Chad Adams in for Pete Kaliner (07-07-2025--Hour1)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:29] If you would like to get on today's conversation, I will do this often. So you'll have the opportunity to do so here at News Talk 1110 99.3 WBT 704-570-1110, 704-570-1110, because I'm sure some backs will be scratched and fur rubbed the wrong way. As I say, welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Those are the only two that are kind of welcome. Do you find yourself outside the realm of lady or gentleman? I don't know what to really tell you to do. Talk to someone. Talk it out. You can do that.

[00:00:55] Now, I want to get to a couple of things. Nick spent a preponderance of his time this morning on the Vince Coakley show discussing Elon Musk's new endeavor. And I would say we will talk about some of that. Also, a little bit about the Texas flooding and the political opportunities behind the Texas and North Carolina flooding. By the way, North Carolina, quite a bit of flooding as well over the past two days as Chantal came ashore.

[00:01:22] Now, where I live, down at Oak Island, most of the time, it was supposed to be very bad there, but it ended up kind of coming up through Charlotte and the Sandhills and all that. And through Durham and Moore County and Chatham County and that area, it's been rather devastating. I think they finally had one death, but seven, eight inches of rain falling in an hour or so, two hours in a very short period of time caused massive flooding up in that area.

[00:01:48] Now, let's get over to the Elon Musk situation because I was listening to Nick. I thought Nick had a lot of good intel. We obviously have different perspectives, age, time, experience, all of that. And you may have some thoughts on this as well. Now, I think Elon has done some amazing work. He's a futurist and he's a bit odd. Now, I don't know. I could look it up, but I'm not going to. I could even ask Siri or ask Alexa or ask Echo, whatever device you have handy. You know, how many kids by how many different women he has?

[00:02:17] I think he has like 11 kids, seven different women. But I'm not sure. Don't quote me on that. You can check yourself. And I'm not putting that down. Not my cup of tea, not my role, but as a somewhat libertarian, that's his thing. But he has – there's a reason he's not in long-term relationships. There's a reason why he's kind of isolated and in his own world in many respects. He's kind of the Michael Jackson of futuristic endeavors. You know, a lot of people don't want to tell him he might be wrong.

[00:02:47] A lot of people don't. He'll say, hey, I really want to see this happen. They'll tell him from a, hey, you can put a rocket on the moon. He said he wants to go to Mars. He would love to die on Mars, but not on impact, which I think is a great line. He's wildly entertaining. I don't want folks to turn against him, but I think they will whenever something big – like, remember, the political left loved Elon Musk. By the way, the political left used to love Donald Trump. They gave him awards. The NAACP gave him awards.

[00:03:14] They loved him until he came down the escalator and said he was a Republican. He even ran for president before on a third-party ticket. That's just ironic finding out where we are now. But then they hated him. They hated him when he was working with Doge and working with the president, supporting the president. They wanted to key the cars that they told everyone to go buy. And now I'll guarantee you the political left will cheer Musk creating a third party because who benefits the most?

[00:03:42] I mean, the Republicans already had a couple challenges holding the House and the Senate at the national level. They will have even more of a challenge if Elon Musk goes through with this. Now, part of the issue is he did originally threaten to go through primaries. In other words, if you were an incumbent Republican that voted for the big, beautiful bill, he said, I'll guarantee you you're going to have a primary. Well, if he's running a third political party, you won't be running in primaries. He'll put candidates up to compete.

[00:04:08] So you have a Republican or Democrat and then someone who thinks mostly like a Republican or a conservative that's running against a Republican, which means almost assures in every one of those situations that you've got a Ross Perot, Bill Clinton, George Herbert Walker, Bush. You've got a George Bush running. And so it's a great way to destroy the thin majorities in Congress by having a third party. It would be different if the Democrats were split.

[00:04:38] But there's a reason why Democrats don't split. And it's because they have a very – while on the one hand they have a very monolithic way of looking at the world, they are a loosely held coalition of special interest groups. Now, if you wanted to, you could break them down into like 20 different special interest parties. If they were in Europe, that's what they would be. They would have the pro-abortion party. You would have the pro-high tax, let's get those rich people party. You would have the ultra-green lefty party. You would have the anti-hunter party. You would have the – and I mean hunter, I mean hunters.

[00:05:08] You would have the pro-invade the U.S. immigrant party. But the Democrats are very good at keeping all of their rather interesting leftists on the plantation. Now, where they've lost ground is they've lost a lot of ground. So their special interest parties have stayed on the plantation. But a lot of their – the minority groups have gone. They've lost a lot of Hispanics.

[00:05:34] They're losing people who are capable of thinking beyond one issue. They're losing those. They're looking – they're losing blacks, Hispanics. They're losing some women. They're losing people who are thinking more broadly about the economy, more broadly about the country, and looking at history more and more, especially as they get older. You know, the old Winston Churchill adage, you know, if you're not a conservative – or excuse me, if you're not a liberal when you're 20, you have no heart.

[00:06:01] If you're not a – that same person isn't a conservative by 40, they have no brain. That's a problem. That's where the Democrats find themselves. In fact, a lot of the cool folks, a lot of the young folks are finding Republicans to be cool. They're like – their rejection is of the Obama coalition, and they're kind of rejecting that and thinking they're cool by being Republicans, ironically. So we'll see how all that plays out. But here's my guess on this. It always is the case with the political left. You know, they're going to cheer this.

[00:06:30] And what's going to happen is many people on the right will start attacking Elon. People will start – you know, the Elon people will start attacking the Republicans. And what gets lost in this is what is the philosophy underlying this? To date, I haven't seen – I've heard this American party. Elon's putting it all out there. But he doesn't – it's really about doge. He's really upset about the $2 trillion. And if you'll remember Ross Perot's complaint was the giant sucking sound. Y'all, we're going to have a giant sucking sound. They have to. It's going to pull all the jobs out of the country. That was Ross Perot's way of looking at the world.

[00:06:59] It was the same kind of very one-dimensional, one-issue way of looking at things. So Elon's like, I can't believe this bill. He said you could have one – you could have a big bill or a beautiful bill, but you could have both. And that's where he kind of hitched his wagon. And that's where he got upset. That's where he got torqued and said – but what he was ready to do, he was letting perfect stand in the way of progress. And that's one of the most serious problems we have.

[00:07:27] And I think Nick talked about agreeing with someone 100% of the time. If you've ever been married, if you've ever been in a significant relationship, if you have an 80% day, that's the definition of a good day. You get along with somebody 80% of the time, it's pretty good. Now, this bill is far from perfect. And there's going to be another – there's going to be a reconciliation bill, it looks like, in the fall, one in the spring. That's getting in the weeds a little bit. We'll get into some of that maybe later. All right. If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do too.

[00:07:54] And you've probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources. Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News. It's an app and it's a website and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check.ground.news.peet. I put the link in the podcast description too.

[00:08:20] I started using Ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check.ground.news.peet. Subscribe through that link and you'll get 15% off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature.

[00:08:47] Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. I was having a conversation with someone earlier speaking of and I had said, you know, hey, the border situation is being rectified full stop. Something to that effect. And I said, what does that mean? Full stop. And I hadn't thought of that. It's more colloquialism, not even a colloquialism. It's kind of a new phrase that's uttered by folks. Full stop. It's kind of instead of mic drop.

[00:09:15] I guess mic drop used to be the old one. Remember when Obama had said President Trump would never be President Trump? Drop the mic. So full stop means kind of the end of conversation. And a lot of people said, well, if you say that and you say it on the radio, you probably need to tell people what the heck you're talking about. So that's what that means. For those of you who may not know what full stop means, if you hear me say it today, which I am inclined and might do so. The situation in Texas was horrible, is horrible.

[00:09:42] The death toll, I believe, is up to 89. It's going to go much higher. That is an unfortunate reality of where we find ourselves. 75 dead in Carr County alone, including 48 adults, 27 kids. The Camp Mystic situation is terrible. And, you know, we certainly hearts, thoughts, prayers all with the folks out there that are dealing with this from a mental standpoint. It's horrific from a I mean, the reality of that kind of flooding.

[00:10:10] This took place about 100 miles from where one of my childhood homes in Del Rio, Texas. So it's just north of the Del Rio area and kind of hilly country. Some people are saying mountainous area. I always thought of as big hills. But again, whenever you have a lot of rain that falls in a hilly area, we saw this in the North Carolina mountains. You had, you know, epic rainfall falling and going right down those valleys in between mudslides and this casket's wall of water. I mean, that Camp Mystic was out there on that point.

[00:10:38] There's this 27-foot wall of water coming, washing through there, destroying everything in its path. Some of the stories of rescues are amazing. They really are heart-wrenching. Some of the lives sacrificed to save others are also heart-wrenching. But there's a different side of this story. Because I believe that tragedy in general, especially from an American standpoint, often unifies and brings us together. I mean, case in point, it would have been 9-11.

[00:11:05] We saw our country unified in a way that heretofore it just had not been through the Clinton years and heading into the Bush years. That was a unifying moment. You see this whenever there's a tragedy anywhere in the world. We as a nation are the number one donors to almost any tragedy, whether it's a tsunami in Thailand or whether it's an earthquake, wherever, volcano.

[00:11:31] Whatever tragedy befalls people on the planet, Americans are the first to donate. They are often the most generous. They are the ones that send the most relief and supplies anywhere on the planet, including our own country. And so this horrible event, I don't care what your political background is, your response to it should be empathy, at least empathy. And a great deal of sympathy and hopefully wanting to do more. We know they will.

[00:11:58] But I want to bring to your attention a story about this that is tragic from a perspective standpoint. And it has to do with she's a pediatrician. And if you're on social media, you saw this story. The New York Post ran the story. And it's tragic. And this is from the New York Post.

[00:12:21] A pediatrician in Texas has been fired over a post suggesting that more than the 80 killed in the horrific Texas floods, including dozens of kids, were President Trump supporters who got what they voted for. Dr. Christina Probst, P-R-O-P-S-T, drew widespread scorn following her post, which she deleted from Facebook.

[00:12:44] May all visitors, children, non-MAGA voters and pets be safe and dry, she wrote in a now deleted post. She's a pediatrician. She looks after your kids. Carr County MAGA voted to gut FEMA. They deny climate change. May they get what they voted for. Bless their hearts. Probst employers, Bluefish Pediatrics, initially said the employee had been suspended before announcing that the individual is no longer employed there.

[00:13:15] As we previously mentioned in our original statements, we strongly condemn the comments that were made in that post. That post does not reflect our values, our standards, or our mission, the company said. And she literally said that. May all visitors, children, non-MAGA voters and pets be safe and dry. Now, as much as you think, how could someone write something like that? It is a mental state that I find. I had a discussion last week with another friend.

[00:13:42] They absolutely believe anybody that disagrees with them is in a cult. They believe anybody that disagrees with them is a MAGA. You must be MAGA. And I said, well, do I want to make the country greater? And yeah, I love this country. I think this country is amazing. It's diverse. It has diversity of opinion, thought, ways to solve problems. It looks at things. It doesn't run away from its past. It embraces it and said, yeah, we made mistakes here, there, and we fix them.

[00:14:12] Until you lefties come out there and start wanting to tear down statues and everything else, we pretty much want people to remember what the hell happened in this country. And they got incensed and started talking about, oh my gosh, you want to put people in cages. It was basically over the alligator Alcatraz situation. And I said, well, it's funny, you weren't upset about the kids in cages when Obama did it. You weren't, were you upset when Obama deported 2.7 million people? Oh, they just got up to more upset. And they just become very emotional.

[00:14:42] Well, other countries do this. Other countries embrace immigration. I said, our country does too. In fact, in Southport, North Carolina, every 4th of July, usually the 3rd, there's a massive swearing in of people from all over the world that have spent time, effort, energy, money, resources, everything to become a U.S. citizen. This time it was 58 individuals from 28 different countries that got sworn in. They worked very hard to become citizens. Hoorah. That's fantastic news. But we know who they are.

[00:15:11] They are citizens of this country now. They are proud to be citizens. They didn't come here undocumented, unknown. We don't know who they are. And by the way, the alligator Alcatraz is for individuals that have criminal records that we know about. That's why they're going to that place. They have air conditioning, by the way. They have doctors on staff. They have legal counsel. This is a pretty good setup. But it's, I can't believe people in cages were treating immigrants like animals are not animals. Never said they were animals. But if you want to come to this country, come here legally.

[00:15:40] Even on the app, there's been more than a million people that have self-deported because they want the opportunity to come back to this amazing country. And that's a beautiful thing. You should. That's great. But don't think that in Europe they're not having this problem. Don't think in other countries that they just let you run into the country without accountability. I mean, it's a big thing in the European Union right now. They're being overrun as well. But it's an Islam situation there. And it's causing havoc from a cultural standpoint in Europe.

[00:16:08] So don't think for a minute that somehow other countries are not experiencing this being overrun and having to deal with it. I don't care how lefty they are. Eventually they want to preserve some of their culture. They're trying to deal with this. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina, just a quick drive up the mountain? And Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion,

[00:16:38] Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled within the breathtaking 14,000 acres of the Pisgah National Forest, their cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Centrally located between Asheville and the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, it's the perfect balance of seclusion and proximity to all the local attractions.

[00:17:03] With hot tubs, fireplaces, air conditioning, smart TVs, Wi-Fi, grills, outdoor tables, and your own private covered porch, choose from 13 cabins, 6 cottages, 2 villas, and a great lodge with 11 king-sized bedrooms, Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you for any occasion. And they have pet-friendly accommodations. Call or text 828-367-7068.

[00:17:28] Or check out all there is to offer at cabinsofashville.com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. It's one of those days, there's always a lot happening, and sometimes it's hard to just focus on this one thing. There's so many shiny objects that are riveting and interesting and fascinating that getting to them sometimes can be a challenge. With us right now, though, someone who has called before on this broadcast, Winston, welcome to the show. I think we piqued your interest with the Elon Musk creation of the new political party.

[00:17:57] Chad, thank you for taking my – I really appreciate you taking my call. Hey, listen, I wanted to weigh in on the Texas floods and also on Elon Musk. Let's go ahead and address the Texas floods. You know, in an age of AI and predictability and all this technology, yet these – we have no sirens. We don't have any sensors set up for this river that is prone and has been prone in the past to flood at accelerated rates.

[00:18:27] If I was the parent who lost a child, and I had two daughters that I raised, I would want to know why. And I would be mighty pissed off. And when I see what the Trump administration did with the cutbacks – hey, listen, I'm not bringing Trump. But look, he dialed back the investment and the tools needed to protect those children, full stop. What do you think?

[00:18:54] Well, let me address some of this because a lot of people have tried to say this stuff. And the truth of the matter, the National Weather Service had extra staff members on hand throughout this event. There were flood watches posted throughout the event and prior to the event. It was a flash flood. It was a 45-minute-to-get-out-of-the-way kind of warning, which is about eight times more than you would get with a tornadic activity just north of there in Kansas or North Dakota where they're more frequent. So you're right. I think we are a country that looks for someone to castigate and blame.

[00:19:23] And I'm sure that will happen as we get out of this and when we find the bodies, when we find out everything. It is not a – when they say once in 500 or once in 1,000 years, that doesn't mean it happens once every 500 or 1,000 years. It means statistically speaking – go ahead. Go ahead, Winston. You know, Marjorie Taylor Greene has made a point that our government is engaged in weather modification, stratospheric air injection.

[00:19:49] And, you know, there's laws that have been passed in Florida that prohibits the use of the government putting these substances in the air. If you go ahead and Google these laws are passed, and Marjorie Taylor Greene said, hey, what are we doing to our skies? You know, and, you know, this has got to be contributory to what happened. And listen, I want – I don't want this thing to happen again.

[00:20:17] You know, that's where I'm at. So – and then can I go ahead and hit Elon Musk real quick? Go ahead. You're on a roll. You know, Elon Musk – and I'm very disappointed in the Freedom Caucus. You know, they folded quicker than a cheap Walmart lawn chair. And I'm just very disappointed in our congressperson down here at District 46 in South Carolina. He was a member of Freedom Caucus.

[00:20:47] But, you know, Elon Musk makes a good point. You know, in the last four years, we have minted more millionaires, and the separation from the poorest to the richest has widened to the widest that it's ever been. Well, let me ask you. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait. Hear me out. I have a question for you because I think it's relative. So the number zero or being poverty-stricken really doesn't change. I mean, when you're below a certain threshold, you're in poverty, correct? Right?

[00:21:17] I mean, that's the definition of poverty is an inability to have the means. But you would also say that when you have inflation, that the purchasing power of a given dollar is less than it was before. You would also agree with that. Right? So the number of millionaires is really a false way of looking at wealth because, you know, you have one side. You can't get more than poor. You know, and then you have a number of millionaires, and you're talking about this chasm between rich and poor.

[00:21:44] But we also have, you know, a lot more people on, you know, that are getting assistance as well. We have a problem with this in our country. There's no doubt. But acting like it's just, you know, we've got more millionaires. Well, the purchasing power of a millionaire is not what it was 20 years ago. This is not. The payment protection loans benefited people that didn't need it. Donald Trump actually got for his resort millions of dollars from the public treasury. He raided the treasury.

[00:22:14] A lot of people in business, insured, people went to the feeding trough and they helped themselves. And then when it comes around to the big, beautiful bill, they could not go ahead and raise the taxable rate on the highest wage earners from 37 to 39 percent. But they would rather get it from the middle class and the working class. And this rubs me the wrong way. And that's what Elon Musk did.

[00:22:42] Elon Musk is very intelligent. Even though I'm shorting the stock right now, I shorted it on Friday. And it gapped down seven points. I mean, 7 percent. But I think Elon Musk is going to be a force to be reckoned with. And, you know, I'm on board. And I'm done with Trump. I am done with Trump. And if that makes me a bad guy, I'll wear the badge. Let me ask you this.

[00:23:09] What percentage of the nation's taxes should be paid by? I'll assume your war is on the top 5 percent of earners. I'm not talking about wealth. Like Elon could have a dollar a year, but his net worth is in the billions. So I'm not going to pick on him or anyone else. A lot of high earners don't necessarily, you know, a lot of people who have a lot of wealth don't necessarily make a lot of money, if that makes sense. They have stock options. They have a thousand other things you kind of loosely referred to.

[00:23:34] And what how how much of the nation's tax burden should the top 5 percent be responsible for? In your in your opinion. Listen, let's stop with the carried interest provision. Wait, wait, wait. No, no, no, no, no, no. Winston, don't go off on a tangent. I ask you a very open ended question that I just ask you because income tax is based on earnings. It's not based on net worth. But so I'm asking you the top 5 percent.

[00:24:01] What percentage of all taxes do you think they should be? You don't think they're paying enough. So I'm asking you what percentage that you think they should pay. OK, I'm going to say corporations in 1950s and 50s. They accounted for 33, 35 percent of the tax revenue coming into the Treasury. Now they account for 10 percent. So clearly the tax. Winston, the top 5 percent of earners. Wait, the top. But Winston, corporations are made up of people. All the corporate taxes, a corporate tax is just a tax on people.

[00:24:31] I mean, it's just taking money away from people who might earn it and could be. I'm fine with getting rid of corporate taxes. And corporate tax breaks. Just make it straight up. You know, let's get rid of both and let's quit the carve out. You know, let's move forward with that. And if you want to have income taxes, at least make it fair across the board. But right now, the top 5 percent of earners pay 61 percent of all federal income taxes. You think they should pay more than the 61 percent. Right. Well, is that income tax with FICA tax? Is that is that FICA tax? You include in FICA tax? No, no, no.

[00:25:01] Excluding Social Security. That's different. FICA is Social Security. I'm talking about all federal income tax that's paying to support things, to run the federal government, not FICA. 61 percent. You think they're not taxed enough? Correct? I'm just asking. I think it's probably too much. My thing is, why didn't the big, beautiful bill cut the spending? And it didn't. Trump said he's going to cut. Trump said he was going to. Trump was going to part the Red Sea. Okay. Winston? Winston.

[00:25:31] You don't think there were any. So you would have been fine with the taxes going up, which would have been one of the largest tax increases in history. And you don't think this cuts spending in any. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You don't believe this cuts spending. Just maintain from the 2018 tax cut. They were just going to stay the same. And they just did a little word juggling that they went ahead and said, if we don't cut, it's a race. Now, if you just let it the same, just keep it the same. I'm all fine for keeping it the same. That was cool.

[00:25:58] Winston, I appreciate your call, and I appreciate that you listened to the station. I got to run. Thank you for the call, man. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life. And our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video. Started in 1997 in Mint Hill, North Carolina, it was the first company to provide this valuable service,

[00:26:28] converting images, photos, and videos into high-quality, produced slideshows, videos, and albums. The trusted, talented, and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories, all told through images.

[00:26:56] That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life, told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you. And they will tell others to come who you are. Visit createavideo.com. Before we went to the break, I just – to me, it's always worth people knowing a little bit about – when we start talking about tax rates and who pays what, and we were going to have a huge tax increase.

[00:27:22] It was because the Trump tax cuts were never made permanent. They now are. But then again, the next Congress can undo whatever this Congress does. Nothing is etched in stone, except when you create a new government program. It seems like almost impossible to get rid of it. They're not designed to be permanent, but when you go to get rid of it, the left will sue. Because again, their power – the power of many in the political left stems from being in office. But there are people on the right that like it too.

[00:27:53] Incumbency has an addictive quality like crack. I mean, it does. There's something about being in office that these people want to die that way. It's like the people on any other addictive drug or substance that you can think of, and they'll do it forever. Or there's nothing almost more permanent than someone that makes it through three or four terms. Then they're like lifers. They're 80, 90 years old like Mitch McConnell or Nancy Pelosi or Dianne Feinstein. They just stay there forever.

[00:28:20] And then say they're doing the public right, but they're not living in the world that we live in. But they go on. Now, in 2022, the top 5% of earners in the United States paid 61% of all federal income taxes. The group with incomes of 261. 261. So if you made more than 261 or above, you paid $1.3 trillion.

[00:28:45] The top 50% of earners in the nation collectively contributed 97% of all federal tax income revenue. Now, if you think about it, when people talk about income disparity and stuff, the people below certain thresholds pay none. Pay none. And many are recipients of. So I don't like class warfare. I think it's kind of like when you call somebody a name during a discussion, you've lost the intellectual high ground. It's when people used to call Trump Hitler.

[00:29:13] I knew they had lost the argument because that's all they have. The name calling is like the lowest form of debate. There's really nothing left at that point. You've lost. You've surrendered. And the same thing here. When you get into class warfare, I noticed Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania, had sent out a tweet earlier today or last night saying it's time to raise the minimum wage.

[00:29:35] Is it time to raise the minimum wage because the people that you want to make more money are contributing more to the state or contributing more? Do you actually know how many people earn minimum wage these days? Because wage is a reflection of added worth. Wage is a reflection of the product or service, the cost of that product or service. Wages are part of that.

[00:30:01] The higher the relative worth of that product or service, the higher the wage that reflects the value of that work. It's an economic thing. It's not difficult. But when people say, I just want to raise the minimum wage at $25 an hour, you're not saying that the people earning that earned that. You're just saying you want to give them that because it's not your money, is it? If it was your company and your money, would you give them that? Of course you would. But when you say, I want to raise it, it doesn't cost you anything to say that or do that. So that's why I don't like this class warfare.

[00:30:30] The top 10%, it's just amazing the average tax rates versus all taxpayers and what they pay. It just astounds me when we get into that kind of – and again, it's not sexy. It's not a happy topic. Now, to Winston's point about the debt and deficits, yes, that is both parties own that. If you ever wonder the allure of creating another political party – and by the way, Mark Cuban jumped into trying to,

[00:30:58] hey, Elon, I've got your back. I'll help you out. And Mark Cuban's about watching him hop around politically. You never know where he's going to come down. But it is that both parties own the nightmare of debt and deficit spending. If you go to usdebtclock.org, you can see what you owe, what your kids owe, what the average taxpayers owe.

[00:31:20] You see that $32, $37, whatever trillion – I'm not looking at it in front of me right now – but you see this horrific swill that those parties in D.C. have created and thrust upon us, Republican and Democrat alike. It's not – the Republicans do it slower, but the Democrats do it. The Republicans do it, though. So they're as contributory as any group of individuals out there with respect to this swamp and what it's done to us.

[00:31:48] All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepcalendarshow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.