Showdown
Showdown Episode 79 6-10-24
[music] Welcome to Showdown, I'm Mark Casen. It is June 10th, that's Monday, and we are here to celebrate another chapter in the life of the maniac who thinks that he could be president. But the truth is he's not likely to even achieve being the next dog catcher for America, let alone president. This man is falling down the drain as far as you can go, and he is about as delusional as anybody who's ever been accused of it by him. You know, all that nonsense about Trump-delusion syndrome. Because really, if anybody suffers from it, and I wouldn't say suffer because actually I enjoy it, but it would be me. I enjoy this guy. Of course, I enjoy him not being president of the United States. Being president of the United States would be a whole different subject. That would be disastrous. But we'll get into all of that. We'll talk about his latest activities and all about his report today to the probation officer. You know, the man's a convicted felon, let's face it. He is a convicted felon. These are most of the people within his administration, the people that he brought in. Actually, I forgot to pull this up, but what the heck? We're having a problem here with the, yeah, I don't know, it's dying. Anyway, let's see, yeah, it's terrible, yeah. There it goes, right there. At least we know what the problem is. Yeah, Trump's doing that to me. Really, he comes in the studio overnight and he pulls on the plugs and plays games. And yeah, I understand. I get it. Okay, so let's pull this up here. Because this is worth taking a look at. I could have sent it to Joe, I should have. I probably can. Let's see if I can do that. Well actually, I probably can. Let's see. I mean, we could take the whole show with me flipping through here to find the proper place to send it, but I think I'm going to find it in about a second. So just, you know, be patient because, you know, we'll all be okay. Donald's not going anywhere. He'll break every law you can think of between now and tomorrow. We'll be able to talk about it all. It's not, it's not going away. Wow. Oh, there we go. Okay. So there, I just sent it to you, Joe. So you got a thing, you can put that up on the, on the screen as soon as you have a minute. And when it gets up there, I'll, I'll read it to you. I mean, I, I, I just never been one to show pictures and I, I'll, I'll give you a further example of what I'm talking about. You know, at college and I'm not talking about the four years. Let's talk about graduate school, graduate students at college. When they make a presentation, they generally put up various slides so that everybody can, can watch what they're, they're putting up, you know, while they're talking about it. And I always tell everybody, get rid of those slides. You're making yourself crazy. You're making the audience crazy. And you're really not accomplishing much. And I know that, that, you know, they do it on network and, and so forth. And there are some things that are worth putting up. We put up that high yield chart last week. That was, that was worthwhile. That was good for people to see and believe me, today was another day, I mean, the stock market was up about 60 points, advances and declines are dead, even nothing's moving except for, you know, a very few and, and of the, of the few that are moving, that are always moving, Apple dropped $4 a share. And that's another story. I might get into that in a minute. We could talk about it. And then the other thing is Donald's stock, DJT, Donald's stock, yeah, you can put that up Joe. That's all right. So Donald's stock was down about $3 today, down to 41 or 42. And that was with the market holding up pretty well. When the market starts to drop, Donald's stock is going to drop three, four, five points at a shot and it won't take long to wipe out his entire $6 billion. He might have 50,000 left that'll buy him dinner in jail. Okay. So look what we got up on the screen. Donald Trump is now a felon. Okay. His campaign chairman that was Manafort, he's a, he's a felon. His deputy campaign manager was a felon. He was convicted felon. His personal lawyer, well, of course, we, we know that's, well, there are actually a couple of different lawyers that are both felons. That's not, that's not even Michael Cohen, Michael Cohen's below on the list. His chief strategist is a felon. His national security advisor, felon, his trade advisor, felon, his foreign policy advisor, felon, his campaign manager is, I'm sorry, his campaign fixer. That's Michael Cohen, felon, and his company's CFO, that's Alan Weisselberg, he's a felon. So thank you, Joe, that was, that was good. We took care of that pretty easily. So anyway, what, yeah, they're all felons, but one of the things that I point out about, you know, putting up slides, you got to be really careful because all these grad students put up slides. And what they do is they read the slides. That is horrible. That's the worst thing you can do. And I really tell everybody that what you need to learn how to do is what we have done in radio forever. And that is you, you walk into a microphone and you start talking. You don't follow notes. You don't read slides. You just talk and you're better off if you do that. And if you actually get that skill, you're a thousand times better off. And if you get in front of an audience of a thousand people and you talk to the audience without slides, without, you know, note cards with nothing, if you can just do that, it really is effective. However, that's another story. And if you want to take that class, yeah, you can come up to University of Missouri. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll give you that class up at UMSL. Anyway, all I can tell you is stay off the slides. They kill you. They kill the presentation. They're a waste of time. But putting up that, that picture of the, the felon names, that, that was good. So anyway, that, that was a good one. There are, there are some things that you can put up, but you just got to be careful. Okay. Here's what I want to talk about at the start. And this is really only indirectly Donald Trump indirectly. And here's, here's how it is. It's the story about inflation. Now, of course, Trump runs around screaming about inflation and he tells everybody, what was me? What were you? I'm here to protect you. I'm, I'm going to jail because inflation is so high Joe Biden forced it up there. That's how he makes his money. You know, some craziness like that. And, and so he, he makes up a story and here's how it's indirectly him because he makes up that story. But it's the people who promote the story that are really a problem and, and don't get me wrong. I love many of the people who promote the story, but they, they are a problem. They're, they're actually a problem for themselves because they believe things that are so wrong and, and actually they lose sleep over it. So, so let's start with my very good friend, Lizzie, because here's, here's where we're going. Last night Lizzie posted on Facebook something that is so incorrect that I can't even begin to tell you how wrong it is, but I'm going to begin and then I'm going to tell you because when you hear it, you'll realize how ridiculous this is. Now, according to Lizzie, which I know she got from someone else and whoever she got it from, probably that quack Steven Moore, who is attached to Donald Trump, that I'm, I'm just guessing, but it could be there. By the way, my phone number, in case you want to debate any of this, is 314-471-1968. That's 314-471-1968 and, and, and if you want to call up here and, and, and try to defeat my argument, you're welcome, but it's not going to work. Now here's what, here's what Lizzie said, that a family of four, that it costs this year, $11,000 more to feed themselves than it did last year, $11,000 more and everybody, all the trumpers were jumping on and saying, oh yeah, our lives are miserable because Joe Biden has done this to us and we're just dying out here because this is horrible $11,000 more this year. It's killing us. So the first thing I put on there, though, because I, I had to respond to that one because it's just wrong. It's just so untrue that it's, you're going to see in a second, you're going to realize that it is untrue. You're not going to, I mean, at first you hear it and you think, oh, $11,000. Yeah, that's horrible. But no, it's impossible. It couldn't even be true and I'll show you why. First of all, how much does it cost to feed a family of four? Well, my guess, and I go to the grocery store every day, but I have to say that I'm not the usual eater. I mean, people who have gone out with me to eat, they know what I eat and I'm very strange. You know, I eat some vegetables, I eat maybe some tuna fish and not a lot and certainly not a lot of mayonnaise in it either. I mean, I don't eat a lot. I just don't. You know, at school when they have events, everybody, you know, just chows down on everything and they try to find something that they can feed me because I just don't, don't eat a lot. Not enough to survive, not not starving, but I just don't eat a lot. And don't get me wrong, I love food, sure. I mean, I love spaghetti and meatballs, you know, I love it. You know, I talk about, you know, the baby back ribs that over at Wenties and for me, that's really a good thing because they are protein. I stick to protein a lot. Anyway, that's me. So I can eat for a relatively small amount of money. In fact, I mean, I hate to tell you this, I could probably eat in a week. This is going to scare you for about 40, 50 bucks. Now I could do that. I'm not saying everybody can, but I certainly could do that easily and I do it many weeks. And by the way, hello to Ben and Lizzie and Megan and Michael, you know, everybody's, you know, out here. It's very nice. Good to see you. I want you to hear this because I want you to realize that this is not going to make any sense. This is not going to work. There is no $11,000 increase in the amount that it costs over one year to feed a family of four. It's impossible. And Michael, really, Michael is good with the numbers. So you know, Michael, you can tell me if there's anything I'm saying here that's ridiculous. But look at this now. So I say I could probably eat in a month for 250 bucks. If you multiply that by four, it'd be a thousand bucks for a month. But I realize that four people are not going to eat like I do. So you're not going to do it for a thousand bucks. They do it for 2,000 bucks. And that would be, that'd be probably a good number. And I mean, if you're going out to eat all the time, I understand. Yeah. Lizzie eats a lot at wenties, but don't just slow down here now because, you know, Ben charges very reasonable prices at wenties. So let's not get hysterical. But I will say this, if there was an $11,000 increase in the amount of money that everybody spent for a family of four in a year, I want you to listen to this. Think about it. If inflation, and you know, it's not, but if inflation were 10%, 10%, in order to come to $10,000 increase for the year, you'd be feeding a family of four a hundred thousand dollars, because, you know, if you go to school and they teach you math, 10% of a hundred thousand is 10,000. So an increase of 10% means that you have to be spending for a family of four a hundred thousand dollars in a year, a hundred thousand, what are you eating? I mean, honestly, you must be eating gold bars from Fort Knox. I mean, that is ridiculous. There's nobody spending a hundred thousand dollars a year to feed a family of four. I mean, there are people who don't make a hundred thousand dollars in a year. I mean, if you make a hundred thousand, you got to pay taxes on that. So believe me. According to this theory, if inflation were 10% and it's not, if inflation for food were 10% and it's not, then you'd have to be spending a hundred thousand dollars a year on your family of four for the food, in order to get a $10,000 increase. You can see that is insanity. And this is the sort of thing that is pushed around this country by Trump. That's it. I tell you, if I've got one person on here who claims that they feed a family of four, a hundred thousand dollars a year, I'll tell you, I'll eat my phone. You know, it's not true, but people don't even think Donald Trump says something or some joke, Joker that's following him makes it up and, and, you know, I'll bring up the name Steven Moore. He's the best example, 100% quack. He's all over Fox. He's been there for years. He is a complete and utter quack. And he is the guy. I'm sure he's one of them who's out here with this idiotic story about a $11,000 increase in the last year for a family of four. It's impossible. First of all, if you were spending 2,000 a year to feed that family, let's make it three. Let's call it 3000 a year to feed the family. A three percent increase would be $900. Did you hear me? Three percent would be a $900 increase, not 11,000. There is no 11,000 increase in inflation's not 10%. And I will say this, and I wrote this online when Lizzie wrote this in the first place, the thing that's costing us in this country, housing and cars, and the reason that those prices are up pretty much tied to interest rates. Higher interest rates push the prices of cars and homes higher. It's just the way it is because people take out loans on them, and those rates go up, and the prices go up, and then there was a shortage of chips in cars, so there were no cars around, I mean, okay, all kinds of stories. And by the way, we had the problem with chips. And so, of course, Joe Biden went out and got Congress to pass a law to fix the chips. You know, that's what government does. It finds a problem that shows up, and then it goes out and gets a solution for the problem. Let's see. Lizzie says, oh, we do eat gold bars from Fort Knox. Yeah, well, trust me, if you eat those, then you might have an $11,000 increase, but you can see it's impossible. It's not, there's not a chance, not even a remote chance. And this is what Donald Trump is living on. So I'm telling you, if you have anything to do with that maniac, take this story, sit down and think it through, and then dump this man, because trust me, there's nothing he says that is truthful, zero, it's all craziness, all the way down to the $11,000 increase in the price of feeding a family of four. It's impossible. You think you know better? You can call me right here at 314-471-1968. I would love to have this conversation. If you think that there's even a remote chance that you could have an increase of $11,000 in feeding a family of four in one year, it's impossible. You'd have to have a 10% increase in inflation, and your base number would have to be $100,000 for food. Where would your family live? They'd be out in the street. They wouldn't have a house. They wouldn't have a car. Certainly if you had a car that wouldn't be any gas, you wouldn't have anything. And you'd probably still be operating at a deficit because most people may not be making a hundred thousand a year. I hope they are. They could be, but guess what? Probably not, because really, the median income in the United States is somewhere around 60,000. That's the median, half or below and half or above it. So I'm telling you right now, there is no $11,000 increase, and that, aside from the fact that the story is wrong, that should give you such great pause in anything that you're doing that is connected to Donald Trump, because all that right-wing nonsense is insane. Absolutely insane. Now I'll give you something that you could read if you want to learn. There's a book written by a lady named Monica Prasad, and she wrote a book called The Land of Too Much, and it is so excellent in talking about the tax code and in talking about different ways that we fund our government, and a lot of things that we do that fund the government work against the willingness of people to even be taxed, because they don't want to be taxed. So in Europe, they've got a system through which people are taxed without filling out all these crazy forms, and they don't even realize that they're being taxed and they accept it, and the taxes pay for lots of government programs that they value tremendously in Europe. They love them. We would love them here. So all I can tell you is go read her book, The Land of Too Much by Monica Prasad. It's really good. It's not that long, and it's very easily understood, and actually it supports some conservative ideas along the way. It does. So it's not a question of, you know, are you liberal or are you conservative? There are a lot of ideas out here that crossed the line on both sides. But one thing does not, doesn't cross any line on either side. It is just bunk made up just like everything that Donald Trump says, $11,000 increase in the cost of feeding a family of four. But I'm promising you is not only not true, it's also impossible. It's impossible unless you're in Germany in 1920. I mean, then you can get a wheelbarrow and fill it with with Deutsche marks and go to the store and you get a loaf of bread or a half a loaf because inflation was thousands of percent. I mean, it was out of control. That's not us. We've got three percent, three, three. So then when you got through, oh, here's a guy, yeah, 30, yeah, you're going to have to come up with that. I hope you've heard some of this because, you know, even Lizzie's laughing at herself now because, you know, she put a thing on Facebook saying that a family of four had to pay $11,000 more to feed their family this year than last. That's true. Well, no, no, don't say it's true, Trump. It's impossible. It can't be true, and I just proved it because the only way it could be true is if inflation were 10 percent, and let's say you think it is, you would have to be paying a hundred thousand a year to feed your family of four to have a 10 percent increase that comes to $10,000. That's true. Yeah. Exactly. You're eating gold bars from Fort Knox. Okay. There we go. So we won that one. Whew. I'll tell you. It's not easy, but this one was easy because this one was so obvious. Let's see, people are out here saying other things connected to Trump that are equally ridiculous, not true. See, I can't prove that Hillary Clinton isn't eating children in the basement of the pizza place. I can't. I mean, nobody's going to believe it, but somebody might, like the guy who went in and tried to bust up the place, you know, I mean, there are all kinds of things that people believe that are ridiculous, but the 10 percent increase in a hundred thousand dollar base to feed your family of four, I think everybody will agree that one is not going to fly. Okay. You know, it's a couple of seconds early. So I'm going to do a little business here and then we'll move on. So first of all, it's about 4.30 and that's about the time that I usually start to think about getting hungry over at Wenties. Now I've already told on myself that, you know, Wenties is fabulous. I mean, all these great things to eat and, you know, I love baby back ribs and onion rings, but trust me, I don't eat that. I can't eat that every day. I mean, not if you gave it to me for free. It's just too much. I try to keep my weight down. I'm trying to not gain a thousand pounds, but it ain't right. I understand there, you know, this is America and people eat. Remember the book I just told you, the book by Monica Prasad called The Land of Too Much? Yes, this is the land of too much it is, but that has nothing to do with Wenties. Wenties is just going to give you a great meal. It's really excellent. And of course, you know, the baby back ribs are protein, that's why I like it. The onion rings are not protein and, you know, I shouldn't be eating those, but nevertheless, you know, people eat, listen, they got all kinds of great food, they got salad, they've got pizza, delicious, they've got wings, they've got smoked meats, they've got hamburgers and patty melts, they got all kinds of great food. Listen, apparently Lizzie and Vic are eating gold bars at Fort Knox, but I don't recommend that to you. That'll make you sick. Go to Wenties where you get a good meal, good meal for a great price. You'll really enjoy it, but that'll take good care of you. It's excellent. We love Wenties, you will too, and go to defiance because they've got the same great food in defiance at Wenties. But now you know that you've got a lot more money to spend at Wenties because you thought you were spending $11,000 more per year to feed your family of four. Now you realize that's not true. So now you've got all this money. Go spend it at Wenties. Use your head. Okay. If you're looking for jewelry, you need to go to 4506 Hampton, and it's Jules on Hampton, and I promise you all kinds of opportunities there. First of all, nice jewelry, yes. Lots of it, absolutely. You go through the place, I mean they've got tons of cabinets, glass cabinets filled with jewelry, all great pieces that are just fantastic. Now if you go there and you say to Al, I would like you to make this piece for me. He'll make it your way, or you can ask him to come up with something that maybe you'll like a design that could be his creative design. He'll do that too. It's a great jewelry store. They know what they're doing. They buy and sell coins in jewelry, including gold, but they don't eat gold bars. No, that's somebody else we know that does that. But they do buy and sell them, or at least gold. And I can tell you right now, you'll love Wenties, you'll love Al and AJ. And all you got to do is go to 4506 Hampton, including, remember, if you've got a watch that you want to fix something that you really value, bring it to Jules on Hampton, and they'll fix your watch for you as well. They're good. Jules on Hampton. Now you don't gain any weight if you buy a nice suit. If you eat too much, you might gain weight, and then you won't be able to buy a new suit. Below, maybe you'll have to keep buying new suits because your weight goes up, so that would be great for the St. Louis Suit Company in Clayton. But I'll tell you, Jay and Nick over there, I assure you, they don't spend $11,000 more to feed their family of four this year. I guarantee you they don't. What they do is they'll give you great suits, shirts, shoes, overcoats, the best ties that you'll ever find, $5. And you know, here's the thing. I didn't say the best ties if you just think about the $5, they're the best ties. They just happen to be $5. I always tell the story, people when they hear this, they say to me, "Really? Is that true? How do we get to that place?" And they go there and buy ties. So you can too. That's the corner of Forsyth and Central in Clayton, 29 years. That's the St. Louis Suit Company. They're great. Okay, let me take you back to the world of one of the greatest maniacs of all time. And everybody's waiting for him to go to jail. He may go to jail. He should go to jail. But there's another alternative which would be probably more appropriate. And that would be a straight jacket. That would be sensible. He needs one. This man's got a serious problem. And if you heard him over the weekend talking to his audiences, which by the way, the people were reportedly leaving the event halfway through the speech, bunches of people were trying to get out of there. For whatever reason, you know, everybody said, "Well, it was hot." Okay, it was hot. But what can I tell you? A little hot air won't hurt you. I like hot. I don't like cold. But anyway, maybe there were some people leaving because it was hot. Donald was complaining that it was hot. He said nobody cares about him. He said that he was standing up on the stage and sweating like crazy and he couldn't take it and he hated all the sweating. And nobody cared about him. Whoa, is Donald. I know he thought that was funny, but you know, it's typical of him, typical. So, at any rate, that's not the whole story. The story gets much better. One of the things that he said, and I know this is supposed to be a joke, everything with him is supposed to be a joke, but actually the joke is on the people who are listening to him because what he said was, truthfully, "I don't care about you. I just want your vote. Vote for me. I don't care what happens to you, just vote for me." Sure, he was just joking. Ask Mary Trump if that's a joke. It's not a joke. But that's all right, you'll believe it, maybe, unless you think about the $10,000 or $11,000 increase in eating for your family of four because if you think about that, you might take the rest of this stuff and go, "Wait a minute. If he's lying about that, maybe he's lying about everything." Okay, and here, Greg says, "Do you trust the Washington Post?" Greg, here's the answer. Hell yeah, I trust the Washington Post. What a great newspaper that is. Inflation has gone up to 9%. Come on, Meagan, all of you. You know it's not true. Inflation's sitting right now at 3%, and the Washington Post didn't say that inflation is 9%. I'll guarantee they didn't say it, nor did they say, what's this, 19% during the same period. This is all nonsense. No, that's not true. The inflation in this country is about 3%. Now like I said, housing and cars are on the high end of everything. No question about that. If inflation were 9% right now after what the Fed has done with interest rates, trust me, the Fed would push those rates to 20%, and if they had to, they'd push it to 30%, which by the way, they pushed long-term bond rates, not directly, indirectly. They pushed the prime rate to 21%. They pushed long-term bond rates as part of that process to 14% in 1980. And I really wish you would go take a look at the great article that I have in the reading room at talkstl.net. There is a terrific article, and the name of the article is the case for 100-year bonds, and they've got a chart in there of interest rates all the way back to 1780. And you can learn a lot from that, and it'll help you to understand that all this stuff that's being said right now is nonsense. So here, listen to what Greg's saying. And Greg, even this won't get you there. This won't work, but he says grocery prices have jumped by 25% -- oh, now he says over the past four years. No, that's not even true. It's just not true. And again, the reason you know it's not true is because you know where you would have had to start in order to get to a number that would make the sense of what you're talking about. It's just it's not true. Grocery prices are not up 25%. And I'll give you an example. I mean, I'll give you a lot of examples. You know, people spend a lot of money on meat. I love New York strip steaks. I buy them at Schnucks for about $14 a pound. Ten years ago, I was paying $14 a pound for the same New York strip steaks. By your theory, those things would be 30 right now. They're not. They're the same $14. Now, they used to put them on sale down to 10 and then they'd be back to 14. And you know, they put things on sale now, too. Commodity prices are another story. But anyway, we're not in a period of rise in commodity prices. You better take a look to have to show you that. I'll show you that chart tomorrow. I'll try to remember. I've got charts of everything, believe me. I know where everything is. No one knows where they're going to be. But I know where everything is. And you know, Greg puts up this thing from the Washington Post online, grocery price inflation and Biden. Let me tell you something. You go to the store. Buy a box of cereal, a box of cereal, general mills, five years ago, cost maybe $4, 4 1/2, 4 1/2. Now it's five. I mean, they're up a little. Yeah, we've got a little inflation, but not much. Not much at all, very, very low. I see your link, Greg, I read everything, I'll sit down with you, I'll show you. And I'll read the article and I guarantee you the article doesn't say what you say. I guarantee it. Every time I deal with this Trump nonsense, it's always something just a little different than what they say. But anyway, no, prices are not out of control. Now, I'll give you an example of prices of something that's out of control. But this doesn't have anything to do with Joe Biden. You go to CVS. And now I'm talking about the CVS within target. And if you know ACT mouthwash because the dentists all promoted, ACT mouthwash at CVS in target costs $6. Now just walk down the street to CVS and you can pay $9. What does that have to do with Joe Biden? It's CVS. You gone to the grocery store? Yeah, hardly any increase at all. I can't even believe everybody's so worried. Nothing. Nothing. But let's just do this show with Snooks. I'll show you. Really, we should. Just go, believe me. It's nonsense. It's nonsense. It's amazing. Okay. So. There we go. It's enough with that. It's fun. It's fun, especially since you don't have to pay those prices. It's fun. If you were paying all these higher prices, it would be another story. And by the way, if there's some inflation and there is, here's what you need to do. Go to college, get a degree, go get a great job, and get one that pays enough money so you can buy all the things that you want. But I can tell you right now, the biggest increase is housing and cars. That's it. That's where the big numbers are. The rest of this, you're absolutely dreaming. And I'll give you an example of a number that'll blow your head off. And this is a number in San Francisco. And in San Francisco, get ready for this. This isn't Joe Biden, it's the median mortgage payment in San Francisco. You want to give me a guess, Joe? Come on. You can get on this thing. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. You there? Yeah, I'm here. Okay. Good. So give me a guess. And then mortgage payment is in San Francisco. In San Francisco, I really have no clue. This would be just a guess. Yeah. Go ahead. You got a clue. $300. No, no, no, no. You're not going to stop it. No, I'm talking about your monthly payment for a home that you own in San Francisco. All right, we'll say six to eight. Six to eight thousand. Right. That's a good guess. I'd get something like that. It's $26,000. How can you live? You're seeing a mortgage payment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a house in San Francisco. Yeah. It's six to eight thousand is high. What are you talking about? Yeah, that's high. Yeah. They're 26,000 is insane. Absolutely. How's that possible? Right. How can anybody live there? And the answer is not very easily. Yeah. Anyway, no, that one's true. There's nothing to do with Joe Biden or Trump or anybody else. I mean, the price in San Francisco, where they have all these people who make a lot of money in, you know, like Google and Apple and all those things. I mean, they got big money and they go out and buy big places and spend a lot of money. And the mortgage rates have gone up, way up. And yeah, the numbers there are, well, they're just beyond imagination, 26,000 a month. Who could pay that? That's ridiculous. That's for a year, not for a month. Okay. Anyway, I'm glad you came up with that number, Joe, because I'd guess the same number if anybody asked me. But it's a lot higher than that. Anyway, thanks for that, Joe. And then, you know, here's the thing, it costs money to live in the United States. Do you know how much the New York Times cost a hundred years ago, a hundred years ago? Ten cents. Today, the New York Times, the daily New York Times, costs six dollars. So yeah, there's inflation, then it's going back a hundred years. There's always inflation. Go read my article that I put up there. It's not, I didn't write it, but it's from Barron's, and it's a great article. And when you look at the interest rate pattern of the last 240 years, you're going to learn a lot about what's going on in the world. And it's not what you're hearing from Donald Trump and Steven Moore. I mean, Donald Trump, you can't even, yeah, forget him. But Steven Moore, who's a so-called economist, and who is actually a quack, oh, is he a quack? But he's on Fox every minute. I mean, Larry Kudlow's on Fox. Even Larry Kudlow, when he hears some of this stuff, says, wait a minute, you know, let's talk about what's true and what's not true. Because even he doesn't want to be, you know, looking like a complete fool. But you know, some people don't mind and Steven Moore has no problem looking like a fool because he is a fool. Okay, Steven Moore, sue me. Let's see. So here's what Donald has to say. Oh, I love this one. The January 6th warriors, the warriors, they were the victims. They beat up over a hundred police officers. And I want to tell you something. In all my life as a left wing radical, I'm going to say radical, radical left, all the way back to 1968. I was never in love with the police, but there isn't one day in my entire life that I wanted to ever see anybody hurt a police officer, absolutely not, never, and you can't get more to the left than I am. Not really. I mean, if you're more to the left than I am, then you're just crazy. You're being ridiculous. I'm way to the left. I believe in government. I believe in big government. I believe that government is extremely effective. I believe that government is often more sensible than business has ever been. Business does a lot of things just to rip you off, but that's okay because it's a capitalist system and we compete. And that's just the way it has to be. You know, communists, they tried their great idea. They tried it in Russia for 60 years and they went straight down the drain. It doesn't work. And I know there were a lot of people who were like me, but 20 years before me who loved the Russians simply because they thought that communism meant equality and they were wrong. communism doesn't work and I teach my kids at school this all the time, which again, you know, I've got people that listen to me for 30 years and they say, oh, I'm probably teaching communism at school. No, I teach the opposite because here's the thing. If you earn $100 working today and your friend across over here makes nothing because your friend sits home watching TV eating bond bonds, I can tell you right now that when your friend comes to you and says, uh, can I have 50? Your answer is going to be go get a job. I worked all day for my hundred not giving you 50. So that's why communism doesn't work because you can't redistribute the money like that. It just doesn't work. Nobody's willing to do it. I mean, it's a great story, but it's just a story. It doesn't work. You know, Karl Marx said, uh, to the workers of the world, workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains. But here's the thing. I asked my kids at school. Anybody here work? They go, oh, yeah, I work at McDonald's. Okay. Did you ever think about killing your boss and McDonald's? And of course everybody says no. And the reason is is because their boss is responsible for them having a job so that they can make some money and go out and do whatever they want to do. You get it? So you know, it's pretty simple, pretty simple. You can't sell this to people. They won't do it. They're not giving their money away. I mean, listen, in our country, nobody wants to even pay taxes. That's why you got to go read Monica Prasad's book, The Land of Too Much because you'll understand the real problem underlying the whole tax issue. But you know, let's be reasonable. You may not want to pay taxes. So when you go out on the street, you've got a highway and it's paid for with tax money. And if you want a highway, somebody's going to have to pay for it. So that's not communism. That's just you got to pay the bill. I always say to everybody, when you go to Snooks and you want to buy something to eat, I can tell you right now, when you get to the checkout, you better pay because if you don't pay, they're taking your food away. And if you try to get out without paying, they'll lock you up. So I'm just telling you here, taxes, all that is, is you're paying for the things that you get, the things that you want. You want an interstate highway system that was created under Dwight Eisenhower. You want it. Trust me, you do. This is no way around it. Let me see here. Michael says, buy food or donate to Trump. Yeah, that's why Trumpers can't afford food. Now that's what I say all the time, exactly. They eat a can of dog food and then they take their last dollar and send it to a man who claims he's a billionaire but who actually has zero except for that stock he's got that's headed for zero, DJT, headed for zero by September, because September is the day he can get his money. Trust me, when he goes to get his money, there aren't going to be any money. Okay, so let's move on. Donald says, people say that I don't pay my contractors. This was this weekend. He says, well, of course, he says they don't do a good job. So I don't pay him. I tell the story all the time, which I've said here and everywhere else for years. Donald had the piano tuner come to Trump Tower. When they got to Trump Tower, they tuned all the pianos. Guy came down and wanted his money. Donald said, sorry, no money. I mean, they tuned the pianos, not if they hadn't tuned the pianos, he could have gone and said, look, go back. You didn't tune them. Retune them. Look guys, I'm sure we're retuned the, they would if they, they absolutely tuned those pianos telling you, he didn't want to pay because, and we heard this at the trial where he became a convicted felon, and that is, all of his people said that Donald gave them strict instructions, negotiate all the bills, don't pay them. Donald's a crook. He doesn't pay. He could laugh and say, ha, ha, ha, at his big rally where they were all leaving, but I'm telling you right now, the man doesn't pay, and it's so proven everywhere. I mean, everybody's written about this. The man doesn't pay. The people who love him say the man doesn't pay. He doesn't pay. He's a crook, but today he's at the probation officer. I love this one. He's at the probation officer. What's he going to tell the probation officer? I mean, you can only imagine, but he's got a right to say he didn't do it. That's fine. Does he have a right to disobey the gag order? Because he's done that not only 10 times before the end of the trial that he's been cited for, but he's continued to violate the gag order now. He wants it removed. He demands that it be removed, but he still violates it. I can't wait for the results of that probation officer because believe me, this guy is not contrite, this guy is a liar. In fact, what's he going to say? He's going to tell about his finances. He's supposed to say, let me tell you the history of my finances. The history of his finances include the fact that he ripped off the state of New York so that he has to pay them $500 million fraud. Well, he's going to say I didn't do it. In fact, he did everything and he's going to say it all the time. I didn't do it. He owes $100 million to Eugene Carroll. I didn't do it. Trust me, he's not going to be contrite. He's going to walk in there. This guy is going to hear the story. Actually, it's a woman and she's going to say, lock them up. We'll see. Right now though, I'm going to get out of here. Remember Wenties? Remember Jules Unhampton? Remember the St. Louis suit company? And remember this, the name of the program is Showdown. And I'm Mark Kasen.