Chad Adams Fills In For Pete Kaliner (12-30-24--Hour 3)

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[00:00:28] Chad Adams Fills In For Pete Kaliner here on Newstalk 1110 99.3 WBT 704-570-1110, the phone number should you want to be a part of the broadcast today. It's always an honor and a pleasure to sit here. The WBT staff is absolutely outstanding. They really are. I've been fortunate to work with or have guest appearances on stations across this great state and appearances on other ones outside of this state and just a top notch team.

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[00:01:40] Wouldn't it be amazing if our government only funded – now this is going to sound so heartless here at the end of the year. I don't mean for it to, and I'm not going to belabor this one or get into it in great detail.

[00:01:51] But if the government was only funding the actual outline of what the Constitution told it to, if we just got rid of all the superfluous foreign aid – imagine foreign aid's gone.

[00:02:05] I mean I happen to like foreign aid, but I think – do we need it? Because by the way, foreign aid, if you like 30 countries that are in it and you don't like five, it's all lumped into one.

[00:02:15] So if you're funding Turkey and Israel and, I don't know, Rwanda, and you don't like one of them, it's all the same. It's all one giant bill.

[00:02:25] All of those other government programs – and by the way, if we're being honest, have they really worked?

[00:02:30] Now Social Security, wouldn't it have been interesting if Social Security was a separate entity?

[00:02:37] What if the Social Security Administration was not government-run but actually had some import?

[00:02:45] It was a national retirement service that everybody could invest in.

[00:02:49] The returns would be greater. It wouldn't be under assault. It would not be as prone to partisan hackery.

[00:02:56] It wouldn't be, and you would have more money in all likelihood, just – even if it was just kind of broadly invested.

[00:03:03] Far better would actually have performance, which is not what you have now. You don't have performance.

[00:03:08] Imagine if Medicaid and Medicare – and I'm going to say this in a way that's going to sound horrible.

[00:03:13] If it didn't exist, would our medical care be the way it is now?

[00:03:19] Imagine – I mean if we came back from World War II and instead of having medical insurance as a way to compete and get workers, we had – I've said this before, food insurance or something else.

[00:03:27] I think medicine would have evolved much – in a much more productive, efficient manner if government had never gotten into it.

[00:03:35] I think that everything that government – I mean if you want a good example of this, look at the food pyramid.

[00:03:41] Look at what should be the simplicity of a food pyramid, and the government screwed it up because they were wrong on so many counts moving back because there were so many political interests in various aspects of the food pyramid that it was just wrong.

[00:03:55] I mean eggs were under assault for decades, and they're fine.

[00:03:59] They're wonderful. Good for you.

[00:04:01] So they can't even get eggs right.

[00:04:04] Eggs, the most primitive foods we eat.

[00:04:07] They can't even get that right.

[00:04:08] And do you think they can get the complexity of everything else in our lives?

[00:04:11] So if they were just doing national defense, which is kill people, break things – even a caveman can understand that – and they were doing public safety and maybe regulating interstate commerce in some way,

[00:04:24] that's about it.

[00:04:25] I mean not too much more needed to be done.

[00:04:27] We don't need a federal department of education.

[00:04:29] The states can handle environment.

[00:04:31] The states can handle education.

[00:04:32] The states can handle most of the things that the federal government is involved in.

[00:04:35] But just imagine if you would, we wouldn't be.

[00:04:37] All we've done – we've leveraged our country $36 trillion in let – did it really make – what made us better?

[00:04:44] Was the internet access to it, access to information, the internal combustion engine.

[00:04:50] I mean maybe they do highways.

[00:04:52] Maybe they could do highways.

[00:04:52] That would be a good one.

[00:04:53] That's interstate commerce, right?

[00:04:54] So there's many things that they really didn't do a lot to make it better or more efficient.

[00:05:00] I don't think you could say that Lyndon Johnson's Great Society had great achievements.

[00:05:04] It created massive programs that didn't solve any of the things it was set out to do because the delusion of social engineering – it's an absolute delusion.

[00:05:16] It doesn't work.

[00:05:17] It just makes people dependent.

[00:05:18] But alas, I digress.

[00:05:20] And we may talk a little bit more about this.

[00:05:22] Right now we have a caller, Ray.

[00:05:23] Welcome to the show.

[00:05:24] How the heck are you?

[00:05:26] I'm doing good.

[00:05:27] How are you about yourself?

[00:05:29] I am wonderful.

[00:05:32] My question is – well, my comments, I should say – is post-security was made for when you retire.

[00:05:43] That's what the money is for, right?

[00:05:46] Well, you weren't supposed to live that long and collect off of it, so they never changed the age.

[00:05:50] You were supposed to kind of – if you lived that long, there was supposed to be a little something for you.

[00:05:54] Yeah.

[00:05:55] Right.

[00:05:56] Well, you weren't supposed to live that long and collect off of it, so they never changed the age.

[00:06:00] You were supposed to kind of – if you lived that long.

[00:06:01] I think your radio, Ray, is on the background, but go ahead.

[00:06:05] Oh, you're right.

[00:06:08] Okay.

[00:06:08] Ray?

[00:06:09] Thanks.

[00:06:09] Okay.

[00:06:10] I am living this long.

[00:06:11] I've been putting in for 45 years, right?

[00:06:16] Yes, sir.

[00:06:16] So how about 30, 30 – or 20, 35, we're going to run out of money?

[00:06:21] You know why?

[00:06:23] Because it was made for us to retire on, and they put all these exclusions on, and nothing against disabilities or anything like that.

[00:06:34] But that's not what it was meant for.

[00:06:36] Or your kids.

[00:06:37] It was not meant for your kids.

[00:06:39] You died.

[00:06:41] And, oh, guess what?

[00:06:43] He died.

[00:06:44] Oh, you get the money.

[00:06:52] No, they didn't pay in the scrap.

[00:06:56] And so now, oh, we're giving all that money to them.

[00:07:01] Well, Ray, part of it is that the money obligated – that you put into it – and I hate to say this.

[00:07:07] It's going to sound even worse than what you're saying, and a lot of what you said is true – is it's a massive pyramid scheme.

[00:07:13] Is that the money you put in it was used to pay people that retired long ago, and now the money that you're collecting is from workers that are paying into it today.

[00:07:21] And so the left would say, hey, we need all these illegals to be paying into Social Security to keep it solvent.

[00:07:26] Instead of trying to fix it, they just want to just kind of pass the buck on down.

[00:07:31] And you weren't allowed to have any determination of where that money went, and you'll never get back out of it.

[00:07:37] You worked for 45 years.

[00:07:39] There's no way in hell you get all the money out of it that you put into it.

[00:07:42] There's no way.

[00:07:43] And you can't confer it.

[00:07:44] If you had it in a mutual fund, if you had all that in a mutual fund, you could give it to your kids if you died.

[00:07:49] But you can't.

[00:07:50] So how come we can't take – the main thing is, or one of the things is, we have to put in Social Security money, right?

[00:08:00] Yeah.

[00:08:01] And the employer has to match it.

[00:08:02] So it's about 15%.

[00:08:03] Yeah.

[00:08:04] So why can't we put that money where we know it's going to go for it?

[00:08:09] You would think you would have some control.

[00:08:12] You have no control over it.

[00:08:13] It's an annuity that you never get to cash out.

[00:08:16] So – and Ray's right.

[00:08:18] And – go ahead.

[00:08:19] I've seen where all these teachers and – which, believe me, I have no control – or I'm not mad about this part.

[00:08:30] But the teachers and police officers and firemen or state employees that bought or paid into Social Security before, you know, they can't get that because it reduces.

[00:09:15] Yeah.

[00:09:19] And they're not.

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[00:10:06] I do want to get back to one topic.

[00:10:08] Actually, many topics.

[00:10:09] It's what I do.

[00:10:10] I love this attention span.

[00:10:12] That's why I love talk radio.

[00:10:13] Last week, we were finishing the week up on the H-1B controversy.

[00:10:17] You had Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy saying some things that really irked other people in MAGA world,

[00:10:23] and they were screaming.

[00:10:24] And it became quite ugly until Trump stepped in and said,

[00:10:28] hey, we're going to reform the H-1B program.

[00:10:30] And it kind of calmed the waters down a little bit.

[00:10:34] Now, worth noting is that Vivek and Elon are in does,

[00:10:39] the Department of Government Efficiency.

[00:10:40] They have nothing to do with immigration or laws.

[00:10:42] It's not even a cabinet thing.

[00:10:44] It's kind of a volunteer thing.

[00:10:46] But American refugees, a sub-stack out there,

[00:10:50] I think had a very astute observation.

[00:10:52] I'd like to share it with you because it applies not just to this issue,

[00:10:57] but as we move forward, a lot of different issues.

[00:10:59] The Democrats don't typically have this kind of problem

[00:11:01] because they are a loosely held coalition.

[00:11:04] They don't care about each other's issues.

[00:11:05] I've said that many times.

[00:11:07] Whether it's whatever it is, some group of victims doesn't care about the other group of victims.

[00:11:12] They just don't.

[00:11:13] But on the right, you find that when they all kind of get together and say,

[00:11:17] hey, this is where we generally agree,

[00:11:19] somebody can kind of light a match, and it's gasoline.

[00:11:23] And that's what happened last week.

[00:11:25] So let's go to it.

[00:11:26] Sigmund Freud had a term for it,

[00:11:27] the narcissism of small differences, end quote.

[00:11:31] In this case, Wikipedia explains it well.

[00:11:34] Quote, the more a relationship or community shares commonalities,

[00:11:39] the more likely the people in it are to engage in interpersonal feuds

[00:11:43] and ridicule because of hypersensitivity to minor differences.

[00:11:47] I think that in large measure is what led the left to go so far left

[00:11:51] into the transgender issue and the DEI and all that.

[00:11:55] That was absolutely their undoing.

[00:11:57] The right finds itself in the same kind of lockstep issue on H-1B visas.

[00:12:05] We all recognize the pattern that manifests in various ways

[00:12:08] from the bickering of married couples to successful rock bands breaking up.

[00:12:12] You see that if you're married, you know what I'm talking about.

[00:12:14] Don't you argue about stupid stuff?

[00:12:15] You agree on the big stuff?

[00:12:17] You argue about stupid stuff.

[00:12:18] Did you leave that there?

[00:12:19] Well, there are only two people living in the house.

[00:12:21] Of course it was me.

[00:12:21] Ah, see?

[00:12:22] Well, okay, you got me.

[00:12:24] But then it's a fight.

[00:12:25] The most minor disputes exploded into major ones that no one wanted in the first place

[00:12:29] with sometimes disastrous results.

[00:12:32] This fits the internal MAGA dispute over H-1B visas to the proverbial T.

[00:12:36] The only ones who profit from this blowup or whatever it is are the left

[00:12:41] and their fading media allies desperate for something to latch onto about MAGA and create dissension.

[00:12:47] Do we want to give them that privilege at this point?

[00:12:50] Frankly, I think it's stupid, especially for a disagreement that would likely work itself out

[00:12:53] almost automatically and favorably for almost all concerned.

[00:12:57] Yes, there will be complainers, but that's, well, that's the world.

[00:13:01] This uproar began when Donald Trump selected as his AI advisor, technologist Shriram Krishnan,

[00:13:09] a man who came here on something called an L-1 visa, intra-company transfer.

[00:13:14] In other words, he was with the company, transferred that visa in 2007 to work at Microsoft.

[00:13:18] Some ultra MAGA loyalists became really upset about this.

[00:13:22] Why not an American they demanded, ignoring that most of Trump's other picks

[00:13:25] were as ultra MAGA and American as they are.

[00:13:28] It escalated as Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk logged in in favor of H-1B,

[00:13:33] the temporary visa for highly trained people from abroad.

[00:13:37] Vivek wrote something on X that was fairly obvious,

[00:13:39] but nonetheless sent his adversaries further up the wall.

[00:13:42] That the American educational system has been bad for so long

[00:13:45] that we didn't have enough domestic talent to fit all the necessary tech roles.

[00:13:48] Now think about that one for a minute.

[00:13:49] Well, stop the column. You have.

[00:13:52] If you're out there and you're on the right,

[00:13:54] you don't believe the educational system is doing its best

[00:13:57] at serving the young people of this nation for the past few decades.

[00:14:00] You don't.

[00:14:01] So when Vivek says that, he's saying the truth

[00:14:05] and one thing that everybody agrees with on the right.

[00:14:08] Back to the column.

[00:14:09] Beyond that, it has been alleged that our educational system

[00:14:11] is too slow for the pace of tech.

[00:14:13] Students finally learning what they need to know in graduate school

[00:14:15] when young people in other countries are already utilizing

[00:14:18] the latest ever-changing tech developments as teenagers.

[00:14:21] I would agree with that.

[00:14:22] The host right now, I would agree.

[00:14:23] I'd say when they're teaching technical writing in Ireland

[00:14:27] and when they're teaching all of these advanced tech things in schools,

[00:14:31] in K-12, why can't we?

[00:14:34] We're so stuck on DEI and all this other stuff

[00:14:36] that we're not teaching these fundamental things.

[00:14:39] Back to the column.

[00:14:40] Also at play is that compared to the rest of the world,

[00:14:42] we are a rich society.

[00:14:44] Inertia has set in, the fire gone from the belly.

[00:14:47] Not everyone has Trump's fight, fight, fight,

[00:14:49] though we may be learning.

[00:14:51] But young people in poor nations

[00:14:54] already have a deep need to excel due to their conditions.

[00:14:58] Witness how in tennis great players are coming

[00:15:00] from places like Belarus and Serbia.

[00:15:02] We need the H-1B to bring the best here to be able to compete.

[00:15:05] The national security implications are obvious.

[00:15:07] Finally, it is immigrants, legal immigrants,

[00:15:10] who have built much of this country.

[00:15:12] We should be celebrating this.

[00:15:13] It's real diversity rather than the fake left-wing kind.

[00:15:16] That's the argument in favor.

[00:15:17] What about those against?

[00:15:18] The H-1B has been misused by a number.

[00:15:21] We don't know exactly how many, but we should,

[00:15:22] in order to clerk at the likes of 7-Elevens

[00:15:24] rather than perform complex scientific tasks

[00:15:27] for which domestic personnel aren't available.

[00:15:29] Further, companies have been using it

[00:15:31] as a source of cheap labor.

[00:15:33] I have, however, heard this last contradicted

[00:15:36] by my own daughter who works in hiring

[00:15:38] for a major tech company

[00:15:39] that will be nameless for family protection.

[00:15:41] I guarantee you would recognize it.

[00:15:42] Her job is to recommend H-1B candidates

[00:15:45] from across the globe.

[00:15:46] She assures me, this is the columnist, by the way,

[00:15:48] not me.

[00:15:49] She assures me her company saves no money from this.

[00:15:52] The ancillary costs are high

[00:15:53] and only does it after exhausting domestic possibilities.

[00:15:56] In other words, they're looking for the best

[00:15:58] and brightest year.

[00:15:58] When they can't find them,

[00:15:59] they have to go through this exhaustive process overseas.

[00:16:01] So while they may save it in the salary,

[00:16:03] they still have to spend the money to recruit the person.

[00:16:06] Writing all that down has convinced me,

[00:16:08] the author, this is indeed nothing but a blowup

[00:16:11] of the most minor sort that has been taken up

[00:16:13] by the media ad nauseum in recent days,

[00:16:15] especially so since the room for companies compromise here

[00:16:18] could not be clearer.

[00:16:20] Toughen up the rules for H-1B.

[00:16:22] They may actually be there in that case.

[00:16:24] Observe them.

[00:16:24] Make sure it isn't a form of discount labor

[00:16:26] and continue the program with more stringent guidelines.

[00:16:30] A Serbian named Nikola Tesla

[00:16:32] immigrated to the United States in 1884

[00:16:34] to convince Edison

[00:16:35] his alternating current AC electrical generators

[00:16:38] were more efficient than Edison's DC systems.

[00:16:41] Edison demurred and this ignited the war of the currents.

[00:16:44] Rest is history.

[00:16:45] In another moment from history,

[00:16:46] an immigrant from South Africa

[00:16:47] who became a U.S. citizen in 2002

[00:16:49] invented an automobile named after Tesla

[00:16:51] that has become the first efficient self-driving car.

[00:16:54] The man whom we all know as Elon Musk

[00:16:56] suggested a compromise

[00:16:58] not all that different from what was just written about.

[00:17:00] He wrote this on X.

[00:17:02] Easily fixed by raising the minimum salary significantly

[00:17:04] and adding a yearly cost for maintaining the H-1B.

[00:17:07] Indeed, is everybody happy?

[00:17:09] That is probably how this all would have ended up anyway

[00:17:11] behind the scenes without the public bickering.

[00:17:14] That's why I call it a fake controversy.

[00:17:16] Now let's stop feeding the reactionary left

[00:17:17] and get back to building the flippin' future.

[00:17:20] So I thought that was an astute written piece.

[00:17:23] I think I wrote something more succinctly

[00:17:25] where I said perspective.

[00:17:26] Here's a perspective from me

[00:17:29] that when I was looking at all this

[00:17:30] and I thought,

[00:17:31] what's the most succinct thing I could say about all this

[00:17:34] that doesn't ignite the fury of people

[00:17:36] that I've come to know and love

[00:17:38] over the past three decades?

[00:17:39] I said,

[00:17:40] it's impossible to assert the primacy

[00:17:42] of the current American work ethic

[00:17:44] as superior to some aspects of other cultures

[00:17:46] while also asserting that public education

[00:17:49] has been in decline for 30 plus years.

[00:17:51] We clearly have a cultural work educational challenge.

[00:17:54] I absolutely believe that to my core.

[00:17:57] I think that we have become,

[00:18:00] and I would say there's something that Alexander,

[00:18:04] and I hate to go back to this,

[00:18:08] but I will.

[00:18:10] And it was about society

[00:18:12] and where we are.

[00:18:15] And I think that we need to be reminded of it

[00:18:21] a little bit.

[00:18:22] It is that the world's great civilizations,

[00:18:27] and I'm going to go through this a little bit,

[00:18:30] always kind of goes through a sequence.

[00:18:32] It goes from bondage to spiritual faith.

[00:18:36] It goes from spiritual faith to great courage.

[00:18:39] It goes from courage to liberty,

[00:18:40] from liberty to abundance,

[00:18:42] from abundance to selfishness,

[00:18:45] from selfishness to complacency,

[00:18:47] from complacency to apathy,

[00:18:50] from apathy to dependence,

[00:18:52] and from dependence back into bondage.

[00:18:54] It's a cyclical thing

[00:18:56] that humans have done for thousands of years.

[00:18:59] And what the quote went on to say

[00:19:01] was that the typical,

[00:19:02] you know, kind of free-loving society

[00:19:04] lasts for about 200 years

[00:19:06] as it goes through that cycle.

[00:19:07] And I would say

[00:19:08] that as we look across countries

[00:19:10] on this planet today,

[00:19:11] there are many of those countries out there

[00:19:14] that are at the bondage to spiritual faith.

[00:19:16] They're trying to find that path forward.

[00:19:18] There are many that are taking great courage.

[00:19:21] You see this as countries push for more freedoms,

[00:19:24] for more reforms.

[00:19:25] You see that.

[00:19:27] You also have those

[00:19:28] that have gone from courage to liberty

[00:19:29] that have become more free.

[00:19:30] You look at Argentina, for instance,

[00:19:32] that's becoming,

[00:19:33] it's from courage to liberty,

[00:19:34] and they're working from liberty to abundance.

[00:19:36] Our country has gone through all of those things.

[00:19:39] And I think we're kind of,

[00:19:41] various parts of our society,

[00:19:43] part of it is at the abundance to selfishness.

[00:19:46] We've seen that.

[00:19:47] Part of our country is also at selfishness to complacency.

[00:19:51] I think other parts of our society

[00:19:53] is apathetic,

[00:19:55] that doesn't seem to care.

[00:19:57] And then many have gone from apathy to dependence.

[00:19:59] I just mentioned these,

[00:20:00] a lot of these federal programs

[00:20:02] have made us very dependent.

[00:20:05] And that creates its own kind of bondage.

[00:20:08] And so our country isn't,

[00:20:10] until we can find a way to break that cycle,

[00:20:14] other countries are finding a way.

[00:20:17] They're hungrier.

[00:20:18] They're going to be more assertive.

[00:20:21] They're going to try to be stronger.

[00:20:24] And unless America can find its footing again

[00:20:26] and remind itself about how it became

[00:20:28] the greatest nation on the planet Earth,

[00:20:29] it's going to be losing ground.

[00:20:33] We see that with China.

[00:20:36] We see that with some of the Asian countries.

[00:20:38] We see this with, you know,

[00:20:41] even countries, small countries like Ireland

[00:20:43] that I mentioned earlier.

[00:20:44] They're hungry.

[00:20:45] They're hungry for success.

[00:20:48] They're hungry for freedom.

[00:20:49] Even Argentina.

[00:20:50] They're hungry for these things

[00:20:52] that we take for granted.

[00:20:54] We're kind of like,

[00:20:55] yeah, this is easy for us.

[00:20:56] And so then we get indignant

[00:20:58] when we find people from other countries

[00:20:59] taking some of these jobs.

[00:21:01] And we get very indignant about that.

[00:21:03] And we get angry about it.

[00:21:04] And rather than getting angry,

[00:21:05] what we should do is say,

[00:21:06] hey, why?

[00:21:07] Why are these people from India

[00:21:08] so hungry to be successful?

[00:21:10] Why aren't our people as hungry for that?

[00:21:12] And again, you sound like

[00:21:13] it sounds like I'm bashing America.

[00:21:14] I'm not.

[00:21:14] There are a lot of hungry Americans out there.

[00:21:16] This doesn't apply to all.

[00:21:17] But it is a part of our society.

[00:21:19] You can't sit here and say

[00:21:20] our education has been declined for 30 years

[00:21:22] and think there's not repercussions

[00:21:24] and consequences from that.

[00:21:25] There are a lot of them.

[00:21:27] And we're seeing it play out now.

[00:21:30] So I think most of that's been put to bed,

[00:21:32] but there'll be another two or three eruptions

[00:21:33] before Trump gets inaugurated.

[00:21:35] All right.

[00:21:36] Hey, real quick.

[00:21:36] If you would like to get your product

[00:21:38] or service in front of about 10,000 people

[00:21:41] multiple times a day,

[00:21:42] send me an email at

[00:21:43] Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com

[00:21:46] and ask me about advertising.

[00:21:47] It's super affordable.

[00:21:49] It's baked into this podcast forever.

[00:21:51] And podcasts have a higher conversion rate

[00:21:53] than other social media platforms,

[00:21:54] making it the best bang for your buck.

[00:21:56] Send me a message.

[00:21:57] Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com

[00:21:59] and I can show you how it works.

[00:22:01] Run the numbers with you.

[00:22:02] Again, that's Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com.

[00:22:05] Now, one other thing to get to is.

[00:22:09] Since 2020, thanks to your generosity,

[00:22:11] WBT and Moments of Hope Church has raised over $850,000

[00:22:15] to help feed the most vulnerable kids in the Charlotte region.

[00:22:18] This year, the need is even greater

[00:22:19] and your donations are needed to benefit

[00:22:21] Hurricane Helene relief work in Western North Carolina.

[00:22:24] Our goal is to raise $100,000

[00:22:27] and every penny donated will be matched by Moments of Hope Church.

[00:22:30] Please consider a donation to cityofhopeclt.org today.

[00:22:33] That's cityofhopeclt.org today.

[00:22:36] Thank you.

[00:22:37] And it is an honor and a privilege.

[00:22:39] I do want to get to so much more.

[00:22:42] Luckily, I've got a few more days to do it,

[00:22:43] but I'm going to get to some of it today.

[00:22:46] And this is from the rabbit hole,

[00:22:47] one of my favorite feeds out there in the world of X.

[00:22:51] Because there are, if I were to ask you

[00:22:53] how many pages are there in the federal tax code,

[00:22:57] it wouldn't be, you wouldn't be off to guess a lot.

[00:23:01] You're not going to say 100 pages.

[00:23:03] Nobody out there is going to say 1,000 or 10,000 pages.

[00:23:06] But it has grown since, in 1913,

[00:23:09] the federal tax code was 400 pages long,

[00:23:12] which was a lot.

[00:23:14] And by 1939, so over the next 26 years,

[00:23:19] it only grew by 104 pages.

[00:23:22] Between 1939 and 1945,

[00:23:25] they added about 8,000 pages.

[00:23:28] And from 1945 till about 1984,

[00:23:32] Reagan's first term,

[00:23:34] they went from 8,200 to 26,300 pages.

[00:23:38] And between 95, I've seen between 84 and 2005,

[00:23:43] it went from 26,000 pages to 61,000 pages.

[00:23:47] And now it stands over 73,000,

[00:23:51] almost 74,000 pages long.

[00:23:54] Now here's the problem with this.

[00:23:57] There is no way that you,

[00:24:01] average U.S. citizen,

[00:24:02] now most of you don't have to deal with it.

[00:24:04] A lot of you, if you just get a W-2

[00:24:06] and then you have your deductions,

[00:24:09] it's pretty simple.

[00:24:10] But there's no way it should be 73,000 pages long.

[00:24:15] We've made it too complicated.

[00:24:18] The tax code should be understandable

[00:24:21] by anybody who wants to fill out their own taxes.

[00:24:23] It's amazing that the government has created

[00:24:26] a situation that requires an entirely,

[00:24:31] an entire brand new industry

[00:24:34] that just helps you do your taxes every year,

[00:24:37] that sets up in Walmarts and malls

[00:24:39] and everywhere else and online,

[00:24:41] that because it's so complicated,

[00:24:43] you have to fill out all the,

[00:24:44] and then because it's so complicated,

[00:24:48] all of those groups will say,

[00:24:49] hey, we're going to provide you audit defense.

[00:24:52] So they scare the heck out of you and say,

[00:24:54] wait, wait, wait, what do you mean audit defense?

[00:24:56] Because, well, the tax code's complicated.

[00:24:59] Even we, the experts on this,

[00:25:01] might have gotten something wrong

[00:25:02] or something you gave us

[00:25:05] may not have been 100% accurate.

[00:25:06] So if you get audited,

[00:25:08] which you probably won't,

[00:25:10] but if you do,

[00:25:10] we're going to stand by you through it.

[00:25:12] Now, that doesn't mean

[00:25:14] that's not going to ruin your life

[00:25:16] for years going through an audit.

[00:25:19] It just means that it's complicated

[00:25:22] and it shouldn't be.

[00:25:23] And then when you do go through that,

[00:25:25] it robs you of your ability

[00:25:28] to be a productive U.S. citizen

[00:25:30] because it takes off.

[00:25:31] I remember visiting a friend.

[00:25:32] I was going,

[00:25:33] I was in transit to New Zealand and back

[00:25:35] and I was visiting him in a Los Angeles area.

[00:25:39] And it went into one room

[00:25:41] and I thought,

[00:25:41] this is a really lovely guest room.

[00:25:43] And it wasn't a guest room.

[00:25:45] It would have been a guest room,

[00:25:46] except he was in the middle of an audit

[00:25:48] of his business.

[00:25:49] He was in the real estate business out there.

[00:25:51] And the audit was unbelievable.

[00:25:54] He must have had 60 boxes of documents

[00:25:56] that were just sitting in this,

[00:25:58] what would have been a lovely bedroom.

[00:26:00] And this had been just crushing him

[00:26:05] day and night.

[00:26:06] It would have been consuming.

[00:26:06] So he had to run his business.

[00:26:08] He had to kind of live his life

[00:26:10] and deal with the audit.

[00:26:11] And that was it.

[00:26:12] He just,

[00:26:13] the accumulation and printing

[00:26:15] and coalescing.

[00:26:17] And it took him three years.

[00:26:19] Ultimately, there was no,

[00:26:20] nothing significant that came of it,

[00:26:22] except it occupied and took away three.

[00:26:24] It imprisoned him economically for three years

[00:26:30] because the tax code is that onerous.

[00:26:32] It is that complicated.

[00:26:33] It is not that simple.

[00:26:34] So here's hoping,

[00:26:35] as they're unplugging things in the swamp,

[00:26:38] that they will get to the tax code

[00:26:40] and find a way to simplify

[00:26:42] that absurd tax code.

[00:26:44] It needs to be.

[00:26:45] We need to find a way

[00:26:46] to make compliance a lot easier.

[00:26:48] We need to find a way

[00:26:49] to do those kinds of things.

[00:26:51] I mean, I even had a question

[00:26:53] and I consider myself

[00:26:54] fairly well-versed on this

[00:26:56] and it was about capital gains.

[00:26:58] And if you have capital gains,

[00:27:00] do you have to pay estimated taxes on that

[00:27:02] if they're long-term, not short-term?

[00:27:05] And apparently you don't,

[00:27:06] but you could.

[00:27:07] Depends on who you talk to at the IRS

[00:27:10] and who you talk to in the tax world.

[00:27:11] You can if you know

[00:27:13] you're going to have long-term gains,

[00:27:15] then do you pay estimated taxes on it?

[00:27:17] And if so, how much?

[00:27:18] Especially if it happened later in the year,

[00:27:19] earlier in the year.

[00:27:20] That's the kind of,

[00:27:21] and that's just a,

[00:27:22] that's a relatively simple thing.

[00:27:24] When you have a death in your family

[00:27:25] and you have to file their final tax return

[00:27:29] and it's not fun.

[00:27:31] I promise you that.

[00:27:32] When someone dies in February,

[00:27:33] you have to,

[00:27:34] my parents both did,

[00:27:37] and you have to fill out the tax return

[00:27:39] for this so they've passed

[00:27:40] and you have to fill out the tax return

[00:27:42] for the previous year

[00:27:43] where they lived all 12 months.

[00:27:44] But you also the following year

[00:27:46] have to file a tax return for them

[00:27:47] for the two months

[00:27:48] or month and a half

[00:27:49] that they may have lived in that year.

[00:27:51] It is absurd.

[00:27:52] You should be able to tie things up

[00:27:53] and be done,

[00:27:54] but you can't.

[00:27:56] Because again,

[00:27:56] the IRS is not your friend.

[00:27:58] The IRS is,

[00:27:59] is a heartless aspect of government.

[00:28:01] And it's funny that people want to ascribe

[00:28:02] all these heartfelt sentiments to people,

[00:28:04] I mean,

[00:28:05] to government.

[00:28:05] And these agencies help people.

[00:28:07] They help,

[00:28:07] well,

[00:28:07] the IRS is an agency.

[00:28:09] It's not there to help people.

[00:28:10] It's really not.

[00:28:12] It's there to collect.

[00:28:13] It's the world's largest tax collection agency.

[00:28:16] Now,

[00:28:17] as we head to the top of the hour,

[00:28:19] I usually reserve this part of the show

[00:28:22] to talk about scientific stuff,

[00:28:25] stuff maybe you didn't know about

[00:28:26] or you hadn't thought about.

[00:28:27] Because I started the show saying

[00:28:29] we're,

[00:28:30] we're,

[00:28:30] we're kind of approaching that.

[00:28:32] There's,

[00:28:32] I wish I could remember the phrase right now,

[00:28:34] but I'm not,

[00:28:34] I wasn't reading my,

[00:28:35] my sci-fi stuff in the break.

[00:28:36] Like that technology kind of doubles in ability

[00:28:41] at a certain point in time.

[00:28:44] And,

[00:28:44] and,

[00:28:44] and the shorter that period of time takes place,

[00:28:48] meaning that if it took 60 years,

[00:28:50] I mean,

[00:28:51] it took several hundred years from basically the dark ages

[00:28:53] to the 1800s to double.

[00:28:55] And then it took,

[00:28:56] you know,

[00:28:56] maybe 40 years where all of a sudden we had flight

[00:28:58] in the early 1900s.

[00:29:00] And for flight to where we landed on the moon,

[00:29:01] it doubled,

[00:29:02] you know,

[00:29:03] a time or two.

[00:29:03] And then it started becoming about every four,

[00:29:06] five,

[00:29:07] seven years.

[00:29:08] And now that technological ability is leapfrogging

[00:29:10] much quicker.

[00:29:12] In other words,

[00:29:12] the time span it takes in each successive leap is shorter.

[00:29:15] I can't remember what the,

[00:29:16] there's a,

[00:29:16] there's a name for that.

[00:29:18] And it,

[00:29:18] it doesn't mean that it just takes place with the internet

[00:29:21] or at Moore's law.

[00:29:23] Thank you.

[00:29:23] All these people just chiming in,

[00:29:25] all these smart people paying attention.

[00:29:27] So it's called Moore's law.

[00:29:29] And when you see it in sci-fi,

[00:29:31] if you read sci-fi,

[00:29:32] you're very well versed in this happening and stuff,

[00:29:34] but we see this happening.

[00:29:36] And it doesn't just mean that your cell phone gets better,

[00:29:38] faster,

[00:29:39] stronger.

[00:29:39] It doesn't just mean the internet is more accessible or that you can

[00:29:43] talk to your Alexa device more rapidly.

[00:29:45] It means that it's taking place in all avenues at once.

[00:29:49] I mean,

[00:29:50] you see this with investing,

[00:29:51] you see that,

[00:29:52] you saw it with Bitcoin,

[00:29:53] the rise of digital currency.

[00:29:54] You also are seeing it in medical tech.

[00:29:57] And,

[00:29:58] and,

[00:29:58] and so I,

[00:29:59] I call back to another sci-fi.

[00:30:01] If you remember the Star Trek,

[00:30:02] you know,

[00:30:03] Dr.

[00:30:03] McCoy had the little spinny device where he could just basically wave it

[00:30:06] on you and give a diagnosis.

[00:30:08] As much as that may seem,

[00:30:10] you know,

[00:30:11] like a weird sixties thing,

[00:30:12] it's not far from where we are reality.

[00:30:15] I mean,

[00:30:16] you know,

[00:30:16] when you,

[00:30:17] right now you can go to a Sam's or Costco and you can take your cart.

[00:30:20] And if you've pre scanned it,

[00:30:21] you can kind of,

[00:30:22] as you're pushing it through the gates,

[00:30:25] it scans your whole cart and they can look at you and say,

[00:30:28] yeah,

[00:30:28] you're good.

[00:30:29] They don't have to check your cart because it's done that.

[00:30:32] You're not having to put it on a conveyor belt and put it through a

[00:30:35] special machine.

[00:30:36] It's just doing that.

[00:30:37] And so we,

[00:30:38] we have this happening in medical tech that,

[00:30:41] Oh my God,

[00:30:42] Steve,

[00:30:42] really the tricorder.

[00:30:44] Yes,

[00:30:44] it's the tricorder.

[00:30:46] And if you look at hospital beds,

[00:30:48] next time you're visiting a hospital with seeing someone look up behind

[00:30:51] them,

[00:30:51] it looks just like the Star Trek beds with all of the,

[00:30:53] the monitoring devices right behind you.

[00:30:55] It's very Star Trek yet.

[00:30:56] So yes,

[00:30:57] I appreciate that they share my Trekian way of looking at things.

[00:31:02] So thank you very much for that.

[00:31:03] But with technology,

[00:31:05] with medical technology,

[00:31:05] you're not far from being able to lie on that table and it do that full

[00:31:09] diagnosis.

[00:31:10] It's it's a medical technology can help detect diabetes,

[00:31:13] diagnose cancer,

[00:31:14] make highly accurate predictions in radiology,

[00:31:16] identify the presence of TV so much more.

[00:31:18] It can reduce human error.

[00:31:20] Some research even suggests that AI powered applications in healthcare could

[00:31:23] improve patient outcomes by 30 to 40% while,

[00:31:26] reducing treatment costs back to 50%.

[00:31:28] I was astounded.

[00:31:30] My mother had a,

[00:31:30] a,

[00:31:31] an insulin device that,

[00:31:33] that monitor to 20,

[00:31:34] 24 seven.

[00:31:35] And,

[00:31:36] and it showed up on my sister's phone,

[00:31:37] 200 miles away.

[00:31:38] So my sister could say,

[00:31:39] Hey,

[00:31:39] mom's sugar is a little high or low or whatever.

[00:31:41] And now you've got the core ring and you're looking,

[00:31:43] if you have an Apple watch or,

[00:31:45] and,

[00:31:45] and not just Apple,

[00:31:47] but the others,

[00:31:47] they're monitoring a lot of your health,

[00:31:49] your,

[00:31:49] your heart rate,

[00:31:50] you can do,

[00:31:50] you know,

[00:31:51] EKGs on yourself and more and more,

[00:31:53] you're going to be able to diagnose,

[00:31:55] maybe even self-diagnose using tech at your home.

[00:31:59] I don't know what point we'll get to the,

[00:32:01] the,

[00:32:01] the diagnosing of blood and doing CBCs with differentials at home,

[00:32:05] but it,

[00:32:06] I can see it happening.

[00:32:07] The,

[00:32:08] the,

[00:32:08] the term,

[00:32:09] an increase in medical technology has accelerated the problem of what they

[00:32:12] call D skilling.

[00:32:14] That's the issue at hand here is that technology is racing ahead.

[00:32:19] Uh,

[00:32:21] and doctors here to four relied on a lot of interaction with the patient.

[00:32:26] And so doctors,

[00:32:27] doctors over time,

[00:32:29] many of them,

[00:32:29] and still do,

[00:32:30] by the way,

[00:32:31] have a lot of inherent wisdom with respect to things they've seen.

[00:32:35] I love to read,

[00:32:36] uh,

[00:32:37] you know,

[00:32:37] the emperor of maladies.

[00:32:38] I've read several books on cancer research and that skill set allows

[00:32:42] doctors to cut through saying kind of,

[00:32:44] I know what this is or where not to look,

[00:32:46] or this is a false lead.

[00:32:48] And if you ever watched the show house,

[00:32:50] it was a lot of that.

[00:32:50] They had a really crack team.

[00:32:52] The premise was they're trying to figure out how to solve a medical mystery

[00:32:55] and they're using,

[00:32:57] uh,

[00:32:57] powers of deduction.

[00:32:58] They're using their powers of research.

[00:33:00] They're using a lot of different things at once.

[00:33:02] But when technology starts doing that doctors become D skilled,

[00:33:08] which means a reduction in the level of skill required to complete a task.

[00:33:11] We saw it because some or all of it have been automated D skilling.

[00:33:15] You see it in almost every automation process where the automation process does

[00:33:19] a lot.

[00:33:19] People don't know how to do things.

[00:33:20] And when it breaks,

[00:33:21] how do you fix that?

[00:33:22] I don't know.

[00:33:22] Got to call the guy that fixes the machine.

[00:33:23] Cause I don't know what it's doing.

[00:33:25] Historically,

[00:33:26] the term D skilling has been used in the context of automation.

[00:33:28] While workers on assembly lines in the past were responsible for tasks

[00:33:31] that required manual skills by constructing small parts and stuff and

[00:33:34] repairs,

[00:33:36] machinery has changed that within the context of medicine.

[00:33:38] D skilling refers to the decrease in a physician's ability to derive

[00:33:42] information on the basis of detectable signs and symptoms alone without using

[00:33:47] technological aids.

[00:33:48] But patient care does require kind of a balance of this.

[00:33:52] Now I saw this a few,

[00:33:55] probably two or three years ago in part,

[00:33:58] one of the other fun jobs that I've been able to be a part of is the medical

[00:34:00] travel stuff.

[00:34:01] When I was visiting a kind of breakthrough medical group in North Carolina that

[00:34:06] was putting together,

[00:34:07] wasn't a trailer.

[00:34:08] It was kind of like a diagnosis in a box.

[00:34:11] It had a box with all of these,

[00:34:13] this technology in it,

[00:34:14] and you could put it in a factory or in a place.

[00:34:17] And it was a remote doctor's office and all the tech in it,

[00:34:21] a patient could go in,

[00:34:22] they're interfacing with a doctor.

[00:34:24] It's got all these gadgets in it and it could help diagnose right there on the

[00:34:28] spot,

[00:34:28] a given patient in this dock in a box kind of way of looking at things.

[00:34:32] And that technology is only going to get better.

[00:34:34] This was two or three years ago.

[00:34:35] So I would suspect it's gotten much better.

[00:34:37] So hospitals in the U S lean more on technology than a lot of places and funding

[00:34:44] structures incentivize that use.

[00:34:45] But is it possible that U S practitioners should be taking notes from doctors in

[00:34:51] more under-resourced areas who've made,

[00:34:53] had to do more with less.

[00:34:55] So I don't know where that line gets crossed,

[00:34:57] but at a certain point tech due to Moore's law,

[00:35:00] as the producers aptly threw into the mix here,

[00:35:03] that when does that tech become so odd?

[00:35:06] I mean,

[00:35:07] in a way it could be golden because think about trying to get appointments with

[00:35:09] doctors and get diagnosis on things.

[00:35:11] And how many times you've had to sit and wait when you know,

[00:35:14] there's a billion more cells that are replicating in your body and hurting you

[00:35:18] while you wait for there to be time to look at you and,

[00:35:22] and technology in theory could expedite this to the point that it makes a big

[00:35:28] difference in,

[00:35:29] in your diagnosis and treatment and moving forward.

[00:35:32] The way someone,

[00:35:33] this is how they finish it.

[00:35:34] It's a very long article,

[00:35:35] but it's from the nation.com.

[00:35:37] The way someone looks at you,

[00:35:38] the intonation in their voice and the many other very human clues that

[00:35:41] patients convey are exactly why technology can never replace physician

[00:35:45] intuition.

[00:35:47] And,

[00:35:48] and,

[00:35:48] you know,

[00:35:49] while the United States often pushes a test forward approach to medicine,

[00:35:52] it's those sorts of creative solutions alongside more traditional medical

[00:35:56] interventions that end up giving the patients the care they need.

[00:36:00] We'll see how that all works out.

[00:36:01] But the truth of the matter is the technology is going to be able to identify

[00:36:06] potential cancers much,

[00:36:08] much earlier than right now that we can.

[00:36:10] It's going to be able to potentially,

[00:36:11] not potentially,

[00:36:12] but it is going to look at genetic predispositions long before,

[00:36:15] and maybe even treat those genetic predispositions.

[00:36:18] And I believe that whoever gets to the home diagnosis angle on things is going

[00:36:25] to be,

[00:36:25] you know,

[00:36:26] the next Apple or Elon Musk or whatever,

[00:36:29] because I think that home medical care,

[00:36:32] that's patient driven technology assisted with the power of smart physicians at

[00:36:38] the other end,

[00:36:39] it's going to expedite.

[00:36:40] And not only that,

[00:36:41] I think it's going to be able to expedite treatments as well.

[00:36:44] we're a long way from it.

[00:36:45] But again,

[00:36:46] with the application of Moore's law,

[00:36:48] it could become far more applicable because if that technology keeps doubling

[00:36:53] and tripling every couple of years,

[00:36:55] there's no telling where it can go.

[00:36:56] I'm amazed at what your watch can do for you.

[00:36:58] Do you get health alerts on your watch?

[00:37:00] Maybe I should pay attention to those.

[00:37:01] All right.

[00:37:02] That'll do it for this episode.

[00:37:03] Thank you so much for listening.

[00:37:05] I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses

[00:37:08] that advertise on the podcast.

[00:37:10] So if you'd like,

[00:37:11] please support them too and tell them you heard it here.

[00:37:13] You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to the Pete calendar show.com.

[00:37:18] Again,

[00:37:19] thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.