Elon Musk Dumps Millions on Republicans as He Tries to Buy the Midterms

Support for the show comes from USA Facts, income inequality, entitlements, housing costs, want to really see what the government is up to, what a cost and who's benefiting. Check out a debate on the American dream between yours truly and conservative Ben Shapiro. It's not your typical soundbites from boring politicians reading talking points. The debate is framed by an informative set of government facts from USA Facts and then Ben and I get into it. There are sharp differences, some common ground, and data and facts that leave me knowing more. Check out the full debate now on the USA Facts YouTube channel. How far would you go to have a healthy baby? Embroidering is very much illegal in the United States. It is illegal in most countries, but there is growing interest as the technology has gotten better. This week on Explained to Me, the ethics of embryo maxing. Listen to new episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. I don't think Elon Musk will be remembered for inspiring the EV race or getting us to Mars. I think his footnote in history will be that he was the greatest cause of unnecessary death, disease and disability in history, maybe since Stalin. I think this is a reckless individual associate path who is causing unbelievable harm, whether it's cutting off HIV positive mothers in Africa, whether it's throttling back, starlink and then refusing to stand on his own two feet and blame the president who's now blaming him. This is what happens when you give one person too much power and that person happens to sleep with a loaded gun next to the bed and be addicted to ketamine. Welcome to Age of Modern. I'm Scott Galway. And I'm Jessica Tarla. Before we get started, I'm so excited about this. Justin, I will be at UVA Center for Politics this Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern time for a conversation with Larry Sabato, the Center's founder and director. If you're on campus, please come join us. Plus join Justin Marl for a live stream with Independence and a candidate in Nebraska. Dan Osborne, live on Substack for Prof. G plus subscribers tomorrow, Wednesday, October the 21st at 12.30 p.m. Eastern time. All right, let's get into it. Let's take our look at the map where officially two weeks out from Election Day and here are the key numbers for watching. Morning console has Democrats up seven points in the Congressional ballot. In Georgia, a quantist insights has John Ossoff up seven points in Texas. The University of Houston's Hobby School of Public Affairs has Greg Abbott up three points in the governor's race. And Cal State gives Democrats get this a 64% chance of retaking the Senate. We're at two thirds just. Wow, two and three. President Trump was in Kansas last night rallying for the incumbent Republican Senator Roger Marshall. Marshall is facing an unexpectedly close race with Democrat Adam Hamilton. Here's a taste of that event. And actually with Strange, I told the generals, they said, "Do me a favor, General, would you do me a favor?" All these handsome guys, they look like they're always great looking. These four-star guys, I don't know if they get the job by their look. Nobody appreciates how great a president I am. I say it. I say, nobody appreciates that I got $21 trillion invested on our country. Canada's been ripping us off for so many years. People got used to it. I didn't get used to it. We got it under control. No, they're all leaving Okanada. But I do like the inertial anthem. And I promised them if they become a 51st state, which is actually what they said. I said, I will let you keep ice hockey. And I will let you keep your Okanada. So they can have it as a state anthem. No, we're all legit. We have it a good time. He's tired. Like, how does SNL even parody something that seems stranger and weirder than a parody? So, like, Kansas last elected a Democrat to the Senate in 1932. The last time Kansas Senate Democrat to the Senate, Hoover was president. And sliced bread was like a new technology. So the interesting thing here, Jess, now I get your thoughts is that when the president feels he needs to fly to Kansas to save an incumbent senator two weeks out, the map, the map isn't expanding. It's literally caving in. And when you're heckled in Wichita, the problem isn't the coasts. Any thoughts? Yeah, I'm not sure which George Soros funded group. They think we're sending the protesters in there. But it was probably just people who can't afford their life anymore. Who can't afford gas and groceries and school supplies. This is obviously an enormous uphill battle. But it is in toss-up territory. And Adam Hamilton, Reverend Adam Hamilton, I should say, is doing a tremendous job. I also think that martial, Roger Marshall is, I don't want to say uniquely vulnerable, but quite vulnerable. He was giving an interview earlier this morning. Being asked, what's this about? That it's a close race? He says it's the price of gas. You've been supportive of a war that's driven up the price of gas. So we could lay that at your feet. But there are these side stories about him that the Hamilton campaign is trying to bring front and center. And President Trump even commented on one of them. So Roger Marshall was in OBGYN before he went into the Senate. And there are massively persuasive and harrowing attack ads about what he did when he was in OBGYNs, suing over 700 patients for outstanding medical deaths, that ranged from $101 to several thousand dollars going after mothers, elderly and pregnant women. 81 of these people were arrested. They were also charging his practice in 18% interest rate, which his own lawyer said was specifically requested by then OBGYN Marshall, now Senator Marshall. No other Kansas practice went over 12%. The New York Times has an article about this. Talk to many of the folks who were arrested as a result of this policy, you know, a 68 year old woman who hadn't paid back $4,561 of her bill for an emergency hysterectomy that she had three years before. And they were taken into custody as their grandchildren were preparing for an egg hunt in the house. The fact that we're talking about like 101 dollars kind of makes your head spin. And President Trump last night at the rally said that it was legally mandated that he sued these people, which absolutely isn't true. And then he invoked the Shylock anti-Semitic trope, which President Trump did a year or two ago and said he didn't know that it was anti-Semitic. So everyone told him that it was anti-Semitic. And now he's used it again. And I've been talking about this that they are closing on gutter politics, absolutely. But they're trying to intimate to people is, I mean, first of all, that Roger Marshall couldn't be guilty of doing this thing that he did by choice and jacked up the interest rate to 18 percent anyway. But by using Shylock and talking about people with unpaid bills is obviously invoking a very stereotypical Jewish trope that is incredibly damaging. And I thought it was just a really ugly scene overall. I also, and we haven't talked about this, but Donald Trump is nonstop talking about men and how attractive they are at all of these rallies. Like everything from I looked, you know, at John Houston's ass to talking about like big boy, you know, big strapping boys. And what do you think that that is that's going on here? And I get it. Like the male form is great or whatever. But like, is a very strange closing message? Yeah. Look, he's always been pretty luxus, I think. But usually it's the girls where he's like, oh, now, like, Hart, can you walk one more time? Yeah, equal opportunity. I don't know. I think it's just an old man who has lost that it's prefrontal cortex starting to shrink. And he forgets that he's president and shouldn't be talking about, you know, generals buttocks, you know, he just doesn't. This is, I don't know. This is sort of the, well, what do you think about this stuff with Senator Marshall? He's also had to, you know, release statement saying that ICE needs to cool it. The Hamilton campaign found out that his, that they'd stiffed a bakery and they owed, you know, $678 over the course of six years. So Marshall had to get on that and pay it back. Doesn't seem like a particularly good dude. Yeah, look, the, the fact that the, someone like Ken Paxton is actually still in the running, it probably doesn't hurt the, the world's wealthiest man is giving him, I think, a third of a billion dollars. But Kansas being in play just shows that his tsunami is forming. Now, whether it actually breaks and reaches shore, we'll see, but I would argue that right now as much as we'd like to take credit, and there are some outstanding Democratic candidates and also quite frankly, some less outstanding Democratic candidates, that what you're seeing in a place like Kansas is they're not voting for the Democrat, they're voting against their grocery bill. Affordability in the economy, still remain number one, and every day people are just getting punched in the gut in terms of affordability. And also just to remind, if you live in Kansas, there was an interesting study showing that the percentage of miles you drive is correlated to your dissatisfaction because it means you have to go to the gas station more than other people. You know, people in Manhattan don't care much about gas prices, but if you're living in in South Dakota and you have to drive everywhere and there's no public infrastructure, you're filling up your SUV and it's costing you $150 or $200. I mean, you just feel that every day. And also the tell here, he was interrupted by protesters. I found it wild. Should we move on and talk about France? - We. - There we go. All right, heading across the Atlantic to France where violent protests continue to shake the nation. Her curfew was instituted last night in parts of Paris and other cities following several days of unrest. The protests began with students mobilizing against teachers shortages and run down classrooms, but have since expanded to include other groups fighting against the cost of living, rising fuel prices and growing pressure on public services. Around 550,000 people joined protests in France over the weekend and police arrested around 2,400 people after clashes and looting. Jess, how would you describe the situation in France in any thoughts on what kind of underpins it? - It's a complete chaos. And if you listen to Macron's address, you can see the pain and anguish at monuments and French cities being destroyed by looters. And you're talking about hundreds of thousands of people that are out doing this. He has linked it back to the rising cost of living, especially fuel prices driven by the US or on war, which makes clear that France did not participate, but that they are quote unquote suffering the consequences now. But it's important to look at the original impetus, which were the conditions in these schools. And they don't have supplies enough teachers, really an unfair system to give to kids. And that was the beginning of this. And now it has snowballed into basically any grievance that you might have against the state. And then I assume more bad actors that have piled on and are doing things like looting Chaneles and saline stores up and down Paris. But when you see the meme come to life of the French couple sitting there and having a coffee and smoking a cigarette as it burns around them, you know, you know that you're in big trouble. And this has very real political implications. So they have an election about six months, Marine Le Pen, who runs every time far right candidate, getting 37, 38% of the vote. And then there's a hard left rival, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, if I butcher that, I apologize, my French is no bueno. That was a joke, I know no bueno is not French. But anyway, it's basically those two candidates with Le Pen holding a bit of an edge there and there is nobody in the middle. And we see this bubbling up in countries all over the world where it feels like the extremes are the ones getting all the oxygen. And the raging moderates are sitting there saying like who represents us and all of this. But I don't know how they're gonna get it under control. I mean, they're making more arrests. I think it's 24, 2500 that have been arrested thus far. But when you're talking about hundreds of thousands of people that are participating and that they seem to have no way to really quell this, it's bad news. And then it's also righteous anger. These conditions are not right, especially in a state that is supposed to provide a decent quality of life for people. And I feel like it also gets to the heart of the conversations that we're having here about what the government should be responsible for. What is actually a universal right to decent healthcare and a decent school and that you should be able to afford a home if you work hard? - Yeah, and also a curfew in Paris is sort of the government acknowledging that it's lost control of the night. And crowds are about half the 2023 pension pink but they're more violent. So a smaller angerier crowd is probably more dangerous because it's less movement, more rage. To be blunt, I think the spark was underfunded classrooms but I think the kerosene they're in need deep is a function of two things. They are what the West is headed for in terms of demographics and the de-end democracy working too well. And that is old people continuing to vote themselves more money, which at some point begins to weigh on young people's opportunity. France spends about 14% of GDP on public pensions. Roughly double the OECD average in about three times US Social Security. So France is in a country with a pension system, it's a pension system with a country attached. And pension spending is about 57%. I'm sorry, public spending. Government spending is about 57% of GDP. That's the highest in the OECD. And pensions alone are a quarter of all public spending. And if you look at young versus old schools versus retirees, education gets about 5% of GDP. Pensions get 14%. So think about this. France is spending nearly three times as much on retirees as it is on schools. And an inflation-adjusted basis, they're spending something like 15 to 25% less per student. So the kids are in the streets because all the money's going to the retirement homes. And France has one of the lowest effective retirement ages at about 60. Macron spends incredible enormous political capital raising a legal age from 60 to 64 and those riots. So France is where the West is headed. And that is old people vote and keep voting themselves more money. And young people get fed up with it. Also, and this is more uncomfortable for progressives. Like many countries in Western Europe, they embraced immigration without really understanding or developing a viable strategy for assimilation. So immigrants are about 10 to 11% of France's population and immigration unemployment run significantly higher. Also, there's just much greater poverty in France's priority neighborhoods that are sort of sequestered or becomes sort of ghettos for immigrants. There's definitely some data showing that French companies are less likely or discriminate against immigrants. Callback studies found applicants with North African sounding names get significantly fewer interview calls than identical applicants, which traditionally French names. So this is a couple things. This is again, we continue to see it transfer of wealth from young to old because kids can vote and young people don't vote. And the result is essentially France is an economy run for the retirement of workers at the age of 60, which is not demographically sustainable when people are having fewer and fewer kids. So France is what happens when a country makes two promises that can't keep it once, right? To its old people that they'll never have to sacrifice and to immigrants that they'll be French. The reality is it's kept a first promise and it's broken the second. And young people are the agent for expressing the dissatisfaction here. And I'm just trying to draw a lesson for America and the way I see it is it's the biggest threat to social stability is an immigration or aging. It's a system that rewards people for what they already have and punishes those who are just starting out. Again, largest transfer in the history of the world happens every year in that is young people transfer and working age people transfer $1.5 trillion to the wealthiest generation in the history and the planet in the form of social security. I'm going to continue to touch this third rail over and over and over. We are headed towards France if we don't start acting more responsibly and start investing, for example, more money in kids than we, we're spending more money on ice right now than we're spending on kids. Kids don't vote and they're paying the price for it. Are you tired of hearing about business, tech, and finance from the bros? We are the Tiger Sisters, a top business podcast with the Vox Media Podcast Network. Tiger Sisters releases every Monday and we decode money, power, and love. And who doesn't love all those things? We are the internet's Wall Street and Silicon Valley big sisters. Tune in every Monday for late night sister talk meets boardroom strategy. Check out Tiger Sisters on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Tiger Fam. - Support for the show comes from Delete Me. Delete Me is celebrating cybersecurity awareness month. Yes, that's a thing. By giving you a quick tip to help you reduce your risk of getting scammed. Do not answer calls from unknown numbers or answer tax from unknown senders. Pick up a call, can signal that your number is active, which then gets your number and even more less. An iPhone makes links from unknown numbers unclickable until you reply, so replying can unlock a malicious link. Delete Me can help. They monitor data broker sites for your personal info and get it removed. Our colleague Ness has tried Delete Me, and this is what he thought. - I've had social media accounts since childhood and my digital footprint is messy. When I finally tried Delete Me, signing up took less than 15 minutes. Now I can rest easy knowing they're removing my private information from a litany of data brokers and public websites. - Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteMe.com/moderates and use promo code moderates at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to joindeleteMe.com/moderates and enter code moderates at checkout. That's joindeleteMe.com/moderates. Code moderates. Mattlands, and on this week's episode of Creator Destroy Reimagining Marketing, my guest is Starbucks Global Chief Brand Officer, Trecy Lieberman, who was hired after the company's drift from its core values and core experience led to a 38% drop in its stock price and who spent the time since rebuilding what this drift cost them and their customers. Trecy's mad honest about how convenience became so dominance that coffee, craft, community and connection, the things that had just defied the brand's premium receded until the experiences felt totally transactional and the soul of the company was hard to find. Creator Destroy, it's a business show, a marketing show, and it's the show that argues they've always been the same thing, from the wisdomist company in the Vox media podcast network. Any closing thoughts on France? Yeah, I have a question for you because I mean you brought up this mass immigration problem that they have had, but the president and Republican allies are saying that this is an Islam problem. So they're taking the immigration, but then putting a jihadi hat on it. Have you seen any evidence to this that this is about lack of assimilation of Muslim immigrants? Because I haven't seen that, I mean I certainly understand the immigration problem, but not that this is, you know, one of those stories of this is what happens when you open your doors to Islamists. So there's been all this nonsense in Texas from the right that Sharia Law is a threat to Texans. That's again, I mean, this is what's going on with Abdul. I know 99% of mission ganders or Texans don't even know what Sharia Law is. And I think that there's a certain level of misdirected empathy or at a minimum a refusal to acknowledge or express concern about other parts of the world that are much more deprived, much more violent. And so we have what I would call a certain level of left on the suicidal empathy and a lack of respect and a lack of affection for what is still the least bad system of its kind and that is America. And I think there's something to the notion that as we come to grips with stains in our history, we still don't acknowledge that we are the best system I believe of its kind. And there's this, the thing that struck me about these protests in France is at all the big rallies. I saw a ton of Palestinian flags. I didn't see one French flag. And I think it's, I think it's okay to have two thoughts on your head at the same time that you can mourn Palestinian suffering. I think what you're saying across Europe is a certain level of fashionability to believe that some of the struggles and some of the Islamophobia, which I do think exists more in Europe than it does in the US, I think it's resulted in policies that are not rational or sensible and also don't quite frankly promote Western values or at least acknowledge how important Western values are and the defense of those Western values and also a recognition that sometimes you're being played. Anyways, I was struck by these protests where I saw Palestinian flags everywhere and not a single French flag. It just struck me that, okay, there is a problem, not in Budville, but in France right now in Marseille, so to speak, any thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I agree with you, I feel like the Palestinian flag for a lot of people has come to encompass a lot of oppressor oppressed issues writ large. And that could be anything from affordability to actually what's going on in the West Bank or in Gaza. So I treated it as the umbrella and I noticed this at the DNC, we were both there in Chicago and you know how there were the protests from the uncommitted movement and a lot of people with Palestinian flags, but as time went on, you saw there were a lot of signs there. You know, people were there to protest about climate change, people were there about abortion rights, people were there about cost of living. And it occurred to me that this has just become the catch all essentially for something isn't right here. Right, there's something unfair that's going on. And we certainly have seen European leaders own up to the fact that unhampered or unrestricted migration from Muslim countries has led to bad outcomes like look what happened in Germany. Right, we're on the Lamarcle, so an enormous stain on her chancellorship and what happened to thinking back to remember at the markets and all the women were being assaulted. I just hadn't necessarily seen the evidence, which is not surprising to back up what President Trump was saying about this, that like everything in France would be fine if it weren't for Islam. That is not the case. You know, kids don't have decent schools and they can't afford anything. That's true. A lot of senior citizens who won't give up their, who keep voting for bigger pensions. And many kids that are flying around the Palestinian flag, that is definitely happening there, and it's not because of a hardcore takeover of Islamist ideology. It feels more like prop play, frankly. And I'm sure that there are a lot of people that are participating in this for fun, and that it's something to do at this point, which is a shame. And I hope that if they are, you know, just quote unquote having fun and then also smashing windows and burning buildings that they are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And Macron seems like he is very serious about that. I hope so. It's heartbreaking to see the store owners trying to block people from entering the stores and looting them. And look, there's nothing more dangerous than a lonely, broke young man, and the West is producing too many of them because we keep quite frankly sending money to old rich white people who, you know, believe that they should be able to retire at 60. And anyways, I don't. I think this is the images coming out of France are heartbreaking because for anyone who's been to Paris, it's this testament to the West in humanity. I don't know if you remember the first time you went to Paris with your partner or a boyfriend. It's just like you just walk at your hotel, you turn left, you turn right, and you marvel at what men and women have been able to do together in a modern society. It's such an extraordinary ad for the West. So when you see these riots with flags of other nations and you see this sort of dissatisfaction and humult, it's very disheartening and you wonder, okay, is this a more depressing or a harbinger of darker things to come to the West? And I may be, I always have to check my darkmen's back because I'm getting darker and darker as I get older. Again, we had these, the French love to riot, you know, it's built into their culture, these types of protests, but this one felt especially, especially rattling. And I don't know if that's because everyone has cameras now and they clipped the most incendiary moments. There were some nice moments the next day of a lot of neighbors and people like helping to clean up. But again, I just go back to the same thing, too few young people supporting too many old people who keep voting themselves more money. Speaking of old people giving other people money such that they can vote for their tax credits in Texas, should we talk about Elon Musk? Let's do it. So Elon says the next year he will give a SpaceX share to every kid in America calling it the first of many. Roughly 73 million Americans under 18, the giveaway would be worth about 11 billion at SpaceX's current share price. The Musk is also pouring money into Republican races. According to FUC filings, he gave a combined 158 million last month, the Senate Leadership Fund, which directed that money to a pack largely dedicated to pro Ken Paxton ads. Okay. There you go. James Salarico, who's running against Paxton in the Texas Senate race, is making Musk spending a campaign issue. Let's, let's watch Elon Musk is trying to buy this Senate seat in Texas. We just found out that he is almost single-handedly bankrolling this effort to install Ken Paxton in the U.S. Senate and defeat this movement we built in our state. In all likelihood, if you have seen an attack ad on your TV, that was Elon. If you've gotten lies in your mailbox, that was Elon. Elon Musk wants our land. He wants our water. He wants his very own personal United States Senator. He is trying to buy Texas. Yeah. Yeah. He's definitely trying to buy Texas and it's quite the contrast with the Salarico campaign and doesn't take corporate pack money, banned super packs. Some of his first sets of policy priorities around banning stock trading, partisan gerrymandering, and guess what? Getting money out of politics and he's got reason to feel particularly hot about that, considering the fact that one man is doing this because regular people don't want to support Ken Paxton. If he gets across the line and I'm hopeful that he doesn't and it looks like Salarico is in good position. It will be because two or three dudes who are not on the ground there couldn't care less about Ken Paxton and know what a moralist human being he is through hundreds of millions of dollars into this. So Elon Musk, Donald Trump, but I think it's a very salient campaign message, especially in a year where corruption is the number one issue in some surveys for people where folks know especially independent voters that President Trump is using the presidency to enrich himself and that they think that there's a cabal of rich people that are pulling the strings, everything in this country, and then you see hundreds of millions of dollars coming right out of Elon for this. So I think that it will tap into something very big on the ground. They've also been hammering, and this hasn't been reaching people, I think, as much, but deserves a lot of attention. All of this very shady stuff that Kim Baxon has done, you know, he spent the fourth of July in London, this story about the New Year's Eve party in Dubai with two fugitives from American law, who donated close to $200,000 to the Ken Paxing campaign. Like, why are people, I mean, I guess because maybe they vote red no matter who, but you look at this and that there aren't particularly good outcomes coming out of the Ken Paxing's time as attorney general, and you think why not give James Talleriko a shot? Yeah, it looks as if so musk is wants to give every kid a share and he wants to buy their parents a senator. They're silver lining here, so I think this will go down as the lowest ROI political spend in history. I do think Talleriko is going to win. And people, I think the good people of Texas have so much information about Paxing right now and no amount of money. I think they're literally just pissing into the wind with this money right now that musk is giving. And there's just no amount of advertising in my sense as a person thinks a lot about branding. No amount of advertising can fix a shitty product. Basic, basic economics from 45 to 95 was take a mediocre product, a mediocre shoe, salty snack, or American car or beer and wrap it with amazing brand codes. And you could get unfair margin and print money. And politics has been that people have an easier time believing negative. So your ability to take someone's up negative based on money was very powerful. I think it's hit a ceiling. I think everybody at this point kind of knows who Talleriko is and as a feeling about them, kind of know who Paxing is and as a feeling about Paxing in Paxing is arguably the worst candidate in a, you know, which is an incredible achievement across all candidates across the United States. It is an embarrassment that that's what the public and party would put up basically a corrupt idiot. What do you think about this spend though? I guess I'm curious. So I, so Anthropic has made this pledge that they're going to divert a significant portion of its shares to a quote unquote public benefit fund. And President Trump has added that the SpaceX shares obviously will be delivered by the Trump accounts, which is not a surprise. No, I'm not here to crap on Trump accounts and I wish that Joe Biden had taken Michael Dell up on this proposal, frankly, when it, when it was brought to him. But it does. Well, I'm curious what you think about the SpaceX shares and, you know, the vehicle, but then also, you know, what sticks out to me is Elon Musk definitely needed a good PR hit after everyone is consumed with looking at these pictures, especially that one-year-old baby and a stroller in Ukraine who was killed by a drone strike yesterday, her mother passed away. And the fact that the speed on star shield is still down and they're still all pointing fingers at each other. So it wasn't me. It wasn't me. I don't know. It just sorta happened. Like Marco Rubio said. And so the timing of this feels a little suspect to me where Musk is like, okay, I like look over here. I'm going to give away, you know, all of your kids are going to get a share of SpaceX. Please don't hold me responsible for the fact that we're selling out the Ukrainians in real time and hoping that we can have a fun meeting with Putin and President Xi in exchange. Oh, yeah. And I've said this before. I don't think Elon Musk will be remembered for inspiring the EV race or getting us to Mars sooner than otherwise. And I think he's done both of those things. I think he's an engineering genius and a visionary from business standpoint. And I think his footnote in history will be that he was the greatest cause of unnecessary death disease and disability in history or maybe since Stalin. I think this is a reckless individual associate path who is causing unbelievable harm, whether it's cutting off HIV positive mothers in Africa, whether it's throttling back, starlink, and then refusing to stand on his own two feet and blame the president who's now blaming him. This is, I don't think history is going to be kind to Mr. Musk. In terms of the shares, Musk is doing this. Radolio, Michael Dell, the Trump bonds, I actually like the Trump bonds. It is a form of socialism. And I think people should be applauded for giving money away. In the case of Musk, as you mentioned, it's another distraction from the share price, whether it's shells of cars with compressed gas to keep them afloat for five seconds in a vehicle that will never go into production, such that people don't actually look at the core Tesla business, which is instructional decline, get somehow still trading like it's a gross software company. The shares themselves, I think it's a form of socialism, what do I mean by that? I think Michael Dell and Radolio into a lesser extent anthropic and Musk should be applauded for giving money to kids, but the American public and America's youth should not be dependent upon the kindness of strangers and billionaires. This is Pablo Escobar, building the soccer field in Colombia and trying to, you know, create a Sandberg-like shield for his depravity and violence. And what we need from SpaceX is the following. We need Elon Musk to pay the tax rate in California where he accreted that wealth, not piece out to Texas and pay lower taxes. What we need is for corporations to pay the same taxes. They pay it in the 80s, 90s and nots and not pay an effective tax rate at five to seven percent right now. So yeah, I want them to give money to kids, but I want to do it vis-a-vis our elected representatives in the form of a progressive tax structure as opposed to trying to buy senators, get all sorts of giveaways, and then pretend that they're somehow philanthropic people if they give money away to a kid. This is basically a PR stunt. It's a press release that costs nothing. If people want to talk about real giving, I'm a sexist on this. I think the female billionaire brain is different than the male billionaire brain. McKenzie Scott has given away more money in the last year, and then Bezos, Musk, Sergey, Larry, have done in their entire lifetime. There's something about women who are billionaires, whether it's McKenzie Scott or Melinda French kids, where they just start giving their wealth away, whereas the guys seem to do it mostly for PR, such that they can hopefully make more money. So I like the idea of giving every baby born from the government, $7,000 in phantomizing them saying you can't touch it until the age of 65 and an S&P or a low-cost index fund from Vanguard. And then in 30 years, you say in another 30 years, every kid, every adult in America is going to have a million-dollar pension. We are going to do a wave of social security, which would begin to buttress the bond market. You'd see interest rates go down, and you would see affordability start to increase as the world in the bond market started to say, "Oh my God, look at America. They're actually acting like adults." So I like the idea of taking advantage of compound interest and a long-term investment in our children. But the idea of trying to be dependent upon the PR whims of billionaires to pay for shit, it's not a structural remedy. Quite frankly, it's not very sincere. I don't think a guy who denies his own blood and rejects his daughter who went through transition. I just don't buy the dealons really concerned about children. So I find the whole thing distasteful, cynical, and quite frankly, full of shit. Listen up voters, the combined spending of the 2020 election race was over $14 billion. The 2024 campaign was not far behind. Where does all that money come from? Sure, some of it's from We the People, but far too much of it isn't appropriately tracked or disclosed. If the FDA mandates that every food we eat needs to have an ingredients list, the same should be true for campaign donations. And yet, many wealthy donors never have their names associated with the candidates that they're giving millions to. Members, that's you and me, need to know who's supporting the people we're voting for, because far too often, everything is not as it seems. This week on "Nourth and Chill," we are calling out the failings of the FEC and the whole election funding system as we delve into all things campaign finance. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com/yourrichbf. Alright, let's end on a lighter note. In Indiana, Democratic candidate is explaining herself, "Jimmy West is running for the Fire County Council. She made a strange appearance during a televised forum on October 9, where she launched into a rambling rant against Republicans to clip when fire will last week, speaking with Pierce Morgan last night. West got the chance to explain herself saying she was nervous, wagging over and full of Republicans, but insisted she stands by what she said and that she wasn't that drunk. That is doing a lot of work there. The word that is doing a lot of work. Let's watch a clip. Going in and have to face your elected leaders face to face is scary alone and need help. You know? That's my opening statement. I'm a fighter and y'all to vote for me. What is the one decision that I would make that might not be popular with fake guns? Right. That may be unpopular with some voters, but is in the best interest of the county. Fighting our Republicans. Say just a few last words to the voters. We have guns too. A lot of people assumed you might have had a drink before you did that interview, did you? I had a course light, I had a beer. Jamie, here's your chance to be completely honest and transparent. How many beers did you have? Man, I had three beers, okay. Okay, so do you accept you may have been a little intoxicated? Not that intoxicated, but I do know what I'm talking about. I love her. I love her. I love her. I love this woman. She's so good. The silver bullet, course light. Oh my gosh. So I think we can all agree that she does in fact need help. And kids, I talk a lot about alcohol, never drink at work. But let me back up and have some empathy. I met you on Bill Mar. I get so fucking nervous on that show because it was the only show my dad watched other than Maple Leafs hockey. I got to be honest. Twice, I have shotgunned a beer before I went on. Now, I'm not drunk, but it calms my nerves. I think the term for that is alcoholism. So I somewhat empathize with her. But going out and being that shitty drunk on live TV, yeah, I guess the key is, don't be tipsy, be ridiculously fucked up. But I, whatever, if I live there, she'd have my vote. At this point, I should have my vote. Your thoughts, Jess? I think that she encapsulates the energy that a lot of us on the left, which that more of our electeds or aspiring electeds would have. She understands the anger and the frustration of the moment. She's in a county that's 80% Republican. The sheriff's nephew or son has threatened her big uphill battle. And I do like that she said, we have guns too. Because people talk about this. And the fact that this country, you know, couldn't evolve into a civil war again. And what are we going to do? Because a lot of the liberals don't have guns. But in Indiana, they have guns too. So I think all in all, an important statement on our politics. And I like the peers had her and was pushing in that. Ben, who was the conservative that was on to was having a laugh about it. We do need breaks from all of this being just meltdowns all the time. And I like the moments when the internet is actually a warming force in our life and not pulling us into these terrible partisan silos. I met no conservative who didn't like Jamie West. Yeah, look, I don't know if she has a gun, but it's pretty clear she has a mini fridge. I mean, yeah, I'm going to make a prediction. And I'm going to make a prediction. Unfortunately, I don't think this was going to win this seat. But I'm 100% sure she's going to have a podcast. I would wish she had her. She's got a great vibe. Yeah, she does. And I'm into Jamie West's vibe. All right, Ms. West. Best of luck to you. Let's leave it there, Jess. All right. I'll see you soon. [MUSIC PLAYING]