I will certainly ensure that that happens, and the point about local engagement is a good one, and that should also happen. Thank you. We move to First Minister's Questions. Question number one, Kezia Dugdale. To ask the First Minister what engagement she has planned for the rest of the day. First Minister, this morning I convened a meeting of the Scottish Government's Resilience Committee to discuss the on-going suspension of flights to and from Charmolshake in Egypt. My officials are in close contact with UK Government officials and will continue to be so. There are, we understand, currently around 20,000 British nationals in Charmolshake, and we estimate at this stage that at least several hundred of those are Scots. Transport Scotland is in touch with Thomson's holidays to discuss the support and advice that is being provided, and I want to assure the chamber that the Scottish Government will continue to liaise closely with UK Government colleagues to ensure that all appropriate support is in place. Later today, Presiding Officer, I will have engagements to take forward the Government's programme for Scotland. Kezia Dugdale. Across the UK, Labour will fight the Tory Government's attempt to cut tax credits. We want George Osborne to scrap his plan altogether. If he doesn't, this Parliament must act to protect working families. Despite days of protesting that it wasn't possible, yesterday the SNP Government finally admitted that we will have the power to restore money lost through tax credits. The Social Justice Secretary said that measures would be outlined after the autumn statement. Unlike their £250 million plan to abolish air passenger duty, we have no detail on how much the SNP are willing to spend to help working families. In fact, for weeks, the Deputy First Minister said that restoring tax credits was unaffordable. Can the First Minister confirm that? Does she agree with her finance secretary that spending hundreds of millions of pounds to make airline tickets cheaper is affordable but that restoring tax credits isn't? Let me set out the position of the Scottish Government. Firstly, over the next three weeks, we intend to keep up the pressure on George Osborne to drop his plans for tax credit cuts. Unlike Labour, who remember initially abstained in the House of Commons on this issue, the SNP have consistently opposed those cuts. I think that it is all too typical of Scottish Labour. Just when the pressure is building across the UK on George Osborne, they ease up on the Tories and attack the SNP instead. It seems, Presiding Officer, that old habits and old friendships really do die hard. We will keep up the pressure on the Tories to drop those cuts altogether. If they don't completely reverse those cuts, what we will do as a responsible Government is to bring forward credible, deliverable and affordable plans to protect low-income households just as we did on the bedroom tax. First of all, on the bedroom tax, Labour brought forward a plan that would have been illegal and unworkable. It was this Government that brought forward one that worked. I think that, frankly, it is a far better plan and it is far fairer for people who are affected by these cuts than back-of-a-fag-packet proposals from a party that knows it has little chance of ever being in a position to implement them. The First Minister forgets that it was a Labour Government that introduced tax credits. We will do everything we can to protect them, including using the powers of this Parliament. No matter what George Osborne does at the autumn statement, Scottish Labour is committed to restoring the money that is lost through tax credits for working families. We have made a choice. We know that it is affordable. We have costed it at its most expensive. We know that any concessions from the Chancellor will only reduce that cost. We think that it is more important than a multimillion-pound plan to reduce the cost of airline tickets. Order! Mr Dugdale, continue! Order! Last year, Mr Dugdale! Mr Dugdale! There are 6,000 families in the First Minister's constituency who rely on tax credits. They deserve a bit more than a vague assurance from the SNP that the Government will act. Can the First Minister confirm to those 6,000 families and the thousands more across the country? Will the Scottish Government's proposals ensure that, when the new powers are available, every single family will receive the same entitlement from the Government as they do now? Yes or no? First Minister! Let me repeat what I said in my first answer. We will continue to oppose those cuts at source, unlike Labour, when it came to a vote in the House of Commons, abstained on the issue of tax credit cuts. We will oppose the cuts, but if the cuts go ahead, we will bring forward a credible, workable, deliverable, affordable plan to protect low-income households. To Kezia Dugdale, the detail of this to families out there who are affected really matters. One of the details that matters most is how this policy would be paid for. Kezia Dugdale has mentioned air passenger duty as the source of the funding or a source of the funding for this. Let's put to one side for the purposes of today the fact that that money wouldn't actually be available if it was required to pay for the tax credits policy. Let's put that to one side and instead, Presiding Officer, consider this. The day before Kezia Dugdale announced the policy on tax credits, here's what she had to say about air passenger duty. In an interview in the Holyrood magazine the day before she announced her position on tax credits, she said that Labour will scrap the air passenger duty measure and we will spend that money on education. In the space of 24 hours, Labour managed to spend the same sum of money twice over. In all seriousness to Kezia Dugdale, that is basic incompetence and the people of Scotland, frankly, deserve better. We've known for some time that the public thinks that Labour is unelectable. I think that what we found out this week is that Labour thinks that Labour is unelectable. It's less here hard day, Presiding Officer, more laurel in hard day. Mr Dugdale, can you try and keep this brief and, First Minister, can you try and keep that next answer brief too? Presiding Officer, all of that from a party that's had three different positions on tax credits in the last 24 hours. Because if the last few days have taught us anything, it's that this Government needs to be held to account. Yesterday in the House of Commons the Prime Minister told working families they just have to wait and see what happened next. Today in this chamber the First Minister is saying exactly the same thing. Now I've listened to Nicola Sturgeon very carefully, I've listened to Alex Neil very carefully on the TV last night. Both have said that they will ensure that the income of those in receipt of tax credits won't fall. But that sounds a little like the Tory argument that higher wages will automatically make up the difference. So can I ask the First Minister again? Under the Scottish Government's proposal, will every single family receive the same entitlement from the Government as they do now? First Minister, I'm quite sure what it is that's difficult to understand. I don't yet accept that these cuts will take place because there is pressure building on George Osborne to reverse them. So I think right now that's where we should be united in making sure the pressure stays on the Tories. George Osborne does the wrong thing. We will come forward with credible proposals to protect low-income families. People around this country who are worried about their tax credits deserve more than slogans. They deserve detail from a Government that they know can deliver. I referred earlier on to Kezia Dugdale's interview in the Holyrood magazine. There was actually something else there that was illuminating. She was narrating a conversation with a Welsh minister. She asked him, where are you finding the money from for your big commitments? And he said, they would worry about that later. And Kezia said, I was quite impressed by the boldness of that. Presiding Officer, most people would be utterly appalled by the incompetence of that. I'll leave Labour in the lala land that they increasingly inhabit and get on with the job of governing this country in the interests of the people we serve. Briefly, Ms Dugdale. The truth is, Presiding Officer, that this is the week that the SNP's constitutional games came unstuck. Because after years of responding to every problem with complaints about the constitution, Alex Neil finally gave the game away. For this was the week that the SNP had to admit that the new powers heading our way can transform Scotland. The week that the SNP had to confront the fact that difficult choices will have to be made. So will the First Minister now give up the politics of grievance? Will she now look to the future of what is possible, move on from the past and just get on with delivering a fairer Scotland? First Minister? You know, there's one place in one place only in the UK where Labour can be judged on their actions, not on their words. And in Wales, which I referred to a moment ago, Labour don't even mitigate the bedroom tax. That's the reality of Labour in government. So I'll continue firstly to concentrate on forcing the Tories to abandon these cuts. You know the reason Labour won't do likewise. It's because in the words of their shadow chancellor last weekend, and I quote, the SNP is the real enemy. And there's the nub of this matter. Labour is not motivated by concern for ordinary people. It hasn't been for a long, long time. Labour is motivated by its tribal hatred of the SNP. While I think the enemy of working people in Scotland are the Tories, it's just a shame that Labour seemed to have forgotten that. Ruth Davidson. To ask the First Minister when she'll next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland. No plans in the near future. Pryddingh officer, earlier this week, a leading group of education experts led by Keir Bloomer, a former director of education, questioned this Government's plans to help pupils from poorer backgrounds. Its report concluded that it was not persuaded that strategies that will be needed for success are yet in place. Prydding officer, we all want more poorer pupils to be able to get the grades to go to good universities. That expert group says that the plans of the SNP are putting in place simply won't do that. Can the First Minister tell me why those experts are wrong? First Minister. I hope that Ruth Davidson, even if she doesn't agree with my policy, would accept that I have made very clear how serious I am about improving education in Scotland and closing the attainment gap. I read the report that she refers to with interest. I don't agree with every aspect of it, but I thought that it was an interesting contribution. I'm actually meeting the author of the report, Keir Bloomer, next week to discuss the report and how him and the other members of his team can contribute to Scottish Government thinking on this. We are serious about this. That's why already we have more than 300 primary schools across the country already benefiting from the additional resources of the attainment fund. It's why work is continuing a pace on the national improvement framework, which, among other things, for the first time in primary schools will give us the chance to measure reliably improvement in our education and the closing of the education gap. We are seeing evidence of the attainment gap in Scotland closing. It's not far enough and fast enough for my liking, which is why I'm determined that we go further and faster. I've said to Ruth Davidson before and I say it to everybody across the chamber. I'm open to suggestions. I always have been. I don't think that I've had any from anywhere across the chamber. There is no doubt whatsoever that this is a priority for me and for my Government and it will continue to be so. Ruth Davidson. I thank the First Minister for that answer, telling the chamber how seriously she now takes the attainment gap. She didn't, however, provide the full facts, because under freedom of information we have obtained the latest figures on the number of students getting three As at higher, which is one of the measures for getting into a good university, and it is not pretty reading. We knew that the SNP Government was not closing the attainment gap, but now from these figures we know that that gap between the richest and poorest students is actually getting wider. In fact, in four local authorities, not a single pupil from the least affluent homes attained three As in their hires, whereas a wealthier pupil is now seven times more likely to get three As than their more deprived peers. We will publish all of those figures this afternoon. The First Minister has said that she wants to be judged on her record. In education, her record is one of failure, and the experts say that her plans won't fix it. So I will ask her how bad do things have to get before we see the action that we need. First Minister. As Ruth Davidson knows, we are taking action and we will continue to take action. I am not standing here, I never have stood here and said that there's not more work to do. That's why we have taken the action around the attainment challenge that I've already talked about. We are seeing, in many respects, evidence of the attainment gap narrowing. In 2007, for example, 23 per cent of pupils from the 20 per cent most deprived areas got at least one higher. That figure is now 40 per cent. When you look at qualifications at level 5, the gap between the 10 per cent most deprived and the 10 per cent least deprived has fallen from 42.5 per cent to 26 per cent. Those are figures that evidence some progress, but it's not progress that is enough for me, and I wouldn't expect it to be progress that is enough for anyone. That is why we are putting so much emphasis on the attainment work. I can cite higher results. As I've said before, one of the problems we have is that we can't cite that evidence from earlier on in a child's school progress. The time that it gets to higher, if you haven't dealt with the attainment gap, then perhaps it's too late to do so. That's why the national improvement framework is so important, so that we can start dealing with this, not even in primary school, but in early years through primary school, so that we see the improvements later on in school careers. That's the emphasis that we are putting on this work, and I would hope that Ruth Davidson would welcome it. Willie Coffey. The First Minister will be aware of the announcement by Stuttgart-based mala engineering in Comarnock that more than 170 jobs are to be lost in the bearings finishing department of the business by January next year, and that the company plans to move that production to other plants in Europe, despite the renowned quality of the bearings produced by the Comarnock staff over many years and the solid performance of the company worldwide. Will the First Minister see what intervention might be possible with the company in order to try to save those jobs and help to prevent yet another job's body blow to the town? I welcome Willie Coffey's question. I share his concern at the announcement of possible redundancies at the mala group in Comarnock, and I'm sure that this will be a very worrying time for all affected employees. I can confirm that Scottish Enterprise has offered support to the company and will meet with senior management next week to discuss it. I can also confirm that our PACE team will meet with the company next week to discuss a tailored programme of PACE support for any employees who may be facing redundancies. The Scottish Government will take any action that we possibly can, and I know that the Enterprise Minister would be very happy to discuss it in more detail with Willie Coffey. To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Cabinet. Matters of importance to the people of Scotland. This week, the education secretary had an online Q&A. Not one person agreed with Angela Constance about the national standardised testing, and the international experts at the OECD warned that the risk of national testing was narrowing the curriculum and teaching to the test. One of the issues is league tables. The First Minister told me that she was against league tables, but she's told journalists that she's not going to stop them putting primary schools into league tables. If she doesn't want them, why is she going ahead and taking all the steps to allow them to happen? It may have escaped Willie Rennie's notice. I don't control the newspapers. Perhaps, if I did, things would be very different. For me, there's something quite reassuring here. On the one hand, I've got Ruth Davidson telling me that I'm not going far enough in school reform, and on the other hand, I've got Willie Rennie telling me that I'm going far too far in school reform. That tells me that we're probably in exactly the right place in terms of reforming our schools and how we measure the performance of our schools and the attainment gap. I stand by what I said. I have no interest in crude league tables that offer no meaning to parents, nor do I have any interest in a system that would encourage teaching to the test. However, I think that it is incumbent on me, as First Minister, to make sure that children's progress is being assessed in a way that better informs the judgments that teachers make about their performance, and that allows all of us to have a meaningful and evidence debate in this chamber and across Scotland about whether we are or are not making progress in closing the attainment gap. I think that that is absolutely the right thing to do. We'll continue to discuss the detail of our plans with teachers, with local authorities, with parents and with others, but I'm determined, as I said to Ruth Davidson, that we do make real progress on this and I'll push forward with it for that reason. Willie Rennie. The league tables are coming, and she's not convinced—she has not convinced—one single person that she's going to stop them. The OECD says of equal importance is consensus building amongst the various stakeholders involved. Professor Brian Boyd, who was a member of the curriculum review group, said that it was a retrograde step. Headteacher George Gilchrist said that it's a definite step backwards. The EIS said that testing would have a profoundly negative impact. The parent teacher council concluded that testing does not raise attainment. Why is the Government's approach to consensus building just to tell all those people that they are all wrong? First Minister, although I will tell Willie Rennie that he's wrong, we're not introducing high-stakes testing, we're introducing assessment that is carried out in most local authorities anyway in a standardised way so that we can use it appropriately. It's assessment that will help inform teachers' judgments about the performance of children. We will continue to work, as we are doing right now, with teachers and with others to finalise how we will make use of that information, how we will publish that information in a way that doesn't lead to crude league tables. Willie Rennie's twice mentioned the OECD. We should, in the not-too-distant future, get the OECD's latest report on the performance of Scottish education. I look forward to receiving that, and hopefully that will be a useful contribution to our own going work in this area. The area that I have said repeatedly and will continue to do so is one that I have set as a priority, and I will continue to treat it in that way. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's position is on how the UK Government's latest amendments to the Scotland Bill could impact on the governance of Scotland. I think that it's been quite interesting this week, is it not, that a bill that was claimed to deliver the vow in full when it was first introduced needed so many amendments to make it supposedly deliver the vow now? I think that the amendments improved the bill in some key areas, particularly the late amendment that was lodged yesterday by the UK Government. I think that it still falls far, far short in other areas. Of course, in terms of whether the bill delivers on promises made, it will be for the people to be the judge of that in the election next May. SNP MPs will propose further amendments in the House of Commons next week, including one to deliver real power over tax credits in their entirety, and we call on all members to support those. More generally, our priority now is to agree a fair fiscal framework so that we can get on with using those new powers for the benefit of the people we serve. The Scotland Bill goes nowhere near delivering on the Smith commission proposals, never mind fulfilling the vow. Does the First Minister share the view of a number of third sector organisations that the proposed devolution of the work programme, while Westminster retains power over sanctions, are incoherent and illogical, like so many other proposals contained in this bill? Yes, I do. Benefit, conditionality and employability, as anybody knows, go hand in hand, and they should have been fully devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Kevin Stewart is right to point out that many stakeholders called for that. I think that that is symptomatic of the approach that the UK Government has taken. The employment provisions in the bill do fall short of the Smith recommendations. There is no justification, in my view, for insisting that we wait 12 months before stepping in to help someone who is unemployed. The social security provisions in the bill are still notwithstanding welcome improvements, are still full of qualifications and constraints, including, most importantly, perhaps those in benefits sanctions. The sanctions regime has been shown to push people into crisis, and it is one of the main drivers of food banks, which is why we have been very clear that there is an urgent need for a full and independent review of the whole sanctions system. Given the shambles that we saw in this Parliament in yesterday's welfare debate from the SNP, the First Minister's colleague Mr Neill, confirming in reference to the Scotland bill and his desire to reverse-tax credits that, and I quote, I have to say, Presiding Officer, 10 out of 10 for sheer brass neck from Baroness Goldie. Baroness Goldie, let me remind the chamber, and more importantly, let me remind the whole of Scotland, sat in the House of Lords a couple of weeks ago and voted for tax credit cuts that will penalise low-income families. So, let me say, it will be a long time before I am prepared to take any lectures in this chamber from Baroness Goldie on the issue of tax credits. To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Government will provide assistance to families who lose tax credits as a result of the UK Government's proposals. Well, as I said earlier, Presiding Officer, we intend to keep up pressure on the Chancellor to drop his plans to cut tax credits. If he doesn't do so, we will bring forward credible and deliverable plans to assist low-income families. This is in line with the approach that we have already taken to mitigate welfare cuts, including the bedroom tax, an approach that is backed this year alone by more than £100 million of investment. Can I say as gently as I can to the First Minister that this is not about her, is not about the SNP, is not even about the shambles that we witnessed from Alex Neil yesterday. This is about the 250,000 families that are set to lose £1,300 a year due to the Tory cuts to tax credits. Protecting income is not the same as restoring tax credits in full. Her careful language tells me that she knows this. So let's cut through all the words. I only require a one-syllable answer. Will the First Minister help working families and restore every penny lost through tax credit cuts? Yes or no? Jackie Baillie is right about one thing. This is about the families across Scotland who stand to lose tax credits. That is why they deserve better than game playing. They deserve from their Government real, detailed, credible, deliverable and affordable plans, and that is what they will get. It really is a bit rich for Jackie Baillie to stand in this chamber and talk about cuts to the incomes of poor families when just two days ago she pressed her button and voted to spend £167 billion renewing trident nuclear weapons on the Clyde. To ask the First Minister at what level the Scottish rate of income tax will be set. In a radical new departure, we will announce that in the budget. At the weekend, the Scottish Labour Party of Jeremy Corbyn announced its plans to raise taxes on the Scottish people. The Scottish Conservatives will vigorously oppose any moves to tax families or businesses in Scotland more highly than the rest of the United Kingdom. So where does the First Minister stand on this issue? Will she join with us and today rule out higher taxes on families and businesses in Scotland? Yes or no? You should advise your colleague, Alec Johnson, when you are encouraging me to join with you. You should not have him sitting and leering at me in that strange way that he has just done. It is extremely off-putting. Anyway, if I can recover my composure for just a second, we will announce our tax plans in the budget as most Governments do. I have to say that tax really is the last thing the Tories should be talking about right now. The tax credit cuts that we have been talking about today would effectively raise the tax rate for some low-paid workers to 90 per cent. Right now it is the Tories that are the party of high tax on low-income households. Perhaps Murdo Fraser would be better advised rather than, as I believe that he did yesterday, endorse George Osborne's plans, join his leader in asking George Osborne to reverse those cuts just like we do. I do think, First Minister, that Mr Johnson is not in the habit of leering in this chamber. That ends First Minister's question time. We now move to members' business. Members who leave the chambers should do so quickly and quietly.


Hi and welcome to the session, I am Asha and I am going to help you with the following question which says if A is a set having elements 1, 2, 3 and so on up to 14 define a relation r from A to A where r is equal to order pair x, y such that 3x minus y is equal to 0 x and y are elements of A, write down its domain, co-domain and range. So first let us learn some simple definitions with the help of which we will solve the above problem. Let us start with the term relation. Suppose we have any two non-empty sets A and B a relation from A to B is a subset of the Cartesian product A cross B. Now the subset is derived by describing a relationship between the first element and the second element of the ordered pair A cross B. The second element is called the image of the first element. The relation r which is the subset of the Cartesian product A cross B and is derived by describing a relationship has ordered pairs x plus y such that x belong to A and y belong to B. And now let us come to the term domain which implies the set of all the first elements of the ordered pair. In a relation r from a set A to a set B is called the domain and range is the set of all the second element of the ordered pair. Co-domain the whole set B and range is always a proper subset of the co-domain. So these are some definitions which we should always keep in mind before solving problems of this type. This is a key idea. Let us now begin with the solution and here we are given a set A with elements of 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on up to 14. And we are required to define a relation from A to A. The relation r is defined by all the ordered pair x comma y such that the relation between x and y is 3x minus y is equal to 0 where x and y belong to A. This is the subset of the Cartesian product A cross A to define the ordered pair which satisfies the condition 3x minus y is equal to 0. Now, first let x is equal to 1 then 3 into 1 minus y is equal to 0 implies y is equal to 3. Similarly, when x is equal to 2, 3 and 4 this implies y is equal to 6, 9 and 12 since our relation y is equal to 3x. Now, if we take x is equal to 5 then y will be equal to 3 into 5 which is equal to 15 which do not belong to the set A. Hence, x comma y if equals to 5 comma 15 this does not belong to the relation r. Thus the relation r will have elements 1, 3 that is when x is 1 then y is 3. When x is 2 y is 6, when x is 3 y is 9 and when x is 4 y is 12. Now, here is find the domain of r. Domain of r will be the set of elements which are the first elements of these ordered pairs. First elements are 1, 2, 3 and 4. Let us find the range of r. Range of r will be the set of elements these ordered pairs which are the second element as 3, 6, 9 and 12 and now lastly we have to find the co-domain of r which will be the set A itself that is the set having elements 1, 2, 3, 4 up to 14. So, this is the answer. This completes the solution. Hope you enjoyed it. Take care and bye for now.


Well good evening everybody and nice to see you here tonight. We at the forum we pride ourselves in bringing conservative opinions of different flavors and tonight there'll be one from Yaron Brooke with the Anran Institute. Yaron has a fascinating background and a wide range of experiences. He was born in Israel, parents from South Africa and became a citizen in 2003 and I don't know when the rest of us knew what we were going to be when we grew up but in Yaron's case he was given a copy of Atlas Shrugged when he was 16 and we know what happened after that. Yaron served as a first sergeant in the Israeli military intelligence and earned a bachelor's of science in civil engineering from the Technion. In 87 he moved to the US and received his MBA and PhD in finance from the University of Texas and for seven years he was an award-winning finance professor at the Santa Clara University which boasts a very famous alum. Joel was a student of Yaron when back when he was in Santa Clara and in 2000 he left Santa Clara University to succeed Michael Berliner as president and executive director of the Anran Institute with offices in California and the DC area. So Yaron has a teaching and public lecturing events and conferences that all over the world. From the authorship point of view he's the columnist for Forbes, his articles in Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Investors Business Daily and has a new book out, Equals Unfair, there'll be a signing opportunity after the Q&A today. So what you're also going to learn is that Yaron is not shy on a variety of topics. He can cover capitalism and business, rational selfishness, the environment and climate change, foreign policy and war and the war against Islamic totalitarianism. But tonight we're going to focus on economics and the politics of economics. Like I said there will be a book signing after the Q&A and I was told that Yaron welcomes all kinds of different questions during the Q&A and that would include foreign policy and Orlando which has happened. So we should know no topics do not be covered. This is not a safe zone. You can just say whatever you want. So back by demand again, happy to introduce Dr. Yaron Brooke. Well thank you for having me back. Yeah, I guess we're in California so I should warn you about triggers.  I might say something that offends you. Grow up I guess.  Two things that surprised me when I walked in. Last time I was here we didn't have a security with automatic rifle standing there. I mean cool but sad. Sad right that we even need this. We even think about this kind of stuff. And this guy sitting up in the front thing is wearing a Hillary shirt. And I was like what's going on here? And they haven't you know they haven't beaten him up or anything and then I didn't read for prison. It took me a little while to see that. So yeah so it's it is warm in here so you'll have to excuse me. So how many of you I'm curious how many of you care about inequality? Think it's a real problem. No don't be shy. I mean how many of you think inequality is a problem? Well I mean very few of you which puts you in the tiniest minority I think in the world. Indeed the issue of inequality. Remember inequality is the gap. Let's be very clear about what we mean. Inequality is the gap between the poor and the rich or the middle class and the rich however you want to define it. Inequality has been declared by authorities all over the world as the most important issue of our time. Not terrorism, not the growth of the state, not rise of socialism or fascism or anything like that. Inequality, the gap, this gap, is the most important. Now you know it's not just Obama. Obviously Obama has declared it the most important issue of our time and you know you'd expect that I guess from Obama. But the Pope has declared this. Most of the Nobel Prize laureates in economics in America have declared this. You know even even some former economists like Paul Krugman view this as a really really important. I always call him the former economist because he actually was an okay kind of economist like a long time ago. But ever since he started writing for the New York Times and gaining power what did Lord Acton say about power? It corrupts. He's become less and less of an economist than more of a hack, a political hack which is what he is today. And I hope this is being videotaped and somebody takes the segment and mails it to him because he deserves, he deserves it. He deserves to hear it. I think he knows it. Deep down he knows he's not an economist anymore. All of these guys, everybody out there has declared this is the most important issue we are facing. We had a book come out last year by Thomas Piketty, a French economist. You know it has to be good, right? A French economist, very well known. He's probably going to get the Nobel Prize for this. So don't laugh. I mean this is serious stuff. And it came out and it's called capital in the 21st century. Now I actually, it was translated from French. I actually prefer the German translation which is Das Kapital in the 21st century. It's just a straight translation, right? And it's not accidental. For those of you who don't know, Das Kapital is the title of Karl Marx's book written, you know, not that long ago and this is an update, right? This is a far less interesting, far less profound update. Marx was really, really wrong but at least he was smart. This is not that deep. And yet, and yet, everybody reviewed this book. It became the best seller in the United States. It sold like hot cakes. It's still a best seller right now on Amazon. Every economist out there, everybody who had a column reviewed this book. Mostly positive reviews, even people on the right, people who fundamentally seem to maybe disagree. We'll talk about the right in a minute. They all kind of said, well, but he's such a, you know, such a good economist and the data's so interesting. And like, there's this resistance to saying, there's no issue here. Nobody should care about inequality. Even the Republican candidates, even the most libertarian of them, Rand Paul, was asked about, well, what do you think about the problem of inequality? And his answer was, well, we are better at solving it. We're better at solving the problem of inequality. Now let's talk a little bit about this problem of inequality. I look around the room here and it seems to me like we've got a bunch of people here who are pretty unequal in lots of different things. In pretty much everything. We all look different. I'm guessing we all have different talents and different skills and different abilities. We probably have different world levels of wealth right here in the room. Cool. Imagine if we were all the same. What an awful, boring, horrible world it would be, even if everybody's like me. It would be awful and boring and horrible. It would not be good. The fact that we're all different means we do different things. We specialize. We have different levels of ability. That's just life. It's because of our genes. It's because of our parents. Maybe it's some of it, God forbid, because of choices we made. I know choices are not, don't count anymore, right? It's nature or nurture. If you're radical, it's a mixture of nature and nurture that determine everything about you. But maybe there's a third thing, like your own decision, free will, volition, what you decide to make of your own life. I think that's Trump's, everything else. But that's not very PC these days to talk about it, to talk about that. We're all different and that's great. So if we all start out different, clearly we all start out different. Why is it a surprise that we all end up differently? And we're different in the middle and we're different everywhere. We are metaphysically different. We are metaphysically unequal. There's nothing about us that's equal. Now you might say, wait a minute, you're on. Didn't the Founding Fathers and the Declaration of Independence, the most important political document ever written, then they all say, isn't there a little statement they're saying, all men are created equal? Yeah. But what kind of equality do they mean? Political equality. They mean we're all equally free. We're all equal in rights. Every human being, every human being on the planet has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Property should be in there as well. Life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of every human being. Whether they government recognize it or not, every human being has that right.  But the principle, the principle that we are all equal in rights, equal in freedom, equal in liberty, equal before the law, that is a legitimate concept. But the Founders understood that we're all equal, and therefore our outcome, and even the opportunities we face, will never be equal. And the only way to make them equal is how? Is by violating our freedoms. It's by treating us unequal before the law. It's by taking from some and giving to others. It's by sacrificing one group of people for the sake of another group of people. One individual for the sake of another individual. And the whole idea of this country was to not do that. That every individual is sacred. Every individual has a right to be free. No individual should be sacrificed for the sake of another individual. So when the left talks about equality, or when the right talks about equality and apologizes for the inequality that exists today, they're talking about equality of outcome, equality of even equality of opportunity. Opportunity is just a form of outcome, right? It's just a little lower on the chain. But it's a form of outcome. They're talking about violating the equality of rights, equality of liberty. And yet this is this is huge. This is the rhetoric of inequality is prevalent anywhere, everywhere. Again, even those on the right seem to be apologetic about this issue. The left, for the last 10 years or so, about 10 books have been written about the issue of inequality a year, 10 a year. You know how many books have been written on the right? Like two in the last 10 years, three now, there's no answer. We have no answer. And what happens when one side writes 10 books a year, and the other side is silent? Guess who wins? The side who writes the books, the side who defines the terms, the side who repeats their mantra over and over and over again.  And everybody goes, Well, of course, that's true, because I heard it on television 3,000 times, and nobody says the opposite. So what's going on here? What is behind? I want to talk about today with you guys, because you're already kind of on the right. I want to talk to you about why the left is doing this, why this issue of inequality is so important to them, because it's really important to them. And because it's important to them, it should be really, really important to you, because you better fight it.  And this issue of inequality is a wedge issue. We can't apologize for it. We have to stand up against it. So I want to talk about that. And I talk about the second thing is why they're getting away with it. What are the assumptions that are underlying it that we have to challenge? So what are they trying to do? So America is a unique country. It's really the only country in human history, really the only country in human history that was founded on a moral principle. On the principle of individualism, on the principle of individual rights, on the idea that every individual has an inalienable right to live his life as he sees fit. That you have a right, you should be free to pursue those values that are going to make your life the best life that it can be. That's what pursuit of happiness means. It means pursue values that will lead to your happiness. And the state, other people don't have a right to tell you how to do it and force you to follow a different course of action. It's your life and nobody else. You own it. Before America, your life always belonged to whom? King, the tribal leader, the pope, somebody else, right? The collective, some other group, some other leader, somebody. America was the first time in human history where we said, no, my life belongs to me. Your life belongs to you. I don't have a right over your life and you don't have a right over mine. For the first time, we're individuals. And as a consequence of the freedom that was allowed in America, we're the first country in the world that has a term like making money. In America, we make money. We don't take money. We don't steal money. We make money. What does that mean? It means we create wealth. We create wealth. The world's not a zero-sum game. We're billed. Think about Europe 400 years ago. 400 years ago, how did you get rich in Europe? How did you become an aristocrat? You stole it.  How did his father? You stole it. It was a zero-sum game. Yet, serfs, basically slaves, they worked for you. You exploited them. You put barriers on the road. You took taxes, which were just highway robbery. That's what it was. All of the wealth in Europe was about redistribution. There was no wealth creation. There was no increase in wealth. If you look at per capita wealth or per capita income for 10,000 years until the Industrial Revolution, it's flat. Just a question of which group or which number of people have it and which don't. It's just redistribution. In America and in the Industrial Revolution and the capitalism, we start making money. We start creating wealth. So I can understand the Europeans. Have a sudden inbred resistance to wealth, because in their mind, wealth means steel. Historically, now, you'd think they'd be smart enough to figure out that isn't what it means anymore. But, you know, they're European. So, of course, most of us are too, but we were the small ones. We left. We came here. So, in America, we never resented wealth. We never resented ability. Indeed, in survey after survey after survey until very recently, Americans always, when they're asked about inequality, say, who cares? When they're asked about the wealthy, they say, I want to be wealthy. You know, I don't resent wealth. Europeans don't. Europeans are envious. Europeans don't like the fact that some people succeed and other people don't. Americans have never cared. Now that, the left doesn't like. They want us to be like Europe. They want us to be envious, because they want to redistribute wealth. They want the state to be involved to decide who gets what, where, when. There are real problems in America. I'm not saying there are no problems. I'm just saying inequality is not a problem. There's problems of poverty. There are too many poor people, and they don't rise up fast enough from poverty. There's real problems in the middle class. This economy is not growing. And when the economy is not growing, we all feel it. If we're in the middle class, we feel it, because we're stagnant. We don't go anyway. And this problem is at the top. There are way too many cronies. Way too many cronies. People who get ahead by manipulating the system, by bribing the government, by buying themselves power. That's wrong. None of those have anything to do with the gap. They're problems. But the left wants us to focus on the gap. Why? Because their solution to each one of the problems does what? Makes them worse. Their solution to poverty is raising the minimum wage. Guess who gets hurt when you raise the minimum wage? The poor people. The poorest of the poor.  Their solution for a slow growth is what? Well, they don't really have any. I don't know if you've seen the prevalence of books and articles recently about the fact that the world is a new world. We should accept it. Growth is going to be slow forever. It just can't go any faster anymore. That's their solution for slow growth, right?  But that's what they want, right? And then what's their solution at the top? What's their solution to cronyism? Bigger government. And we know there's a correlation. Almost one on one. The bigger the government, the more cronyism there is. Simple. The more I control your life, the more you're going to fight back. And when you fight back, you also going to start manipulating things in your own favor. The best example of this I always use is Microsoft. Microsoft's a great example for this. In the early 1990s, Microsoft spent exactly $0 on lobbying. $0 in Washington. No building, no lawyers, no lobbyists, nothing. The mantra in Microsoft was, you leave us alone, we'll leave you alone. So they're brought in front of the Senate. And Arun Hatch, good Republican, right? Gives them the speech about how they have to start lobbying. In South America, we would say he was giving them a speech to argue for bribes. But in America, we call it lobbying and we make it nicer, right? You got to start lobbying. You got to have lawyers here in DC. You got to build a building in DC. You got to have a presence in DC.  They walked away. Guess what happened six months later? Knock on the door. We're from the Justice Department and we're really upset that you're giving away Internet Explorer for free. People forget that that's what they went after Microsoft for initially, was giving Internet Explorer for free because Netscape in those days was charging for their browser. And this was, you know, my one line on antitrust, this is quick, antitrust laws. You're always in violation. This is a Zyn Rand's line, not mine. You're always in violation, right? If you sell it cheaper than your competitors, then you're dumping, right? And that's bad, right? If you're selling it more expensive than your competitors, you obviously have a monopoly. Otherwise, how can you get away with it? And if you're selling it at exactly the same price as your competitors, collusion. So no matter what you do, you're in violation of antitrust laws.  Notice they go after Apple that spends very little money lobbying and they don't go after Google that spends a lot of money lobbying. No accident, no accident. So the solution to cronyism can't be more of this, can't be more government, can't be more regulation, more controls, more government intervention. But that's what the left proposes. So in every one of these they have no solutions or their solutions make the problem much much worse. They don't want you to focus on the problems. They want you to focus on this gap. So let's, and they want you to focus on the gap because they want Americans to envy, they want Americans to resent, which gives the people in power, not the people who have economic power, the people have political power, more power, more control, more say in how we live our lives, which is ultimately the goal. Now let's talk about this gap for a minute, right? 250 years ago, how many people were poor? 300 years ago, it's easier, 300 years ago, how many people were poor? What percentage of the population was poor? I mean really poor, like subsistence poor, barely surviving, 90 plus percent. Everybody was poor. We were equal. Cool, right? It's good. It's good. I'm sure in North Korea they have Equality Day and they all celebrate regularly, right? They're all equally poor. And then what happened, right? We were all poor, we were all like this, all the same, pretty much the same, and then something happened. Around 1776, I like 1776, two things happened in 1776, obviously Declaration of Independence, what's the second thing that happens significantly in 1776? Wealth of Nations is written, published by Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, 1776, this happens.  So here we are equal and all poor. Here we are equal, but by those standards all rich. Even the poor now are relatively rich as compared to those guys over there. Bad? How can that be bad? And again, just the manifestation of the fact that we are free and we are different. And when we're different and when we're free, we produce different stuff, different levels. So the two things that the leftists trying, I mean they're trying to cause us to worry about this gap, you know, but how do they, how do they get to the American people? Two, two main ways. One is, you know, they tell us that there's this national pie, there's national wealth, everybody talks about national wealth, American wealth. And then they say it's not distributed right, right? This national wealth, like a small percentage of us have a lot of this pie and the rest of us have a little bit of the pie. And we all say well that's not fair, wait a minute. Somebody brings a pizza to a party, we expect it to be divided up equally, right? Or approximately equally. But no, it's not equally divided. Now what's the problem here? It's a problem. There's a problem here. Right? Why is the pie example not a good example? Because there is no national pie. Sorry, there is no national wealth, there is no national income, there's your wealth, and your wealth, and your income, and your income. You have a pie, you have a pie, and you have a pie. Now yes, mathematically we can squish them all together and pretend mathematically there's a national pie. But America has no wealth. I have wealth, you have wealth, you have wealth. We happen to be Americans, cool. Good for us, right? But America hasn't got any wealth. Okay, I have to comment here on Trump, sorry. America doesn't trade with anybody. America doesn't trade.  Walmart happens to be the main mechanism by which we trade. But America doesn't trade with anybody. You don't have trade between America and China, you have trade between Walmart and some Chinese company. And like in any trade, what happens in trade?  More than $300. I win, and Apple made a profit. So win, win. Trade is win, win when it's voluntary. And since two people are trading, they happen to be on the opposite sides of the ocean, all trade is, is win, win. Nobody lost, they no losers. They no losers. Anyway, national pie don't exist. National trade doesn't exist. National GDP doesn't exist. Again, it's useful mathematically to add them up, but it doesn't, it's not a reality, it's not out there. You have a pie, you have a pie, I was on the show and on a TV show and this guy, I don't know, it's a Glenn Beck's thing, the Blaze, and he likes to drive around and have his guests in the car while he interviews them and he goes to a fast food place and he buys stuff and we earned a McDonald's and we bought a bunch of pies, right?  There is no such thing as a collective pie. We are not collectivists. The state does not own you and therefore the state does not own your wealth and therefore the state does not have a pie to distribute.  None of my business, none of your business, none of anybody's business, none of the politician's business, none of the state's business. You bake your own pie. Some of us work really really hard to bake, big pies, some of us work really really hard and don't bake big pies. So what? I chose to be a teacher. I love doing this. It doesn't pay. Ask him. They haven't paid me anything. This doesn't pay. I do this for love. I've got a PhD in finance, I could probably get a job on Wall Street but love to me is more important than money. That's okay. I understand people who prefer money. We make choices. All kinds of choices that result in all kinds of pies. I have my pie, somebody else has his pie. I love people with big pies. The only way to make a big pie and they hear the analogy breaks down so I'm going to switch to money. The only way to make a lot of money is how? How do you make a lot of money? Yeah, you work hard. Absolutely. You got to have a great idea. You have to use your mind. You have to really focus and what? I know a lot of people who start companies and they work really hard and they have what they think is a great idea and they fail. So how do you make a lot of money? By creating value. For whom? For us. Every time I see a rich guy I say cool. He must have done something that made my life better. I know Steve Jobs made my life better. A lot better. I know Bill Gates made my life better. A lot better. I know that entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley make my life better every day. There's a new app. There's a new something that I'm buying that makes my life better. But that's true of my clothes manufacturers. I've everybody who's ever made money in some way. Somewhere down the road. They have made the world a better place by making money. The only way to make money is by making the world a better place. In a free market. In a free society. Never apologize for making money. Never do community service and charity in order to release the guilt for making money. Don't feel the guilt. You didn't earn it. Making money is virtuous in and of itself. You're creating value. You're creating something. So the fact that somebody's got a big pie. Thank you. Thank you for making whatever it is you make. That is made I'm sure in some distant way my life better. And I don't care where you live. You can live on the other side of the planet. If you're making money in a free market without cronyism, without force, without manipulation. You're making my life better. And that's a cool thing. So we got to get rid of this idea of a big pie. Of a collectivistic pie. That left is trying to get us to be collectivists. That's European. Let them stew in that broth. We're individualists. We believe that wealth is created by individuals. And that brings me to the second trick they've put together, right? And this Obama has well, Elizabeth Warren really invented, you know, came up with this idea but Obama is famous for declaring it. There is no such thing as individual. You didn't build that. None of you built it, right? And this is really important. This is not a mistake that he made. This is not some trivial comment he made. This is a clear ideological path that they're trying to take us on again towards collectivism. Elizabeth Warren said it first and she articulated the whole case of why you didn't build that. It takes a village, right? It takes a village. An anti-policy three, four days ago said that all the technology in this phone was invented by the government. And if you break it down, if you break it down and you go back far enough, yeah, there was some research grant somewhere way back there that the government provided to somebody but she's taking credit for this. Now just imagine. I do this with students all the time. Imagine, because they get it, right? Imagine if a government designed this. Or what it looked like, right?  No way this was made by a government, right? But this is what they're trying to say. They're trying to make everything about the collective. They're trying to say you didn't build that. You had a great teacher. Yeah, we all had great teachers. That's great. I mean I don't remember any of my great teachers, but maybe you do, right? But if you had a great teacher, go thank her. Go say thank you. That'd be great. And if you're rich, and if you have a lot of money, write them a check. They would really enjoy that. Teachers don't make that much money. But to feel guilty because you had a great teacher or now the wealth that you created is not yours because you had a great teacher, that's absurd. I mean I, all of us, all of us owe civilization to Aristotle, Newton, John Locke, the founding fathers. What? We should feel guilty because we owe that. Sure, they were great minds and we've all benefited from them. That's the way knowledge and civilization work. We stand on the shoulders of giants. That's, that is the way it is. To use that, to undercut your own individual achievement is absurd. But again, it's motivated by you don't count as an individual. Only the group counts. That's the agenda. Government build the roads that you drive on. Yeah, right. Government did build the roads they drive on. Unfortunately, they'd be much better if they were all private. But different, you know, just drive around the bay area and see, right? Imagine if that was private, the kind of competition that would arise to figure out a better solution than the traffic we have here. But think about who pays for those roads. Who pays for those roads? Yeah, the people who make the wealth. And the more wealth you pay, the more wealth you make, the more you pay. I mean, clearly the top 10% are paying over 50% of the taxes or some even much more than I can't remember the exact number.  So they pay for it. And what comes first? Business or infrastructure? Oh, business. How can you afford the infrastructure without somebody making money that you can take from and build the infrastructure? Somebody has to create something that you can steal something from in order to build this stuff. You can't? I mean, where does the money come from? The money comes from creation, from value creation, from making stuff, making stuff, making money, right? We don't just redistribute, we make, we build, we create values. What was the other one? Oh, you had employees. Well, yeah, you have employees. Bill Gates had employees, right? He paid them. More millionaires in Microsoft than any company I think in history, right? We pay our employees in a fair trade, voluntary trade, win-win. So you made it, you created it, it's yours, be proud. Don't feel guilty, but they want to induce guilt. Guilt, as every Jewish and Catholic mother will tell you, is a great way to control people. Great way.  Guilt is great. Don't do it because when politicians use that guilt, it's to get you. It's to undercut your values. It's to undercut your freedom. So I'm going to wrap up here. We got to fight this. This is the issue they have chosen to go to the barricades on in order to try to turn this country into Europe, in order to undercut the individualism of America. We don't care about inequality. I'm waiting for presidential candidate to say, I don't care. I don't care. I love inequality. No, it's not that I don't care. I love inequality. Inequality means we're free. Places that are equal are places where we're not free. Freedom equals inequality. There's no inequality if we're not free, unless we're free. Freedom is what we should be fighting. Not equality. Equality is an evil ideology. Equality of outcome is an evil ideology. Just think about all the regimes in history that have advocated for equality of outcome. And I'll give you this horrific image, right? This is the horrific image of one regime, the regime that probably took this more seriously, this idea of equality of outcome. It was a group, it was a group of relatively smart people, went to Paris to get their education, studied under the great philosophers in Paris, Sartre and Camus and Diderot and all these postmodern existentialists. And they learned equality is a good thing. Equality is great. So they went back to their country and they managed to take control over their government. They said, okay, we're going to implement equality. So they looked around the country and they saw, well, that's a problem, because some people live in the cities and some people live in the countryside. That's not equal, right? City life is much more comfortable than countryside life. So what do we do? We empty the cities. So they literally drove everybody out of the cities into the countryside. But then they looked around the countryside and they said, they're still not equal. Some people are good farmers, some people are not. Some people are good at foraging food and some people are not good at foraging food. So they banned foraging. People were still unequal. Some people are smart, some people could read, some people had an education, some people were more entrepreneurial. So what do you do? You shoot them. You shoot them. If you had glasses, that was a sign you intelligence, supposedly. You got shot. You had a college education. You were shot. You showed any kind of initiative on the farm. You were shot. Now I'm not making this up. This is the killing fields of Cambodia. This is the Khmer Rouge. This happened not that long ago. This is just 50, 40, 50 years ago. This is in our recent history. This ideology of equality was put to full use. And the consequence was 40 percent of Cambodia's population was slaughtered, was murdered. In the name of equality. Equality is evil. We're for inequality. We love inequality. Why? Because we're for freedom. We love freedom. We're for individualism. We're for each individual owning his own life. We are for the principles on which this country was based.  That's what we should be fighting for. The individual, his own freedom, and his freedom to be different. That's what makes this country great. Thank you all. It's a good question. So the first question is, is it fair that one person gets a prize and others don't? Yeah. Okay. Okay, the next, the next prime, I, okay. Yes, it's fair. What does fair mean? Here's a good question. What does fair mean? Now, the left is defined fair to mean equal. So today, when people think about fair, they mean equal. But fair always used to mean getting what you deserve. It's about dessert. It's not about equality. And dessert is different. Some of us deserve more because we create more. Some of us deserve less because we create less. That's just the reality. What do you think about attempts to force jobs to stay in the U.S.? What do I think about the attempts to force jobs to stay in the U.S.? I'm against force. I think it's horrible the idea of forcing jobs to stay in the U.S. It lowers all of our standard of living. It lowers our standard of living. If somebody somewhere else in the world can make the same product that the same at the lower cost, great, then we get to spend less on that product. We have more stuff to buy other things or to invest or to save. And our standard of living goes up, not down. Now does somebody lose a job? Sure, but that's life. People lose most jobs that are lost in the United States are lost because of technology, not because of the Chinese or anybody else.  What percentage of the American population worked in farming a hundred years ago? Like over 80 percent. You know how many work today in farming? Less than one percent. Less than one percent. Do we make more or less food today? Much more. Oh, but we lost farming jobs. Oh my god. Okay, how many in manufacturing? Right? We peaked in terms of manufacturing jobs in 1979. We have a lot less manufacturing jobs in the United States today than we did in 1979. Do we make more stuff in the United States or less stuff in the United States since 1979? Manufacturing stuff. Double. More than double what we made in 1970 and with fewer people. Why? Technology, robots, computers, efficiency. That's great productivity increases, reduced the amount of manual labor, you know, dull manual labor, and increased the amount of number of goods and lower prices and raises our quality of life. This is what the whole industry revolution is about. It's about getting rid of manual jobs. Now, are there more jobs in the world today than there were a hundred years ago? Yeah, I mean that's, they're like five times more people in the world today than there were a hundred years ago yet? Everybody has a job pretty much, right? Not everybody, okay. But many more people today have a job just in sheer numbers, not in percentage, in numbers than they did a hundred years. Because there's lots of work to do. Because our needs, our desires, our wants have expanded and they will keep expanding as we get richer. So yes, you lose, I mean a lot of jobs were lost in the buggy industry when automobiles came. So what?  In China, China's about to lose millions and millions of jobs. Why? Robots is one reason. The second reason is Vietnam. They have even cheaper labor in Vietnam and Africa. When Africa gets free, when they get rid of these corrupt politicians, when they establish capitalism in Africa, there are hundreds of millions of people there who can do work, who are going to manufacture stuff. And that's going to be good for all of us. All of us are going to be better off when Africa is producing stuff. And the idea that no, we have to produce everything in America is bad economics and it's bad intellectually and it's bad for us, our standard of living. Don't buy American. You should never look at the tag. You buy the best product at the cheapest price that makes you the happiest possible. That's what America's about. It's sort of a buy America. I mean think of how our automobile industry has been forced to become better because of the Japanese. And maybe they would have been forced to become even better if Ronald Reagan had allowed Chrysler to go bankrupt in the 1980s. But we bailed out the automobile industry in the 1980s. They didn't learn their lessons. GM stayed corrupt. But what we want is, we believe in competition, right? Bring it on. Let's have competition globally. And if the Chinese want to subsidize their industries, who are they screwing really? Their own people. And we subsidize our industry all the time. And the other one is I know I'm off topic, but what the hell? The other one is I have to talk about currency manipulation because this drives me nuts because I'm a bit of an economist like I'm a finance guy. And people talk about China manipulating their currency, right? The Chinese manipulate their currency all the time. What do you think the Fed does? What is the European Central Bank doing with negative interest rates? What's the Japanese Central Bank doing with negative interest rates? What's the Fed doing with zero interest rates if not manipulating our currency? I don't know how many of you remember this again goes back to the 80s because I remember this because you remember the big stock market crash in October of 1987. What did the Treasury Secretary of the United States say on television that weekend? We want the dollar to be weaker and we're going to work to make the dollar weaker. That's part of why the stock market went down 25% in one day. So we manipulate the currency just like everybody. Every central bank in the world manipulates its currency. That's now that's one problem. That's one thing that drives me nuts. But then they get the direction of manipulation wrong. Everybody thinks the Chinese are keeping their currency really, really cheap so they can sell us cheap goods? No. If the Chinese let their currency float tomorrow, their currency would collapse. They're keeping it high because they know that a cheap currency is bad for them. They won't be able to buy anything if their currency is really, really cheap. So they've actually all of these commentators including our presidential candidates have got the direction of the manipulation wrong which is just economics 101. The Chinese are holding their currency up, not down because a strong dollar is good and a strong yuan is good. They need in order to produce this stuff they need to import oil and they need to import natural gas and they need to import raw iron and they need to import all the stuff and they need a currency to be able to buy that stuff. And if they keep it really, really low they can't afford to buy the stuff to make us stuff.  It's upside down. Yeah. Okay. Here's a softball for you. Yeah. Bill and Hillary did nothing to earn their wealth. How do you account for them? Just the short answers we find. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I've got a one liner, right? The problem is that the Donald Trumps of the world handed them cash. Whoa. I mean, this is how cronyism works. The businessman and Donald Trumps known to have given money to Hillary, businessman, give these politicians money. She gets $250,000 to give a speech at Goldman Sachs, right? I'm a much better speaker than she is. Nobody's paying me $250,000 because I have no favors to give. But she has favors to give, so she gets the money. It's all about cronyism. It's all corruption. It goes back to that idea of talking to Microsoft and telling them they had to lobby. This is what happens. Okay, we're going to make a big shift change here. What is the, talk about policy, international policy. What is the best way to stop and deal with the Muslim takeover of the US and the world? Easy question. No, it actually, the sad reality of it, it is an easy question. It's worth afraid to say it, but it's easy. But let me first say, I have to challenge the premise. Islam is not taking over America. Islam will not take over the world. We are destroying America. It's not Islam.  So let's put the threat in context. They can kill 50 people and another 50 people and another 50 people. They can even kill 3,000 people.  The people who are going to destroy America are us. We're going to do it. Europe, you know, how do we defeat, how do we stop them killing 50 people, 3,000 people? Because that's, that's ridiculous that they're doing that. That's evil and it's wrong. How do we stop that? We crush them. We crush them. And them has to be clear. Them is not terrorism. It's not extremism. It's Islamism. It's radically slum and anybody who stands for radically slum. Now this is not an Obama problem. This is not a Democratic problem. This is the fault of Republicans. This is George Bush's problem. Because after 9-11, George Bush told us Islam was a religion of peace. After 9-11, George Bush refused to name the enemy. He talked about extremism and terrorism. A war on terrorism. How do you do that? Right? We're going into the jungles of Peru next to fight terrorism over there.  By the way, that's what we have. Troops all over the world because we don't know who we're fighting. I put out, we put out a full page ad in the New York Times and the Washington Post three weeks after 9-11.  People who use Islam for the totalitarian ideology, they want to take over the world.  Now it turns out there are only two countries in the world of any importance that adhere to this ideology. Two, that's it. They're not called Iraq. They're not even called Afghanistan. Two countries, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, best friend. George Bush was hugging the Prince of Saudi Arabia all over the place after 9-11. Right? And we're still big pals with Saudi Arabia. You want to stop this?  Now you have to get rid of ISIS just like you had to go to Afghanistan because that's where Bin Laden was and you have to crush it. But look, the United States of America has the mightiest military force in human history. Nobody on the planet comes close. We have bombs and weapons that can blow up the entire world in minutes, unfortunately, right? We can wipe everything out and yet we're afraid to do anything. We go after the wrong people. We take our troops and we tie their hands behind their backs. We call it rules of engagement. We blindfold them and we send them into battle not being allowed to shoot anybody. I mean, what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan is a travesty. It's a travesty. The idea that five, six thousand American kids died for nothing under rules of engagement that didn't allow them to fight for their lives is a travesty. This is easy to get rid of. You know, assign the Marines to take Riyadh.  If it gets to that, it's finished. There's nobody else out there.   There was an Islamic... You funds that guy. Saudi Arabia does. Every radical mosque in the United States is funded by Saudi Arabia. Every radical preacher that goes into American prisons and talks to inmates and converts them to Islam is funded by Saudi Arabia. Every Middle East studies program in an American university funded by Saudi Arabia. Every madras in Pakistan where they're being radicalized funded by Saudi Arabia. This is not an issue of immigration. This is not an issue of a problem with Muslims in America. This is a problem of an enemy that is clear identifiable. I would... Right after 1911, I would have done something so I would have made a list.  And enlist Israelis to help. I mean, we're happy to help. When we used to be able to fight, Israel can't fight anymore. Israel doesn't win wars anymore. Israel fights like we've learned from America, right? Gaza we've lost three times and Lebanon we've lost twice now. Because we drop leaflets like Americans do. We drop leaflets and warn people about bombs coming. The whole point of bombs is to kill people. You know, my favorite general, two favorite generals, Patton and Sherman.  And I add to that, if you're not willing to make it hell, stay home. Make it hell for the other guy.  And that's exactly how we should treat them. We're going to switch back to domestic. What are your thoughts on government monitoring of our driving habits? I'm talking about freedom. About what habits? Driving. And that would include speeding, your miles driven, and charging us for how many miles we've driven. Well, I mean, look, as long as the government has the roads, as long as they own the roads, they're going to have rules of the road. They're going to have stop signs and they get speeding. I mean, that's fine. And that, you know, that's the least of our problems. I don't think they should start monitoring how much we drive and charging us. I'd rather that, that's how you should privatize the roads. The way to privatize the roads is to charge us, based on the roads we use, and people can own roads. And that's how you pay for it. But as long as the government owns the roads, they're going to have rules of the road. I mean, that's just the reality of it. And I'm glad that they are stop signs and that they are lights, you know. Although American drivers are pretty good. You know, in Israel, you really need stop signs. And if you've ever driven in Israel, but it's... I think this question is timely. I think there was a decision today. How did internet freedom lose out to net neutrality and did the left just have a better buzzword? Yeah, no, the left, the left is winning.  The left is winning. It's already won. If you think about where we are today versus where we are 100 years ago, if you think about how we fight wars today versus how we fought World War II, if you think about every category throughout the left, the collectivistic left, the anti-individualism left is winning. And it's winning. I don't think it's because they have better buzzwords. It's more the talk I gave here three years ago. They've got them all high ground. We give them them all high ground. They define the terms. It's not buzzwords, it's terms. So inequality is a good example. They've defined that inequality is a problem. And now we argue with them about how to best solve the problem. Instead of telling them, it's not a problem. We don't care about inequality. We care about poor people, but we don't care about inequality. As soon as we give in to the terminology, as soon as we give in to them framing them all debate, we lose. And we do it all the time. We do it on every issue. And net neutrality is a good example of that. We've given them, somehow they say, it's again equality, right? Equality of access. Why? Why shouldn't Netscape have priority, right? If they're willing to pay for it. It's not my cable, it's not your cable, but it's our cable, it's a pie, right? It's all, it's again, it's collective pie. The internet, oh, it belongs to all of us. And we should all have equal access to it. Why? It doesn't belong to all of us. Some people actually invested the money and took the risk to put pipes in the ground to actually put fiber optics in the ground. Why don't they get to decide how much to charge people? But, you know, we're losing on every, I mean, really, we're losing on every front. When, bring back politics. When the leading Republican candidate is for raising the minimum wage, for tariffs on trade, for, you know, for a lot of statism, then we've lost. There is no representative of a free market. There is no representative of the founding fathers on anywhere close to being on the ticket today. We're losing everywhere. This is a strictly more economic question. How do banks charging interest create wealth? Oh, huge amount of wealth. Banks charging interest. I've got a whole essay on this called The History, the, the, the, the mall, mall defensive usury, I think it is. I'm big on usury. I think usury is great. How do, how do banks, how do banks charging interest create wealth? Well, I want to start a business and I don't have enough capital. And I want to start a small business, so no, you know, it's not the kind of business that a venture capital would give me money for and they don't charge interest, right? I go to my local bank and they give me a loan. And they're not going to give me a loan unless they can charge interest because it's their money. So they want to be paid for the risk for the fact that they don't get to use the money for that period of time and so on. And it gives me an opportunity to start a business without interest, without usury. Usury used to be the ancient word for interest. Without usury, there is no business. Nobody can buy a factory. Nobody can start a business. Nobody can employ people without somebody giving them the capital. And people want to return on the capital they give. Sometimes it's in the form of equity return. Sometimes it's the form of interest return. It's the same thing. So banks are allowing us to use their capital to create wealth. That's how it's productive. By the way, in my view, financial industry is the most productive industry in the economy. This is why finance guys make so much money, right? People like me, right? I gave that up though. Finance is responsive of the allocation of capital in an entire economy.  They get to decide when the buggy industry is not worth investing in anymore and when they should be investing in automobiles. When the PC is not worth investing in and something else is coming about. That is financial markets. That's a stock market. That's bankers. That's why the fact that banks and financial industry is so heavily regulated is destroying this economy. The problem today with slow economic growth is Dodd-Frank. It's regulating a financial industry. It's constraining them so we don't have a free flow of capital to fund the kind of investments that create jobs and create economic activity in this country today. And you don't feel it so much in Silicon Valley because you've got your own pool of capital here that is separate, but the rest of the country feels it and they feel it bad. So Dodd-Frank right now is the thing constraining as well. You know that there are fewer publicly traded companies in the US today than they were 15 years ago and that's Sorbanes-Oxley. So it's regulations of what are killing this economy and a lot of those regulations are the financial industry. What are your thoughts about open borders? So now I'm really touching a nerve. I am for open borders when we're free. I don't think you're just open borders tomorrow any more than I think you just completely privatize the roads tomorrow all at once. This is something you phase in over time. But people have a right to move. They have a right to move. The right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness means people have a right to move. I moved. Now I have to tell you that if I hadn't found a way to get into this country legally, I would have done it illegally. I really would have. That's how important my life is to me. I find the idea of anchor babies. I view it exact opposite of the way our politicians view it and the way probably most of you view it.  I call that heroic. Now, we might not like it, but that woman who comes here to have a baby so that baby can be free is heroic in my view. So I'm for immigration. I'm for more immigration. The problem in this country is they're not enough immigrants. Not too many, they're not enough. We just don't have the right mix because we discriminate against people with knowledge and ability and so on. But we need more immigrants, not fewer. We need a thriving economy. Remember, we used to have open borders. That's how this country was created because we had capitalism. Capitalism creates more jobs than there are people. So we imported people to fill those jobs. That's how your ancestors got here. They came through Ellis Island with very little restrictions. They were checked to make sure they weren't carrying diseases. Today you were checked to make sure you don't have a criminal record in a terrorist background or if you want to ban Muslims, fine. If you're going to ban anybody, those are the people to ban, right? But if somebody can get a job here, if somebody wants to work here, that's great. I love people who want to work. So the problem is the welfare state. I'm all for getting rid of welfare. But this is the thing again in our political environment. Don't blame immigrants for the problems we've created. The problems in America today are not a consequence of immigration. Right? And if there are problems of immigration, even those problems we created. Because the biggest problem that I see with immigrants today is that we are teaching them not to assimilate. We're telling them that their culture is equal to our culture. It's not. We have the greatest culture in human history. We should say that we're much better than their culture. We should tell them that they should assimilate. They need to become Americans. So when I went to get my citizenship in 2003 in a massive hall, massive thousands of people getting their citizenship all together, first of all you were offered a translator.  You don't have to be a citizen unless you know English, right? Amen. That's what you like. But then President Bush comes up on the screen and I'm sorry I really dislike President Bush. He comes up on the screen and he tells me that I should cherish my culture and I should make sure to teach my children all about my culture. And I go, I came here so my children didn't have to live in that culture. That's why I came here to embrace this culture. Stop telling me about that culture. Tell me what's great about America. Tell me that multiculturalism is evil. It's a horrible ideology. It's an ideology to bring down America. An American culture. If we stood up, if we had self-esteem, if we believed in what this culture and what this country was about, they would assimilate.  Because in those days you came here to become an American and Americans expected you to become an American. It's our fault if they don't assimilate. Well said. This is a little bit of a commercial or one of our guesses. Do you have a brochure that we leave on windshields? As a matter of fact, yes. In a few minutes the book signing will start and there are the Enrand Institute forwarded some pamphlets and brochures. They're there on the left-hand side of the table. So that was there. And we're running short on time, but I think a lot of people here, and you mentioned earlier, your thoughts on Orlando. Well, I mean, this is a consequence of not dealing with the problem. This is not an immigration problem. The guy was born here. This is a problem of not dealing with what's since 9-11. How many years has it been now? Fifteen years. Not facing the enemy. Not naming the enemy.  And finally, the Republicans are willing to say it. But remember, seven years of Bush he wouldn't say it. There was one week, I remember it, there was one week where he called him Islamophascist but if we are afraid to call the enemy by its name, and Islam has a lot to do with what they're doing, right? It's all about their interpretation of Islam. So it's Islamic terrorism. If we're afraid to say it, we lose. We lose. That's it. So we have to call it by its name. We have to call it for the evil that it is and we have to destroy the enemy where they live. We have to go there. Nobody fights for cause they know they're going to lose. What inspires these lone wolves? What inspires San Bernardino? What inspires these people is the idea that they're doing God's work, that they're going to go to heaven but that the fundamentally that they are working in a cause that is victorious, they are willing.  They have a government. They rule. They're successful. They've actually established a caliphate. It's a little caliphate but it's a caliphate, right? So the the viewers, wow, we're succeeding. There's some progress here. We can win this. And Al-Qaeda had the same thing because they view that the fact that they kicked out the Soviets from Afghanistan was why the Soviet Union collapsed. Bin Laden really believes this. He believed, believed that he caused him and his Mujahideen caused the Soviet Union to collapse. He believed that if he attacked the United States he could cause us to collapse. And we give them no reason to think that's not true because we just sit here. They just killed 50 of our citizens. What have we done? Nothing. Are we bombing them more in ISIS? Not even that. And bombing ISIS is not going to help. You have to clean shop. You have to clean them out. You have to crush them. You have to destroy them. There's no shortcuts here. This is war. And if we're not willing to fight the war, they will. They'll keep coming. They'll keep doing it. They'll keep sending people. They'll keep recruiting people who are already born here. They'll find people who convert to Islam so we won't even know they're Muslims and they'll do it. There's no end to this unless we go to war. But that means really committing which we seem committed not to do. We seem really to vote. Anything but war. Don't mention war.  Nobody's talking about Saudi Arabia. Why aren't we talking about Saudi Arabia? Saudi Arabia is the number one issue we should be talking about. It's the most important country in the Middle East when it comes to this issue. Nobody talks about it. Maybe we'll end on a philosophical note. In regards to objectionism, do people have any natural obligations to society or to each other? So, objectivism is the philosophy that Ayn Rand defined. And the question is, do people have natural obligations? Or inherent obligations? Yeah, to moral obligations to each other or to society. I mean, you don't have any obligations to society.   So, you know, the group doesn't have a claim on you. You can only have obligations that you choose. And sure, I have an obligation towards other people, like my wife, my children. They have an obligation towards a stranger, not to violate his rights, to leave him alone if he wants to be left alone and to trade with him otherwise. But no, I don't have any obligation for my war being as less important than his. I'm against sacrifice. I'm against doing something that makes my life worse off, long term. I'm for living, making my life better, making your life better. I'm for win-win relationships. Sacrifices lose win. One party loses. Otherwise, we wouldn't call it a sacrifice. I'm for win-win relationships. For people going out and engaging with one another on the basis of win-win. Whether it's love, I believe love should be win-win. If it isn't, it won't last. Try it sometimes. Friendship is win-win. If one party feels like it's losing, you're not going to maintain the friendship. Business should be win-win. Another problem I have with Donald Trump is I think he views business as win-lose. Out of the deal is about how to get the other guy not to win. No, we should win-win. Business is about winning. It's about leaving something on the table so the other side knows they want to come back and do another deal with you. Human relationships should be about win-win. That's not an issue of obligation. The obligation is to your own life. You want to live in a society in which you're happy, you can pursue your happiness, in which other people are prospering and happy. And that's healthy, positive, successful relationships are always based on the idea of both parties pursuing their own self-interest in a way that benefits both parties. And that's what life is about. Okay, thank you very much. A nice hand for Iran Brook, please.


Come back barat, Barat Obama!  I'm Corbin, and this is Rick! It's really barat. We made a boo-boo. Please follow us on Instagram! Oh, juicy content! Thank you to everybody's supporters on Patreon. We appreciate it. It's fantastic. We love you. Better, better. All those funds are going to our first trip to India. Funds for fund in India. Also, I haven't mentioned this on the channel yet. We did set up a PO box. If anybody wants to send us... People have asked us for an address to send us stuff. We're not asking you to send us anything. Well, I am. You should send Corbin, Hajmola. Don't do that. But this is just for the people that want it. So, just letting you know, it's in the description below. So, Barat, the official trailer came out with Salman Khan and Katrina Kaaf. Yup. And I believe... Not to be confused with Katrina Kapoor. And I believe Tipu as well. Oh, wow. Yeah, Tipu's going to be in here? No, she isn't. She is? Rock and roll. And yeah, we know it's Tipu for those of you who... Yes. But this is... We've actually reacted to the teaser like two months ago. We did? It was actually a shock to me. I totally had forgotten. But then I... Well, we're still searching. And then it came up and I was like, oh! Yeah, I think it was one of the first ones, actually. It came out. Wow. Yeah. We totally forgot about it. That's the great thing about having memory loss is that you can just watch the trailers over and over and over again. But yeah, there's Salman Khan. Here. V. The Go. Oh yeah, I remember this teaser now. Because it was like the Daredevil. Right. I remember now, too. Yeah, we were talking evil, couldn't even. Right. I remember now, too. Yeah, we were talking evil, couldn't even. Yeah. There's a good song. Obviously is another word for India. I guess. I believe that's what we learned in the last one. I remember in the comments they said Barat is an old name for India itself. Like Hindustan. Yeah. This is a... He looks like he has a lot of jobs. Yeah. Does it span a long time? I didn't quite understand. I think so. The teaser gave it like it was an evil, clean, evil thing. Right. Which I guess could have been one of his jobs. I don't know how long this spans because it looked like he was a Daredevil. He looked like he was a minor. It looks like he was like... It's a lifetime. It looks like a lifetime. An activist. Yeah, it looks like it goes from his early 20s and maybe younger to his 60s. I don't know. Yeah. I'm a little confused by a couple things. First of all, where's Taboo? How do you not... If she's in this, why do you have a legend like her not in the trailer? I mean, Salman Khan is technically a much bigger star than she is. True, but she's a legend. I'm not saying she's not. So it's like, how do you not... But she might just be a small supporting... Yeah, but if we had Morgan Freeman in a film as a supporting role, you're not doing a trailer without Morgan Freeman. Sometimes. Sometimes. And I really don't know what this is about. Yeah, neither do I. I mean, it was a good trailer. It didn't draw me in. Like, oh, gotta see it. I mean, I'll be willing to see another trailer and be like... No, I've got like 50 films that we already need to watch that would be way ahead of me. But yeah, it didn't... So he is... Oh, it's an adapted... It's an adaptation of a 2014 Korean film. Okay. Yeah, she is in it. She is in it. Was she there? And she was just such a shapeshifter. I completely missed her. No, no, no. I mean, it's not her film. So it's like, it's a sound and thought film. Yeah, it's true. So it's gonna be mostly him on this film. I thought, okay, until what looked like a mining accident, right? Yeah, it looked like it. And then when that happened, I thought, okay, this is gonna be the meat of the movie. We're gonna get to know this guy and he's gonna have some like massive experience with this mining accident that's gonna be like the nations drawn together about... But then it kind of went off almost the way a lot of some of the trailers we've seen from South India don't really give you a through line really. So I don't even really know what I'd be going to see other than the guy's connection to his country. No, I mean, he has other films like the one that already tells us to watch of his... What is it called? What is it called? It's Two Bees. This one? Two Bees. Oh, Bajrangi Bajjan? Yeah, that's the one everybody says the right of. Well, and it has like a deep message to it. And I think... So maybe this one also has like some deep message that we just don't know because of cultural differences? It's the cultural. My supposition is that he is 100% doing this for the targeted audience of India. And there's a lot in this.  And if you knew that, then your interest in this would be sky-high. But since we don't, our interest is low. So that doesn't mean I won't see it. Yeah, you're going to have to let us know what's going on. Yeah, what's going on without spoilers. I mean, that's a tough one. But yeah, I mean, people have said he has some really, really good films and some really, really not so good films. Dude, he's as beefy as he could possibly be in this. Yeah, he is. Dang. He is freaking good. That dude's been taking us on a creatine and some weight gain and probably bench pressing 450. Yeah. Dang. So it was interesting. It wasn't bad. It just didn't excite me. It didn't, like, wow us. Like when that Kabir Singh came out with Shree Kapoor. That looked really, really good and I really wanted to see it. Yeah. This didn't have any of that, like, ah! That didn't have the Zing factor. So, you know, that might have just, it might be a great film. Yeah. And it's just we weren't drawn in by the trailer. And hey, if it's the thing where, yeah. It's not a student of the year two trailer. We're not saying that. Not by any stretch. No. It looks like it could be a good film. Right. We don't know and it didn't, like, ugh, like have that amazing... Which reminds me of a lot of the films that we were early on not exposed to, like Kasari. We didn't know anything about Sikhs. We didn't know anything about that history and it was like that was great action, though. That was a great trailer. Yeah, that had a really good effect. Yeah. That's probably not a good exam. No.