in the last year, it's underperformed its competitors. Amazon typically trades at
00:45:08
a 5year average P multiple of 60. And right now, it's trading at 34. Mhm.
00:45:14
Anyways, I think those I think that leverage, the fact that it's reasonably priced anyways, I'm I'm excited about
00:45:21
I'm excited about Amazon over the next 12 months. I'm glad you you've been focused on this. This is interesting. Anyway, let's
00:45:27
go on a quick break and we come back, we'll talk about Argentina's election results.
00:45:33
Support for the show comes from Apple. Before the show was even a podcast, all I had was an idea. And once I had that,
00:45:39
all I really needed to get started was a mic and a Mac. I have been starting businesses my whole life. One thing that
00:45:45
has been static, a constant in all of my business is Apple products. They just
00:45:50
work. They send the right signal. Uh it sounds sort of strange but they make me feel good about myself. They make me
00:45:56
feel creative. But they have been just the foundation upon which I have built my businesses. No matter what you have
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apple.com/mac. Scott, we're back with more news. The
00:46:21
payoff of Donald Trump to help the Argentinian economy has helped. Argentina's president Javier Malay's
00:46:27
party swept the country's midterm elections, winning 40% of the votes. They had to get above 35 compared with
00:46:33
around 204% for the main oppositions with their which are the peronis who had been running Argentina badly for many
00:46:40
years. President Trump endorsed Malay earlier this month and said a 20 billion currency swap bailout from the US was
00:46:46
contingent on his midterm success. Trump took truth social to congratulate Malay, saying he's making us all look good. And
00:46:53
don't worry about the cost of the bailout. Let's listen the comforting words of Treasury, the thirstiest Treasury Secretary I've ever seen, Scott
00:46:59
Bessant, on Meet the Press this weekend. It is America first because we are
00:47:06
supporting a US ally. Uh there will be no taxpayer losses. This is a swap line.
00:47:13
This is not a bailout. Well, this is working. I mean this helped me I think quite a bit in in the
00:47:19
thing and there's been a lot of um pain what he's doing some of which is it
00:47:25
should have happened because Argentina has had like enormous inflation and things like that but he's doing it in
00:47:30
sort of this incredibly um brutal way. Um so how talk about uh talk about this
00:47:38
what explain what what Bessant was saying here where this is a swap line. This is not a bailout. Well, I believe
00:47:44
we're just exchanging dollars for pesos, but the peso has has a habit of of totally crashing and devaluing.
00:47:51
Argentina at the end of World War II was the third or fourth largest economy in the world because Britain had basically
00:47:57
spent everything it had. Two hugely productive economies were decimated, Japan and Germany. And Argentina has
00:48:05
been the kind of medium-sized engine that can't. It has been a [ __ ] disaster. Despite an incredibly
00:48:11
incredible blessing of natural resources, really good universities, an amazing culture, great natural
00:48:17
resources, they have just been [ __ ] over and over by kind of socialist corrupt governments.
00:48:23
The country has entered IMF uh has entered into IMF rescue programs 23 times since 1956, more than any other
00:48:32
nation. This nation has been has been bailed out more times than any other nation by the IMF. The most recent major
00:48:39
IMF loan uh to Argentina was for 57 billion in 2018 and it failed to
00:48:44
stabilize the economy and led to a default just two years later. Over the past 50 years, Argentina has defaulted
00:48:51
defaulted nine times. So basically every 5 and a half years this country defaults
00:48:56
which has resulted in constant hyperinflation and peso devaluation. In the past year alone the US dollars
00:49:02
increased 350% against the peso. So the and this is let's call this for what it
00:49:08
is. This is Trump bailing out one of his friends in major same thing like same thing.
00:49:14
But it's not even about Malay. It's about Rob Satron, a longtime associate of Treasury Secretary Bant who runs a
00:49:20
hedge fund and has significant exposure to Argentine bonds and stocks. And what does it do? Again, this is about [ __ ]
00:49:27
corruption. The bailout props up these prices, offering a crucial window or exit to mark up the investments of his
00:49:33
buddy who will make a huge donation to the Trump campaign. Stan Ducken Miller,
00:49:39
Ben's former mentor at Soros Fund Management, is also involved. His Dukane family office was recently disclosed as
00:49:45
the second largest investor in Argentina's main exchange related fund traded fund. Catron, meanwhile, has made
00:49:52
Argentina his biggest bet in Latin America. This is just you're you're
00:49:58
this is literally an orgy of corruption. It really is. It's just and and we're the ones that get like a
00:50:06
$5 tip and have been [ __ ] so many ways and we just leave the party, you know,
00:50:13
you know, naked and like abused. And that's basically anyone that doesn't get
00:50:18
to hang out in the mansion who's not willing to fate the big fat man. I mean, it's just to think that this isn't going
00:50:26
to cost other hedge funds looking for true alpha and looking for investments to think that somehow we're not going to
00:50:32
end up bailing them out again. And to think about how just moronic this is. We put a tariff on China, which makes no
00:50:39
sense. They're smart. They go, I know I'm going to go for your heart and lungs. I'm going to go after the red states and the people who voted for you
00:50:44
four to one, the farmers, and we're going to stop buying all of your soybeans. Those farmers go out of
00:50:50
business, right? And who do the Chinese get their soybeans from now? Argentina where we're
00:50:56
soybean farmer. We're getting I mean, did you see that Bessant calling himself a soybean?
00:51:01
Yeah, he's a soybean. He's worth a half a billion dollars. Yeah, he's literally
00:51:06
You are my wife. Goodbye, city life. City. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Anyone who's not real old like us
00:51:12
doesn't get that screen. Yeah. Doesn't get that. By the way, that guy, that guy, what was his name? Eddie. Ed. Ed Albert. Eddie. Eddie
00:51:20
Albert. producer Eddie Albert. He was a a very successful spy, a true patriot.
00:51:25
That guy was an that guy led a very impressive life and yet he ended up on Green Acres.
00:51:31
[Music] Farm living is the life for me. Oh my
00:51:36
god, I remember the whole song. Land spreading out so far and hot. New York is where I'd rather be.
00:51:44
Oh my god. Anyway, we're like them, you know. I love that. That was right before the Beverly Hillbillies.
00:51:50
I have that whole song in my [ __ ] head. Anyway, go ahead. Um, anyways, what we were talking about the origing
00:51:57
out, we're punishing farmers with sclerotic trade policy and then taking money and sending it to the new trade
00:52:04
the new the new supplier of soybeans, Argentina. That money, it's unlikely.
00:52:10
Argentina needs structural reform. To Malay's credit, he is implementing structural reform. He is. I think he's
00:52:17
kind of exactly what Argentina needed. He would have won without Trump, but because of Trump, I think he got
00:52:23
more seats, more total power. Yeah. And I think you can pretty much write off prediction. You can write off 30 of
00:52:30
that $40 billion. It It's gone. Nothing's going to get in the way of the pace of devaluation over the short term.
00:52:36
This is an economy of structural issues. I hope they come out of it. Yeah. I was an investor in a company
00:52:42
that used to hire these amazing engineers from the Cordova University or University in Cordova, Argentina. And
00:52:48
the funniest thing was we had a down quarter and we were cutting the budget. It was a company called Olipek which we
00:52:53
ended up selling and it was a big win. Great three really super intelligent guys, two Spaniards, one Argentinian
00:53:00
guy. And the Argentinian guy was in charge of the engineering team. And we could get great engineers for like 40
00:53:06
grand instead of 140 or 240 outside of Cordoba. And the only line item that we
00:53:12
could never cut was the assado budget. That was beef. Every Friday. Yeah.
00:53:17
They had assado. They had beef for all of the engineers. And that was like the only thing you were never allowed to
00:53:23
touch. This was the key to the entire culture. Wow. Was their beef. Well, you know, I I I when I was looking
00:53:30
at that before this happened, besides the Trump payoff, I think it did help him. I think it absolutely the money that he was getting from Trump. But one
00:53:36
of the things was everyone was like, "Oh, he's going to lose." I'm like, but the choice is the peronists were
00:53:41
terrible. Like 80 years of shitty management. I don't see that being the
00:53:47
option. So he was the only option in a lot of ways even though uh it's taking its toll. He's also crazy. Like he's a
00:53:53
little seems insane, but you know, there you go. There you have it. We'll see what happens there. Uh all right, Scott,
00:53:58
one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Support for the show comes from AG1.
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to try AG1 today. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and
00:55:00
fails. Well, my fail it's a it's a specific issue of a much larger trend that has
00:55:06
become the zeicist in our economy and that is the NBA gambling scandal. Oh yeah. So Miami Heat guard Terry Roger, I
00:55:13
believe his name is and Portland Trailblazers head coach Chanty Bops were among 30 arrested in an FBI
00:55:18
investigation that uncovered a poker rigging in illegal betting ring. Yeah, many politicians as well as the NBA
00:55:24
commissioner Adam Silver have increased calls to Congress to tighten regulations around sports gambling. Since the 2018
00:55:30
Supreme Court decision overturning a federal law that prohibits sports betting outside of Nevada, 38 states have legalized gambling on sports. By
00:55:36
the way, the first thing that happens when you legalize when you legalize betting in a state is bankruptcies go up 20 to 30%. Wages on sports hit 160
00:55:44
billion last year, making it larger than the the lottery. One in four adults say they personally bet money on sports. And
00:55:50
by the way, last year, one in two men just bet on the Super Bowl. And one in
00:55:55
10 US adults have placed a bet using an online sports book. Despite the proliferation, Americans see betting as
00:56:01
a bad thing. 43% of US adults agree that legal sports betting is a bad thing for society compared to just 34% who agreed
00:56:09
3 years ago. And this it pres I I don't
00:56:14
want to infantilize young men, but they're more risk aggressive. And when you put a a dopa hit and betting in
00:56:20
their pocket, it is in godlike technology. And basically every ad now when you turn on this TV to watch
00:56:26
Premier League is£10 free when you sign up for 25. And folks, they make it
00:56:32
impossible to win over the long term. If you're good at it, they basically don't let you bet anymore. And the newest
00:56:38
trend in sports betting, which will probably have the greatest appreciation in market cap in private companies, is
00:56:43
predictions markets, right? Poly. Currently the case is making its way through the court to decide the future of sports betting on
00:56:50
prediction markets and prediction market weekly volume is about $2 billion with about a fifth of the coming from sports
00:56:56
betting the highest category volume. Yeah. Anyways, the but but on a bigger level, a meta level, it's it essentially
00:57:05
is more indicative of our economy and that is we're we're
00:57:11
the economy now resembles Vegas and it's not a thing. It's just betting. It's like crypto. It's not a thing. It's
00:57:17
not a making a thing. It's a it's something else. What would you call it?
00:57:22
It's an economic activity. It's just not productive. Well, the houses always win. And the machines of our are narrative platforms,
00:57:28
high-tech IPOs, meme coins, dudes and hoodies pitching the next big thing. And it it value our value in the economy
00:57:35
now is not derived from character or hard work. It's from attention and speculation rather than goods and services.
00:57:41
And then the traditional levels of power, business innovation, labor productivity, real estate growth, they
00:57:46
all recede and young people no longer aspire or calories is what you're saying.
00:57:52
Yeah. And they don't they don't develop the means, they don't develop the will, and they don't develop the patience for enduring value. Why?
00:57:58
Yeah, it's scary. Why why actually figure out a way to get through all the regulations and build a building when you can go get it financed
00:58:04
from Qatar by monetizing the White House? Or why even do that when you can just launch a a mean coin and then
00:58:11
essentially it means the winners get you know the winners a small group of people who can
00:58:17
own or control or monetize healthcare monetize the government win and the losers get stuck with the odds. So
00:58:26
we have godlike technology and gambling that's the dopa hit. For mo majority of
00:58:31
our time on this planet, we haven't access had access to free free safe play and gaming. So when we have it, we we go
00:58:39
crazy with it. Also, there's people telling us we can be rich and we can be popular and we can get women and they
00:58:44
hit you at exactly the wrong time when you're most vulnerable. And you're just seeing more and more people have their
00:58:50
lives ruined by this [ __ ] And then the broader loss is that our economy is
00:58:56
becoming about synthetic risk-taking, not enduring value, not the hard work,
00:59:03
the labor to build a company, to invest in relationships. You get a quick hit
00:59:08
from this kind of gambling or casino like economy. I think it's just creating the wrong values and it's an erosion in
00:59:15
the character of long-term thinking. Yeah. No, we're a casino. But okay. So,
00:59:21
what's your what's your win? What is my win? You go first. I got to think of one. Um, you know, my God, I have so many
00:59:28
fails happening at this time at this moment. But, um, probably the Jamaica
00:59:34
and and Haiti and Cuba with the uh with the hurricanes headed our way. We're going to have a lot more hurricanes. Um,
00:59:40
and it sounds like it's going to a category 5 is going to hit this place. So, my thoughts are with the people there. I it seems very dire uh what's
00:59:48
happening there. And of course we've cut back on all kinds of really import speaking of important things we do
00:59:54
monitor. Um this is I just feel a sense of unease for them and also our own
01:00:01
country which will get hit by all kinds of weather mishaps that are highly avoidable in terms of saving lives that
01:00:07
you can't you know we certainly have climate change issues that are making this worse but at the same time we
01:00:12
should be able to protect and save people. So I just worry uh for those
01:00:17
right now it's happening right now actually um at this my other real fail
01:00:23
they're both real fails but this is is is all this which you're talking about these empty calories these you know
01:00:28
pathways to corruption that are everywhere you saw the media do it a bunch of times this week whether it was
01:00:33
Comcast putting money into the ballroom I must have really been difficult for Brian Roberts but he did it because he's
01:00:40
on the outs with Trump so give him some money for the stupid ballroom room. Um, and and when I think about that, the way
01:00:46
it could have been done, look, I'm not I'm not I don't care. Look, the White
01:00:52
House is not that attractive a thing of our many things. I think the main part is, but the East Wing was is not
01:00:59
necessarily a winner, but the way to have redone it could have been so fantastic and bipartisan, and there
01:01:05
could have been a contest. It could have been everyone involved. It could have been interesting the way we you know
01:01:12
what the what the what the people who who are both pearl clutching and then attacking the pearl clutchers. I don't
01:01:18
think they're pearl clutchers. I think they really are sorry that happened that way is is it could have been done in such a great way like let's let's update
01:01:25
the White House. Let's do something and been a contest. You could have kids involved. you could have done a whole thing that would have united us versus
01:01:32
this [ __ ] which is he just does what he wants and then the people get upset about him doing what he want and it goes
01:01:38
back and forth. It was such a missed opportunity and you know that it feels like that all over the place. Whoever it
01:01:44
gets to do what they want to do is not American. It just feels very unamerican a lot of these things. Um, and then a
01:01:51
win. Um, you know, speaking of Brian Roberts, Taylor Sheridan, who's a really
01:01:56
important producer, there's always a producer of the moment. He happens to be that. Um, he's behind Yellowstone and Landman.
01:02:02
Um, he is signed a deal to join NBC Universal. It's not for a few years, but when his Paramount deal is up, it's not
01:02:09
good for Ellison and Paramount, but it doesn't matter because Ellison is essentially a Nepo baby son of Larry
01:02:16
Ellison. So, he'll get his Tik Tok this week or he'll get his deal to buy Warner
01:02:21
and uh and everyone will fall into line, but I thought that was an interesting situation for Taylor. I I thought it was
01:02:27
a win for NBC. Uh but who knows who knows how much more Sheridan will keep,
01:02:33
you know, having the hits, but still an interesting shift. But I think if we were or what I want to what I'm going to start doing is it's no
01:02:39
longer what are they calling it? I mean, I know it was called the East Wing. It's supposed to be called the ballroom now or the Grand Ballroom. I'm not calling
01:02:45
it that, but go ahead. Well, anyways, just a ballroom. From this point forward, we should we should call it what it is. And this is
01:02:52
the Epstein bedroom. There's the Lincoln bedroom. This is the Epstein bedroom. Cuz all this is is another attempt to distract us from
01:02:58
Jeffrey Epstein and the release of the Epstein file. So, and he won't seat Mike Johnson won't seat that uh that representative.
01:03:05
But the bottom line is it really isn't I quite frankly I don't think this is that big a deal. Obama had renovations. Okay.
01:03:11
Yeah, I don't like the way he's going about it for this is a massive this is different than anything.
01:03:16
I I do not think this is that meaningful. I really don't. I don't. But the way he did I think it's more like this wasn't America. Like this
01:03:23
is what I'm saying. The guys calling him to call off the San Francisco thing. Let's just tear it down without
01:03:28
consultation. Not even like that is unamerican. It is it is just not I guess
01:03:33
maybe it is American. I don't know. Anyways, the win so the win is and just a reminder there is u for all this
01:03:41
performative masculinity around taking a trillion dollar a year expenditure and having missile strikes which may be
01:03:47
quite frankly extraditial uh murder at this point um which is just
01:03:54
so performative in my opinion stupid there is a real war taking place with real lethal force
01:03:59
in Ukraine and according to I think it's Peter Orpo Finland's prime minister
01:04:05
Ukraine Ukrainian forces do appear to have halted major Russian advances on some fronts. Ukraine's capac
01:04:11
Yes, that's right. And Ukraine's capacity to strike its targets inside Russia has improved. I do hope we
01:04:17
provide them with the longrange missiles and the tomahawk which is an incredible weapon to target. They're refining
01:04:22
capabilities. An opinion piece in the Guardian reports that Ukrainians mood in Kev is more confident now than a year
01:04:28
ago. Though the situation is still grave grave, there's much it still feels like the mood is upbeat. there's greater
01:04:35
resolve and discussions are advancing around using frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine's reconstruction and
01:04:40
defense, which is on its own a sign of growing international alignment. So anyways, my my win and reminder is is
01:04:49
the the real fight here. The real lethality that is proving, you know, is
01:04:55
upholding our freedom and our democracy is taking place. It's not off the shores of Venezuela.
01:05:01
It's in Ukraine right now where the Ukrainian army does continue to punch well above their weight class. So
01:05:06
anyway, that's my win. That's a good one because you know that's speaking of economic value. Think about the the windfalls that's going to
01:05:13
happen there as we rebuild that very vibrant and innovative culture, right? This is like an opportunity again an
01:05:19
opportunity for the United States to build real things versus this nonsense like you know all the different people
01:05:26
that have to suck up to Trump. It's grotesque to watch them one after the next, you know, sucking up to them. But
01:05:31
there's no economic value there. It's just a it's just a grift. It's just one long grift. And that's not how you make
01:05:37
things, right? You get to get ahead because you fluff a billionaire. Like, stop it. Like, it's just it has no it
01:05:45
has no economic value. And our whether you like us being involved in other countries or not, the best thing would
01:05:51
be to have a a peaceful Ukraine that will then innovate and create a better I
01:05:56
don't know. It just seems like it's not econ none of this is economic. It's just drift and so it's very disappointing.
01:06:03
I'll tell you that. Anyway, uh we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever is on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot
01:06:10
to submit a question for the show or call 85551 pivot. And elsewhere in the Cara and Scott universe this week on
01:06:16
onwitha Swisser, which Scott Galloway is going to be on soon for his new book, I
01:06:21
spoke with writer, director, and producer Jud Appattow. Let's listen to a clip. If you can go on a computer and make it
01:06:28
look like deep space and it doesn't cost $3 million, it costs 40 grand. Well,
01:06:34
clearly in some ways that will help people. It will decimate the people that made space.
01:06:39
But it seems like we're not going to be able to stop that when it gets cheaper. But the writing uh and the directing
01:06:46
will always wind up generic because it's scraped and it's just copying other things. Oh, we'll see about that, Jud. But he's
01:06:51
a really I mean that guy has got a history of really amazing uh work in comedy. Anyway, a very he he actually he's just
01:06:59
really shar what's happening. I thought it was a great talk. Um and a reminder he's really is. And a reminder we're
01:07:05
going but you're going to be even more impressive. Oh yeah. Go on. It'll be good. I'm going to let you talk
01:07:10
and talk and talk so you'll have a good time. Um reminder which I already do here. We're going to go on tour. will be
01:07:18
going to Toronto, Boston, New York, DC, Chicago, San Francisco, and LA. Scott and I are going to be together so much.
01:07:24
We're sold out in Toronto and San Francisco, and the other cities are very close. But visit pivotour.com,
01:07:29
especially you Chicago. We've got extra-large venue there. So, come and see us. We also got some surprises
01:07:34
there. Some good big names coming. Uh, okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and make sure to like
01:07:40
and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us
01:07:45
out. Today's show is produced by Laram and Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie or Todd engineered this episode. Ronnie
01:07:52
Polydoro edited the video. Additional support from Kate Gallagher and Brad Sylvester. Thanks also to Drew Bros, Mr.
01:07:57
Varo and Dan Shalon. Michox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast
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platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine nymag.com/pod.
01:08:09
We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.