Crypto Pardon, Amazon Automation, and Reagan Tariff Ad

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Speaker 2 You're going to be good. I'm going to let you talk and talk and talk so you'll have a good time.

Speaker 2 Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher, and I'm still in Korea. Are you enjoying yourself? Yeah, I am.
I'm eager to get home.

Speaker 2 I'm not a big traveler. I'm not a big traveler.
I like, I like home. You're not a big traveler.

Speaker 1 You travel all the time.

Speaker 2 I know, but I'd like home if I had to pick, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 Does that make sense? Well, that's

Speaker 1 you're, I assume you're not. It would be somewhat distressing if Amanda was listening and said, yeah, I just, I like to be away from home.

Speaker 2 Well, she's been great.

Speaker 1 Whether that's true or not, that's the right thing to say.

Speaker 2 I miss home. I miss home wherever it happens.

Speaker 1 I can't stand my kids. And then about an hour into the drive to the airport, I start missing them.

Speaker 2 Oh, really? I can stand my kids. I miss them a lot.

Speaker 1 I do. Oh, well, you're a much better parent than me.
I am. You get my point.

Speaker 2 Do you want me to parent your kids if you'd like? No. Your wife is great.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you could use the help.

Speaker 1 So what's the coolest thing you did in Korea?

Speaker 2 Well, today I was a robot.

Speaker 2 There's some new, you know,

Speaker 2 stuff around robotics and stuff that will help you walk and things like that. People wearing ectoskeletons.
That was pretty cool. Trying to think what else.
I forgot.

Speaker 2 I forget what I did like five hours ago. This is like, this is where I am.

Speaker 2 It'll be interesting to jet log coming back. Explain to me, Mr.
World Traveler, because I don't travel throughout the world like you do.

Speaker 2 What is the trick for jet lag?

Speaker 1 A Gulfstream.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Okay, barring that.

Speaker 1 What's

Speaker 1 well, okay. So the basics are a ton of hydration.
Try not to drink alcohol, which you don't.

Speaker 1 I try to, and I don't always do this, but I try once I'm on the ground somewhere, I try to get some exercise to try to go outside, get some natural sunlight or some fresh air. I try to sweat.

Speaker 1 I'll hit the gym, you know, right when I get there if I'm disciplined.

Speaker 1 I try to try to avoid alcohol and really salty foods.

Speaker 1 And then also, it's not organic i take sleep aids with me i think it's really important that you get some sleep so if i can't sleep i'll take a

Speaker 1 you know a a lunesta or something i think i think the the risk of quote-unquote pharmaceuticals outweighed by the risk of not getting sleep when you're on the road right yeah i think if if there's anything

Speaker 1 you know i'm pretty i'm pretty focused on health and you know not not lifespan but health span Travel has taken 10 years off my life. For about 20, 30 years, I was literally molesting the planet.

Speaker 1 And I remember with my partner at L2 on Wednesday night of Thanksgiving, we'd take the overnight to Europe because we're like, Europe's open Thursday and Friday, and this is an opportunity for us to lap our competition.

Speaker 1 And I would hit the ground, shower at the airport, work a 12 or 14 hour day, get five or six hours sleep, start over the next day, and then bomb to the airport and come home.

Speaker 1 And that, that just takes a toll on you. So,

Speaker 1 you know, there's, there's, there's a few basics, but there's no, I don't think there's any silver bullets.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Thank God my skin looks fantastic from Korea.

Speaker 1 It does. Looks like a baby's body.

Speaker 2 I had something called, oh, like you're a school sonic or something. Anyway, I did the non-invasive stuff, which I thought was interesting.
Oh, really? Yeah, I'm not.

Speaker 2 They suggested Botox right here, but I'm not doing it.

Speaker 1 For the 11s?

Speaker 2 The 11s, yeah. I'm going to leave the 11s for now.
It's my favorite thing.

Speaker 1 The 11s? Yeah. I'm about to go get, I'm looking a little bit like the bride of Frankenstein.
I'm about to go see. I'm going to New York on Wednesday, and I'll see Dr.

Speaker 1 Analik, who does a few things to me and then charges me $600.

Speaker 2 Is this for your upcoming book tour? May I just say?

Speaker 1 Well, I do need to sell a lot of books.

Speaker 2 I know you do. I know.
I'm going to help you do that.

Speaker 1 I appreciate that. Yeah, I see them about once every two or three months.
I get Botox and I get a laser. A laser.

Speaker 2 Well, you would have liked this. There was a laser type thing that was like

Speaker 2 in my face, which was interesting.

Speaker 2 It didn't leave any, I'll tell you, it wasn't red or anything else, but they were lovely.

Speaker 2 The thing is, everyone.

Speaker 2 Actually, so many people have beautiful skin here all over the place. So it's kind of interesting.

Speaker 1 Koreans have beautiful skin?

Speaker 2 Yeah, they really. I mean, the skincare.

Speaker 1 Well, is it an absence of sun or just genetics?

Speaker 2 I don't know. I just think it's just

Speaker 2 a priority on healthcare. They really do compared to here.
You know, Trump's coming here and I'm leaving. That's one of my favorite parts of this trip.

Speaker 1 He's going to Korea?

Speaker 2 Yeah. I bet he'll run up to the DMZ.

Speaker 1 I bet he'll. I purposely decided to avoid the news because I find now that watching the news is like being awake during surgery.
It's just not very pleasant. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's tough. As the news, people fall one after the next in their

Speaker 2 kiss assery to the to the Trump people, but whatever.

Speaker 2 I'm going to get back to timing here. The weird thing is I leave at 10 in the morning and then I get back at 10 in the morning or nearby.

Speaker 1 Oh, because you're going to cross the dayline. So will you sleep tonight or just stay up and then get on the plane?

Speaker 2 I'll sleep on the plane. Let's see.
I'll get up at 10. I'll want to sleep right away because I'm tired right now, but I don't know.
I don't know. I guess I will.
I sleep when I sleep.

Speaker 2 That's how I, that's the person I am. Like if I'm tired, I'll sleep or else I'll just watch.
I'll just.

Speaker 1 And I'm fascinated with airline route. You go, is there a direct soul to DC?

Speaker 2 Yes, there is. There's one.
Oh, that's awesome. I know.
Yeah. So, and it's, so it'll be, and I have a lie down thing.
So I think it'll be fine. I'll think it'll be fine.

Speaker 2 And then I watch a lot of dumb movies and stuff.

Speaker 1 So one of my first memories of you was we were doing, I think it was right after we'd started Pivot. And I got invited to some conference to speak with you.

Speaker 1 I don't think we'd met in person or maybe we had once, like at DLD or something. And this very friendly woman comes running up to me and she's like, hi, no, no, no, I'm Tammy Haddad.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, oh, hi, Tammy. I had no idea who she was.

Speaker 1 And we were backstage and there were a ton of makeup artists and sound people and all this stuff. And there was an eight-year-old boy asleep on the couch.

Speaker 1 And I thought, that's kind of cute and kind of disturbing that someone brings their kid and then puts the kid to sleep in this couch. And it wasn't an eight-year-old boy.
It was you.

Speaker 1 You had just decided to lay down on the couch and grab a couple Z's in the middle of all this. You can sleep.

Speaker 2 I can sleep anywhere. I know you can.
It's a real talent. Anyway, I like it a lot.
I like Korea a lot. I hope to come back.

Speaker 2 And are you coming here on your, let me just say for everybody, Scott's book comes out what day? November 3rd?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it comes out November. I think it's November the 4th.
Is that right?

Speaker 2 Notes on Being a Woman. Yes.

Speaker 1 There you go.

Speaker 1 That's your next one.

Speaker 1 That's what people are looking for for me.

Speaker 2 But it's coming out. And you're coming on my podcast.
We're going to talk this week. That's right.

Speaker 1 I just saw that on my counter. I'm going on on with Kara Swisher.
I feel like that's like, I have never stayed at your house. That's what this feels like.
It feels very uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 I'm excited. It's pretty high up now.
It's up in the top of the

Speaker 2 charts getting up there. So I'll hopefully sell books.
But I'm excited to hear.

Speaker 2 I'm going to read the book. Oh, I have it on the plane.
I'm going to read it on the plane. That's what I'll do.
That's one of the things. That would put me to sleep.

Speaker 2 Now I just want to know what it's like to be a man. It'll be great.

Speaker 1 Someone asked me what my body count was, so I started counting and I fell asleep.

Speaker 1 Get it? Like counting sheep?

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 1 You'll get there. You're a little jellag, but you'll get there.

Speaker 2 I know. I'm a little jell-ag.
No, I'm just tired. It just was a long day because

Speaker 2 I have to say the crews here and the people have been amazing. That's the one thing.
The really lovely people. And hopefully it'll turn out okay.

Speaker 2 TV always makes me, there's a lot of waiting in television. I'm kind of glad to be done with the taping of this thing.

Speaker 1 I was thinking about going to Korea for a scrotum lift. I think of it as low-hanging fruit.

Speaker 2 Oh my God. All right.
We're going to stop. Speaking of plastic surgery, which you love, did you hear about this? The tech bros are all getting plastic surgery.
They're following in your footsteps.

Speaker 2 Some surgeons have seen five-fold increases in demand for men in tech in the last five years. Not a surprise, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.

Speaker 2 I don't think it's just men in tech, but apparently it is. And so there's a lot of them.

Speaker 2 Procedures, mini-facelifts, necklifts, that deep plain thing, eyelid lifts to stay looking youthful in a competitive job market.

Speaker 2 I, I just, I didn't have any work done, but it's, you know, I'm not surprised. Do you think, are you surprised?

Speaker 1 No, I mean, I get, I've had, I get Botox and I'm sure at some point I'll go into the knife. I think that,

Speaker 1 like, we're in a, we're in an ageist culture. I think some of that is good.

Speaker 1 Uh, and people want to feel youthful. And I think the standards

Speaker 1 and the benchmark, there are so many people out there now. I don't know if you've noticed.
Have you noticed this? It seems like every young person is hot. No.

Speaker 1 And between working out and skin treatments, in New York, all the young people are hot.

Speaker 1 I think the tunnels have some sort of x-ray or security post where if you're not hot, you're not allowed into New York.

Speaker 1 But my sense is the aesthetic and the benchmark has gotten so

Speaker 2 especially for men, right? For men, which is

Speaker 2 more common here or Brazil or different play or Brazil, I think.

Speaker 2 But I've noticed a lot younger and a lot, just the way they were in some other countries,

Speaker 2 a lot younger and a lot more men.

Speaker 1 Well, that's the biggest, that's the growth part, is that women have always been,

Speaker 1 look, men are disproportionately and unfairly evaluated on their economic viability, women on their aesthetics.

Speaker 1 So there's always been an emphasis, and women have always spent a disproportionate amount of time and money on aesthetics.

Speaker 1 What's the delta or the change or the uplift in surgery is mostly coming from men because a lot of

Speaker 1 it used to be men had to retire at 65. And now they say, no, I want to come back and bend the need to Donald Trump and fuck up Disney.
And I'm 74, but I want to look 73. So I get surgery.

Speaker 1 So guys everywhere are getting, if you have, the bottom line is the surgical techniques have gotten much better. And

Speaker 1 why look 65 if you can look 57 and if you have money and it's not that big a risk any longer?

Speaker 1 The question I have is, why wouldn't you? And some people say, well, I don't care.

Speaker 1 Do you really, do you really not care what you look like? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Those neck things were, men looked better with the neck. I hate to say it, but I'm not a big, I don't like a lot of surgery.
Although they, you know, it's gotten better and better.

Speaker 2 I mean, that deep plain thing. But the thing around the neck with the guys, I thought was really interesting is, you know, they look kind of jowly and then they don't.

Speaker 1 It's a lower facelift.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I have less jowls, I was told by the skin people.

Speaker 1 I don't have any jowls. Yeah, no.

Speaker 2 Jowls are coming, of course, or

Speaker 2 the thing around your eyes, sort of the eye sockets and the double folds and this and that, or the triple folds and the heavy eyelid.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Anyway, well, I didn't have any while I was here, but maybe you could when you come anyway.

Speaker 1 I'm all, I'm, I'm for it. I'm a huge fan of it.

Speaker 2 So speaking of

Speaker 2 Trump being here, he is actually coming Thursday. He's been in Asia striking all manner of deals, which we'll talk about in a second.

Speaker 2 He's pulling tariffs off, it looks like, or putting, striking deals, but he said he's putting a a 10% tariff on imports from Canada after already canceling trade talks, all because of a TV ad that had audio, accurate audio of Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs.

Speaker 2 Trump called the ad, which was sponsored by the government of Ontario, that would be Doug Ford, a fraud and a hostile act. The spot features excerpts from a 1987

Speaker 2 Ronald Reagan radio address on foreign trade. The audio is authentic, though it is slightly different order from the original speech.

Speaker 2 But it's what he said.

Speaker 2 The Reagan Presidential Foundation said the ad misrepresents Reagan in words, but is unexplained was misrepresented. Because I went back and listened to the original, and

Speaker 2 it was the intent, but so I guess they shouldn't have rearranged it. But let's listen to some of this ad.

Speaker 1 When someone says, let's impose tariffs on foreign imports, it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs.

Speaker 1 And sometimes for a short while it works, but only for a short time. But over the long run, such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer.

Speaker 1 High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars.

Speaker 1 Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs.

Speaker 2 I'll tell you, it was nice hearing a president who actually spoke in full sentences, a Republican one.

Speaker 2 Ontario's premier pulled the ad, but it did air in major U.S. markets over the weekend, including during the World Series.

Speaker 2 Talk about this from a marketing perspective.

Speaker 2 This is this Doug Ford, who's this conservative, who's somewhat pro-Trump, as I recall, and now is sort of like, you know, smacking him around up there up north.

Speaker 2 Talk about from a marketing perspective, not so much the essence of you, because this is what Reagan thought, actually.

Speaker 2 but about doing this kind of things and why Trump is reacting like this.

Speaker 1 Well, look, I think Canada has never looked looked stronger. It's just strange to be rooting for the Blue Jays when they're playing my home team, the Dodgers.

Speaker 1 It's just

Speaker 1 Canada, the U.S.'s strategy looks performative, faux masculinity, sclerotic.

Speaker 1 They're dictating trade policy off of commercials that antagonize the president. It's just,

Speaker 1 and Canada, I believe,

Speaker 1 is our biggest trading partner. Some people would say it depends on how you count it.
It should be Mexico. But, I mean, one of the biggest problems we have in the United States is housing.

Speaker 1 And unfortunately, because of NIMBYism and incumbents who control the government, we're fond of regulations that make it harder for the entrance to buy a home.

Speaker 1 And so we've let homes go from 290 to 410.

Speaker 1 And the, you know, two of the largest inputs are gypsum drywall, which comes from Mexico, and lumber, which comes from Canada. So we're going to make homes more expensive unnecessarily.

Speaker 1 And Canada just looks more consistent and unafraid. And I think this has been, I think this has bolstered the brand of Canada.
I think they will end up,

Speaker 1 this will absolutely impact their economy negatively for three or four years. They will figure out different trade routes and they're going to be able to do it.

Speaker 2 Which they are trying, of course, which right now.

Speaker 1 Carney's headed to Asia as we speak.

Speaker 1 And there's no shortage of

Speaker 1 other export nations that'll say, you know what, we have really good products here too. And we're going to do it at zero tariff.

Speaker 1 And let's strengthen the relationship between Canada and Asia Asia and Latin America. And then those relationships will be really hard to undo.
And

Speaker 1 the next administration, and I'm trying to manifest this, is going to have to go on essentially a 48-month apology tour.

Speaker 1 And regardless of how effective that is, there's no way we're going to be able to compensate for the destruction to these 80-year trade alliances that has taken place over the last 10 months.

Speaker 1 This is just, no one likes to be insulted or have economic warfare. And why this is just so incredibly stupid is, I'll just use an example.

Speaker 1 The Kentucky bourbon industry is basically going to be wiped off the map if they're not careful. So they have stopped buying Jack Daniels.
Do you know the margins?

Speaker 1 The margins on lumber are probably like 10 to 30%. The operating margins are probably high single digits.

Speaker 1 Those companies don't trade a big multiples of public traded lumber companies, if there are any. Whereas alcohol trades at 90, alcohol commands 90 points of margin.

Speaker 1 The majority of restaurants, 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. All the alcohol, yeah.

Speaker 1 Because they'll charge you 14 bucks for a maker's mark in ginger ale and it costs them about 60 cents.

Speaker 1 And so that's where they make all their margin. And we have some of the best alcohol brands in the world.
And when we import them into Canada and they say no, it's not tit for tat.

Speaker 1 If we reduce our exports by a dollar by declaring trade war and they reduce their exports go down a dollar, It's not dollar for dollar because our margins on our products tend to be higher. Yeah.

Speaker 2 One of the things is interesting to me is, you know, from a marketing perspective, Reagan used to be the gold standard of Republicans, right? And, you know, we're showing our age.

Speaker 2 We remember the age of Reagan, which wasn't as great as people are now making it out to be, although some of these speeches are terrific, especially the immigration one, which was one of his last speeches.

Speaker 2 But, you know, the...

Speaker 2 The marketing strength of Ronald Reagan is over Mr. Morning in America, which is very different from Make America Great Again, right?

Speaker 2 In terms of that was some marketing expertise, the Reagan administration. But it doesn't work, I guess, except to irritate Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 I mean, he was an actor and he was very handsome.

Speaker 1 And regardless of some of his policies, I mean, I like Ronald Reagan and it's easy to play Monday Morning quarterback, but he refused to use the word AIDS.

Speaker 1 And in a period where, anyways,

Speaker 1 we have a tendency to decide people in history are either very, very good or very, very bad. And because history is sort of a crude, blunt instrument.

Speaker 1 But, I mean, if you think about there are no more Republicans. Yeah.

Speaker 2 He was brand Republican forever, right?

Speaker 1 What is that? It's fiscal responsibility. Okay, that's gone out the windows.
$7 trillion in deficits from George Washington to George Bush. Since then, it's been $30 trillion.

Speaker 1 And a Republican tried to convince us, and we believed him, that we could go to war and cut taxes at the same time. That was W.
And since then, Democrats and Republican administration since then

Speaker 1 have said to the children that are the United States voter right now: no, you can stay up till 2 a.m.

Speaker 1 and eat sugar and not have dinner, and you don't have to go to school tomorrow, and nothing bad will ever happen.

Speaker 1 So, Americans have gotten used to spending $7 trillion on $5 trillion and believing that everything will be okay. So, fiscal responsibility was a touchstone of Republican administrations.
That's gone.

Speaker 1 A low involvement or less involvement, not overarching government combined with personal liberty. And that was, you get to make these decisions, and government should not be in your life.

Speaker 1 And we now have a government which is essentially a cross between socialism and cronyism.

Speaker 1 And that is, the government is very involved in corporate decisions, but it's based on who he likes or doesn't like, who curries favor with him or doesn't.

Speaker 1 That could not be more, that could not be more non-Republican. So the notion, I mean, it's the Democrats who, on economic policy and individual rights, appear to be more Republican.

Speaker 1 If I could go back and-the Canadians.

Speaker 2 Well, look,

Speaker 1 Teddy Roosevelt was all about the environment.

Speaker 1 Everything is upside down right now. An embrace of foreign relationships, non-protectionism was a very

Speaker 2 Republican thing. Well, speaking of which, on the other tariff front, though, U.S.

Speaker 2 and Chinese officials have reached yet another framework of a deal, avoiding 100% tariffs that Trump threatened to impose

Speaker 2 Taco Trump. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, who really is sort of lost,

Speaker 2 seems to be undignified now, also said on Face the Nation that Trump and G are set to finalize a TikTok deal this week. Let's listen to how he talked about this.

Speaker 1 We reached a final deal on TikTok. We'd reached one in Madrid.
And I believe that as of today, all the details are ironed out. And that will be for the two leaders to

Speaker 1 consummate that transaction on Thursday in Korea.

Speaker 2 I'm getting the hell out of Korea before consummation.

Speaker 2 Let's hope not.

Speaker 2 So there's that happening, which I think is something you talked about needing to happen, the Chinese

Speaker 2 to come to terms with China.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but I don't know what that means. What if they have a commercial that pisses them off on the way over?

Speaker 1 And the 100% tariff. And

Speaker 1 I think that they, you know, China definitely has its own problems. But

Speaker 1 I mean, what you have to,

Speaker 1 when you're establishing or trying to understand a battle and doing our game theory, you've got to look at the strengths they have that you don't have.

Speaker 1 And China has the advantages of an authoritarian government where the autocrat has established power for the next 10, 20, 30 years. He's consolidated power.
They have

Speaker 1 the CCP, I don't know if it's unpopular or popular, but I don't think it's very unpopular.

Speaker 1 The economy there has struggles, but the Chinese, the 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 populace for long-term interests.

Speaker 1 Americans,

Speaker 1 if AWS goes out and Netflix goes down, the whole nation freaks out.

Speaker 1 China is absolutely willing to put companies out of business. It's willing to decrease their prosperity, but it's not going to be pushed around by America.
And And also, we have a tendency to think,

Speaker 1 this administration anyways, that it's the biggest, it's the biggest customer rolling up to the bar. We're the third largest trading partner.
They do more trade. They do

Speaker 1 Association for Southeast Asian Nations is their largest trading partner. The second largest, they do more trade with the EU than they do with the U.S.

Speaker 1 And they have already vastly decreased the percentage of trade going to the U.S. So he shows up.
And again, this is just such a common error in judgment and in strategy.

Speaker 1 He shows up thinking he has cards he doesn't have.

Speaker 1 And Americans, if inflation pops to 5 or 6% here, Americans are going to freak out. They could go to 15% in China.
And

Speaker 1 the people...

Speaker 1 The Chinese government has killed tens of millions of its own people or let them starve for what they perceive to be national interests.

Speaker 1 So to think that he can show up and muscle them around, he is totally miscalculating and misappraising his adversary over there.

Speaker 1 So, I don't trust him nor any of his team to get a deal done or, you know, quote unquote, a framework.

Speaker 2 Right. A framework of a deal, yet another.

Speaker 1 Well, wasn't it what's happening with TikTok? I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 2 Well, they said it's consummated or going to consummate it or whatever. They're going to fuck each other.
I don't know why he used that word, but

Speaker 2 presumably it's going to Larry Ellison, as is everything. It's apparently in media.

Speaker 2 This is the most important element of Ellison's

Speaker 2 burgeoning media empire, of course.

Speaker 2 You know, what's going to happen here. But I don't know what it means.
I guess they've just decided, eh, give it to him. What's the difference? Right.
Like, we don't need this.

Speaker 2 And if we can get everything else. I mean, there was an interesting, I read a lot of the analysis of this.

Speaker 2 And basically, what they've decided to do, as every other leader, including leader of Japan, is to flatter him, to compliment him, and then get what you want, right, essentially, and which is kind of depressing.

Speaker 2 Like they just figured him out pretty easily.

Speaker 2 And 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.

Speaker 2 You know, it'll be an the TikTok thing is what I'll be paying attention to, but we'll see if they do something.

Speaker 2 What I think Trump is trying to do, it's so interesting because presidents all start out locally and end up in foreign places doing these these trips.

Speaker 2 And I i think trump is very comfortable acting like he's big bmoc across the world essentially and so these these leaders have figured out a way to to please him you know 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 see what happens here i here's my prediction he's going to go up to the dmz and go visit his friend uh in 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 talks about him in a nicer way than he talks talks about other Americans, which is really kind of depressing given he's a dictator and not just an autocrat, even worse than that.

Speaker 1 But those are his role models. He's very much about strength.
And again, he's conflates,

Speaker 1 he conflates strength with coarseness and cruelty and authoritarianism. And that's not,

Speaker 1 it's just a terrible, it's a terrible.

Speaker 1 And the problem is he's been successful in the short term at it. He's won the presidency twice.
Everybody's falling in line behind him. And it's out of the authoritarian playbook.

Speaker 1 Reward the people who are loyal to you. Punish severely the people who aren't loyal to you.

Speaker 1 And the 53 Republican senators are all going along with it, as are the majority of the House of Representatives. There's been a few notable breaks.
Senator Paul is questioning us bombing boats.

Speaker 1 We spent a trillion dollars on our military that's supposed to be so lethal, and yet we're not pushing back on a murderous autocrat in Europe. We've decided to bomb fishing boats.

Speaker 2 Anyway, we're going to go on a quick break. When we come back, this is a story that I think is not getting nearly enough attention.
We'll discuss the latest crypto pardon.

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Speaker 2 Scott, we're back. President Trump has pardoned Shang Peng Zhao, better known as CZ, the founder of the crypto exchange Binance.

Speaker 2 CZ pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money laundering laws and served four months in a federal prison while Binance paid $4.3 billion to settle with the Justice Department.

Speaker 2 CZ has been working on a pardon for months. There seems to be a playbook here with the Trump people, hiring lobbyists with ties to Trump and making podcast appearances praising the president.

Speaker 2 Binance is also a key backer of the Trump families. This is the key one.
Crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, and helped launch its stablecoin earlier this year.

Speaker 2 In a post on X, CZ said he was grateful that Trump had pledged to help make America the capital of crypto. I assume Sam Bankman-Fried is next.
What do you think of this?

Speaker 2 Because we've been talking a lot about how this focus on crypto with this family

Speaker 2 sort of larding itself over in money and just money, really.

Speaker 1 Well, I think it's important to understand why CZ was incarcerated. And he was incarcerated because Binance was found guilty of laundering money.
And

Speaker 1 that sounds somewhat innocuous, but according to the Department of Treasury, Binance failed to report the following. Transactions associated with terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas,

Speaker 1 and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Millions of dollars in ransomware transactions.
Binance is one of the largest receivers of ransomware proceeds.

Speaker 1 Transactions associated with child sexual abuse materials. So people hear about sex tortation and think that is the most heinous crime ever.

Speaker 1 Well, folks, there's a technological infrastructure behind it. And money laundering with funds that can't be tracked is part of it.

Speaker 1 And then transactions associated with drugs, fraud, and other illegal

Speaker 1 contraband. His official charges.
were again around money laundering and he'd served four months and Binance was barred from operating in the U.S. But here's what they did.

Speaker 1 Binance received a $2 billion investment from the Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX, and then Binance decided to accept the investment via World Liberty Financial USD1 stablecoin, which, by the way, was controlled and still, and

Speaker 1 the majority stake is still connected in World Liberty Financial. USD1 is still connected to the financial wealth and buttressing the financial wealth of

Speaker 1 Trump and his family, which owns 38% of World Liberty Financials.

Speaker 1 So put another way, make me richer, and I will let the person that a judge and jury and our institutions decided to incarcerate because he was facilitating transactions to terrorists and people engaged in child sex exploitation.

Speaker 1 I'm letting that person out

Speaker 1 if you agreed to make me and my family richer. And because this feels very circular and complicated, and we're so busy watching watching stupid fucking videos of a construction project

Speaker 1 at Pennsylvania Avenue,

Speaker 1 we take our eye off the ball. There's going to be more kids who are going to be

Speaker 1 in scams, send naked pictures of themselves and then be extorted and then potentially engage in self-harm because the people on the other end can find a means of transacting these payments and this exploitation.

Speaker 2 You know, if you're watching a Bond movie, Ceezy's the one he ends up golfing in the end. Like, he's the money laundering, you know, mogul, essentially.
And so this was a criminal act, this guy.

Speaker 1 We're bombing fishing bonds.

Speaker 2 Most people in crypto think this too, by the way, FYI. So it's sort of a, you know, they've just decided crypto good no matter what.
And it's like saying banking good or whatever.

Speaker 2 There's there's all kinds of bankers that are

Speaker 2 culpable in these kind of things, by the way. It's not just limited to crypto.

Speaker 2 But this is is just, this was such a straight line

Speaker 2 grift. It's just like absolutely out in the open.
You know, everything's out in the open.

Speaker 2 Even if, you know, I agree with you with all the hand waving around the White House thing, which I'll talk about later, but it's really, this one really deserves more attention, especially for what

Speaker 2 this company did. You know, this company did.
And I assume Sam Bank van Fried is next, who is comparatively minor compared to this guy, right?

Speaker 2 That was just your basic. I made a mess.
I didn't realize that that was his excuse. But there's a whole way to get a pardon from Trump.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but he doesn't have the power right now. FTX doesn't have the platform or the power to make the Trumps rich.
This is...

Speaker 1 To a certain extent, there's sort of, I don't want to call it low calorie corruption, but when Eric goes over and says, build a hotel and give me better financing terms and finance it, somebody still has to build the hotel.

Speaker 1 There is some risk. It's corruption.
But what they found is: if we're going to be corrupt, let's just figure out a way to pump

Speaker 1 a synthetic currency that has no value, underlying utility. And then we don't even have to report when we sell it.
And nobody has to operate it.

Speaker 1 And we don't even have to pretend that we know how to be in the hospitality business. We don't have to build it.
We just get people to basically funnel money into it, massively inflate the market.

Speaker 1 We sell. Nobody even knows we've sold.
And boom, this is the like most elegant, clean, frictionless form of corruption.

Speaker 1 So they're like, they're like, okay, Nancy Pelosi that does insider trading, but you have to report those trades. Okay, Trump, who gets a 747, we actually see the 747.
He's got to fly it around.

Speaker 1 He's got to justify it. No, this is easier.
Nobody even really, there's no records of this.

Speaker 1 They, as far as we know, we think they've made $3 to $5 billion off these crypto scams, but it's even hard to tell how much money they've made.

Speaker 1 We don't know how to connect it to, we know when the Qatari government says,

Speaker 1 give us NATO-like protection after giving the president a $400 million plane, we can connect the dots.

Speaker 1 But when he launches a meme coin and someone calls him and says, FYI, tomorrow I'm going to buy a billion dollars or $100 million worth of Trump coin, which will take the price up.

Speaker 1 And if you want to sell some, that's your business, Mr. President.

Speaker 1 But in addition, would you mind not shipping Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine for a while? We're not able to connect those dots. There's no public filing disclosure.

Speaker 2 Well, you know what, actually, I've heard from a lot of people. A lot of people in crypto don't love all this stuff because

Speaker 2 the hammer is going to come down on this industry again. I thought the Biden administration was too slow to embrace some of the good parts of it.

Speaker 2 I talked to a lot of crypto people. And

Speaker 2 the reason was because it has such a proclivity towards what you were just talking about, money laundering and sexual abuse and terrorism and payoffs and stuff like that in terms of the ability to disappear a lot of these transactions.

Speaker 2 But it was on its way, you know, and Biden was unnecessary, Biden administration was unnecessarily harsh on this group of people. But

Speaker 2 out of, I think, an abundance of caution, I don't think it was a particular hostility to it. It was just more of the worries about the downside versus the upside.
And I just feel like

Speaker 2 the hammer will come down on this industry after this is all over. And the second part is,

Speaker 2 I've been told by a lot of tech people that there are people monitoring what is happening here and there are ways to follow the money.

Speaker 2 There's always ways. And quietly they're doing that.
And eventually some of these people are going to pay.

Speaker 2 I will see. But you know, just all you have to do is pay this guy off to get out.

Speaker 2 And speaking of which, the one that also troubled me was tech and business leaders are getting credit for coordinated effort to stop Trump from sending troops to San Francisco.

Speaker 2 Mayor Daniel Lurie reportedly worked with Sam Altman, Jensen Wong, Mark Benioff, and others to get the president to reconsider.

Speaker 2 Trump acknowledged the lobbying in a true social post saying he got calls from friends of mine that decided not to surge San Francisco, as he put it.

Speaker 2 I find this repulsive, this strategy, is that, you know, I'm not,

Speaker 2 you know, I've been in touch with Benioff recently about.

Speaker 2 this whole the whole thing with the with the troops and he knows what i think um which is that he should have never called for them but you know none of you get a thank you for telling a bully not to do something that's stupid, right?

Speaker 2 I don't want my democracy to be run because these guys can call him up or go to a dinner or give him money.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 this was the wrong thing to do for all these cities, including San Francisco. And the fact that the only way it gets saved is these guys call him.
Like, what in the world?

Speaker 2 No one's making decisions based on the right thing to do. It's based on these incredibly powerful people who have access.

Speaker 2 And then the regular Americans don't have access to make their argument one way or the other. But this is, this is a, I find this truly disturbing.

Speaker 2 And, you know, none of them has said, you know, you should thank me, Kara, because I'd be like, go fuck yourself. Like, how dare you? That this is the way things are done.
I just, I find it

Speaker 2 something quite vague, just disturbing about this, this,

Speaker 2 this is how, this is how it's done, done, done, as they say in K-pop demon hunters.

Speaker 1 But Mayor Lurie trying to enlist local business people to lobby the president to

Speaker 1 not send in the National Guard and create disruption and terrorize local residents. Kudos to him.
I think that's the right thing to do.

Speaker 1 The problem is they're operating in a context that's illegal and non-American. And that is...
That's right.

Speaker 1 Barry Goldwater said this. He said, we're placing too much power in the office of the presidency.

Speaker 1 The whole point of a democracy is you have a diffuse sense of power such that there's checks and balances. And that, unfortunately you don't go as fast but it prevents the tragedy of the commons

Speaker 1 and when

Speaker 1 if you're going to send in the national guard into cities there needs to be some sort of oversight or there needs to be some sort of legal justification or systemic laws that say this is when the national guard can be sent into a city and what its mission is not well i don't like the mayor here i don't like the governor here or epstein starting to creep back into the news i need to launch the national guard or pulse the national Guard into a city.

Speaker 1 This is, I mean, it's just so, I can't imagine, and I don't know how much 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 that these algorithms have over us.

Speaker 1 And we don't even realize how much.

Speaker 1 The most upsetting things I see, I think, is this true, is those, is all of that footage of ICE agents.

Speaker 1 I just find it the idea that these guys are in masks, the idea there is a basic principle that is so core to our democracy and what is wonderful about America, and that is we target and reward people based on their behavior, not their identity.

Speaker 1 And that is we say, okay,

Speaker 1 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 life here.

Speaker 1 And we aren't going to start rounding up people or asking them, are you born here?

Speaker 1 Which the ICE agents are doing doing because they're brown when they're on their way inside, on their way inside to, you know, Kroger's.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
Every one of these agents seems like a brute, right?

Speaker 2 I feel like I'm in some like Steven Seagal movie with bad people.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, the way they're talking to people and how the masks and the, they look like they've had way too many steroids, every one of them. Like it feels so villainous.

Speaker 2 And it's either villainous or you got to be a rich guy to get through. And it feels, it does feel un-American.
When I heard that, that Sam Eltman had to call him to call him off.

Speaker 2 That's, that's our line of defense, not because it's not, oh, I just was like, this is ridiculous.

Speaker 1 Well, it kind of goes to the same thing now where

Speaker 1 because of the government shutdown, rather than saying, okay, there's a government shutdown, you need to negotiate with a co-equal branch of government.

Speaker 1 It's like, no, I'll just get my rich friend to pay the military and the people I like in the government. This is not how you're supposed to run a government where individuals,

Speaker 1 where where the president gets to decide, you know, who in the government gets paid and who doesn't. And he can call someone and say, hey, I look really bad here.
Can you give me $100 million?

Speaker 1 And by the way, wink, wink, I'll make it up to you with a series of laws that transfer wealth from small and medium-sized businesses and your competitors to you. That is, and over the...

Speaker 1 It might even not impact the economy that much in the short run because the economy turns on. But what it does over the long term is a lot of people don't want to invest here.

Speaker 1 A lot of people don't want to immigrate here. A lot of people don't want to start businesses because they're worried that they're not going to be protected by the rule of fair play and law.

Speaker 1 I don't think Americans realize how many really talented people come here and how much capital comes here because they feel that there is a rule of fair play here, that their business, there isn't going to be a phone call.

Speaker 1 I met a guy, I met this Russian kid who 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.

Speaker 1 He had a wonderful life. I said, Why are you moving here? He said, You live in fear in Russia that someone you don't even know makes a call and your business is done the next day.

Speaker 1 And you don't even know who made the call.

Speaker 1 And that's what's effectively we're headed that way.

Speaker 2 Right. I know.
I just, for some reason, this just stuck in my craw. Thank God Benioff didn't text me like, you want to say thank you.
I'd be like, go fuck yourself.

Speaker 2 I don't mean that, Mark, but honestly, seriously, this is not the way it should be done.

Speaker 2 Speaking of things that are

Speaker 2 another thing that that is speaking of robots, which I was just, I'm seeing a lot of robot companies here, by the way.

Speaker 2 Amazon executives believe the company can replace more than half a million warehouse jobs with robots because this is where it's heading.

Speaker 2 I'll go into it in a second with robots over the next several years, according to internal documents obtained by the New York Times.

Speaker 2 Documents show Amazon's robotics team has an ultimate goal to automate 75% of its operations. I bet it's even higher.

Speaker 2 They reveal Amazon is planning to manage public backlash by promoting a, quote, good corporate citizen image, participating in community events like parades and toy drives.

Speaker 2 Executives also discuss stitching words like automation and AI, instead using advanced technology and co-bots, collaborative robots.

Speaker 2 Amazon says the documents viewed at the times were incomplete and did not reflect its overall hiring strategy.

Speaker 2 Let me tell you, years and years ago, and I was looking for the pictures, I was going to show it to some people here, after Amazon bought Kiva, which was, I thought, a critical purchase at the time, it was a logistics, it was a robotic, moved

Speaker 2 things around the factory. And Amazon, for some reason, invited me in to see the factory.
And

Speaker 2 I went to see it and watched these Kiva, I think they were Kiva-powered robots moving stuff around. And they had people in the factory, but a lot of it was automated, obviously.

Speaker 2 And it's pretty cool when you see them put on labels or put on whatever. It was quite an automated factory.
And

Speaker 2 I guess publicly, I said, 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

Speaker 2 they're so smart. You could see what they were doing.
Right.

Speaker 2 And I remember one of the Kennedys who was representing

Speaker 2 Massachusetts, I can't remember which one it was, was saying, oh, they're going to put an Amazon warehouse in my district. I'm like, they're not going to have people in it.

Speaker 2 And I remember Amazon being calling me and saying, don't be saying that. And I'm like, but that's what it seems so obvious to me.
And so this is where they're going with these.

Speaker 2 There will be no people in Amazon warehouses or very few people.

Speaker 2 And then 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 commerce company.

Speaker 2 And here in

Speaker 2 Korea, I was just in a thing called Robot Valley. I mean,

Speaker 2 robotics do not get enough attention compared to AI, but AI combined with robotics is really like one of these amazing and also terrifying terrifying breakthroughs for humanity, it seems to me.

Speaker 2 But I don't know. What do you think?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I agree with you.

Speaker 1 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 during the day because there's nobody working there.

Speaker 1 There's some labor involved in building these things. But once they're up and running, they're just a huge draw on the local electric or power supply, and they don't create a lot of jobs.

Speaker 1 I think robots and automation are in many ways,

Speaker 1 it's always the the shit you're not expecting that impacts you to the upside and the downside.

Speaker 1 I actually think the more important technology over the next 24 months that would be the best bet for America is not GPT-5. I think it's GLP-1.

Speaker 1 I think that would be a better bet for America if they put GLP-1 in the hands of every obese person in a low-income home.

Speaker 1 And I think robotics, to your point, are in some ways more important than AI because I think that Jeff Bezos and Dara Kaswashahi dream of a lack of drivers and factory workers.

Speaker 1 I think they think, okay,

Speaker 1 think about the majority of the bad press that Amazon has probably received in the last 10 years. A lot of it is stories of these delivery men and vans who have pea bottles and aren't

Speaker 1 in the warehouses or whatever. And have to hit quotas and have health insurance.
And I got to be honest, I'm here for it. I want, I would love to see AI pilots in planes.

Speaker 1 If you look at the majority of, and it won't happen because of psychological reasons, but if if you look at the majority of plane crashes, and there's very few, they're almost always pilot error.

Speaker 1 And so there will be job creation, though.

Speaker 1 There will be people that have to program and build these things and service them. It'll be a higher wage job.

Speaker 1 But the story of America is that the low-wage, low-value add production jobs slowly but surely get screened out as we move from an agrarian to a manufacturing to a services to a quote-unquote innovation economy.

Speaker 1 I think it's a good thing. The problem with America is that we're not very good at retraining and supporting the people on the wrong end of that trade.
We're very much winners and losers.

Speaker 1 Like, sorry, boss, it's the hunger games here.

Speaker 1 But I 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 real investment in manufacturing of our industrial base.

Speaker 1 And I think the only way we compete with China is to have these types of factories.

Speaker 2 Oh, China's way ahead on this stuff. I mean, all of Asia is in a lot of ways.

Speaker 2 And again, AI gets all the attention, but AI AI combined with robotics is really, there can be, let me say, there's, there's sort of a thing called human-centric robots where it's not replaced, not just getting our coffee and this and that.

Speaker 1 Call a sex doll.

Speaker 2 Okay, and that's right 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.
Like eventually, there's all manner.

Speaker 2 And one of the things, I had a really interesting discussion with Alex, who is a mechanic, is a mechanical engineering student.

Speaker 2 And he's like, why do robotics have, like, Elon Musk is, they laugh at Elon Musk here in Korea, I have to tell you, because he's like going, I'm going to make Optimus going to make these, you know, humanoid robots.

Speaker 2 They don't have to look like humans. Like the real changes are in places like what Amazon has done, which is they're robots.
They're just not the robots you think of from science fiction.

Speaker 2 You know, doing a hand, like Alice was like, why does a dog walking robot have to look like a person? In fact, that's hard. They fall over the hand.
It's funny. Like it can look at like

Speaker 2 automation is a very, and I think actually automation is not a, it is, is the right word, right? That's actually instead of calling it advanced technology, it's automation.

Speaker 2 But there's, there's all kinds of ways robotics are going to affect us. And especially when it's, when it now, like this one thing I was wearing.

Speaker 2 it uses AI to collect data in real time about my body movements, which would then calculate how these robots should be adjusted per person in real time.

Speaker 2 And it used to be they'd have to be adjusted individually, but they don't have to anymore. Same thing with cars, same thing.

Speaker 2 So the combination is really both deadly to jobs and at the same time, breathtaking in terms of savings, like what it's going to do.

Speaker 1 So each year, and this is a thinly veiled ad, I do my predictions deck.

Speaker 1 And that is sometime in November, I put together a deck and I say, these are my predictions for the oncoming year in society, stock market, technology.

Speaker 1 And each year, I pick one of the big tech companies, one of the magnificent 10, or one of the big four, actually, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, or Alphabet.

Speaker 1 And I say, this will be the best performing stock. And this is why.
Last year, I picked Alphabet. It's up 60% in the last year.

Speaker 2 This year, thank you.

Speaker 1 Pat myself on the back. This year,

Speaker 1 my pick is probably going to be Amazon. And that is it hasn't.
It actually hasn't performed very well the last couple of years.

Speaker 1 But traditionally, their margin expansion has been been powered by AWS and the unsung hero of the business, and that is Amazon Media Group running the ads on the platform.

Speaker 1 And they force retailers to run ads, and it's very high margin. Now the margin expansion is happening in retail.

Speaker 1 For over a decade, the fulfillment and shipping costs ballooned more quickly than sales, decreasing margins.

Speaker 1 And then that reversed two years ago, and retail sales are now growing faster than shipping costs.

Speaker 2 That's because they got everybody to use Prime, right? They got everybody in on it. They were losing money on Prime, I would assume.

Speaker 1 But also because robotics and the huge investment they've made in robotics is finally delivering operational leverage.

Speaker 1 Amazon expects to save about, I think about $13 billion from 2025 to 2027 as a result of automation.

Speaker 1 And assuming no change in Amazon's enterprise value to EBITDA multiple, as you can tell, I'm doing a lot of work on this. That translates to roughly $200 billion extra in enterprise value.

Speaker 1 Plus, it expects to sell twice twice as many products by 2033. I think all the investments they've made in automation coupled with robotics and AI, they're about to get huge leverage.

Speaker 1 So whereas ads and AWS have added all the margin, I actually think retail is about to be where they expand their margins. That's interesting.

Speaker 2 Oh, I think it's going to go across

Speaker 2 the entire country, actually.

Speaker 2 At one time, I was visiting Kentucky and they were talking about Silicon Holler and all this stuff and bringing back coal. Remember, Trump was bringing back coal.

Speaker 2 And I remember, I stood up and I said, they're going to bring it back by robots. What do they need you for? Like, you get sick.
You have, like, you get, it's bad for you to be mining coal.

Speaker 2 And I, again, I was cut off. Like, don't say that.
I'm like, well, of course they're going to use robots like or whatever, automation. I don't care what word you use.
But

Speaker 2 what's astonishing is how good.

Speaker 2 Korea and China and all these countries are. And they're really making investments in robotics.
And you're absolutely right. Amazon has been far ahead of any other,

Speaker 2 there are lots of manufacturing. That's how we return with manufacturing, but it's not going to be with people at all.

Speaker 1 But I would describe the last few years in terms of robotics as well to the retail as the investment phase.

Speaker 1 And it hasn't delivered, it's been expensive and it hasn't delivered the leverage yet, but I think that's pivoting and switching. And the stock,

Speaker 1 even though it's up 20% in the last year, it's underperformed its competitors. Amazon typically trades at a five-year average PE multiple of 60.
And right now it's trading at 34.

Speaker 1 Anyways,

Speaker 1 I think that leverage, the fact that it's reasonably priced, anyways,

Speaker 1 I'm excited about Amazon over the next 12 months.

Speaker 2 Oh, I'm glad you've been focused on this. This is interesting.
Anyway, let's go on a quick break. And when we come back, we'll talk about Argentina's election results.

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Speaker 2 Scott, we're back with more news. The payoff of Donald Trump to help the Argentinian economy has helped.

Speaker 2 Argentina's president, Javier Millay's party swept the country's midterm elections, winning 40% of the votes.

Speaker 2 They had to get above 35, compared with around 24% for the main oppositions, which are the Peronists who had been running Argentina badly for many years.

Speaker 2 President Trump endorsed Malay earlier this month month and said a $20 billion currency swap bailout from the U.S. was contingent on his midterm success.

Speaker 2 Trump took Truth Social to congratulate Malay, saying he's making us all look good. And don't worry about the cost of the bailout.

Speaker 2 Let's listen to the comforting words of Treasury, the thirstiest Treasury Secretary I've ever seen, Scott Besant, on Meet the Press this weekend.

Speaker 1 It is America first because we are supporting a U.S.

Speaker 2 ally.

Speaker 1 There will be no taxpayer losses.

Speaker 2 This is a swap line. This is not a bailout.

Speaker 2 Well, this is working. I mean, this helped Malay, I think, quite a bit in the thing.
And there's been a lot of pain in what he's doing, some of which

Speaker 2 should have happened because Argentina has had like enormous inflation and things like that. But he's doing it in sort of this incredibly

Speaker 2 brutal way.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 talk about this.

Speaker 2 Explain what Bessett was saying here, where this is a swap line. This is not a bailout.

Speaker 1 Well, I believe we're just exchanging dollars for pesos, but the pesos has a habit of totally crashing and devaluing. It has been a fucking disaster.

Speaker 1 Despite an incredible blessing of natural resources, really good universities, an amazing culture, great natural resources.

Speaker 1 They have just been fucked over and over by kind of socialist, corrupt governments. The country has entered into IMF rescue programs 23 times since 1956, more than any other nation.

Speaker 1 This nation has been bailed out more times than any other nation by the IMF.

Speaker 1 The most recent major IMF loan to Argentina was for $57 billion in 2018, and it failed to stabilize the economy and led to a default just two years later.

Speaker 1 Over the past 50 years, Argentina has defaulted nine times. So basically every five and a half years, this country defaults, which has resulted in constant hyperinflation and peso devaluation.

Speaker 1 In the past year alone, the peso has fallen more than 350 percent against the US dollar. I guess the way to say that is the U.S.
dollar has increased 350 percent against the peso.

Speaker 1 So the and this is let's call this for what it is. This is Trump bailing out one of his friends.
Yeah. And major.
Same thing.

Speaker 2 Like same thing.

Speaker 1 But it's not even about Malay. It's about Rob Citrone, a longtime associate of Treasury Secretary Besent, who runs a hedge fund and has significant exposure to Argentine bonds and stocks.

Speaker 1 And what does it do? Again, this is about fucking corruption.

Speaker 1 The bailout props up these prices, offering a crucial window or exit to markup the investments of his buddy, who will make a huge donation to the Trump campaign.

Speaker 1 Stan Druckenmiller, Besant's former mentor at Soros Fund Management, is also involved.

Speaker 1 His Duquesne family office was recently disclosed as the second largest investor in Argentina's main exchange traded fund. Citrone, meanwhile, has made Argentina his biggest bet in Latin America.

Speaker 1 This is just, you're, you're,

Speaker 1 this is literally an orgy of corruption. It really is.

Speaker 2 It's just

Speaker 1 and and we're the ones that get like a $5 tip and have been fucked so many ways. And we just leave the party, you know,

Speaker 1 you know, naked and like abused. And that's basically anyone that doesn't get to hang out in the mansion who's not willing to fallate the big fat man.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's just to think that this isn't going to cost other hedge funds looking for true alpha and looking for investments, to think that somehow we're not going to end up bailing them out again.

Speaker 1 And to think about how just moronic this is. We put a tariff on China, which makes no sense.
They're smart. They go, I know, I'm going to go for your heart and lungs.

Speaker 1 I'm going to go after the red states and the people who voted for you four to one, the farmers, and we're going to stop buying all of your soybeans. Those farmers go out of business, right?

Speaker 1 And who do the Chinese get their soybeans from now?

Speaker 1 Argentina, where we're.

Speaker 2 Soybean farmer. We're getting, I mean, did you see that Besant calling himself a soybean?

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's a soybean. He's worth a half a billion dollars.
Yeah, he's literally,

Speaker 1 you are my wife. Goodbye.
City life.

Speaker 2 Anyone who's not real old like us doesn't get that's green acres. Yeah, doesn't get that.

Speaker 1 Yeah. By the way, that guy, that guy, what was his name? Eddie Albert.
He was a very successful spy, a true patriot.

Speaker 1 That guy led a very impressive life.

Speaker 2 And yet he ended up on Green Acres.

Speaker 1 And then it was was Eva Gaboli.

Speaker 2 Farm living is the life for me.

Speaker 1 That was right before the Beverly Hillbillies.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. I had that whole song in my fucking head.
Anyway, go ahead.

Speaker 1 Anyway, it's what we were talking about. The origy of corruption.
We're bailing out.

Speaker 1 We're punishing farmers with sclerotic trade policy and then taking money and sending it to the new trades, the new, the new supplier of soybeans, Argentina. That money, it's unlikely.

Speaker 1 Argentina needs structural reform. To Malay's credit, he is implementing structural

Speaker 1 reform. He is, I think he's kind of exactly what Argentina needed.
He would have won without Trump, but because of Trump, I think he got more seats, more total power.

Speaker 1 And I think you can pretty much write off prediction. You can write off 30 of that $40 billion.

Speaker 1 It's gone. Nothing's going to get in the way of the peso devaluation over the short term.
This is an economy of structural issues. I hope they come out of it.

Speaker 1 I was an investor in a company that that used to hire these amazing engineers from the Cordoba University or University of Cordoba, Argentina.

Speaker 1 And the funniest thing was we had a down quarter and we were cutting the budget. It was a company called Ola Pic, which we ended up selling and it was a big win.

Speaker 1 Great, three really super intelligent guys, two Spaniards, one Argentinian guy. And the Argentinian guy was in charge of the engineering team.

Speaker 1 And we could get great engineers for like 40 grand instead of 140 or 240 outside of Cordoba. And the only line item that we could never cut was the Asado budget.
That was beef.

Speaker 1 Every Friday, they had Asado. They had beef for all of the engineers.
And that was like the only thing you were never allowed to touch. This was the key to the entire culture.

Speaker 2 Was their beef. Well, you know, when I was looking at that before the Seven, besides the Trump payoff, I think it did help him.
I think absolutely the money that he was getting from Trump.

Speaker 2 But one of the things was if it was like, oh, he's going to lose. I'm like, but the choices, the Peronists were terrible.

Speaker 2 Like 80 years of shitty management i don't see that being the 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 little seems insane but uh but you know there you go there you have it we'll see what happens there uh all right scott one more quick break we'll be back for wins and fails

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Speaker 2 Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails.

Speaker 1 Well, my fail is it's a specific issue of a much larger trend that has become the zeitgeist in our economy, and that is the NBA gambling scandal. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 So Miami Heat Guard Terry Roser, I believe his name is, and Portland Trailblazers head coach Chauncey Billops were among 30 arrested in an FBI investigation that uncovered a poker rigging and illegal betting reign.

Speaker 1 Many politicians, as well as the NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, have increased calls to Congress to tighten regulations around sports gambling.

Speaker 1 Since the 2018 Supreme Court decision overturning a federal law that prohibits sports betting outside of Nevada, 38 states have legalized gambling on sports.

Speaker 1 By the way, the first thing that happens when you legalize

Speaker 1 betting in a state is bankruptcies go up 20 to 30 percent. Wagers on sports hit 160 billion last year, making it larger than the lottery.
One in four adults say they personally bet money on sports.

Speaker 1 And by the way, last year, one in two men just bet on the Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 And one in 10 U.S. adults have placed a bet using an online sports book.
Despite the proliferation, Americans see betting as a bad thing. 43% of U.S.

Speaker 1 adults agree that legal sports betting is is a bad thing for society compared to just 34% who agreed three years ago.

Speaker 1 And this, it preys on, and I don't want to infantilize young men, but they're more risk aggressive. And when you put a DOPA hit and betting in their pocket, it is in godlike technology.

Speaker 1 And basically every ad now, when you turn on this TV to watch Premier League, is 10 pounds free when you sign up for 25 pounds. And folks, they make it impossible to win over the long term.

Speaker 1 If you're good at it, they basically don't let you bet anymore.

Speaker 1 And the newest trend in sports betting, which will probably have the greatest appreciation and market cap in private companies, is predictions markets.

Speaker 1 And currently, a case is making its way through the courts to decide the future of sports betting on prediction markets.

Speaker 1 And prediction market weekly volume is about $2 billion, with about a fifth of the coming from sports betting, the highest category volume.

Speaker 1 Anyways,

Speaker 1 but on a bigger level, a meta-level,

Speaker 1 it essentially is more indicative of our economy. And that is we're

Speaker 1 the economy now resembles Vegas.

Speaker 2 No, it's not a thing. It's just betting.
It's like crypto. It's not a thing.
It's not a making a thing.

Speaker 2 It's something else. What would you call it? It's an economic activity.
It's just not productive.

Speaker 1 Well, the houses always win, and the machines are narrative. Platforms, hot tech IPOs, meme coins, dudes in hoodies pitching the next big thing.

Speaker 2 Oh, this is your new. news.

Speaker 1 And it's value, our value in the economy now is not derived from character or hard work. It's from attention and speculation rather than goods and services.

Speaker 1 And then the traditional levers of power, business innovation, labor productivity, real estate growth, they all recede and young people no longer aspire to.

Speaker 2 So empty calories is what you're saying.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and

Speaker 1 they don't develop the means, they don't develop the will, and they don't develop the patience for enduring value.

Speaker 2 Scammy.

Speaker 1 Why actually figure out a way to get through all the regulations and build a building when you can go get it financed from Qatar by monetizing the White House?

Speaker 1 Or why even do that when you can just launch a meme coin? And then essentially,

Speaker 1 it means the winners get, you know, the winners, a small group of people who can own or control or monetize healthcare, monetize the government win, and the losers get stuck with the odds.

Speaker 1 We have godlike technology and gambling that's the DOPA hit. For the the majority of our time on this planet, we haven't had access to

Speaker 1 free safe play and gaming. So when we have it,

Speaker 1 we go 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 hit you at exactly the wrong time when you're most vulnerable.

Speaker 1 And you're just seeing more and more people have their lives ruined by this shit. And then the broader loss.

Speaker 1 is that our economy is becoming about synthetic risk-taking, not enduring value, not the hard work, the labor to build a company, to invest in relationships.

Speaker 1 You get a quick hit from this kind of gambling or casino-like economy.

Speaker 1 And I think it's creating, I think it's just creating the wrong values and it's an erosion in the character of long-term thinking.

Speaker 2 Yeah. No, we're a casino.
But okay, so what's your, what's your win?

Speaker 1 What is my win? You go first. I got to think of one.

Speaker 2 You know, my,

Speaker 2 I have so many fails happening at this time, at this moment, but

Speaker 2 probably

Speaker 2 Jamaica and Haiti and Cuba with the

Speaker 2 hurricanes headed our way. We're going to have a lot more hurricanes.
And it sounds like it's going to, category five is going to hit this place. So my thoughts are with the people there.

Speaker 2 It seems very dire what's happening there. And of course, we've cut back on all kinds of really important, speaking of important things we do monitor.

Speaker 2 This is, I just feel a sense of unease for them and also our own country, which will get hit by all kinds of weather mishaps that are highly avoidable in terms of saving lives.

Speaker 2 You can't, you know, we certainly have climate change issues that are making this worse, but at the same time, we should be able to protect and save people. So I just worry

Speaker 2 for those right now. It's happening right now, actually.

Speaker 2 My other real fail,

Speaker 2 they're both real fails, but this is

Speaker 2 all this, which you're talking about, these empty calories, these pathways to corruption that are everywhere.

Speaker 2 You saw the media do it a bunch of times this week, whether it was Comcast putting money into the ballroom.

Speaker 2 It must have really been difficult for Brian Roberts, but he did it because he's on the outs with Trump. So give him some money for the stupid ballroom.

Speaker 2 And when I think about that, the way it could have been done, look, I'm not, look, the White House is not that attractive a thing of our many things.

Speaker 2 I think the main part is, but the East Wing is not necessarily a winner. But the way to have redone it could have been so fantastic and bipartisan.
And there could have been a contest.

Speaker 2 It could have been everyone involved. It could have been interesting.
The way we, you know,

Speaker 2 with the people who are both pearl clutching and then attacking the pearl clutchers, I don't think they're pearl clutchers. I think they really are sorry that happened that way.

Speaker 2 Is it could have been done in such a great way. Like, let's update the White House.
Let's do something about a contest. You could have kids involved.

Speaker 2 You could have done a whole thing that would have united us versus this bullshit, which is he just does what he wants, and then the people get upset about him doing what he wants, and it goes back and forth.

Speaker 2 It was such a missed opportunity. And, you know, it feels like that all over the place.
Whoever gets to do what they want to do is not American. It just feels very un-American, a lot of these things.

Speaker 2 And then a win,

Speaker 2 you know, speaking of Brian Roberts, Taylor Sheridan, who's a really important producer, there's always a producer of the moment. He happens to be that.

Speaker 2 He's behind Yellowstone and Landman. He has signed a deal to join NBC Universal.

Speaker 2 It's not for a few years, but when his Paramount deal is up, it's not good for Ellison and Paramount, but it doesn't matter because Ellison is essentially a Nepo baby son of Larry Ellison.

Speaker 2 So he'll get his TikTok this week or he'll get his deal to buy Warner and everyone will fall into line. But I thought that was an interesting situation for Taylor.
I thought it was a win for NBC.

Speaker 2 But who knows? Who knows how much more Sheridan will keep having the hits? But still an interesting shift.

Speaker 1 But I think if we were, or what I want to, what I'm going to start doing is it's no longer, what are they calling it? I mean, I know it was called the East Wing.

Speaker 1 It's supposed to be called the ballroom now or the Grand Ballroom.

Speaker 2 I'm not calling it that, but go ahead. Whatever.
Well, anyways. Just a ballroom.

Speaker 1 From this point forward,

Speaker 1 we should call it what it is. And this is the Epstein bedroom.
There's the Lincoln bedroom. This is the Epstein bedroom.

Speaker 1 Because all this is, is another attempt to distract us from Jeffrey Epstein and the release of the Epstein file.

Speaker 2 And also, And you won't see Mike Johnson won't seat that

Speaker 2 representative.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but the bottom line is it really isn't that, quite frankly, I don't think this is that big a deal. Obama had renovations.
Okay, I don't like the way he's going about it.

Speaker 1 This is a massive, this is different than anything.

Speaker 1 I do not think this is that meaningful.

Speaker 2 I really don't. I don't, but the way he did it, I think it's more like this wasn't American.
Like, this is what I'm saying. The guys calling him to call off the San Francisco thing.

Speaker 2 Let's just tear it down without consultation. Not even like that is un-American.

Speaker 1 It is it is just not i guess maybe it is american i don't know anyways the win so the win is and just a reminder there is uh for all this performative masculinity around taking a trillion dollar a year expenditure and having missile strikes which may be quite frankly extraditional uh murder at this point um

Speaker 1 which is just so performative, in my opinion, stupid, there is a real war taking place with the real lethal force in Ukraine.

Speaker 1 And according to, I think it's Pateri Orpo, Finland's prime minister, Ukrainian forces do appear to have halted major Russian advances on some fronts.

Speaker 2 With help by Europe.

Speaker 1 Yes, that's right. And Ukraine's capacity to striking its targets inside Russia has improved.

Speaker 1 I do hope we provide them with the long-range missiles and the Tomahawk, which is an incredible weapon to target their refining capabilities.

Speaker 1 An opinion piece in the Guardian reports that Ukrainian's mood in Kyiv is more confident now than a year ago, though the situation is still grave. There's much, it still feels like the mood is upbeat.

Speaker 1 There's greater resolve. Discussions are advancing around using frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine's reconstruction and defense, which is on its own a sign of growing international alignment.

Speaker 1 So anyways,

Speaker 1 my win and reminder is

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 real fight here, the real lethality that is proving, you know, is upholding our freedom and our democracy is taking place. It's not off the shores of Venezuela.

Speaker 1 It's in Ukraine right now where the Ukrainian army does continue to punch well above their weight class. So anyway, that's my win.

Speaker 2 That's a good one. Because, you know, that's speaking of economic value, think about the windfalls that's going to happen there as we rebuild that very vibrant and innovative culture, right?

Speaker 2 This is like an opportunity, again, an opportunity for the United States to build real things versus this nonsense. Like, you know, all the different people that have to suck up to Trump.

Speaker 2 It's grotesque to watch them one after the next, you know, sucking up to him. But there's no economic value there.
It's just a, it's just a grift. It's just one long grift.

Speaker 2 And that's not how you make things, right? You get to get ahead because you fluff a billionaire. Like, stop it.
Like, it's just,

Speaker 2 it has no economic value. And

Speaker 2 whether you like us being involved in other countries or not, the best thing would be to have a peaceful Ukraine that will then innovate and create a better. I don't know.

Speaker 2 It just seems like it's not, none of this is economic. It's just drift.
And so it's very disappointing. I'll tell you that.
Anyway, we want to hear from you.

Speaker 2 Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551-PIVOT.

Speaker 2 And elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, this week on On with Kara Swisher, which Scott Galloway is going to be on soon for his new book, I spoke with writer, director, and producer Judd Apatau.

Speaker 2 Let's listen to a clip.

Speaker 8 There are definitely ways that technology can help people.

Speaker 8 If you can go on a computer and make it look like deep space and it doesn't cost $3 million, it costs 40 grand. Well, clearly, in some ways, that will help people.

Speaker 8 It will decimate the people that made space, but it seems like we're not going to be able to stop that when it gets cheaper.

Speaker 8 But the writing and the directing will always wind up generic because it's scraped and it's just copying other things.

Speaker 2 Oh, we'll see about that, Judge. But he's really, I mean, that guy has got a history of really amazing work in comedy.
Anyway,

Speaker 2 he actually, you know,

Speaker 2 he's just really sharp about what's happening. I thought it was a great talk.

Speaker 1 Yeah, smart guy, impressive guy.

Speaker 2 He really is. But you're going to be even more impressive.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, go on. You'll be good.
I'm going to let you talk and talk and talk. So you'll have a good time.

Speaker 2 Reminder, which I already do here, we're going to go on tour. We'll be going to Toronto, Boston, New York, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, and LA.
Scott and I are going to be together so much.

Speaker 2 We're sold out in Toronto and San Francisco, and the other cities are very close, but visit pivottour.com, especially U.Chicago. We've got extra large venue there.
Come and see us.

Speaker 2 We also got some surprises there, some good big names coming.

Speaker 2 Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and make sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out.

Speaker 1 Today's show is produced by Larry Naiman, Zoy Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertod engineered this episode.
Ronnie Palidoro edited the video.

Speaker 1 Additional support from Kate Gallagher and Brad Sylvester. Thanks also to Ju Bros, Miss Severo, and Dan Shalan.
Nashak Kerro is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts.

Speaker 1 Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine, Vox Media.
You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/slash pod.

Speaker 1 We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

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Speaker 9 We all have moments where we could have done better, like cutting your own hair,

Speaker 7 yikes, or forgetting sunscreen, so now you look like a tomato.

Speaker 2 Ouch.

Speaker 9 Could have done better.

Speaker 7 Same goes for where you invest.

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