One, two, one. One, two, one. One, two, one. One, two, one. One, two, one. Oh, okay. Two, one, two, one, two. Well, that's coming through here, fine. I did. I took them both, yeah. You gave them to me. Ready? Oh, I heard that she's something out here. It's always really nice to hear about this. It's amazing. It's amazing. Wow. It's amazing. He's very gentle. Is George here? So I'm excited to see them. Oh, yeah. I want Pat to make sure he doesn't know they're going to be here. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. I'd like to have you all make a give-away of a round of applause to our senator Mr. Lady. Fortunately she's the expert. It is all down. My name is George Ebson and I am Chairman of the Monthly Historical Society and I would like to welcome this schoolhouse for an afternoon with Senator Patrick Legi and I'd also like to welcome those that are watching on live streaming from our friends at Orca. I had an email this morning from an old Liberty Street neighbor who will be watching from Colorado and we would like to introduce some other Legis that are here. Jane Legi, the senator sister in law. Mary Legi, the senator sister. Much younger sister. Much younger sister and Marcel Legi's soulmate spouse and co-conspirator for 61 years. Introduced is Maxine Leary who is a senator's teacher. Maxine, stand up and wave to the crowd. There you go. And today for a year. Wonderful. We're dying. Wonderful. I think his moderator today is Diane Derby. Diane served for six years as best secretary to Senator Geffords. Sure. I guess. I can talk louder. Yeah, talk louder. There we go. And ten years. Diane served for ten years for Senator Legi as his local representative out of the month of your office and we all know her now as senior editor at Vermont Digger. So we want to welcome Diane as our moderator. With that I will turn the meeting over to Diane. Well, thank you. And thanks to George Edson and everyone at the Historical Society for pulling this together. It's really great to see such a crowd and it's really important that the Historical Society just does great work to keep us all reminded of what came before us and inform us on what's to come in the future. So thank you, George. I don't think Senator Legi needs much introduction. 48 years in the Senate. I think everybody's familiar with his Senate career undoubtedly but we've really come here today to talk about what his life was like growing up in Montpelier. And I know he doesn't need many prompts but I've got a few prompts of my own here for him. Keep the conversation lively. And again, I'm not here as a journalist today asking tough questions. I'm here just in my cell role as having been fortunate enough to be his staff member for 10 years and just to have a nice fun conversation. I've promised him it would be fun. So I have to follow through on that. So for those who have read the book you might be familiar with the road taken. His opening chapter starts with a scene out of the state house when he's four years old being a little hellion riding his tricycle all over. And I don't want to steal his thunder so I'll have him tell that story but I've asked him to start there and walk us through what the early memories are in growing up on State Street in Montpelier. Well thank you Diane. George, thank you. George Hudson's parents were dear friends of my parents and it brings back memories just seeing him and hearing his voice. Mary and I and our late brother John grew up 136 State Street and almost diagonally across from the State House. So back in the days you didn't even lock your doors. You walked around everywhere. Everybody knew everybody else. And one of my buddies and I decided let's go explore the State House. We'd been there with my parents but we had our tricycles and we went up and went in the side door and nobody's around. So we dragged the tricycles up to the second floor and we're in a nice room, found out later as the Senate Chambers. And we said let's reach down the halls. So we reached down the halls. Here's an open door. We go barreling through it, whim up against this desk which was 27 feet high at least to look to us. And a man leans over and goes, yes. And we said, hi, are you the governor? I am. Now get out. But he did give us some candy on the way out. And Mary, you can imagine the reaction of our parents. We got home and I was all excited and I told my parents about this. They did not see the humor in it. And we weren't allowed to go in the State House. I don't know what to do about it. Our current governor, I was in there to meet with him not long after he became governor. I was a U.S. Senator. I come in and he says, it's a different desk. Don't bring your tricycle in here. So beyond that, what other memories do you have on State Street itself as a kid? And what was it like growing up in a family? You had the family business, the Leahy Press, and the back of the building growing up. Maybe a few stories about those memories. It was interesting. We rented out rooms to legislators. My mother did help with the bills, but they're not here all these stories when they were in the house, which is wonderful. We rented out another apartment upstairs. But you can walk through the kitchen door into the Leahy Press. And the beauty of that, I learned to read at a very early age. One of the most formative things in my life. Can you hear this okay back there? Yeah, I can never tell from here. It was formative things. I had my first library card at the College of Harvard before I was five, and that's because I started to learn to read so quickly in the Leahy Press. We always had a concert stream. My parents had a concert stream of friends. We learned from them and hear all these stories and the history. My dad told the stories of the 27th Flood and how he was there with his mother and his sister long before my parents had met. And it moved up to the second floor of 136th Stage 3 because the 27th Flood was coming down Stage 3. And the men came up in a rowboat with a huge camera to the second floor. And Dad opened the window, let the guy into the place, tied the rowboat to the cast iron radiator. Thank you. And hiked him up onto the roof, passed up. The irony is I have a book with me and I was glancing through it on the way over here. Marcel was driving. And there is a picture he took from that window. Wow. And you can see the house next door and what was the National Light Billion, the state office book, picture taken from up there. And, you know, you'd hear these stories and then, of course, later on, we had Irene and that brought us to our home in Middlesex the next day. It was a beautiful day. It flew around the state, saw everything that was going on and saw on the phone from the helicopter to Washington seeking aid for the... And I want to go too long, but I'll just close one thing. When this last flood came, and I'm watching on the news, and in buildings of different companies at the time, but buildings where I used to deliver newspapers, the Montpey or Argus afternoon paper. I didn't want a morning paper. But buildings where I delivered it, here the businesses in them destroyed. And I was literally in tears. I have never lost, even in the Senate and everywhere else we've lived, I've never really lost that feeling of growing up in Montpey. And I went to high school with this building, and it did my sister, she's much smarter, and our brother was really smart. So we want to talk a little about how your early experiences shaped your career in the Senate.  How did these early experiences kind of shape you to get you involved in politics? I learned a couple things from my parents. My father had to leave school about 12 or 13 years old when my grandfather was a stone carver and Barry Patrick J. Leahy died. And dad had to go out and support his mother and sister. And it was a different time. I've never forgotten the stories. There'd be signs that say, no Irish need to apply. Or if you weren't smart enough to figure that out, no Catholic need to apply. But dad became a printer and eventually won the best in the area and started his own printing business, Leahy Press, which is still there. But he regretted not being able to finish school, but he became a self-taught historian. He read everything. He had almost a photographic memory of history. He'd get the newspaper and just devour them and talk about it. And so much so that kids, when they were in college and they had a history exam coming, they'd call Grandpa Leahy and double check these answers. And that influenced me so much. Now my Italian mother, our grandparents emigrated to Vermont from Italy. She was born here, grew up speaking Italian. And that certainly influenced the feeling of diversity and why you need it. But the history, and probably the thing without going too far off here, cherished the most. And my parents lived for a number of years after I got elected to the Senate. And I could bring them to all these places that they'd read about. And I remember my dad holding handwritten notes, not copies, but the real ones, Abraham Lincoln had written down in the archives in Washington. That was a joy. But all the way through, I always felt I was kind of paying back what I had because one player you could walk everywhere, you could go anywhere. I had the time to leave our bicycles on the porch. It was a different world. People helped each other. They drove down here, I think, where the fires were. And, Diane, I can't tell you when you called me to tell me about the fires, how choked up I got hearing that. But some of the buildings along here, I can remember my parents going to the grocery store. And the kids would be in the car. We'd pull up to, obviously, an area where people of limited means were living.  People would come to the door and hand them the groceries. They'd say, thank you. They'd leave and get back in the car. Never told us who the people were. He just said if people were in need, help them. And it meant a lot. You touched a little bit on your library card at the age of four. Maybe you also talk in your book a little bit about being in the supermarket, looking at comic books. You had only sight in one eye. And so reading became your passion. And maybe tell us a little bit what did the Kellogg Hubbard Library look like when you were a four-year-old? The Leahy Wing wasn't built yet. So he can say that. I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that the age of four. Born basically blind in one eye. It's like you had severe macular degeneration in one eye. So sports are a difficult thing because of lack of depth perception. And that brought about the accident I had last year walking upstairs. But reading, I only needed one eye. And here's why individuals are important. Do any of you remember Mrs. Holbrook? Okay, I see a few hands going. Good, thank you. I'm not that old. But Mrs. Holbrook was the librarian. The librarian was in the basement. And it was very, very small. And I went to, I said, Michael's grade school up on the top of the hill. I walked down the hill, go in the library. She said, well, Patrick, did you read the book you had a few days ago? Yes, I did. Tell me about it. And I would tell her, she said, good. Now here's one by Mark Twain. You might want to read her. But then I was, you know, like, first, second grade. And by the end of third grade, I'd read all Twain, all Dickens, all these others. And history books, and she just kept encouraging me, read these. And it was so enjoyable. And I know that when one of the floods here in Montpeyre, when that was still there, people showed up from around, say, just ran in and grabbed all the books they could out the shelves, just ran out through in the cars. And to save them, otherwise they'd be destroyed. The front was over there. They brought out, every single book came back plus about 20% more. Now, wouldn't I, I've always felt that that was one of the most important things in my life. And my parents encouraged me to read. And after I got in the Senate, I couldn't forget about that place. The nice thing about being on appropriations committee, you get to determine where money goes. And they now have a beautiful new wing for the children's library. And well, I commend the architects to everybody else who put wood and stone all together, but you can be somebody who has a reading problem or somebody who's reading several grades ahead of themselves, and they have programs for you. Our grandchildren, when they had come up to the farm during the summer, they'd just go down. They'd go down there and load up on books and we'd bring them back. We've got at least one six-year-old in the audience who wants to hear a little about your Batman history. Couldn't be a senator like he talked without talking about Batman. I did read Batman comics and 10 cents. Finally, what the 12 says, we would go in. I'd be there the first one at the store when the new came out. I tended to remember everything I read. And I do recall when I was in the Senate talking with people from D.C. comics about legislation and something was said. I said, no, no. In 1947, in our spring edition, about page five such-and-such happened. And they thought, yeah, we humor the guy. I said, oh, yes, Senator, of course you're right.  Never happened. Go back to the archives and find me. Go back. That's exactly what happened. One thing led to another. I worked with them on a very powerful, I speak of a country that I'm Batman comic because I was trying to ban the export of landmines from the U.S. No country had done that. And when I started off, I could count about 12 votes in the Senate. Among the things we used was this Batman comic book and several of us worked on it, including debating for two days the ending. It's a short story. Somebody worked for a Wayne industry in a combat area. Parents killed. A little girl was captured. Batman wouldn't save her. In the last panel, the helicopter was coming to pick him up, and she said, look at the shiny toy. He said, no, and then boom. And she's destroyed. And the reason we debated on that, and I went to every single senator across the political spectrum, I said, read that. And they said, okay, just leave us all over here. And they said, that's a terrible ending. I said, there are no good endings in landmines. Ourself as a medical surgical nurse, she's been in war zones and in the operating rooms and in the surgery places where they're having to re-amputate and to put prosthetics. So there's nothing happy. It's mostly civilians. And we passed the bay at 100 to zero. The only controversial bill for 10 years. So I like Batman. And the kids seemed to like it. I did reading hour, I volunteered reading hour one day, which was easy to come from our home, Middlesex on Saturday, jeans and sweatshirt and somebody hands me a note that Batman enemies had their pictures in the library. I could not figure out the clues. I need help. I grabbed my phone, and you nearby, girl was a burst smoke in-walks Batman. And you can imagine these four or five, six girls. Well, anyway, long story short, he couldn't figure out the clues, but the children did. And on the way out, he says, I want to thank you children. You're welcome, Mr. Batman. It was fun. So we're going to open it up in a few minutes to questions, but I'm hoping before we do that... I'm getting out of sequence. No, I'm out of sequence. I'm hoping we can back it up a little bit just to get the visuals. What did downtown look like when you were a kid growing up? I talked to Mary a little bit in preparation. She told me a little bit about eating downtown supermarkets. Yeah, I worked in one. You worked in one? I was a meat cutter. Just tell us a little bit about that and the visuals of downtown when you were a kid growing up. That story is no longer there. In fact, there was a fire that destroyed that wing, and then... The city center. Ben and Jerry's. Yeah, the city center building. But it was a part-time job when I was in high school. And I... learned two things. One, I learned how to carve meat. And secondly, I learned... this is hard work. And I had a lot more... I think I had respect anyway for people working sores like that, but I had even more realizing how hard the work was to do it right. And the difference in people coming to the store, something very nice, some not so nice.  And so it was part of growing up. Most of the stores, we knew the people. We knew the people who ran the stores. I delivered printing there from the lady press. Usually on the way to school, drop off this such-and-such a place. And it was different. You had tunnels, you had all these others. Everybody knew everybody. And... it... I mean... someone delivered this paper.  And she forgot this. Be sure to bring it to her. Whatever it might be. It was a... different world there. You... you tended not to judge people. I mean, it was a lot different than with my father. As a 13-year-old, when there were religious prejudices and others, that had diminished substantially. And... I remember... we used to joke about... mom and dad being the Democrats. Well, that's where the Democrats live over there. In that house. But Dean Davis, Mr. Republican, and his president in national life lived across the street. He and his wife would come in and play bridge with my parents at least one night a week. George Edson, who had introduced me, his... father-in-law and mother, Isabel, they would... my parents would play bridge at their house one night. They'd play bridge at ours. You know, everybody... everybody in socialized. And... but helped each other. Said, my mother, where are you going? Where are you going with that food? Well, so-and-so... sick. And... I just thought I might hop out. And... I said, well, who are they? Well, I don't really know them, but their friends are so-and-so. And so... my friend brought them... supper last night. I'm bringing it tonight. And... you know, you grow up in a... in a community like that. That's going to affect you for the rest of your life. No matter what you do. I didn't expect to be a U.S. senator, but it... I tried not to forget the things I learned. And so Montpey has been special. And as Marcel knows, when I watch the... news of the flood here... this year, we sat there in tears. Does Montpey still feel familiar to you, you know, having grown up here, or does it feel different just the landscape, the look of the place? Well, the landscape is much the same. And we... we used to when I had... I had an office here in Montpey as a senator in that... terrible-looking... post-office building. I'm not going to say what I call it, Marcel. I think I've heard about this, yes. Don't... But... we drive back to our home in Middlesex.  And into... into Middlesex in the back, into Middlesex in the back road. It's so much that I always looked like. But the... the people I knew that nowhere near as much. When I grew up in the high school class I was in was only 30 or 40. Is that right, Xie? Just 25 to 30. Just 25 to 30. And the sad thing was that more than 10% of the class was dead within a few months after graduation. Several in an automobile accident. And another one, one of my classmates had got joined the military in the paratroopers and the parachute did not open. Oh. Every time I parachute I thought of that. Well, I think on that note we can open it up for a little Q and A from the audience. We've got Catherine with the microphone here. Oh, or George. Sorry, George. You understand with both Catherine and George, I wanted to really date myself. But Mary and I knew their parents. And they were good people growing up. We'll just bring the microphone over, maybe. Thank you. I do have a question, Senator, but first, are my parents and yours or friends also? I'm Stan Sloan. Is that microphone on? Hold it close. Hold it closer. Okay. And subsequently I work for the congressional research service on international affairs and I work for you and your staff as well. Thank you. But my question, and I delivered the free press, I have my morning routes going up East State Street. I've never been a morning person. No, I wouldn't do it again. So I would rather have the Argus route, no question about that. But my question is what values do you think that you came away from growing up in Montpelier that influenced the way that you were as a U.S. Senator? Because I know that I took a lot of important values that are still important to me today and I'm sure you did as well. I'd like to hear exactly how you see that. Well thank you. It was a good question. I think the values continue at all levels of life. When I was State's Attorney in Chittenden County, I was on call seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Several nights a week I'd be out at two or three o'clock in the morning with a police and I'd see what happened when people did not treat people the way they should. And I thought back to where growing up in Montpelier where people tried to help each other. When I went in the Senate I realized the worst thing could do is to automatically catalog somebody. People talked about that when I was Chair and when I was Vice-Chair of the Appropriations Committee, the close relationship I have with Dick Shelby in Alabama. We're poles apart philosophically. The only thing we have in common is the two of the biggest people in size in the Senate. But we always kept our word to each other. We always worked things out and we always said what's the bottom line going to be to the people who are affected by it? And we were talking about this just the other night when I called Dick just to check on how his wife was doing. So I think these are the things I learned in the fact that came from a small town. People were caused by our first name. They all agreed to see about I saw your sister last week or I saw your cousin or whatever it might be. And you realize this is real life. Maybe the best way to answer is I grew up in a real life. Some of the people and this is why there's been such deterioration in the Senate and especially in the House for our presenters. People grown up in a make believe go for the that moment's headline life. And that's not America. Did you feel the same way about Did you feel the same way about right here? Grab the mic. I grew up with the sense of strong community respect for other people and as you pointed out not prejudging people and understanding that there are things going on in their life that may be influencing what they're doing and what they're saying and it's always important to look at that and in Washington I didn't see that that always happened. I couldn't say it better than you just did. Senator, I realize you're probably younger than this but I wonder if you ever had a chance to ride on the Montpel, your O'Bells River railroad. I guess that's a yes. As I said, I didn't know my paternal grandparents because they both passed away before my parents even met but my maternal grandparents immigrated from Italy and we still have a lot of relatives there and settled in South Braga my grandfather was a stone carver and he and his brother started the zambal stone shed and his kids would sometimes go over to visit our grandparents for a few days we'd get on the train right out here and my folks would put me on the train the conductor knew who we were and said don't worry Mr. and Mrs. Laidale I'll get them off we'd bribe in South Braga there was a stop there my grandfather would be there he'd say Mr. Zambal I got your grandchildren here and he'd take us off I don't know and wave goodbye what else are you doing on a train since then I've taken the train a lot between New York and Washington it's a little bit different but we've had grandchildren up here at such memories that we have several times taken our grandchildren we've gotten on the train in Waterbury and written down to White River getting on White River somebody from my office would meet us there we'd have lunch go them on Shire and drive back to to Middlesex those kids still talk about it years later doing it it's a special way to see to see Vermont yes thank you for being here I imagine that being a senator might be a little stressful and I wonder just talk I'm Patty Casey I'm just wondering what you do to take care of yourself to stay so vigorous I'm fortunate that I married way above myself I married a compassionate wonderful registered nurse we had to wait until she finished nursing school before we could get married because somebody had to have a job I was a lost and but she has gone all over the world with me we've done things together we've had parents raising children spending time with grandchildren caring for a mother for years in her later life and learned about human beings now I'll tell you a secret, don't tell her I told you this but when we first started dating she and her parents would only speak French at home and I had to dramatically improve my French so I could understand what they were saying about me is that right? but I think the being able to come back home I was home several times a month and the nice thing is it's not that long of a flight from Washington during the time I was in the Senate and I'd get to see people in the grocery store pick up my newspaper do whatever I was doing and people would stop and talk and you realize what you're hearing from people in the store walking down the street might be a lot different than what you're hearing on pundits on national television from the right or the left and that helped keep me keep me anchored I think I know I've had different Senators who have come up here in both parties and stay with us at the farm and go around and every one of us said this is different than my state and I think that's a compliment because of the way we could be and even when I was president pro tem and I walk around with this entourage armed guards because you're third in line to the presidency there was only one time that I was really glad to have and I was hearing from Bob then I was in St. John'sbury and this little guy comes up to me and he says, Pat do you remember me? I said, I'm sorry I don't he said, well we met before and I said, well when? He said, 1974 and I said well I wasn't in the Senate in 1974 I was state's attorney and you threw my ass in jail and I've been wanting to talk to you about it now I had an airplane to catch we were in St. John'sbury even with these guys with their police guys I said, I got to catch a plane and he said, I've been meaning to talk to you I think if this guy's been meaning to talk to me for 40 years I don't want to talk to him and one of the agents was a lot taller and I leaned over and said, why don't you talk with me I got a car I have no idea I felt like saying you weren't the only person I prosecuted that was there for 8 years I'll also just add this quick addition to that I think you wake up very early in the morning and read every local paper in the state of Vermont even when he was in D.C. because I'd call him in the morning with some news because I was his eyes and ears for Montpelier for many years and he'd already know it there was nothing I could tell this man that he hadn't already read by 7 in the morning so that kept him young I think I think Digger in 7 days is so good at getting stuff out and the other newspapers I can read online I think local news is very important and it's diminishing because of the cost and everything else and you lose on that and I think it's maybe that's one of the effects it's having and they sent it in the house that they're interested in what's going to be on that 30 second bite somewhere in national dues Senator can you hear me? okay hold the microphone a little bit closer my grandparents were on different sides of the aisle during the strikes in Barrie my grandfather was the Comptroller for the Rock of Ages my grandmother was the cousin of the socialist mayor in Barrie they seem to get on okay despite all that and I'm just sort of wondering if you have any memories of that time the other thing I remember is I grew up more in New York sort of back and forth between New York and Vermont in Vermont there was a big competition between Barrie and Montpelier Montpelier was bad and Barrie was good that's how I understood it and so anything you want to comment on the strikes were before my time but I do know that you go through one of the cemeteries in Barrie and you see a tombstone with Patrick J. Lehi now some of my opponents have said damn wrong one but that's my grandfather my father was born in Barrie we always had friends in Barrie in Montpelier my grandfather my Italian grandfather would come to Barrie and be with a lot of his friends for they'd have lunch when the restaurant I forgot what it was but I was about 6 or 7 years old he'd bring me with him and they'd be going in Italian French, English and I just sat there and listened to him and I had a lot of classmates here at St. Michael's who came here from Barrie I never felt the animosity between Barrie and Montpelier and I could never understand what I had been told about thank you Hello Senator my name is Liz Dodd and I moved here from Washington DC about 42 years ago and my husband was Tom Dodd and we've spoken about this before and Tom was with WDEV and he was a reporter for WDEV for many years but I wonder now given everything that this wonderful community has been through in the last few years particularly in the last few months what advice do you have that you in the wonderful career that you have in the wonderful giving person you are any advice that you have about how we might best get through what we have to deal with in coming through where we're at now any suggestions Of course WDEV we knew well because of the way he pressed it the printing for WDEV Lloyd Squire as a little kid I knew Lloyd Squire and his wife would come into their house and why Barrie she'd be making cookies or donuts as kids we thought boy that's really that radio station important we're getting hot cookies here but we sometimes forget how small our state is and there's some trends that bother me our graduation rate from high school is diminishing too many of our young people are leaving the state and we are the ages the average age is going up I worry about those who say well do we want to bring this business or not we want to bring businesses that require an educated workforce and then make sure we have the education and we push for it we've seen this in some of the places like an s6 junction I know some people are worried that they might want too much parking for this electric airplane electric helicopter they're making in Burlington I look at what they're paying the people who have to have all kinds of education and I'm thinking build a parking lot if you want you need these people there the ones who are going to buy homes and the ones who use their children we have got to have more emphasis on the education of our younger people but then we've got to have the jobs that appeal to them there will always be minimum wage jobs I understand that but we've got to ask them we can hold out to them and say you graduate from high school you learn this maybe you go to a trade school whatever you do there and I love the smell of coming in and I would get the diarthenies the arthenies worked there and others but I'd come in and talk deliver the newspapers I remember fresh food we when you grow up with an Italian mother you like you get used to home baked things and this was cross baking was close to home baking we could but I also saw the pride the people took in the in cross baking and I think George I think your father really instilled that and encouraged them in that so I it's the kind of thing they made one payer special Patrick I have a question tell us about your neighborhood what did you do as kids and do you remember the Montpelier curfew I remember that you you knew when the curfew was what was it 10 minutes of nine or 10 minutes of nine how's that for memory but the curfew was suggested recommended but I think our parents liked it because we had friends State Street did not have many families around where we were our friends were up to hill or other places and it reminded us to come home for our friends houses or for them to go home from from ours sister Barbsey the Anthony and others would you know you but you get used to play with it well in fact down the street from us on the other side of the street was a big open lot softball diamond there people would play play all kinds of sports there we go up a lot of us would go up to Hubbard Park we'd climb up walk up behind the State House we'd go sledding in the park in the wintertime we'd climb up there climb up the tower you know that 3,000 foot high tower when you're five years old and they had a whole area I don't know if they still do where you cook out first come first served there would be so many families there it was you knew families you knew which door was never locked and but you also knew you had to behave yourself mostly I behaved myself I worried about my brother and sister I got a look my sister was listening yes sir senator it's good to see you again especially in this capacity you did good things you do good things and you continue to do good things I don't have a question I said you do good things my wife and I arrived here in the States going on 40 years and what you represent is one of the reasons that we're still here I said you do good things fact is in church this morning the pastor kept saying thank you God thank you God I don't think God would mind if I said thank you senator thank you senator and as I close I'm looking around as I hear you talk about values from human values family values vision and as I look around here I see one or two youngsters and it is good that they're hearing you I spoke to Elizabeth here to my right and she was my question was is this your first of a series of interactions I don't know however I do hope it's not your last as you go across this state our young people need to hear you you're an icon or what do you want to call it a role model etc you and the Mrs. senator that's factual they need to hear that I read about your being here today in the seven days and I said I'm going to be wearing a suit tomorrow because I'm going to church now afterwards I'm going to keep on that suit because I'm going to hear a person who continues to make a difference in our society in our human family our kids need to hear that I'm active that is I participate very actively in our school board meeting there in Fairfax some of the adults who come bring some very negative and provocative stuff and I've heard more than one student at that school shush some of the adults because the adults are not bringing some a percentage but a distinct percentage a bringing verbiage that's not good for the students or our teachers or administrators etc again I say the body us as a state to say nothing about the nation and foreign stuff needs people like you to be you're doing good things you'll do more there's a scripture that says in gospel that we are expected to do more and greater things your presence encourages people to do that your profile encourages people to the reality that it can be done and I thank you again thank you thank you sir that means so much to me because you only do your best and it's not always the easiest it's all the what's your biggest trapping of being in the senate as the dean of the senate I have the nicest rooms and all that but that's not what the senate is the senate is how you act what you do for the country do you follow your conscience and one of the reasons I like coming home so much is that people like you know this would renew in me it's not about me it's about all of us and it means people coming together I think of the battles that we still had in segregation when I first came there I remember talking to people like Hubert Humphrey who talked about how he fought that I think of two of our granddaughters one white one black walking down the street here in Montpeyre the white granddaughter was here she was asked well who's this she said my sister and I don't think I could have done 48 years or done the things I'm most proud of if I couldn't come back to Vermont and my son and I talked about this when a few years ago we basically made up our mind not to run again even though I knew I could be re-elected and we wanted to come back here we were both born in Vermont our roots are here we believe in Vermont values and so we came back and the reasons for coming back we see every time we're going to the grocery store walking down the street to get a paper or whatever we're doing we run into people and we hear it at all ages all income levels, everything we just hear the reasons why we come here including people who agree or disagree with me on issues we can at least discuss it and I watch how the House and Senate have degenerated people forgetting they have an oath to the Constitution they have an oath to respect all of us and they're not they're respecting their own individual advancement or whatever else and that's wrong that one thing I pray for is that that will change and first trip back to Washington a couple of weeks ago two or three days running into some of my friends I'm pleased to hear those who wanted to change I'm distressed at those who don't want it to and that's a terrible mistake for our country we're a good country we have good values but we have to fight to keep those values when children go to school they have to be taught those values real values, not sloganeering they have to I'm thankful I'll stop with this, I'm thankful other times when I finally realize why my parents stopped on the way home I believed in the grocery store climbed up those brickity stairs knocked out a door leaving a bag of groceries and I think of all the we're saying the same thing it's keep our values as Vermonters I wish to hack the rest of the Congress would and your teacher's going to get the final word final word I had not planned this, believe me what grade was it Maxine? I had you twice a day every school day for a whole year what grade? senior, you were a senior chemistry and sociology and why you are still here after that chemistry class I do not know why you said not to become a chemist what I knew about chemistry was mighty little but I was one of the sisters of mercy and you went and taught what you were told to go teach and you were the first class I had for chemistry and it's a miracle and I'm not religious anymore but it's a miracle you're here it's a miracle this building is still here we didn't blow it up that's right I want to ask you do you have any good memories of your time in this building and this of course was the gymnasium without that ceiling and do you have any that you would like to share with us? just seeing my friends walking in you would walk for a moment I'd walk home for lunch sometimes down the railroad tracks but it just seeing friends and talking with them I didn't spend that much time in gymnasium because with my lack of depth perception I would be good although I did have one fun with this thing we had what was the coach's name? Sheridan yes Roger Sheridan was a good-sized person and they named me I was over 6 feet tall by the time I was a freshman in high school and they named me the manager of the team so coach Sheridan and I would drive to a town we probably hadn't played before but we'd go there and set things up and we'd walk in and everybody would walk in and we'd walk in and everybody would look at me and say what position do you play? I said I was too short to make the team I know I was a little bit of a lie but it sure had an effect okay thank you all for coming thank you Senator Leahy thank you Diane I want to thank Diane Diane is more tired of this thank you all this part is when we you may be handed a membership information card on your way out and don't hesitate to join thank you very much also there are refreshments refreshments yes I've been getting a mad signal I didn't understand a refreshments after the last very good thank you


Welcome to the Tracy Johnson Show. I'm Joe Wamba, joined now with head coach of the women's ice hockey team, Tracy Johnson. And coach, happy new year to you, first of all. And then for the new year, you guys travel up to Boston and play in the codfish bowl. Drop the first game to Bowdoin 1-0, but bounce back in a roaring fashion, 13-0 against post. Yeah.  We worked really hard. We weren't really quite executing to our ability. But we grinded it out and played through it and worked really hard. Our goalie played phenomenal. It was a good game for us to play, kind of opening up the second half against a fast, good Nezcat team. So obviously, it definitely stings and hurts to not make it to the championship game, but came out the next day and took an opportunity to get better and put the puck in the net. So it was a good feeling. You touched on it a little bit. Let's talk about that gold tender play with Katie having a career game in that day. Yeah. That was kind of, that's the best I've seen her play. And I know that she has had that in her. And to see that come out finally is an exciting thing. We've seen flashes of it, but to see it for a consistent 60 minutes was really cool to see. And she's a great goalie. And to see that kind of game out of her was fun. And somebody that you touched on to use the word flash, Chelsea Blackburn just flashing on the ice. She gets five goals in the game against post. Talk a little bit about her performance and what that does as a catalyst for the other goal scores on the ice. Yeah, she just goes hard all over the ice. And I knew that she was going to find the back of the net in that game. And she has a passion for scoring. And that's her role. And she knows that's her role. And she flashes and shines in it. And I think it just infuses the team with a lot of energy, especially some of the goals that she's able to put in the back of the net, some pretty fancy ones. And we'll definitely need to use that type of energy this week. And you get a home and home series with Lebanon Valley against somebody that you're familiar with, with Joey Lai heading up that team now. Yeah, it'll be interesting to have her on the opposite bench. But we're excited. We've been texting back and forth about it. And it'll be a fun experience for sure. And they have a great goal tender, an unbelievable one. So the fact that we were able to find the back of the net as many times as we did, I'm really hoping we can carry that over into this weekend because we're absolutely going to need to. And come with energy and, again, put together 120 minutes over the whole weekend. It'll be exciting to see that familiar face with Joey. But at the same time, you need to get the nose down to the grindstone and get these games played the way that you want them played. Absolutely. I think we have a hardworking team. And more often than not, the team that's willing to work hard will go their way. So that's what I'm looking forward to and hoping for this weekend. Well, Coach, we wish you the best of luck this weekend. Again, the home game is on Saturday. We'll see you there at 7.30. She's Tracy Johnson. I'm Joe Wamba. And this has been the Tracy Johnson Show.


okay we are live we are live and I'm just going to start another phone so I can watch the chat while drawing we have a special guest today can you say hello special guest no my special guest cannot say hello my special guest is a silent special guest so I'm joined by my youngest kid who is homesick from school and he will be drawing together with us and showing your drawings will you be showing your drawings yes he will be showing his drawings okay hello silent they say hello special guest a bit too early are you are you a bit too early this one is last night or last days the daily ink monster what a very quick one okay we can take the camera a little bit closer like this hope they feel better soon but I think my special guest feels good but it still can't go to school because of rules okay we're going to draw a couple of ink monsters how about we start with one shall we do one with colors or shall we do one with in black and white ooh our special guest has already started they're drawing black and white let's do a black and white okay oh just a tiny ink a blood tear very small little ink pot hello heavy exxon you are that famous dude who makes art out of the thin air yes that famous dude I don't think I've ever been called that famous dude before my son agrees okay do you guys see anything in the ink plot I see a couple of possibilities but I think I'm going to draw something like what my son is drawing and what are you drawing a ghost a monster yeah can I show the monster no not yet okay but I'm going to try to find some of the same shapes and I find some of the same shapes and then we can compare them afterwards ooh ah can I show it now and he has even written what it is this is my eight-year-old monster you are eight no you are seven my seven-year-old's monster it's a big tree let's make this one into a big tree as well okay and it's a a fern tree or some sort of pine tree okay your son's monster is very nice big tree love it they love your monster and that makes my silent guest happy good very good art small human they called you small human how old are you dad moment hello so your big tree had arms okay and legs okay my silent guest has a comment to your comments he isn't happy because I'm not small how dare you say a seven-year-old is small that's the worst thing I've ever heard many-footed fox in white space hmm interesting yeah I see the many-footed fox but that's the Keith of the uh tree monster big tree hello from Japan we have viewers from Japan where are everyone located today hello from Turkey Miss Sippy the US Turkey Philippines Switzerland New Zealand all over the world our silent guest is humming along Oregon Australia do we have anyone in South America and oh from Iran South America and Africa is still missing check republic Brazil we have South America irani yes Mexico Malaysia or South California near Mexico so we're still missing Africa that's all that we're missing let's make this guy's feet look like tree trunks chest of me yeah South Africa okay now we have viewers on all the continents of the world in Eurasia in Africa in North and South America and in Australia and Oceania but none on Antarctica do you know what Antarctica is seed pool because there are not many people there but there are many penguins India no Antarctica I no one has said that they're on our Antarctica but we need to be cooler with the research scientists we need to get somehow get what are you drawing where would you like to travel if you could right now I think if we could travel should we would you like to travel to Chile or someone he would like to travel to Chile yeah that would be cool we need to be cooler with the penguins and the Antarctic scientists probably easier traveled by saleship we have maybe we have viewers in Chile my son is working on a very cool drawing I still haven't done my first drawing complete but I'm slow I'm slow today I'm talking too much anyhow if you like watching us draw and we will likely do one more ink monster after this one but if you like watching us draw and you want to support you can go to my patreon and support there or you can send a super chat because those are things I'm noticing hmm boss oh can I show it boss penguin shall a boss penguin be my next drawing yes the boss penguin shall be my next drawing but I have to finish this big tree first haha this one is coming out really cool I love this one so far we got paid we didn't only get paid for drawing we got paid in New Zealand dollars you know where New Zealand is no it's on the other side of the globe almost exactly at the other side of the globe so it's what time is it in New Zealand right now it's all I got thank you so much thank you that is fantastic if you if that's all you got then then don't send money you can support my art by using my art by downloading it for free and printing it sending it to your dear aunt for her 58th birthday because she would love a big tree it is in in New Zealand right now the time is 9 20 p.m in Norway now the time is 9 20 a.m so they are 12 hours away from us it takes more than 12 hours to fly there by plane I think but the time difference is 12 hours and we have viewers on Hawaii okay well let's make two of these branches into claws like this do you have shall we compare them okay I just need to write what it is we're going to go with the same name and we need a new brush one two fifty four I just need to change out the brush happy Iranian new year did you know it was new year in Iran shall I show this again shall we compare side-by-side comparison original and my version which one was coolest which one do you like the best you like that one the best I like yours the original I see no difference do you know what that means I see no difference yes your son will slap you with copyright infringement oh you will my son will say no you're not allowed to draw my tree oh he slapped me oh no it isn't a kanji it is a tiny self portrait of me with a hat and glasses I used to wear a hat and glasses oh like that we have one ink monster and it's big tray tree now let's do another and that was your next one yeah shall we show him show them this is our next ink monster with red eyes and he has muscles no what what are the round things this is my first dream of you just make me ready to go to my psychologist and then go to work penguin time okay how are we going to start that penguin which one of your favorite artists pages have you seen in real life oh I've seen some of John Bushima's original Conan pages that was fantastic feathers no okay let's just start the penguin let's do some random dots you see if that helps us does he have a crown on yes he's a penguin king do you know that there's a real type of penguin that's called a emperor penguin do you know what an emperor is like a king of kings let's try to shall the penguin uh the boss penguin be scary or funny scary funny funny yes okay let's try to make him funny let's try to remember how does your seven-year-old son know english do you know english because you play too many games and watch too much youtube yes that's that's correct penguin has armor bus penguin has armor other people in the chat are saying that's how I learned english as well well oh we have yet another monster just asking how long do you estimate your stream to be 15 more minutes and then we have to go they liked your tiny tree I hope to get to do some longer streams soon I don't know if I'm going to make manage to make this into boss penguin this is difficult you make it difficult for me so I can have a reference so I can see it that's the reference okay let's put the reference up here so I can watch it hopefully you do another live soon yes I will actually be trying to do these morning lives either before I make breakfast for my kids and send them to school or after so I'm thinking I will be doing maybe four lives a week like this because the live format is very fun and it's also a great way to make content and I'm going to set it up soon so that I can film time lapses while doing this but I haven't gotten that quite ready yet mountain time yeah Norway time so either at five or six o'clock in the morning Norwegian time or around nine o'clock in the morning Norwegian time and from seven to eight thirty I'll be be doing my son is working on a very scary monster emperor penguin no boss penguin king boom boom oh we got another super chat from New Zealand thank you thank you so much for the super chat and just to remind everyone there are plenty ways to support if you like my art and like art for for use and want more live streams and want more of everything the comment says super cool art I love the originals especially big tree and tiny tree I'm going to give him big muscular arms yeah but I did my thing and I like the big muscular arms did I ruin everything no I wish I had something to give yes but if you don't have something to give you can support my art by downloading it for free use and you can print it you can have it as your phone background you can even sell it and that is supporting me so so as long as you can remix it you can write stories based on my monsters you can you can do whatever you want with my art and that is a part of supporting my art see you cursed that's how you write cursed he has a little bit of wonky arms this I'm not ambidextrous but I do sometimes draw with my right hand because I had to train it when I had a when I had a injury and does your kiddo watch adventure time it's like a cartoon you haven't watched it's a little bit it's a little I like it but it's a little bit weird and gross weird hands the annoying sounds is my squeaky chair squeaky chair squeaky chair when you want to squeaky well I don't boss penguin no buff penguin can you draw the rainbow serpent from aboriginal Australian mythology not today but I hope to be able to do something with aboriginal mythology one day but but but it's hard to research all the mythology that's why I don't do mythological videos all the time is because it's because I do so much research in order to make sure my versions aren't awfully wrong we got another super chat and I don't know which currency brazilian super chat I love your monsters do you have one full of eyes my monsters are made of spirals I do have some full of us let's see what my son has drawn now it is cursed dragon that is cursed dragon yeah I when I said e to you do you know what letter e is yeah it's an air in the region I they say for e I they are strange those english speaking people now it's a I now he has corrected it and it says cursed dragon okay let's give him some buff small penguin legs as well I think do you like my boss penguin yeah I think I liked yours better and that will be the last monster for today but we can stay and show you can make one more monster if you want you have to be quick we have five minutes left nice job on your cursed dragon another dragon another dragon or another dragon another another dragon not another dragon not another nether dragon this is another thing another thing is the boss penguin isn't skateboarding it's a round shadow that you get in some computer games it looks like he's skateboarding I don't think I'm going to put this one up with my ink monsters but I think maybe you can get it and then you can color it if you want do you want to do that yes yes but you can make the bloody red eyes okay where shall I make them you make them okay but we have to let it dry first because you can't color it until it's dry so and then you have to sign it afterwards as well so you won't see the finished colored boss penguin at the stream today because we have to end in five minutes and I will not be able to it will not dry until there and until then we can show the art we've made today first it is the original boss penguin and then we have the cursed dragon and then we have penguin has armor boss penguin has armor then we have the tiny tree then the big tree is the opposite yeah that's and then we have my big tree the tiny tree is my favorite what paper do I use so right now I'm using a paper called fabriano starch it's reasonably thin so it's just 160 grams thickness you are using regular copy machine paper and it's probably about 80 to 70 grams thick you do you know why we say that a paper is 80 grams or 150 grams because that's how much a full sheet of paper weighs this sheet doesn't weigh 80 grams but the full sheet before it's cut weighs 80 grams good job you all that was great thank you thank you I'm very happy with with the big tree I think that came out swell and you have drawn another drawing so the paper I'm using now is fabriano starch so it's a student grade regular drawing paper 160 grams thickness I would prefer thicker like 200 grams or maybe even 250 grams but 160 gram works and I bought a few different sizes I want to see your version of small tree yeah but that won't be today and now it is big is that name big skeleton yeah big skeleton bigger than a tree bigger than a hill thank you all for uh watching I have a few questions here crossing my fingers for some long-form videos on or any mythology that would be great do you want to be on camera okay so my son wants to be on camera no okay my son wants to be on camera and this is how he looks the artist himself thank you for a wholesome thank you I hope to um I hope to do some long-form videos on mythology Iranian mythology would be great I would hope to what are you looking for more paper no your drawings here I would hope to get some more video long-form videos on mythology but that I'm not small you're messing up the stream no funny but we have to say goodbye if you like my art then please do go to my patreon and sport with uh one dollar month if you don't have the uh money to support you can support by using my art for free and you can also send super and I don't know what's happening and we have to say goodbye


Hi everybody, I hope you're enjoying the conference as much as I am and enjoying some nice lunch now It's my pleasure to make a few remarks and maybe hope to and maybe stimulate some discussion and and Have some dialogue here about about big tech. I don't have a I don't have a book to sell unlike the previous meal speaker I am I do have a book in the works that I hope will be available about this time next year Which is a highly politically incorrect defense of private hierarchies. So I look forward to pimping that book At next year's supporter summit in in Vienna You know, I think most most freedom-loving people have a love-hate relationship with technology Right. This is this is true as far back as the days of the printing press, you know and every other major technological innovation whether it's improvements in transportation in communication in You know calculating machines computers and so forth, you know, like any other tool Technology can be used for good or for ill and we certainly see a lot of that That certainly comes out in a lot of our thinking and and concerns and so forth about about technology today So I just want to offer a few a few claims or propositions about big tech that I hope will be useful in Formulating you know helping us sort of think through the relevant issues Figure out what we might want to do or not do to make things better. Okay? So point number one Big tech firms do a lot of bad things Okay, it's okay to have bad feelings About technology platforms technology products, even though they are private In the most case, you know, they're private entities operating on the market You know, I sometimes hear people say well Well, you know, how can you criticize something that you know?  Aren't you pro-capitalist? What do you hate the market? Yeah, to borrow an example from the great Tom Woods, you know If I go to a nice restaurant and I order a steak and it isn't prepared the way I want and I send it back It doesn't mean I hate capitalism, right? It doesn't make me a socialist It means I'm engaged in voluntary interaction and voluntary transactions And I don't like the you know what this the seller did not deliver to me what I expected Maybe I even go and leave a bad review on Yelp or something that doesn't make me anti-market Likewise being in favor of the market Right, we sometimes say, you know, we're in favor of competition not specific competitors Right doesn't mean I love every company that has become profitable Every company that's large and successful in the free market I can choose to patronize those I like and don't like and I can I can choose to encourage my friends and family To patronize those I like or don't like the great thing about capitalism and and the market as opposed to the political sphere Right is that we don't all have to consume the same product Right, we don't we don't vote on which company will be the provider of X and whichever company gets 51% of the vote Then we all consume that product. No, we can each consume whatever product we want And if you and I have different preferences over what we like, that's fine All you know both of us can be satisfied on the market What are some of the things that that big tech companies do that make us mad, you know, especially sort of the platform companies Well, obviously, you know de-platforming speakers who have views that are not sort of appropriate progressive views spreading misinformation While claiming to be fighting misinformation, right, whatever that is. I mean, that's obviously a dominant Feature of technology platforms today having these algorithms that are biased in favor of promoting content that supports one particular ideology typically an anti-market anti-liberty anti-freedom ideology while making it harder to find content that promotes the kinds of things that most of us like Obviously, you know, we've already talked a lot about about so-called woke-ism and woke ideologies You know all the fortune 500 are woke, right? They all have big DEI programs and so forth and many many though not all many of the big tech companies are sort of leading the charge You all saw the famous infamous video of a you know, internal Facebook meeting after the 2016 election where you had the CEO and the other Executives cry a literally crying About the outcome of the election, you know in an employee meeting, right? You might think well, it doesn't seem appropriate to bring one's personal political views into the room But it was taken for granted that that everyone virtually everyone in that company had the same ideology that this was appropriate You know workplace chatter But of course Big tech tech firms tech platforms They do a lot of really good things too Mises.org is a kind of a tech platform, right? It's a non-profit one But think about how groups like the Mises Institute other groups that we've heard about today and Groups that maybe you are all involved in that are promoting liberty that are promoting freedom that are promoting free markets, right? All of these groups are using technology to you know How we how we communicate how we disseminate information? I've been involved in You know the sort of education and outreach industry for more than 30 years and just looking at the publication process Right going from physical newsletters that you had to put in the mail with a stamp and send out And you know and relying on physical books and so forth to the electronic era of being of digital communications It's vastly improved our ability It's greatly lowered the cost that we have to share and promote the ideas that are important to us Look at how many books are available in digital form on Mises.org All the works of Mises and Rothbard and the other great Austrian economists available for people all around the world to consume at At zero cost. I mean none of that would have been possible without Technology and indeed without big tech the big tech firms firms that have now become successful on the market that there have been some estimates by Economists, you know mainstream economists have this construct. They call consumer surplus Which is which somewhat bogus from an Austrian point of view, but you know is the idea of their surveys They're trying to estimate You know, what would people be willing to pay for all of the services that you mostly consume for free You know, how much would you be willing to pay for Google Maps? How much you would be willing to pay for Wikipedia, you know You sort of take these things away and see how much people are willing to pay to get them back and so forth And I mean the numbers are really it's really amazing. I mean most people would pay a lot if they really had to To use Facebook or to use Microsoft products or other goods and services that they use for free or at low cost On the back side to a lot of the things that we that upset us about privacy Things we worry about not only, you know our personal communications and our social media activity But also our medical records and financial records. I mean yeah protecting one's privacy is extremely important and there are a lot of a lot of market solutions for You know for some of these alleged privacy issues, but also think about the benefits of Being able to share information when you go to the doctor not having to carry around all of your records and your x-rays and so forth in physical form Think about the ability how a credit ratings have greatly expanded the supply of credit Available to borrowers legitimate credit, of course not fed created funny money, right? You know financial transactions are enabled by the fact that it's easy to get a profile of a person's credit worthiness And so forth so a lot of benefits to the sorts of things that we often worry about so that's point number one You know, it's perfectly fine to be angry and mad at tech companies for things They do in their core business things. They do politically. That's perfectly fine But we also need to recognize of course that there are many benefits to liberty into the liberty movement from technology Okay, second point which I alluded to before but it's worth emphasizing because I think this point is not always clear Tech companies are private firms Okay, they are private companies literally right. I mean Facebook Twitter Google Apple Microsoft Amazon I mean they are for-profit corporations owned by shareholders just like other private firms You know the fact that in the case of You know Twitter Facebook and so forth the fact that they are hosting conversations among people That that reflect, you know, sort of a new version of the public square the fact that they are Promoting and indeed having influence over dialogue and Conversations and interactions that affect how people vote and how people think The fact that in some sectors like online retail you have firms that have a very large share of the market None of that changes the fact that they're private firms Okay, this first thing to get out of the way Right now like like other firms large and small in the what Mises called the mixed economy Big tech firms and small tech firms to benefit from a variety of special privileges special protections Subsidies that they get from the state, right? Let's not I mean there's no bones about that But tech firms are not unique with one or two possible exceptions They're not unique in getting all kinds of privileges protection subsidies from the state Right lots of companies get those not just tech companies. You hear people say well, you know They rely on subsidized electricity to run their servers. Okay. Yeah, but but lots of firms have subsidies like that Amazon relies on you know subsidized roads to ship its goods in trucks. Well, I mean so does Walmart so to small shippers So do lots of companies so, you know, it's very hard to disentangle Who is sort of a net recipient versus a net? you know Payor or someone who has harmed with this vast array of complex government interventions in the economy So the interventions are certainly making things worse than they otherwise would be But it doesn't follow from the fact that a firm exists in the mixie mixed economy that it's like, you know part of the state You even hear some libertarians say and you know, they're they're sort of half-joking, but only half-joking You know, well Google is really a state entity and should be treated as such. I mean come on I I make those jokes too, but I make them about like Goldman Sachs Like Goldman Sachs is like a fourth branch of the US government or something like that I mean, yeah, you can make that case. They're very tight with the state, but they are private Tech companies do partner with the state in ways that make us uncomfortable Right they build in back doors to their supposedly encrypted products and applications So that when the FBI or the NSA or the local police department or whoever needs access to your information It can be provided of course They cooperate with state surveillance agencies to do surveillance themselves and report on suspicious activities They happily receive lists of You know so-called domestic terrorist groups from the relevant authorities that there was a leak that was Published by the intercept last week about a black list that Facebook maintains of Foreign and domestic hate groups terror groups and so forth that they keep off of their platform And they're happy to risk they're happy to partner with state authorities and constructing and sharing those lists You know and obviously they should be criticized for that But again, it's not totally unique You know when in the last couple of weeks as you know There's been a lot of discussion about airlines and whether they'll enforce vaccine mandates for pilots and flight attendants and mechanics and so forth and there were the you know, there was the The Southwest Airlines sick out that the authorities insist didn't actually happen And then they sort of back down The airlines have back down a little bit But you're one of the points that the airline executives made at that time is that well, we are federal contractors Right, we deliver mail we deliver, you know, we have all kinds of Formal relationships with different branches of government for transporting people and goods and as a federal contractor We are required to abide by regulations x y and z including, you know Vaccine mandates it turns out of course that the Biden administration had not actually issued a vaccine mandate at that time But that was sort of the conversation anyway My point is we absolutely should be critical of tech firms or any firms for Collaborating with the state in ways that are harmful to liberty, but this is not something that is unique to tech firms I'll say a little bit at the end about, you know Section 230 of the communications decency act which may you could be interpreted as providing a sort of a special subsidy That's unique to tech platforms Because that you know, that may be an exception okay point number three We often talk about big tech I've sort of been talking about big tech as if it is a monolith as If big tech is one thing But there's a lot of variety within that category of big tech Big tech firms are different from each other Right some of them Some of them are basically advertising platforms You know Google Facebook Facebook gets about 99% of its revenue from advertisements on Facebook Okay, Google gets 85% of its revenue from advertising on the Google search page and other Google products and services So companies like Google Twitter Facebook so forth, you know these they offer Free to consumer products and services They then use the user data they analyze the user data to target Advertisements for which advertisers are willing to pay a premium and that's you know, that's their business model So you think well, I don't like there. I don't like that. They use my data. Okay, that's fine But not all tech firms Make money from collecting user data Apple is a completely different kind of company. Apple is basically a hardware company Remy can correct me if my statistic is wrong, but the last time I looked 63 percent of Apple's revenue comes from selling iPhones Okay, now iPhones do come with iOS and of course Apple is also collecting information on users But Apple's business model is totally different from Facebook's or Google's it's essentially a hardware company You can also buy Apple watches and iMacs and so forth and you can Apple makes money of course from the Apple store But it's primarily a hardware company Microsoft is a software company. It's quite diversified Microsoft makes it's number one best-selling product is office I don't have the exact revenue breakdown It gets a chunk of revenue from selling office and it gets a chunk of revenue from selling its back-end Azure database system for corporate users. It makes money from Other platforms that it owns and so forth. What about Netflix? Is Netflix part of big tech? Yeah, a lot of people criticize Netflix as another woke Tech firm that's you know making me uncomfortable by how much it knows about my viewing habits And it's it's using all these tricks like next episode starting in five four three to get me hooked Get me that dopamine hit, you know from the next episode of whatever. Yeah, all those criticisms are fine But I mean Netflix is a streaming movie company Netflix is not an advertising platform, right? You pay a subscription fee to access streaming content like like a magazine in the old days Okay, even Amazon is is different from the others Amazon gets about half its revenue from Selling goods and services on amazon.com it gets about another 20% from fees that it charges to third party sellers on its platform It's about 10% from amazon web services. It's a cloud hosting Services so again amazon also collects user information And amazon may you know collaborates with the feds and so forth in ways that make us uncomfortable But it's a very different kind of a company so my point is big tech is is quite heterogeneous And tech firms have different business models. They have different practices in how they use data What information they collect on on us whether they charge, you know What how they make their money and so forth and that's relevant to our discussion As well And so okay fourth point and this is the one that you know We're emphasizing this weekend and that jeff really wanted me to talk about what do we do about all this What do we do to make things better? Well, I mean like any other policy question. This is complex But there are a few things that I think we clearly should not do and some things that we clearly should do so you know What are What are approaches that you hear talked about even within libertarian circles? For dealing with big tech that we should avoid okay number one. We should not have the government take these over Right, we should not nationalize facebook We should not turn facebook into the postal service We should not demand that it be a neutral platform Like a like a government-owned public utility that supplies electricity to everyone and cannot discriminate and so forth I think it's pretty obvious that making platforms government owned or government operated would certainly not make these problems That we're discussing better They would certainly make these problems worse We should not use antitrust law to to break up firms into different pieces Forced facebook to sell off instagram forced amazon to divest It's cloud hosting from its online retail and so forth I mean for reasons that are obvious to those of you who have been around And have read any austrian literature on markets and competition and law and antitrust that's clearly going to make a bad situation worse By the way, you know on the point people say well Yeah, I don't like antitrust in general but You know tech tech firms are different because they benefit from this so-called network effect Right, they're sort of winner take all markets Yeah, everybody wants to be on the same communications platform You don't want a market that's fragmented into a bunch of different ones So whoever has first mover advantage can therefore sort of take the whole market And you have to use government to break them up because no one can compete with a dominant Platform, you know because of network effects You know on that point when I when I'm teaching when I teach about this Teach this in class. I often show my students an article infamous article that was published about 10 years ago by victor keegan called Will my space ever lose its monopoly? question mark right So there's a huge amount of competition among platforms Actually, I don't know how many people we have in this room who are like under 20 but I mean the fastest growing tech platform, of course is tiktok Which within the space of the year went from almost nothing to being one of the largest platforms Facebook has totally stagnated in terms of user growth During the pandemic We saw a tiny little startup company that almost no one had ever heard of Become such a dominant firm in its business market that we now use its name for a verb Right when you have a video call with somebody you you have a zoom. Yeah. Hey, let's zoom this afternoon um, and it's predictably Uh, as soon as zoom became the dominant, uh, uh video conferencing platform You started to see you know hand ringing from economists and public policy people and journalists about oh my gosh Yeah, how can zoom ever be dislodged from its monopoly position? We need to break it up with antitrust like zoom didn't exist You know six months ago almost And the the market was dominated by cisco webex and microsoft. Who knows what else? Right, I mean sort of a contradiction in terms zoom shows how network effects are irrelevant Or network effects do not prevent a new firm from entering a networked industry if it's better if it offers better features or whatever um Okay, we should not have uh government regulation that enforces so-called content neutrality Right, so you know congress should pass a law that says You know twitter is twitter cannot promote jeff deist's tweets And demote peter kline's tweets that should be some kind of an antitrust violation It should be forced to be like the old telephone network where anybody who wanted to make a call could make a call um Yeah, obvious reasons why that that's you know, that's just interfering with the business model Of course, okay The whole idea that these firms are part of the public square again is irrelevant because to You know to us to libertarians The public square just refers to places where people in public interact Which include private spaces like this hotel room right that we're in a privately owned hotel ballroom right now But we're interacting amongst each other. We're having a kind of a public square discussion here, but it's on private It's on private property. Um, you sometimes hear uh regulators say well Platforms should be forbidden from promoting their own products Right, so it used to you know It used to be the case if you did a search on google or some other platform for the weather forecast in tampa The first search result would be the weather channel Right, but now what comes up first is just google's weather forecast And you got to scroll down a little bit, you know to find the link to the weather channel Google thanks to google flights If you search for a flight route or something in google The first hit is google's own flight search engine And you have to scroll down a little bit to get to expedia or travel velocity or american airlines or whatever you want There's some regulators who want to make that illegal Uh, they say well the the platforms are using their dominance to promote their own Uh, products and services that compete with ones that are also on their platform Well, I mean, okay, if you want to do that then you then we would have to outlaw sam's cola Being available at walmart, you know next to the coca-cola on the shelf, right? You have to outlaw all private label products that are And generics and others that essentially compete with the the dominant label products I mean, there's no no good reason from an austrian perspective in terms of efficiency Or or or you know equity to to require some kind of a rule like that doesn't make any sense What about restrictions on data? I've heard people who identify as free market enthusiasts Advocate for laws that make it illegal for tech platforms to collect user information You know unless maybe you explicitly consent to every single You know bit of data they want to like computer in the computer sense bit Uh of data they want to collect. Yeah. Yeah, you click the license when you installed the app, but you didn't read it That doesn't count Or you have similar rules that say your data has to be stored in a portable format You know if I if I regularly use Expedia to search for flights It's got my search history so that it can help me find options that I want more quickly And then I decide oh, I don't like Expedia anymore. I'm going to move to travel velocity I should be able to like export my file and plug it into travel velocity and have the exact same experience on travel velocity Well, aside from that being technically impossible right You know that means that if if platforms that rely on advertising revenue if platforms that whose business model depends on Aggregating collecting synthesizing analyzing user information and using it to target high-valued ads If that's if that is Prohibited then those platforms will have to come up with a new revenue model There won't be any more free google searching Right, there won't be any facebook for free. I mean you'll have to pay a user fee For all of the services that you use or maybe There'll be some other kind of model that entrepreneurs will have to figure out a subscription based model Maybe they'll look for sponsorships. I mean who knows but the the You won't be able to use platforms the way you use them now for free And they won't be able to provide a lot of useful information to you that relies on having detailed information about your user profile You know, do we want that? Well, look, there's nothing on the free market that prevents firms from using that business model now And of course some of them do there are plenty of paid services that you can get on the internet Um, if consumers really valued privacy enough that they're willing to pay a fee To use a service rather than use a free advertised Advertise based advertisement based service Then they're they're free to do so now and many people do but not most Right. How many of you use duck duck go as your primary search engine? Yeah, I mean in a in a normal crowd If I were speaking to a civilian audience, you know, it might be one out of a hundred These are libertarians after all But uh, yeah, I mean duck duck go is a tiny tiny market penetration because the typical user thinks Yeah, the search results aren't as good as they are on the big g And yeah, I know google collects my stuff and I don't like it But I'm not willing to pay the price of having less accurate search results Or a search engine that doesn't have some other feature that I like Okay By the way, one You know, just a small side note on privacy because I think it often gets forgotten I mean in some ways you could say we have more privacy now than we did in the era before technology before big tech before e-commerce and so forth I mean, yeah, I mean I don't say I have some medical condition and it requires some Meta, you know some treatment or some ointment or something and I'm kind of embarrassed I don't want anybody to know that I have to have this product that I have this condition Okay, yeah, I don't like the fact that amazon knows that you know I've bought a whole bunch of this thing whatever it might be maybe have some weird I have some weird obsession with you know, tom de lorenzo books or something I buy huge quantities of tom de lorenzo books sort of a fetish for me I don't like the fact that mesus.org knows my transaction history I don't like the fact that amazon knows my transaction history But I mean prior to big tech the only way to satisfy that fetish We'll be walking to Barnes & Noble or walk into the local bookstore in my town and then I might see my friends and neighbors They might see me hauling off a bunch of You know tom de lorenzo books I mean at least I can do it from the privacy of my own home And in the current era that's something that is worth is worth Taking into account. Okay. So so what should we do? Well, look I mean, it's not that it's not that complicated In in terms of our behavior on the market If we're not happy with the goods and services that are being offered to us the best alternative is not to use them Right or to use alternative products and services as we've already heard this morning Entrepreneurs are very good at coming up with alternatives at working around obstacles and barriers There are plenty of alternative communications platforms and Web-based services available to us if we prefer to patronize those other than the dominant firms We can certainly do that We should encourage entrepreneurs and and roll back barriers to entrepreneurship that limit the ability Of new firms to compete of entrepreneurs to compete and certainly we should roll back eliminate any subsidies That are specifically benefiting tech platforms My view on section 230 is that we should get rid of it But we should get rid of the whole communications decency act of which section 230 is just a little piece I think that would go a long way to solving some of our problems So I'm sure I didn't have my phone in front of me to check the time But we have maybe time for one or two questions. No one question. Yeah, please Say it loud since you don't have a mic Yes, so the question is would we see more of the sort of freemium model free ad-based services You know outside of technology for physical goods and services I mean, sure. I mean, there are plenty of examples of that now There are lots of free giveaways You go into the grocery store, you know by the deli section sometimes they have a little You can have little pieces of cheese or whatever to Pastries or whatever to sample. I mean, that's a that's a giveaway to get you in the door Or to make you stay in the store longer to have you shop longer and so forth So that you'll then spend more money on the on the priced products That's essentially not too different from the so-called freemium model except it's on a smaller scale So in a pure free market, would we see more? Advertising based rather than fee based goods and services I mean my interest I really don't know but I would love to see how entrepreneurs figure that out So let's have a free market and give it a shot