NRF2 is a transcription factor that plays a key role in protecting cells from oxidative stress. It has been shown to activate the expression of genes involved in detoxification and antioxidant defense mechanisms. Recent studies have also revealed that NRF2 can affect cellular energy metabolism. This study demonstrates that NRF2 deficiency causes mitochondrial dysfunction, leading to decreased ATP production and impaired respiration. The authors found that NRF2 deficient cells rely on glycolysis to produce ATP, which is then used to maintain the mitochondrial membrane potential. They also showed that NRF2 deficient cells have reduced activity of the respiratory chain complexes, suggesting that NRF2 plays a critical role in maintaining proper mitochondrial function. This article was authored by Kira M. Holmstrom, Lee Embed, Ying Zhong, and others.


Coming out. I'm Adam Silver. You're in the right room. If you I hope you're in the right room so far Like Bridget said, this is a quick little caveat Naps are awesome and real. My nap is usually right about now. So I'll be back in 15 minutes So I'm serious. I'm up at 430 every morning me sleeping in is 515 a.m. It's crazy. I have some issues. Don't we all really have issues? So okay. All right So is this not on on here we go So if you go to Adam is live calm if you're in the social media by all means go there to preset tweet I like to do this. It saves you time. It makes me look good. So do that Okay, if you want to how I did this ask me after and we'll have some time after ensure I have a thousand slides to get through in 35 minutes Just shy of a thousand actually about 50 maybe my math is not very good And the goal of this is like the other Adam. He had a conversation. I want to have a conversation with you as well I know I talked fast. I have a lot of energy. I get it. This is how I'm wired Sorry, and that's that and I don't drink caffeine afternoon crazy as that may sound so My goal is to get through the slides Share with you information. It's just beginner level stuff. You'll see it would actually make sense Have they scheduled this after the workshop beginner workshop might have made more sense but they didn't think that far ahead and If you have questions, let me know if it's too far off track. We'll do it during a Q&A I like the conversation. I really do so by no means don't feel you don't you can interrupt me You really want to if it's about Juma or Drupal. You have to leave. Okay So It's a cool. Yeah, so a couple questions. Who has a website currently? All right, who doesn't have a website? No shame. I mean no judgment It's coming along Right, so and I'm not selling from stage. So good luck. Okay All right, who won so the people I'm gonna ask somebody who has a website right now So madame mooselle. I figures you're French. I don't know. Come on save up. Oh Nice when's the last time you updated your site? Okay, never mind. Okay, that's fine. That's good. That's good. It's you updated. Who hasn't updated in a while?  I know okay. No judgment. Honestly, I will put myself out there for you So my I have two brands concierge WP is my main development agency here in town. Well in Kerry It went down. I didn't go to I took it down six weeks ago It's up as of last night because campus this weekend I kept saying it has to get back up has to get back up So it's up six weeks me and I do this for profession, right? It's not the best situation So question is when do you last up at your site something to think about the reason I asked that just to kind of get a feeling So some of you tell the truth some of you lie. That's fine The old So the old way we did websites was static HTML. Who has done this for more than 15 years? Okay, so not a ton of people which looks good, you know things change so old static HTML very every page was individually coded It's how I used to do sites dreamweaver before that page mail before that cold fusion web fusion objects It just I've been doing this for a long time We had tables and frames and we still have tables and frames, which is kind of sad, but it's out there, okay? Beyond that and here's a sample of some sites. I did not create these these are samples. Okay, here's one Okay, this was a site and that the point is this is what site looked like in the old days The old days really were only at this point. Well, what WordPress is how old anyone know? It's not 2000. It's that's really old. That's like that's like the that's the Old Testament web WordPress But he said the 2000 as far as a year. Do you know when it started not 2005 close? It's 15 this year So yeah, so not quite not not not a little little younger than that So it'd be still three years less so 15 years old this year Which is it means that's a lot right? I mean it's been 15 years How many people have been using it since it first came out in this room? Didn't think so. Oh one really? Wow Well, here you go. I Started using it in 2009 Either late 2009 early 2010. I don't remember exactly because I'm awake a lot. So And I dated Juma for a week. Okay. Here's another site See right, but let's do a quick little I'm gonna take a quick Tribute question. What was the first web browser? No close not able that's a service before Netscape No, that's way old that's way newer Mozilla. No, you guys are close Netscape's the Netscape's what it became I'm gonna say it. You're like, oh It was called mosaic Right And I remember seeing mosaic I was in college. Did you say it? I'm so sorry my bad here you get this now So mosaic was the first browser before that browser existed. It was actually it was all graphic I mean it's all text-based called links. I was a VMS VBS systems back in college That's what I ran unique systems before that it was Baltimore systems But my mosaic was the first one out of the University of Illinois in Champaign, Urbana Which became Netscape, which was Mark Andreason, right? That's the history of the quick history of browsers and that's then we had asked jeeps We had all these other just random before Google. There was a life before Google. It's crazy Before Google there was the encyclopedia Britannica It's the same and before you know and and my parents didn't want to spend that kind of money for some reason So we had funk and waggles that Wagner's funk and Wagner's Waggles Yeah Yeah, yeah, and then also I think there was a shopping center there's a supermarket That one point had like a spin-off of one of them where you can get groceries and buy That volume for that month, you know, it took like two years to get your whole set I'm all about this section. I have to wait two years. Okay. All right. I don't know where that came from. I'm sorry So the new what we have now is new we now know what we use a CMS database driven CMS standing for Awesome, so I teach a class WordPress 101 stuff and essentials online. This is so cool. Okay. All right. Oh Sorry, what happened there? Broke my own thing. All right Obviously now with the CMS it's optimized for speed static pages have to load each page individually CMS loads the cell if you will the table of what it needs when it needs it much faster, right? Okay, and it's easily updated and maintained. Oh Maybe maybe not easy is you know, relatively speaking Easier in one aspect. I do have a big whiteboard.  No, then no, then by all means I love your people Those for Donya Actually, I'm half Russian and half Polish. I'll leave it at that. So yeah, do you know the action much? Sorry, I know enough, huh? Code of conduct sir code of conduct, okay? Okay. All right, so now obviously we have the new sites We had the old sites what they looked like new sites are much nicer. This is the sweetest shite shite I don't know where I came from We have a site called can you start yesterday it's for people looking for work. It's a cool little site It's one of mine. I just like the way it looks And we have obviously WRL tech the tech wire is a wordpress site So that's now these are all wordpress sites and they're clean, you know Apple site design is clean not wordpress Tribune broadcasting KTLA Los Angeles where I just moved from eight months ago is wordpress VIP tons of sites So as we know 30% of the market is wordpress 90 million wordpress websites. How many people here run a Business in wordpress an agency if you will building sites for the people Okay, I'm gonna ask you. I'm gonna ask you sir in the back right there, you know this guy Yeah, okay, right there. Okay. Are you concerned about competition? Why? The 90 million websites how many sites can you handle?  You can't handle it because you don't have a specialty in e-commerce or learning management system lifter or Shopify even whatever not like terrible example. Um, it's anything you can resource it out You can sub it out and no confidently that someone can do it Work from a place of abundance not scarcity Okay, I know this from because I used to be that guy is like, oh my gosh Why is Sally getting all that? I was a photographer before I was in wordpress. I came in that that way and I would always like I Won't I'll tell you the truth. I May have had a yahoo account at one point email. I might have emailed other photographers to get their pricing I call it recon it may not have been my name just saying So it's it's a waste of energy to say why is Joe getting work and I'm not Befriend Joe learn from Joe if he knows more than you Sub does work work for Joe if you need to to get experience, right build a community about that's why I'm here for one Okay, so 90 million websites, you know, there's plenty of work if you want to work at getting it I just did a keynote talk at work camp Greenville one of the camps I went to this year and About my entrepreneurial journey. It's on wordpress TV. It's a lot. It's work what we do we like but it takes time You have to work at it every day. Okay, so Anyway, I don't know why that tangent came up, but it did move it on. Why does this keep turning off? All right, what's next? All right, so some stats. I want to show some stats with you Because we're gonna get to what is the proper care feeding maintenance all that stuff Let's get to that say so 86% of the US population Is on the internet. I wanted to actually fix this real quick. I can't see something here So we are not the largest nation by any stretch of using internet. We're on 86 percent. There are companies companies there are Countries that actually use more than we do. We also don't have the best Wi-Fi or cellular networks either, right? It's about what about money. So there's that as well. All right, 40% of global users use One billion people have bought products online.  So quick quick little side note. I just got an email last week That my students members my student account is gonna end because it's been four years So they assume a I was in school Be I graduated Also funny really actually think about it. I took me five years. I went to San Diego State University But I applied as an educator So if you're a student if you have an EDU account you can get half off of Amazon Prime But apparently only for four years my complaint to them was What I'm a teacher. I got it as a teacher for the redonda beach unified school district Students finish teachers. Oh, I'm done. I'm good. I'm done. I retired. I'm not no I'm not so I try to complain and they didn't it took I actually saved the entire chat log with Amazon support clearly not in this country not in Russia but not in this country and They kept them a review the notes see what we knew for you mr. Silver great 45 minutes later Yeah, we can't do anything for you. You're you've done four years Teaching or students in you're done. So now my price will go up to a hundred dollars or 120 depends on when it renews for me I'll do it for the first year. We'll see what happens. I don't know so all right So people buy a lot of stuff online and isn't it easier to buy online like just less of us of a moment like okay You know what you go to a store to buy something It's like it hits you harder versus click a button haven't delivered. It's like you didn't really buy it Just showed up. That's why I tell my wife I don't know how I got this laptop Just came to the house. Okay. Oh, sorry one more time. Let's stop using that. I don't know. All right 65% of use of web now is on mobile 65% we're not quite a hundred. You know, there are still my parents My dad has a flip phone blesses heart every time I see him every three to four months back in LA Can you delete all the voicemails? The best thing was this here's the best thing my I literally came here eight months ago. I Was driving and he left me a voicemail. He's like, I'm not sure you're getting a voicemail. You know in Tennessee Really? It's 87 love them. It's a great guy. He's a lawyer still practices law. All right Local stats 85% of consumers use the internet to find a business. How do we use to find businesses? What was that book called yellow pages? How many people have no idea what that means? Yeah, yeah, they're all like actually is anyone in is anyone in here under 18? Huh, okay under 20? Wow. Well, okay, that's I'm not gonna ask you We got one on our driveway last week I live in Kerry also known as containment area we located Yankees. I know I get Wow So she said can't afford Raleigh yet as an acronym not if you're from California come on The down payment on a house in my neighborhood in Redonda Beach is a house here So just saying yeah, it's crazy. I mean literally the neighbor next to me. I just went to market last week It's all online 2400 square feet two and a lot so no land your backyard is from that wall to me from this wall to you That's your backyard 1.2 million dollars and Property taxes at one and a half percent. So welcome to California. Why don't I live there anymore? No, I'm kidding Actually, I mean I miss the only I miss about California is knowing where I was all the time north southeast the west Sunsets to the west oceans to the west Here I'm like, I don't know where I am and it's all green here like all these trees. It's very bizarre. All right It does but it's just But you can't see it and all these trees Right, right, right 35% of people read reviews to make purchase decisions 65% of web users on mobile. Okay, and that's so those are some local stats Keep in mind the local stats they fluctuate they change it based also on What exact you're selling what you're doing online? It's not exactly a perfect science It does fluctuate and often does you know even the 30% of market share people say it's it's actually lower How many of those count as far as multi sites versus you know single sites anyone know it anyone not know what multi site is Multi site multi site going once. Okay multi pass. What's multi pass? That's a big trivia question. Nice We'll talk about that later. I love that movie Long as Local to any to any any local locality These are actually for all this. Oh, it's not on this one. I will I will share the slides and I'll put the resource on there after Yeah Yeah, they're local. They're not a locality of this area. They're local to locality, right? Yeah, if that makes sense kind of meta All right, so what is the proper care feeding of your website? So in a couple areas here design and functionality contents and engagements Okay, and all these get broken out into subsections. I get all share these slides with you. They're only $5. I'm kidding. All right So design and functionality. We have mobile ready. You have to be mobile ready as we know Google Dings you negatively if you're not mobile ready who has a site right now not mobile ready Who doesn't want to tell me they have a site right now. It's not mobile ready. That's not mobile ready Only okay. You need to fix that if it's important you to be ranked. It's not important. Of course not because it's not mobile ready Okay, that's fine. So you need to be mobile ready Since I think it was April 21st 2015 is when that went to effect. Actually, I know the date by heart because it's in my Brain, I don't know SEO is important. All right, so SEO stands for Awesome, just making sure just I don't want to assume. I'm not here. It's you know, I don't know SEO Can't it be done? Yes, it's a done. Well, sure. It's a moving target at best in my opinion There are people who do a great job of it. I do not I don't even offer it to my clients I have a person I could sub out to because I trust them, but I don't do it in my mind. It's still about this Adding content to your site. That's relevant to your industry consistently. Okay That's the key beyond that. Yes. There's key words. There's tags. There's other ways to do it There's Yoast SEO. There's all-in-one SEO, etc. So and then e-commerce the design from the functionality is does your site need e-commerce doesn't need something else doesn't need Learning management. So the functionality design are important mobile ready to be number one. You have to be more ready SEO is number two. And then what's the function of your site that you really need? Here's a kicker I mentioned earlier that I came into WordPress as a photographer I built a site a short version is I had a great job opportunity got laid off short in the stick Relaunched my photography business back in Los Angeles built a new site old site was in flash. I'm sorry I mean it was such a bad flashlight that it had the Yeah, I just embarrassed even say that now now you know, all right So I rebuilt it in WordPress and the reason I chose WordPress over the week of Juma Was because I kept seeing like you know other photographer websites look at the code and the common theme was WordPress in the back end Wp. I'm like, okay. That's our googling WordPress websites for photographers And there's there were tons of them That's when there were sites that said the top 10 sites the top 20 things they've always been the themes So I did what everyone else would do is the smart thing I thought I found a photographer across the country, Florida I like the site saw his theme like how I'm using that thing and I pretty much used it I bought the theme and I kind of took his layout and we did different types of photography. He did lifestyle I did People portraits weddings, baby babies and bellies and then I did corporate stuff And the theme I used was oh, yeah, that's right. The theme was headway. Anyone here have headway experience? Hey, hey So headway was awesome when it came it was the one it was one of the first page builders you drag and drop blocks It was brilliant slow, but brilliant And then they got better and then they kind of dropped the ball and I know grants and no clay It is what it is. So now I'm actually I've switched now I never thought I would ever leave, you know, that's the thing you have to be open to the fact that things change So I have no functionality my site needed. Oh, I built the site And I said great. I have a website. I'm a photographer hire me Like this room crickets, you know Because the website is not the end all right the website is a piece of what your business is So keep that in mind. Oh Well, you know Whoo, I thought that was me I thought that was enough. I'll leave it. All right content you have to feed the site. You can't just have a site and be done I'm sorry. Am I done? Oh? Okay, I thought you said okay, okay, okay Fresh you know I keep fresh content for the SEO aspect keep it keep keep people coming back to your site Which format this is key? So some of you may know that I have a podcast. I'm two podcasts actually I don't like to write not that I don't know how Just keep it in mind. I just prefer to speak so I have a podcast about WordPress I have two podcasts about WordPress one of them is over at kitchen sink WP comm The other one is that get options podcast kitchen sink is my format of my blogging my content I I mean the podcast I podcast every Monday comes out episode 218 will be out two days from today It's a Q&A episode so every Monday for 218 weeks in a row. I have not missed a show yet Um get options were episode 50. It's a co-hosted show. How many people are from the East Coast here? Remember click and clack the car brothers So it's a it's a riff of that the way I explain it is My friend Kyle and I It's called get options anyone know the reference to get off underscore option in the code So okay, so back up kitchen sink WP. Why is that the reference to WordPress who remembers kitchen sink? See that's the problem. Dang it Yes, so Matt momo bag anyone know who Matt is okay good finally, okay? So Matt's a friend of mine, and he didn't realize this until I just talked to him in Miami So back in the day So four years ago Yeah, a little or four years ago in the editor the tiny emcee editor. There was a button that says now says more But the tool tip he used to say kitchen sink used to pop down you get some more options, right? That's what I named my my entire brand over a month later. It's gone So I kept it So there's actually a plug in a friend wrote to me as a as a gift It's in the repo somewhere that brings that tool tip back.  We give advice you give us a question. We give you options not all good options Based on the car brother cargo the click and clack if you say I work from home How do I say motivated? I might answer drugs, okay? So not the best option, but it's an option when we give you better options So by all means we love questions for that show. So go online get options podcast calm, okay? And that's episode 50 not as consistent only because Kyle was a slacker. No, um, he's not here so I can say that He's a baby. That's why all right Relevance again has to be relevant to your audience Don't try to be everything to everybody find your audience find your tribe Do that do that. Well, and I believe your content needs to be actionable. I really do If it's just information That's just general everyone's general the more you can niche down and figure out who it is You're talking to and make their content actionable. Here's something you want to do for your business or buy something great People take action on that. Okay, that's the content customer engagement social media only renting and tools So social media who here has social media accounts? Hmm. Okay. How's that working out for you? Okay, okay? How's your privacy? No, so Social media is an outpost. You do not own That engagement back in the day. We all wanted likes on posts and tweets and whatnot, right? That's fantastic I would rather have five people's email addresses versus a thousand likes on a Facebook post Right five like I want five email addresses because now I own that engagement. I have permission to market to you. Okay They're outposts use the outposts to get people to come back to your website as long as your website's mobile ready, so I'm gonna resist It's that simple, okay Because at any given moment this happens a lot things change Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Snapchat Periscope is periscope something. I don't know They they can change it and if you have a thousand or ten or Instagram they change the policy You don't know who those people you may have 10,000 followers Excuse me, and they shut you down for whatever reason you can't contact those 10,000 people So get people to come back with good content with the form we'll get to that second and then tools I have tools in here, but I don't remember why hold on a second No, I don't know tools use the right tools. That's what it is use great tools for the service itself Yeah, that's all you know that one. Okay, so that's why tools is supposed to be the next mind the state Sorry tools and services growth. This is key So this is what's changed for me most recently in my business as running an agency definition between an agency the freelancer is what oh One gets paid Wow Bitter Wow, that's deep can someone tweet that that's actually for no no I Don't there's not one answer again WordPress definition is it depends right? I believe that the difference between freelancer is agency is So I left a day job 19 months ago just to take concierge WP full-time And I thought it's gonna be a freelancer just do some maintenance some fixes some basic sites.  All right. All right. That's all I can do from him Matthew Mcconnie Sure I took more work that I can handle which is a good problem to have so I've hired people That's the definition of an agency more work than you can do yourself once you have people working for you freelance or employee your agency Deal with it and it sucks. No, I'm kidding. It's awesome. It's great. It's just now you become busier in a different way Okay, and you but you can scale right so now you have a staff you have to make sure you have people you can trust All right, you have to make relationships so work camps great for conferences awesome What made the difference for me was I took a full time thought okay great. I'm focused. I have clients I'm working pretty well here things are growing, but it wasn't really growing I was really really honest with myself. I realized for the first seven or eight months of the last 19 months I was doing a terrible job. I was doing what's called a shotgun approach to sales. So here's the thing. I can build or I can sell I Rather right now sell I'd like this piece of it better like to strategize with clients for what they need What does they want to call the action to be on the website, right? So that's a case that I need someone else who can build for me consistently well-priced, etc So I have three developers one guy who doesn't basically built for me in Manila Fantastic gentleman very affordable not five dollars a day. He's human Okay, those the people say no you get someone for five dollars a day. No, you don't you get what you pay for Okay, and I have two developers in country So I can do what Daryl does not a problem. I just don't really want to I cannot do what Mike and what? Scott who that sucks what Scott do there's really smarter than me They know much more PHP than I do. Well, they just know PHP. Everybody's that You know brain tree. They know API's. I just could I learn it? Sure. Do I want to kind of so worth my time? No, not at all. So know where your strengths are. Okay All that said my shotgun approach to cells if you will was to say I would email you. What's your name? Hey, Bruce. I have a brother-in-law. I don't like him. So you're okay. So I would email I say hey, dear Bruce We met here. I think I can help you the website I would be CC that to my Trello board and when I would Trello is Trello is like a little project tool management tool. I would be CC it to that email address and Then do nothing at all Just wait for you to call me as I do this 50 times a week Just email and hopefully and one in 20 would call me back or email me back, but no Cold cold warm just depended, you know, and no follow-up terrible later on a business. Okay So what I did was I actually put things in place. I asked three friends saw what they were doing again 90 million websites Plenty of us doing the same thing plenty of business out there Look to who's doing a better than you copy them. It's flattering to some extent don't steal their content I found this out the heart. No, I'm kidding. I Added a CRM the growth to your business is knowing where things are having a CRM. I just told the story of lunch I tested three CRM because I asked three friends of mine. I said what are you using what are you using? What are you using all three of them were doing better than me one of them is actually Scott He's one of my developers now He has his own agency But he subs out to me for some stuff and I pay him a lot of money because he's really good But the client we do the work for pays me a lot of money, so it works out. Well, so I tested three CRMs We'll talk about that if you guys want at the end you want to know the names of them. Okay, of course you do So that's gonna cost you now. So I tested hub spot agile CRM and pipe drive. Which one did I go with? Jamie knows Pipe drive. I'll say why so hub spot. So I didn't just sign up for the trial and just like kind of try I really tried using them. I use them sequentially not same time. I did one for three weeks three weeks I did the trials started with hub spot. It's free. There's a free free level great has email integration Great the minute you want more features, which I kind of wanted the price goes up pretty darn steep For more I'm out with my business didn't make all that much sense at the time I went to agile CRM, which was fantastic. My friend Jennifer Bourne uses that she loves it But it has a wiki it has Help Helping it has all it's too much that I needed what I liked about it was It also had email integration at a lower at a price point. I think But it had email Sequences that you could tag things so if you open the email based on what you did do it or clicked on it It would send you the next sequence of emails Automated which is fine if you're doing something that makes sense to be automated I believe in doing sales you want to have a personal touch a little more You may want to have thoughts like and so what I did with pipe drive. So so I didn't it was too much for what I needed Pipe drive is what actually Scott uses And I loved it and I like it looks like Trello in a sense It has these boards you have different pipelines for different projects. You can value everything. It's a CRM No email integration for the low level. You have to pay I paid 20 bucks a month. Totally worth it. Okay? And I created five templates five five email template sequence so but I make them manual like I actually log out I look at it multiple times a day I start in the morning and Based on what has to happen. I'll send you email number one two three So I move them across the board, but I send it out So that way if I did meet somebody at a conference or somewhere else or the meeting or the dinner party with me I can say hey, Bruce. So it's great meeting you here, but you so it's not just completely cold dear Whatever, you know site owner, I make it a little more personal or I can change out some stuff But the five emails are pre-written so I don't have to recreate the wheel That's the key systemize certain things that you can you want to systemize what you can and Yes, that's the key also I never reminded myself on on the old way with Trello to do anything so it says I'll send some off it says if there's Yellow green red so yellow is no actions attached. What's the next action? So right when you don't send an email give yourself an actually send an email make a phone call do something and give yourself a date So then it reminds you when it gets to that date to do whatever next right? So yellow is no action green is that's today red as you missed the date Right so pretty cool. I can show you guys a little later if you want but I drive. There's a free demo And I think not a sales pitch here I want to make sure I'm clear that if you do lose There's a I think if you share if you reach out to me I have a link that gives you like a month or three weeks instead of like the five days They give you like I found a I found a link online.  Okay Growth tools and services. I don't want actually this is Yeah, that's right. So the CRM. This is the stats in the CRM's. How would people use them for it capture signal Capture tools configuration for price quotes use tools for new leads proposals. The other thing I did is um Let's go back So email services in my email marketing still works so in with pipe drive I do my emails Wanted to mention oh I Also use Calendly huge help Pipe drive first and foremost you can see when people over the email you can see people click links You can kind of you know stalk them if you want. I also use Calendly Cal at en dot dy It's a way for people to schedule appointments with me. Okay It's brilliant. It's instead of going back and forth. What works for you. Here's my schedule for this next two weeks Calendly Calendly That's what it is. Calendly. Yeah. Yeah, so it's brilliant. It's in there's it's a there's a free level The free level lets you only have one kind of a meeting style like a 15 minute You can't have multiples but start with free the goal here is to save some money start with free pay and invest in Services are gonna use okay email marketing. It does work. Okay plain simple But you need permission again get people to give you the email address. So how do you do that? You need an opt-in? I use opt-in monster. How many people have heard of opt-in monster? How many people have never heard of opt-in monster? Okay, so opt-in monster is awesome It does pop-ups, but it does them the right way not entirely intrusive So I had bulky he's out of Florida. He's done very well for himself. He's taller than me Which I hate and like half my age also don't like so The lead magnet concept is basic. I get your email address. What do you get? What if I get your email address? What do you want?  I might have at one point said here are the top ten things To for your settings for your camera or to shoot at certain light I give you the tips give it away because you know what the end of the day they're gonna So want to hire you they're not gonna want to do it. They think they do they don't Right people don't people think they want to do anything themselves. I want to build a book a shelving unit in my garage I really do I've been in my house for eight months. I don't have a book. I don't have a shelf yet yet I could buy one writing by some wood Yeah, so all right Same thing another way a launch checklist give something away to get the email address now You have permission to market to them. I use a Weber. There's a Weber's convert kit Mailchimp is free start with mail chimp if you want to start with Mailchimp for free by all means anyone here using constant contact Anyone here like constant contact. I'm gonna yeah, you know, it's the granddaddy of the email services It's gotten way better. I used to live in it for an old company. I worked for I Hated it back then because it was really bad. It's gotten much better but I still think there's issues with it so I know and they actually played ketchup because of A Weber and drip and convert kit and lead page all these other services came out to kind of kick its butt So they had a step up. So they're a good company. They're fine But Mailchimp is usually where a lot of people start. There's up to 2,000 subscribers completely free Okay I like yeah. Yeah, okay. All right Another tool is exit intent so optin monster So optin monster will give you a pop-up that gives you you give me an email address It goes to your email provider And then it gives you the double confirmation. Here's your here's your PDF. Here's your download right exit intent People leave your site before they leave you can do. Hey, do you want something? Here you go? It's not a bad way to go. It's not an issue. So they're leaving you anyways can't hurt to ask, right? All right It's optin still part of optin monster. That's called exit intent. It's one of the features of so optin monster We go back so optin monster does pop-ups Banners that come down pop-ups that go on the side bottom, and they also do what's called exits intent So when someone's leaving your site exit ex it like exiting your site exiting the house Like I try to tell my kids all the day everything get out exit the house exit intent.  Yeah, so abandoned carts 85% of people who put something in the shopping cart leave right so there are services now to get people to come back And there's ways to do it. I'm actually testing us a service right now The minute you put in your name or your email address on on that shopping cart I do add the thing and it says which what's your email address and pops up right there? It can it captures it in Ajax puts it into the database a third-party service, and then if you exit That service knows and maybe three hours later you get in the email. Hey, you forgot this a day later You get email. Hey, do you want this again? We still have this for you It's waiting for you day for here's a group up for 20% off It captures you know if you have a high enough product It will catch it's worth it if you have if you're selling for ten dollars not so much There's something for a hundred bucks to give away ten. It's worth it. It was a lost-to anyways, right? Yes, ma'am And actually if someone Because in my mind they're gonna do exactly what you said they're gonna keep bugging me if I give them any I think statistically Yeah, so if somebody does get me a treat me right I stay there I Think it comes down to I think it comes down to the approach of what they're of what they're selling and how they're doing it You know there's an integrity issue. There's there's an aggressive issue not aggressive, right? Right right Right so I'm using a service right now called jilt Just at JLT. It's really cool. There's no money Unless you hit so many that's free unless you hit so many Recovered sys sends out like you get 25 a month for free. So if I have to five people who add something to the cart And then they leave and then only in five Sequences go out. So five emails. It might be 15 emails, but only five instances go out Technically that's five against my 25 still free No, it's WordPress WooCommerce and Shopify Yeah, all three now. Yes, so it's pretty cool. So it's platform agnostic in that case It doesn't it's not even on your WordPress that you actually have a plug-in. That's about it that connects Yes OptinMonster So jilt is shopping cart recovery Yes All right.  I have my photography site fantastic got me no business until I got back out there and added content added my blog and my Old photography site. Here's the kicker if you're not gonna blog then pick the right thing pick the podcast do videos do Whatever is you're gonna do for your site to get more Action to get some more interaction in response. That's what you need to do I was such a lazy Well, updater of my blog of my photography website that I actually made my blog dead last because if you go to a website Let's say you're getting married looking for a wedding photographer and normally photographers made the landing page was their blog with photos If you saw nothing updated for six months, would you hire that photographer? Not so much. It doesn't mean I wasn't working I was working a lot. I just didn't take the time to update my website. So I had I had a I didn't have weddings on that site. So I was doing corporate photography Headshots, so I did my made my first pages were the what I wanted people to focus on my blog was dead last Until the whole site got hacked. It was awesome. I Honestly, let it happen. I let it on purpose not update I was curious how somebody might hack into it because I wasn't doing photography anymore So it got hacked about two years ago, and they did it through a plug-in. It was pretty interesting Yeah, it's very leave you with a quote. There are risks and costs to action But there are far less than the long-risk range risks of inaction being comfortable. I haven't a site. I'm good I'm going I need to continue to add the sites Okay, if you are supporting your own great if you're offering services and maintenance for other people fantastic But keep in mind that you can offer that as a service week people Site owners are busy business owners are busy. Maybe you should blog for them. Maybe you outsource that you find a copywriter Jen Miller who's here. She's speaking right now in the other room. She does that You know, so I use she's actually we refer work to each other all the time So it's team up with people don't be afraid of the 90 million people. Okay, so all right Lastly, that's it. I think oh No one thought about that. Okay, Q&A You can contact me here. I am more than happy to share anything. I just talked about and if you want to listen to podcast or send questions in by all means, that's awesome and Yeah, I think that's it. So Q&A any questions. We have some way but ten minutes cool or forward one side Actually, I'll tell you one last thing Okay I think of the other Adam clearly the other there's like two other Adams here, too. It's fine. I'll be there, too. That's fine You know me well The other thing I was to say was So I actually I will share this with you I have all five subjects I want to be careful how I want to say this Huh, so from my pipe drive for my emails that go out I have shared the subject lines that I use all five on kitchens things WPs website I'll show that out to you. There also is the content of those emails available in another format But I can't say how that's Delivered in this case on stage here. So you want to ask me about that content ask me after this talk. That makes sense. Okay Yes, I'm gonna back the other question. Yes Only if you're gonna use it. I mean truthfully if here's things So I just did an episode of my podcast that came out this past Monday. It was my tax review in 2017 Financial review about my taxes. I'm I didn't say exactly what I made or didn't make but I'm fairly transparent in my show and my what I share with the community at all I will tell you this for the first time in 20 years I've been on and off of my own businesses.  So this year. I actually showed a profit I And I got a refund How is that possible? I have three kids It was awesome. So the child credits. I need more kids No, I don't the kids the credits the move across the country and my wife and I both had new careers last year So my wife started new career. It's why we moved to Raleigh to carry. She's a flight attendant for JetBlue. I fly for free You don't So she had no she had a dog. She took a major pay cut your for nonprofit nonprofit By the way, it just means a company that the reports non profitable. It's a it's a Classification for taxes doesn't mean they don't make money So if you come across somebody who's a nonprofit who wants you to build a site for them charge the money If they if they don't offer discount from the get-go wait till they ask if they ask start with 5% Don't go to 20. It's ridiculous. Okay, just I've gone through this before 5% It's fair. You still have to do what you have to do if you want to give away And add on domain for some hosting maybe but don't don't discount your time times like we've talked about before As far as the serve. Oh, the money thing I did my taxes and I realized that I wasted $1,000 at a bare minimum last year for services. I was paying for monthly. I didn't use I was trying to convert kit Because I it's a free 30-day trial. I was trying out at espresso for Facebook ads I did the trials and like, yeah, it went to the went to the full price. I'm like, yeah, I'll keep it for it It's okay. I'll keep I'm gonna come back and do this more did I after 30 days 60 days No, did I cancel one time? And did I cancel when I should have? No over a thousand bucks easy wasted So if you're gonna do some you can try it for the 30 days 0% right cancel it put a counter reminder for one for two If you want to come back to it cancel it fine if you want to come back redo it Just go back. You may not get the free trial again, but you can always read up, right? So I don't consider them expenses. I consider those things investments if you use them properly who tweet Well, I mean who's with what 50 for 10 accounts though. No, it's no is that what it is now I recently went to who sweet to check something out. I have three social media accounts connected I want a fourth. I'm like, but now they want like $50 a month. That's not worth it to me I'll just log into Twitter the other way. You know the old-fashioned way So I pay for a Weber, but I'm also fortunate. I pay for a Weber and I get an affiliate through a Weber So it's almost a wash literally that works out pretty well I'm also fortunate that I don't pay for hosting and at all and I always say this to share with you that I did a story about hosting and my my journey my web journey or hosting journey Any company that I have right now that I have free hosting through I would pay for hosting you get what you pay for and it's about Relationships and support. I know that people will work at these companies at those hosting companies in question And every year when it comes up when my it's because it comes up every year. Hey, you're coming up We knew we need a credit card on file. There's no credit card file because they gave me an account I say I'll reach out to Corey from a to host him. Hey Corey my thing's coming up Can I have another year or do you need me to pay? If he needs me to pay fine It's an investment. They've helped me for years now But again because I have the podcast because I have an audience because I speak They like this they give me an account I share with them, but I like all three these companies I use a to hosting site ground and WP engine Okay, so You know and there are other companies too. I mean there's an honest host It's just Josh's Josh Josh would nap. It's in California. He does it. You know almost he's trying to build that business He's great for support Can't think of the other company I use oh liquid web coming up getting better I know I know the team over there. I know Corey Miller as well So again, it's investments in what you need and then you have to make sure you use it If you're not using it enough cut it. It's not worth it. Any other questions? Such as So you want to reach out to them I want them to sign up on the site. Oh, what's the value to them? Okay, I see to do that. All right So you want them to sign up to be to get a quote of it like just like a like a quote from a Kennedy or just something positive a positive reinforcement Huh, that's a tough one. I mean, I'm honest. I don't know it all I know a lot I don't know what all I have to think about that the key for anything else is you want to provide value to any customer or client Right provide honest value and be honest Like other people have said and I've said it many many times people do business with people they know like and trust build that And if it's not the right fit You also need to stand up for yourself walk away I just walked away from a client after eight months of Handholding so what I want to I need to come up with a shirt. It's gonna say websites 50 bucks client handholding $5,000 My communications 5k because you know Also Bridget mentioned you know in the keynote hourly work versus you know, yeah value-based pricing price accordingly You know and stand up for yourself I'll tell you if you guys want to hear the other story about the client I walked away from you have to say No is awesome. You may not want to because I can really use this job. It's only it's gonna take me X time It's it's a quick thousand dollars bullshit It's it's not a quick thousand those clients oftentimes are more headache than the ten thousand or client and what here's go Here's here's what's the difference between a ten thousand dollar project and a fifteen a dollar project besides the math Nothing The price we we value whether how we value our ourselves. It's completely arbitrary. What do you think you can get? Now if you say it's gonna be fifteen thousand dollars, you have to be able to deliver it have the team in place Yes, we can do this right you don't want to say I can build this Custom everything in an app and then not it'll do it I've seen people do that and they burn through money and then it goes to court. It's not good But it's arbitrary the number we say we say I do a thousand dollar site single page I can do this for five thousand ten thousand It's what you and what do you need to live on as well? You know your expense everyone's life is different so, you know if you are Seventeen years old living at home in high school. You want a little site in the weekend for 500 bucks?  No But you know there's it's you know, but if you were trying to make a living and support three kids Then you know your base price might be forty five hundred dollars Even though it might take me it might take us a day or two, you know It just doesn't it just you have to know that don't Don't use a fake email address and see whether people are pricing You know and say hey, I might need a website. Yeah, it's not pretty all right Anyways, anything else question wise? Mm-hmm The last survey Was I think it was like twenty seven dollars an hour Nation nationwide It's low in my opinion. Here's the problem No, I think it's less. It's a lot less. So here's like here's the problem WordPress is 15 years old. I'll tell this last little story when WordPress started It was easy and free remember that easy and free well me if you don't remember it That's how it was pitch easy free the blog and all it was was a blog It was WordPress. So if you had a if you had a site nike.com forward slash WordPress forward slash blog I use Nike because they're older than WordPress. So you had to have it in directory had to be blog That's what it was. It was a blog only there was no custom post types no themes no plugins really this blog Which is short for a web log like a diary. Okay Over the next couple years things change. We lost the WordPress directory It could just be Nike.com forward slash blog fantastic eventually got to the point where it just became Nike.com It could be WordPress and it's not Doesn't have a blog at all. You don't need it You can actually have it be just a landing page and have the blog be latest news call it what you want Those first years things were simple five minute install set up a blog. You're good to go So WordPress was known as a blogging platform, right? Drupal was known as a developer platform the learning curve for WordPress was simple There wasn't much you could do with it in those years three four five Once we had custom post types themes and plugins the learning curve went up real quick You had to hire people like some of us like me people You know I can't do it and they got a bad taste in their mouth So what they do they left WordPress they went to where wicks we believe in eventually square space because those were easy Okay, and I used to be like, oh so it's the same thing I picked a high room now and in my back of my head that my eyes are just rolled no kidding But then since that time in the last let's say since In the last five years once we got page builders, which were also totally looked down upon early on from developers I'm not a peer developer not a peer designer, but develop like all you're using the page builder That's crap well some of them are crap. I'm not a fan of I don't want to say its name, so Huh? Well, no Divi's fine. So I use beaver builder now Divi's fine I went I met the guys a beaver builder at Cabo press at a conference go into a conference by the way for WordPress and Cabo Totally worth it. All right Yes, dear have to go to this business conference Anyway, um, it was a visual composer. Yeah, just not a fan Just not a fan it's just because when it started it was slow a Veda the theme the most popular theme out there from theme Forrest not a fan. It's bloated right so what we should get sites from clients with a Veda We will just go in the core and rip stuff out. We don't need 16 sliders in there. We just don't so The key who I have no idea was going this. What was the original question? page builders, huh? Oh price price. Thank you. So Hiring people Because it was free and easy people thought it was free and cheap It's not I charge one twenty an hour when I do hourly work I don't do much of it but I charge one twenty an hour and I have no problems with it I have such an awkward moment sometimes and when asking for people to pay us is also weird, right? It's a mindset. I was on a Facebook group two weeks ago Mac power users some of a lot of Mac people here. It's a podcast. I love David Sparks. He's a he's been on my show Someone posted they needed help with their website They're using beaver builder light. They're using the theme that they found about what it was They said I need some help. There's something that aren't lining up. So I typed chime in I could help I Was procrastinating. I had work to do. I had no interest in doing what I had to do So like I'll help this guy. What an expecting to get paid at all really was I was like, I'm just gonna be a nice guy Huge mistake. No, I mean in general don't make this a consistent habit So I reached out he sent me information right away. He sends me logins. Well, we never talk to me Oh, wow, it's weird sends me via email sends me logins. I'm like, okay So I look at it takes me literally about 15 20 minutes to figure out what's going on I fixed the problem since he has that but then I realized the fix Caused some other stuff on styling on the other sub pages. So that took another 15 minutes. He I said it's all done He's like great total time hour. He said send me a bill. We never talked about price. It's awkward, isn't it? It's like well, I don't want to shock the guy though. He's a lawyer So I called so what how do you solve the problem communication is key setting clear expectations Something I forgot to do and being clear and communicating with clients is key That's my number one rule right now and my people who I employ I called him with a phone call old-fashioned made a phone call me. Hey mark. I think that's his name I go with that. Hey mark. It's Adam Silver the web guy. You sent your credentials to I logged in and it's all fixed I just he please give me a call back. He calls me back. We talk I Said I you said send you an invoice which is great. I didn't say I wasn't going to now He's offered to pay me which he should have and I should have said something but we never talked about price I just did the work So I said I don't want to shock you because this has happened in the past with other people I didn't say this And I said my hourly fee is $120 now. It was just shy of an hour. It's like no problem That's the key have a phone call have a communication with people Value yourself appropriately, you know could I've done it for less if he was shocked? I would have said I would have only said well it had he said oh my god. I'm like well I could do it. You couldn't What do you what do you feel the value is? I would have said what do you think the value is and pay me that and lesson learned ideally next before you do work? Discuss that first. So yeah, so Of course, of course anyway. All right, that's my time. Thanks


Welcome back to war economy and state. This is the Mises Institute's foreign policy and international relations podcast And I am here today joined by my co-host Zachary Yoast And this is where we talk about issues that a little beyond the usual economic topics and domestic policy and Look at what is the United States doing out in the world in relation to other states? And also just discussed some strategic issues and basically how the US regime is getting most of that all wrong and the latest evidence of that is What was recently released from the White House, which was their national security strategy here for the new fiscal year and It's awful Looking at it. This is about I don't know what 50 pages of Going on and on about global warming about covid about democracy versus autocracy Lots of topics covered here and basically the impression you're left with is that the united states should use its foreign policy To be involved in basically Everything and not just the strategic issues related to maintaining defense at all but really In terms of dealing with covid dealing with environmental policy ensuring human rights are respected worldwide and all of those issues So Zach and I are just kind of going to go through and pick out some of the more alarming Or terrible parts of this and we'll put a link to it in the in the description And just basically get a sense of where foreign policy Is going or at least where the White House would like to take it now This is a lot like when the White House puts a budget out in the sense of This is what we would like to see or this report is essentially a press release about what our political priorities are And actually this reads very much like a press release a very long press release And I can imagine like some really Uh What I don't know a very ideological a very ambitious 28 year old writing this for the administration and Thinking boy, we're going to conquer evil here in the next 10 years if we can carry out this report Uh, but really this report's gonna gonna be read in congress and then Congress especially the house now that's controlled by republicans We'll pull the parts out out of it that serve the republicans interests And so obviously we can't read this as any sort of like something that's about to be enacted over the next Year or five years or 10 years Um, but I think it does illustrate what this administration thinks is important and also I think perhaps illustrates What just the general foreign policy consensus is In the beltway As well So let's just kind of uh, let's just start out with uh, looking at Some of the basics of here and I and I would say my main takeaway Was that there is no portion of the world that is not considered to be Uh a target for the united states in terms of policy in terms of meddling in terms of uh, what they call You know building bridges It's uh, it's just it's just an announcement of Every region in the world is of interest to this regime And we will not butt out anywhere in the whole world Uh, of course the problem of that is that what it means when every part of the world is a priority Then no part of the world is a priority So reading this you can't even guess about which part of the world is most important right now Except maybe for the stuff about how china is the most important A strategic challenge, but part of dealing with china involves Apparently being active everywhere the middle east, africa Indo-pacific europe And of course latin america as well. So you name it.  Yeah, it uh such a core Aspect of this document as well as just us foreign policy in general is the idea of the global order and it's just Foreign policy wonks need to read more hayek. I suppose because for them this order is purely constructed it's a constructivist rationalist constructivist entity as hayek would put it and Without u.s. involvement everywhere everything would just collapse. It's sort of a very What's the uh, what's the word? uh a very codependent Relationship the u.s. Everyone needs the u.s. And the u.s. Needs everyone needing us to So all the bureaucrats and think tank, uh, you know, uh nerds can feel that their life has some overriding important purpose Is the so cynical, uh, you know armchair psychologist view of of why everywhere is important all the time It needs us to do something. Well, and the intro makes that clear right is that uh, that 360 degree strategy, uh, is is one phrase that Is under joe biden signature in the introduction Yeah, and that that paragraph has my favorite line. Um, he says i'm more confident than ever that the united states is everything we need To win the competition for the 21st century We emerge stronger from every crisis and then the golden line There is nothing beyond our capacity. We can do this for our future and for the world And it's like nothing is beyond our capacity Uh, do we live in a post scarcity world? I mean, you know by like, uh Just one of the core aspects of human existence says misis tells us is you know scarcity and the infinite, uh Wants that will be unfulfilled. I mean, that's the very core of Acting man is unfulfilled wants. So it's just nothing is beyond our capacity just flies in the face of basic sound economic logic and just is sort of Mind boggling You know where that line would go really well would be like on one of those like 1930s so soviet union posters Where there's like a worker And he's looking off into the at the horizon or maybe at the sunrise and uh, he looks all healthy and and uh young and Efficient and then written right under it. Nothing is beyond our capacity. Yeah. Yeah, I must admit I do love a socialist realist arch Yeah, so it would look good. Yeah, it would I I don't know if it's being from pittsburgh industrial rustbound. It's just like oh, yeah I love that art style even though it's you know Propaganda can be uh, if you recognize its propaganda, you can appreciate it as an art form and it's of itself Well, of course, you know, I don't mind some good 16th century christian propaganda from florins, right? That's essentially what some of those statues are And uh, that's it's beautiful in many cases. So however If only if only this report had had some art or flair to it Yeah, it doesn't approach dantes inferno in terms of you know All my enemies are burning and how I've done with style, but yes It reads like a Stalinist five-year plan in some respects like I'm I'm looking at it and and it covers industrial policy and It has phrases like Markets alone cannot respond to the rapid pace of technological change global supply disruptions Uh, et cetera et cetera strategic public of in investment is the backbone of a strong industrial and innovation base in the 21st century global economy This is I what I thought of this when I saw this was a thing about how truman tried to nationalize the steel industry Back in the 50s and just how basically the economy is here to service a global international relations goals and And that the market isn't enough Therefore, right because the markets would just try to deliver to people what they need. So therefore Where the report goes from there, of course is we need subsidies. We need a plan. We need all sorts of central government meddling in order to make sure that the economy is delivering what we think it should deliver And it's it's just astounding that this is That this is an american document. I can only imagine something like this Being read in in in uh, 1881 Uh, I just imagine what grover cleveland would think of something like this. We're basically everything exists Uh for strategic purposes and it's just so anti liberal liberalism in the good sense That it's really quite remarkable Because so much of the article reads that way because not only There's no separation between domestic policy and foreign policy at all That it's really just all the same thing all the same goals are there from co vid to the environment to equity And and ensuring that that's all respected worldwide That it that it really would be appropriate To reflect this in some sort of socialist propaganda from 80 years ago regarding a public investment. It's just sort of Government funded research is generally just so inefficient and uh cost overruns and takes so long.  I mean uh proposed budgets for you know various Launch systems and things are like oh this will take years and years and years and cost cajolians of dollars And I can't remember the exact specific thing But it might have been like a low orbital launch vehicle or whatever it was but it's like ellen musk did it in like Just you know in space x did it just a few years and for cajolians of dollars less. So it's sort of uh um Just so bizarre that I mean There's various reasons for this, but I mean like the united states like nuclear arsenal the icbm still run off of floppy disks and it's sort of you know This is the entity that will uh You know usher in innovation. I mean here just north of where I am in pittsburgh the government's um Retirement record repository is kept and an abandoned limestone mine Everything is on paper. I mean it's just this vast warehouse Where filled with file cabinets That is actually you know, they have those bureaucratic efficiency A measurement systems things are less efficient now than they were in the 70s in this system. That's still entirely on paper and it's just the idea that This is the entity that will you know Be at the forefront of leading innovation and research regarding defense or really anything else is just so laughable well, unfortunately a lot of conservatives fall for that right is because The one minute post about how the government can't do health care ride. They can't deliver the mail on time uh, but boy America's going to use smart bombs in the next war and not kill any civilians And they're going to install a new regime in country x With a minimal blowback or inefficiency and it's just astounding what they will ascribe to the abilities Of the regime so long as it's along the lines of what we want the regime to do But they're totally inefficient doing everything else. But of course experience has shown. Hey, let's look at iraq. Let's look at afghanistan Neither of those operations were efficient as well not to mention the what the six trillion dollars spent on them And then of course, there's the fact that the pentagon routinely is failing its audits and uh, is just has a couple trillion dollars missing And so that that that should all be remembered when you're reading the strategic report Is that this is going to be done primarily through the pentagon? Which has no idea how much money it even spends or where that goes and has lost Two wars in the last 20 years And you know, they like to blame the politicians for it But part of the the justification Of those wars that it would be one quickly and that it would be easily and it would be a cake walk and especially in the case of iraq And none of that turned out to be true. And so it turns out that you actually do need much more difficult problem-solving Abilities that apparently the pentagon lacks and and so there's just way too much enthusiasm about getting involved in every aspect of the Globe here right yeah regarding the pentagon audit I can't remember exactly what year but some law was passed that all of the parts of the government have to have routine audits And for like 20 years the pentagon did not do that They kept getting basically waivers because they're like we're not capable of actually Even doing the audit and then a few years ago. They're like, we're gonna do the audit and they failed every annual audit since then Yeah, it's just mind-boggling For yeah, it's just quite Depressing well the fact that right. We've got the audit the fed movement remarkable that there wasn't a Audit the pentagon movement alongside should been every bit as as popular Uh, I'm sure ron paul would have been fine without it the The pentagon I think it just sort of like I don't know super wonky accounting like Either will be headlines like oh the pentagon, you know a trillion dollars is you know missing or something And it's not like my understanding. It's not actually like a trillion dollars has just Disappeared it's just they due to their sloppy accounting. It's just all these accounting errors add up to a trillion dollars Or more now by this point but speaking of lost wars that The strategy does mention afghanistan and um Sort of the only positive thing I saw in the document was there were two mentions that um The the the u.s. Government doesn't want to pursue remaking other societies in america's interests. So when it's like biden trying to pass off afghanistan, which i'm glad we left though the way in which we left was such a disaster but The document says we ended america's longest war in afghanistan and with it an era of major military operations to remake other societies So I think you know, that's helpful signaling at least that uh, we don't want to pursue another afghanistan or iraq And I think part of that has to do with the re-emp the the new emphasis on china Is like we can't afford To be wasting the billions of dollars Trying to turn, you know afghanistan into you know america When we're dealing with china Which it identifies as basically the main geostrategic threat going forward Right, it does it that is the one indicator. I think that there's some actual priorities contained somewhere In this document and the it correctly notes, of course that Uh, it it does it as much as the the biden administration hates russia russia isn't At the level of a major potential global hegemon Of any kind Um, now i'm not even sure china's a global hegemon contender But it's certainly a regional one much more so than russia And has just much much greater capacity And even with it going into decline, right? We can look at these numbers on demographics and population and how it might be only half a billion people 30 years from now but uh, even then that's uh It's it's going to be a place that's uh that matters especially in east asia So and of course the u.s Wants to maintain its control of the first and second island chains there east of china And so that's just going to continue to be an issue even if china goes into relative decline, but other than that As you noted with the line of how nothing is beyond our capacity There's really nothing that is beyond the interest Of the regime and you can see that here when you just start reading part one of the report Talks about the us's enduring role So of course the united states cannot withdraw from the world in any way that would be horrible horrible isolationism because of course the way the The the myth goes is that every time Something bad happens in the world is because the us was too isolationist because the us was too uninvolved In the world and I remember that being a narrative after 9 11 Was that oh the the us had withdrawn from the world had barely was barely doing anything In the globe and was just looking inward Which of course was an absolute complete nonsense But that was the narrative and so okay, we have an enduring role next is Recasting the whole world in sort of a cold war like competition between democracies and autocracies and I'm sure anyone who's been reading foreign policy news has noticed that right is that's the line We're a democracy everybody else's autocracies. I'm pretty sure though that reading this I didn't see a single mention of Saudi Arabia Well, yeah, they sort of mention it It's so they they say, you know, oh, there's the democracies versus autocracies, but in the first paragraph they say It includes our democratic allies in europe and the indo-pacific as well as key Democratic partners around the world that share much of our vision for regional and international order Even if they don't agree with us blah blah blah and countries that do not embrace democratic institutions But nevertheless depend upon and support a rules-based international system So it's like that's the exception for Saudi Arabia. And I don't know the philippines Egypt also. Yeah, yeah, Egypt should give like four billion dollars to every year. Yeah, right The and where we actively ensure that our preferred dictator is in place Even yeah, and they do say, you know, they do frame it this sort of cold war Autocracies versus democracies and then in the final paragraph they say we don't want a new cold war But it's just like Okay. Yeah, I mean they've split the world into two pieces What do they think the outcome is going to be of that? And uh, it's uh, and it's remarkable, right? How they then go on to mention Iran later Which is significant. Well, I certainly would prefer to not live in either Iran or Saudi Arabia I would prefer to live in Iran if my only two choices were Iran and Saudi Arabia There are at least some government institutions outside the reach of the of a tiny elite at the top Which is not really the case in Saudi Arabia. There are actual There is guaranteed representation in parliament for Jews and Christians to some extent whereas those things are basically illegal in Saudi Arabia and There's just no religious freedom whatsoever Under the Saudi the blood-soaked Saudi regime But that's that's part of the rules based international order. Whereas the Iranians are uh, our enemies of that and it's just so It's it it's disappointing. I don't know that's the word It's uh, it's repugnant. It's despicable. Yeah, I mean the the Saudi war in Yemen, which has been going on forever Right and and I mean it's just come out and admit you've just you like the Saudi So that means you have to hate the Iranians because the Saudis and the Iranians hate each other They've but they're they're in a long long game trying to exert influence over the Persian Gulf region their enemies the u.s Therefore wants Iran obliterated It's it's just such typical. Hey the I I hate the enemy of my friend and but they never ever mentioned that and you would think that There was no sort of history between the Saudis in Iran at all. There's a very annoying line I don't I can't find it right off the top of my head but that basically And this is how all everything is always framed including with russia and china in this document, but in regards to iran It's always Framed as if like the iranian people are just completely They're just americans Waiting to be free And that they there no one supports the government I mean, this is not true in in any three places. I mean the governments do enjoy plenty of support and just it's a sort of uh I mean there are dissenters. I mean I ran. I mean there's been all kinds of protests that have been brutally suppressed So there are people who don't like the government But there's plenty of people who love the government and are you know fans of you know mowing down protesters So it's sort of It just creates this false idea that you know the u.s. Just puts a little It's part of this the plan is you know, we're going to support the people to you know Institute a new government in line with you know Our conception of the global order Yeah, it's just uh, that's a fresh because it's so factually incorrect like beyond what you hope for it's just Not true and that was what donald rumsfeld promised in iraq And that's what we were told in venezuela is that nobody supported the regime and it's still there And appears to have a significant amount of support. So I I guess that's just the standard strategy is Convince americans of that right and I forget I think it's exxon mobile. I can't recall what giant oil company just got like a permit to begin like exporting venezuelan crude We didn't end up with a quote-unquote humanitarian invasion Uh in venezuela, but it seemed like they were pushing for that for for a period But I didn't see really there wasn't much mention of that except in the section on Latin america Right. Yeah, it it's sort of like a funny. Um, I don't know time capsule So I don't know it was like 10 years ago the first avatar movie came out And uh one of the mercenaries is like, oh, yeah, I fought in venezuela Uh And so it's just you know back people did think that back, you know, 10 years ago or whatever that that could be a realistic place for a us soldier to be fighting And that I do The the document says that the western hemisphere is the most important Part of the globe for the united states something like 1.8 trillion dollars in trade and yada yada and um I mean I agree with that and it's like if zach was king or something and was uh In charge of instituting a foreign policy Our foreign policy would be much more, you know neom and row doctrine focused. We would be very engaged with western hemisphere But uh going back to the intro line of nothing's beyond our capacity.  I mean I do think we do have some relevant concerns in the arctic, but it's just uh globe spanning and naturally the western hemisphere is just neglected in my view Well, they could use actual diplomacy promote actual friendship with these countries Uh, it's it's astounding to me that there's not essentially free trade With on a much more widespread scale. Yeah, there's like some latin american free trade agreements and things like that But the but the trade integration is still very very lacking With latin america and these all that stuff you say about how oh, well, we need We can't have free trade with china because they could cut us off from our steel and everything There's immense amounts of resources available In latin america. None of these countries poses any sort of real Problem, so it seems like that's the sort of thing you should pursue is rock solid relations with all of these states But that doesn't seem to be a priority at all. I mean, especially mexico and brazil Um, I can't remember the exact place, but they're both in the top 20 largest economies And I mean venezuela has the largest oil reserves Or I guess estimated or proven or however they measure that oil reserves. They have a lot of oil. Yeah, and it's um uh, I can't remember if we've mentioned this before but The u.s. Has like a nato like treaty with like most Of the western hemisphere the rio treaty it actually predates the nato treaty And it similarly has an attack on one is an attack on all clause um And it's just sort of like most people don't even know that treaty exists and um It's just sort of like I much rather we focused on the rio treaty and the western hemisphere rather than All the obsession with nato, which again, I was very disappointed with that section Um, because it's just yes, we're continuing to invest in europe and you know shovel money and resources to ukraine and blah blah blah No mention of europe doing nothing Um, or well, I mean relative to us. I mean we're shouldering an immense amount of the burden No one other than poland is uh, you know Taking actual steps that one would take if you were worried about the russian threat. Um And uh, there was some recent talk about how nato recognizes china as as an important, um, you know issue going forward and It's the sort of this weird I mean back to the mindset of nothing's beyond our capacity nato, which you know can you know, aside from the u.s. Can do next to nothing Is going to you know deal with russia and help the us balance against china and asia and on that On that ground eric domes at kato had what I thought was a hilarious tweet. Um This think tank in the uk called russi. I forget what it stands for But it's this foreign policy think tank recently came out with this report on sort of what lessons can we learn from? other war in ukraine in terms of you know land warfare and I have not read the whole report but the economist sort of did a A summary of it and I'm you know, take it with a grain of salt because one of the co-authors is a ukrainian general so it's like Sort of impossible to trust anything Any ukrainian government official says because it's I mean I would be doing the same thing if I was a ukrainian, but it's gained towards helping ukraine But it points out that before the war started ukraine had more Artillery and multiple launch rocket systems than britain france italy spain and poland put together and eric domes Had this funny tweet stuff like this is why i'm very on board with the europeans getting their act together on balancing russia Before they try and ride to the rescue in east asia and recreate the battle of tushima and that's the naval battle where the russian Baltic fleet sailed all the way around the world to Relieve the siege of port arthur And as soon as it arrived the japanese Sank the entire thing like thousands of sailors were killed. It was just a complete disaster It's sort of that's how I imagine You know nato sending their like what help could they be balancing against china when they can't even you know Seriously balanced against russia in terms. They're just free riding on the u.s. So I mean, I thought that was a vivid picture of what to expect from their help and on that theater That that tweet that uh about uh, um about a hundred people found that really really funny They because they got the reference Yes But uh, yes, of course even even uh, I'm I know far less about East asia than about europe and latin america But but it's even reached me that that the russians Just were completely humiliated by the japanese in that war and uh, yeah a similar That image is quite grim if that does prove to be something that the europeans Would attempt to do which is just basically show up in east asia a place where they have really no well-established relations or a military Experience and that they're going to help the united states Expand its power there. I mean It's really is quite remarkable And if the u.s. Wanted to have any real priorities it would yeah, it would just completely get out of nato And forget about it and say hey europe you're rich. You're wealthy And there's 25 countries here or more that uh, that can get together, but that's not in this report at all As you noticed. Yeah, I mean the you know, if macchiavellian zack was the king or something I mean we would cut a deal with russia Right away because russia is much more important if you want to balance against china not to comment on You know getting into the whole thing of what we should be doing about china exactly but Russia it's it's sort of like funny like i don't know like ten ish or I don't know eight ish years ago People were like there's this funny well to me sort of funny articles about how like the close relationship between russia and china which was just sort of budding at that time was like This is an aberration of nature. How is this happening because they're not natural Partners, but instead we're sort of corraling them into Being partners and it's just sort of this autocracy versus democracy thing. It's it's very Possible, I don't know if it's likely, but it's very possible that going forward the world will be separated into two sort of economic blocks that are You know distinct from each other Exactly because of the power that economics has and it's there's this very funny line Towards the beginning Page 10 of the report Complaining about autocratic governments. They leverage access to their markets In control of global digital infrastructure for coercive purposes And I mean when we talk about the global world order Really, it's the global american economic order because Because of you know the power of our banking system, you know, we can demand people You know leverage sanctions against iran or you know abandon swiss's secret bank accounts and change the way they you know Go about their internal economic affairs Because we have that power and we don't want them to have that power And I I mean I agree that it would be horrible to live in a world where china Had the power we have to do all these things, but it just sort of made me chuckle that it's like Oh darn autocracies Doing exactly the whole basis of our you know geopolitical Economic strategy. It was less than a year ago that we're all talking about removing anyone We don't like from the swift system the international bank trans communication system and What is that if not weaponizing the financial system? And that's the phrase the report keeps using over and over again is they're weaponizing energy. They're weaponizing technology But it's only other people that do that And that was something that really just stuck out about this document was just the sheer hypocrisy of it And that's why I say that it reads a lot like a press release I would have respected the administration and the people behind this report a lot more if they just would have come out and said We want america to be the most important most powerful country. And so here's all the here's all the ways we're going to Use our strategic power to ensure That's that's the way it works and americans will benefit from that now. I would disagree with that but I would at least respect the honesty And the straightforwardness of it and and other countries probably would as well Rather than just this patina of oh, we care about the environment. We care about equity. We care about freedom And it's uh, it's just so obvious nonsense the way that they phrase it all because it's it's like a laundry list of bad things Other regimes do whereas the u.s. Does exactly the same thing. There's a line in there about how Iran interferes in the elections of its neighbors Okay the Well, I guess they're just taking cues from the cia. I mean, it's just astounding that That they're pointing out these things that I guess you have to be incredibly naive To think that this is this is some sort of moral flaw that only foreigners have Back to the economy real quick one line. I was very Confused on and I mean it's not my field of expertise But on pitch 26 it says that russia's efforts to weaponize energy have backfired That's not my understanding of the situation at all. I mean earlier this year russia Recorded record profits from its oil exports. Um So I found that odd in the twitter feeds on that ride with just the foreign policy people I follow It seems debatable Right is that they're looking at what is the total volume of oil and gas coming out of russia versus the amount of money coming in and And russia must be hurting because they keep making with uh withdrawal Uh, or at least peace with ukraine. I don't think they've offered withdrawal at all But making peace with ukraine contingent on the end of sanctions So therefore the sanctions must be hurting them and all of that but I agree Clearly that's it has not The sanctions on oil and gas have by definitely not Driven a nail through the heart of russian industry because they've managed to find enough partners in india and china and africa Better still more than happy to deal with that not to mention turkey which is becoming much more of a Russian partner boy turkey is just brilliantly playing off nato against russia and vice versa In now they're talking about making turkey an oil a gas hub More pipelines going through there turkey is managing to turn this all into a way for them to basically invade kurdistan and so russia Russia has partners and by offering some cover to the turks turkeys getting more uppity Uh with nato and demanding more freedom there in exchange for not playing too nice with russia So it's really quite remarkable And in spite of all the big talk in this report It doesn't seem like the u.s is actually managing that part of the world very well At least according to the the standards of this report. Yeah, there was one line about we want to continue to you know Make sure turkey is integrated to the west and it's like How in what ways, you know, and I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I still don't think that turkey has um At least at the time we're recording this. I don't think turkey has Proved uh finland and sweden joining nato. Um, they said they would but I don't think they've actually done that yet Um officially so well and apparently turkey joining the eu is so much off the table that they haven't even put that back up there As something they would want in return. I guess for approving Finland. Oh, right. Yeah, remember that I don't I don't know if you're I was it 20 years ago. Yeah, it was more like 15 years ago. Just lots of talk about Turkey wanting to be in the eu and of course system bulls a european country is what they said and so on But the europeans just did not show much interest and I think I think that's still a noise Uh, the turks and it's probably actually part of their thinking on all this Yeah, there's they're in the purgatory that ukraine just entered Regarding europe European union membership. I mean they've been there Since the mid 2000s. I think um, and I think that the the direction erdogan's going That uh, eu membership could be a detriment in the way that uh, the eu bureaucracy tries to punish Hungary and poland etc etc for them doing their own thing And turkey's really going off and doing its own thing these days. So I think, uh Yeah, unless it thought that it could influence things and it's The bureaucracy in its favor. I suppose right. It's hard to imagine, um turkey getting uh, getting approval from brussels on a lot of their election moves and I mean, yeah, when when's the next attempted coup in turkey and what would that what sort of sanction would that get from brussels? Yeah, that's probably an important consideration. Maybe they've just decided that yeah That wouldn't be worth the trouble after they see the way hungary and poland get treated Um, so maybe that's that's just dead. So how do you integrate turkey into the west then? So yeah, yet another thing suggesting the report with like no Just just an expression of this is another thing that We're going to meddle in but really no outline of how anything would actually be uh, accomplished And when you start to then just look at I guess it's part three of this report then where it then just looks at the regional strategies Oh part four our strategy by region Where yep, that's where they just go through every single region. It's Indo-Pacific Deep in our alliance with europe foster democracy and prosperity in the western hemisphere And support de-escalation and integration in the middle east. I mean it's just oh And then at the end build 21st century u.s africa partnerships. That's uh, that's that's quite quite remarkable And then protect sea air and space so space also is uh, that's where we'll send up their space force guardians to To ensure there and then I guess maybe build a new arctic ocean fleet It's just How much money is this going to cost? Clearly more and there's there's no end in sight, of course to Pentagon spending right is that you had trump in and Trump at least didn't show much interest in starting new wars, but boy did pentagon spending escalate Under trump and I guess maybe I would prefer that just on the book spending Increases for the pentagon as opposed to a bunch of ad hoc war spending endlessly pumped out for Whatever new foreign policy disaster is taking place that sort of Would be akin to I what happened during the reagan years right as there was no new big wars Reagan showed little interest in in uh, any uh, any long term foreign meddling But but spending just went through the roof in terms of defense spending that yeah, that's That's there's an upside to that right even though there's an amazing amount of spending I would have preferred the the level of International meddling under Reagan then we got under clinton or obama or bush and So that's that's one thing that could happen, but that's of course not not what they want here whereas we're gonna we're gonna have a A very battle ready pentagon and well funded pentagon But but we don't have any plans to invade into new parts of the world But this is basically signaling that if any part of the world gets out of line that That uh, we're gonna be coming riding in On our on our drones on our fifth generation fighters, which We've spent trillions of dollars on and may or may not work. I don't know And just uh, it's clear right with all the the talk about modernization and technology and so on that Spending is just a huge component of this with additional threats to start new wars were necessary So yeah, you're right the line about our nothing's beyond our capacity is clearly Supports the overall Spirit of the document, which is that No corner of the globe shall be free from American intervention. Yeah, and it also I mean there's also Aside from the ideological sort of international Liberal hegemony There's also just the nitty gritty like public choice element. So this is a huge jobs program that employs I mean, I don't know how many tens of thousands of people, you know, uh concerned about I don't know malaria nets in somewhere we've never heard of or something and it's not that Maybe we should be sending malaria nets, but it's like why is the government have to be doing that etc It just employs tons of, you know, Georgetown graduates who, you know Want a comfy job pushing paper around? I mean, it's just I mean, there's also that aspect of it as well Yeah, it uh, just This is just a laundry list of what the administration plans to do And if you can just phrase it in terms of national defense, you're more likely to get friends Supporting it and it's not mentioned here, but that's just such a failsafe strategy I'm starting to see articles now saying that the united states needs to adopt central bank digital currencies in order to compete with china And so there's nothing that's safe from the national security demands it line And basically we want to abolish financial freedom or the chinese win and I guess that's the new line instead of Back 20 years ago. You had to do whatever the government said or quote the terrorists win Now it's do what we say or the chinese win and that's I guess that's where we're headed So we should expect I suppose the next iteration of this report to include even more about china and how the us needs to be Even more involved there unless there's some sort of reversal toward better relations With the chinese and I don't I don't know if that's on the horizon I mean at the same time it's it's awful in that some western regimes are are saying that china is a model In terms of digital currencies in terms of zero covid In terms of just some of china's absolute worst policies But at the same time We can't let china have any strategic power. So it's It uh, I suppose just you're getting the worst of both worlds in both of those cases Yeah, it was quite The hypocrisy was just amusing really at this point in a dark way. I suppose It criticizing other places I mean, obviously there's a world of difference between, you know, free speech in the us and In china or russia and places like that But it just sort of was Everyone was sort of laughing slash angry at Canadian prime minister trudeau Like praising the chinese covid protesters After, you know, what happened in Canada and I mean just the us I mean, we keep finding out more and more since elan muskbaugh twitter about how Which the government was involved in basically trying to censor information and obviously There's it's it's not on the same level, but it is just like The hypocrisy is amusing It just when the government when the us government is involved in Censoring information we don't like on important news platforms That's all good. But when china does it That's that's so different and it uh, I also laughed there was a line about how democracy in america is under attack from within I found that a little concerning actually just sort of People we don't like when democracy under attack and it just sort of Shows just uh, just the Ridiculousness that underlies This way of looking at the world. Yeah, they even managed to fit in the whole donald trump is a threat to democracy line Right, although they of course didn't mention him Specifically, but yeah democracy in danger in america, which somehow fits under foreign policy And yeah, so just just part of this whole, uh, press release national security strategy an outline of How biden can plans to bludgeon his political enemies using the The whip of foreign policy quite remarkable So check it out if you want, uh, I suppose to read some black comedy and if you want to know just about What the foreign policy elites would prefer to have In terms of foreign policy But hopefully there'll just be enough gridlock in washington over the next two years that this won't happen But in terms of the longer scale I think this will just continue to be the overall goal until the us starts to find itself in real serious financial straits Uh, because as long as it just seems that you can print up another trillion dollars and Uh, you I'm I'm sure they're confident they can get interest rates back down to a nice low level So that uh, that doesn't interfere with more military spending in terms of debt service That everything will just continue as normal So there's a big assumption that the status quo will continue and if it does then I I don't think foreign policy will change Only when people have to start choosing between foreign policy spending and domestic spending, but How soon will that happen is unclear and that will require like serious pressure on washington at least to change that So this is this is a nice summary of where we are. It'll be interesting to see what if anything changes in 2024 Even with with the republicans or if it's just going to be they're going to change some references to domestic policy There'll be fewer references to global warming and the threat to democracy and all that but that everything else would be basically the same Well, that's gonna have to be it for this episode of war economy and state. Thank you for listening We'll be back next time with a new episode with me and my co-host zack and thank you for listening. We'll see you next time