The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Book Show. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Iran Book Show. A little while, not for very long. Don't get used to this. Back in the road next week. Back in the road the week after that. So I'm going to be in the road a lot in the next month or so until mid-May. But for now, we're here. We're here for about a week, so we'll enjoy it. We'll do as many shows as we can during this week to try to catch up way behind. It's already April, and we haven't had, I don't think we've had a single show in April. Maybe one. All right, Katharine is with us today. That's fantastic. So Katharine is here to keep track of the super chat. We got a stacked show today, a ton to talk about. We're going to talk about Elon Musk taking a stake in Twitter. We're going to talk about the war in Ukraine, Russia. I've got maps. I like maps. I don't know if you guys like maps, but I love maps. So we'll look at the maps, see what's happened in the war, give you an update. I get to say I told you so again. We'll talk about war crimes, what constitute war crimes, what they mean. We'll talk about the election in Hungary. Maybe I might delay that, might postpone that because it's a big topic, but we'll see how today goes. And then there's, of course, 12th anniversary of Obamacare. Obama was at the White House today to celebrate 12th anniversary of Obamacare. Some of us cry, some of us weep. Obama and Biden celebrate. I am jet lagged. So if I'm fading, if I'm inarticulate, if I'm talking gibberish or anything like that, my brain is a bit of a mush from the jet lag. So it's late here. So we'll see how long we can go. We'll see how long I have energy and before I collapse and try to recover so we can do more shows this week. All right, remind everybody, we use Super Chat here to ask questions. You can ask me questions about anything. Thank you, Jonathan, for getting us started. You can also support the show like Jonathan just did without asking a question with the Super Chat. It's very simple. It's down there below value for value. If you enjoy the show, show your support by using the Super Chat to support us. We have a target every show of $600. Katharine is here and she is here to make sure you reach that target. We're way behind. We're starting April in a deep hole. So it would be good if we could exceed our targets for a few shows, get up to a thousand or whatever so that we can make up for the fact that I've been traveling and did not do as many shows as I would have liked. Yeah, March was a down month from a Super Chat perspective by about $2,000 because of the amount of traveling. I expect April and May are going to be down as well. And then June is Ocon. Anyway, we're going to have to make up here. We're going to have to make up. So I appreciate the support you guys provide. And don't forget, you can ask questions and $20 or more on a question gets priority. All right. So you probably heard yesterday was that Elon Musk had bought 9.2% of Twitter stock. He is now the owner of 9.2%. I read somewhere how many billions of dollars that cost him. I don't know, but it cost him a lot of money. He's the largest shareholder of Twitter. He's a larger shareholder, significantly larger than the founder of Twitter and the former CEO who owns about 2%. He is a larger shareholder of Twitter than many of the institutional members, the institutional investors. It's quite impressive that he's managed to accumulate 9.2%. I haven't really pulled up a chart of Twitter stock. I don't know if you bought a cheap or an expensive. I mean, tech stocks have been driven down quite a bit over the last couple of months, over the last three months. So probably far from its peak. Wonder Freeman says that it cost him $4 billion to do it. Free trade has been a member for two months. I don't know. I don't think this counts as a super chat. Being a member is not good enough. It doesn't help you get to the 600 goal, as Catherine will note for you. But I will read what Free Trade says. He says Musk is being hailed as a free speech champion on Twitter. In reality, he blocks people to destroy his anti-fossil for your narrative, for example, Alex Epstein. So Musk is his argument for going on Twitter as he wants to make it better. There's a lot of discussion about having it edit button so you can change your tweets after you post them. Also, to eliminate some of the things that Twitter does, which takes people off the platform or puts them or forces them to lead tweets or so on. So he's going in there with his own agenda about how he thinks Twitter should be run. Now, today, they announced that not only does he have 9.2% of Twitter stock, but today he was appointed to the board of directors. So Elon Musk is now going to be a power, a force, within Twitter. Now, I have to say, this is beautiful. This is the beauty of finance. This is amazing. Put aside whether you agree with Musk or you don't agree with Musk, this could be judge Soros for all you know. But the very fact that an individual can take a large position in a stock, get on a board of directors, influence the direction of a company, and fix, perceive problems with it that might be hurting its market value, is one of those amazing features of markets. I mean, one would hope that we will do it, do it, and the results are positive, the results consistent with what we would like them to be, right? But they might, if you're an advocate for Elon Musk, taking a board seat and taking 9.2%, then what happens? Are you going to be offended when George Soros does the same thing and argues for a more leftist agenda for Twitter or for some social media company? The beauty of the fact that they are private means that shareholders can buy into the platform, buy into the company. Shareholders can therefore change its policy. Shareholders can go on and determine the future of the company, and it's not static. I did an interview today with somebody who was arguing with me that all these companies, all these social media companies are monopolies. And what do you do about monopolies? Well, here's what you do about monopolies. Buy their shares and kick out managers and change their behavior to be more, I don't know, friendly, more profitable, more, we'll see. We'll see what Elon Musk actually does. We'll see what actually is motivating him. But one option, rather than compete, rather than spend the money to create a new platform that competes with Twitter, an alternative to that is to just buy and change it. And it might change for the good, it might change for the worse, I don't know. I mean, Musk seems to have the right inclination, so hopefully it changes for the good. But it's just one more way in which one deals with, let's say, corporate behavior that we think is negative, that we think is bad. So Elon is using his billions. I guess the money he lost, I guess the money he gained from selling a big stake of Tesla, much of that money went to paying taxes. And so that money has now gone into buying a big stake in Twitter and buying himself onto the board of directors of Twitter and now having an influence on Twitter, and it's going to be fascinating. It's going to be really, really interesting. Does he manage to change the policies of Twitter? Does he move Twitter in a different direction? Is it better? Is it worse? Will the stock price respond by going up? Will it go down? Will it be political? Won't it be political? It's going to be really interesting. So I am eagerly anticipating watching how this plays out. But again, this is one of the beauties of private business, private markets, is that you get these kind of changes without any government intervention, without government doing anything. Indeed, I would argue that government is preventing. Why anybody know why he stopped at like 9%, why didn't take 12%? Or because you can accumulate up to 10% of a stock.  You have to let the world know that you bought the stock. If you accumulate over 10% of a stock, you have to let the world know your intentions. You have to file a complicated SEC form that tells the world why you own 10%. Now, before these regulations came into place, and the regulations around what are called 13Ds and 13Gs, which are the different filing requirements, the 13Ds and 13Gs were put in place in 1968. And they were put in place in 1968 by the SEC. These are regulations that make it impossible for somebody, for example, to accumulate 50% of a stock, walk into the CEO's office and fire them, because they're the majority owner now, and basically replace the board because they own 51% of the company. Guess who lobbied to have those regulations put in place? Guess who wanted them in place? Guess who didn't want to get fired by people who accumulate 51% of the company stock? Managers, managers of big companies, managers of big corporations in America, lobbied to have these regulations put in place in order to restrict the ability of people to take over their companies in a stealth way, in a way without everybody knowing, right? Imagine just buying 51% of the company stock on the market, in the open market, and then you're in control. Today, you can't do that. You have to buy five, disclose, and then 10, disclose. Then you have to do a tender offer. You actually have to let shareholders know, look, I want to buy 51% of the company. I'm going to pay you X. That allows competitors to come in. Supposedly, this is good for shareholders because it creates a bidding war, but it also reduces the number of people who ever go into it. And it entrenches often. Bad managers, it often entrenches bad CEOs. So imagine a world in which Elon Musk, you woke up one morning and Elon Musk owned 91% of the company and basically it fired its management and was taking over. Can't happen today, sadly, but that's capitalism. You see, that's what a free market looks like. And it's things like that that suggest that we have no idea what business would actually be like under capitalism. We have no idea the dynamics of what it would be like, the competition, the insistence of managers to really try to maximize shareholder worth because otherwise somebody's going to buy up the stock and fire them. Capitalism is so much more dynamic, so much more interesting, so much more focused than anything we see today. We do not have capitalism today. And that creates stagnation, it creates laziness, it creates incentivized managers to not innovate, to not stand the cutting edge, to not completely dedicate everything they can to make you sure they maximize shareholder worth. All right, as I said, I'm looking forward to Elon Musk who is not woke, who is not politically correct to see what kind of influence he can have on Twitter. I think it's exciting. I think it's a good day for social media. I think it's a good day for expression. Hopefully he opens up the platform. He allows more discussion, more debate, less sanctioning of people. And then maybe other social media platforms learn from that and take note of that. And if he's successful and the stock price goes up and people are happier with Twitter and he kind of eviscerates all the competition that is out there even though it's marginal, then other social media will mimic him. And if he tells the politicians to go to hell, as he has done with the SEC on issues around Tesla and as he has with others, yeah, I mean, this could be a game changer. This could be a game changer. If we got the kind of sense of life and self-esteem of Elon Musk applied to social media companies, the world would be dramatically different. So let's see what happens. Jeffrey says, I'm delighted to see you live.  Now I can smile again. Oh, no, I mean, you're not destroyed. You're not smiling just because the Iran book show is on. But thank you. And I'm happy to bring a smile to your face and I'll do as many shows as I can and still travel. I will be in New York next week, but alas, I will not have time to visit your restaurant. So sorry, it's kind of a quick in and out trip. All right, update on the war. Update on the war, yes. Ukraine Russia, it's still going on. The Russians have not won yet. Indeed, it actually looks like they might be losing. Losing. Wonder why? So as I told you from day one, this was not going to be a slam dunk for the Russians. All those military experts you saw everywhere else, experts you saw everywhere else that predicted Russian victory, overwhelming force, the Ukrainians couldn't cope, modern army, superior tactics, superior equipment, fantastic military fail.   They have no motivation, undisciplined army, and it looks like terrible strategy. So let's see the map. There's the map, all right, we get the map. This is the map as of the 28th of March. And you can see that over the month preceding this map, Russian armies advanced towards Kiev from both the north, the northeast, and the east. But they had been stuck in these positions for over two weeks. Basically most of the progress you see at the top of the map, in the center top, most of that red, that's what, the red and the pink is what Russia had occupied after its invasion on 24th of February. Most of that had not changed much in two weeks. Indeed, the Russians were thought they would have taken Kiev in the first few days. They thought they would have replaced the governing Kiev in the first few days and basically dominated Ukraine or at least split it into half between the east and the west and dominated the entire east of Ukraine. None of that happened. The Russians got bogged down in the outskirts of Kiev, both in the west and the north and the east. They never managed in so-called the city. Their tanks, as they predicted, not only got stuck in the mud, but more importantly were super vulnerable to the anti-attack weapons that the Ukrainians had, the western anti-attack missiles that they got from the US, from the UK, and other allies in the west. And the Russians were stuck for over two weeks in positions outside of Kiev, both to the east and to the west and to the north, never going south, never in Slocling. In the south, you can see that these purple is the areas that the Russians took in 2014. This is the Donbass region and this is Crimea below. The red is the areas that they have occupied since February. You can see that while in the east here, they had been targeting and trying to take Kharkiv, they had not managed to. Amazingly, the Ukrainians were stood, massive attacks by the Russians. Mariupol has not been completely taken or it's completely surrounded. It's basically taken by the Russians, but the resistance there is fierce and the casualties on the Russian side are significant as they are on the Ukrainian side. So Russia has achieved its goal of connecting Crimea with the Donbass and of taking much of east, of the eastern boundary of Ukraine, bordering with Russia. But Russia has not taken the entire east of Ukraine. It has not taken the entire seashore of the Black Sea, which is what they intended. They've not taken Odessa in the south. They've not taken Mykolaev, which is another strategic point in the Russian's attempt to take the south. In other words, a month and a bit into this campaign, there was no question that the Russians were bogged down, not advancing, and it achieved very few of their short-term, at least, objectives. They had not been able to dominate the Ukrainians. Pretty pathetic given the size, training capabilities of the Ukrainian army. I'd say the primary differences were two. One in technology, the Russians were using Russian equipment and the Ukrainians, for the most part, were using Western equipment and the difference there was vast. And second, motivation. Russians were there for what? For what? Unclear, unmotivated, uninspired, whereas the Ukrainians were fighting for selfish reasons. Ukrainians were fighting for their homes. They were fighting for their families. They were fighting for their land. They were fighting for their livelihood. They were fighting for their country, having been invaded. They were fighting self-defense. They were fighting for selfish reasons. I'll take a selfish, selfish, lean, motivated soldier any day over somebody who vaguely is fighting for some vague notion of a mother Russia. And indeed, that's how we've seen a play out. So here's a map as of, so this was the map on the 28th of March. And now we're gonna switch to a map on the 5th of April. And you can see the big difference. The big difference is in the North and the Northeast. Basically, Ukraine is reoccupied all of its territory in the North and Northeast. All of the Russian fighters, equipment, tanks, they were still operational. Surrounding Kiev on the West, on the North, and on the East of Kiev are gone. They don't exist. Ukraine has taken back its borders all the way to Belarus, all the way to Russia in the East. Many battles were fought around Sumi. Sumi now is completely in Ukrainian hands.  They went from this map, look at all the red, look at all the pink in the upper right hand, to this map with no red, no pink. They basically completely failed. Yeah, they withdrew into Belarus to refuel, resupply, and where they're gonna go. They're not gonna go back towards Kiev. They failed there. They're not gonna reconquer the same ground. And the fact that they have to go backwards to refuel suggests to you how bad their logistics are, suggests to you how completely incompetent their strategy is how completely amateurish everything about this on the Russian side has been. Where is the infrastructure? Where are the supply chain routes? Where is the oil supply? None of it held up. They had a completely withdraw. So the Ukrainians have completely destroyed the Russians in the North and the Northeast. They're completely gone. Now the stories are that the Russians will then send their military forces that are left. About half of them have been disabled. Tens of thousands of men have been killed or wounded. About half the tanks, half the armored vehicles have been lost to the Russians in the Northern Front. So whatever's left of those Northern Armies will now be shipped by train from Belarus to Russia to the Eastern Front to Donbas to fight over the rest of to solidify the gains in the East. I don't think they can expand much the territory under control but they will solidify their presence in the areas where they have already. But this is stunning. This is nobody predicted this. Nobody predicted that the Russians would lose as they have in the North. They're still winning arguably in the South because they've taken territory and they're occupying that territory. But Ukrainians are making small progress even in these areas where the Russians dominate in the South. The Ukrainians are gonna be able to resupply. The Ukrainians are gonna be able to send troops from the Kiev area down to the South to try to retake some of the areas that they've lost. The Ukrainians are getting resupplied with the best American equipment, the best Western European equipment. What are the Russians resupplying themselves with? The same tanks, the same armored vehicles that we've been being destroyed in the North, they're gonna get more of them in the South. Soldiers still as unmotivated as ever, probably more so. Ukrainians are more motivated than ever and this brings us to this issue of war crimes. The pictures out of the Northern suburbs of Kiev are pretty horrific. Not surprising but horrific. Men and women with their hands tight behind their back shot at point blank range. Women raped and then murdered. Hundreds of civilians killed.  That's just a fact of war. And sometimes it's necessary for civilians to die in war.  It's barbarism. It's the behavior of a army with no morals. It is the behavior of an army with no scruples. It is a behavior of a barbaric regime. Of course the Russians have denied it. The Russians are saying Ukrainians did it after the fact. The problem for the Russians is that there are satellite photos showing the bodies of killed civilians, showing the graves being dug while the Russians were still occupying the area. So it cannot be that Ukrainians did it. Doesn't matter. The Russian propaganda machine is pumping it out. It's not us, we didn't do it. This is all Ukrainians, this is all pretents, this is all fake video. And of course their mouthpieces in the West are repeating those stories. You find it on Twitter. You can find it on social media everywhere. The American right, the nationalist right is repeating Russian talking points, justifying anything Russia says, does. And we're being exposed. We're seeing, exposed. The barbarism that is this nationalist authoritarian, yes it's anti-woke ideology. This is what the new right represents. This is the kind of barbarism that so many of the right would like to see our country and countries of the West be part of. Russia today has become a symbol, a symbol of a political ideology. The ideology of nationalism, of ideology, of a new right, an ideology of brute force, an ideology of muscle, of a mind. But it's anti-left, so they must be good guys. I think some of the most disgusting things I've seen are the attempts of the American right to justify Russian actions. And that these are the people who are going to win elections and be our leaders of the future. It's shocking, it's scary. It's something I've been warning you of a long, long time. But here it is, it's right here in front of us. Putin, the darling of the right, is acting like a bronze-aged barbarian. I'd expect the Bat Boys to be happy and celebrating, but the fact that there are so many on the right that are celebrating this is truly disgusting. There was a conference held by the new right recently in New York about Putin and Russia and how the new right should relate, given the war in Ukraine. Of course, the ultimate war crime to Putin committed was going to war. War is the ultimate war crime. War that is a necessary war, that is initiated war, that is to conquer, whoa, Ashton. Takes us all the way to 600 bucks. Wow, all right, now we'll get to your question very soon, promise. Ashton put in $599.99.  And that Germany, for example, continues to buy half a billion dollars worth of natural gas from, or a billion dollars, the numbers, they keep presenting different numbers of gas from Russia every day, every day. And that's not gonna stop. Supporting a barbaric regime, supporting a regime that does this, truly horrific. Wonderfiemann says the alt-right is a tiny minority, but is it? Is it? I mean, I don't know, alt-right, new-right, I don't know how you wanna categorize these modern barbarians. But the fact is that today, there was a big demonstrations in Berlin that was pro-Putin flying Russian flags. The fact is that on Sunday, I think it was on Sunday or Monday, Victor Orban, won a massive victory in Hungary. He got two-thirds of the parliamentary vote, and he won, won by a margin of 15 points or more, a huge margin, a margin nobody expected. And he ran on a campaign that was pro-Russia. Yes, he has agreed with the EU for sanctions against Russia, but at the same time, the campaign was clearly pro-Russia. And the Hungarians are generally pro-Russia. Not a few, not a little bit.  So maybe it's not such a tiny minority if they see the pop-up in every place. They seem to demonstrate in Berlin, they seem to vote for Orban, and in Russia itself. You see the interviews they do with people in Russia who are completely 100% supportive. The relatives of Ukrainians who, when Ukrainians call them up, say, no, that cannot be. That's not happening in Ukraine. Russians don't do that. And if we did do that, then it's justified. We had to do it. We had no choice. And it's all a conspiracy theory anyway. Now, I don't know that the new right, the alt-right, is so small. And certainly, there's significant numbers of them on the intellectual right today, significant number of Russia justifiers on the new right. Indeed, right now, the radical right and the radical left agree. The far-out left, the wacky left, loves Russia. And the wacky right loves Russia. I told you always, there's no big difference between them. So, no, I mean, these scary times, not because I think Russia is a threat to the United States, it is not. But because of the number of people pandering to Vladimir Putin, the number of people on his side, the number of people who think he's a man's man, the number of people who think that the way to deal with the left are problems, that's the same thing I think, is by force, is by use of violence. The number of smear campaigns being initiated out there in Zelensky. Richard here, I'm still waiting for Richard's apology for calling me names and telling me I didn't know what I was talking about when on the first day of this war, I said the Russia was gonna have a hard time winning it. I'm waiting, Richard, anytime you're ready. So, scary times, scary times. But remember that the war crimes are horrific, but the real war crime, or the most important war crime, all of these are horrific, is initiating war. Putin is truly evil to have a regime that supports the kind of brutality that he has endorsed, supported, and is now covering up. And anybody who supports Putin here is part of that criminality. Let's see. Ashton, Ashton for 500 bucks, well. Have you ever read The Dark Enlightenment by Nick Land? If yes, what do you think about his philosophy of accelerationist capitalism compared to Ayn Rand's version of Unknown Ideal? I have not read The Dark Enlightenment. I'm sorry, I'll have to look it up. But I'll take a look at it. But generally, I have no idea what accelerationist capitalism would be. And we know, we know, or at least I am a supporter, as you know, of capitalism as described in the Unknown Ideal. But The Dark Enlightenment sounds a little spooky to me, but I will have to read about it. I'll have to see what that means. Oops, let's get rid of the map. I'll have to see what that means. The Enlightenment was mostly light. The Enlightenment was mostly positive. The Enlightenment was one of the great periods in human history. And the Enlightenment is what it's, the better things that are happening today, the things that are good are products of the Enlightenment, actual Enlightenment. All right, let's do one other super chat and then we'll go on to maybe just say a word about Obamacare and then we'll move full time into super chat mode. West Stuart says, what do you think the chances are the Washington Post will publish that smear of Alex Epstein? It was supposed to be published last week and has yet to appear. I don't know, I have no idea. I'm glad it has not appeared. Maybe, so this is a smear that the Washington Post was writing against Alex Epstein, the climate change, pro-fossile fuel, Alex Epstein, the former ARI scholar. And Alex wrote a response, Alex made it public, what they were about to publish. There was a quite a bit outcry against it. I don't, the Washington Post had no leg to stand on in terms of the actual, the content, the smear. It was clearly a smear. It was not an issue of interpretation. It was just a smear. So one would hope that editors in the Washington Post decided that it wasn't, that they would not publish it, that it wasn't worth it. Clearly it was an attempt to discredit Alex before his book came out. And you know, I have no idea. I have no idea. I'm hopeful. And I don't think it's out of the question that they will not publish it because they've realized it is groundless. We will see. Maybe I am being too, too nice for expecting good things from mainstream media, who knows? Oh wow, people on the chat are really getting into it. Wow. I don't know if they're attacking me or attacking each other. I have no idea. But it's getting ugly on the chat, not on the super chat, on the chat. It's getting ugly. You guys are not on the chat. I'm missing out on some real ugliness over here. All right. Yeah, I did want to say something about Hungary's obon. I'll say more about it in the future, but he did win a decisive victory. I think what he showed in his victory in spite of the fact that European Union was backing the opposition in a sense. The polls were showing a tight race, but I think polls that were biased. I think what his victory really shows is that people like authoritarian nationalists. Obon is not quite as big of an authoritarian as Putin. There are still elections. As far as I can tell, the elections are, quote, fair in Hungary. There's a member of the EU and a member of NATO, but the entire media apparatus in Hungary is controlled by Obon. He has basically taken over the media explicitly. The economy is a crony economy, where all the, just like the oligarchs, where all the juicy positions are all held by friends of Obon. He is a populist. Viktor Obon is a populist, religionist. I don't know that he's really religious, but he uses it.  He's not quite Putin. He's like a miniature. He doesn't have the apparatus that Putin has to inflict pain on people he doesn't like. Not a good guy. Not a good guy, doesn't hold good ideas, doesn't understand what Western civilization is, doesn't know how to protect it, how to defend it. Somebody who's taken over the media doesn't believe in free speech, doesn't really believe in freedom. He's now made Hungary a free market at all. He's basically used his platform, used the fact that he's part of the EU to receive enormous subsidies to help the Hungarian economy come out of poverty. But it's far, far, far away, far, far, far from believing free markets or believing freedom in any dimension. He's completely and utterly corrupt. And yet, the Hungarian people love him. So there's no question he's popular. There's no question he won this election democratically. There's no question that the Hungarians support him. And as such, it is suggestive, it is suggestive that there are elements in Europe, I think in the U.S., because Orban is a favorite of the U.S. right, he's a favorite of people like Tucker Carlson and the intellectuals of the new right, that is longs for the muscle, longs for authoritarianism. But he has a majority, a significant majority of Hungarians supporting him. These ideas are popular, can be popular, can be dominant. It's not the case that they are minority views everywhere. And the thing that unites the people who vote for it is hatred of the left and what they get instead is authoritarianism of the right. All right, let's see. So it's a little bit about Orban. I've got more to say about Orban. Well, we'll leave it for another show. I want to show clips of the Tucker Carlson interview with Orban, I think that's very reflective. Just quickly, it's 12 years to Obamacare. One of the worst pieces of legislation ever to pass in the United States right after the New Deal and the Great Society, Obamacare was a massive expansion of the welfare state, massive expansion of government intervention in healthcare. It drove up price, lowered accessibility to those of us who had insurance, to those of us who had, you know, some of the world's best healthcare before Obamacare, quality of the healthcare has deteriorated since. So yeah, I would, it is a sad day. Of course, it was celebrated today at the White House. And of course, one of my biggest knocks on Trump was that he failed, I mean, his whole presidency was a failure, but he failed at getting rid of Obamacare. He failed to replace Obamacare with something better. I mean, and he failed because what he really wanted and what he said often was that he wanted was universal healthcare. Trump ordered more than Obamacare. He wanted even more socialized healthcare. But he did not manage to rally the Republicans around defeating Obamacare. And he never proposed, never proposed an alternative to Obamacare, a move towards greater privatization of healthcare. So Republicans have failed. They failed to stop Obamacare originally, and then they failed to repeal Obamacare. And it is a black mark in the Republican Party. They came so close, and they had the opportunity, remember, Trump controlled for two years, presidency, the House and the Senate. There's a lot that could have been done to either make Obamacare inoperable or to repeal it completely, and ideally to replace it with something better. But he didn't do it, Republicans didn't do it. Travesty, travesty, travesty. All right, remembering Obamacare, one of the biggest issues when I traveled around Europe was always that people tell me, you see, private healthcare doesn't work. Look at the United States, and I have to go through the fact that we in the United States have a heavily, heavily, heavily socialized healthcare system. Indeed, if you're over 65, you have socialized healthcare. If you're poor, that's Medicare. If you're poor, you have Medicaid, which is socialized healthcare. And if you're not poor, but you're not rich, you're a little bit of class here. Obamacare, which is kind of socialized healthcare, but not quite, it's subsidized, and it's controlled and it's regulated. And the fact that the United States is not a private healthcare market. So that's the biggest challenge I face when talking about healthcare, is that people think that the American system is a free market system. All right, let's go to some of the super chats. We'll start with $20 ones and relevant, okay? James says, for years, Ukraine has been known primarily for kleptocracy and far-right neo-Nazis. Now, weeks later, it's a heroic beacon of liberal democracy. Putin sucks, but admitted Ukraine is more far-right than Hungary. Oh no, I've been to Ukraine, I've been to Hungary. I don't know where you get your news, James, but I've actually been to Ukraine, I've talked to Ukrainian people, I've given talks in Ukraine. While Ukraine is certainly a kleptocracy and has been a kleptocracy, but as is Russia, but Russia is worse, much worse. And Hungary is much more developed, Hungary is much more Western in some regards than Ukraine in terms of corruption, but the difference is that now Hungary presents itself as Western, part of the EU, part of NATO, and it's still a kleptocracy, which in a sense is worse, and authoritarian, which is urban. But no, Ukraine was a corrupt, you know, a new struggling democracy under the boot of Putin that kept intervening and placing his thugs at the head of it, and once in a while the Ukrainians voted in somebody who opposed Putin, they didn't survive for very long. They had several internal revolutions, but the Ukrainian people are people who are basically Western.   I don't know where you get this stuff. There was one brigade in the Southeast that for a while included significant members who are neo-Nazis, maybe they still do, but it was never a majority, it was never a significant part of the Ukrainian military. It was never a part of Ukrainian politics. There was no neo-Nazi political party that ran in Ukrainian politics.  So while the neo-Nazi elements in the Ukrainian military, there are neo-Nazi elements in the Russian military, all over Russia, you see neo-Nazi symbolism, you see neo-Nazi tattoos, Russia's special forces often have neo-Nazi insignia. Then if you add to that, there are neo-Nazis in Germany. There's a political party in Germany that actually has a significant neo-Nazi past that did, I guess, okay, in a recent election, the neo-Nazis in Hungary, the certainly neo-Nazis in Poland, significant numbers of neo-Nazis in Poland. So what? The neo-Nazis in the United States. But Ukraine, neo-Nazis did not have political power. It's just a Putin talking point, mindless talking point. Unresearched, the, as a battalion as a battalion, among many battalions, yes, there are neo-Nazis in the, as a battalion, as I said, as there are neo-Nazis in the Russian special forces. Zelensky himself, Zelensky himself is a Jew. Remember that, neo-Nazis, Jews don't go together. All right, let's see.  Ukraine did not start a war. Ukraine did not, you know, invade a foreign country.  Now, maybe if Ukrainians had invaded Russia, we would be talking a different talk, but the fact is Russia invaded Ukraine. That's just the fact. Had no territorial claim, there's no justification, has zero rationale. It is the bad guy, unequivocally the bad guy. You wanna justify them by putting down the Ukrainians?  And yes, in comparison to Putin, and given that Putin is in the attack, Ukraine is fighting for the West, given that Putin is the enemy of the West. By his very nature, Putin is the enemy of the West. And if Ukraine is a mob state, then Russia is a mob state on steroids. Putin is the richest man in the world, probably, because of what technology did he invent? What business did he buy? Did he build? Did he manage none? He's a politician who's the richest man in the world.  Russia is a poor country. On a per capita GDP, it is poorer than any country in Western Europe. By far, not even close. James Taylor says, the Jewish bankers are controlling Ukraine and me. I am being controlled by Jewish bankers. Maybe, maybe. I don't think James has thought of this. But maybe I'm the Jewish banker, because I'm in finance, you know. Maybe I'm the Jewish banker controlling Ukraine and all of you. As you ponder that, let me answer this $50 Canadian question. Turns out there's a freedom party which holds objectives views here in Ontario, Canada. I'm contemplating joining, what do you think should be the primary focus of aspiring objectives politician? I mean, look, I think the primary focus of aspiring objectives politicians is education. You're not gonna get elected unless you educate the public about our ideas. You won't get elected unless you educate the public about the proper role of government, about individual rights, about capitalism. So I would say as always, just like an aspiring objectivist in really any field, if you care about politics, if you want to change the world, then what you should be doing is educating. Educating, educating, educating. The actual politics of it, leave that for later. Landon says, can you give me a loan Jewish banker? Well, that depends. One, are you Jewish? Second, you know, are you willing to participate in my conspiracy?  And if you help me supply weapons to ferment turmoil in the world so we can take it over. So Landon, I'm waiting to hear whether that is something you can do or not. It's pretty amazing. Here on my wall, we get the anti-Semites. I guess they always come here, right? It's not new. All right, let's see. James says, UAE is doing things that made Singapore thrive. Do you think U.S. government will make it harder to leave for productive people? What do you think about other countries looking to bring wealthy people to live in their country? I mean, UAE is doing some of what made Singapore thrive, but not all of it. Landon says, she's game well, then the loan is yours, of course. The loan is yours. UAE is doing some of the things that made Singapore thrive. It's far more restrictive than Singapore. And it's certainly, if you're a woman, it's not quite as easy to do business in UAE as it was in Singapore. And I think culturally, UAE still has a long way to go. It also is trying to balance its act by still UAE and the rest of the Gulf States supporting Islamic jihadis. And at the same time as presenting a westernized, pro-free market, pro-openness, external stance. So we will see how UAE, how close it becomes to Singapore, how real the efforts they are making are. I hope they are, but we will see. Let's see, do you think US government will make it harder to leave for productive people? They already are.   They will tax you on your existing assets. It used to be easy to give up your American passport. It has become super difficult to give up your American passport. And that is a way of making it harder for productive people to leave. By the way, the US government is one of the few governments in the world, one of the few governments in the world, much worse than the European governments, for example, the taxes worldwide income. So if you leave and go and live in Singapore, Singapore has lower taxes than US, you will pay American taxes on the difference. So you will not be able, you cannot escape federal taxes anywhere in the world, except in Puerto Rico. What do you think about all the countries looking to bring wealthy people to live in their country? I mean, I think it's great. They realize I think the wealthy people generally productive people, but also wealthy people invest in their local economy, spend in their local economies, and they will contribute to the local economy. So I think it's a good thing, not a bad thing. All right, let's see, James Taylor. Do you think people, do people think the Holocaust was bad because only a select group of people were murdered while others were spared, categorized as superior? If everyone were murdered equally, would people not view it as such an abomination? I think the fact that it was based on a racist ideology, in a sense, makes it, people view it as worse. I think people would have viewed it as horrible no matter what, given that, you know, it wasn't just killed during a war, but it was, and it wasn't even just massacred in the streets. It was an industrialization of mass murder. It was the industrialization of the killing of millions of people. I think no matter who would have gone into the ovens of Auschwitz, where, you know, no matter what the group was, no matter who the people were, it would have been viewed in horror and as a particular low point in human history. Because it was so industrialized. It was so systematic. The fact that it was done in the name of a superior race, you know, at the margin, at the very little margin makes it worse, but, you know, it has to be done in the name of something. It's always done in the name of something. It's always done in the name of some superiority. Nobody goes in and just randomly kills people. They generally kill people in the name of something, in the name of ideology. And that ideology, in this case, was racism. In the case of communism, it's communism, but there's always an ideology that drives the mass murder. But racism is a particular form of abomination.    But, you know, most popular culture, I think doesn't know as much about the horrors of communism because intellectuals don't teach it.  All right, let's see. Dave says, do New Yorkers remind you of Israelis? Yeah, a little bit. You know, New York is an introduction to going to Israel, so you get a little flavor, but Israel is New York on steroids. So it's more obnoxious, it's rude, it's faster, it's tougher. Michael asks, was altruism designed to fuel evil? Without altruistic energy, I don't see how evil leaders can achieve and sustain power. I don't see it as good intentions, bad results. I think it was nefarious intent from its outset. But I think, yes, I think altruism was primarily an ideology for control. If you make people believe that their moral purpose is to live for other people, then you can control them more because the other people have moral claim against them, and therefore they're easier to manipulate, easier to control. So it is an issue of power. I don't think it was that people said, oh, it's fuel evil in the sense of fuel power over other people. It's also true that the whole idea of egoism, the whole idea of self-interest is an achievement. It's only the cultures like Greece and the Enlightenment and Iron Man that came up with anything close to it. So it is truly an achievement to have an ideology that is focused on self-interest. And almost maybe because of our tribal origins, almost all of morality before the Greeks and after the Greeks has been, in one way or another, altruistic in a sense of placing the wellbeing of the group above the wellbeing of individual and demanding the individual sacrifice for the group or for some other cause. All right, let's see. Shaley, why do so many economists have issues with Austrian economics? Are there legitimate issues in the way they approach economics? Tricky question. I mean, I think most economists have issue with Austrian economics because they disagree with its premises. They disagree with the way, with its methodology. And they disagree with the conclusions. Austrian economics is overwhelmingly free market economics and most economists start with a bias against free markets. But it's also true that economics has become, over the last 100 years, mathematical. And one of the things that Austrian economics argues against is mathematical economics. And many of today's economists dismiss Austrian economics because it's not mathematical. They only count mathematics. Mathematical economics is economics. So what is economics? It's shrunk over time in the mainstream to become dominated by mathematics, modeling on the one side and empiricism on the other side. Colleen asks, what are people referring to when they suggest Ukraine is lying? I don't follow this close enough to understand any mildly reasonable defense of Russia's action. Oh, what they're saying is that Ukraine is making stuff up about, for example, the bombing of civilians. They claim that Ukraine was making stuff up when it said it was destroying all those Russian tanks. Funny that the Russians retreated. Maybe they retreated out of the goodness of their heart. Maybe that was the plan all along was to retreat. It was never to occupy Kiev. That's what they'll tell you, of course.  The Russians were justified in attacking Ukraine.  I think that's pretty much it. I think I captured the essence of the point of view that Russia are the good guys and Ukraine are the bad guys. Or he asks, can you current any books on business strategy? Not really. I mean, I suggest that the best books on business strategy are probably written by former businessman, so I would read the books by successful businessman of the past, but I don't have any specific, oh, Rom, there was one guy, let me see if I can easily find the book. I think Rom Schwung, something like that. Yeah, I don't think I kept that book, but no, I don't, and I don't necessarily have any particular expertise in being able to tell you who to read on the business strategy side. Sorry, Ori. Corey says a perfection to mystical, is perfection to mystical concept. I myself use it colloquially, but philosophically, can this be a dangerous concept? I myself would prefer the term flawless. No, perfection is, because perfection is not some otherworldly, world of forms creation. Perfection is the best possible, the best possible to a particular individual, the best possible within a particular context. Perfection comes into relevance in objectivism where pride is the pursuit of perfection, moral perfection. One can pursue moral perfection and one can be morally perfect. That means one is rational. That's what it means to be morally perfect. So no, I don't think it is. I think it is very doable, very realistic concept, very this worldly concept. If you understand it as such, if you don't try, and flawless is more mystical, because flawless means no flaws, no flaws in what context. You get the same issue. What is a flaw? So I like the word perfection and I like moral perfection as the terminology for pride. All right, we're at $895. $105 would get us to 1,000, which was a new goal for the beginning of the month. We're gonna try to get to a few months where we get to 1,000 so that we can kind of get back into the groove of things in terms of super chat funding of the Iran book show. We're a little behind for the month. We're a little behind, we were behind for March and we're definitely behind for April. So if we can get to 1,000 today, that will help us reduce that lag. So somebody can come in and do $100.  All right, John Wayne says, do you think Russia has ever changed philosophically since the collapse of the USSR? What about Germany? Berliners in majority voted to seize non-binary housing rental September of last year. Do you think Russia's changed philosophically since? I don't think Russia's changed philosophically since the Czars. I don't think Soviet Union was that big of a change. They changed from one type of authoritarianism, one type of mysticism, one type of pessimism to another, one type of suffering to another, one type of sacrifice to another. So I'm not, I don't think that Russia has really changed philosophically in a few hundred years. So Soviet Union, the Communist Soviet Union was not that different, maybe more motorist, but not that different than the Czars before the Soviet Union and today's Putin's Russia is not that different. I mean, it's freer than the Czars, Russia or the USSR, but in essential darkness, malevolence and authoritarianism, not that much different. What about Germany? Yeah, Germany's changed. There's no question Germany's changed. The fact that they seized the market in Germany is not free. The fact that they are controlling rents and controlling housing, housing rentals and all of that, I mean, in America, we foes, I mean, Trump. You remember this? Trump foes all rents. There was the Trump administration doing COVID. So I don't think that's enough to condemn the Germans to fascism or to authoritarianism yet. Colleen gave us $99.99, basically put us over the $1,000 mark. Thank you, Colleen. Really, really appreciate it. Thank you, Michael. Michael says, well, Canada become authoritarian. I think Canada will come as a little bit more authoritarian than the United States and seems to constantly stay a little ahead of the United States in the March to Authoritarians. Theme Master says, I do actually have 100. Thanks for your shows. Wow, thank you, Theme Master. That puts us at 1,100, even better. So that's fantastic. Thanks, guys. We've made our goal for the day. I think I've covered all the $20 questions. So look, the essential is that the philosophy of mysticism, the philosophy of authoritarianism, the philosophy of altruism still dominates, still dominates the world, still dominates the United States, still dominates Europe. And while it does, we might have ups and downs of relatively more free, relatively less free movements, slow movements towards authoritarianism, and maybe some periods of brutal authoritarianism, as long as those philosophies control, the philosophy of altruism, the philosophy of collectivism, the philosophy of authoritarianism, of a mixed economy, then we will continue to have this rollercoaster ride politically. So it's not like Russia has changed philosophically. It's not like Germany has changed philosophically dramatically. They're less authoritarian, but they're not dramatically different. The real scary thing is not Europe. The real scary thing is how much more similar the United States has become to that European philosophy than it was in the past. Michael asks, I think Putin's a lot more suicidal than you do. People under their much stress and paranoia would employ nuclear weapons if he thought his regime were crumbling, would Hitler have used nukes if he had the option? I think Hitler would. I think Putin might, I think the people around Putin won't let him. I don't think they're suicidal, even if he is. And even around Hitler, I think they would have tried to stop him, whether they would have been successful or not, I don't know. All right, James G., are the kids' books or TV shows for objectivism? No, but it's not clear what those would look like. What you want for kids is things that portray reality as it is, things that are heroic. Dave Goodman says, if you predict the exact month you get 35,000 subscribers, I will donate 500 bucks. Okay, there's nothing to lose here, 35,000. I predict I will be at 35,000 in June. Yeah, in June, we're April now, so I've got April and May to get to June. So June is 35,000 subscriber month. If we make it early, I lose Dave's $500, but I gain 35,000 a month earlier. So what you want with kids is just good stuff. Good stuff that's particularly, the younger they are, the more concrete-bounded what you want to make it, the older they get, the more heroic, the more romantic you want to get them. You want to get romantic literature, which is heroic. I worry about objectivist-themed books. I worry about the quality. What happened at private universities? It appears the government is entangled in each university in America and all the countries are the same. Yes, there is no such thing as a private university. There are two who don't receive any government money, Hillsdale and maybe one other one, Hillsdale in Michigan, but basically the government, through student loans and through research grants and through everything else, basically dominates and controls a higher education completely. Michael says, the way conservatives trigger liberals, objectivists should trigger conservatives. We're trying. Liam Miller says, you are one of the best general thinker alive today. Thank you, Liam. I appreciate that. Michael said, I've spoken to some very wealthy people and they tell me $10 million isn't really FU money. They said once you get 10 million, it's like being the tallest short guy in the room. Who cares? Who cares about two things in your statement? One, who cares what wealthy people think? I don't. About my FU number. And who cares if you're the shortest guy in the room, the tallest short guy in the room? Who cares? Wealth is not an issue of comparison with other people. My FU number is a simple number. I'm pretty happy with how much money I spend every year. I don't need to spend more. My life doesn't need for me to spend a lot more. I wanna have that money available to me whether I earn a living or not. $10 million of money in the bank would result in that. So that's all I care about. I mean, the idea that somebody else can tell you what your FU number is is ridiculous. For some people, the FU number might be a million dollars. Nobody else can decide that for you. Absolutely nobody. Because it depends on what you are trying to achieve. What FU means to you? So it's all a question of, you know, if you want a private jet, $10 million is not enough. You want a big yacht, $10 million is not enough. If you spend a million bucks a year, $10 million is probably not enough. I don't want any of those things. I don't want to spend a million a year. It's completely 100% personal. Michael says, I had a professor tell us people who don't want to pay taxes aren't their social housing because they're very sick. People who don't want to pay taxes are people who don't want their money used for purposes that they don't want it used for. James, he says, why is Russia not using more air and naval strikes? Because they're, I don't know why they're not using more Navy strikes, but the air is, because the airplanes are not very good. They get shot down by ground to air missiles. They don't have the kind of electronic capabilities that the Israeli military has. They've got ground to air missiles away from them. They're sitting ducks in those planes. The Ukrainians are shot down a stunningly large number of Russian airplanes.  I think that's a technical. Michael says, you said your parents never wanted you to stand out and not be too smart. Why was that? Because, well, they're egalitarians. They were egalitarians at least, I don't know about today. There's certainly a egalitarian streak. Don't want to be different. Don't want to be better. Don't want to stand out. You want to be everything the same. That's egalitarianism. Rachel asks, do you have plans to watch Pachinko? It is very similar to Mr. Sunshine. It's not fully out yet, but the last episode, latest episode was incredible. Highly recommend it. Who made it? You know, where can you watch it? Pachinko, I'll look it up. I never heard of Pachinko. Oh, we've got a $20 question. One second. Oh, great Jewish banker. Can I have some money in order to establish a neo-Nazi regime so that that way I can own the national conservatives? In all seriousness, I appreciate you dunking on these conspiracy cranks. My pleasure, anytime. All right, let's see. Liam says, I'm seriously missing your four day a week regular show schedule. Don't do this to us again. Sorry, but until the end of May, it's gonna be iffy. It's gonna be iffy. So I appreciate you guys support and I appreciate you guys liking the four days a week and I will try to do as many of those shows as I possibly can. Hopper Campbell, does feeling empathy for less fortunate somehow take away from pursuit of your rational self-interest? No, I mean, it depends on why they are less fortunate.  But it's absolutely fine to feel bad about the fact that some people have rotten luck or that the system has screwed them or that they happen to be bored in circumstances where they cannot be successful. So I don't think that's bad at all. I mean, its empathy is not destructive to you unless you let it dominate, unless you let it overwhelm you, unless it let it guide your actions. Landon says, it seems like more people against Russia here than they were against the Soviet Union through much of the 1900s. Is that not an improvement? Yeah, I think it is. I think it is, but remember, part of that is because that Putin is considered an authoritarian of the right and therefore the left is against him. If he was an authoritarian of the left, would they rally against him like they have now? Right? I doubt it. Remember, the left is a more high ground. So authoritarianism of the left is always viewed with sympathy. Look at Venezuela even. Normative Randroid, would you recommend Treasury bonds or municipal bonds as good investments currently? I can't make investment recommendations, I'm sorry. But I would say any bonds are tricky right now because unless you have a real grasp on where inflation is heading, is it heading up, is it heading down, are the long-term rates going up, are the long-term rates going down? I think long-term rates are gonna go up and I think bonds are gonna be, you're gonna lose money in bonds, right? If you think inflation is here for a while and it might increase, then inflation adjusted bonds are the right way to go. But if you don't think, if you think the Fed is gonna overreact inflation and therefore you're gonna have a recession and a collapse of inflation, then maybe long-term bonds are the right way to go. Municipal bonds are good if you're in a high tax bracket because they're interested in tax deductible. Or you don't pay taxes on the interest income. Stephen Lamb is 10 million enough to own an Aston Martin if not better bump it up. Yeah, I think it is enough if you want to own an Aston Martin. I think 10 million is enough to own it. Michael Sanders, can you become a billionaire if you have an IQ under 150? Yeah, I'm sure you can. I don't know the stats, but I know that Nasim Taleb has mentioned some regression analysis that shows that there's not a strong correlation between IQ and wealth. That is IQ does not predict wealth. That you can become very, very wealthy even though you have a low IQ and you can be quite poor even though you have a high IQ. So I don't think that IQ, qua IQ, there's a lot of other aspects, the intelligence that might be more relevant to become a billionaire than what the IQ test measures. Free trade says good to have you back on the air you're on if the US leaves NATO, presumably Europe will increase military spending significantly including a lot more nuclear weapons thoughts are good. I'm good for that. I don't know how much military spending they will increase. I'll increase some, I don't think they'll increase a huge amount, but there's absolutely no reason the US should be in Europe. There's absolutely no reason the US should be part of NATO. The US should be maybe aligned with Canada because we're in the same geographic area and share the same threats, but I don't see that we need to be aligned ourselves with Europe, Europe gaining nuclear weapons. It already has them France and Britain has them. I think other European countries might or might not adopt nuclear weapons. I don't think it matters that much. Cobb, any movie, TV, or novel you consumed recently that you liked? God, my memory is blanking out. I mean, I've been watching the Viking, the various Vikings TV shows. Very bloody, lots of battles, but I fast forward through the battles. I like the stories Viking Valhalla, which is one on Netflix, which is a sequel to the Viking series that used to be on. And then there's another one that just ended, the whole, like the fifth season and the whole series has ended, whose name I forgot. I haven't watched anything. I am watching right now, the series said, All right, I'm gonna keep this question and I'm gonna get back to you next time because Jetlag has made my mind mush in terms of remembering these names and I'll write them right down a few recommendations that I have for next show Cobb. I apologize, but I'm just too out of it. All right, I will see you all Thursday, definitely Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. There'll be shows Thursday, Saturday, Sunday. I might try to squeeze in a Wednesday or Friday show just to make up for the fact that we haven't done many shows this month and the fact that next week is gonna be problematic, but you can expect for certain Thursday, Saturday, Sunday. Oh, and before I leave, we are having a front row event, front row events or small events, maximum 14 people. The next one will be on Saturday, April 9th at around, I think it's two o'clock Eastern time. It's gonna be about self-esteem. So it's basically me doing a presentation and in an intimate setting, only 14 of us. Well, maybe it's more than 14. Yeah, it's 14, and you guys asking questions. It's $100 a person. So it's great for those of you who put a lot of money into the super chat because this is an opportunity. We'll all be on Zoom. It's not public. You can ask me about anything. We can have a conversation. It's much more seminar-like and it's a lot of fun and it's all about self-esteem. You can sign up. The link is on the chat. It's pinned on the chat at the top. It's a webinar registration and you can pay there and self-esteem. Hey, it's a great topic. So I think we've got eight slots available. I think six people are signed up. We've got eight more slots, 100 bucks each. Join us this Saturday. Don't forget to like the show before you leave. 97 likes were 160 people on live earlier. So don't forget to like the show before you leave. It helps with algorithms. And if you wanna support the show on a monthly basis, which is my preferred way of supporting the show, then go to uranbookshow.com slash support, Patreon, subscribe star, or even locals and support the Iran Book Show. Thanks guys. I will see you Thursday.


Ten-year-olds Mark and Peter were camping out in their yard with just sleeping bags when it started to rain. They moved over to the shelter of Mr. Hopkins' house trailer that was propped up on one side to make it level. They had made a little fire to cook their breakfast when Mr. Hopkins came out, searching for the source of the smoke he smelled. Have these youngsters committed the crime of attempted arson? We recognize two classes of property and law, real and personal. Real property addresses land and appurtences or improvements to the land such as buildings or trees. Personal property addresses everything else where there is a property right and ownership of something that has value. There are borderline properties that can be seen as either depending upon the law. This would include a house trailer. It might be fixed in place or it might be purposed in support of having a traveling home, not really a fixture on the land. Other property is not just in things. A man has property rights in the wages that he earns, in patents granted for as inventions and even in personal reputation among others. Crimes against property are generally actions that destroy the property or deny the rights of ownership of others. Are those offenses to property which interfere with a person's quiet and peaceful enjoyment of what they own or that interfere with a government's interest in property? The basis for property crimes is often found in assaults, in threats to the property of other people. Arson, for example, addresses the intentional and open burning. It puts lives of firemen in danger and containment may be necessary to keep the fire from spreading. Other crimes are offenses against the peace, as in someone breaking and entering a home. Property law can be very complicated due to the amount of regulation being applied through legislative and judicial actions. Government leaders have harvested the ownership of property as a source of government income. Real property is taxed to fund public schools, assure public services, and maintain public land and buildings. The complications include a public interest in the real property. Damage to property is also damage to the public tax base. Misuse of property can be a threat to the health and welfare of citizens. We therefore have some recognized property crimes that are in place to protect people from known hazards. Most such criminal assaults on property deal with the ownership and possession of land rather than the land itself. The worst of crimes against property involves destruction of the property, or at least destruction to the point where it has reduced value to its owner. In development of common law, the primary property crime was arson, the use of fire to destroy property. Originally, arson only applied to someone's home, and the crime was for someone else to set it on fire, or at least to try to do so. Burning down someone's place of business was not arson, nor was setting fire to a field acreage destroying the crops. It was not arson that someone burned down his own home, as common law considered it to be his property and his to dispose of. This crime has been greatly expanded in U.S. law to address almost any burning of real property. It also includes someone burning his own property for a criminal purpose, as in trying to collect on fire insurance policies. It has also been applied to the burning of specific high-valued personal property, as in setting a fire to an automobile. Arson is now just the most aggravated form of the crime of willful destruction of property. It is a public threat, as large fires are difficult to contain, and a threat to both the peace and enjoyment of others' property and the lives and health of firemen or neighbors who work to distinguish and contain the burning. There is an intent requirement for all such acts to be considered crimes. The person who intentionally makes a deep scratch on someone else's car is engaged in causing willful damage. It is a crime to treat someone else's property in this way, taking value from the owner. Theft. The crime of theft is also a crime of intent. It addresses an act to effectively deny the owner or possessor of property or other benefits of ownership or possession. It often involves removal of property from a place where the owner or possessor has placed it, so that it is no longer available to the owner or possessor. It is not the intent to own or control someone else's property, that is, the public offense, but the intent to interrupt the ownership or possession of another citizen. The crime is in the threat to the public, rather than the damage suffered by a specific victim. We shall address personal wrongs when we study tort law. In terms of the U.S. Constitution, it keys back to a person being secure in his or her possessions. The Constitution, being focused on what government does, simply denies government any authority to commit theft from citizens through issuance of a warrant. Even where land is taken for a public purpose, there is a requirement to provide just compensation for what is taken. Possessor rights are recognized in the supreme law of the land, even as it is in the common law. Theft can also address intellectual property or financial interests that have no physical being beyond a piece of paper attesting to ownership. Interruption of these is a form of theft. Most other crimes involve unlawful or forced change in possession of the property or stealing away its value. Some of the more disruptive interferences have been given their own name as crimes. For example, robbery is a form of theft that involves criminal assault. The theft, being a lesser crime, is not addressed as a basis for prosecution. Conversion is another example of theft, but one that is not a public threat to other persons so much as a violation of trust. If the criminal is rightfully given charge over someone else's property and intentionally takes action beyond the reason for their legal possession, they are guilty of conversion. The crime of conversion is punished more as a violation of trust than a violation of the property, though both elements are part of the same conversion action. For conversion, the criminal must have been in legal possession of someone else's property and owe some duty to the real owner. If they take action to use that property for their own purposes or to gain from its use without compensation to the real owner, they have engaged in conversion. The person who borrows a friend's car to drive to work and back, but takes it on a trip as part of his vacation, would have converted the car. The patron who borrows a book from the library and then burns it to keep warm would have converted the book. A person who leases an apartment but removes the furniture that belonged to the landlord when the lease is up would have converted the furniture. The crime of conversion is not commonly prosecuted as it is simpler and more effective to seek justice on such matters under tort law, where the one whose ownership is abused gains personal restitution. Even more serious cases of conversion commonly involve other crimes that are punished more intensively than conversion. An example would be treating the conversion of someone's vehicle as vehicular theft or setting a leased building on fire would be handled as arson. Fraud. In general, fraud is taking someone's property through trickery, through lies or misrepresentations with intent of depriving that person of ownership or possession. It addresses intentionally unfair dealings. As with other crimes, intent to commit the crime through trickery is an essential for the crime. The person who sprinkles flakes of gold on a property he sells to another in order to falsely inflate its value has engaged in fraud. The person who was defrauded sells that same property to a third person to make a profit from having gold found on the property would not be engaged in fraud as he had no intent on tricking the buyer. The one who publishes a number of articles locally indicating a government interest in building a road through his property so that he ups the price in selling lots would be committing fraud. For personal property it might be a used car dealer who manages to stern back the odometer on a car misrepresenting the amount of use it has had by past owners and accordingly the wear of parts and future life of the vehicle. The huckstool sells his medicine and beauty products to the public without any real basis for their effectiveness would be engaged in fraud knowingly misleading the public with claims that he had no reason to believe were true. Again, fraud usually goes unprosecuted due to the fraud having also involved committing more serious crimes as defined through legislation. There are also special crimes within the general definition of fraud as in an employee doctoring a time card to indicate he was working overtime when he did not. The crime is gaining by false tokens and addressing a fraud accomplished through delivering false evidence as a way to gain value at the expense of others. Forgery is a special crime within fraud dealing with creating a fake property or personal record. If a painting is created to imitate one of greater value and then sold as the original it is a case of forgery. Again, the forgery is a crime of intent. The one who imitates a valuable statue and sells it as a copy is not guilty of forgery. The one who buys the imitation and then resells it as the original is engaged in the crime of forgery. Forgery has been largely limited to false documents that have legal effect. Forgery often includes producing a false signature and presenting it as a basis for the authenticity of the document. Forgery also includes altering otherwise legitimate documents to increase the value of the document to others or otherwise gain advantage over others through trickery. Forgery is always a fraudulent crime. The final property crime is trespass. Entering upon the property of another with the most aggravated trespass being breaking and entering. Breaking and entering is a crime of breaching and intentional security applied to the property to address entering the property such as a home which has been intentionally restricted as to access. Defeating the action of the owner and securing his or her property is breaking and entering. If there has been no special precaution or possessory protection then entering upon that property is just trespass. Without the effort to secure the property the entry of someone on it without permission is a tort rather than a crime. A personal wrong instead of a public wrong. For the crime of trespass there must normally be damage to the property or a positive action to defeat the owner's attempt at security. If a farmer posts signs on his woodlot forbidding entry by strangers then he has taken acts to secure his property and any entry by someone who can see and understand the sign is criminal trespass. If a farmer also puts a fence around the woodlot then he has set a barrier in place and climbing over that fence is breaking and entering. A no trespassing sign is sufficient security for all but children who cannot read and understand the limitation. The trespasser becomes responsible for any and all damages that occur due to his uninvited entry. Climbing over a fence is breaking and entering. Pushing open a partly open door to a house with intent to enter is breaking and entering. A criminal offense against the owner's peaceful enjoyment of that property. The one major limitation is that the owner or possessor cannot set a trap for those who trespass without taking some level of personal responsibility for any who might suffer personal damage from activating the trap. In summation crimes against the property are considered far less threatening to we the people or the government than crimes against the person. Lesser violations often go unpunished as crimes as there is restitution through tort law where the victim of the property crime is satisfied to the point that they do not pursue the act through prosecution. The courts generally support such accommodations as achieving less disturbance of the peace than would be accomplished through prosecuting the action as a crime. This also discourages the use of criminal law as a tool of retribution. The cost and time and effort to pursue and act as a crime is an intentional barrier to its use to harm someone else. Still, there are property based crimes to be pursued and they are available to those who cannot get satisfaction through demanding the behavior of others through the other means.