I think that a martian left would be the easiest way to sum it up. I was a leftwing but it didnt make enough sense to be. Host when did the transformation occur . Guest i just wrote about this. There is a book coming out from the Hoover Institution that is acting as called why i turned right and its the story of a bunch of us and it is a long story and i will not tell it that i will give the short version. I was a radical leftist 150 a week was a lot of money as far as i was concerned in the Lower East Side and i was very broke. We got paid every two weeks. I was really looking forward to the 300 so was my landlord. I got my first paycheck at 78 or Something Like that. After federal tax and estate tax and the city tax and social security, health care, Retirement Funds i said wait a minute, wait a minute, ive been advocating socialism, communism for years screaming and yelling down the street and we already have it. They just took half my pay. Whats going on here. Im not rockefeller. They just took off my pay. Half my pay. We have socialism. That is when i started to out of it. It took a while. Host somebody else made a switch in their politics with Christopher Hitchens. Guest much more recently. Back in 1993 i guess here is het he had to say about you. Ever since and it has a terrific following as a humorist for his books and essays. The first one is the Republican Party i. Iraq ani recommend he was runnin empty and now i see how wonderful it would be and the book basically depends on the political correctness. Okay its not funny. Ive never even gotten away with physical assault. I think that he overstates the case. And also of course im long past the point i can plan to be busting down or not. Im an old republican not like most middleaged white guys. We are all republican even if we call ourselves something else. Host you didnt know you were going to come over here and get attacked. Holidays in hell is another book. All the trouble in the world modern manners. First book when was this without . Guest the original was 1983. Eat the rich is what got me started up a. It was from that experience that the editor in england who came up with this idea for the series of the that changed the world of which my book on adam smith is one of Christopher Hitchens has one also on thomas paine and very good it is. It was because of some poking around that he asked me to wri write. Host mississippi, you are on with pj, go ahead. Guest hello, come in. Host new jersey, go ahead. Caller a man but i suspect never wore the uniform and i suspect hearing about the politics would have done his darndest could be so flippant about the war. We have one now. Thousands of americans have been killed, no useful purpose is served and i think it is abominable that he can make fun of the war and find something amusing about it at the question that i wanted to ask him if he talks about the imperative of the free markets. Does he have any conception about why we have things like the minimum wage law does he remember the condition that existed before we had those and if thats what he thinks is freedom. Im glad he came in on the democratic line. Host here is what you write like many men in my generation i had an opportunity to give the war a and i promptly chickened out. In 1970 i went with a doctors letter about the history of drug abuse and the letter was four and a half pages devoted to listing the drugs i have used. I was sent to the office of the psychiatrist at the end of a 45 minute interview with the pounding on the desk and shouting you dont belong in the army. He was right on the first count and possibly the second. I didnt have to go but that meanto thatmeant someone else hn my place. Guest to begin with, the beginning of what the fellow on the phone said. Lets put it this way, a bad situation in the war the rotten situation. You can make your softball pompous and pious or you can do all those things. Whether i dont make fun of it isnt going to make it better. As to the free markets and minimum wage and people working in coal mines to. The. Keeping coercion out o the verse marketplace there is only one aspect keeping portion out of life. Adam smith sold the wealth of nations and essays that he wrote a very important book that he wrote that no one reads anymore called the theory of moral sentiments which is about morality and it was all about making people rely upon persuasion and to give up brute force. That is the core of morality and the free society and democracy even though adam smith in some ways didnt know that. He lived in a pre democratic era and didnt quite understand that democracy could work but he did understand freedom of work. He was a moral and practical and just plain tha playing the sortf sympathetic advocate of freedom and at the root of the freedom is persuasion. It doesnt mean that you want them rulethe mold by anarchy. It applies the rule of law. It isnt prescriptive and it doesnt tell us how to conduct free market it doesnt tell us that there should be rules and we should all obey the rules but it doesnt say quite exactly what the rules are. Book five of the wealth of nations he tries to lay down some rules. When they have been like in congress, so did a very angry caller ive would just like to say this for a second no idea why three hours should be wasted on me and i am not going to claim that there is a good reason. Because you have certain ideas about how freedom should be conducted in a you may be right and i respect those ideas and they are worth arguing about although they may not be the same as the ones i have got dont just because you want to limit certain freedoms in the market it may be the correct thing to do to limit those, but dont be smug about your desire to live it. Everybody that wants to limit from those that desire human slavery to the taliban and everybody is smug about the desire to limit human freedoms. It can be good for recognizing that and make you a wise or sensible person assuming the argument for god. Just because you have some desire to limit the. Txt provides a tribute to the automobile it was held at the Petersen Automotive Museum in los angeles in june of 2009. Host is im afraid the last time to say how shall we put it, sayonara to the american car. American automobile companies, ford, gm, chrysler they will live on in some form, kind of a marleys ghost dragging their chains at the taxpayers expense. At the detroit unions they are going to retire to their homes in palm beach and st. Petersburg respectively when congress and the white house gets through with it, a lightweight vehicle with a Carbon Footprint using alternative energy and Renewable Resources to operate in a Sustainable Way when i was a kid we called it a schwinn. [laughter] expand Springfield Massachusetts if it had been a success, Springfield Massachusetts might be todays motor city with unemployment drug dealing Violent Crime and racial tensions, which as it so happens, bring debate has been killed massachusetts is the love anyway. We owe a lot more than they entertaining spectacle if that many people my age. They would find it a little too close to comfort that is probably where we were conceived. There was no premarital sex in america before the invention of the internal combustion attribute. You couldnt sneak a girl into the wreck room at the farmhouse because your mom and dad didnt have a car sedate so they didnt commute so they were stuck home all day working on the farm and your farmhouse didnt have a rec room because it hadnt been discovered due to all the farm work. [laughter] you could take a girl out but it was hard to get her in the mood to bust into her corset because you were facing the high high end end of the horse. While the car was at it if destroyed the American Nuclear family and as anyone can tell you, it was a relief to all concerned. There are much worse things you can do as the sudanese have been proven to one of the things ive wondered we never hear a thank you word of thanks from those that skateboard all the time. They provided america with a standard of living. You cannot get a steady job with high wages and Retirement Benefits working on the General Corporation of the Assembly Line putting letterassemblylineputtt just couldnt be done. I think that the american car was a source of intellectual stimulation. You think of the innovation, the invention, the genius that transformed the 1908 into the 1968 gt 500 in the course of one single human lifetime, compare this to the previous mode of transportation, force production, force design, unchanged for thousands of years. When it comes to creativity i did a little bit of Research Writing this stuff. You know, nobody thought to put a stirrup, nobody thought to hang a stirrup from the saddle until it was invented. People had been riding horses for thousands of years and it took him until 500 ae d. If the automobile designing and engineering preceded the same pace as force design and engineering we would be covering ourselves on the road by running with our feet stuck in the hole like Fred Flintstone and although it may come to god with the 2010 obama mobile. Most important of all that they fulfilled the idea of americas founding fathers. Of all the truths we hold to be selfevident, of all of the malleable rights with which we are endowed, which one is most important front and center flats in the name of the declaration of independence, freedom to leave, freedom to get out of town, to get out of here. King george, can i have the keys. That is the declaration of independence says. And ive got to tell you this isnt an abstract matter to me of the fanciful theory. Nancy pelosi dating she was transported home from the Maternity Ward on the clouds supported and low carbon. [laughter] my grandfather was born in 1877 on a farm the size of the podium here in the wind city, ohio, which wasnt a city and didnt even have any line. He was one of ten kids. They grew up in a pink at the shack. I have a photograph windup by age staring at the photographer amazed to see someone in shoes. My greatgrandfather was a woodcutter in the midwest where there were no trees. Also drunk and illiterate. I have a copy of the marriage certificate. Hes on the accomplishment aside from the poor mans roulette wheel. The only thing that he ever accomplished he trained some to call him home, he would fall out of the tavern, pass out in the e wagon and the horses would bring him home. He left home with a fifthgrade education lookinfifth gradeeduct lights of toledo ohio and went to work as a buggy mechanic. Then one day a horseless buggy pulled up at the shop and he sold the future and a it didnt take him long to realize more money was to be made and also the wedding anniversary was too close for comfort. She got in the car business and by the time i came along in the 1940s, we had a buick and they owned a dealership and my father was a Sales Manager and joe ran a used car lot and was a salesman and then the parts department. I would go right on to do whatever it is that i do in this book with a parrot on my shoulder i am on down to the price is walk the plank. Free chocolate. Its a great life. They said we owe everything to the american car. The. We didnt do very well, but they went. So i pick the demise, i took this personally. Im looking around for somebody to blame. If what fun it would be with both feet. And i think we should definitely do that connie was the worst driver in the world and one of the fastest. If she didnt get herself killed, it couldnt be done so he was all right. But, the pundits were all telling us that there was plenty of blame to go around for the death of the american car, and im not really sure about that either. Its true that the car executives are knuckleheads, that all executives are. Look at bill gates. What didnt you get a decent 5dollar haircut . It is maddening but its one thing to be mad at the Labor Union Leaders and its another thing to be expected to be down at the whole standing on a chair yelling we demand less money for the bosses. They make 600 an hour or so im told. They get laid off every time the camel forests at a meeting. [laughter] maybe their pay is too high. I think to understand, we have to give up on economics and turned to melodrama. Politicians, journalists, all the other purveyors, theyve been looking at cars as if a convertible for a business. It isnt a matter of financial crisis are measuring the shoes size of the foot print is the tragic romance and unleased passions the author in 2010 he appeared in washington, d. C. Where he is also a senior fellow to offer his thoughts on politicians and the federal government. I will not be satisfied until every seat in the house and senate is filled by a regular person. A regular person who quite reasonably hates being there. I want the government to be like jury duty. And not jury duty for some exciting crime like the o. J. Simpson murder. I want it to be like jury duty for a long boring complex trial concerning tax law. What they suggest indicting our federal tax code, this is for start which is nothing but a fraud. I want the government to be doled and like attending a Parent Teacher conference, something that could be undertaken with reluctance because good citizenship requires that. I want every congressman from every senator, every president , every Supreme Court justice to be wishing him longing, begging to go back to his or her job in real life. I want them hoping and waiting to be able to return to their private interests and personal applications. I want them yearning to be sitting in front of the tv with a beer watching ed crane is money on his world series. I want the officials to say that they intend to spend more time with their families and mean it. We well know when weve won and election with every single candidate that is voted into Office Begins his or her victory speech by saying oh, shit. [laughter] now in this new book on the theory of political science, instead of basing my theory on the work of deep political thinking such as john locke and tom paine, John Stuart Mill and ed crane, im basing my theory on the game played out all night and give all sessions in girls boarding schools. The girls could do like nbc dead and kill conan and screw letterman and mary jay leno. I am laughing but then it struck me that his politics that so we picked the president of the United States george h. W. Bush bill clinton ross perot. We could hardly avoid a screwup from bill clinton and the old george h. W. Bush now the outcome is not a foregone conclusion instead of the walk down the il. With the 2000 election even america was divided over screw george w or get screwed by al gore but we agree on killing ralph nader i will not have examples recent elections for fear of attracting attention by the secret service like the obama white house. It works on parts of governments get in bed with fema housing screw agricultural subsidies and Health Care Reform kills us its great with that political analysis because in a free and democratic country it is a threelegged stool to be balanced upon a tripod of power and freedom and responsibility we live in a free and democratic country a little less democratic than it was before last night also its a great deal of critical analysis because we are so passionate about our politics how do they end . And a passion sometimes and occasionally they turn into stable permanent legal arrangements which is the endless quarrel known as marriage how do we do that . Do we overthrow with violence hard we tried to build something that is lasting that is worthy and annoying marvelously purchased and stifling . Our power of freedom of responsibility. Now when i first began to think about politics with mastodons and nixon roamed the earth i was obsessed with the freedom i had a messy idea of freedom back in those days but i had a tidy idea that freedom was the central issue of politics. I love politics this may be the reason that professional politicians retain a certain youthful zest and ted kennedy was a boy right down to his last moment i was wrong about the lovable nature of politics but i was sure i was right about the preeminent place freedom should have in the political system but there are lots of definitions of free 36 in westers websters International Dictionary plenty of people are theoretically in favor of freedom we are all but overrun with theoretical allies we have collaborators in the fight for freedom that we dont even want the proletarians have nothing to lose with the communist manifesto that mao announced letting 100 flowers blossom half a Million People died in that definition of freedom and we should probably keep in mind the original definition of the word free in english is not and bondage mankind has a sickening history of slavery now here in america we have freedom because we have rates the same way we can get mixed up about freedom we can get mixed up about our rights we have two kinds of rights political scientists call them positive rights and negative rights sometimes we call them opportunities and privileges i call them get out of here rights and give me rights. Politicians talk about the give me rights especially the politician in the white house right now. Yes give me some healthcare insurance the bill of rights doesnt mention give me rights it is all about our freedom to say i have guns and a big mouth if the jury finds me guilty the judge will give me bail the freedom from interference usually from government but also when they want us to sober up and put the gun down politicians only way give me rights they do not like get out of here rights they do not like get out of here rights because for one thing all legislators are invited to get out of here in strict adherence would leave little scope for legislation something that they love to do much more politically alluring and this is how we find ourselves tempted with the right to education and to oil spill beach cleanup highspeed Internet Access and three french hands to turtledoves in a partridge in a pear tree the politicians dont even know the difference between get out of here and give me rights implanted by the dazzle of anything that makes them popular they honestly may not be able to tell. But there is an evidence it was originally presented to the public with malice aforethought president franklin president roosevelt appeared at first glance to be as natural and well matched as the Norman Rockwell illustrations freedom of speech and religion from freedom from want and fear notice how the beggar number three has slipped in among the more respectable members from the freedom family want what . Saying as roosevelt did as we look forward to the four essential human freedoms this is not an expression of generosity from roosevelt declarations like freedom from want are never expressions of generosity there were 6 million that wanted nothing but a safe place to go and where was roosevelt they are . Consisting of positive benefits right skill freedom those are the sorts of political power eight years before i realized that years after i first got interested in politics before i realized the central issue is power only an idiot would not have seen this and i was one. I was not alone liberals and moderates and some conservatives consider those created by social welfare programs to be extensions of freedoms and the opportunity rights people given the opportunity to not starve to death thats not purely evil way to look at things and not all the social welfare programs are all bad but the electorate the candidates and me properly failed to scrutinize those social welfare programs is not that we failed if they were needed or unneeded or poorly run but to look at the enormous power taken from people and given to politics we let freedom be turned into power politicians are careless about promising give me rights and cynical about delivering them and give me rights are absurdly expanded the government gives me the right to get married so i have a right to a good marriage otherwise why give that right to me . My childrens right is better to daycare and being deprived of their right to a different develop mental environment every child has the right to a happy childhood so i have the right to happy children. Richard children are happier so give me some of Angelina Jolie jolies. The expense of all these make politicians happy they can do the spending even get out of here rights are not free and a considerable expenditure of the neighbors when they want us to sober up but that requires no end of money and thats the least of their cost everyone means the transfer of goods and services from one group of services to another the first loses those goods and services that all citizens lose the power that must be given to a Political Authority to enforce that transfer we did not want to understand that power in this is particularly true of people in my age its obvious the way we reacted when politicians try to use their power to limit our freedom drafting us into the war in vietnam we fought the establishment by growing our hair long and dressing like Circus Clowns we are the generation that changed everything all the errors and efforts of american americans, ours is the one that made the biggest impression on ourselves. [laughter] but that is an important accomplishment. We are the generation that created the self and from the darkness and the lightness of the self and say let there be self. If you are born between 1946 and 64 you may notice this yourself this is not to say we are selfish but that means to concerned with the self and we are not thats not something were just concerned with. We are self before that was without form like our parents and are dumpy close then we came along. The personal is associate out economic and the religious and the secular and everything his and her kind of the baby boom has done one thing to get a personal universe in our policies because self is like the fish proverbially speaking give a man a fish feed him for a day teach him and if he turns into a dry fly catch and release and then do the pestering trout with a graphite ride that cost 1000. Im just glad to have them out of the house. [laughter] so here we are in the baby boom cosmos formed in our image personally tailored to the individual needs and predetermined to be eternally fresh and novel and we saw that it was good. Pretty good. We should had a cooler name we are now stuck with exploding and it invents we have exploded ourselves for baby boom to look back to make guess what we are and what caused us to act the way we do and what the fuck. [laughter] if we decided not to be Young Forever we would be all. [laughter] [applause] the youngest baby boomer born in the last year when everybody thought it was hit are turning 50 and we would be sad about getting old if we were not busy remarrying younger wives and reviving careers and renewing prescriptions for drugs that keep us from being sad we will never retire the mortgages underwater we are in that one debt for College Education and the rogaine it serves us right because they are the generation that insisted the passion for living should be based on working. Still is an appropriate moment for what we have added and subtracted from the existence we reach the age of accountability we are the generation that has an excuse for everything one of our greatest contributions to modernize but when anything happens anywhere someone over 50 signs the bill for it and the baby boom heres generation accent version my of millennials all say check please. [applause] i chose another the couple of paragraphs to ask him to read. Do you need your reading glasses . Yes. This is a summing up you can see where he lands with this. There and turn the page. And yet we are the best generation in history which goes to show history stinks. [laughter] but at least we are fabulous by historical standards. The baby boom with the scientific experiment with empirical results to take the biggest generation and in the most important country and put them onto excessively happy families too much affection with extravagant freedoms plenty of money a profusion of opportunity and the collapse of traditional social standards and you get better people. [laughter] were is maddeningly smug the way people have been but better behaved is not the way to put it but we are ration vein and entitled but we are still swell. [laughter] [applause] this has an interesting structure the chapters rsa length and you blend in some real memoir stuff about your life along with the broader thinking of baby boomers and how we got this way. You start with 1946 last year of the baby boom suborn on one end of the spectrum i am on the other that we all look the same age. [laughter] about 18 by rough estimation. You describe that experience as seniors like high school, juniors, sophomores and freshmen. I am in the senior class me, share, Hillary Clinton and those, cheech. [laughter] because we were at the wave of this exploration. But we also tether very closely so we were dragged under the boat we ended up soggy as Financial Advisors with tongue studs. [laughter] trying to start a tea party protest. But your senior class was really on the vanguard of so many things including vietnam and drug taking and fast and by the time the freshman class came along in my case i was the youngest of four i watch my older siblings do all of these things and it scared me witless and i did none of those things. The younger baby boomers are more cautious they embrace sex drugs and rock n roll but they have seen us in action and the older baby boomers in action so what works in general doesnt always aspire to the beanbag chair. [laughter] maybe they get better behaved as they go along. One delightful aspect of the book as you start by describing what sounds like a very early memory in toledo ohio where you are watching the world through the picture window from your family is brandnew house. Im standing there watching the big kids go to school one of my earliest memories this is a silent generation they were yelling and screaming it just seemed like at this moment in the book it seemed that all generations kids wanted to be grownups except us. [laughter] we wanted to be bigger kids thats a vow we have kind of kept. You actually make an observation what really struck me. Children of the baby boom children were in control of their own childhood. Our parents worked, our children work like maniacs but yet we were a generation of people of childhood. Get out of the house its a Beautiful Day. Its raining. Its 30 degrees. [laughter] they said its a Beautiful Day get out of the house. [laughter] i never quite figured out the parenting style we take a lot of grief for being helicopter parents but our parents were strange. They to be so cautious and so fearful like dont get to know people who are not from europe. [laughter] that would be scary but on the other hand fourth of july would come around and dad would hand out the m eighties. [laughter] heres some explosives that should probably take a license. [laughter] everybody has the uncle actually this is a more respectable uncle he was the businessman. He would give us the firecrackers at his cottage on the lake in give us each a lit cigarette. [laughter] not to smoke but because that was the safe way to light the firecrackers. [laughter] because of matches we might hurt ourselves. [laughter] and then they drink. They were real strict all day long until about 630. [laughter] i know im only ten but can i take the car . [laughter] okay. How could a person like donald trump possibly become president . Maybe just a matter of the great political satirist said. Make and said democracy is the theory that Common People know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. [laughter] or more likely it something larger because here in the United States we are not alone to have that political awkward moment were in the midst of a global revolt against the political elites who created the postworld war Ii International order for the past 70 years have been running everything and running everything into the ground as far as a lot of ordinary voters are concerned. Internationally we are seeing a rise in zeno phobia and authoritarianism and it ranges from the spectacle of the European Union in shambles to the please sinister activities from putin and president xi taking measurements for the new iron curtain. You would think this would be worse to ordinary voters with a standard issue political elite for jeb bush or Hillary Clinton in part they did create their own problem over the past for generations the hallmark of the political elites is the expansion of political power and has expanded in size one third of the worlds gdp is now spent by the politicians and governments around the world one out of every three things you make is grab by government if your cat has three kitchens one of them is a government agent. [laughter] political power has expanded in scope politics castanet over every little aspect of life. Nothing is so private it isnt tangled up in politics with the transgender bathrooms we know the politics what is crap now we know where we take one is a political issue so when we you guys realize guys and gals that politics is a twoway street. The elite politicians for generations have created a heavy unstoppable monster truck of the government then they get all shocked when a horrible politician we detest turns the truck around and runs them over. Make the truck smaller yanked the engine and install foot pedals make the government into a kitty car so the worst happens hits us in the shins of people all over the world say we are sick of the elites and tired of the experts to hell with the deep thinkers they think we should know better they know better and grab everything we got we see this revolt in the brexit vote and the rise of alternative Political Parties in europe on both ends of the political spectrum on the left and the right and brazil almost every politician in the country has been charged with corruption for the simple reason they are guilty of it. [laughter] but in the case of Brexit Britains political elite and Business Elite and trade union elite were all opposed to brexit to say the people that supported the iraq war plus the people that cause the 2008 Global Financial crisis, the plus those that British Automobile on industry was nationalized they were all in agreement so the voters they felt they cannot go wrong voting against the trifecta. Very similar case in columbia columbias elites spent five years negotiating a peace treaty with a communist guerrilla and then and then to ask what . After 52 years of murder and kidnapping and narcotics now they get Retirement Benefits . And in those politics of australia it is so tall that the name of the conservative party is a liberal party but australia has five prime ministers in six years and the last resulted in a Hung Parliament that mustve been tempting. I suppose hanging legislators is immoral as the parliamentarians are caught chasing sheep the politics of canada even more dull than the politics of australia and a premier who is a dashing young celebrity name justin i havent googled canadian politics. Who would . I am assuming it is justin bieber. Of course here in america the opposite we saw the revolt in the ridiculous rise of donald trump okay i understand the desire to shake it up but why trump . He may be a rich guy may be a member of the 1 percent but there is nothing elite for sure the way he sounds like the rest of us except after he had six drinks he is a jerk. But you can imagine playing a round of golf with him. He cheats, but so do i. Now imagine a round of golf with Hillary Clinton 20 harvard graduate caddies who read all the books but not on the links they tell you what club to use in secret service is there to make sure you take the suggestion to hit from the fairway with the sand wedge if you are moved closer to her lie in the appropriate term it winds up on the personal email server of course on the other hand i dont know how long i would last to whack a titleist standing on the green nudging his ball with his foot and the alternative fact how close it is to the whole. But the longer we revolt against the elites come in many ways it is puzzling. I didnt feel the power of this myself and the beginning of the 21st century its time to have a revolt against the elites especially where things are going fairly well we are not in desperate financial straits the recession of 2008 was painful and waking up on a friends couch after somebody took the house for practically everybody has had a divorce weve been through that before and if there were any deadlines they were not handing out with the obesity crisis but we are embroiled in a long war more than 7000 american competence have died during the 15 years of the war on terror those that died at the battle of gettysburg hippies are not sticking daisies in the drones. We are culturally polarized there is no way to startle an Old School History professor and jolt them away from the faculty lounge. 1861, that was polarized fort sumter isnt taking anything for the moment but yet the American People are fearful and they blame their fears on the political elite and one of the reasons is the political elite have done a lousy job dealing with certain problems demons have been unleashed as the elites failed to unleash the problems and then they seem to have been breeding demons of elite military strategy. Then they turn the demons loose in the middle east as if they have never been the endangered species as if they been trying to reintroduce them. Murder all over the world how much further away are those of the middle east could a person get then to be light and in a gay nightclub in orlando . Another result of the mishandling is the refugee crisis in europe and europeans are saying what do they care . And with the corridors with the European Parliament and wrestles to build shantytowns of the private country clubs that means nannies and ethnic restaurants they dont seem to have any similarity between the wall donald trump has promised us and they gated communities in which they live and another problem that politics can fix everythin everything. When you promise you can fix everything, then everything that is broken is your fault. Of political elite say politics can fix Climate Change than i want to see bill clinton shoveling my driveway. He has heart trouble but thanks to global warning my driveway only had a few inches of snow this year. So we see this global revolt they get blamed for everything including blamed for the fact we live in a time of rapid change nevermind much of that is good change People Living in extreme poverty living less than a dollar a day has been reduced by half an amazing and marvelous project and also despite recent backsliding theres been the overall growth of human liberty the past 30 years since the 1989 fall of the berlin wall. And to be fair, rapid change creates problems speedy transformation and social mores and economic norms confuse everybody especially those that were leading that normal parade mankind no longer has to march in lockstep becoming individual persons and this is great but certain difficulties arise when the stride is broken and the band breaks up it could be turned into a beer bottle and the trombone using the slide to boost the cornet player so meanwhile the elite drum majors where a goofy hat and wave a stick so those swift improvements and transport and communication and technical capabilities have combined to do globalization or International Trade so thats great sometimes and having this brought right to our door except when we dont like going to Yellowstone Park no matter how much we love to have the advice but not in the rec room. We have to clean the carpet and then we find out about her job. The world is a smaller place does is make the political elites think the smaller world would make everyone get along . Put them in a small place such as the backseat of your car now take them to see the world on Yellowstone Park from new jersey. How are your kids getting along . Political elites dont take family car trips. Then there is the curse word wherever with the internet i might be the wrong person to ask. I finally got my space figured out only person there is me. [laughter] and incidentally whose bright idea was it to make sure every idiot in the world is in communication with every other idiot . I take it on trust the digital revolution has changed already where did sears go . Im glad i can comparison shop online for any brand that exist and have it delivered the next day with Free Shipping but the kenmore repair man now seems is a footsoldier with the opioid addiction attack how do i get my refrigerator into the ups drop box . All changes disruptive and scary, changing a diaper people asking for spare change on the street. When contemporary social and economic change are combined with contemporary distrust of political elites and where that has been earned to the result can be very disturbing. Russias new nationalism comes from Vladimir Putin with outrage at the incompetent kleptomaniac political elites who took possession after perestroika to make use of the popular that all the tea in china scale of corruption among the chinese elites. And with those aspects and that they have suicide squads the modern world is a scary world and failure is a bad schoolmarm we have a monster act the blackboard and people and the democratic countries not even those fundamentals of democracy and to have tentacles going out of its head so what happens to people in the class turned for help to the bully at the back of the classroom and that is donald trump. One reason and the concept of money is so often violating common sense that government does nonsensical things. Another reason it violates common sense we dont have to use real money but written promises to deliver those commodities it is fiduciary from the latin word meaning to trust and not be too quick to do so. The only president that even possesses some inclinations paper money has that origin it is a free market intervention paper money was developed privately in the 13th century among the italian merchants and receipts for those whom Precious Metals were entrusted for safekeeping but it did not take long for political authorities to steal the idea the government fiduciary money in the west was first printed in sweden traditional swedish commodity money came in the form of copper plates and in 1656 the stockholm had more convenient paper notes and the swedish government went broke in 1716 the french government to establish the bank right now with the landholdings west of the mississippi, bank royale issued too many notes and the french government went broke the most extensive pre modern experiment happened right here in america in 1775 the Second Continental Congress not only creating paper money but has a lot refusing to accept it they issued too many notes and a pattern emerges all fiduciary money is backed by a commodity even if the bankers are lying about them. Historically has been gold the major currencies were based on gold but the most major of all of those it was a period of monetary stability and not coincidentally great economic growth. Some people think we should go back on the Gold Standard money should be worth something and gold seems as good as whatever. The high value of gold is a social convention it is a habit gold may go out of fashion in the generation could come around the way millennials regard feel. [laughter] and it is a product to discover improved methods this happened to the spanish when they conquered the new world they had tons of gold melted it down and sent it to them into it never occurred to the spanish they were creating more money not more things to buy with it between 151600 prices in spain went up 400 percent so presented with the vast wealth of americas oceans and forest spain took the gold like somebody robbed a bank and sold the deposit slips. Gold is not a rational basis for currency but the real problem with fiduciary money from the government standpoint not that its irrational but inconvenient the currency converted into a commodity limits the amount of currency that can be printed the government has to have at least some of that commodity or the world makes a laughing stock out of the bank notes Governments Lie about having Precious Metals to be deemed the Paper Currency and the government does were semi People Holding fiduciary money can wake up like they did on aph 1933 when fdr signed the executive order 61 oh two banning the ownership of gold they could find out the redeeming Paper Currency for the losses against the law. So to lie and steal to support the currency why cant the Government Lie and steal everything to do with its currency . Thats exactly what all governments have done. Instead of passing a law to say one dollar equals x amount of gold our government says one dollar equals one dollar this is fiat money, binding edict also cheap and not reliable car. That is backed by nothing but the government wont keep printing money that you use it for something more important such as toilet paper from venezuela its not just venezuela but no intrinsic values evolved in from any fiat money it is a pronouncement of existentialism from the Central Banks trillions and trillions of dollars euros pounds and yen are singing we are here because we are here because we are here. And that is when fiat money came into general use. All the many of the world today we got it because the government says we have got to it is a lousy parent region to tell us because i said so. Is cryptocurrency the answer . That is im glad you asked that question question politicians always say what they mean is they have no idea what the answer is. I went to a medium of exchange to adhere to the libertarian principles. Actually money that adheres to one principal would suffice this is the privacy principle. What i do that does not physically harm anyone else is none of anyone elses business. This is the private kind of money libertarians want. And in that most important sense of privacy it is not public and not subject to government public policy. With money that is treating it like posting things on your Facebook Page a couple of clicks of the Federal Reserve keyboard there is another rant the original i didnt have value but unfriending the government . Difficult to do so it encrypts the transactions so what you are buying or selling is not revealed to somebody who is nosy who is the government. I am lawabiding i will wait for the walk sign in the middle of the night i dont even cheat on my taxes anymore than the polls required me to do but i wouldnt use cryptocurrency for a criminal scheme, maybe cuban cigars but no matter how legal we dont like the private purchases to be on the Public Record for who knows what and i dont like other peoples purchases being on the Public Record. Such a have a plastic inflatable anatomically correct all for intimate relations in the privacy of the home, i want to know about it. I want the government to know about it for fear the epa may impose endangered plastic regulations on all of us or a timeline that they leak it to pita with the inflatable doors door to be vandalized. I am much more worried about government abusing the Police Powers and i am about individuals abusing purchasing powers. So thats the case in favor of cryptocurrency. But to tell the truth i dont own any and i have no use for cryptocurrency. That coin is down this morning but has been hovering around 7000. But i have a banged up Station Wagon i got if you offered me one bit coin i would tell you to bite me. I am confused about the intricacies with those that underlie cryptocurrencys . I am confused by women. I fly on airplanes all the time. I have no idea why they take off or how they land. But i am confused by the internet i think whose bright idea was it to make sure every idiot in the world is in touch with every other idiot . [laughter] as far as i can tell it is the enormous hacking Industry Service by a computer network. I fear cryptocurrency is the invention of the nerds with the slide rules like the evil math club. Now a pearshaped 15 yearold with the mortgagee pajamas is in his bedroom with empty snickers wrappers to make himself a billionaire on the darknet now walgreens accepts it for acne cream. Money is the root of libertarianism but anybody that is not confused by many is insane we worry about money and the exchange and the way the society collapses and then to understand that worry to go some place where it has collapsed already so back in 1992 i went to somalia to cover the usled military mission to save somalia from total anarchy. Talk about anarchy and we are confused with our being anarchists in this isnt true they believe in and social structure that protects individual liberty, upholds dignity and ensures responsibility this is very different from believing and no social structure at all somalia has no social structure at all it was true anarchy with vicious dictatorship but the somali celebrated independence fighting broke out everywhere is not traditional warfare but the somalis are belonged to the same tribe but the six clans have hundreds of sub clams and each one is the infinite murderous fields with rifles and machine guns, mortars and cannons. But in the new part of the city with concrete it was blasted there is no water or electricity at night the only illumination is from tracer bullets every tree and bush was snatched from our firewood and sewage came up for what pavement was last seen and went to the streets ravage was dumped and goats grazed. Everything that guns can accomplish had been achieved in mogadishu. I signed on as a radio reporter with abc news. To hire a 40 man army to protect this compound and the 20 some reporters and tech people all housed in the compound while the security as the mercenaries like to be called and its impossible to go outside the compound without the security and theyre all these people and the they nipped at the wristwatch bands and then even to attract a hornets nest of attention pushing moms of cursing people. With the assault rifles. And again mounts welded like a spider around. So another reporter was in somalia for six months. Pletter austin on offered to take me to the market in mogadishu. I said sure. I wanted to see if there was one when if there was ever the somalis buying and selling . I learned an important lesson about the exchange in that market and i learned that there will always be a medium of Exchange Currency may not be what you expect but totally how society collapses there will be a form of currency with an armed somali driver and with the arm security that when we get to the market my friend leon gets out of the car and pulls out a glock pillow one 9 millimeters glock pistol and into the chamber and i am looking at them and says i call it the visa card of the future. [laughter]. Thank you for being with us today. It is ak