Flock Cameras, Immigration & Idaho’s Free-Market Case

Bob Neugebauer Welcome, my friends, to the Idaho Pulse. This is your host, Steve Bob, bringing you one more interesting session of comments on our many items that are affecting our state. And here today to join me is our good friend, Ronald Nate, president of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, who I hear had an awesome event on this past Friday. So let me once again welcome our friend and guest for today, Ron Nate, to the Idaho Pulse. Welcome my friend. Uh, what have you got for us today?

Ron Nate Well, it’s great to be on Idaho Pulse again. I want to let you know that we did have a fantastic event last Saturday night where we had the editor in chief of the Babylon Bee. His name is Kyle Mann. He came and spoke and shared with us some of their some of their hot takes on memes and, and whatnot. And what was fascinating about that was his stories about how thin skinned the media is and how, uh how just, uh, quick they are to declare something misinformation or misleading or unfactual. And, you know, did you know that the Babylon Bee is a satire news site? So they put up they put up the absurd headlines, whatever. And, uh, one of the takeaways from his talk last Saturday was the number of times that their headlines and their stories have been put up, subject to fact checking. And so somebody will actually go through the process and says, you know, Snopes says this isn’t true. And you’re like, uh, no, duh. It’s satire, you know? And so, um, the, the amount of times that they are that their headlines and their stories come so close to the truth that some do gooder out there feels like they need to fact check. It just shows you how absurd our society has become, you know, one

Bob Neugebauer Well.

Ron Nate of the ones that was fact checked and this is the one that stood out to me was they published a picture of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the headline read that the ninth district has overturned the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I thought that was hilarious, because the Ninth Circuit is also always doing wacky stuff, but clearly they cannot overturn a death. But that was that was put up, subject to fact checking. And it was found fact check. False that the ninth District did not overturn the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Just

Bob Neugebauer I’m surprised

Ron Nate bizarre.

Bob Neugebauer I didn’t put it on c n n.

Ron Nate Oh, hilarious. It was just hilarious stuff. But anyway, he gave a great message and a great cautionary tale at the end there that as their stuff, as absurd as it is, starts sounding more and more like the truth. It shows you how far society has gone over the cliff. We have an America that was founded on principles, founded on the principles of free speech, and that includes speech you don’t like, uh, sometimes. And so he was pointing out that we need to preserve these freedoms and, uh, just, just gave a, a great message. Also joining us on stage was Kelly J. Keane. She is the founder and CEO of Let Women Speak. It’s a UK based organisation trying to get the message out that the trans agenda does put people at risk, namely women and girls whose spaces are threatened by men calling themselves women, or even role playing and dressing up like women. And, uh, and, uh, she also gave a cautionary tale of what’s going on in the UK with the Muslim takeover of their country and the, um, just total abolition of UK culture because it’s being replaced by Muslim culture all the time. And Muslim law, which is not Particularly friendly to women and freedoms either. And so great cautionary tale from her. Um, great messaging. Uh, we had a full room. It was a, it was a great evening. Our team did a fantastic job. The people who came, I think they had a great time. And we appreciate them and their support.

Bob Neugebauer Well, I wish I could have attended, but it’s quite a long journey for me. And, uh, maybe next year.

Ron Nate Maybe next year. Yeah, we’ll we’ll we’ll get you down here. I’ll, I’ll come and pick you up.

Bob Neugebauer I used to be a regular at those events, to be very honest with you even have a plaque to prove it.

Ron Nate Absolutely. Well deserved. You are a patriot and a hero.

Bob Neugebauer Well, not like you guys.

Ron Nate Uh.

Bob Neugebauer So what do you what

Ron Nate Same boat.

Bob Neugebauer do you got for us today? Where

Ron Nate Well,

Bob Neugebauer do we stand?

Ron Nate uh, I just want to follow up on flock cameras a little bit. Last week, we mentioned how much cities are paying for these, and and, uh, it is becoming a constitutional issue. I don’t know if any Supreme Court has ruled on this, whether state or federal Supreme Court has ruled on anything. But, uh, the Fourth Amendment is pretty clear that you should be secure in your person and possessions and, and your things and your items, uh, without the prying eye of government. But flock cameras do just the opposite. It’s big brother in action. Um, our, our local government accountability analyst, Aaron Vanatta has written an article on, uh, the spying of the spy cameras that are flocking to Idaho and the cities that they’re involved in. So that will be released this afternoon. So reason to, uh, to look up Idaho freedom dot org and check your emails to that. This article is coming out and you’ll want to check it out to know just how intrusive they are. And not only that, you get to pay for the intrusion in two ways a loss of privacy and your tax dollars hard at work against you again.

Bob Neugebauer Seems a little bit onerous to me. Maybe we have to do a little more checking on this stuff.

Ron Nate Yeah. The city of Caldwell spending half a million a year almost on sixty one flock cameras and a few drones.

Bob Neugebauer Are those the same people that didn’t want to support the, uh, dog kennel down there in Caldwell?

Ron Nate Dog kennel. I haven’t looked into that. I’m going to have to check that one out. Also, next week I’ll have an article coming out on the Supreme Court did make a decision in Monsanto and Roundup case, where a guy in Missouri who had been, uh, caretaking of his neighborhood, um, you know, spraying roundup for years, uh, developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, uh, went and sued Monsanto for the dangers of its product and actually proved in court to the satisfaction of a jury that roundup was responsible for this and was was awarded one point two five million dollars. Well, of course, Monsanto and Bayer. Bayer is the German company at large. You know, they do aspirin, but they also own Monsanto. Uh, challenged that in court all the way up to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court, uh, overturned the jury’s decision. And so that guy is left without recourse. But, uh, they tried to pass a law in Idaho holding Monsanto and Bayer harmless to any, uh, uh, protected from any harms that they cause, uh, so that they couldn’t be sued, uh, if shut down that legislation every way for two years. Uh, you know, they, they are looking for some state to protect them so that whenever somebody sues Monsanto and Bayer, they can run to that state and have that state as their venue and, uh, be held harmless for from any liability. I think it’s a bad policy to have blanket immunity from liability. We saw what happened in Covid when pharmaceutical companies are held harmless from liability. And so they just put untested, unproven, ineffective, potentially unsafe vaccines out on the market and then have government coerce you into taking them. Bad

Bob Neugebauer Well,

Ron Nate news.

Bob Neugebauer that all comes from the fact that they threatened to stop producing vaccines. And so the government acquiesced, said, okay, we won’t go after you if you do something stupid. The problem is they’ve been doing something stupid. And you take a look at the number of vaccines that a child gets from the time they’re born until the time they’re eighteen. It’s between sixty and seventy. That’s a lot of vaccine being pumped into your body.

Ron Nate That is that is. And so if is watching both of those, we, uh, we, we help pass legislation, not this session, but the prior session about health freedom that, uh, you can’t be coerced into, into taking vaccines. So we have adult health freedom and school kid health freedom, but we need to go even further to daycares and early childhood, being exempt from immunity from from immunization and vaccine mandates. And if we can get that, then Idaho will be the first truly free state from anyone being required to take a vaccination or immunization. And that’s

Bob Neugebauer Let me

Ron Nate Idaho

Bob Neugebauer let

Ron Nate needs

Bob Neugebauer me

Ron Nate to lead out.

Bob Neugebauer let me ask you a question about this, because I have several members of my family who work for in medical groups and even for, uh, utility type companies that were required to take that Covid vaccine, what do you think there would be in terms of a recourse lawsuit that could be a class action suit, going back at these people for forcing this as, uh, something that had to do or get fired?

Ron Nate Yeah, you know, that would be interesting to see it play out because I think it it was very harmful for businesses or government contractors or government agencies saying that you have to get vaccinated or you lose your job. But on the other hand, there are businesses out there saying that, but they were saying that because the government says you need to require vaccinations or you can’t open or you’ll be fined or you’ll be punished. So they too were coerced and forced by government to do something that might have been unsavory in their own mind.

Bob Neugebauer But then when you take a look at what happened with the asbestos suits and

Ron Nate Yeah.

Bob Neugebauer the fact that the government was very much involved in that also, uh,

Ron Nate That’s right.

Bob Neugebauer if, if you I was down at the Brooklyn Navy Yards, they were covered with asbestos down there, but

Ron Nate That’s

Bob Neugebauer I didn’t

Ron Nate right.

Bob Neugebauer see it. I didn’t see anybody going after the government. And that’s a problem.

Ron Nate No,

Bob Neugebauer They.

Ron Nate it’s all businesses. And so, you know, you see those ads on TV, Mesothelioma or whatever. That and the reason why there’s all those lawsuits out there is because the laws were changed. And it said that there was a presumption that if you had mesothelioma, if I’m saying it right, the presumption was it was asbestos causing it. So it’s on the business or the apartment owner. So the housing or the, or the companies, uh, they have to prove that it didn’t because the presumption is that it did. And this is kind of what Baron Monsanto were trying to do. They were trying to be harmless from any cause there. And so they first of all tried to make it so that, uh, anybody who sued them, it would have been thrown out because they were immune to liability, that failing. They wanted to change the burden of proof, saying that if, if you did get harmed by it, if you got non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the presumption was that it wasn’t roundup and somebody would have to prove that it was, which is a flip of the script on Burden of Proof. And so they were trying every way possible to be held harmless from any damages they caused. And so this is an interesting thing. I know there are frivolous tort claims out there, but people just sue because there’s big pockets out there. But there’s also people who are harmed by some of those big corporations, and we ought to have the ability to sue when it’s appropriate to sue. And and we shouldn’t have the law blanket decide one way or another that the company is never going to be held responsible, or the company is always going to be held responsible. There is there is a proper system of justice which allows people to sue when they are when they are indeed harmed.

Bob Neugebauer Well, I indeed feel that with the Covid, when you take a look at what Fauci did and he was in fact involved in the Wuhan, uh, virus, uh, scandal. I mean, it’s not the United States responsible for having this virus out there. Could they be sued?

Ron Nate Oh, I know it wasn’t funny how the media was mocking Senator Rand Paul when he was questioning Fauci and Fauci. Fauci didn’t give any countervailing evidence. He just says, you don’t know what you’re talking about. The media jumps on that. Rand Paul doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But it turns out Rand Paul was right, doesn’t

Bob Neugebauer Right.

Ron Nate it? Turns out that they were doing gain of function research at Wuhan lab. Turns out that all the cases, the early cases of Covid nineteen were coming from the Wuhan area in in October and November of twenty nineteen, and it wasn’t anywhere near bats, bats hundreds of kilometers away. So Rand Paul was right. A lot of us knew he was right at the time, but the media tried to cover it up, throw a blanket over this, give Fauci awards and medals. And, uh, he is likely responsible for the funding of it. He’s responsible for the outbreak in part, and especially he’s responsible for for the cover up and the misinformation and the danger that he put everyone in by not fessing up to it and showing that there were better solutions.

Bob Neugebauer I think the only bats are the bats in the belfry. My friend.

Ron Nate Yep. So, um, the last thing I want to talk about today, it might be the longest thing too, is my econ one hundred and one series that we’ve been kind of doing with you. Um, I talked in the past about the benefits of comparative advantage and specialization and how free trade makes us better off. Talked about supply and demand and how the freely functioning price mechanism, uh, gets things where they need to be the most and, uh, minimizes the, the pain of not having things or not being able to supply things by prices, adjusting and creating the incentives to overcome shortages and, and overcome surpluses. And last week, we talked about comparative economic systems. We talked about the virtues of a market system versus versus the so-called virtues of a centrally planned economy, like communism or socialism, and saw that, uh, I’ll remind you that where we ended up was looking at a metric of economic freedom and the freest economies in the world do all of what a lot of the best things for people are. If you are a conservative or if you are a leftist liberal and you want people to be well educated, have good health care, live longer, uh, be out of poverty the most, or if you are in poverty, be cared for the most. All of those metrics of or if you want them to be civically engaged, if you want them to have more equality across races and genders, if all of those things you’re most concerned about the free economy did better In generating those results, then a planned economy. Leftist liberals should be the biggest proponents of free markets, because free markets have tackled those problems better than any planned or socialist economy has. History doesn’t lie. The evidence doesn’t lie. But it’s not about the welfare of the people. Is it really? Leftist liberal control is about that. It’s about control and power. And so we’re taking off the emperor’s clothes and showing you what they’re really about. Because when we show you the evidence that, uh, people are better off under a market economy and they still, still deny it, then they’re exposed that they are power mongers. Indeed.

Bob Neugebauer Let me ask you a question about that. Um,

Ron Nate Mhm.

Bob Neugebauer we see here just in Idaho how the government has, through taxation, uh, enamored themselves to the larger corporations such as meta, Amazon, Google with large tax breaks.

Ron Nate Yes.

Bob Neugebauer Is that is isn’t that part and parcel of what we’re talking about here?

Ron Nate I’m glad you mentioned that, because when we talk about data centers, when we talk about big, big industry, when we talk about Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, it sounds like those that all the government directed toward that is about free markets. It’s not it’s about, um, you know, people talk about crony capitalism. I don’t even think it’s even close to capitalism enough to call it that. I would call it crony statism. That is the state co-opting power and, uh, presenting it to these businesses and working hand in hand with businesses both for power and the businesses profit. And none of it is free market. So when you’re giving tax breaks to data centers, When you’re giving tax breaks and big government handouts during Covid to big industries like hospitals and health insurance, that’s not free market, that’s crony statism. And so we need to be careful that these, these organizations and these principles that operate as pro-business, pro-business is not the same thing as pro free markets and pro-economic freedom. Usually it is the the power structure of government hand in hand with big business that works to the detriment of the everyday. Joe.

Bob Neugebauer Uh, I don’t disagree with you. And when you look at those who are members of the Iraqi group who have several very large political pacts that, uh, that literally contribute very heavily to getting legislators elected, it tells me this is pay to play.

Ron Nate Absolutely. When you look at contributions, it betrays their motives. Um, let me ask you this, Bob. Slipping into my econ one hundred and one, I want to finish up on this comparative economic systems and the virtues I’m going to make the case today. I am going to give you the pro free market case. Okay. I’m going to tell you about the virtues of it, but I want to start by asking you a question, Bob. Are you a conservative?

Bob Neugebauer I consider myself one. Yeah.

Ron Nate Cool. Let me ask you, why are you a conservative? Why do you want to be a conservative?

Bob Neugebauer Um, I guess through my sixty years of experience in business. I’ve found that to be a much more successful position, uh, than to be on the opposite side, especially in business.

Ron Nate Yeah. And so by by success. What do you mean? The successful position. What what success do you want to see?

Bob Neugebauer Um, I would think that if you look back in history, uh, the countries that have been, uh, more free and

Ron Nate Mhm.

Bob Neugebauer give people the opportunities to do what they think is best and not what government thinks is best. Uh, is the best, uh, instrument to building an economy that will be, uh, surprisingly better than anything else that could be built by other means.

Ron Nate I love that answer. And embedded in that answer, I detected this. You’re a conservative because you want whatever economic system we have to serve the people better. And that’s kind of my answer, too. I consider myself a conservative. And when people ask me why I’m a conservative, my answer is because I care about people. And if you care about people, uh, you and you look at the data honestly and objectively, you have to be drawn to a conservative answer. Because you’re right. The free market system, the conservative system, where government is limited in its role and it’s limited to the role of protecting rights, does better for people than any other system yet devised on this planet. And so if you care about people, you have to be a conservative. If you don’t care about people and you only care about looking good or virtue signaling, that draws you to be a liberal or a leftist. And they they claim they care about people the most, yet they keep adopting economic principles and policies and government programs that don’t serve the people actually harm the people. And you can just go look back to the Great Society of the nineteen sixties. If you want a counter example. And you see, Great Society was meant to help the poor and to help disadvantaged families. But what it has done is it’s trapped families in a intergenerational cycle of poverty. It has broken up families, especially minority families, because it incentivizes single parent Households to be single parent. And so if you care about people, you’ve got to disavow the Great Society and you’ve got to promote conservative free market principles.

Bob Neugebauer I think the most distinctive thing that you can point to, uh, if recent times is what happened during the Biden era, the four years where the government tried to control just about everything environmentally, uh, and what we wound up with was nine percent inflation, uh, lower economic growth and, uh, government continue to grow by leaps and bounds.

Ron Nate Yeah, but but Biden said he cared. The Biden administration

Bob Neugebauer Uh.

Ron Nate said they cared about people. They’re trying to take care of us, and they cost a lot of harm and misery. But they still claim they’re the they’re the caring. Let me let me go through kind of wrapping up this comparative economic system. Um, and really it’s Adam Smith versus Keynes versus Marxists. You know, Keynes and Marxists. I put in the same camp. You know, the only difference between the Keynesians and Marxists is the Keynesians would want people to vote democratically for their own demise. And the Marxists want to take over the systems and coerce people into their own demise. So it’s either way, it’s it’s either death by murder or death by suicide. But the capitalists, you know, the Adam Smith’s of the world want people to be free to make their own decisions. Adam Smith, one of my favorite quotes. It’s not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. And the beauty of that quote is that these firms, you know, when you go and buy food, when you go and buy drinks and stuff, um, they serve you often with a smile, not because they love you, but because they love themselves. You know, they want to build a successful business, The server wants to get paid and keep their job. They care about themselves so much they will serve one another. And that is the beauty of a of a free market system. It turns the selfish motives of wanting to take care of yourself into a force that makes you want to serve others. So if I want to have a great job and get paid well and get rewarded for that, I serve others because my boss wants me to take care of the customers. And if I am that boss, I want to make sure that I serve as many customers and in the best way possible. And it’s, do I love my customers? Not necessarily, but I love myself. And so I want those profits. Does Walmart love me? Walmart doesn’t love me. They don’t even know me. But they want to make sure I’m a happy customer. So I keep coming back. And so their profit motive makes them want to serve me and everyone else. It’s a beautiful system. On the other hand, let me give you Karl Marx. If you look at a picture of him, he looks like an old backwoods Santa Claus. But here’s the quote from The Communist Manifesto, from Karl Marx, now the Communist Manifesto and his book Das Kapital, is that, uh, there he’s very critical of capitalism. So I’m reading this quote to you, and this is his indictment of capitalism because capitalism is bad, because, quote, industries whose products are consumed not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe in place of, of the old wants satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes in place of the old, local and local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency. We have universal interdependence of nations. Now in this, in his attempt to bash on capitalism, saying, look, we used to be self-sufficient. We used to, uh, produce locally and everything. Now we have to rely on distant lands and climes and production in other countries. Uh, he views that as a negative. But you know what? I live in Idaho, and I like to eat a banana once in a while. If I relied on banana or Idaho grown bananas, I’m going to be very disappointed. Soul. But because of specialization and trade and interdependence of nations and interdependence of economies and interdependence of businesses, we get products from all over the world that we couldn’t have possibly gotten on our own if it was just up to some sort of central planning. But because people in America love Nutella and the Italian company that produces Nutella, they make sure we get it. Not because they love us, but because they love their own profits. Isn’t that amazing what. What Marx views as a problem with capitalism is actually one of the greatest benefits of capitalism that we get. We get to consume things that we couldn’t possibly have dreamt of, because somebody else wants to make sure we get it so they themselves are better off.

Bob Neugebauer Well, the question arises, why are we seeing this movement towards socialism in our country and our major big cities?

Ron Nate Exactly. Did you know that there is a growing view out there in academia, and maybe even in the media, that business is evil? Do you think business is evil?

Bob Neugebauer I don’t personally.

Ron Nate I don’t either. When business teams with government to try and coerce profits out of us or taxes out of us, then it becomes part of an eagle duo, right? But business, just trying to succeed as a business, uh, does good things for people. Uh, you know, the media and academia would say, how do we rein in bad business, uh, students? If you ask them business majors, what their major is, some of them hedge, some of them apologize for being business majors. It’s now viewed as a negative on campuses. There’s a movement to get business schools out of universities. Um, and so the common view is have you ever heard this, that, wow, that’s a great business. Those guys are super rich. They need to give back to the community. I have seen many a meme that says, this is how much Elon Musk earns. This is how much he has. This is how much they don’t say earns. This is how much wealth Elon Musk has taken from the world. When’s he going to give something back? You know, that is a that is a view of business being evil, that for Elon Musk to do well, he must have taken from someone. But I’ll tell

Bob Neugebauer Well.

Ron Nate you this in a market economy, to do well as a business means to serve others. So his success is not from taking from someone, but by serving a lot of people. The world is better off when Elon Musk makes a dollar than when he doesn’t.

Bob Neugebauer I don’t disagree. I will

Ron Nate Mhm.

Bob Neugebauer tell you that I see a stealth movement taking place in this country, away from the universities that are teaching our kids how to become liberal, uh, dummies and

Ron Nate That’s right.

Bob Neugebauer going, going to, uh, going to technical schools, going to electrical schools, going to automotive schools, learning how to do a trade because we’ve lost that. And that has always been the hub of what America is about. It’s that worker that nowadays you’d be a welder and make one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. Well,

Ron Nate That’s

Bob Neugebauer I know

Ron Nate right.

Bob Neugebauer what I know economists that don’t make that.

Ron Nate Exactly. And and they flat out lied to the students about the virtues of of a market economy and the virtues of business, and that somehow business is evil now. And so you’d be better off learning basket weaving or modern dance theory or something like that. Those don’t contribute to society. Uh, one great measure of how much something contributes to society is how much somebody is willing to pay for it. And if you’re not willing to pay top bucks to go and watch modern dance theory, people dance around on the stage. It must be that it’s not providing that much benefit to society, but producing cars that get people to and from work to and from school across the country to visit family. That’s very valuable to people. They’re willing to pay a lot for it because you’re adding a lot of value to folks lives. And so if you start to flip the discussion about the economy on looking at prices and wages being an indication of value added to society, it puts business in a whole different light. Let me tell you about a concept called eudaimonia. Eudaimonia e u d a. I’m o n I a. You know what that word is? It means to live a full, happy, and well-lived life. And I would argue that that is maybe the prime directive of of a lot of individuals to live a happy, long, well-lived life. Isn’t that what this is about? To be happy and being happy is not just being a a consumer, it’s being a virtuous giver. It’s being a producer. You know, Arthur Brooks has written books. Arthur Brooks, you know, the, um talks about the conservative heart and, and, uh, people being happy. And he talks about a portfolio of happiness. The most happy people on earth are not the richest ones. He says the biggest thing about being happy is, is having people around you who love you and who you you love back. And it’s also about having not just success, but earned success and earned success is different. Winning a lottery is success, but a lot of lottery winners don’t end up happy, but somebody who works their whole life and earns something and earns a retirement, and has built a business or built a home that earned success, has led to more happiness than just getting rich. And so isn’t that your goal? To be happy, to earn some success? Business can support this model of earned success, but we need to have kind of a just and humane society where people can freely earn without being villainized. Right? And so let me put it this way. Here’s my econ one hundred and one lesson of the day. There are a few ways that you can gain wealth. One, you could build your own estate. And for hundreds, for thousands of years, people’s wealth was based on what they built for themselves. You built your own home, maybe out of wood or trees nearby. You. You did your own crops around your home or whatever. Maybe you had an acre or two to grow some food and stuff, and that self-sufficient economy was building your own wealth. Now there’s limits to what you can build yourself in terms of wealth. You can do very good. Maybe you’re a great home builder. Um, or there’s another way. And that is you can extract wealth and you can do that through wars, taking over other countries. You can do that through theft, stealing from others. You can do that through slavery, stealing others labor. That’s another way to get wealthy. Or there’s a third way. And that is cooperation where you can work with others and maybe do what you do well, they do what they do well and you have exchanges, or you do something for them while they do something for you. You’re a good home builder. They’re a good farmer. And then so they do something for you and you do something for them. And it turns out that if you want to work with others, there’s only two options either extraction, where you’re stealing from others as a, as a group of thugs, or as a war of mercenaries, or you can cooperate where you’re working together and working for someone, earning an income and then buying what you want, or, or trading goods and services. Now, which is more moral extraction or cooperation?

Bob Neugebauer Well, I tend to agree that cooperation is right. But let me throw this one at you.

Ron Nate Mhm.

Bob Neugebauer We have this. We have this problem here in our country with fourteen million illegal aliens. I call them. Okay? Some people

Ron Nate Yep.

Bob Neugebauer call them immigrants. They are being used by manufacturers, by hospitality, by many different industries, building industries, uh, to circumvent the normal labor market and hold down, uh, what they have to pay and who is paying the price for that? Well, it’s the public through their taxes that pay for their Medicaid, their Medicare, their t, excuse me, their education. And in many cases, the food they get from snap.

Ron Nate And what you’ve just described are the problems with an extraction based economic setup that the firms who hire them are extracting labor from them at a lower than market wage. That’s why they want the illegal immigrant labor. The illegal immigrants, and the businesses in tandem are extracting from the rest of society by taking jobs that could have been worked by the other members of society at a market wage. So those jobs are now fewer and farther between. Government is extracting from both of them by taking taxes and then providing welfare programs or other public services involuntarily provided. That’s what the, the the taxation, uh, you know, compulsive taxation is about is extracting from some giving to others for government’s own purposes. And so what you’ve described with this illegal immigrant labor economy set up is extractive on three different grounds. And that is that is really the basis of a theft, extraction, coercive type of an economic system.

Bob Neugebauer Let me just take this one step further. And that’s with the immigration policy that we’ve had for years. H-1b visas allowing a million or so people in a year. We are not reproducing at a rate necessary to continue doing what we’re doing here in this country. We do need immigrants on a regular basis so that there’s a qualified question here. We need immigrants, but we need immigrants who are coming in here legally that we don’t have to subsidize. And that’s

Ron Nate Exactly. I don’t think anyone disagrees with

Bob Neugebauer right.

Ron Nate legal immigration and people coming here. In fact, America was based on that, right?

Bob Neugebauer Right.

Ron Nate The way we are, you know, the so-called melting pot of a lot of people coming here to live the American dream. But when we change it that they come here to live off of welfare system, we have turned it into an extractive economy. And government, by its nature, is extractive. It’s full of people who think they are moral. But all of these government programs and these government behaviors take compulsory taxation, extract it from the people to then virtuously in their own minds, provide things for people. But it’s an extractive situation. It’s not voluntary cooperation. And so the business model, though a free market economy based on voluntary exchange, voluntary participation, voluntary work, voluntary employment, all that stuff is a cooperative setup. I work for somebody because we’ve agreed that they will pay me something for what I do, and I get paid for it, and then I go and exchange and engage in voluntary transactions with stores and businesses to get the things I want, and they happily sell them to me, because these are all cooperative, non-extractive, non-compulsory situations. And so the prosperity that comes from those voluntary things is outrageous compared to the extractive compulsory behavior of government. The administrative state is wasteful. The compulsory nature of it detracts resources away from production in a way to and over to enforcement, which is a net negative. And so Prosperity. Really? And government does this under the guise of equality, right? Prosperity versus equality. Let’s let’s suss this out a little bit. How much is Elon Musk worth?

Bob Neugebauer About a trillion dollars.

Ron Nate Yeah, he’s worth about a trillion dollars now. LeBron James or take your biggest NBA star Steph Curry whoever it is. Uh, Djokovic who, who how much are they worth? How much?

Bob Neugebauer Oh, in the hundreds of millions, possibly billions in some cases.

Ron Nate Yeah. So maybe let let’s go big. Let’s say there’s an NBA star out there worth a billion dollars. But Elon Musk we just said is worth a thousand times that. Should we worry about the welfare of that NBA star?

Bob Neugebauer I wouldn’t.

Ron Nate No. They’re worth a billion dollars. So is inequality a problem there? No,

Bob Neugebauer Not in my mind.

Ron Nate no, they’re both just fine. Right. Um, by the way, do you know how much I’m. How many millions I’m worth? I’m worth zero millions of dollars. But you know what? I have a house. I have some cars. I able to get food when Ellen earned. Ellen has a trillion dollars, and the NBA star has a billion dollars. And I have zero millions of dollars. AM I an economic concern?

Bob Neugebauer No, but you better find some friends in government to help you out.

Ron Nate No, no, I don’t even need to do that. I’m doing just fine. I’m doing just fine, Bob. And you know what? There’s massive inequality there. But I’m doing just fine. Should I? Should I be sadder or feel oppressed in any way? Because Ellen has a trillion and NBA has a billion and I don’t even have one million dollars. Should I feel oppressed? Is that a negative to society?

Bob Neugebauer Well, unfortunately, that’s what they’re teaching in our colleges and universities now, and that’s

Ron Nate That’s

Bob Neugebauer where

Ron Nate right.

Bob Neugebauer we have a

Ron Nate And

Bob Neugebauer problem.

Ron Nate they’re they’re teaching students who come from middle class America. And by the way, middle class America compared to the rest of the world, middle class America is in the top five percent of income earners worldwide.

Bob Neugebauer Yep.

Ron Nate And if you look at equality. Oh, you’re talking about oppression and how bad off they are. But if you’re talking about prosperity, that is the American dream that you can be middle class and be in the top of income and wealth earners, um, worldwide. Uh, the manager of the McDonald’s might make eighty thousand, ninety thousand a year. Their line level cashier might make thirty thousand a year, three times the income manager versus cashier. Is that an equality problem in America?

Bob Neugebauer I essentially, I would say no.

Ron Nate No, because the manager has years of experience. They have expertise. The cashier is doing this as a part time job. High school, maybe even in college. But their their upside, their future is bright. So even though you have some people in the same little business, they’re earning three times as much as the other, you know, the, the, uh, um, the leftists will go, oh, that’s massive inequality. Free market person looks at it and goes, they’re both prospering. Isn’t prosperity great? Uh, a Wall Street boss might earn twenty six million a year. A first year trader just out of university might earn one hundred and thirty zero zero zero a year, twenty times the difference. Sorry, two hundred times the difference. Yet I don’t think anyone would look at that Wall Street trader first year as being part of an American prosperity problem.

Bob Neugebauer Having spent thirty seven years in the business. I would agree with you.

Ron Nate Yep. Did you know? Did you know? Did you know that the top one percent of income earners in America, uh, generate twenty percent of the income?

Bob Neugebauer Yeah.

Ron Nate Uh, the top ten percent generate forty seven percent of the income. But you might look at that and go, all right, well, let’s look at the taxes they pay. The top one percent of income earners generate twenty one percent of the income. Do you think they pay anywhere close to twenty one percent of the federal taxes?

Bob Neugebauer Uh, my bet is they pay more.

Ron Nate They do. They pay about twice as much more. They pay about forty percent of all federal income taxes. The top one percent generate one fifth of the income. But they are paying forty percent of all federal income taxes. That’s a progressive tax structure that the more you earn, the more you pay. And

Bob Neugebauer Right.

Ron Nate so the top fifty percent Get this, the top fifty percent of income earners, uh, generate about eighty eight percent of the income. That means the bottom fifty percent generate about twelve percent of the income, but the top fifty percent are paying ninety seven percent of all federal income taxes. They too, disproportionately pay income taxes. And so let’s let’s get away from this concept that the rich don’t pay their fair share. They are actually paying disproportionately more than the rest of society.

Bob Neugebauer But then you’re diametrically opposed to Bernie Sanders stance that millionaires need to pay more.

Ron Nate My response is they already do pay more. They

Bob Neugebauer I

Ron Nate already

Bob Neugebauer agree.

Ron Nate do pay more. And so are you going to do this? Are you going to say, you know what? I still don’t think they pay enough. By the way, uh, I’ve never been hired by a poor person.

Bob Neugebauer That’s true. Probably true.

Ron Nate Every, you know, the jobs are created by those who are are producers. And so if somebody is great at building a business, you know, Elon Musk, look at him. He’s built this business, this Tesla business and other businesses and whatever, uh, that have employed thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, created incomes, put kids through college, let them buy their homes by their cars and whatever created massive prosperity. Do you want to stop what he’s doing and say, ah, you know, that’s not good for society. Well, he’s got a gift of building something that is very productive and lots of people benefit from it. That’s the American dream. I don’t care how much Elon earns, but I do care that the opportunity for lots of other people to earn a lot, even if it’s through his business. It’s just wonderful.

Bob Neugebauer That’s what America is all about, my friend.

Ron Nate That’s what it is. Okay. Can I finish? Oh, should I wait for a link? Man, we’re we’re kind of out of time. I, I will wait on this. This this will be beautiful. It’ll be my start for econ one hundred one. Next time I’ll talk about King Louis the fourteenth. Remind me about that next time.

Bob Neugebauer Sounds good to me. I want to be crowned when you do that.

Ron Nate Awesome. We’ll make you King Bob.

Bob Neugebauer King for a day. You know, like the queen for the day.

Ron Nate King Bob the first.

Bob Neugebauer My friend, thank you very much. Uh, I know you’re all choked up, so we

Ron Nate Oh,

Bob Neugebauer will

Ron Nate talking

Bob Neugebauer see.

Ron Nate about free market economics, it just hits me in the heart every time, Bob.

Bob Neugebauer Well, next time, I’d like you to, uh, relate to me. Why, uh, our vice President Vance doesn’t like Adam Smith.

Ron Nate What? All right, we’re going to have to have a talk.

Bob Neugebauer Okay.

Ron Nate Thanks, Bob. It’s been great being

Bob Neugebauer Uh,

Ron Nate on your show again.

Bob Neugebauer have a great week, my friend. We’ll talk to you soon.

Ron Nate Awesome.