Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering NetApp Insight 2017, brought to you by NetApps. Okay, welcome back everyone. We are here live in Las Vegas. This is theCUBE SiliconANGLE's flagship program where we go out to the events and extract the signal and the noise. I'm John Furrier, my co-host Keith Townsend. We're here at NetApp Insight 2017 here at the Mandalay. They've got two great guests, senior executives, senior NetApp folks are going to share some insight into what's going on. We have Mark Regman, who's the senior vice president CTO. Thanks for coming on, John Woodall. VP of engineering, integrated archive systems. The first partner of NetApp going back in the day. Welcome to theCUBE, thanks for coming on. So we've seen that movie before. Every cycle of innovation, there's always opportunities. It's interesting now, we're in a cycle where you can see some new waves out there coming in. And we think we're surfing on some waves now but the tsunami's coming, everything from blockchain down to just cloud growth like crazy. You guys have done extremely well. You've seen them before, these transitions. What's, I mean, people are busy right now. Your customers are super busy. They got app development going on, dev ops, they got security unbuckling from IT, becoming critical, data coverage. What should they know about this transition that they may miss or that they should pay attention to? Well, I mean, I would say that the thing that is probably the most profound is we've gone through a couple of big transitions as you mentioned in the industry as a whole. 20, 30 years ago, we would talk to customers and they'd start with infrastructure, and they'd talk about servers and storage. 10, 15 years ago, they'd start with applications and they'd talk about their ERP or whatever software and that would decide then the infrastructure. Today they're starting with data and companies are realizing that data is the thing that's going to transform their business. And then based on that data, what software am I going to use and then talk about infrastructure. So the conversation's kind of turned around completely from where it was 20 years ago. John, you've been a partner. Obviously the partner landscape is certainly changing. You're seeing resellers and bars and I think the word Vab even exists, value-added business. They're actually building their own tech because there's opportunities to be a service provider. Yeah. Almost like a telco. Who would have thought? It's crazy. It's great. I think from our perspective as a longtime partner, we've been successful with NetApp through transitions. We were talking before about the resiliency of NetApp and going through transitions. They've done it again. The keynote today filled with a lot of what I call mic drop moments of yet another level of innovation. But you're right, things have flipped almost 180 degrees in the discussion. It's starting with data. It's starting with a business outcome as part of the discussion. And it's not about what can I sell. It's about in solving the problem, do I accelerate the pace of my business? Do I open up new ways to monetize in my business? Do I drive efficiencies in my business that translate to the bottom line? As a reseller and as a partner, we have to transition with that because the discussion changes, the skill sets change, and it becomes much more of a services play on the front end and to help through and then becomes managed services as you end that. Mark, I want to ask you a question. We were joking with the product marketing team on the cloud earlier. The slogan should be, I didn't know NetApp could do that. It just keeps happening. Oh, I didn't know they did that. A lot of that's kind of the history of NetApp, but I want to ask something specific. We see it's a success out there in the cloud. You look no further than Amazon web services. Now Microsoft's kind of catching up through the rear. Google's there. Some of the people are trying to kind of get in there. But Amazon's the winner when it comes to the number of announcements you see at an event. And I'm sure that reinvent coming up is going to be a tsunami of, they're bigger announcements, more services. So it's a plethora. And so that's an indicator of success. And also the new differentiator at scale as you got to keep iterating. You guys had a slew of announcements. So running engineering and being the CTO. What's going on at NetApp? What's the conversation like? You have all these roadmaps? Is it just all this innovation? Is it part of the plan? And just give us some insight into how this all works. I think for a long time, maybe for the first 20 years of the company, we were almost like a one product company. And the innovations were all in that lane.  Make OnTap better. And customers loved that because they were growing with us. What's happened is it's kind of exploded in multiple dimensions. So we're continuing to innovate in our core. But at the same time, we're having to say, how can we use this capability in a completely different way in the cloud? How can we help customers manage their data no matter where it is, not just on our OnTaps systems? We made the acquisition a little over a year ago, a year and a half ago of SolidFire to get into an area of a different approach to managing storage. And it's not, sometimes people get confused and think, oh, that's how you got into Flash. Frankly, we were already doing Flash, and we have Flash in all of our product lines. The real reason we did that was to get into this more programmatic, scale out, API-driven model of administration of storage. And we're having to do that in so many dimensions. So as we expand those dimensions, of course we have to expand our innovation. We have to innovate at a given rate in each of those threads. The old joke in Silicon Valley is, you know, get lucky once and you get rich and it's hard to, you know, the sophomore jinx. Whatever you want to call it, repeated successes is a sign of success and certainly as a partner, you don't want a one-trick pony at all. I got to ask you, given the NetApp history of those successes, the data fabric is very good positioning. I like that positioning because it's got a lot around. It's super important. We think data is the new wave that's going to come bigger than cloud in terms of its impact. What from NetApp for the customers that are watching, your customers and potentially new customers as you take new territory down with data, what is it about the NetApp portfolio or the architecture, the DNA that makes you guys relevant in this data fabric equation? Because you can't just get there overnight. There's this economy of scale. What is it about NetApp that makes them super relevant? Couple things, one thing, what's the one thing? Well, I think it comes back to you. I think you even said the term sort of DNA. It's what is it about NetApp? Why are we the one that's been around for 25 years continuing to make it through these transitions? And I think it's because we've, first of all, don't rest on our laurels. We're not caught up in the innovator's dilemma of continuing to just refine what we already have. We'll do that, but we also recognize that there are emerging new customer needs and our basic intellectual capital can be applied in different ways. So, when I talk to our engineers, they don't talk about, oh, I build controllers that go into arrays that manage data. They realize that deeper down, there's a kind of intellectual capital that could go into a piece of software in the cloud. And there's a customer problem there we can go solve. So, I think it's about being motivated by solving those customer data problems. So, culture, it's culture. It's culture. It's the product side. Obviously, you have a data. Next is, storage stores data. So, it's not, it'll be rocket science to figure out that storing data. I'll give you an example. I mean, there are a lot of competitors in the flash storage business that have come into the market and basically gave up on us because we were late to come into that market. But we came into the market, we accelerated, we passed them. Why is that? Partly, we built a good product at the flash storage layer, but more importantly, we leveraged all of the storage management which we'd already built over 20 years. And so now we're suddenly out there with a very rock solid flash engine, but it's supported by all these other capabilities which make it valuable to our customers. So, it's not just, hey, here's a new tool. It's, here's a new solution to your problem. And I think that's a big part of our DNA and our technology side is, we've been in data management for 20 years. We just never talked about it that way. So, John, we had Dave hits on earlier. And he said that one of the keys to keeping away from the innovators dilemma has been that NetApp has leaned into the thing that would kill us. I tweeted that out, like, that's an awesome quote. They've leaned into the things that kill them. As a partner though, that can be a bit scary. Technology is a fairly enterprise tech is a very stable thing. NetApp has been with ONTAP, a very traditional partner, even with FAS and bringing those innovations to flash. How has that ride been for you guys over the past 25 years? It has been consistent. It has been a great partnership. And it continues to be a great partnership because as I look out and comb my portfolio of offerings and partnerships, NetApp stays very high in that, not just because we have a great run rate business, but because NetApp in their innovation allows me to continue to solve problems with an existing partner, which makes us more efficient. Now, having said that, we talked about, you mentioned data fabric. That's a completely different discussion from a storage company. At first you think, okay, I'm replicating data. I have a transport layer, that's fine. But what are you doing beyond that? And I think you begin to see a new NetApp emerging as software defined. An organizing principle in my mind of the data fabric is it gives the customer freedom and flexibility that just buying storage doesn't give you. It gives them the flexibility to deploy in the cloud, next to the cloud, on-prem, as a virtual instance, as an AMI in the cloud, et cetera. So it allows the customer to place data and workloads where and when and how they want to make sense for their business, not NetApp's business or my business. And so in that, we're starting to see now with Anthony Lai's demo today of Cloud Orchestrator. Which, by the way, isn't shipping yet, but it's multi-cloud there, that's multi-cloud instance. Right there. And it's applications. It's provisioning VMs, it's provisioning out of age. I think if you guys get to the market fast, that'll be the first true multi, I call it real multi-cloud. There's a lot of fake multi-cloud out there, but that would be a real use case. And that's a completely different discussion. So to kind of plagiarize, you can teach an old storage dog a new trick. So they've transformed to meet the emerging needs of a new market. We are having to transform with them. So there's a bit of bumpiness that we're all going to experience as we learn that and do that. But, I want to just double down on that. I want to get also, you can both perspective, what you're really teasing out with the cloud orchestrator demo, in my mind, the impact of that demo, the significance is, you guys as a storage company, now a data company, are enabling opportunities with the data. That's clearly what's happening, obviously. There's no debate there. But the impact is to developers. Now, the developer dynamic is, as these DevOps guys come in, there's re-skilling going on, right? That's the biggest challenge with multi-cloud, is each cloud has its own way to pipeline data, or do things with data. So you got, so making that easy, I don't want to have the higher guys to program for each cloud. On the hard to find. Well, and you can't, it's incredible. It's too hard. Abstracting that away is going to be a boom for the developer market. That's a new market. That's a different thing. It's a very different market than we've been in before. Absolutely. So what are you doing? What's the plan? Just continue to enable developers? Well, I think the comment you made earlier about lean into the thing that's going to kill you is exactly right. I wouldn't have said it quite like that, but I'm not Dave Hitz. But we definitely, when we see a challenge, we lean into it. And that does two things. It's a little bit like, I don't know, it's a taekwondo where you use the other competitor's energy. I think it's Judo. Use the other energy and power of the other opponent to win. And it's kind of what we're doing. And I think when you do that, it means we have to transform and our partners do. And you know, your partner's been with us a long time. You've been through a lot of transitions. Yes, we have. Well, the Judo leverage is about, I mean, Judo moves about leverage, right? And that's about having it installed. You guys have that leverage. You have the customers. And the customers are moving as well. So we could try to keep them, hold them back. Or we can move with them and actually accelerate them to where they're going, to our benefit and to our partner's benefit. And I think that's what Dave was referring to. Well, Mark and John love to have you guys on. Love to do a follow-up segment in Palo Alto. Our offices are literally 300 yards from each other. Certainly you guys are in Sunnyvale. This is a super important conversation. I'll give you guys the last word. Impact to customers for NetApp with the new capabilities with data center innovation modernization, NextGen data center on premise, true private cloud, and power harnessing the cloud with data. All that working together in some cases, end-to-end or in pieces, whatever the customer is. What does it mean to the customer, this new NetApp? Well, I'll still align from our marketing teams. And what it really means is it's going to enable customers that change the world with data, transform their business, create new opportunities. It's a new wave in the economy. It's going to be disruptive and tumultuous for some. We have an opportunity to go into a customer and to help them find new ways with their data, because the two key assets of the company as are people and then data. So the people are there taking their data, allowing them to find new opportunities to go to market faster. NetApp's in a unique position. It reminds me of value creation. I mean, a lot of stuff with blockchain, you see the indicators, almost the web 1.0 again. You see in the new shift in architecture happening, upside down, it's almost a reverse. Well, the developer model's right. I mean, when you talked about Amazon, I think from 2008 until 2014 or 15, they introduced about 3,000 new services on their platform. I don't see an average IT organization doing that. Yeah. And that rate's going up now. Yeah. It's on an exponential growth. I think you're starting to see the swim lanes, if you will, of each cloud. I'm calling them native clouds, because they're so native, but they're also powering a new ecosystem and partners. We've had more time to talk about the partner equation. There are a lot of musical chairs going on in the partner ecosystem. You've been with NetApp in the beginning. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations on all the success on the platform and the product innovation. It's theCUBE bringing you the innovation and the data through our data fabric called theCUBE. We'll be back with more live coverage after this short break.


My name is Associate Professor Claire Wall. I'm head of the discipline of nutrition and dietetics in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences. Our current areas of research in the discipline of nutrition and dietetics cover early life nutrition, clinical nutrition and dietetics, nutrigenomics and some areas of antioxidant research and health. We have the expertise and research capability to measure dietary intake, to measure growth and development and also to measure nutritional status by using various biomarkers. We run clinical trials to look at the effectiveness of various components of the diet or whole diets by using an intervention or a placebo. Optimal nutrition is vitally important in early life. It's really important for health, growth and development. In early infancy we know fatically that breast milk is the optimal nutrition source for infants. But interestingly we don't know a great deal about the nutrition and dietary intake of older infants aged between 12 and 24 months. The second year of life is a really informative time in terms of the development of food habits. Older infants are starting to transition onto the family diet and so this is a time when new tastes develop, toddlers become used to the family diet and also they develop habits that can form lifetime behaviors around specific foods. So it's really imperative that we understand more about this period so that we can assist parents with regards to optimising their children's dietary intakes early in life. Currently we are undertaking a study to explore in-depth nutrition in toddlers and only level our PhD student is conducting this research. I'm looking at a growth and development study where we have toddlers from the age of 12 months and are able to follow them through to the age of 24 months using a variety of measures. We're looking at physical development through weight, length and waist circumference. We're also looking at body composition using a variety of techniques such as bioelectrical impedance to look at lean muscle mass and also dexa scans. We're using dexa scans to look more in-depth at the proportions of lean mass and fat mass. We're also able to measure dietary intake by asking parents what their children have had to eat through food frequency questionnaires looking at intake over the last month and also using questions throughout periods of the study at different time points looking at what the children have eaten in the last 24 hours. From this we were able to look at nutritional status. Here we take blood tests and look at different micronutrient levels such as iron and vitamin D. We're able to measure cognitive development and outcomes using internationally recognised methods that look at cognitive development, problem solving, motor movement, communication through a series of play activities with the toddlers at the beginning and end of the study. Much of the nutrition research that is conducted in the discipline of nutrition and dietetics is really able to inform evidence based practice and policy to improve the health status of the New Zealand population.


Let me see. Hopefully my service work in the night. Let me see that the service work in. Forgive me. I'm gonna put that on the thing. See I was sharing that. I'm in the hotel room. So y'all forgive me. This ain't my decoration behind me. I don't have long cause I got to do the Q&A on, on Instagram, on the Instagram story tonight. And so I just got off the road, got to the hotel. Got a business meeting. And so while the premiere was going on, I was on the road so I didn't really get to, you know, watch it too closely. But I wanted to pop in and just, you know, see what y'all thought of it. See how y'all liked it. It was five episodes. The first two episodes were combined. And so if you go to my playlist, you'll see titles, titles, playlists and you can watch the whole thing straight through. I believe I'll leave it up there for a little while. May eventually, you know, we may see about putting it on different outlets. It was great. Wanted more. Yeah. When I first seen it, I didn't watch the whole thing because I wanted to watch it with y'all. But when I first seen it, I was like, this too short. This too short. But when it come to film, you know, time is money. So the longer it goes, then the more it costs. Because that means the more days you got to shoot and all of that. But a special shout out to the director and producer and writer was all the same person, young lady. Non-Soul is what she called. Her name is in the description box. And then to the talent, to the actors, their name is in the description box too. For the movie, I can't remember. Brian and Candice and Nicole, their real names is in the description box. But they did amazing. And I hope they stick with it. But the director, you know, she pulled it all together. I know Ella sound like we need to crowd fund. Amen to that. Now I thought about doing that, but it's just not really my thing. But I know it's no shame in it in film production. I've seen people crowd fund and then go on to win Academy Awards. But I'm hoping the talent, I'm hoping they stick with it, stick with the acting. And we got to understand too that with the young man, that's a tough role to play. You know, I met the young man, talked to him. And whenever I talk to him, real down the earth, he asks me questions about life. You know, he asks me questions about love, about relationships. And that's a tough role to play because everybody watching it and then he becomes the villain. And you know, we hating on him and mad with him. But you know, we'll see what happens with season two. Lord willing, we able to get season two. And yes, soundtrack, shout out to the producers on the soundtrack. And then the whole crew, you know, the camera, the sound, the editing, the gentleman who did the sound, he also did the editing. And then the director's sister, she did set design and costume design and we had somebody who gave their time for the color. So you got to read all the credits for the color correcting. So I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting somebody in there. Had a couple of people working the camera. So when I was on set, we had a couple of people working the camera, somebody doing the sound and then the sisters. The sisters, the director and producer and writer is one person. And then her sister was her right hand helping her kind of do everything. So it was a small little thing. We shot it in the DMV and which was, which was great. At first I was a little worried about shooting in the DMV. Oh yeah, the makeup. Now, I don't know if she, I think she did a makeup too. We shot in the DMV. So first I was a little worried about shooting it up there and Christine, God bless you. Now I'm going to put that fight all towards season two. No, don't donate for the season on Hill, because YouTube takes 30% of it. We'll figure us out of crowdfund or somewhere. We might have to do it through cash out because when you do the little sites, they take a percentage of it. So it's like you raising money on the site and the site taking all the money. But when first shot in the DMV, it was going to be, what does the title stand for? Titles, you know, I came up with the title because we was using a different title, but it was kind of overused. So I just thought about naming it titles and the director agree, meaning titles. You know how women want a title. Women want to be girlfriend. Women want to be what you call it, fiance, women want to be wife. So it's like these women competing for a title. And so that's why I called it titles.  Appreciate that. And so, you know, we're going to try to keep it going. Lord willing, came make no promises just because came promise tomorrow, came promise tomorrow. But I was able to produce that from your views. You know, I was able to produce it from your views. And we, I set a budget. And then at first it was going to cost double. But I asked the producer, I say, listen, I told you what the budget was. That was a firm budget. I know I might look like money. I might look blessed and highly favored now. But, but this, this play play. So this is this making me no money. This making me no money. This, this here was tens of thousands of dollars meaning once we crossed 10,000, that was the thing. But then had to pay more for editing. We did a premiere then me paying for my flights up there hotel up there and then paying for marketing promotion through Facebook and Instagram. They charge arm and a leg just to get you a little views. Then I did Google, Google ads to boost it on YouTube so that it's going out like that. But then YouTube don't let you make money on the video. The CPM rate is trash. They don't let you make money on that type of stuff for some reason. Like my talking videos, YouTube will pay me. But them kind of videos for some reason, they don't pay for it. So really you just kind of flush money down the toilet just to entertain your audience to say thank you for watching these videos. Oh, the reason why I was a little worried about shooting the DMV and I look for your questions. This about titles on it. It's not a relationship Q&A. It's just about titles is I thought it was going to have all that to you and dear John and you know, I remember going to school with some guys from Baltimore. Man, I do that too. What you going to do? What you going to do? And so the way they talk, I was like, when she said we were going to shoot it, you know, they up there. I'm like, man, I want to hear all that to you and dear. And I know my accent bad, but I didn't want it to sound like episode of the wire. But they, you know, she said, well, no, it is like Howard is people from all over. People talk, you know, it's not just right. I plucked out the neighborhood. So I was like, okay, these compilations. God, God bless you. Thank you. Appreciate that. And so the, the concept for this. Right. I didn't want it in the South either. I didn't want a distinct accent. You know, I want it to be kind of ambiguous on that part. But the concept come from my talks with Tony. If y'all know with the talks with Tony, it's, um, it's a lot of questions coming in. And so the writer, not so she, she actually turned it down. Like she turned it down and the actors right there, they worked out of the DMV, um, the producer, she casted them. She knew them. She had worked with them. So it's some talent up there. You know, it's some talent up there.  So like when Issa Rae did her Webisode, she probably didn't spend nothing. It probably was just a bunch of friends in LA who were in acting class who just agreed to do it for fun, for practice, for exposure. I don't have that luxury because I'm coming in with some sort of a name. So anybody I go to, they're going to want to see some money put on the table. So my wife and I, we paid for it out of pocket. I didn't raise any funds for it. And so it's not something that's little. It's not something that's easy to do, but to God be the glory. I knew it was God. So he, God really was the producer. God really was the producer because all I did was put out that I was thinking about doing a movie based on my book and a woman's influence. And then I had a lot of people writing in. And then nonso, she, she wrote in and I liked her work and I was, I wrote back to a lot of people, had a conversation with a guy, had pretty much agreed to do the movie with him. But then he got real busy. And so things went a different way. And then I had talked to another gentleman on the phone. And then I saw nonso stuff. Her stuff was good. Forgive me if I'm saying name wrong. Nonso, you know how my accent is. And then she sent me something. We set up a call. I missed the call. And then she reminded me and I was like, thank you. I'm glad she reminded me because I get hundreds of emails a day. So it just all over the place and get called up. And she wrote me again. She sent me something that she did. It was in a love space. I liked it. I think it was producing for a wedding, but she made it kind of cinematic. So I was like, you know what? It's a blessing. And when I saw that it was a woman that, so I knew she understand what women go through. She followed the work. So she followed me on YouTube. And that's another thing I like to cast from my support group. Whereas the gentlemen, they didn't follow me. It was a woman who like they sister or they aunt or they cousin told them about the casting. I don't really like giving opportunities to people that's not immersed in my brand and what I'm doing. But this young lady, she had been watching the videos for some months, you know, probably from the pandemic. And so she had a general idea of what I do and how I do it. And so she was able to write it based on my talks with Tony. Tony D. God bless you. Great name. She was able to write it based on the talks with Tony. And I really didn't have any changes. I didn't tell her this till now, but I'm in a space of delegating. So I didn't even read the script. I let my wife read it and my wife only had like one or two changes. And so I told her those one or two changes. She made those couple of changes. And one of them was removing all curse words. If you notice, there's no curse words because I don't curse. So I'm not trying to do like Tyler Perry and throw a word in there or D word in there. And then another one was some sage on burner sage or nothing like that. I don't do crystals. I don't do sage. So because I don't know what it is. I don't understand it might be harmless, but I don't do none of that. I do Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ Holy Bible. And so had take that out of there. And that's what I like about being in control of what I'm doing. Because when you go to Hollywood, they gonna put that cursing in there. They gonna throw a little stuff in there. They gonna throw some stuff in there that sacrilegious. That's against, you know, what God got going on. And I really ain't, I really ain't with all that. So if I'm gonna go that route, which it may come, I want to be able to go in with a name as an executive producer to where I got creative control too. And if the Lord keep me here on my YouTube the whole time, then maybe somebody from YouTube might reach out and say, Hey, we're gonna give you a little budget. We're gonna get your budget, you know, so you could produce some stuff. Because YouTube was doing that. They was giving budgets to like production companies to do stuff, you know, for YouTube. But so they might take notice. But then it's anything that Hollywood typically get their hands on, they try to, you know, turn it out. They try to pervert it, try to make it. Some is not. And so that's, you know, that's the dangerous part, which I want to touch on real life. But, you know, not just for the sake of doing ratchetness, just to be doing it. Dr. Elaine, God bless you. I've been driving up here. Yeah, getting ready to go, getting red on me. But y'all got to forgive me. I just say it's gonna get red. Just a little tired, probably just dry, dry, driving with that Al Blonde in my face. So let me see. Thank you. Yeah, I don't like profanity. You know, I don't like profanity. She ain't a major God bless you. And I know it upsets y'all, you know, watching that. That's a depiction. Titles is a depiction of the life that we live. It's very, very real. It gets way more real. It gets way more graphic. You know, it could have been a whole lot more shown. You know, being in that lifestyle, you know, a man will come from out of one woman and go into another woman without showering. Without protection. And so it get real real. The man will come from one woman and go to another woman, but it's out of one woman and to the mouth of another woman with no shower. And so it get real real. A man will put some, put a child in this woman, put a child in that woman in the same night. And the women do dates, you know, a week apart. And you know, and so it get real. And so we actually, you know, nonso she turned it down for y'all. She turned it down because, because if she really would have shown y'all what y'all be looking like in these relationships, you'd have been real mad. But that's what other seasons for. It's gonna get there. Oh yeah. And so I want y'all to realize how real it is now. And so you need to be able to see yourself. Need to be able to see what be going on. Need to see what's happening. You know, need to be able to, because you might be Candace. And then you might be Candace and not know you Candace. You might be Nicole, not know you Nicole. And then the people who, the guys who Brian, they need to see what it's doing to the woman behind the scenes. They need to see that, you know. And so one thing that we really appreciate are the crew and cast and everybody. And myself is the fact that so many people related to it and so many people say they can see themself in it. And trust me, I wanted it longer too. So that was a good thing. That's a good problem to have when you want it longer. But I'd rather it be too short than too long. Because you go too long, then it could be, you know, just too much of the same. Too much dialogue, too much going on. So it's better to have a cliffhanger. And good thing I didn't read the script. I didn't read the script. I didn't tell the director that because I didn't want to. One thing I understand about creating is that everybody have a difference of opinion.  Blah! Blah! Don't come on here critiquing this young lady's work that they can't do. I mean, writing the whole dissertation about what should have been different, how it should have been done. I was like, where you put a dollar into this ad? Where you put a second into this ad? Blah! You know, so I appreciate y'all who appreciate the work, who respect the work, who understand, you know, it's low budget.  It may pay a couple bills or a bill or go toward rent, but it ain't something that's gonna, you know, change their life, where they could quit their job. So, you know, it's like they can't, that would say Siskel and Ebert. So, yeah, the quality was the talent, but meaning low budget, meaning imagine if we had a budget what they would have been able to do. Because it's so many cameras in the space, it's so many levels of editing, it's so many levels of, you know, color correction. Like they did great, but if they had more time, where they really could, you know, put their foot in it and really do their thing and doing more rehearsals, even get even better chemistry. And then, you know, it's hiccups and stuff like that. So, it was some shots that was missed. It was some missing shots. It was some stuff that didn't get shot. It was some stuff that they had to take out, you know, because you had a little hiccups and stuff that happened. And so, we didn't even, you know, we didn't even mention that. But this stuff that, you know, goes on. How can we help you raise money for season two? You know, I have to figure that out. I have to figure that out. Somebody say Venmo may have to do, well, see, not Joe. Joe and Kamala, they got to wear PayPal and Venmo and all of that got to report. If it's $600, it shouldn't be $600 or more, you know, donation. But if we do that, I may do it like a week or two weeks and you just put, you know, four titles so I know what it's for. And then just earmark it, tally up the budget, share the budget every week with the, with the Bless Tribe and see everybody, you know, name, to put every name into the credits. Oh, new credits will be too long. I have to have a whole budget just for the editor to type all the names in. So we just have to say special thanks to everybody to the Bless Tribe. But honestly, you know, I plan to keep the same budget, but it'll be good to be able to, you know, do it as a teen versus me taking off my kid's plate. And that's what we did this time, but I want to be able to, you know, I want to be able to reinvest. So when you're all watching the videos and it's ads playing, I'm getting paid when those ads play. So the reason why I produced this film is to reinvest the money into content to share the message in a different way. First is just, you know, living off the money and hopefully it get bigger and bigger. So we working on something else, you know, I'm working on something in February that'll be something small. It may not be as long. It may not be as many episodes, it may not be, you know, something else. And then hopefully after that, March, April, you know, I can't just charge the view to video. Well, the thing about it is, it's some people who they in a position to where if they say, hey, Tony, I could donate $10 for the production, to go toward production. Some people may say $100. Some people may say $1,000. And that it take care of the production, but then thousands of people can see it. So this series, you know, it probably on YouTube so far, probably around 50,000 or more, maybe around 50,000 to 100,000 views. Whereas if I charge for it, funds are so tight that even if I charged, even if I charged $1.99, you know, it would, it still would be so few less people that it might be a thousand people that'll pay to watch it. You know, so that's why I'd rather it be free for people to watch it, and then just the blessed tribe can comment. And they say, I'll figure out the donation. If I do the donations, you know, it's some people who have my cash out, you know, thanks to Caramel Kisses, and she got my cash out to get it correct so that people not cash out into other people. But I don't give it out personally on here, and I don't put it on the screen, just because I don't want to get into that. You could get into a bag in spirit, and it's people who they go to ask in, and they never stop asking. So for me, I only want to make it count. And it's a bigger project that I'm working on, bigger than titles that I talk to non-so about. And I may save my crowd-funding efforts for that. Or, you know, do both. But the Lord gonna bless. Like I say, I didn't raise a dime for this first one. So the Lord bless. So I trust that. Now, Roku, can't do Roku just because that's a special app or TV that people gotta have. So that's a very small, where anybody could type in YouTube. Anybody could come to YouTube. Fran, I appreciate that. I appreciate that.  That's right.  I donated. I donated that Oscar mine. I supposed to have an Oscar. So, you know. But I've seen one of my partners do crowd-funding. And it worked out. I was signed to the right of the chat. Yeah, the thing about that one there, Sheena, is YouTube take 30% of that. So when I do fundraising, I doubt I... If I do fundraising, I doubt I do it on YouTube, because they button will take 30% like Amazon. Amazon now take 40% of my book sales on Amazon. Like my goodness, you helped write the book? Like my goodness, Jeff, you want 40%?  And so, YouTube take them a good 30% which you don't really know if they taking 30% because you don't get to see the books. They just say, hey, listen, this year, what you don't really know, how much came in and what YouTube really slid off of them. So you just kind of...  Cash out don't take a dime of it. They still got theirs free right now. But like I say, Joe and Kamala, Joe and Kamala say no, 40% not $40. Joe and Kamala say they need to see what coming in. So, hey, thank you all so much. I just want to shout out to the cast and crew from Nonzo and the actors and her sister and the cameraman and the sound guy who was also the editor. All their names and everything they at handles is in the description box. Which all can see that I'm not in the world's greatest with names so I'm tired right now. I've been on the road. I can't remember everybody's name but I got to get over to Instagram to the Q&A. And on the Instagram, you're going to see you'll see some new happening too. You know, supporting the coaches and the authors from TonyGastonAcademy.com You'll see some support in there. So on the Instagram story when you see me if you able when you see me post a coach or author they have taken in invested in a brand to get some more exposure. Oh, $40. That ain't nothing for that reference. Thank you. God bless you.  And y'all forgive me if y'all Yeah, so y'all watch their titles again. Go to the watch the titles again just so you know get a few views and shout out to the moderators who come on here and help and be posting all the information for y'all shout out to the moderators on here. But being that I don't want to do the Q&A too late tonight I got to get on over there and do that. Destiny, God bless you. God bless you. I appreciate you. Need to watch this. We're going to keep pushing titles. We got how to put it on Netflix or how to put it on Prime how to put it on the cable on demand put the whole thing on there figure out how to do that and they may they may pay you for the streams or downloads or how people watch it. I'm not sure how that work. Can't do Roku just because everybody ain't got Roku and then the site that I saw to get on Roku they charge you Vimeo, they got a thing now the way you get on Roku and all the other outlets but they charge you $500 per outlet per month. So you get on eight outlets, you paying $4,000 a month. Now Roku itself might have something where I could upload it on there but so I'll look into that and see if the producer can help me get into that. We might put it into some film festivals too see if it win a couple of awards and then keep on going and Lord willing get the episode too but it's kind of right now I'm leaving it on the writer because that's her brain child she looked at the message and then she put the message from the YouTube videos she depict that and I didn't read it because I didn't want to police her I didn't want to you know have too many changes and try to all that because I know from being a writer if I let somebody read my, if I let 10 people read my book all 10 people gonna say do something different and so that's why I just wanted to let her do her thing because my dad he's a director and in his mind if you want to do it I let him see episode one he had so much feedback I said I'm not doing this again because then it made me want to say something it made me want to make the changes because everything sound good to me so you know I said no just let her do it so she really you know her and the actors that was on there y'all just y'all saw stars in the making some time down the road whether it's a year five years ten years y'all gonna see them doing big things and be able to say hey the first place I saw they work was on titles and we'll have that and they'll be able to look back and probably laugh at they self critiquing their skills from when they when they Oscar but you could tell that talent that young at that level because I think even the writer director and producer she is like in her 20s like 25 or something you know so they stay young and the talent too they all and they I think in their 20s so they young so they got a lot of talent gonna do we'll definitely do big things if they stick with it hopefully they do Terry my support email is support at TonyGascans.com support at TonyGascans.com Asia it's not a Q&A like that we just we just doing the show thing we just doing a post show it's not a Q&A God bless you I really don't know how to answer to that question if I did I would go ahead and answer I ain't got the answer I also appreciate you hey God bless y'all let me get on over here to IG again shout out to the moderators on here and shout out to all the cast and crew thank y'all so much the one young lady that was her name Nicole I didn't even get to meet her in person I didn't get to meet her at all because I wasn't a part of the rehearsals I met Candace and I met Brian that's not their real name but I didn't meet the other young lady because she was out of the country when we did the screening in the DMV so hopefully we'll be back to the DMV y'all got any connections in the DMV for places to shoot or anything like that email in to support if you got a rich uncle or auntie who you know they hit the lotto and want to help be an executive producer email in to support you want to be an executive producer and the Lord to been good to you not listen don't be an executive producer with your bill money okay you got to be above and beyond okay you got to so listen I ain't gonna be able to do this if I got to not pay my light bill so I did this from the Lord blessing but God bless y'all and we'll talk soon


I can confidently say I've never walked into an exam feeling unprepared. Worst case scenario when I leave an exam I will have done like not as good as I usually do, you know? And the reason for that is because I prepare very intensely beforehand and I don't leave things till the last minute and I'm like smart about how I plan on my time and whatever whatever whatever because the alternate scenario of not being prepared is a huge cause of anxiety for me, you know? That would scare me to death and so I avoid that at all costs by preparing by doing my studying whatever and that's why I feel confident to say whatever happens happens and I'm not gonna care if my exam result is good or bad and I'll just work on whatever I did before.


So this is Joey, the director of Media Lab. And I'm just telling him what our project is and what we're working on. So in this corner over here, we have Akran working on the prototype. And we're working on creating a data set essentially so that we have different artifacts of American sign language, facial expressions, and gestures, and body positions. We're going to basically crowdsource some of that information through a game app. What we've seen in some of the translation apps or some of the voice recognition apps, a lot of the technology there has gotten better. And part of the reason is, is because there's data sets to support that language. And we haven't seen that with American sign language. So we're hoping to contribute to the field in that way. And it's a good place to start right here. So we can have the prototype right here. So we have an app, very, very simple.  And then you're happy you just upload it. And then you'll be able to tag it with all the text is, with version of sign language. So you want to copyright, which is creative commons, should be creative comments attribution or 0, CC0. Then you don't have to put attribution. And then a model release. Because otherwise, when you try to use the data later, people won't have the rights. We're thinking of the Duolingo model as well, like that kind of format where you'd be able to capture both sides of that communication where you can take from one language, verify it in another, and then give it back to have it verified the opposite way in reverse. Part of the challenge is that the sign language community is so small. It's such a small subset of population. So we're hoping that people who are learning sign language, who are interpreters, so that we can engage more members of the community to kind of have more hands on the project.


This is the human action podcast the weekly show looking at politics and events through the lens of economics With your hosts Jeff Deist and dr. Robert Murphy Hey everybody welcome back to another human action podcast I'm joined by my co-host my new co-host dr. Bob Murphy looking pretty solid beard today Bob. How you doing? I'm doing well Thanks, Jeff. It's growing in at more than 2% annually. So okay, you might have to that's all we ask breaks on it That's all we ask So we you know last couple weeks. We've been talking about war economy and inflation. We've been talking about Oil and some of the other shocks were Experiencing right now in the economy, but I thought this week. I wanted to bring up With those two things in mind just some of the examples of economic ignorance We're seeing in the political sphere in the media sphere. I mean it really is something it's shocking and and if we think about this folks You know, we wouldn't want to send our kids out into the world without being able to read and write, right? We have a word for that illiteracy and we wouldn't want to send our kids out into the world without having the You know the ability to make change at a cash register to perform basic Arithmetic functions we we would call that innumeracy, right? So we have terms for this but economic ignorance is really dangerous because If we think what if 80% of society was illiterate We think well that would that would yield an elite class of Politicians and media and maybe clergy or whatever who controlled and were able to snow The population with these ideas because they can't read and so in in essence We have that with respect to economics, right? There's no easy term for economic ignorance I'm both Mises and Rothbard both talked about this a lot But but we send our kids out into the world and they're really susceptible to political nonsense from the political class because they don't understand basic economics and so You know Bob just in the last week or so we can talk about Jerome Powell's Press conference earlier this week, but you know, we had this the statement by Biden where he said I'm sick of people not understanding How great the economy is doing and I'm sick of them blaming me. This is because of Putin and yada yada and and Nancy Pelosi Somewhat slurring I might add came out and said, oh, no, no, it's a myth that more government spending Creates inflation it actually fights inflation Well, okay, I mean if you're not equipped to consider that with any sort of economic Background or understanding I mean it allows her to almost sort of drop the pretenses and just say things that we know Nakedly are untrue. Well, yeah, and I think It's I'm curious to hear if you've had a similar reaction to it seemed to me that Like in the 1980s, for example, basically all economists except, you know Some really heterodox ones agreed that an aggressive hike in the minimum wage would cause unemployment among teenagers Like whether you were left-right or centered that was kind of standard and then in the early night You know, there was a famous card Kruger study and then now it's gotten to the point with nope That's in fact you're just showing how ignorant you are that you're not up to speed with the latest empirical literature and you know And I have been doing some work on that stuff just to try to show like the the tricks they use to make this standard results Disappear but be that as it may and so it's and you know after the 2008 financial crisis There were people like me Warning about price inflation and then it was like no no no inflation, you know So you you guys are crazy and so it's gotten to the point I think where anything goes and I of course MMT so it really is you know that this idea Oh, no spending and using up resources and you know causing problems that that's that's something that's true at a corporate level Corporate level has a budget, but you know the US government with with its monetary sovereignty This you know those rules go out the window So I've gotten this since the people literally don't think there's economic laws anymore and and so yeah Why couldn't Pelosi just get up there and say that? You know, I was I was trying to just in the interest of fairness run through and say is there any sense Like is there any school of thought that would justify what she would say Because she could because I was thinking you could argue. Oh Maybe she means government spending creates more employment and then if the production of real goods goes up But no even in a standard like New Keynesian model if the way you boost Output and reduce unemployment as is by boosting aggregate demand It's still true that prices end up being higher than they otherwise would be it's you know what I mean? So it's it's like literally I can't think of any way to justify that and she's clearly just saying you know Like you said because there's no accountability the people who hate her already still hate her and the people who liked her They're not going to be bothered by that comment Well, clearly there's lots of people who think unbridled government spending boost the economy I mean there that's that's a Mainstream view on the left and and somewhat on the right as well But when you say there are people who don't believe it in economic laws, I think that's absolutely true If you follow a pair by land on Twitter and you should He jousts with these people You know people say oh economics is is astrology for white men It you know It's just a pseudo science which was made up in the last few hundred years and it's all this sort of pseudo intellectual veneer For capital or for business interests I mean there's lots of people who believe that that you can you know using legislative fiat you can command and control an economy you can basically Will or legislate production and direct production and distribution. I mean that's That's absolutely. I think a widely held viewed America. I don't I don't know how widely held but That's that's definitely real Yeah, and it's I'm a I'm a sort of ambivalent about the whole thing because on the one hand I do understand like just to motivate this if I remember I was at a In a holiday celebration with like relatives from the other side, you know So they weren't people that had known me there's a lot of them were meeting me Oh, what do you do Bob? Okay? I'm an economist and then somehow you know the economy came up and And they and I don't remember what the specific issue was but they asked me What do you think about such-and-such and so I gave my view and I you know And I of course was not a bomb thrower. I was pretty reserved in what I said And you know the other guy just matter of fact goes well, I don't think that what I think is And I was just thinking you know if I had been a heart surgeon and talked about how the aorta worked I don't think somebody would have said as he was cutting his stake. Well, no, I disagree with that My theory is you know what I mean and but then on the other hand I realized okay, but there is a sense in which I understand what the public trust heart surgeons more than economists And so, you know, I I I do understand why You know that they do seem like after the after the crash you had guys like Eugene Fama After the the housing crash I'm talking about Eugene Fama was given interviews saying what do we even mean by a bubble? I mean if everyone knew there was a bubble it would it would pop and so clearly the bubble's not even an operational term So when you have guys, you know Nobel Prize winners saying stuff like that You can kind of see why people don't I don't trust these guys Well, that's tough. I've kind of a two minds on this because obviously the Mises Institute exists in in part Maybe even in large part, but certainly in part to try to educate intelligent lay people In other words, we don't just have an academic function So I want average people to read some economics and think about it And hopefully that would make them again less susceptible to these politicians and their their promises But the flip side of that and and I'm I have sort of a populist bend I I think expertise has as our Technocracy has served us pretty poorly in the 20th and now 21st century, but all that said I do think we need experts I do think that a phd in economics is is really a you know something that separates a person from You know a lay person like myself who has simply read On in my own time some some economics some Austrian stuff and and some other stuff You know that that level of knowledge of course can make you more dangerous Because maybe you don't know what you don't know But yeah, it is interesting that everybody has an opinion on economics, but not everybody has an opinion on heart stents Or something like that You know, but with all this inflation happening right now Which is real and which even the the Fed and the federal government are owning up to you know the highest in 40 years And a lot of people like john williams of shadow stats and peter schiff Talking about hey, if we calculated inflation cpi inflation anyway the way we used to it would probably be well over 10 percent Maybe 15 percent maybe 20 percent It was interesting bob if you caught Jerome powells hearing the other day One thing he said was that the economy is very strong And I just wanted to throw this out there because When we think of a strong economy when we think of gdp when we think of corporate profits when we think of unemployment We we think of all these these numbers in dollar terms in numerical terms and of course When inflation is high The the numbers don't mean as much and and I was actually Looking at mesas last night in Nation state and economy great book that a lot of you should check out and because it seems like we're back in this This cold war footing almost which I hate we'll we'll get to steve forbs in a second But you know, he brings up war costs and inflation. He says what happens is that um And he's writing this right after the the lessons of the first the great war world war one He says well, you know the volume of notes issued went beyond What businesses could have absorbed even in the war induced increase in their demand for money You know to build tanks and bombs and planes So that's going to end up the consequence of all this is going to be what the quantity theory describes So I thought that was interesting, but he also gets into some of the accounting issues For companies which I thought was really fascinating He says accounting's not perfect And it's especially imperfect during times of inflation And so accounting not only goes to corporate balance sheets and profits But it also goes to our you know our national accounting gdp whatever you want to call it And so he says, you know, there's when there's a decline in the value of money that Has a restorative effect on balance sheets because yes Your cash, you know, you can reflect your your cash on the asset and liability side that that that's cash And we can understand that in terms of its newly reduced Purchasing power. So both the asset and and liability side, you know, your notes payable You know, it's receivable your cash versus your your current short-term debts Those are nominated are denominated in dollars So we can understand that that purchasing price went down uniformly on both sides of your balance sheet But on the on the asset side, maybe your inventory which is a current asset Maybe that reflects the new higher price But but your older fixed assets like your factory your plant You bought that at the old, you know, using the older More valuable money and you booked that on your balance sheet of that older numerical amount and and since then You've been depreciating it on your balance sheet of that older amount So so that has a hugely restorative effect on on corporate profits. So so inflation It's not just bad because we're all getting poorer It also distorts our understanding if if what a company, for example, is doing is is profitable or losing money Because economic calculation You know the argument which he made so strongly back in the 20s You know that requires a some sort of fixed Numerare a dollar for example and that and if the value of that's radically changing or in this case radically declining That screws up everything Bob. I mean we're we're We're in sort of uncharted territory. I know he lived into the early 70s. So he certainly experienced Or saw some of that inflation under, you know, pre-volker, but You know, I'm not sure that we're really getting how how Nasty this is in terms of its its effects on the economy. Wait, right. I mean, that's that's all great insights for mesas that you're Reflecting there and it's yeah, just to make sure that the listeners get it. It's Thinking as you know as revenues are coming in as you're using up some fixed capital, you know to use a standard Phrase that you need to be setting some aside like you know sinking fund or whatever in order to so if you're a bakery At some point you got to replace the oven So that's you know, it's not like quick things like buying more milk or whatnot that you have to make the muffins every day But at some point after long intervals, you got to replace the oven as it wears out And so out of your current receipts. Yeah, you need to be setting money aside for that. And so yes if Prices in general are going through the roof then your customers are coming in armed with these new dollars and from your perspective It looks like demand is booming Everybody likes my muffins a lot more than they did two years ago before the war started And so you're you know do it and it looks like you say like you're booking a great profit And so yes, the specific mistake is the amount that you're depreciating in terms of like each year Oh of 10% of the value of that oven disappears, let's say In terms of the accounting and so yes that if you're booking it at the old Even if you are trying to make an adjustment if the adjustment really isn't reflecting How much is that new oven going to cost three years from now when I have to go up and buy the new oven If you're off in that estimate then you're might not be setting us aside enough right now And then yeah, mises even talks about that the shopkeepers go when they buy their wives, you know New coats or something thinking wow business is booming and it's it's all a mistake So it leads to what he calls capital consumption. So that's how it's physically possible that people You know, how is it that we can all of a sudden have new coats for the shopkeepers wives or or husbands? You know, we could it could be a female shopkeeper and And so how is that physically possible? It's because resources that should have gone into maintaining the existing capital stock are getting redirected into consumption goods And you can do that for a little while Because the economy is real complex and interlocking and it's a long time structure But you're sort of painting yourself into a corner and then that's why the crash is inevitable That's why just Deficits spending once there's a problem can't fix it because it's literal, you know, historical mistakes have been made male investments And and some of that capital consumption is being disguised As profits right right it's being distorted. And so let's say the baker Let's say a commercial oven for a baker costs 100 grand and he or she has been putting away 10 grand a year In in a sinking fund with that in mind and they continue that same 10 grand In an inflation in a more inflationary environment. Well, they're not they're they're effectively only putting 9 grand or whatever Right. Yes. That's that's the thing is they don't they think they're being frugal They they don't realize they're consuming their capital They think they're just taking some out of their excess profits When in fact, like you say that they in that environment They actually need to be putting aside a lot more because Again, the problem is that the oven when it comes time to replace it is going to cost a lot more than it used to And even if they know that and try to make an adjustment if they're off Then all of a sudden they realize oh, I thought I had enough to buy a new oven I've only got enough to buy 85 of a new oven. So there's a sense in which they consume 15 of that oven Well, so mises writes a lot about war socialism. He writes about it in in socialism the book 100 year anniversary this year 1922 Uh, and he writes about it a little bit here in nature state and economy and You know after listening to powell a couple days back It was interesting. He you know, he had a pretty rosy take. He said we're struggling with inflation, but other things hiring Um growth gdp, uh, corporate profits yada yada are all the the economy is very strong Which is what? Jerome powell said, I don't know if I buy that but you know what he didn't account for is When we talk about war socialism that doesn't necessarily only mean that america has to be involved in an active hot war It could be the resurrection of the cold war And you know, we spent a lot of money Prosecuting the cold war which thank god never came to fruition. I guess in the form of a nuclear exchange with russia with the soviets but nonetheless, there are costs to that opportunity costs and It sounds like there are people who want us to get back on that old cold war footing No less than steve forbes. I'm going to read you a tweet from him Folks and steve forbes a great guy. I mean don't get me wrong Obviously a brilliant guy well-read guy and this is not he's not some sort of economic ignoramus I mean, this is a you know, this is a very a very serious person He's far more serious than a nazi policy, right? I mean, we're ruled by unserious people We're surrounded by unserious elites in media and academia and politics steve forbes is not an unserious person Which makes this a little more Unpleasant so here's steve forbes back in february 24th US must now begin massive military buildup on the scale ronald reagan did in early 1980s Necessary for credible future deterrence to bad behavior by russia china and iran Oh my gosh, you wonder bob. Where's this money coming from? Yeah, and I mean it's It's it's standard on for people that are on the right that they even ones who are ostensibly You know free market that they do have this huge exception carved out for you know Military spending is the one area where when you say oh government's not the solution government's the problem Except when it comes to the military there You know the same people that we couldn't trust or fix the inner city. They can go revamp the middle east no problem They can you know bring democracy will rock no problem Because all of a sudden u.s. Congress works very well and you know They give the correct orders and such and that kind of a scenario and of course that that that really is socialism, right? You literally have Control over resources owned by the u.s. Federal government soldiers and personnel are employees of the federal government They are directed by the federal government. I mean this this truly is a segment of the population Excuse me, sorry a segment of the economy national defense. We'll call it oftentimes offense Run in a in an openly socialistic manner, right? There's even like those t-shirts that say like property of the u.s. Marines and stuff You know I mean it's a bit tongue-in-cheek, but yeah, I mean but literally What's the one area where if you signed up it would be harder for you to get out? It's you know, you would rather be doing that at a walmart than the marine corps in terms of like, yes I want to work for you guys. No I changed my mind so yeah, yeah, well and and again in nation-state and economy. He's got one of his Great quotes and and this gets quoted a lot where you know, he says look You know every unprejudiced person can have no doubt That war really causes no economic boom, right? At least not directly since an increase in wealth never results from the destruction of goods We all we all get that actual bombing of buildings or something But you know, yes war brings good opportunities to the producers of munitions yada yada That's my third yada yada. I think in the show. I've been watching Seinfeld reruns late at night But it it's offset on the other hand by losses of other branches of production And that real war losses of the economy are not affected thereby war prosperity Is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings that's a famous quote from me says so It seems like sometimes we lose sight of this even even now Right and it's I think it does flow out of canesianism like if you and even like the The mindset obviously predated 1936 and john manor canes actual work on that but yes If you're thinking in general that government spending has the capacity To jumpstart the economy or just in general. Hey if business is slow, what do we need? People would just spend more if it would just be christmas every month Then we'd never have a recession and that that is a typical view that people have held For centuries and you can see you know some of the classical economists railing against that jb say, you know famously and so If that's what you think then actually it doesn't seem so outlandish the idea that well if there's a big war And especially if your country is not directly being bombed but is more just supplying the munitions that you know both sides are Both sides are ideally if you're really just in the port for the money But at least one side is using in the victors and you get paid back Then you know that's you can understand where they would where they would get that idea And this is where bob higgs work is so crucial and let me just mention So what he did is he showed for example Because you can look at the standard statistics and yeah It does look like gdp like during the 30s was obviously terrible in the great depression And then when did gdp just zoom up? Well it was during the war years for the united states So isn't that prima facie showing you know he say what you will about the the ethics of it But you can't deny and it was really just a definitional trick that when the government spends 10 billion dollars on tanks That is included in gdp full stop When the whole reason you know there's lots of problems with gdp accounting anyway But the the theory being If the consumers are spending money on it that that's a sense of a measure of how much it's you know It's value comparable to other things we're using dollars as a measuring rod again There's huge problems with that but okay it kind of makes sense Whereas when the government spends 10 billion dollars, that's not the same thing Is consumers spending their own money right like military contracts are famously inflated And so that just that shows you that it's not i'm not i'm not making an ideological observation here It's not that i don't like military spending i'm saying just the nature of in terms of the economic analysis The reason we might say 10 billion dollars of spending on cars in a sense shows there's 10 billion dollars of real output That doesn't work when you transfer it to the government because it's it's involuntary and even the political officials It's not that they could pocket the money themselves It's not like a king who raises tribute and then if he goes and spends money on horses You could say oh that's a legitimate expenditure on horses that you know is national output because he valued them No, the the political process in a democratic republic Those political officials do not get to pocket the money so they have no incentive to make to to watch costs So the whole system is different and that's so it is artificial the home front during world war two Had a much lower standard of living than during the depths of the great depression And so that just shows the u.s. Was not richer during the war years It was only after yet with a but with a higher gdp right right But yeah by any real metric, you know even in terms of the official statistics like real Per you know private consumption per capita was way down again using the official number and the other thing too Just real quickly that bob higgs demonstrated was they had price controls in place And they didn't account for that right so So just in general if the if the fed prints a bunch of money to pay for the war and then prices double The fact that nominal gdp doubles would just be a wash Right that real you know real gdp wouldn't have moved if just spending goes up by you know a factor of two And then prices double But the the government just made it illegal for prices to go up So that isn't actually making there be more nylon stockings available It just means it's it's not showing up in the statistics because they're literally not letting the denominator go up So that's another thing too to show why those gdp statistics from the war years from world war two are just completely nonsense Well, it doesn't in inflation, especially the kind where you know true monetary inflation, which we've seen From our central bank given you know the covid issue Um, but in that kind inflation juices gdp, right? You if if you inflate 5% and then you you say well gp went up 5% that sounds like some sort of victory right so what yeah and What i'm saying though is like in even mainstream standard economics They're not that dumb like they they do have an allowance and so right so when they we report You know when the mainstream press reports, ah the the bureau of economic analysis released the latest gdp figures for last quarter That means real gdp and so they are adjusting for price So if yeah, it wasn't that in other words zimbabwe everyone like the canesians thought zimbabwe was doing great Because wow real incomes are rising a million percent per week though over there No, they would they would look at the real thing you have to say nominal expenditures compared to some price index And i'm saying but yet that the real gdp calculations that the official you know government releases for the 1941 to 45 Do not take into account the fact that they had price controls in effect And so it's it's literally it's like they let the the numerator go up and not the denominator Well, what do you think of this idea and pal was harping on this? Um, you know, we have our inflation mandate and we're going to stick to that and we're going to get back to that And we we recognize we meaning the the fed reserve board We recognize that inflation is is a problem and he to his credit He said look especially poor people they spend a much higher percentage of their income on basics gas groceries rent. Okay So so that's fine, but this idea that we're going to get it back to Our inflation mandate of let's say 2% which is really the the congress created a An inflation man a dual mandate Congress was involved in that but the 2% number is mostly a central banker contrivance. So How do we disabuse folks or the idea that a little bit of inflation is good? And it's just lots of inflation which is bad I mean it's i've done this before Uh, you know when we've had conversations if but again just remind yourself The guy down the street if you discover that he was in his basement using a fancy printer And he was cranking out hundred dollar bills that really looked like legit hundred dollar bills I mean walter block would say there's no such thing as a legitimate hundred dollar bill But you get the idea then um, and he's going around spending stuff There's no sense in which he could say oh, well, I'm not doing it too much. It's not that you know I'm causing hyperinflation. I'm just I'm just stimulating to trade, you know It's good for the local businesses and that that we would recognize that no you're you're not contributing anything You're not actually working and you're not or it's not that you're you have some real assets like farmland And you're contributing eggs and and gallons of milk to to this overall supply Just by you creating more money that doesn't make us richer And jeez if everybody did that that clearly wouldn't work. So there's a sense in which you're Cheating it's sort of like, you know, someone cutting in line to say why doesn't everyone do this? This is just cuts the weight down. This is this is such a no-brainer just cut in line.  Yeah, maybe one person does that are few people that benefits them and hurts everybody else But clearly, you know, it's not a social boon and that's what printing up money does it doesn't make us richer And so yes, it's true that having The the fed create a hundred billion dollars and give it to a politically connected friends Isn't as bad as creating a trillion, but it's still bad. It's not it's not helping anything when you understand You know, what what what what function does money serve and this kind of goes back to the earlier discussion Jeff where When you when you ask what is it that money does for us? You know, it helps with economic calculation, you know in the Austrian tradition That's something that they really understood well better than other schools of thought And that that ability to help people decide whether resources have been efficiently allocated using accounting If the if the value of the monetary units wildly fluctuating then that ability to perform that task breaks down Well, if you think about the level of public I don't know if ignorance is the word but lack of interest in economics I mean you go back to Henry Haslitz Age and he he obviously wrote from the New York Times for a long time But he also wrote the business tides column for newsweek for a long time many many hundreds or thousands of columns And he you know, he's really focused on inflation. We have a whole uh, book we sell in our bookstore Which is just his his Newsweek columns, you know, for which we're called business tides and It doesn't feel I maybe I'm wrong Bob. Maybe this is happens on twitter or maybe it happens Places like the Mises Institute or John Tammany at real clear markets, but it feels like we don't have anything like that today We don't have erudite economics for the lay person in mainstream media Right. Yeah, I I think you're right. I mean, I I know when I was Growing up, I would get um My dad had this subscription was called the conservative chronicle that was like a digest that would compile all the op-eds from You know, self-styled american conservatives and I used to gravitate So like the the walter williams and the thomas soul columns were the ones that you know I really gravitated to and that's to help what you know steered me into becoming an economist Um, but yeah, it's it really, you know, so there's that great book lit up You know murray rothwards making economic sense But obviously rothwards not right now alive publishing stuff in in mainstream publishing Bob. Well, he's true Yes, he's published more since he died than I think I have since I've been alive, but um, but yeah, it's You're right I guess part of it is well, I don't know. I think I think yeah, it might be that because of the the splintering of Audiences and venues that the people who do have real hard-hitting Analysis they're they're not Op-ed columnists that are getting run in usa today typically that they have you know, they have their own podcast or blogs But walter williams had a syndicated column. I believe right, um, but I don't think as soul ever had a syndicated column Um, I don't believe so. Maybe I'm wrong. Yeah, I again. Yeah, I don't know what his contractual relationships were Yeah, so I I know the things that I had like you would see walter williams more often But but again, they it was the time of soul would often this and this was back like in the late 80s early 90s Is the time period I had in mind? So yeah, I don't know, you know, if that was discontinues They got older and became more of a Elder commentator. Well, but even you know road to serfdom was printed in serial form A truncated version and I think something like 1949 in reader's digest I mean imagine imagine if like you got I don't know. What's what's a magazine that people still get? I I can't even think of a physical print one to have much circulation, but let's say people magazine or no, I mean, let's say you get news week or time today and I mean imagine having Bob Murphy or safety in Amos or something in serialized form I mean, it's it's almost unthinkable. I think I think the internet has probably dumbed down Economic discourse more than it's raised it So I think there's two different things going on and so yes on the one Be because there are now these niche platforms available So if you want to go learn austral economics, you could go to mesas.org and you know You follow pair by island on twitter or whatnot and so because of that I think that means or put it to you this way It's not surprising to me that cnn is worse now than I remember it ever being because The people who actually wanted objectivity would have left long ago So at this point, who are they catering to it's just people who hate trump And and what you know, I don't really care. They just want to hear what they already think and you know There's obviously examples of that mirror image on the right too. I'm not just saying it's merely a left-wing thing And so I think there is there is that element that is as the options available to people have proliferated The people that are stuck, you know watching ABC news to find out what's going on in the world That's a different, you know, that's a smaller fraction of the population now And so that you know and the the people making that those news segments respond to that They realize who their audience is Well, did you have economics in high school? Or not I did I had one class and it was taught by the football coach And not that the foot that means, you know, he's not smart Whatever you could you could be bold, but in this particular case the the the guy was not the most erudite professor I had or right and they they They were treating it like health or gym or something as a non-core thing I wonder what percentage of kids today have econ In high school and I think there's for for our purposes. I think we ought to be thinking about home scores and getting more materials into their hands Yeah, it's uh And and that is partly why I'll go ahead and plug my book economics Lessons for the Young Economist. It's it's free on mises.org folks. Go ahead and look that up You can get it and there's a teacher's manual too if you're if you're the parent Um, but yeah, I mean that's partly why you know, we we decided that I should go ahead and write that is that there was It was partly too that what we end up doing is sort of uh, it's it's like we were in triage or something in the ER when people would roll in and oh my gosh, we got someone who believes in kanzenism We needed, you know, some some, uh, Austrian economics stat and we thought no, why don't we just teach good economics on the front end where before You know people absorb all these bad ideas just from the culture and you know What what smattering they'll get in their like history class teaching about the great depression And oh what happened was there was untrammeled capitalism and and that's you know in the 1920s And that's why you know, thank goodness fdr came in later to fix things um, so Yeah, it's it is unfortunate that there is a lot of economic ignorance and then but like I say it's I can understand partly why it persists because Mainstream economists have been wrong about a lot of things and so they don't have the same credibility that chemists or heart surgeons do and so it's so it It's Austrian economics is solid and even like old school classical economics There was a lot of wisdom there, you know free trade price controls don't work that sort of thing printing up money raises prices, duh But um, unfortunately, yes the efforts in the 20th century to make economics a real empirical science Failed for all the reasons that Mises and other austrians explained And yet the public is aware of that and they can see that they go. Oh, yeah Today's economists are often, you know, a priestly class that just justifying government spending and doing what you know The people in power want Yeah, that really is something the way empiricism is failed and the this math envy this desire to treat economics like a physical science where you have You have a hypothesis and you test it against an empirical observable reality I mean that that has failed. I think people smell a average people smell a rat, right? I mean even uh, Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan were saying, you know, I don't think there's a big problem in housing, for example So economics, I think it's not as a profession is not doing much good today And sorry, bob and I would argue that's probably doing much bad In terms of far from providing intellectual cover for business interests or capital I think it's providing intellectual cover for government For politicians to, you know, you know, you can always get an economist to say, oh, well See raising the minimum wage in Seattle didn't hurt to $15 an hour didn't cause unemployment unemployment went down Well, that's because the prevailing wage with big companies like Microsoft and Amazon and tons of jobs You know, 10 or 15 years ago in in Seattle the prevailing minimum wage was 20 So it was above the minimum and it so, you know employment was was unaffected So I think I think we got a real uh, a real long road in front of us in terms of correcting all this but That said If you're interested in bob's book for young economists for younger kids or if you have Students or grandkids or anybody in your life Just hit me up via twitter and and i'll get that out to you also For older kids and certainly for college students bob's book understanding money mechanics Which we just published towards the end of the year and we're actually going to have an event surrounding that book Coming up in a couple months in Orlando I think is is just hugely recommended because it's it's a whole course on money The history of it how it arose How it has value How central banks work how, you know, it even it even goes up to the present day when we're talking about the crazy Central bank policy since the crash of 08 it it discusses bitcoin and other cryptocurrency So it's a fantastic single course on money, which anyone would benefit from but especially students And uh, so we can we you know hit me up and again, we'll get that out to you as well Happy to send you that a great book bob I think that's the show Do you have any parting words for us on this this topic of economic ignorance? Well, yeah, let me just close with one real quick anecdote. So when I was in grad school at nyu there was um The ua w came in to unionize the grad students, you know, because we were so oppressed We had the grade papers and so forth couldn't believe it right So I actually was I was forced to join, you know, I was against it But I was literally forced so, you know, so I was briefly a member of the ua w believe it or not folks But during so the administration didn't want this to happen for obvious reasons and so the I don't know if he was the provost One of the head of hanch was going around to the various departments asking the grad students You know, why are you so unhappy? What what's what can we do here? You know, we it's really we don't want the ua w coming in here and getting in between you and the faculty and whatever and and so the one of the my Classmates so getting a phd in economics at nyu, which at the time was, you know top 20 school said, oh, well We we want to get subsidies for housing right because the columbia students They you know, they get a break on housing and the guy said, okay, we can do that right now We just give you the money and you're stipend But if you want we can reduce the cash we give you each month and then give you an option To you know get a break on nyu housing But we figured we're giving you more options by just giving you the money and letting you do what you want with it And this guy actually said to him no no no because nyu owns the apartment buildings It doesn't cost you anything to give us a break on the rent So I want the same stipend and a break on the rent because it doesn't cost you anything to to give me a cut And his kid's getting a phd always he was in his 20s And and I realized you know, so he was from turkey and he was one of our better students because he was really good at math And it just blew my mind and I realized like he's never read walter williams or thomas soul or henry haslett or murray rothbard or for sure and so You know the way, you know to get you could get a phd in economics in a very You know prestigious school the way these programs are set up and Because you were good at math and you know how to solve for equilibrium states and such and such But you don't know something like opportunity cost Like you he had gotten to that point and that had never been spelled out to him or to see a fallacy You know because he hadn't read something like economics in one lesson. So I do think there is this issue that Yes phd Economists might not know basic economics and that and that's how it can happen because nobody ever many such cases bob Many such cases. So that was uaw as in united auto workers, right right and why they really yes But I think auto workers make a hell of a lot more than nyu grad students But well, they work pretty sure that so yeah They work more too. Well, I look I was a member of the union I am a former union member of not by choice that we had to be when I worked at san iago airport So i'm glad to know that both bob murphy and I dr. Bob murphy and I are union men So on that I think we got to close the show We're going to be back next week with another episode of the human action podcast And we're going to start to have some surprise guests on to join me and bob because you know We've only got so much between our ears. We need to bring in some smarter people Than than us mere mortal. So bob, I want to thank you for your time We'll link to we'll link to bob's books in the show notes on youtube And otherwise I want to thank everybody for listening. Have a great weekend Catch jeff and bob next week for another show But in the meantime, you can find a world of content like this at mises.org