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We recorded this one on Friday evening, which is the reason most of you are receiving it on Saturday. We’re sorry about that, but to make up for it, we cast around for the perfect ensemble and we think we nailed it: Steve Hayward, John Yoo, and Erick Erickson. The latter joins to give us the lowdown on all of the politics in Georgia, which he knows better than anyone. After that, it’s a bit of an open mic night, we veer from the threat of a China/Taiwan conflict to the scene on college campuses, and some thoughts on the U.K. on the passing of Prince Phillip. Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy one.
Music from this week’s episode: Royals by Lorde
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Is John Yoo claiming that the left – including in Congress – isn’t more leftist now than with FDR? I can easily see a 51-50 vote to “expand” SCOTUS, without the filibuster thanks to Harry Reid.
Can someone please give the citation that references seventy percent of black Georgians approving of voter I.D.?
Everybody knows corporations and businesses don’t pay taxes. It comes out of all kinds of things like employee wages, reinvestment, lowered demand or higher prices etc. I don’t get why it isn’t zero. It’s totally redundant and a waste of resources. I have never seen a clean explanation of this topic. If they wiped it out, the government would still collect the same amount of money at least.
Lileks is correct that the Roman Empire wasn’t racist. However, it was Thomas Cahill that wrote the book called, How the Irish Saved Civilization.
Really? The exact same amount of cash. I know that it weakens the economy but are you sure that it weakens so much that it negatively effects collection rates?
What I mean is, it would show up in wages, dividends, and capital gains. Where else would it go? Especially when if you just think about it, so much of it is just regressive either as a regressive tax or as non-reinvestment.
Some people say it’s a way to force foreigners to pay some of our taxes.
It would be really nice if business didn’t waste any time or resources on it.
Just to be clear, I am not the final word on this topic.
It’s just like the minimum wage, it can come out of a variety of things and most of them are regressive.
On John Yoo’s conduct when discussing Prince Phillip’s death.
His opinion on the monarchy is a valid one. It didn’t bear repeating over and over. Once he expressed it, if that’s all he had to contribute, then be quiet.
Because they were discussing someone who had just died. Respect for someone recently deceased is a good rule to follow.
I was especially offended by Yoo’s mocking of Prince Phillip’s military service during World War II. Yoo has taken full advantage of the American Dream after immigrating into the United States, and good for him. But he never served in the military. He probably would not have been so derisive of Phillip’s service if he had.
Taiwan and Hong Kong: No one is going to go to war militarily with the PRC over these two issues. No one. But, that doesn’t mean that the some combination of Japan, Five Eyes and EU members can’t make the non-military price for China to be very high indeed.
An international conference should be called now by the above countries with the clear purpose of defining a series of ever increasing commercial, financial and diplomatic sanctions on the PRC. Of course, our own corporations will fight these steps. We know their mettle.
But, here are the sort of things of which I am thinking:
We can make the PRC behave if we have the will. That is a big IF, but the non-military price they could be made to pay could be very high if we just have the resolve.
Arnold Falk
Was there (Is there, Will there continue to be) a way to watch the podcast as it is recorded? Peter seemed to indicate that was the case with this episode. There were some live events over zoom last year, and it made for good, interactive viewing. Or did I get myself put on the “Do Not Invite” list?
John’s takes this week were especially bad. Those Taiwan takes… oof. No comparison to Hong Kong, John, as Lileks mentioned. And I’m not sure how Taiwan “falls into China’s lap.”
This is really good on ESG, MMT, and the general spread of statism. He’s Swiss.
This is probably a more amusing version of the other video. lol
We’re considering this. (And, like all matters at our beloved but cash-strapped Ricochet, it’s taking…awhile.) But you? On the “do not invite list?” Never!
There was a Zoom link pinned to the top of the site Thursday and Friday announcing the event and providing the link. I’d check the site Thursday afternoon to see if a link gets posted.
We record the Ricochet Podcast every Friday at 9AM PT (this week’s time was an exception). We put up a site wide announcement on Thursday evenings with the Zoom link. All members are invited to watch.
On China and Taiwan, one perspective I’ve heard is that this might be a strategy of desensitizing the Taiwanese, and us, by making these incursions the new normal, to borrow a cliché of late. Then, when they make their move it won’t be a huge change in the status quo. They’re, essentially, boiling the frog slowly rather than throwing it into a pot of water already boiling.
Oh that’s great! I didn’t know.
Y’know – mentioning this at the beginning of the podcast and (in the future when done) linking to the video (hosted on Ricochet, not YouTube of course..) in the podcast notes on the various app/carriers would be some good marketing/advertising!
Thanks for mentioning this.
We don’t release the video version of the podcast because many guests don’t want to be recorded on video for wide distribution (requires more prep from them in terms of appearance). It’s also much more labor intensive on our end for almost no upside. We do occasionally use short video clips from the Zoom version of the podcast for promotional purposes on social media
We have experimented with releasing the video version of the podcast, but the numbers have been tiny (yes, I’m aware of the success Joe Rogan and a few others have had with releasing video podcasts on YouTube, but that has not been our experience). We also don’t get paid from our advertisers for video views.
No one minds appearing on Zoom for a limited audience live. We’ll promote the live show more on the podcast. Thanks for the reminder.
I think he said University of GA did the polling. Here is one from late January that had almost 70%, and since this was before the whole brouhaha over the new law it’s likely more accurate.
Great podcast again fellahs! Mr. Robinson had me laughing out loud with his segue interruption, and Prof. Yoo + Prof. Hayward as co-hosts were excellent.
My comment is on the hosts/guests concepts of Populism. I continue to hear from voices on the Right a hesitancy when it comes to populism – which I don’t understand since the populism we are speaking of is populism coming from the Right, meaning that the populism we are looking it *is* undergirded with a philosophy (Mr. Erikson’s critique) called liberalism (classic), rule of law, sanctity of the individual, less authority to the regulatory state, etc. – because this populism comes from the Right.
Populism viewed broadly and simply as a reaction to a failed elite was the subject of my first Ricochet post (here) if you want to dive into what I am getting at. The thread even gleaned a comment from Prof. Yoo(!!), and my reply to him included a plea for great and knowledgeable elites like him to be like Demi Moore in Ghost. It’s must-read commentary folks!
Humor aside, I get that *leftist* populism raises hackles, but since the undergirding philosophy is one we all know and support, there is not much to fear from a populism on the right – unless you are one of the elite that need to be replaced, and no one hosting this podcast falls into that category. Listening to the remainder of the podcast I did hear comments (small/mid-sized business vs. Global Corporations, etc.) that were in support of the populism mentioned above, which is heartening, since this necessary movement needs to be embraced and helped into the big tent of the GOP to take on the grand challenge of rebuilding our institutions.
Cheers everyone!
EDIT: I realized that I should have asked for feedback/thoughts from the Ricochet community on what Populism means to them, the definition mentioned in this and the other post, what they think of it broadening the tent, elite rot, and the ongoing realignment of the GOP.
cash strapped Ricochet? accept bitcoin/crypto payments/donations
Matt Towery understands GA politics better than anyone including Ericksen
Erickson wasn’t impressive on his previous appearance either.
Gawd, yes! I have to set the Hue lights in the background to match my shirt, for one thing.
Color me stupid, but I tend to think that an invasion of Taiwan would add some rebars to the Western Spine. It is convenient for all to address the Western-facing mask the CCP wears. If they remove the mask, the equation changes.
Related:
Uh huh.
Three groups of people pay a corporation’s corporate tax: labor, the owners, and customers. Eliminate it and, since lowering a price generally increases sales–and if you’re doing things right–profits, wages, and employment, labor and owners have more taxable income. Since this gets put through the personal part of the income tax code which is slightly less riddled with special favors for special people (loopholes the people who wrote them call them after writing them into law) the answer is: could be, who the hell knows? Which is sort of the purpose of the tax code: obfuscation of corrupt and corrupting practices.
These days with something around half or maybe more of people paying no federal income tax, I don’t think you’d get much support for putting them BACK on the tax rolls, even if they were supposed to get higher income too.
It’s always good to remind citizens that corporations don’t pay taxes, people do.
An excellent podcast.
A good book about the potential invasion of Taiwan is “2034.”
I had a really cynical accounting TA that made sure we knew half of his job was just dealing with Congress central planning through the tax code. He knew it was worthless. It doesn’t add any value.
I was thinking about it, basically the only thing that Congress should central plan through the tax code is the promotion of procreating ***actual future tax payers***, because our system is a Ponzi scheme that requires population growth, inflation (Demand inflation) (The government does not make money off of “better living through lower prices”), and debt growth.