Welcome to the Reason Stream. I'm Liz Wolfe, joined by my co-host, Zach Weissmuller. We're live today, so please feel to throw any questions that you might have in the chat. We're looking forward to getting to some of your questions, hopefully providing some pretty good answers. Today we're talking about Javier Malay, the self-described libertarian economist running for president of Argentina. He surprised the world with a first place finish in the primaries this summer, but in a runoff this past Sunday, he came in second to Sergio Massa, the minister of economy for Argentina's ruling party. Malay and Massa will face voters once again on November 19th. So does Malay still have a chance? Joining us to offer insights into Argentine politics is Marcos Falcone, a political scientist, project manager at Argentina's Fundación Libertad and podcast host. Marcos, thank you so much for joining us. Hi, Liz, Isaac, thank you for the invite today. Yeah, let's look at what happened in this most recent election. What exactly do you think explains this outcome, Marcos? Yeah, so this was a surprise to us, just as the August primaries had been a surprise. In Argentina we have this system where primaries are held at the same time for all parties and voting is compulsory. So this is why we can compare the primaries to the general election that took place this past Sunday. In August we had seen Malay win with 30% of the vote. He was ahead of the other two coalitions that actually had primaries. Malay faced no one within his coalition. But this time, although everyone expected that there would be a second ballot, which is going to take place November 19th, most people expected Malay to win again and get more votes than Sergio Massa, the current minister of economy, or Patricia Volrich, former minister of security. He ended up getting fewer votes than Massa. Massa got 30% of vote, Malay got 30, which is the same basically as the primaries. And this came as a shock. It seems to me that there are two main reasons why this was the case. First, Malay's campaign has not been the most professional one. He has talked about issues that are sort of out of touch with the Argentine public that may be of true interest to us libertarians, such as, you know, whether organs could be sold or bought, but that people is not really interested in at the moment. What is that controversial? Right, but the thing is, you know, his opponents actually attacked him for things like that. And that probably took a dent on his candidacy. And then just, you know, overall, there was this fear campaign that if Malay won, he would be the sort of fascist, you know, who would be a danger for democracy, just like people in the US talked about Donald Trump in recent years or people in Brazil talked about Shahid Bolsonaro. Malay was described as this very dangerous person who should not be president. So this is the reason why I think it was Massa, particularly who got more votes, because Malay was sort of competing with the rest of the opposition for the anti-government vote. He won that, if you take that as a primary, as another primary say, then he won that because he beat Patricia Borich, who will not be in the second ballot, but the government sort of consolidated its support and got more votes. I think because of this fear campaign and because it tried to focus, it tried to avoid economics basically, because the presidential candidate is the minister of economy, but our economy is in shambles right now. We have a 140% annual inflation rate, an ongoing recession, poverty rates that are through the roof. So it was smart of the government to try to avoid the economic themes and just focus on how dangerous Malay would be. And I think that's the reason why they got more votes. But it wasn't just this fear campaign, right? Like Masa also engaged in a little bit of, I would say, not exactly trickery, but almost like bribing people to vote for him when it really got down to the wire. It was even reading a little bit about how, people would show up to bus stations and train stations and see the government basically communicating, oh, if Malay comes into power, then here is how much your ticket will actually be because it'll no longer be subsidized by the government and he'll slash all of these programs, which is a fairly compelling pitch to people who are struggling financially. Could you tell us a little bit about like, what was this very slimy campaign that Masa was running? Yeah, I mean, it was all very sketchy and it wasn't just that. For people who haven't been to Argentina, bus tickets, train tickets, subway tickets are highly subsidized, particularly in Buenos Aires. And so a bus ride can cost something like $0.07 of a dollar when the true price should be something like a dollar. And so who's paying for that? Of course, taxpayers. It's only indirectly that they're paying for that with, for example, this monstrous inflation rate that we have, but it's not something that you pay directly. And so what the government did was they actually installed like signs that said, without a subsidy, you would be paying 10 times what you're paying today, which was a very, not a direct, but a very clear reference to the fiscal adjustment that both Millay and Bullridge were proposing. Something else that Minister Masa did was he actually cut taxes in these past two months, which is something that a leftist, perinist government, as we call it here, would never do, but this time they do it. Minister Masa sort of slashed income tax for, actually this was mostly for people who are high earners in Argentina, but he basically slashed it. And he also implemented, well, they passed a law that Minister Masa sent to Congress, which is effective now, and sort of gives money back to taxpayers, the VAT attacks, it gives it back basically to consumers who use their debit card in supermarkets and grocery stores. So there were lots of measures put in place by the government, which are already fueling inflation because the September rate, for example, was 12.7%, which was the highest monthly rate in 30 years in Argentina. Wow, really? Yeah, yeah, I know, right? Okay, yeah. And before that in August, we had surpassed our record again. So this is like a continuous thing. Every month we get higher inflation than the previous one, and it is in part because of these measures. They weren't enough to sort of calm markets down. There still was a run against the peso right before the election for people to get a sense of what the exchange rate is here. Right after the August primaries, the dollar was trading at something like 600 pesos. But right before the election, this past Sunday, the dollar was trading at something like 1,000 pesos. So there was definitely a run against the peso, which Minister Masa was unable to contain. But still, these measures that he took, these very populist measures, they're very, we're used to them. That's probably why I didn't even mention them in the first place, you know? Because we see that happen repeatedly. And regardless of who the president is, of what their political affiliation is, they all try to implement measures that will get them the most votes right before the election. In the case of Masa, it was tax cuts, which alongside this fear campaign, I think were very effective. So you could say Malay has already delivered his first tax cut just through the fear of his election by his political opponents. But when Malay- That's actually, I'm sorry, that's actually what he said, because he has to cease in Congress right now. Yeah, he has to cease in Congress. One of them is actually him. He actually voted in favor of the tax cuts. And he told people, you know, this was actually his doing all around, that he was forcing Masa to cut taxes through his agenda. So he did that, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the giving out of all the other goodies, obviously, terrible policy amidst an inflation crisis. Right after Malay kind of surprisingly came in first this summer in the initial primary, there was a market sort of, there was some panic in the market. And you wrote about this for national review at the time and said that that morning, markets opened in panic mode, local ADR declines of up to 14% for making partial comeback. On the same day, the government devalued the national currency by 22% in just two days. The official unofficial exchange rate rose from 600 to 780 pesos per dollar. Does unofficial exchange rate mean black market exchange rate? Correct, correct. Yeah. So we have multiple exchange rates, but I can go over that. I just wanted to clarify, Zach can get to his question. I just wanted to clarify because unofficial exchange rate might be confusing for people who don't know how to achieve it. That's a good clarification. What, why did that happen right after the kind of surprise victory, not victory, but first place finish by Malay? Yeah, so that's kind of paradoxical, right? Cause you would expect a pro market candidate to get the confidence of the market. But the thing is, Malay's campaign was not really being taken seriously by markets, by the public in general, just because he was not polling above 20%, 15% in most polls. And so everyone expected him to be a very important, like a key figure, particularly in terms of congressional support for the next president, but nobody expected him to become the next president. And I don't think he was even expecting the August result when he came in first. So I think because of all of this, his proposals were not priced in sort of the local currency or bonds or stocks. And his main proposal back then and still now was that of dollarization. Dollarization means basically getting rid of the PESA, which is our national currency, and just declaring that the dollar will be the legal tender in Argentina. This has been done in other Latin American countries like Ecuador, Panama, but it has not been done in as big a country as Argentina. So this would be a very interesting experiment. But one of the criticisms, the main criticism of that plan is that the central bank in Argentina has negative reserves right now. So it has no dollars basically, it's indebted. And so the key issue that you need to solve before dollarizing is that of the exchange rate. If suddenly you're gonna get rid of the PESA and everyone's gonna start using dollars, then what's the exchange rate, the final exchange rate going to be? And because the central bank has no dollars, criticism of me was that the exchange rate would have to be extremely high to account for these very few dollars that the state has. But if that happens, then that is very likely to trigger hyperinflation, particularly in an economy that is already, that already has chronically high inflation. And so the fear, in my opinion, right after the August primaries, was that Mille was actually going to win the general election or the second ballot that he would dollarize but that the central bank would still have no dollars, which would trigger chaos basically in the economy.  And back then, in August, it wasn't really clear how exactly Argentina was going to dollarize if he were to become president because he's economic team was split. There were at least two opposing plans to dollarize. And so it was all very complex. Nobody knew what a Mille administration would actually look like in terms of economics. So that sort of triggered that panic back then. Yeah, and I wanna talk with you a little bit more later in depth about dollarization and some of his policies and how those could be implemented without complete, the kind of complete disaster that people were fearing and sparked that panic. But first, let's return to the election results for just a moment. As you mentioned, the top finisher here, Massa, got about 37% of the vote. Mille, 29.9% of the vote, almost 30%. And then Bullrich with almost 24%. So actually a fairly even split between the three. Could you just explain to us the difference between these three top finishing parties and candidates? Yeah, so basically, instead of Massa, you find the representative of the current administration. He is the minister of economy. He is sort of like the shadow president, if you will, because our president has largely gone out of stage. He's doing nothing really. Nobody really cares about what the president is doing since like the beginning of this year, when he announced that he was not going to go for a reelection, he's deeply unpopular. But Massa represents the Peronist party that of Juan Domingo Perón, who back in the 40s and the 50s introduced populist policies, which it's hard to explain because the Peronist party has many faces. Some of them tend to be leftist, some of them tend to be rightist. And Massa is a perfect example of that. Massa actually started his political career in a center-right party, in a sort of libertarian party really, back in the late 1980s. And there are some people who still remember him as defending economic liberty, like strongly, very strongly. But after joining the Peronist party, he sort of defended whoever the Peronist in charge was, which made him actually oppose, you know, Nestor and Christina Kirchner, who were presidents from 2003 to 2015. He was a minister for that government. He then resigned. He ran as a presidential candidate against Kirchner's candidate. So he's been going back and forth, you know, between leftist and rightist positions. Right now, he's the representative of the left in Argentina, of the center-left. But this volatility, yeah. So I feel like in order to even attempt to begin to understand Argentine politics, you need to understand what exactly the Peronists are and the fact that there's kind of a few different groups of them, a few different buckets that they can be sorted into, and then you also frankly kind of need to understand the legacy of the Kirchners. So is there a way you can try to put these in terms that American audiences will understand? We don't have to get into the weeds of like fully understanding the differences between every sect of Peronist, but what exactly are these political groups? Right, so the Peronist party, I think it can be basically described as the workers party of Argentina, right? Peron attempted to represent workers back in the 40s, back in the 50s. The policy measures that he introduced back then were highly populist, you know, high public spending, running fiscal deficits. This is where the chronic problem of inflation started in Argentina. And all of this was done with the intent of improving the quality of life of the poorest. But then of course, you know, it had the reverse effect of causing these inflation crisis, devaluation of the currency, which impoverishes the poor the most. And so Peron himself, you know, he was a populist at times, and then he sort of went back and said, okay, this is the time where we need to stop. We need to stop with fiscal deficits.  And so people would just follow him, you know, wherever he went, whenever he became more populist or less populist. Then after he died. He was also exiled, right? He was exiled, yeah. He was, I mean, he himself was part of a coup who gained power in the early 40s, but he was ousted by the military too in the mid fifties. He then went back in the early seventies. He died in 1974. After that, there was no clear successor in the Pernist party. And Nestor Kirchner, moving forward, you know, to the 2000s, he sort of claimed to be Peron's successor, you know, a representative of the workers, yeah. I think it's also worth including the fact that like it is hard for American audiences, correct me if I'm wrong at any point, it is hard for American audiences to understand the full Peron cult of personality, whether it is Peron himself or his wife Evita or his third wife, I believe Isabel. So after he was even exiled and living in Spain for a while, I mean, basically his wife, Isabel, who had been the vice president was sort of installed as the president. And then when he died, she sort of succeeded him. And so to some degree, you have these three people with the last name Peron who are just exercising vast influence and power over all of Argentina for, I mean, three decades longer. Yeah. It's kind of punning that, like, I think sometimes American audiences don't fully grasp the intense cult of personality. I mean, the cult of personality that Peron implemented was extremely deep. Like you still have people today, you know, people in their 80s, 90s remembering how they were forced to learn about Peron and Evita in school.  Evita is what's best for the people because, you know, she gives us food, she gives us bicycles, she gives us whatever. Like the cult of personality was really, really important. And as you mentioned, you know, Peron made both his wives, his running mates, you know, in the 50s and the 70s. This is why when he died, you know, Isabel Peron was then put in charge. Of course she had no power. The only reason why she was there was because she was Peron's wife. But yeah, it's true.  So the cult of personality authoritarianism was very high. He incarcerated political opponents back then, back in the 50s.  It's kind of like Venezuela in the early 2000s. Well, we experienced that back in the 1950s in Argentina with Peron. He was a very authoritarian figure. I think Sagittarius would say something. So yeah, well, when, so when Millay is railing against the political cast, he's, you know, he's positioned himself as an insurgent candidate and anti-establishment candidate, this is really who he's railing against is this what grew out of the Peron movement. He even talks about just this like revolving door of family members and connected cronies. Is that more or less what he's talking about is that movement? In a sense it is.  And he does the same thing that Peron did in the 1950s. He names, he actually, well, he does it just slightly different but in a sense it's the same thing. He leaves the presidency but names his wife as his successor basically. Of course now, you know, Kirchner did not incarcerate opponents. He did not seize media outlets.  And the people were the ones who voted for his wife but in a sense it was kind of like the same thing that Peron had done some decades ago. So you have Kirchner, then you have Christina Kirchner particularly after Nestor Kirchner died in 2010. She became the leader and from that point from 2010 she became the undisputable leader of Peronism. And here's the thing, you know, it's very tricky for other Peronists to try to counter her, you know, to oppose her because she retains the support of something like 20 or 25% of the population. And so that's not enough to win an election which is why she has not stood for election, for example, this time, but it is key in terms of the primaries, you know? If you don't get Christina Kirchner's support, you don't get a Peronist candidate. So Massa, you know, to round out the explanation about Massa he ran against, you know, Christina Kirchner in 2013. He lost, but then in 2019 after President Macri had governed but was deemed a failure, you know, so it was clear that he was going to lose re-election, Massa rejoined Christina Kirchner and they both installed current President Alberto Fernandez in the presidency. So Massa sort of waited his time and he waited and waited until Christina Kirchner became sort of weak enough so that she could not oppose him as he wanted to run for president. Then what happened was, you know, a year ago the Minister of Economy resigned, there was one of many runs against the PESO, you know, inflation was skyrocketing too and Massa took charge. Massa was offered the Ministry of Economy, he accepted and from that point on it became clear that he was going to be the candidate of the Peronist or the workers party. So he's now representing the left. Well, let me ask this because, you know, if he's been the Minister of Economy this entire time that Argentina's economy is essentially melted down, how is he even, how does anyone even perceive him as a credible candidate given what's unfolded? You know, this is going to sound paradoxical but his lack of credibility is actually a plus for him at this point because there are some people, no, no, I'm being totally serious because many people, like my dad, my dad thinks this, my dad thinks, and many people think that Massa will get rid of Kirchner's, you know, within the Peronist party and then he will take a right turn as he becomes president and will do the things that he's supposed to do, you know, he will open up the economy gradually, he will, you know, actually implement fiscal adjustment but with the key support of the workers party, which if it were to be opposed to him, it would cause him, you know, a very serious headache.  So that's about Massa. They think he's like a wolf in sheep's clothing to use an expression in English, like somebody who's going to come in, like he doesn't authentically believe these things. I mean, even his role wasn't he serving in Christina Kirchner's government in 2008, 2009. Like do they think that he's just been lying or playing it cool this entire time? Is that like an authentically held belief? Yeah, and to give you a bit more of context, that is credible because it has sort of happened in the past, you know, back in the 1990s. Yeah, back in the 1990s, we had a president, a Peronist president called Carlos Menem. And during the 90s, Argentina experienced one of the most impressive liberalization moments, you know, of its history. But Menem actually won his presidential campaign back in 1989, promising, you know, populist policies, you know, that he would be the defender of protectionism, that he would increase handouts, that he would increase public spending. And then he started, he started out of his government. He was actually running amid a hyperinflation. And after he took office, he produced a second hyperinflation. But after that, he sort of turned completely and he became the champion of free market in Argentina, you know, and he deregulated significantly Argentina's economy. He privatized many state-owned companies. He lowered public spending significantly for a while at least, and he got rid of inflation. You know, inflation was a chronic problem back then and he decided to peg the peso to the dollar. And in that way, he basically eliminated inflation. And so this happened in the 90s. So many people now, and now, you know, moving to Millet, this is why many people, you know, think that, well, it's complicated, but I'll try to make it easy. Many people fear and other people desire that this happens again, you know, that either Massa becomes the new Menem, which I'm not sure that can happen, or that if Millet wins, then he will do the same thing that Menem did, you know, that he will get rid of inflation by taking this drastic measure of dollarizing the economy. So many people have- There's a certain craziness to the fact that people almost semi-conspiratorially believe that Massa will do that if elected, even though he's not saying that he's going to do that. But Millet, the person who is more explicitly saying that he is interested into polarization, they don't believe that that will actually happen. Like there's a little bit of double think that's happening there, right? Yeah, yeah, there is. And so now moving to Millet and Bullridge, for example, the main criticism of Millet's political structure or candidacy, if you will, is that he doesn't have the people, you know, he doesn't have the required expertise. He doesn't have the teams to govern the Argentine state, which is, you know, large, and it requires a lot of, you know, high-ranking officials. That one of the criticisms of Millet is that he has no people, basically, that he only jumped into politics two years ago, and that it's just him, you know, and maybe 10 or 15 people in the shadows, but that they can't really govern. Even if they say, you know, they want to deregulate, they want to, I mean, because they're talking in more extreme terms than back in the 90s.  So we just need to get rid of this problem once and for all. The same thinking goes for inflation, you know. If we try to institute, you know, an independent chairman of our central bank or federal reserve, then, you know, a potential leftist government will be able to ruin things if they pick a dependent president. So let's just get rid of the peso and adopt a dollar and we will not have this problem. So Millet's stances are more extreme than ever before, you know, for Argentine standards. But the criticism is that he doesn't have the expertise to do it. That was the advantage of the Bullrich campaign, you know. Bullrich was third now. He, she got 23% of the vote and she represented former president of Macri's coalition, juntos por el cambio. She was the minister of security back then, which is why her expertise was not the economy. She was criticized for that because the main problem in Argentina right now is the economy. And she did not seem to understand, you know, sometimes just how bad the debt problem was, for example, or the inflation problem was. But the key advantage that she had was that she had that team, you know. She sort of inherited the structure of former president Macri, who was in power between 2015 and 2019. And well, she got Macri support. And Macri said, for example, when he justified his support, he said that, you know, Millet has good ideas for the economy, but he will not be able to actually implement them. He doesn't know how to do it. He's just too new.  She was part of my administration. She knows how to implement change. So even if her discourse is not as extreme or as radical as Millet, she will be able to implement change. People did not buy that. She lost. But now, you know, I'm not sure if the audience is aware of this, Bullrich went on TV with Millet last night and she announced her support for him. So we'll see what happens really. It was rude of her to do that when he had already prepared for this live stream.  And I just really dislike when politicians and convenience meet like that. Yeah, yeah. What were you gonna say, Zach? Well, Bullrich, you would describe as a set of right candidate more or less. Is that a good way to think about it? Yeah, I mean, I think if it were in Europe, I would call her a social Democrat, to be honest. I know Bullrich personally. I've known her for a decade or so. I've never seen her talk about economic liberty.  And she was definitely closer to, maybe not a libertarian standpoint, but a rational standpoint on economics, which is why many people wanted to vote for her. Right now she does represent the center right, but the Juntos Por el Cambio Coalition is composed of many parties. She is the chairman of the pro party, which is MacFace Party basically. I would call that a center right party, but then there are other parties for center left actually, like the Unión Cívica Radical, which announced also yesterday that they will not support either candidate for the runoff. So Normasa, Normilae, and then there's a third party, which is also center left, which also announced that they will not be supporting Malay, Normasa. But you know, this is significant because it indicates that that coalition may be breaking up after this election. That's very interesting. And I pulled up, I was looking at some, this is older polling data from May of this year. This was done by the Economist Intelligence and they were comparing support for Javier Malay by political affiliation. And obviously among libertarians, he's got strong support down. The other one I've got highlighted here is Bull Rich's party. And you know, the support is tepid, but what I noticed is that the strongly against is only 25%. So just looking at this as an outsider, that would look combined with Bull Rich's endorsements pretty good for Malay going into the runoff. Like there's a high chance that a lot of that support would break for him. Am I right about that? Or am I missing something in looking at these numbers and the situation with the endorsement? I think you're right. I think most votes, most Bull Rich votes will go to Malay. I'm just not sure up to, you know, which point he will command an overwhelming majority within the Juntos Por el Cambio Coalition. But he needs that because Masa got 37% of the vote. Then you have a, if you pull up the initial slide, you know, with the results, I can point to another Paranist candidate, Juan Skereti, who you see in the fourth place there, he got 7% of the vote. Those votes are likely to go to Masa just because Skereti is also a Paranist, but he has always been anti-Kirchner, anti-Kirchnerist. And he would not join Masa for this election. It is true that his running mate was sort of flirting publicly with Malay, but I would expect those votes to go to Masa. And then the fifth candidate was the far left representative. That's only a 3%, but you know, in a run-off, when you're going from 37% up, that 3% could be key. So if those votes go to Masa, then Malay is going to need an overwhelming majority of the volruchist voters. And that's, I don't think that's guaranteed. I think he will get a majority of those votes, but the indication that two of the three parties that compose juntos por el cambio, that the announcement that they will not endorse any candidates, I think that's going to hurt him. It's true that those are the two least important parties in the coalition. The most important is by far pro, because, you know, volruch belongs to pro, Macri belong to pro. And so their support is key, but Malay needs all of the support he needs if he's going to get to the presidency. And right now, I don't think we have any available polls just because the election was on Sunday. I think the first polls will likely see something of a tie, you know, between Masa and Malay. So this, I think this is going to be very close. Did you want to go to some audience questions, Zach? Yes, there's quite a few that have come in. One is from Naram Shanmuk, says Masa is not center-left. He's a left-wing populist. From what you were describing, it sounded to me like, I think these terms get a little confusing across in different contexts because populist, well, you know, giving out a bunch of goodies ahead of the election, that's a populist move. Here in America, we tend to think of populism as anti-establishment figures, but it's a little muddled here because he's part of the establishment, but he's also a populist. And I don't know that Malay, you know, he's often described as a populist. I don't know that he is a populist, but he's anti-establishment. Is there anything else you want to add to the understanding of these terms? Yeah. People also describe Malay as like a fascist or in keeping with Bolsonaro, which is sort of not my understanding of the policies that Malay is promoting. I think people are very imprecise with their labels. Yeah, so in terms of labeling, Masa is definitely the establishment candidate.  He's actually calling for a government of national unity. He's actually courting these parties, these juntos por el cambio parties that will not endorse Malay. He's trying to get them to be part of a potential government by him. I would call Masa a populist, definitely, because of the measures that he took, that he's taking. And I think at this point, he represents basically all of the left in Argentina, the center left, but also the far left, and the left just left, you know? Because, I mean, with the far left candidate out for the runoff, anyone who feels leftist will vote for him. But again, I think Masa has switched skins in the past. He has been rightist, he has been leftist, and many people think he can actually make another 180 degree turn. So we don't really know what's gonna happen. And then you were talking about Malay as sort of a Bolsonaro or Trumpish figure. That's a very interesting discussion. I understand why many people have compared Malay to Trump or Bolsonaro. I am not sure that that comparison is completely accurate because neither Trump nor Bolsonaro were a libertarian. I mean, we're self-described anarcho-capitalists. It's not that Malay, it's not that Malay, right. It's not that Malay calls himself just a classical liberal or a libertarian. He's called himself an anarcho-capitalist. And of course, he has made very questionable alliances. He's running mate, for example. She's a, I would call her a conservative nationalist. I think if you ask her about, for example, globalization, she would like to be opposed to globalization or free trade or fiscal adjustment. And I don't think she's libertarian at all. I'm still struggling to understand why Malay would pick her as her running mate. There are some theories that he needed someone that was not as histrionic as him to accompany him. And she was the only person available that would sort of court richer voters. I think really that we have a shortage of libertarian women. I mean, there's like what, four of us that exist, right? Like he has sort of slim pickings, you know? Let me bring up one more question. That happens in Argentina too. From Robert Weed says, are any steps being taken to prevent fraud before the next election? How big a concern is that? Is that something that's plagued Argentina in the past? I don't think there are many steps being taken to prevent fraud before the selection. Argentina's electoral system is a bit tricky and it is in need of reform, of urgent reform, just because for example, the ballots with which we vote, we don't have just one ballot where we cross the candidate that we won or something like that. Each party, each candidate needs to provide the state, basically with their own ballots and they're sort of responsible for those ballots to appear in all of the schools in the country, basically. So that requires a logistical structure that is very hard to get, particularly for lesser known parties or for new parties. And that has always given perinism and advantage over others. And the other way in which the system is tricky is that there are not always representatives of all parties in all of the schools of the country. And so vote counting could be altered. And we are seeing actually in very backward provinces in Argentina, like Santiago del Estado, one of the poorest provinces of the country where I would even call their governor, like a local dictator basically, because it's basically that. In those kind of provinces, we are seeing, for example, vote counts where perinism gets 100% of the vote in one school, which is statistically impossible. Like it just can't be, you know? I don't think that can turn the result of the election, but it is a concern. And I don't think there are being any steps being taken to solve it just because the government in charge is perinism. So I wouldn't count on the government really. I wanna take us to one more question and then we'll move on. This one's from Joseph von Wagner. Why is reason in general so watered down on libertarian messaging? Y'all are basically Beltway libertarians, not in touch with the movement as a whole. I cannot resist defending reasons on her, especially because this is kind of unrelated to the thing that we're actually talking about. This is a question for you guys. I know, right? We'll field this one. Just step back and relax. One point of clarification that I would add is, we're awful Beltway libertarians. I'm literally sitting in Queens in New York City and Zack is sitting in his house in Florida. So if we are Beltway libertarians, we're extremely bad at it because neither Zack nor I spent any time in the Beltway. I have to zoom in for the cocktail parties. No, but I mean, I think that this is such like a weird strain of critique and we get these types of messages all the time. I mean, I don't really understand what the specific complaint is here. I think taking the Malay candidacy seriously is not watered down libertarianism.  He sometimes phrases things in a little bit more of a blunt brusque, Trump-y type way, but you know what? It's not very off-putting to me. I really appreciate how much of a straight shooter he is. And I'm sorry, but we're fundamentally a journalistic outlet. I think it's important to be engaging with international candidates and trying to take this comparative lens seriously and then actually talking to political experts on the ground like Marcos Falcone in order to understand what exactly is going on and what these dynamics look like. So I mean, if you don't really like reason style and you think we're too beltway-centric, that's on you. But there's a lot of issues with that strain of critique and I don't really understand what you want us to be doing instead or how we ought to be engaging with Malay's candidacy differently. I, for one, am very interested in it. And I'm sorry, but like this is what journalism is and absolutely in no way dismissing Malay as some Trump or Bolsonaro copycat. I think we're taking him seriously and actually trying to do something different than what a lot of the media is doing in their coverage of him, where they sort of paint him as a far-right candidate or a populist or a fascist or a libertarian. As if libertarian is a dirty word. I mean, we are libertarians. We don't believe it's a dirty word and we see him as pretty distinct from those other candidates. Yeah, and he recently, I wanna get to some of those exciting Malay clips because I agree with you, Liz. There's a lot to like there. It's hard not to watch it as a libertarian and get the old blood pumping. We've got a few clips from his recent appearance on a Tucker Carlson show on ex.com in September following his first place finish. For our audio-only listeners, these are gonna be dubbed in English, but first I wanna ask you a question about this in a moment, where he explains his animosity towards socialism. Let's run that clip. Is it? That's what I want to make clear. The socialists have their hands stained with blood. All the time, they have their hands stained with blood. Didn't they reach out to...  Because they believe they are God. I mean, they are priests.  I mean, because to coordinate all these kinds of actions, the amount of knowledge you need to have, and that's linked to another Hayek article called the use of knowledge in society, where he gives a more scientific and deep form of the idea of the invisible hand of Adam Smith, what he says is that to be able to apply socialism, it is necessary that the people who do it must be omnipresent and omnipotent. That is, they believe they are God. And I'm gonna tell you something. They are not God. And I'm gonna tell you something worse. They are so miserable and so rascal, the politicians, and especially the left, that they are also below the average people. Because only who is going to pretend to be the same as the average? Only the one who is below. Therefore, it is the agenda of the jealous ones. The envy is a capital sin. Of that, nothing good can come out. Of the murder, nothing good can come out. It's, you know, it's exciting to hear a political candidate pulling from Hayek books and essays and packaging it in this really fiery attitude. But how much do you think that this really, these really visceral ideological attacks on socialism explain his appeal in Argentina? Is that something that actually resonates with the average vote? So I think that resonates with his base. And I think, you know, there's a very, there's a very interesting feature in that clip, which is the sort of Christian language, you know, that he uses when he talks about heretics and capital sins, you know? And I think, I'm not sure about this, but I think this is part of a strategy in which Millet is trying to sort of appeal to religious people because they know, because he knows that if they believe in him, they will follow him, you know, no matter what, no matter what. And that's, you know, I think he considers that important for his political campaign, but I understand how that could make a lot of people think that he's not a true libertarian, you know, that he's actually a Trumpian candidate or a Bolsonaro version of Argentina.  I would say that Millet owes his success mostly to Argentina's failed economic policies, really, because we are in a country that has not grown in something like 15 years, you know, we've been going from recession to recession.  And so people, for example, young people, a boy who was like 20 years old, he was born in 2003, everything he's seen, you know, everything this person remembers of Argentina's political life and economic life is failure, you know, and so what they're thinking is, what does my future look like in this country? It doesn't look good, you know? And so this person, what they want is they want to leave Argentina and we're actually seeing that, you know, I have many, many friends who have gone abroad and many who, and many don't think that they will return to Argentina. And you see, you know, well, they go, so in Argentina, it's typical that many people have some sort of European citizenship, you know, because of our heritage, many people have an Italian passport or a Spanish passport and so they go to Europe. Some of them go to the US, too. We don't talk about that, just kidding. That's true, that's true, too. But, you know, an overwhelming majority is either Italian or Spanish. There are some Germans, too, but they're not as many. Some people go to the US. Imagine how bad of an economic situation it must be to be like, I'm going to leave Argentina and go to Italy or Spain, right? Like, not exactly countries known for their industriousness and productivity and participation in the world, right? Not ideal, but apparently better. Yeah, and so I think, you know, Millet feeds on that, basically, you know, on the lack of hope of the people and that's why he sort of presents himself as a savior, basically. And this can be, you know, this can be interpreted in religious terms, too, you know?  And you can see, when I talk about this, I think, I even think about how this can be related to Trump, you know, when he was talking about, you know, make America great again. I think, well, you guys know more about Trump than I do. I don't think America was never great, really. But in this case, it is true that Argentina has lost something. You know, Argentina used to be one of the richest countries in the world and now it's just average, basically. You know, we don't do that well. The attempt to lay this at the feet of socialism and socialists, is that something that excites people or that they resonate with? Is that something that kind of haunts the political landscape, whatever effects socialism has had on Argentina? Because I know we talked about perinism and it's a little different. It's this kind of hybrid, but how does that factor into the political landscape? Right, so I think his, you know, his campaign against socialism, everything he says against socialism, is something that, of course, he believes and that his base also believes, particularly the young people, you know, students, people under 25 or under 30, I don't think that's something that resonates among lower class people. For them, I think the message that Mille is getting to them is that whatever is happening to them is the fault of the political establishment, which he calls casta, cast maybe the word in English, I'm not sure, but he talks about the political cast.  His message against socialism in particular, I think that excites a few people, not the majority of his voters, but a key, you know, a key group that is, for example, the group that takes the lead on social media, the group that sort of sets the agenda on social media. And so when you go on Argentine social media, you will see that influencers, for example, that like Mille and talk against socialism are hugely popular, which is strange, you know? Because that's not a thing outside of social media, really. And it makes it look like it's, you know, this generalized thing, you know, this generalized opposition to socialism, which I don't think exists. So that might be what I've been exposed to is just the social media influencers, the memes, the chainsaws, which I want to talk about because he is fan, there he is on the cover of an AP article wielding a chainsaw, his supporters. There's videos of them running chainsaws. I even saw a guy with a chainsaw mask like walking into the voting booth. The title of this article for our listeners is A Man, A Plan, A Chainsaw. And that's because Mille has presented something called the chainsaw plan. Here, this quote at the beginning, to your point, he says, the cast is trembling. He yells while brandishing a chainsaw. And he presented the chainsaw plan in central Cordoba province in June, 2022. It is his blueprint for the wholesale reform of the state to slash public spending, scrap half the government's ministries, sell state-owned companies and eliminate the central bank. That all sounds pretty good to a libertarian. If he is elected, what are the political realities? How much of his agenda do you believe that he could accomplish? Well, that's a good question because it's key to what many voters are considering when thinking about voting for Mille. The reality is that if he gets elected president, his party will not have more than 15% of Congress seats, neither in the House of Representatives, nor in the Senate. So he will command a minority and not even the first one. The first minority will be the Peronist party. Then you will have the Juntos por el Cambio coalition. If it still exists, and otherwise you will have many small parties, and then you get his. So he will not have more than 15% of all Congress people, which is going to be a problem for sure if he doesn't cut any alliances, you know? Now the question is, after Bullrich's endorsement last night, and we're expecting a formal endorsement by President Macri, who's just, he hasn't formally endorsed him, but not officially yet. If he cuts an alliance with them, he may increase the size of his legislative group, but it's going to be hard for him to form majorities in Congress. And then there's a question of who would be, you know, part of his team, of his economic team, who would be his ministers, his minister of economy, for example. We don't really know much about that. There's some expectation that an alliance with Bullrich and Macri will provide him with the kind of people, you know, he needs, people with the expertise, people who know what the challenges inside the state are, but it's unclear really what would happen. Also because after, you know, he won the August primaries and there was this panic, you know, in markets, he sort of backed down in a way from his proposals, because before that he was just saying, he was talking about dollarization, but there were no specifics in the program and it just seemed like he would dollars the economy on day one, you know, but after the August primary and to try to calm everyone down, he said, you know, dollarization is something that will happen in the, not in the long term, but not immediately either, you know, like in 12 months or 24 months and there will be a transition period and things will be smooth, you know, so as to not hurt people. So in a way it's unclear exactly what he will do and with whom he will do all of his proposals, which is what's scaring people now, you know, many people on the center right are thinking, well, the election is over. Even if I vote for Mille, he's probably gonna lose, but if he wins, he will not be able to do anything. So many people, what I sense these days is a lot of sadness, you know, on the center right, just because Mille didn't do better on the Sunday election and because the math doesn't really add up neither for the runoff nor for a potential administration. But, you know, Argentina is like a Pandora box. Everything changes significantly like, you know, week to week, so everything could change. How much autonomy or, you know, how much cooperation would he need in order to push that, what's really the central proposition of his campaign, the dollarization, the abolition of the central bank, is that something he would have much leeway in doing even if he had a uncooperative legislature. And is there a way, we talked about it a little bit at the beginning, but is there a way to implement dollarization, do you think that would not create the sort of nightmare scenario that spooked the markets? Well, the alternative, you know, to hyperinflation, if you want to dollarize, is to borrow money, basically. And now that's where, you know, Mille's capacity to attract investments gets sort of calling to question. If Mille, for example, were to seal, you know, an alliance, an executive alliance with Bulrich or Macri, then those people may be able to convince, you know, investors to borrow, to lend the Argentine state money so that the state actually has some dollars, you know, to dollarize, and so that the exchange rate doesn't need to go through the roof. That's the alternative. It will require that the state take a lot of debt. It's unclear whether Mille would be able to do that. And if he were to do that, then he would have to proceed with his fiscal adjustment plan much more quickly than expected because he would have to pay that debt down, of course, and the state is already indebted. So that would be a problem. And what was the first question? I forgot about that. Sorry. It was just, could he, how much buy-in does he need? Oh, right, right, right, and he needs, yeah. And I'm not sure about technicalities. I think that he may have people on his legal team trying to figure out whether he could bypass Congress for many of the proposals that he wants to implement. I'm not sure he can do that. Argentine presidents do get a lot of leeway through degrees, but there are some areas in which it is constitutionally forbidden to issue a decrease. I don't think, I'm not sure if monetary policy fits into one of those categories. I don't think so, but it's likely that if Mille does something that Congress doesn't like, Congress does have the authority to override the decree. If Congress gets two thirds of a majority, then they can override whatever it is that the government is trying to do. And so if that's the case and Mille can't get one third of Congress to support him, then he would be in danger. He would be, in my view, the most important danger that he would face as president is that he would get impeached. Impeachment would be a real possibility because if he only has 15% of the vote, he's just, whatever he does that the opposition doesn't like, they will turn that into grounds for impeachment. And it will be impeachment for sure. If he's unpopular enough, of course, if the opposition thinks that it will be in their benefit to impeach Mille, they will do it. That's of course assuming he will actually get elected president. But I think that he's biggest concern right now should be that really, because the election for Congress has been done already. That's not gonna change with the runoff and he will just not have many Congress people. So that's what I would be focusing on right now, how to avoid impeachment on day one or day two. Yeah, that's the political climate and uncertainty presents a lot of issues for Mille that I think is making some libertarians nervous. There's been, there's a lot of excitement among libertarians about Mille because when else do you see a guy like this who's the head of a presidential race, Spitten, Hayek and Mises on the brink of winning the presidency, but there's been a little bit of pushback in some quarters, some of it because of some social conservatism, which we can talk about, but some of it because of a fear of how he might react to his political opposition. There's another clip from the Tucker Carlson interview that this brings to mind where he has asked what happens if there is a backlash and there are riots once he implements these radical plans, let's play that. There's this enormous state workforce, government workforce in Argentina, but you said that you would not lay them off immediately until you built up the private sector economy because you worried there would be violent protests. Are you worried that there will be violent protests or violence against your supporters over the next month before the election? I'm not worried because I'm going to govern with the law in my hand and the law in my government is going to be fulfilled and the one who makes them pays. And also they wouldn't have to complain because they won't be affected in the first generation reforms and when they take over the second generation reforms, they themselves are going to leave aside those works in the public sector for a matter of incentives, for a matter of remuneration. Therefore, there shouldn't be a problem. But if they still want to make problems, we're going to apply the law. And those who commit riots and those who violate the law, we're going to put them in jail. A little smirk at the end from Tucker Carlson. One of the fears that Gloria Alvarez expressed on our last stream talking about Millay is that she's worried he could end up acting like another Pinochet and start getting violent and authoritarian and tarnished libertarianism in Latin America.  I'm not that concerned, to be honest. I do think Millay has some psychological issues. I do peculiarities.  Come on. I mean, and how dare I say that among libertarians who are very sane always, right? Very normal. Very normal. Very normal. I think, you know, I do ask myself sometimes how Millay would face opposition and what he would actually do as a person. How would he try to react to opposition? But I think institutions in Argentina are very strong and I don't think he would pose a threat to democracy at all or to our Republican system just because of the weakness that he would have from day one. I was talking about how he's not gonna have more than 15% of Congress people. So he could be impeached any second. We know that people on the Supreme Court, justices don't like him. So they could also strike whatever it is that he does down. So, and I don't, you know, of course, people within the state, you know, people who work for Argentina's government, some of them are, you know, people who have led professional careers over decades, but many of them are also people who have been appointed by the Peronist administrations who will try to, you know, boycott Millay from day one. So I really don't think that he will pose a threat to our system. I do worry, you know, that about him, you know, as a person about how he's going to feel if he can't do what he wants to do. But I don't think that's a problem for the system necessarily. That's a really good point. Like the greater threat might be just that he ends up being kind of inept at implementing the things that he wants to, but not necessarily that he, you know, in any way encroaches on sort of rule of law, the way that people are claiming. I want to bring us to yet another clip from the Tucker Carlson interview. Alas, despite, you know, possible disdain for Tucker Carlson, which I sometimes feel, it was a really interesting and thorough interview with Millay. I think Millay was especially fascinating in it because Tucker kind of continuously pushes him to almost be more of a Trump-like figure, and Millay kind of jimmers on that and says, no, I'm a libertarian, I'm a capitalist, and sort of repeatedly brings up Hayek and stuff like that, which is clearly sort of not what Tucker is wanting. But this clip was about abortion, and I think this is an interesting thing to explore because many libertarians are very divided on this issue. And I know this is pretty big in Argentine politics. Zach, can you bring that one up? So I'm going to say it as a libertarian. We believe that liberalism is the respect and restriction of the project of life of the progime, based on the principle of no aggression and in defense of the right to life, freedom and property. Therefore, addressing the ideas of freedom, basically one of the fundamental ideas is to defend the right to life. I mean, philosophically, I'm in favor of respecting the right to life. Then there is a justification from the point of view of natural science, let's say, which is the fact that life begins at the time of fecundation, and at that same moment a new being is generated in evolution, with a different DNA. I mean, it's true that the woman has rights on her body, but that child inside the womb is not her body. To me, this so succinctly sums up how I look at it, because I am a pro-life libertarian, and I understand many libertarians begin to feel very concerned when you get into questions of, well, if you do believe these things, then what role does the state have in restricting somebody's ability to get an abortion and are there any second order impacts that could stem from making something illegal when it is so prevalent in both the U.S. and in Argentina, and we want to learn from the harms of prohibition in other realms, and so a lot of libertarians, even if they maybe feel a little personally pro-life, have trepidation about the state getting involved in this. Marcos, how do you think this plays with voters in Argentina?  Is this something that turns off young people, or is this actually playing pretty well? I think this was actually part of his strategy to appeal to religious voters, particularly because there was a first attempt in 2018 to pass a federal law that would allow for abortion to be legal and free for all. That was rejected by Congress. Back then, Millet was not as important, of course, as he is now, but he opposed it, and I think he tried to rally religious voters behind him in doing so. That is, besides his actual beliefs, he does believe he is a pro-life libertarian too. And then I think it was 2020, or it might have been 2021, when the abortion law was finally passed. Abortion was not legal in Argentina. Abortion for the first 14 weeks, right? Yes, that's correct. And women can get that in any public hospital for free of charge, basically. Or with the taxpayers paying, basically. But I think this has been good for him to rally, to build a base, basically, which is not necessarily composed of libertarians. I mean, it's not necessarily entirely comprised of libertarians, but that's also have conservatives and nationalists. And I think this has been particularly, I mean, his position, his stance on abortion has been particularly good for him to get many votes outside of metropolitan areas. Back in the August primaries, and now also in October, he got many votes in rural areas, in lower income areas. He doesn't really get that many votes in progressive cities, you know? When he jumped into politics in 2021, he got 17% of the vote because he ran for a seat in Congress representing Buenos Aires, the Buenos Aires city. This time around, he also got something like 20% or less of the vote of the city of Buenos Aires. But he keeps getting something like 40, up to 50% in many provinces that are just far from Buenos Aires, who are more conservative and where abortion is still a very contentious issue. Because in the city of Buenos Aires and in metropolitan areas, people just moved on really and accepted the fact that abortion is now legal and nobody's really trying to do anything to repeal that law. But in these provinces, in these provinces where Mila is getting more support, abortion is still an issue and it will be an issue forever most likely because if you're a pro-life person, an anti-abortion person, then you think that basically a genocide is happening in front of you all the time. So this will always be an issue and that's where he got more votes. So I think strategically, politically for him, this was good, even if he can't appeal to all libertarians because there are of course, some pro-abortion libertarians. We know here in Argentina that libertarianism is sharply split in this topic, which is probably the most contentious one really in philosophical terms. Yeah, absolutely. I'm a very pro-life libertarian, but I did want to ask Zach. I know that you and I diverge a little bit on this question and policy implications aside, what do you make of like, is Mila's argument at all compelling to you or does it really turn you off of his ideas? I mean, look, he's making the strongest philosophical case that you can for being pro-life as a libertarian. I still have disagreements on what, basically my disagreement boils down to, at what point is it appropriate for the state to start prioritizing the protection of the fetus over the mother's bodily autonomy? That's really, that's the nub of the issue for everyone. And I think we're on opposite sides of where we would say it's appropriate for the state to intervene. The bigger concern for me that, and one that's been expressed is what you alluded to earlier, Marcos, about having the libertarian ideas so entangled with the Catholicism and the religion. I mean, part of it might be those of us who came to libertarianism in the early 2000s or the 90s. It's like we remember the days of the religious rights, trying to craft policy here in the United States. So we're very on edge about libertarianism being overly associated with social conservatism. I think with Mila, I've looked into his policy, his statements on social issues, and he's always seems very careful to say, I'm not against gay marriage. I just think government should get out of marriage altogether or you can become whatever you wanna become. I think he says you can become a cougar for all I care, just don't make me pay for it. So he's taking a strictly libertarian stance on all these hot button social issues. But what Gloria brought up in our last conversation was, well, at the same time, he's not advancing any policies that are libertarian on any of the social issues. He's kind of just saying the philosophically correct thing, but he's not doing anything to expand the liberty of people in these marginalized groups. And that therefore all of these people who it's important to are never going to get on board with libertarianism if their idea of it is Javier Millay. I don't know enough about what's going on in the culture in Argentina to apply it on that one way or another, but maybe you do. No, I agree with you that he's very careful to take the mainstream libertarian approach to all of these questions and that there have been people criticizing him for not being a libertarian enough. Criticism that I respect, of course. But I also think that libertarianism can house conservative libertarians, people who believe in libertarian principles, but would not necessarily adhere and do not necessarily like the things that people do with their liberties. I think Millay is very careful to respect, as he calls it, the life projects of others, a definition that he took from an Argentine academic. And yeah, I think that's not a problem to me really because I agree with those mainstream libertarian statements, but I understand why that is a problem for others who would want Millay to be better on that. I agree with you by the way that social conservatives absolutely should be part of the libertarian movement so long as they are pluralists like the rest of us and don't want to impose their preferences on us by force. And the Millay model is just very interesting to look at from an American perspective because we are having a lot of these same tensions and discussions in the libertarian movement in the United States. And I think there's a lot to learn from watching the Millay campaign, which is why we're hosting the conversation. I would also add the site caveat that, I mean, obviously you're talking about a few things wrapped under the umbrella of being a social conservative, but I would say that at least for me, my pro-life views, and I think many pro-life libertarians feel this way, aren't, I'm not conservative. I'm not a social conservative. I am just a staunch libertarian who disagrees about when life begins. And if life begins at conception, then all kinds of policy implications follow. And I see this as such a natural area where if the non-aggression principle applies in all other realms, then if you see a fetus as an innocent and rights-bearing individual, then surely that also applies in that context too. I still wanna celebrate your right to do mushrooms. I'm not a social conservative. And so I think there might be a contingent, particularly of younger libertarians who perhaps feel that way in both the U.S. and in Argentina. I do want to- That's a great point. It's a rapidly evolving issue, especially with just the scientific and medical advances. I think there's an increase, it seems like there's an increasing number of people in your camp, Liz, who you can't just divide cleanly into the religious rights and left camps that way, based on their view of abortion. I'm not interested in controlling women's bodies or telling them what they can and cannot do or telling them not to have a good time, right? Like that's not- Right, flash list, that's it. Yeah, exactly, right? Like you can look at my body. I'm interested in giving people lots of bodily autonomy. I do want to bring us to one last question and then close us out here. This one, I'm not sure who it's by, but it says the Tucker Carlson interview should have been at Reason TV, really disappointed a libertarian presidential candidate wasn't approached by Reason first, oh well. Zach, do you know who that one came from? I'm not seeing that there. Oh, it's by Philippe, by this guy, Philippe. I think that's such a great point. I totally agree. I am bummed that this was done by Tucker Carlson and not by me or Zach or one of our Reason TV colleagues, our executive producer, Jim Epstein, our head of Reason TV, who actually is totally fluent in Spanish. If the Javier Malay team wants to approach us in any way, I think we've tried to approach them if they want to do something with Reason TV. I mean, hopefully we have demonstrated in this stream and the last one, we are not interested in just lumping him together with Bolsonaro and Trump. We have a lot of, I think, tough questions, I think a lot of fair questions that we have, that have been rattling around in all of our minds. So, winner- Let's talk after the election, Malay team. Yeah, we would absolutely be interested.  And frankly, it's a really heartening, kind of exciting thing to see somebody who's so proud of the anarcho-capitalist label, somebody who's so proud of the libertarian label, somebody who names their frickin' dogs after a free market economist, really taking to the national stage and the international stage. And I think he's talking a lot of sense. We're definitely interested in continuing to follow what's going on in Argentina economically because this crazy, like, runaway inflation, I mean, we talk about inflation in the US, but then you turn your focus to Argentina for a few seconds and you realize, I mean, this is a massive issue. And for anybody who cares about reigning and government spending and ensuring some sort of fiscal prudence going forward, we really, really want to make sure that some of the mistakes in Argentina aren't emulated in the US. And we also kind of care deeply about what happens. I mean, the fact that so many younger Argentines feel like they have to seek other opportunities abroad instead of being able to contribute to Argentina's economy because of how dire the situation is, that's a huge problem. And I think it's important for libertarians to really pay a lot of attention to this. So, Marcos Macone, thank you so much for speaking with reason. Where can people find your work? They can go to marcosfalcone.com.ar and they can find everything that I do basically there. You know, links to podcasts, media articles, interviews, my Twitter account, an email address, so all there. Wonderful, well, thank you guys so much for tuning in to Reason TV. Zach Weismiller and I will be back next week, probably the exact same time with a new stream for you guys, we really appreciate the time.


I'm now for Edmund O'Brien as Johnny dollars Johnny And the winter you guys send me to North Dakota in the summit of Miami, Florida. All right, what's your problem? We got two old offers in short for a total of $80,000. What's the matter? Somebody threatening to kill him? No, they're threatening to kill themselves A special investigator Johnny dollar to home office national fidelity life insurance company Hartford, Connecticut The following is an accounting of my expenditures during investigation of your policy holders Mr. and Mrs. Arbus Mills Trump or how the great digger's face came near being Trump's Spent account item one, $113.52 railroad fare Hartford, Connecticut to hybrid North Dakota Kind of potbelly so surrounded by a potbelly Satan master. I'm the only one got off the train. Can I find a taxi around here? Yep, as soon as my son gets the mail and freight talks away, he'll take you. Only won't be any taxi cab. You drive the way of your going in the phone. By the way, where are you going? To the Trump presidents. You know it? Yep, I know it. You wanted a family? No, just business. Oh, well... Well, what? What is your business? Is that a mine? But, uh, have you ever been out there before? No, I haven't. Why? Is something wrong? The names and everybody in this town has been getting a lot of unnecessary exercise. You have to do conclusions. Well, here comes the boy. He'll drive you over. Hey, I got a customer for the phone. Wants to go out to the Trump place. The Trump place? Well, all right. Look, mister, I'll only take you as far as the gate. We got to go. Oh, about another mile? It's cold. It's cold. Ooh, I'm freezing. That's Armstrong. Keep up circulation. Always get this cold around here. Nope, answering a few more questions. No, no, many answers. You're welcome to those. What about this Trump place? Why is everybody around here scared of it? What is it, a haunted house? Nope. As far as I know, everybody out there is alive, all right. Matter of fact, I'd feel better if some of the things out there was dead. What do you mean? Well, past year, so I've been delivering some packages out there. Boxes are coming express on the train. Some of them come all the way from Africa. But a few from India, too. All marked danger. All marked do not open. Deadly. Whatever comes in those boxes is alive. The tramps themselves. Oh, hey, look nice enough. Start on old side. Old man Trump looks like a deacon. His wife looks like a deacon's wife. But they never seem to come to town. Let alone church. Hey, that's funny. That's so funny. Well, look, they're on the road. Place auto tracks. Only one place to go out this way. Same place we're going. To the Trump House. I understand you're wrong with that. Those folks never have no visitors. Now, it looks like they're having a lot. Hey, maybe they're having guests for dinner. That's right. Maybe they are having guests in for dinner. I didn't say in for dinner. I said maybe they're having guests for dinner. Oh, that's some funny joke, that is. Well, here we are, right around the next bend. Good. Now, tell you what, Hickey.  That'll be a good trick if you can do it. What do you mean? They don't have no telephone. I spent the count item two, a buck and a half, tongue fair. Hybrid stations are the gate of the Trump estate where the driver, Hickey, dumped me off. I used one of the fresh tire tracks as a footpath at the long driveways through the snow and steaming the white flakes out of my eyes with my breath. I took inventory of the house. It was big, colonial and in good repair. All rooms lighted downstairs. One room lighted upstairs. Near the front, the automobile tracks took off around to the back of the house. I had to make my own footsteps in the drifts from there to the front door. Hickey, don't let that cold in.  Who are you? What do you want? What are you doing here? I'm Johnny Dollar from the insurance company. That's what I... Well, I want to see Mr. and Mrs. Trump. That's what I'm doing here. I'm just the victim of a bad choice of careers early in life. Well, all right. Take a seat over there. I'll go check with Mr. and Mrs. Trump. But don't bother taking your coat off. Yes. So this is northern hospitality. Out of the cold makes any house seem warm, but my overcoat started to steam about 10 seconds after I got inside this one. So did I. Looking around, I saw the reason. There were potted orchids growing all over the hallway, and orchids grow only in tropical warmth. Despite the invitation not to, I took off my overcoat and waited. After 10 more minutes, I felt like slipping out of my suit, a decision I did not have time to make. They're just finishing dinner, Mr. Dollar. They suggest you join them for coffee. Follow me. Thanks. Mrs. Trump. Mr. Trump. This is Mr. Dollar. How do you do? How are you, Mrs. Trump? Won't you join them? They'll sit right over there. Yes, Mr. Dollar. Come and sit down. Have some coffee. Oh, thank you. Mrs. Down. Now that'll be all there when you may leave. Well. Fine. Hello. Have you been free, Mr. Dollar? No, thank you, Mrs. Trump. This'll be all right just the way it is. Well, Mr. Potter, I assume you've got the necessary papers. Yes, yes, I did. They're in my pocket already for your signatures. Good, good. We'll sign them right away. Well, I was hoping you wouldn't sign them, at least until I've had a chance to talk to you about it. Talk to him? What is there to talk about? I hope you understand that, but it isn't every day that an insurance company gets a letter from a pair of policy holders, calmly stating that they are both planning to commit suicide. Oh, no? No. Well. Well, I suppose it is a bit out of the usual run of things. There's nothing we can do about this. We couldn't switch it to our lawyer. And he said we were perfectly within our right. Well, granted, you've had the policy a long, long time, and the suicide clause is no longer in effect. However, well, frankly, the company did send me out here in the hope that while I was arranging the change in beneficiary you requested, I could also talk you into changing your mind. Mr. Dollar, you might just as well save your breath. Our minds are made up. Mrs. Trump is right, Mr. Dollar. As soon as we get those changes in beneficiary papers signed, we intend to disclose of ourselves. Well, I... And furthermore, young men, within the past 48 hours, we have had ourselves thoroughly examined by a board of extremely well-parted alienists who signed documentary proof that we are both perfectly safe. So there is nothing you can do to stop us in that direction. But why? Why do you want to do this now? You don't look unhappy. Well, they're not. We've had an extremely happy life, haven't we, Mr. Trump? Indeed, we have, Mrs. Trump. And that's the spirit.  And, finally, we have evolved a method of paying our debt. In doing what we intend to do, we shall live to the world the beginning of a new humanity. What's the matter with the old one? Nothing. But it is doomed to extinction. Mr. Dollar, just think of yourself. Atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, biological warfare... And don't forget the flying saucers, Mr. Trump. Don't forget, indeed, unknown objects hurtling the space interplanetary. Traffi, dear, dear, appealing to invasion and destruction. Now, now, wait a minute. How do you know? Who told you? Mr. Dollar, Mr. Trump knows these things. He was a professor for many years, and he reads, reads, reads all the time. He knows, he knows all night. Would you mind pouring me some of that coffee, Mrs. Trump? You need to tell him. There you are. Thank you. Mr. Trump, granted we're all doomed for extinction.  If you just stick it out, you'll not only enjoy a bit more time alive, but you'll also be around to see the fireworks. You will notice, Mr. Dollar, that we are changing the beneficiary and our policies from our niece, Miss Hope Thelton, to the young man who let you in here tonight, Mr. Irwin Hopper. Yes, I noticed that. And I also noticed that this young man isn't even related to you. Now, what's that all about? Well, Hope is a frivolous girl. She asked it after we tried to tell her what's happening. Irwin is a serious-minded young man who will use the money brought to this household by our passing to make the down payment on a new human race. Mrs. Trump, do you happen to have any brandy around? It's later, Mr. Dollar, later. You will slow cry and how? Well, come along. Will you show your... Really, pleasure. They took me down through the back of the house to a winding, half-lighted stairway into the failure. The oppressive heat grew even more oppressive. More stairs than tunnels, all the ceiling cement and lined with lead covered with pens and cages and all of them filled with snakes. Mr. Dollar, reptiles, hundreds of them, every species, every variety known to modern men. Look at them. Look at them and look at them well. For here is the new beginning. When life, as we know it, is blasted off the face of this earth either by man himself or by his planetary cousin. When that happens, then these shall be the inheritors of this global sphere. As they were in the beginning, according to the Messon series, set down in nineteen hundred and three. Yes, Mr. Dollar, Mr. Trump knows these things. Don't you see? No, I've got to admit, I don't quite see. You will? Better. Look, every pen, every cage is equipped with an automatic feeding device. Stored above the cages is enough scientifically developed food to keep these reptiles alive for a hundred years, if need be. Until the holocaust, they will be cared for by young Harper. I could use an old Harper myself. When the holocaust comes, oh, when Harper shall survive as long as possible, then the machines will take over. The reptiles will be saved, and when the recording devices up on top say that the radioactivity and magnetic forces have been dissipated, the drawers with the cages leading to the earth above shall be automatically projected outdoors and the cycle shall be complete. Then the reptiles will be set free on the face of the earth to once again evolve themselves into the new humanity. I see. Hello, Mr. Trump. I'm out here to ask you a very simple question. What's all this got to do with your committing suicide? That is easily answered, Mr. Dollar. We need money. We need a lot of money by the rest of the equipment. We are willing to give up the little that is left of our lives to provide it. Oh, and we'll remain behind to put our money to good use. Mr. and Mrs. Trump, I don't question your motives, but you can't blame me for taking a second look at your methods. This man's springing from reptile theory is flimsy enough, but that's your opinion and your entitled to it. But what you're not entitled to, and I'm quoting the Bible and the law, is the act of taking your own lives. We've talked that over a month and we are willing to take our chances. All right, but at least you'll agree this is a whole lot to take in one sitting, isn't it? Now let me bring these papers back in the morning. We can talk it over once more and then you're free to go ahead and sign. Well, the time is short, but I don't think a few hours will matter. Do you agree, Mrs. Trump? Yes, I agree. Good. Now if you'll be kind enough to either let me have a car or have somebody drive me into town. A car? We have no car, but we haven't had one for months and we've barred them from the property. Hasn't been one passed the gate for almost a year. Oh, including tonight? Yes, of course, including tonight. Do we not have to stay here? Some now. We will take you up to your room, Mr. Donald. What you need is a good night's sleep. Sleep on a tightrope. My room had the same sticky hot air to fill the rest of the house. It may be great for snakes and orchids, but I'll take my steaming at a Turkish bath. I stretched out on the bed, turned off the lamp and closed my eyes. But for 20 straight minutes, I could still see ghost automobiles and snakes and more snakes. I get my eyes closed as much as I could because when they were open, I could see on the wall the serpentine shadows of the tree branches outside. At least, I hoped that's what they were. Then, just as I was hoping to harvest that the realest of them all wasn't what it looked like, out of the blackness from across the room I heard, I reached down under the bed for a shoe, not much of a weapon, but all I could think of at the moment. Then, I snapped on the lamp and saw it. It had plenty of coils all right, but it was strictly non-venomous. The steam radiators standing there, hissing my performance. But my nerve ends didn't even have a chance to lie down. They were still standing straight up when it happened. We return to the second act of Johnny Duller, but first, Edmund O'Brien, we return to the second act of your truly Johnny Duller. She's gone. What have you done with her? Come on now, where's the- Duller, you better get hold of yourself. There is no girl here.  I saw the traction of the driveway with my own eyes. I walked in one of them. All right. Look out the window, Mrs. Trump. Do you see any footprints? No, nothing, just no. Okay. At least you know I walked up that driveway, right? And my footprints are covered up. So it's been snowing. The wind has been blowing. It's been drifting. Now I suppose you're going to tell me you didn't hear the girl scream. Come, come now, Mr. Duller. You were having a nightmare. No girl scream. Well, if you didn't hear anything, what are you doing out here? What brought you? Young man, we have a right to be wherever in our own home we choose to be. I shall tell you, I found you when I started with the kitchen to get some crackers and warm milk. I found you lying here. Yeah, everyone's lying around here. Young man, that does it. Once we get those papers signed, I'm afraid we shall have to ask you to leave. That's all right with me. They're here in my room, come on. The way some people stand in the way of the few others who are making a genuine effort to sustain some kind of life. Yes, Mr. Trump, you're absolutely right. You'll find a pen there on the table. The papers are right here in my... Hey. Yes, Mr. Duller? The papers are gone. How can they be gone if you brought them at all? We warn you, Mr. Duller. We will not stand for any more of your dilly-dallying. We want those papers and now. We are determined to sign them immediately. Suddenly, that has become my fund of hope. Now, do us all a favor. Go back to bed and give me a chance to do a little walking in your sleep. I'm looking for a girl and I'll admit this is a very unlikely place to find. I'll thank you to get out of my bedroom. You realize how suspicious you look just lying there in bed. But what do you mean? Well, I mean that about 15 minutes ago a woman screamed at the top of her lungs not 20 feet from here. Now, what's your story? Did you didn't hear it? Or does it happen around here all the time? You're crazy. I didn't hear any woman scream and I don't think you did. Okay, have it your way. I'm hearing things. But one thing I know, I'm not feeling things. See here? There's a lump on my head. That's for real. That doesn't interest me a bit. If I find out you put it there, it'll interest you. I'll not only put a neg on your skull, I'll make a whole omelet. In case you don't know it, you're looking at a citizen who's burned up. M-A-D. Mad. I thought I knew who I was looking for. The only person I could think of who would profit by seeing those papers not signed. The present beneficiary of the Trump policy, their niece, Ms. Hope Selden. All I could find in the next six bedrooms was a lot of old-fashioned furniture. I was just looking under the bed in the last when the wind outside took on a new note. Back to my own room, flung open the window and sucked my head out into the blizzard trying to get a look in the direction of the noise. I had many chances on that kicker finally sparking the automobile into light before I had a chance to see who was in it. I swung my feet over the sill and dropped the one story into a hydrant. You should know. You had your hand in my coat pocket earlier tonight. Of course, unfortunately, I wasn't in the coat, but something else was. And I wanted back. I took anything out of your pocket. I had plenty of reason and plenty of right to do it. The only one I want taking things out of my pocket is the cleaner when he's filling out the tobacco crumbs. Now, come on, give me those papers. No, just let me talk to you first. I want you to hear my side of things. Look, I'm freezing. If it takes more than five seconds for you to say what you got to say, no dice. Well, then let's go back in the house. I know you'll believe me. You look like a, well, a big-time operator.  As I closed the door behind us, she walked across the room and made a perfectly natural movement as though to throw open her coat. When she turned, she had it down in her hand. It was the first time I'd ever seen a shoulder-hoster on a woman. Now, put your hands up, Mr. Dollar, and listen. If you'll just unwrap your fingers from around that trigger, I'll be more likely to keep my mind in what you're saying. Go ahead. I'm listening. She's got to help me. Help you? Yes, help me prevent my aunt and uncle from making fools of themselves. We can't let them leave their money to Irwin Harper. With their money? They're attempting to do what they, well, what they believe is right. If money is mine and I'll kill anyone to get it, Irwin Harper won't stick around five minutes after my aunt and uncle have killed themselves. He isn't planning on taking care of their filthy snakes. I was in his room tonight after he went to sleep. In his pocket, I found a ticket for South America. His plans were all made. He caught me in there and chased me out in the hall and plugged me. When I came to, you were lying there unconscious beside me. I ran downstairs and I fixed their scheme. I threw the switch to release their stinking reptiles. By now, the snakes are all outside freezing to death. Don't move. You don't want to move. So now you know both. You know what that means?   That's not what I need to have the money not you. I worked out that whole plan for them all of it and I'm the one they want to take care of it and I'll drop that gun, Hope. You better drop it, Hope. It doesn't make any difference anyway. What do you mean it won't make any difference? Because our friend over there isn't going to pull the trigger. Oh no? Then why not? Because Hope has released all those snakes. One thing she forgot. When snakes get cold they try to get warm and one of them just joined the party. He's right behind you, Erwin. I don't believe you. You're blocky. Can't you hear him? You can't fool me. That's a steam radiator in the talker all night. Erwin, if you make any kind of a move or fire that gun he's going to strike. I'll make you a deal. Let me reach down and get that gun off the floor.  Careful. Don't move, Erwin. No, you don't. I know what you want that gun for. I wouldn't even turn around and look, Erwin. Not only going to move I'm going to get that gun out of your reach. There was a snake. Look out. Look out. He's on the loose. Oh, he dropped me. Super smash it. Super seven balls. Well, you've got the gun. Go on. Shoot him. Shoot him. All right. That's for him. But you're not staying behind me to get him. Mrs. Arbaugh Miltrump were fresh out of beneficiaries to say nothing of snakes. The only one that had found his way back into the warmth of the house was the one I'd mistaken for a steam radiator. What a handy method for creating a new humanity that trumps found themselves without a purpose. So I gave them one. At the moment, Mr. T is hard at work in his home laboratory attempting to develop a machine with which mankind will fight the flying saucer. Mr. Trump's invention will be known as the Flying Cup and will be secretly dedicated to a waitress I once knew. Expense account item three, $113.52 railroad fare, high bridge, North Dakota, to Hartford, Connecticut. Expense account total, $763.90. You may say this doesn't add up, but neither does anything else about this case. Signed, yours, truly, Johnny Dollar. Johnny Dollar stars Edmund O'Brien in the title role and is written by Paul Dudley and Gil Dowd with music by Leith Stevens. Edmund O'Brien can currently be seen starring in Harry M. Popkin's United Artists production, DOA. Featured in our cast were Peggy Weber, Carly Bear, Hugh Thomas, Dick Ryan, Jessica Patrick and Mary Ship. Yours truly, Johnny Dollar, is produced and directed by Jaime Del Valle. Please track down a couple of train robbers will be brought to you on CVS's Gangbusters this Saturday night. The narrator will be and another Gangbusters wonderful cast will reenact this true story for you. Join us this Saturday night on most of the same CVS stations for Gangbusters drama, The Echo of Jesse James.


see this in the news. But from all indications, from everything I can see, the demonstrations in Iran continue. The mocking of the regime continues. The demand for the regime to fold, the demand for a complete and utter revolution and getting rid of the theocracy continues. The brave young girls and women of Iran continue to stand up against the theocrats. The theocrats continue to use violence against them and the violence is becoming more deadly. But it has not escalated to the point where they're willing to kill hundreds or willing to kill thousands of people. Well, hundreds are already dead, but thousands of people. And I think the reason for that is that this revolution, this uprising by young people, is popular. It's popular across many, many cities and many, many strata of the Iranian population. And I think the regime is truly scared about escalating the violence and therefore escalating the demonstrations and therefore risking a real revolution. There also might be, and this is the most positive spin you can put in this, there might be a real power struggle within Iran. There actually might be a struggle for among more moderate theocrats, because it's all theocrats, but more moderate theocrats to give in to maybe loosen the rules around the hijabs, maybe do stuff like that. Now, whether that will appease these young girls, I don't know, because they're really demanding an end for this regime. But there could be a power struggle. And that's again why they're not using more deadly force. So I see nothing about this in the press, nothing on this mainstream media. You know, I keep watching on my Google news feed or my Apple news feed on other news feeds. There's almost zero coverage of this, you know, one of things, but Twitter covers this well.  So you know, the only really place to find information about what's going on in Iran is on Twitter. One of the things that's happening is are these videos that are being posted of young girls, primarily girls, running up to these different clerics and moulas and knocking their head, you know, their turbine or whatever their head thing is called off their head and running away. And I think this is great. I think this shows the appropriate disrespect for the moulas. It shows the appropriate disrespect for their headwear, headgear. And it shows the bravery of these young women. They often do it in where the moulas are alone or where they can get out, they can they can run away safely. Somebody's also filming it. So there's multiple videos up on Twitter, which I love humiliating these religious fanatics and these religious nuts by knocking their their headgear off.   And you know, we all think we're so great. But the reality is our lives are not risked. The reality is nobody's going to put us in jail for what we speak. We can complain the worst that can happen is YouTube might say Iran, we're not going to monetize your video or really worst case, we're going to kick you off of YouTube. Okay, that would be bad. But these people are risking their lives. These people are risking jail. These people are risking everything, everything for freedom. And how many people in the freedom movement, how many people in the liberty movement globally are using this as inspiration? I'm inspired. I'm motivated. God, if they can, if young 15, 16, 17 year old girls can go around knocking headgear off of these moulas, you know, what's to stop us? Nobody's out there stopping us. Biden, Trump, give me a break. So I'm inspired by them. I thank them for the inspiration. There's still people out there willing to really fight for liberty, fight for their own freedom, fight for their own lives. There's still people out there willing to mock religion in the name of liberty. Cool. Very cool. Amen. Thank you again. I mean, it's been very supportive in the last few weeks. And I appreciate it. So yeah, so you will continue to see coverage on this show, on the Iran book show, maybe the only show out there. Well, there's some Iranian focus shows, but maybe only one of the only shows that has broad topics regularly covering what's going on in Iran. Let's hope these demonstrations continues. There's something to cover. But I will not give up on these girls and on the people of Iran and anybody who actually is willing to fight for freedom. I admire and respect, and I'm going to give them time on this show for that. I appreciate it.


So little tails. Oh, oh, no way that is creepy All right, bro.  He's taping it so it won't turn out He didn't keep that one though And here like the wood creaking That's scary. I thought he was only able to pop up when the lights were off And guess not I Guess Dave creator was his name before he named his dead channel No, he put out the strap of a boy Sonic Chicken or something. I can't believe Eggman actually ate him like what around to see what this is about Rip Sonic died of Ligma. No, Sonic could not have survived the Ligma What oh I mean he kind of did deserve that he left his best friend funeral to go get movie tickets Oh my god Oh, he even fit Sonic's head. What is going on in everybody eating Sonic today, bro? Like what the heck hours or something? Okay, that's definitely FNAF dude. You can see his brain sticking out. Look at this Jesus man. Give that guy some milk


The challenge right now is everybody in Congress knows the process is broken and the debt limit, the government shutdowns, that often motivates members to say this is no way to run a country. We keep having debt limit crises. We keep having government shutdown crises. The problem with budget reform that we've run into is there have been a lot of commissions in Congress and a lot of working groups and a lot of special blue ribbon lawmaker commissions. Nearly every reform they come up with dies because somebody's ox gets gored. Some committee is going to lose power, whether it's the appropriations committee or the is going to lose to the budget committee or the budget committee is going to have to give power to the appropriations or ways and means is going to lose some authority over some of their entitlement programs. Budget process starts out idealistic and good government and it ends up devolving into a turf war between members over who can control what and the whole system falls apart. One way of doing it potentially is enact reforms perhaps that don't go in effect for five, seven, eight years so that members who are voting on it don't have to worry that you won't be the committee chairman anymore. You don't have to take this possible. But that also gives the more space you give. Then it's kind of like, well, I'm going to weigh 100 pounds in 2030. I'm going to, and then in 2029, I'm like, I don't need that. They might repeal it then. That's why nothing is foolproof. What's the role then of public opinion or in your theory of social change? Does it come from people protesting bad budget processing and things like that? I have a sign up in my office. I'm drawing a little bit of a blank on it that says, I believe it's a quote that says, do not think public opinion doesn't matter and the long run is the only thing that does matter. Ultimately, I have worked 20 years trying to adjust public opinion because when I worked on the Hill, I worked for six years in the Senate as chief economist to Senator Rob Portman. When you're working in Congress and you talk to lawmakers, they will tell you the same thing. We know all these problems. We know it's unsustainable, but if I try to do anything about it, the voters will kill me. One of the reasons I left the Senate was I'm like, okay, if everything comes down to public opinion because lawmakers are just weather veins, we have to fix public opinion. The challenge addressing public opinion on deficits is nobody believes it and nobody feels it. They've been hearing concerns of deficits for a long time, but they don't they don't feel it as much. I mean, there's been a little bit with interest rates. My fear is that we're not going to get real budget reform until the pain starts to hit us hard enough that people feel it. And that will be inflation and inflation rising interest rates, the bond market cutting us off stock markets falling. And the danger, of course, is by the time you've gotten to that point, it's too late to fix it in any way that's not totally brutal. But I have spent 25 years trying to motivate people even like looking for a Ross Perot type. I'm dating myself on this. You ran for president in 1992, kids looking for a Ross Perot type or something to motivate people. And it's one of the reasons it's harder to get people motivated on the deficit now than say the 1990s is in the 1990s, the deficit was smaller. And you could fix it by reforming less popular programs that didn't matter as much. Today, the deficit is $2 trillion and driven almost entirely by Social Security and Medicare. It's really hard to motivate people to address the deficit when they realize that's the ox that's going to be gored. It's going to be Social Security, Medicare and middle class taxes. You're not going to be able to tweak your way to this like you did in the 1990s.


This paper proposes a new model called RNN conres, which uses residual neural networks, resnets, combined with convolutional neural networks, CNNs. This model is able to achieve higher accuracy in predicting the spread of COVID-19 compared to existing state-of-the-art, SOTA, models. This article was authored by Rakesh Kumar, Meenu Gupta, Aman Agarwal, and others.