This is Jeff Deist, and you're listening to the Human Action Podcast. All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back once again to the Human Action Podcast. This week we are actually live video with our great friend, Professor Walter Block. If you've been following along, reading along, we have worked our way through Manneconomy and State, Murray Rothbard's Magnum Opus, and we have worked through several chapters on production, and we have now finally arrived at Chapter 10 to wit Murray Rothbard devotes an entire lengthy chapter, pages 629 to 754, to monopoly and competition. And there's a lot going on in this chapter, Dr. Block. It's a seminal chapter. It changed the landscape for monopoly theory and price theory. He went up against his mentor Mises, in a sense, in this chapter, so I just want to take some time and discuss it at length. And through the magic of Zoom, you're going to draw some diagrams today, even maybe.  I'm hanging in there. I'm getting more work done than ordinarily, because for the first six weeks I was sort of self-confined. Nothing to do but write. And now I've been getting out a little bit, but still I've been doing more writing and reading than otherwise. So I'm a happy camper. Well, not fully happy. Who could be happy with this situation? One with the COVID and the other with the crazy government. But personally, in terms of production, I'm okay. Well, let's start with a little background. First of all, the history and the setting. Murray's writing this in the 1950s. So what was, very briefly, what was sort of the state of the neoclassical view of monopoly and what was the Misesian view of monopoly when Murray's writing this? Both were not good. The state of the neoclassical Friedmanite Chicago view was that the monopoly is part of the market. And it's a market failure. And the government has got to get in there and fix it up and it can do so in three ways. One is by regulating because the monopolist is charging too much and producing too little. And therefore the government should get the monopolist to produce more and charge a lower price. The second possibility, the second possibility is to nationalize it. You know, the government just takes over because it's a market failure and government is here to help us. You know, I'm from the government. I'm here to help you. And that's the way they're going to help them. And so that was very bad. Then Mises was much better than the neoclassical. He only said that there could be a monopoly and natural resources. And I remember, you know, I used to hang around with Murray in his living room. And I remember he was telling a bunch of us. I forget who was in the room. Maybe Joe Solano and I don't know, Leonard Ligio and Joe. I forget all the people. But he said that the first time that he publicly criticized Mises, he was very, I wouldn't say scared, but maybe upset or unhappy. And I mean, he looked at Mises as a God, and that's roughly the way you and I, if I can speak for you, look at Murray. And, you know, to criticize God, I hope I'm not being irreligious here. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but to criticize somebody that you revere is rough. And Murray said that one of the first times that he ever criticized Mises was on this issue. So that's sort of a little bit of a background on this issue that Murray made, how shall I say it, veered off the Misesian path and certainly veered off the mainstream path. And I forgot the third way that the government says is we should have antitrust and break them up. So it's either nationalize, regulate or break them up into 72,000 little companies. And that would be the, I forgot the third way that the neoclassicist would say deal with monopoly. But Murray certainly rejected the mainstream view, the neoclassical view as did Mises. And he also rejected the Misesian view, which had a very limited scope for monopoly on natural resources and stuff like that. So this is a big, big breakthrough is very, very important. A lot of a lot of this stuff doesn't have immediate effects, but this has got big effects on antitrust. And then Murray did all sorts of good research, historical research, and he would say, well, you know, it was the Rockefellers and the Morgans. And when the Rockefeller president was in what they did is they used antitrust on the Morgan companies. And then when the Morgan president was in, they used antitrust on the Rockefeller companies. And you had all sorts of chicanery and politics. And, you know, the most recent one is, what was it, the Bill Gates out in the Booneys in Seattle. And he wasn't paying off anyone. I mean, he was just, you know, creating stuff and they started antitrust on him. You know, how else are they going to get him? You know, they can't tax him more than anyone else because that would be invidious and discriminatory.  And then Bill Gates started paying off the boys in Washington. And all of a sudden, there was no, no antitrust. And then IBM, IBM, when it started, it was the only producer and mono poly monopoly means single seller in Latin or Greek or whatever it is. And they had 20 year case against IBM. Meanwhile, Bill Gates is starting and you know, everybody else is starting and they're still bugging IBM poor IBM. So this is, I'm not saying that other things in Austrian economics and other things that Murray's done don't have real world implications, certainly gold and business cycles and a lot of stuff do. But like some of the previous chapters that you talked about in many economy state aren't as political as this one. This one is way more political than many of the other chapters on, you know, what's wrong with the difference curves or how do you do cost and stuff like that. So, interestingly, Rothbard takes issue with the term consumer sovereignty, which means is used, and which have been popularized by Hut. Murray thought it was a, it was a political term, not an economics terms to talk about that. Yes, Murray was excellent on that. You know, what he said was individual sovereignty what's with this consumer who's so great about the consumer. It's almost Keynesian the focus on the consumer. Individual sovereignty, we should all be sovereign, we should be sovereign. Yes, yes, he's not against consumer sovereignty. But how about producer sovereignty, why shouldn't producers be sovereign also where we're all, you know, human beings and human beings have rights and we should all be sovereign and, you know, I sometimes like to link this up with his anarchy thing and for Murray what's the ideal number of countries. Seven and a half billion. We should we should each have one. So it's sort of a strange thing for an anarchist say that he's in favorite countries but yes, he's in favor of many, many countries we should each have one. And if you ask a girl for a date you just can't ask her for a date you have to go through your foreign minister to talk to her foreign minister. I'm just being silly here but the point that Murray was making I think absolutely correctly was that why only consumer sovereignty so he wasn't against consumer sovereignty but he wanted to have producer sovereignty also and and anyone else sovereignty and you know violinist sovereignty or basketball player sovereignty or everybody should be sovereign subject to archie unjustified rule. So yes, this is another big breakthrough where that Murray made and in contravention hot and and other people who were you know pretty good hot was very good Austrian economists but you know we all have none of us is perfect. We all put our pants on one leg of it's on and all and I'm not trying to diminish hot and it wasn't just hot and this was a concept in all of the economics and Murray was foremost in obliterating. So Walter Rothbard starts with sort of the three definitions or the three identifications of monopoly one of which is where there's a single seller. Of course that's what we think of as a monopoly. He also goes into when there's a state privilege which we'll get into later in terms of patent and copyright for example, regulation and then, but the third kind which is maybe most interesting for our discussion today is when somehow a business unit achieves a monopoly price on its own so talk about definitionally as Austrians how should we be thinking about this. Yeah, well I think Murray again is making a very important point. First of all the single seller I'm a single seller of Walter block services you're a single seller of Jeff dice services we're all single sellers of unique we're all unique we're all different. And that sense of monopoly is almost silly, because you know, we're all monopoly, they say, we're all monopolist now in the single seller sense. The very important sense is this government privilege. That's the way monopoly started in England, you know the Duke of London fights the good battle against the King of France or something and now he's awarded the candle monopoly. He's got the candle monopoly say just in London, doesn't mean you can't make candles in London but you have to go to him for permission, and he'll say okay sure you can make candles but you have to pay me you know half of this or whatever. And if you try to make candles without the Duke's monopolist permission, well you know, you go to jail or you get punished. One of my favorite parts of the movie Gandhi was when they were all marching up to the ocean to try to get water to the boat and then the police were bopping them over the head. What was that all about. What was that all about is that the English government, the British government gave monopoly privileges to somebody. And Gandhi didn't much like that and Gandhi was trying to demonstrate this is unfair. Well, that is a very very sensible understanding of monopoly. And even the neoclassicals would include that as monopoly. This is just a grant of government privilege and it's certainly incompatible with freedom and with free enterprise. And there's no question about that and you have modern cases of that for example, a taxi cab in Dalyan. If you try to drive a cab in New York City and you don't have a medallion they'll arrest you.  And now with Uber, they won't allow Uber to work in some places. Well, that gives the taxi cab people a monopoly or Airbnb the hotels don't much like Airbnb. So they're trying to get a monopoly there. And monopoly events sort is right throughout the economy. Young black girls want to do hair braiding.  So monopoly is rife throughout the economy, and certainly all libertarians would oppose monopoly on that ground now there were some libertarians who are not Austrians, and they would, they would have a problem with the third point, namely achieving monopoly price. And now, in order to illustrate that I'd like to use the blackboard or the whiteboard here. And all you're saying there is how do you know what the monopoly price is. The whole thing is ridiculous. So I'm first going to do a very simple monopoly diagram and this is called a corno oasis water water oasis. And here's the quantity of water. And here is the price. And here is the demand curve for water. And here is the marginal revenue curve for water which has got twice the slope if I can draw this accurately. And this is the marginal revenue curve my handwriting is a little problematic but doing the best I can. This axis over here is really not only the quantity of water but it's also marginal cost and average cost. Because the situation here is you own the oasis, and I come along with a pot and I, it costs you nothing. And we assume away all the costs of collection, just to make it simple. And finally, I'm honest and I'll pay you whatever the price is a gallon of water is two bucks, I'll put the two bucks in your, in your collection bin, and I'll take the water and I won't take more water, I will cheat and I'll give you the money. So it costs you nothing. So what would be the perfect competitive place the perfect competitive place would be right here. And this would be the quantity of competition. So how much the competitive industry would charge for water zero, because in perfect competition there are no profits. And when there were no profits. And there is no cost while the price has to be zero. So that's the quantity of the competition. That's supposed to be a C right there. And here is the price of the competition, namely zero and all is all as well. And the mainstream point of view. Now, how, how do you figure out what the monopolist charges well the monopolist charges where marginal cost equals marginal revenue. That's how he figures out the the quantity and we're marginal cost and marginal revenue meet right there. And then we move up to the demand curve because we decided how much we want to produce and this is the end point. And this is the quantity of the monopolist. And this is the price that the monopolist charges. And this is mainstream straightforward stuff. I mean, some neoclassical economists were looking at this he would say yeah you know that's that's right maybe the handwriting isn't as good as it should be but that's right. And the indictment here is four fold. The first part of the indictment is that the price of the monopolist is higher than the price of the competitor. And here's when Murray comes in and he says well you know how do you know all you know is that there's a sky say IBM or Bill Gates or somebody they're charging a price how do you know it's a monopoly price. And then they go into the elasticity of demand curve and all sorts of complications but the key element the key element, the first indictment is the price is too high. The second indictment of monopoly is that the quantity of the monopolist is less than the quantity of the competitor. And somehow we should have more quantity. Don't ask me why why more quantity better than less quantity. I mean if you have more quantity of violins you have to have less quantity of shoes. And we don't want more quantity of any one thing what we want is the proper allocation of shoes and violins or whatever items or water and something else. And that's the second indictment the third indictment is that the profit of the competitor. Profit of the competitor equals zero. And the profit of the monopolist. The profit. We usually use pie as an indication is greater than zero. And we can and somehow profits are evil. You know, give me a break. Well, where are the profits? Well, the profits are this box. This box is the profits. Then I'm shading in and somehow profits are evil and the monopolist shouldn't have profits and this is interesting for the libertarian point of view you know what's wrong with profits. We make profits every time we engage in an economic activity. I bought this shirt for 10 bucks, and I value it at more otherwise I wouldn't have bought it. Let's say I value it at 11 I made a dollar profit off of it. And the guy who sold it to me value it at $2 because he had tons of them and he's trying to get rid of them and he sold it to me for 10. He made a profit of $8. We each exploited the other. We each made a profit off each other. Okay, and then the fourth and for the neoclassical the most powerful on indictment is a thing called dead weight loss, and I'm not going to spell that out because it would take me forever dead weight loss, dead weight loss. The idea and this triangle here is dead weight loss. Right. Dead weight loss. The idea is that we value this extra water the area under the demand curve. It costs us nothing. And yet it's not being produced.  And, you know, Murray is saying that the whole thing is nonsense. And let me explain why the whole thing is nonsense. And maybe in a more deep way forget about water. Suppose this is Mike Tyson, and this is number of fights that he does per year. And Mike Tyson only wants to fight 10 fights per year. That's roughly what he fought. And somehow the antitrust people want Mike Tyson to charge to charge to play to fight 20 times a year, because they've drawn these diagrams and they know better than Mike and I mean this is obviously ludicrous, because you know, you get the problem of ICU. I would now have grandchildren very young grandchildren and I would go peekaboo I see you but I see you here is very different. I see you means here interpersonal comparison utility. What you're really comparing is Mike Tyson's. Look, every time Mike Tyson fought, it's truly one but he got bopped in the head and you know punched and he doesn't want to fight 20 times a year. He only wants to fight 10 and the antitrust people are saying no no Mike you got to go fight 20. Otherwise will what nationalize you or, or regulate you or break you up in a little pieces well that wouldn't work but they could regulate I mean if they adopted the policy of antitrust, and they applied it to Mike Tyson or, or a singer or, you know, any more or you Jeff I mean you give 10 lectures a month, and we want you to give 20 lectures a month, and you said but my throat will go and my voice will go and we say that how would you you don't know your throat and we know better. That's roughly what's going on here. And the key is that if, if this monopolist is sold the the new average cost curve will be up here, and people will still misallocate resources in other words even if the monopoly is sold now, there'll be no profit. Because let's say it sold at a price that reflects the present discounted value of the monopoly profits, there'll be no profit, but still prices will be too high quantity to low and there'll be a dead weight loss. So even if the monopolist is sold and you get rid of this one, but you have the other three indictments. This is sort of a geographic geographical graphical depiction of it. A more fancy way of doing this would be, wait, I want to erase everything. Clear all drawings and now this would be a more sophisticated version. Maybe before I do the more sophisticated version that you would see in the intermediate textbooks, maybe I'll take a break and let you have a turn. Well, I just want to go back very briefly to your Mike Tyson example and Mike Tyson is a very specific good. There's not a lot of Mike Tyson's out there. And in your example of let's say an oasis or a water cellar. I just wonder how conceptually, because I know what critics are going to say, conceptually, how should we think about this in terms of spatial orientation? In other words, if you go to a small town, let's say there's one Dairy Queen and let's say eating out is very, very different from buying groceries and cooking it yourself. Let's say those are two very different goods. And so the Dairy Queen is the only restaurant and spatially it takes a long time to drive to the next town. You're in a rural part of America. I just wanted to understand how you and Rothbard would think about this spatial orientation. Well, it's not only the spatial it's also how do you define it. For example, if you define the key is concentration ratio. A monopoly has 100% of the industry.  Is the industry dried breakfast cereals? Well, if the industry is dry breakfast cereals, you're going to have a high concentration rate and the plaintiff is going to say, yes, it's dry breakfast cereals. And therefore we should have and I trust whether it's the plaintiff, a private plaintiff who's trying to complain about Kellogg's or the government, they're going to have the industry very narrow. The defense is going to say, no, no, no, the industry really isn't just dry breakfast cereals. It's also cooked breakfast cereals and not only cooked breakfast cereals, but all food. And if the industry is all food, well, then the concentration ratio is very low. Well, what's right? Is it should it be breakfast cereals dry, wet breakfast cereals, all breakfast stuff, all food, it's arbitrary and capricious and it's the same thing with the point you're making geographically. Namely, it's the same thing whether it's geographic or industry definition. Namely, well, how far do you have to go. If there's a Dairy Queen 30 miles away, is that a monopolist? How about 25 miles away? How about 10 miles away? How about five miles away? How about across the street? You know, where do you draw the line? And this is important stuff because people can go to jail for this. People can be fine for this. People can lose their livings. And from an intellectual point of view, it's sort of like without a basis.  It's clear. But am I monopolist? Well, it depends upon how you define the industry. And there's no right way to define the industry, Murray would say. And also geographically, how far does the next competitor have to be for there to be a monopoly? Well, you don't get that out of the theory. They just sort of make it up as they go along. The whole thing is arbitrary and capricious.   And if we're just sitting here talking, well, we're not violating the law. Well, I now open up a business and I get bigger and bigger. And I don't know if I'm a monopolist. Well, you know, I don't know with the best intentions. In other words, suppose I believe in this crap, I still wouldn't know whether I'm a monopolist or not. Well, what kind of a law is that? It's just very arbitrary and capricious. So I think you make a very good point about the geographical distance. And Murray also makes the point about, well, how do you define the industry? All right, so let's see your intermediate graph. Okay, the intermediate graph is we now have the same axes, namely quantity here, and we have price here. Only now we have a average cost curve that looks like that. It's a U shaped average cost curve. And we have a marginal cost curve that looks like this and it intersects the average cost curve at the bottom of it. And there is marginal cost. And here we have a demand curve. And the demand, oh boy, that's a messy demand curve. Let me see if I could just clear that up. Okay, I'll just make the demand curve this way. Hey, it's sloping down. You got that. It's sloping down. Oh, wait, this could be the marginal revenue curve. There we go. So we're not too bad. Okay, so this is a more sophisticated view of, and you'll find this in every intermediate microtext to illustrate the evils of monopoly. Well, where does the perfect competitor end up? The perfect competitor ends up at point C. Where supply, this is really a supply here, where supply hits the man. And this would be the quantity of the perfect competitor. And this would be the price that the perfect competitor charges. And we get that by zipping along here. And how do we get the monopoly price and quantity and profit and deadweight loss and all that? Well, first you choose quantity where marginal cost hits marginal revenue. Well, here's marginal cost. Here's marginal revenue. Where do they hit? They hit right there. So that is the quantity of the monopolist and notice that the quantity of monopolist is less than the quantity of the perfect competition. And how do we get the price? Well, we go up to the demand curve. We extend the line up to the demand curve. And this is M where the monopolist locates. And this is the price that the monopolist charges. And again, you have the same four indictments. First, the quantity of the monopolist is too little. He's monopolistically withholding. Like Mike Tyson, he was withholding. Jeff, you're withholding. You only do 10 lectures a week.  You should do 20. If you had any decency, you would do 20. But you're withholding your monopolistic elements or efforts, as is Mike Tyson, as is this company here. They are withholding the distance between QM and QC, those rotten kids. Second indictment is that, and here Murray, again, talks about the price of the monopolist is higher than the price of the competition. I once got into a debate on this issue and the guy said, well, look, whatever the monopolist is charging, we don't know for sure, but just make them charge less. Well, if that's the rule, then the monopolist is going to charge way up here, right? And he'll say, okay, sure, lower me back to PM because I want to be at PM anyway. I mean, the whole thing is sort of, I don't know, what do they say, nonsense on stilts or something like that? So the price is arbitrary, but the price is too high. The third one is, well, where's profits? Well, the competitor makes no profits. Where's the profits of the monopolist? The profits of the monopolist is this box right here because you have to go from average cost. And that would be profit similar to what I drew before. And now where's the deadweight loss? This is, I'm not going to do DWL, but I'll put D. This triangle here is the deadweight loss because we value the stuff at this rate. It only costs us this much. Therefore, the difference is deadweight loss. Now I have to bring in my favorite economist, not really, I'm kidding, Milton Friedman. Milton Friedman is very sophisticated about this stuff. He says, just because, you see, the mainstream economist, the non-Friedman-esque one, and Friedman is a bright guy. The mainstream guy says, look, there's a deadweight loss, therefore you have to have antitrust. That would be the mainstream view. Friedman says, not so fast, I'm paraphrasing, of course, because antitrust costs money too. You have to have judges, you have to have lawyers, you have to have court reporters, you have to have real estate. You know, it's not a cheap thing. So Friedman's free enterprise, Friedman is saying, yes, we have to have antitrust, but only when the deadweight loss is greater than the cost of stopping it. And there's a certain low cunning here, a certain coherence. I mean, you know, given that you believe in this stuff, well, then Friedman's point is very well taken. The whole point is that Friedman is a neoclassical, he's not an Austrian follower, Murray, on this issue, and therefore he starts with a false premise. But if you grant him the false premise, then what he's saying is reasonable. It costs some money to have antitrust. Antitrust is a pain in the neck. It costs money. And think of the full employment opportunities for economists starting to measure this stuff. I mean, thank God for Milton Friedman, all of us economists are going to have jobs forever. Because right now I'm just drawing curves on a blackboard or on a whiteboard. But with the Friedman-esque twist on this, all of a sudden we have to measure these curves. We have to do a lot of econometrics. We have to do research and, you know, the BLS Bureau of Labor Statistics and all these Murray once wrote this magnificent, very short little gem of an article. I think it was called Statistics, Governments Achilles' Heal, something like that, where he was saying, you know, if a businessman wants statistics, he'll go and buy them. You know, he'll do the research. But this stuff, when the government does it, it's sort of like carte blanche for economists. Because now, you know, we can sound very profound. Well, according to the Commerce Department, they said, well, there are these many industries. And now we have three-digit industries and we have different concentration ratios. And we have all sorts of great stuff like that. So this would be a more sophisticated version of the Oasis water selling, but it's the same nonsense. Well, I want to touch on a couple of points that people make, one of which is huge firms like Walmart and the problems they might have internally. The other thing is cartels when multiple firms come together. And it's interesting, Rothbard touches here in this chapter.  But yet there's this pervasive sense in America, even today, when legal scholars would say antitrust is that sort of a low ebb. But nonetheless, there's this pervasive sense that these big cartels get together and sort of set the price. So talk about big corporations and cartels. Okay, first, Walmart in New Orleans, they just put in a Walmart all about five years ago.  I don't think Walmart is allowed in New York City.  And I think in Canada, they're having no in Canada, what happened is that they had a strike and then Walmart just got out of Canada. So now I shop at Walmart. And every worker in Walmart is black or African American, whatever the expression is and half the customers are black. And they opened up finally after going through hoops for years where the city government wouldn't allow them open. They advertised for 400 workers they wanted 400 employees. And there was 4000 people that wanted those jobs those crappy jobs you know. So, you know, Walmart is a blessing. Walmart is magnificent, you know one stop shopping you can buy toothpaste you can buy. You can buy old shoes you can't buy a violin I don't think but you know, you can pretty much buy anything. It saves time it's a consumer sovereignty, you know, will be better, better that way and produces sovereignty.  There's a little grocery there and you know you pick up whatever beer or something. So, just because the company is a big company. There's nothing wrong with that now cartels cartels have got a bad reputation, especially if you talk about Mexican drug cartels but that's a different kind of cartel. You know those cartels use machine guns and fight with the Mexican government on roughly equal terms. That's a different kind of a cartel Murray's point is look, you know, the mainstream view of cartels is very different than Murray's view Murray is absolutely correct. The mainstream view is that cartels are subject to dissolution from internal and external sources. In other words, if if here's we can use this monopoly diagram, according to the mainstream what the cartel is they're all located here, and they want to locate there. And right now they're, they're producing 20 units each and they want to produce 10 units each because if they can, if the elasticities are right and the, the thing is roughly in elastic between these two points well then you'll have more to view at the higher point than at the lower point. So, each cartel owner agrees to cut out half of his production. And now we'll go from point C over here to point M, and we'll make more and we'll make profit instead of losses. The mainstream says well this is a subject to cheating internally, because each person will say yes, let everyone else cut back from 10 to 20 from 20 to 10. I'll cut back from 20 to 15 or from 20 to 19, and I'll piggyback on everyone else but everyone is thinking that and everyone is trying to cheat, and then you have a question well with a cartel agreement be legal.  Can I sue you is this a legitimate contract and that's a whole libertarian issue. I don't see anything wrong with that if you agree to do it. Well, you know collateral didn't pass hand so it's a very complicated issue as to whether you can. And on the economics, it's subject to break up internally and also externally, because if we go from PC up here to PM people from outside are going to start producing this product. So, the mainstream people are saying well, you know, cartels are subject to dissolution so let's not worry about that Murray is saying look, nothing wrong with a cartel cartel is great. You know I'm working on defending three now and I forgot to put the cartelist in there and I'm going to stick them in there thanks to you. Well, is it is a labor union of form of a cartel doesn't try to reduce profits but it tries to reduce participants in this on the supply side. But, well, Murray has a brilliant aspect part of this chapter also on labor unions. Look, there's nothing wrong with labor unions, a reducing the size, if they do it voluntarily. And this is Murray's point but what the labor union does is, you know, you're a scab you're trying to get in on this and we're going to beat you up or something or we're going to get the government pass a law saying that you can't come in and compete with us. Well, that's a very different kind of a thing. So yes, labor unions are a cartel, but and Murray would defend cartels. As long as they don't use violence to keep out scabs or, you know, competitors or go to the government like like the taxi people go and try to get uber prohibited and in many cities uber can't uber is illegal because they passed this law. So Murray is saying, look, a cartel is, yes, it is subject to break up from internal or external. But, you know, if it succeeds, well, it's a monopoly, nothing wrong with a monopoly, and therefore ergo nothing wrong with with the cartel. Walter, I just want to bring up something that Rothbard posits which is that even in theory, even in the purely theoretical plane demand curve slope downward. So can we go back to your diagram and just help us conceptualize that. Well, here's a downward sloping demand curve, you know, demand curves, typically slope downward now there are fancy schmancy people who talk about what is it the Giffen good where the demand curve goes upward and that's nonsense because the proper demand curve is one where the only thing that changes is price and quantity. Whereas the the given good is based on well you know as price falls from this point to this point income rises. And if it's an inferior good a very inferior good well the income effect will outweigh the substitution effect you could get a an upwards sloping demand curve but only an upwards sloping demand curve for a non kosher demand curve. This couldn't happen because everything else supposed to be constant along the demand curve, and on the neoclassical demand curve income is allowed to change and what kind of. Well, of course if you have that kind of a demand curve well then it theoretically could occur and the example they give is the Irish potato famine kind of a thing where potatoes were a big part of the diet and the demand curve could go upward but you know if you and you could have a diminishing supply curve to and then if you had a demand curve and a supply curve where this was the demand curve and this was the supply curve. prices would rise up to infinity or fall down to negative infinity.  But you're asking not about upwards sloping demand curves you're asking about flat demand curves. Well, that that's a problem because eventually if you had a flat demand curve and here's quantity and there's price, and you're supposed to label all your axes otherwise you're rotten kid and here's the demand curve. Well, you know, then you'd, if the price went down by 1 millionth of a percent you would buy an infinite amount of stuff. So you could draw the thing it's easy to draw it I just drew it but I don't think it makes much sense. We know there's something interesting that's related to this Walter which is the socialist calculation debate which has been going around and some people have been saying that artificial intelligence will give governments the ability to calculate just like profit and loss signals give private firms the ability and they point to something huge like Walmart which has come up earlier in our conversation and say you know they're so big and they have so many departments and divisions and you know they're almost like the government of let's say a not even a small country maybe a medium sized country and they are calculating internally despite on the wholly internal side of their balance sheet you know the profit and loss signals within them. So, so I don't think AI solves the socialist calculation problem because I think it's about more than information it's about skin in the game and profit and loss but give us your thoughts there. Oh yes I certainly agree with you on that you know it is sort of part and parcel of that automation is going to take our jobs away. Right. So software is AI and we've had software a long time. Yeah, I mean there's incentives there's information there's continual changes there are seven and a half billion people. You know they start inventing super duper AI machines that can do things for all seven and a half billion of us. I mean, even if it could it would only scratch the surface. Yes, AI is good. Look, we all benefit from computers we couldn't be having this conversation. 2030 years ago. We could have the conversation on the telephone but we couldn't do it the way we're now doing it through zoom. So, you know, we have to be appreciative of AI but that doesn't mean that it undermines what do you call it. Central planning or socialist calculation debate.  We must talk about the Rockefellers. Yes, sure. Must we not because you know when people when people think of monopoly they think of Rockefeller is evil. So, is that okay if I get it so they also but also they think of that era they think of let's say mid 1800s to early 1900s so I think Rockefeller is an excellent example. Robert Barron's of which he is the most famous but they're Robert Barron's and not only refining oil but you know just that sugar and you know copper anything railroads whatever. So, let me now clear this and brought a picture of the United States. Here's the United States I have to draw up Long Island because that's where I'm from and here's Florida. And here is Texas. And there's the United States looks like Dilbert. Okay, so the the argument of the people who think that Rockefeller is evil is you have standard oil all over the place. And then you have independence well indicate with an X. And here's a standard oil and an X and standard oil here and there's an X and there's an X here and a standard oil. There, there are places all over the place where there are independence and standard oil. So what's going to happen. What's going to happen is standard oil is going to try to get rid of this Floridian competitor. How's it going to get rid of the Floridian competitor. He's going to charge prices way below costs. He's going to suffer a loss. How will we finance it, he'll get money from all these other standard oils that the X can't get because the X are independent. The X's are independent. So he's going to lower the price and drive this guy out of business and then guess what happens when this guy is driven out of the business. He raises his price inordinately to monopoly levels. And now he goes over to here to Portland where they're having riots and well they weren't having riots then but goes over to Portland or Seattle. And now he finances the same sort of thing with all the money from these other assets and a lot of money from the Floridian one is the Floridian one is coining money hand over fist.  And this is the theory that a lot of people believe. It's absolute nonsense in so many, many ways and one of the best articles on this is a guy named John McGee in the Journal of Law and Economics he's not in Austrian but boy oh boy is he good on this one. And half of it is why it can't work and the other half is what the history of it and the history of it was the reason Rockefeller did well is he could refine oil more cheaply and better than his competitors. And he goes into some of the people would set up X's just to be bought out by Rockefeller because Rockefeller was easier for him to buy out another refinery and then incorporate his own refining methods and to start a new one. And now why is it dead from the neck up intellectually. Well, first of all it assumes all the X's are independent. Once this happens once all the other X's are going to say hey look at what they did in Florida they can do it to us. We got to you know shape up. The second is what about all the people that use lots of oil in Florida. And now when Rockefeller triples the price they're not going to be happy campers. They'll subsidize the X if need be to keep the X guy going but even that is only touching the surface because what the X can do is say look, I'm shutting down. I'm going to buy Rockefeller oil at half price and I'm going to store it in every silo and basement that I can. And meanwhile Rockefeller is losing money hand over fist and as soon as Rockefeller starts raising the price I'll come back in and I'll have all of his oil and I'll start selling it. So the whole thing is nonsense. And this is sort of a reputation and I wanted to get this on record because the Rockefeller case is, you know, prevalent among people who have the views on antitrust, other than our our views. Well I'll try I want to go out on one last question devil's advocate question it's akin to what you just drew but let's take Google which exists electronically more than physically in terms of you know gas stations or something like that. Supposedly I don't know if this is true but supposedly Google owns about 90% of all search traffic. And if Google were to come along and say if you type in Mises or Rothbard or something like that in the Google, they could disappear the Mises Institute by moving all of our search results to page 30 instead of page one or two where we want them. And so what however you define the industry maybe if you're defining breakfast cereal, you know we ought to look at the larger industry of breakfast which includes eggs and bacon and sausage and you get into lots of other sellers and producers. But if you said search is really the industry and globally Google owns 90% of it. And in a certain sense there are some barriers to entry there's network effects. There's Google size and its ability to snap up really top software people and top engineers in this net but these these barriers to entry exist in any in any or you know industry I suppose to accept but give us your case to not worry about Google. Well, um, I do worry about Google but not for monopoly reasons. Right. Because I think they because I don't like their politics. Right, look, Mises is hateful. I'm offended by the Mises Institute because you know you free enterprise and that's fascism. Not only will they put you on page 30 maybe they'll obliterate you that you know. And this has happened the Federalist Society has been downgraded. The President of the United States wants to get on Twitter and they don't want to get them on Twitter. The Twitter is a similar thing to Google.  I mean, this is problematic. So when you said it's not a problem. I'm sure you agree with me it is a problem. But as you said it's not a problem from the monopoly point of view. I'm glad we got this diagram here because we are all the exes. It's not just the Mises Institute but it's the Federalist Society other conservative groups. There was this woman Amy Wax from Penn State or University of Pennsylvania, who said some things that were offensive. By the way, I was almost fired from my job for being offensive with voluntary slavery. The mainstream media and not just the electronic but print, you know, Wall Street and not Wall Street Journal. New York Times, Washington Post, all of them see economic freedom as fascism and as hurtful and harmful. And you remember what happened at the New York Times where somebody. Tom Cotton to be on give an op-ed and you know Tom Cotton is a senator from Arkansas wanted to have federal troops come in and this was deemed horrible. So yes, the Rockefellers of the day or the the left wing media people are running rampant. Well, is this censorship? No, it's censorship because we define censorship as only government concerns. They're not censoring. Look, you don't let everyone in the Mises Institute. I don't let everyone into my apartment. You know, you own the Mises Institute or you're the president of it and you only allow people who you want and same with my house or Loyola University only allows certain people in there. So we all have a right and Google should have the right to not allow hateful offensive people like you and me if they if they want and not only putting us on page 31 but just off off the chart. Well, the all of these people are now starting to set up alternatives to Google. I forget the names of them there the three or four of them and as you mentioned network effects you don't really want three or four or five of them you want them to have a cartel or a counter monopoly and I'm using a monopoly here. Improperly, but you want to have another group, Schmugel and Schmugel would be equal size to Google after a while, because all the people that Google is kicking off or deprecating would would subscribe to Schmugel. And then that would be I think the solution to it and I think it's already starting. Well, there you have it ladies and gentlemen chapter 10 of man economy in state it deserves its own show groundbreaking stuff. Wish more economists would read it very very important even in our current age plus you get a little bonus. You get some video this week you get some charts and diagrams you get to see Walter Block spare bedroom which of course has books in it. And I want to remind you you should be reading along with us we have a code HAP od which you can use at our website at our store to get a discount on this book and either paperback or beautiful hardcover form you can also just go to Mises dot org type in man economy in state and read it and search it on a very beautiful HTML page. Which is going to let you go from chapter to chapter so you don't need to spend any money but you're going to enjoy this book a lot more if you're reading along with us going through it. We have a chapter coming up on money and banking then we're going to get into the power and market section of the book which is really some of the sexy stuff about private defense and private police and that sort of thing. So, you know, get caught up, get the book this is one of those books you're going to want to own, then stay tuned as we get through the next few chapters of man economy and state. Walter Block I want to thank you so much I hope you have a great weekend. Thanks I just have to say one thing thanks for having me on this and I remember the first time I read many economies that I've read it maybe three times now but the first time I read it. I had first met Murray and I'd read it all day and then at night I'd see him and it really just blew my mind that I mean the guy is a genius. He's magnificent and I was honored to be able to be his friend for many years. While reading this book I first met him and it's an experience I'll never forget some thanks for having me on this show I really appreciate it. All right thank you Walter have a great weekend. Take care. The Human Action Podcast is available on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play and on Mises.org. Subscribe to get new episodes every week and find more content like this on Mises.org.


The Lions of course had made it in fact as you are watching this I'm in Detroit watching the Lions beat the Rams. Of course. They're beating the Rams honestly though NFL script writers went crazy because Stafford is playing back in Detroit on a different team the Browns and the Texans are playing and they made that massive trade for DeSean Watson Tyree Kill is playing his former team the Kansas City Chiefs I got I got a hint into the NFL they did a very good job, and I gotta say this Super Bowl It is actually anybody's Super Bowl everybody thinks it's gonna be Ravens 49ers. I I just don't see it I do not see Ravens 49ers.  We've got NFL playoffs, but more importantly we have Wheel of Mutt playoffs in the very first round the wild card We smoked my opponent. We added some amazing players to this team, and today is the NFC championship We are one win away from the Super Bowl We are one loss away from resetting this entire team the most important thing is if I win today We get a new prestige player I don't want to think it's too hard about it right now because obviously I have to win today But Derek Henry could be an insane prestige player since he also has a 94 overall quarterback makes a match based on what the team needs Lamar himself is probably gonna win MVP, which means he's gonna get the first 99 overall in the game So there's a crazy prestige.  Puka's gotta get something. There's no way this is the last Puka Nakua card Defensively, I really like the idea of Jaylen Petrie. He's got a 95 overall limited campus heroes Although I will say that 95 overall is kind of mid as far as 95 overalls go And I don't really know Jaylen Petrie is gonna get another card after that other options can be Tariq Wollin Micah Parsons who could win defensive player of the year Jaylen Carter now Jaylen Carter is probably gonna get Defensive rookie of the year. I believe he's the favorite although Ironically the only person who is competing with Jaylen Carter for defensive rookie of the year is also on this team And that's Will Anderson. So honestly, I think Jaylen Carter might be the best prestige option right now He's gonna get a 97 overall defensive rookie of the year NFL honors card and this 93 Jaylen Carter is already nuts As you're watching this video though The new NFL playoffs promo should have dropped as I'm recording it hasn't Everybody on the Niners has a good card except for Nick Bosa If they don't drop Nick Bosa playoffs card, then it is actually genuinely no conspiracy personal Although I can understand where EA is coming from because I myself at one point in my life I was a toddler so I understand why they're acting this way regardless for a 91 overall squad Absolutely stacked to the brim and we've got two wheel spins today to add to this team. Keep in mind It's the playoffs. I only get two wheel spins, but they are absolutely juice last episode We added Lamar Micah Parsons and Brian Bresi. We'll see what we can add today I kind of want to beef up my right tackle. We'll see what this wheel spin lets me do our very first Wilson jackpot Although that's not bad. Wow.  It is not easy to do I'm gonna play as the Cleveland Browns that way. I'll get a Nick Chubb for the halfback stuff now to beat the gauntlet The high score is 40 so I'd have to get all the way to 40 to get the jackpot If not, we'll take a week and get welcome to the gauntlet run the spacing concept completed pass Okay, let's hope I can do this pretty easily. There you go Deshaun. That's not Joe Flacco That's not the elite Cleveland Browns quarterback that I know prevent a first down look at Mike white. Oh my goodness Mike white. You better not dot me up, bro No quit it. Let's go. That's our lord Drilla field goal. Is that Katie York? It is make a first down. Let's check this down to Nick Chubb nice catch. Oh mouse trap I'm actually really bad at this one.  Can you believe they just went all they just went a whole year But Jersey's looking that stupid make the tackle or force the ball carry out a balance to prevent a touchdown Let's get it Anthony Walker has been a madden 24 wheel of my goat man with that lurk artist gold line touchdown We'll go weak side and Nick Chubb's got a power roll run. We have yet to lose a life and we're still not gonna right now Let's go Nick Chubb. Oh, I am player locked on Jedevian Clownie.  Oh Wait a minute score a touchdown avoid the hot spots. This is why I clicked the Browns man We got a nasty old line and we got Nick Chubb. I'm trying to remember the meta for this Just wait that was too easy stay in the hot spot for three seconds then throw the ball No step up step up to ship on try that again.   There we go running back gauntlet. Here we go Gotta score a touchdown here. All right, so I'm pretty sure I just walk past the first wave.  Play action power. Oh complete a pass can do to Sean prevent a first down.  Okay? Same thing prevent a first down. I see the post. I see the other post I'm on that little defensive pass interference. All right make a first down here I'm just gonna go Nick Chubb again that check down is a freebie boss battle This one is hallway. You just got a complete a pass inside the hot spot You can take as much time as humanly possible here So I'm gonna playmaker a throw it to him does he sit no way that was outside Let's go RB right there sit down and sure that one's it triple option. Are you kidding me? I love a triple option wrong decision. It was a touchdown. That's crazy. Oh, I see Okay, and that's a success. That's not how that I should have kept that with the Sean whatever All right, we got a little windy feel go here too easy level 22. That's a hundred ten thousand coins to spend on one player I still got five lies, bro. Oh, we're back on the read option though. I'm handing it off dude Okay, if that's not the correct call. Thank you. Oh, here we go prevent a first down I'm the high safety in the middle. Who's coming who's coming? No Oh, and he must me too same thing this time.  Don't get tackled. I gotta break this tackle, don't I? Shit, I got spook. Can I just walk around you? Let's go gain a first down Okay, that should be easy if you catch this Kareem hunt snag that was not a first down. I thought forward progress was gonna give that to me I'm gonna try that again this time. It is a first down. Let's go gain a first down again right there right on the boundary I'm already Cooper snag switch players and play the receiver with a absolutely bottled What wait, what did I do wrong switch to the closest fender and secure the tackle on the play by hitting the a But oh wait, so I have to secure the tackle. Oh, thanks for the most ambiguous challenge in the world Hey, 27 points is great multiply that by 5,000 coins is a hundred and 35,000 coins to spend on one player So we either get an offensive lineman to replace Penae Sewell or we pick up a corner to replace champ Bailey I'm tempted to replace champ Bailey, but honestly my corners have played really well I've been running a good amount of zone coverage kind of going half and half with man I think we go with the right tackle here 135,000 coins. Can I get me a 92? It can't even get me a 91 because no 91 overall right tackles exist in this game There's the maxed version of champ Bailey himself looks like Bryce Hall got a campus hero 91 speed 91 excel 92 man and he's six foot one. There's a 91 adori Jackson who is similar better zone coverage But shorter on the other option is Kenny Moore Kenny Moore is five foot nine Sorry Kenny man ain't gonna happen bud. All right champ Bailey your replacement has arrived We're going with 91 overall Bryce Hall his zone coverage definitely leaves something to be desired But he's fast. He's got good acceleration great man coverage and he's six foot one and he's 202 pounds It's a pretty big corner champ Bailey is out Bryce Hall is in damn it I wish I hadn't gotten that challenge on the gauntlet our first upgrade at 91 overall Bryce Hall Nothing insane, but we're definitely happy to have it. Hopefully we can get something better on this one Okay, wait a minute. All right.  He was amazing at halloween. So he's been a good prestige But it's been about two and a half months since jamar chase got a card And at this point jamar chase is actually my worst wide receiver Which is sad to say so mike evans basically does everything jamar does except he's taller puka is Three overall higher than jamar chase and now jamar chase. I mean, he's gotta come out for calvin ridley here Gosh, there's so many jokes I could make what which which guys we should play gambling joke roulette And we should just spin. Oh my god.  Oh my god I just made the joke on accident. I'm not gonna make it guys. I'm not gonna make it calvin ridley six one 94 speed He outclasses jamar every single stat other than jumping. Uh, and he's an inch taller Obviously, I got put in calvin ridley here.  Once again, I gotta win today for any of this to matter I'm gonna take a look at calvin ridley here. He may have a free ability. I'm not sure I've never looked at these He's mid an elite for one playmaker for one not worth it to go either of these if it was completely free I'd do it, but we'll just run stock calvin ridley. He's gonna be amazing just like this So ridley mike evans puka nakua jamar chase moves down. This is crazy There are two prestige players on this team who are not starting. All right boys Calvin ridley and brice hall have been added to the squad today is the nfc championship The last thing we have is the challenge wheel can never forget about the challenge wheel before we hop into One of the most important games of the season challenge wheel is for the halfback triple crown This is a really difficult one. My halfback needs to lead my team in every category touchdowns receiving yards Rushing yards rushing yards. That's easy touchdowns might be hard. It's receiving yards. That's usually pretty difficult But we're gonna find out baby.  We'll dictate this game though. I'm gonna let the game dictate the game I want the win. That's the most important thing to me right now. Let's go boys It's a night game at steelers stadium. We've got money manzel tree archer lorenz taylor. Let's go Let's go. Yeah, I forgot about that. Johnny Manzel got a 93 overall campus heroes card We got five minute quarters because it's the playoffs. I gotta say though ea Please bring back the nfc championship logos on the field. It says divisional just lame man It shouldn't say that it should say nfc championship. This is my game before the super bowl Calvin ridley's in on the return team and he'll start this game out at the 24 We got the logos on the field first in 10 boys.  He's got that julius peppers. That julius peppers is such a menace not a good start Okay, he isn't a three down lineman set. I should be able to run the ball against this I'm not giving up on the run quite yet great blocks Kuka you gotta hold that db. Damn that had so much room. I don't like this. I don't like passing this early here Gronk gets wide open on a whip routes monster play needed that badly What's he got abilities wise mean joe green with inside stuff lurk artist lurk artist. Yeah, this is gonna be a battle Derek Henry, no Ah, do you think july's peppers could jump up that high and get that I was a little worried right there that I missed an open man, but I don't know I'm handing off Derek Henry I cannot give up on the run. Oh Come on buddy get off Derek Henry's still going cannot give up on the run This team is too good at running the football for me to get scared and start throwing passes that I'm not comfortable with Let's keep things simple first in 10 He's gonna take Gronk there. He's gonna leave Derek Henry and I'll tell you what That triple crowns looking good right now first in 10. I don't want Derek Henry to fumble though. Vita veya's got a route I'm gonna block single Terry. I'ma send Gronk across. We got a few underneath Ooh, that's a bad ball. That's a bad ball. I can't be throwing that second and 11 Gronk wide open Cuts Peppers on his back. Let's go first and goal huge play. He expects a run here. This is an rpo I don't know how well he guards this. He's there Puka nakua on the rpo. Give me a block my kevins Puka's down to the one I'm handing this off Go Derek Henry third and goal on the one still.  So I'm happy.  He'll take over at the 25 I genuinely believe that this game will come down to one stop It will come down to one turnover whoever makes that turnover is gonna lose first in 10.  No Oh Huge hit nice work. I am just behind mark clain right there. Damn it. I thought I had that All right, I'm gonna send the blitz this time first in 10 That's gonna be a handoff and will Anderson completely overplayed it. What? It is tree archer, man. That boy's fast. Uh, probably goes to the edge here, right? Kyle Hamilton coming down. We're all over it. Let's go Come on. Let's get the stop right here. He's coming. He's gonna come out and something to to get that All right, I'm gonna go on dolly 3 2. I don't believe you're running this. He might as honorable to a run. Yeah, he did Bottle absolutely bottle car michael with the tfl came down with durvin I'm reading him like a book right now. I got to do it for two more plays He's he hasn't picked this play yet. He's going deep in his his bag of tricks gun trips tight end If he comes on an rpo set, I gotta call the time out I don't think this is an rpo. It technically could be I don't think it is. Oh it is. Oh, no, it isn't I don't know what this is Oh You're so beta.  How can you devote all of this time and energy to make it seven games before you lose three? No, five. Sorry. You won five games before losing three just to quit after one turnover in five minute quarters What is wrong with you? Sadly, mythic. Sadly. I own you. I own you. Unfortunately, dude. He has he's playing the most meta defense He's got julius peppers in the middle the most meta user. He makes one turnover I can't believe he just quit is anyone getting season one flashbacks because I am I'm so sorry gentlemen. I wanted to give you guys an amazing game I thought that was gonna be an amazing game if this was the regular season. I'd play another game Here's the issue. You can see it right there on your screen This is the all mad in super bowl win the super bowl to become a season champion meaning the next game I play here is gonna have all the super bowl animations. It's gonna have the logo on the field We have to save that for the super bowl episode. So we just take this w and I guess we move on I'm I'm really sorry gentlemen the good news. There is a lot of course to be excited about So let's not dwell on that the amazing news is obviously we keep calvin ridley We keep rice hall. We advance to the super bowl. We did not complete our challenge Derek Henry may have had the most no He didn't even have the most rushing yards because of three archer. I definitely didn't complete my challenge I do get to spend the rage quit wheel for what feels like maybe the fifth or sixth time this season And take the rage quit wheel right here Oh I like this one plus two to one position technically I could use that on let's say Pukinakua who's a 93 overall I could get another 95 overall wide receiver or I could use it on let's say penesuo who's an 88 and I could get a 90 right tackle I honestly think I need to use this on on a high overall position and make it even crazier I you know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna use it on brace hall.  I think that's definitely the move here There is out of position tank del dude. He's kind of good.  I don't think he'll be making tackles anytime soon Dude, can we talk about how clutch though that tackle on dre archer was see because dre archer Gashed right up the middle and he dude.  I don't like calvin johnson.  Ooh Charles tilman. Charles tilman be kind of nasty. I could get cover athlete sherman could not there's a corner Devin hester that's kind of a funny card charles tilman 93 overall fast as hell six two That's a huge upgrade 325,000 coins for an incredible corner charles tilman. All right, so cb2 is no longer gonzo It's gonna be charles tilman cb3 is no longer brice hall that becomes gonzo And the good news is we can move brice hall to depth in for adrian philips as well as we can put him at back up strong safety So jaylon petry 87 overall never has to come in Dude, look at this defense bro. This defense is so nasty. All right boys. We get a prestige player We've made the super bowl.  This is your wheel of mud super bowl squad I apologize for the very premature ejaculate for the very premature rage quit in today's video I love y'all. Let's make next episode an absolute mega heater. I love you boys. Thanks for watching. I'll see you then peace


Everybody forced here up at 22 23 stature hockey hobby eight-boxer for three random teams. Good luck Go eight times on our random here One two three four five six seven and eight Bobby s down to DW and then eight times in the teams One two three four five six seven and eight That's jets down to jackets Bobby s jets Daniel F rangers Robert L coyotes DW stars Jeremy G Kane Steven P Kraken Michael D abs Jim G Islander Steven P Flyers Michael D senators Daniel F predators Robbie K Canadians Joseph M Sabres Bobby S flames William Q ducks Carrie K Penguins Daniel F Knights David S. Canucks Rick S Kings Jim G lightning Stephen K blackhawks Michael D redwings DW Oilers Jonathan L Bruins Matt C blues Mark L Panthers Bobby S maple Leafs Steven P wild Andrew L sharks Robbie K devils Andrew L capitals and DW with the blue jackets Posted here. Let me get started. See he's been all over the place, man Some always got something to Guys ultimate hockey coming up soon. That's 21 to go. Give me a second. We will get ripping. Yeah baseball is filling up fast Museum is getting pretty close. There's finest flashbacks divisions on sale Chrome update hobby and boom and chrome hobby mixture, too All right, here goes some stature All right vikings bears tonight. I don't I don't really know Yeah, I don't know about that one man Ping you and your brakes close Thank you with what I don't even know if I have discord on my phone anymore. All right base of Lindraths Gibson There's a rookie brand Clark the 399 Kings Text I don't have a phone anymore. So I'm just kidding got Lindraths a 99 for the Rangers Splendid skaters insert. It's gonna be Reinhardt to 150 go into the Panthers Sam Reinhardt Got Wyatt Johnston stars rookie out of 45 nice low number What up, Brennan? Happy Thanksgiving, dude. You go nice car for the stars Johnston rookie to 45 And we've got a rookie out of Jordan Harris to 49 Montréal Montréal Thank you Daniel getting a spot and some baseball later And then a wonder can insert a Vlasik for the Hawks Yeah, it's a busy week gotta see some family though some good some just other family Chuck and cousins got Bordeload of 99s sharks rookie Those jitterbug phones. What's that? Trey Fix will ask you to 399 rookie for the jackets a Markstrom to 99 for the flames All right out of 75 rookie for the Red Wings. Yonatan Bergren. Yes, but as yeah, Spencer's definitely unbiased But they dignified Ron Francis for the pens on the inserts That is an OV number 19 of 33 capitals OV 19 of 33 Followed by a Sam Reinhardt auto now splitted skaters for the Panthers Sam Reinhardt number to splendid skaters and auto splendid skaters Dougie Ginnler Ginnler as a flame there got Oleson to 99 rookie for the abs Followed by to Vera's Leafs to 99 John to Vera's Yeah, Bruins gonna probably choke again. They're starting. They're starting. They're starting losing early this time though Got a few losses recently Koteok rookie to 99 for the devils Oh, bye. Teemu Salani ducks at 25 to finish flash Serger 99 motor old flip phone with six buttons meant for your senior. I think I remember that now Paul.  Nick Suzuki auto going to Montreal. Nice hit. Oh two autos in this box Suzuki for the Canadians Canadians with two hits so far and a rookie auto Vladislav Koley Ochenok to 49 for the Coyotes Lotus love Koley Ochenok Rookie auto for the yachts really good box there and splendid skaters of laner sharks are so big tonight. Oh Man are the sharks still just terrible? They are having a brutal year, man They're late on the on the tank for bidard. They're a little late. All right, Bobby Hall as Rob Blake If you got a rookie a nick I possess you to 399 maple Leafs Matt Barzal to 66 Islanders God send me on Der Archer Shinsev to 99 Leafs rookie. I'll be Vancouver on some decent win I'm surprised at how good Vancouver has been this year He can't be can't be down forever, right?  They should have never hired Terrible in Indianapolis and they bring him in for your rookie QB offense like what? Bunk this land of Skog that is rookie Maddie Baneers the 399 cracking Baneers rookie there. Vlasik Rookie to 99 for the Blackhawks Brayden Tracy Rookie to 66 ducks And rookie Braden Pashal nights to 33 a lot of rookies there a lot of numbered rookies And an auto Lucas Raymond for Detroit Just like the NBA. It was not rigged when the one the magic got it though. The magic got Paolo not rigged And wonder kid Baneers wonder kid Baneers for the cracking Lucas Raymond Spencer was going crazy in fanatics chat the other day was he did he was going on and on Just just talking trash about anybody except like his his teams, of course all of them Marcel Dion for the Kings here on the distinguished insert Kings in to bring those uniforms back Gensel O'Reilly that is rookies Simon Holmstrom 399 aisles as Gibi to 99 ducks as Pontus Holmberg Leafs to 75 Yeah, I really wish the Hawks would not have gotten the pick They did not deserve the number one pick to 75 Holmberg Leafs and Zach Hayes the 15 rookie for the Knights Like that parallel black card there Rookie Hayes for the Knights and rookie auto hunter drew to 65 for the ducks. Let's see a monster come on Yeah, lion's been sticking up, but hey if you're gonna be if you're gonna have a downtime, but you got to do it now so you have time to Correct, what's going on? You don't want to just waltz into the playoffs. That's never good Mariola Mew distinguished that rarely works out in the long run Depends there. Eckblad and Syllinger God rookie Jonathan Kovacevich to 399 for Montreal Next is Brady Kitschuk to 99 senators Nick Schmaltz coyotes out of 65 Wunderkind Owen power to 75 Saber is nice insert rookie insert there rookie Adam Roscoe for San Jose to 15 Low numbers in these boxes and then a wonder can auto of no accates for the flyers flyers second hit now Filly send a box wrapper this one. There's like a Ding in the top right and some other scuffs or scratches of some sort We'll send a box wrapper for the flyers And try to get down replaced. All right last one. Did you take ribbons and boxes last night? Yeah, I watched a little bit today You did it, dude Fiora and Tavo I'm gonna pull the insert from the back here. It's by the skaters of McCann Kraken No, it kates flyers are kid of 399 followed by Marcel Dion a 75 at the Kings still Wonder kid hunter drew 75 ducks McBain Yotes rookie to 35 That was a pretty funny one Spencer You got a lot of comments on that one and Rookie Otto Jake Sanderson of 49 congrats to the senator's great hit on the back of the break for your very last card That Otto a Michael D with the Sanderson Rookie Otto to 49 Good stuff Good stuff. Give me just a second to a quick recap here. Let's do autos guys quick break a lot of numbered cards in it, too He does bring the engagement. That's for sure For his first time opening cards on cameras very good Sam and me and I think pretty much everybody else super nervous, although I Wish training him wasn't rich. I had to do my the first time I was opening cards Was the full Monday night personal stream with rich That's intimidating there's the Sanderson again there you go Ottawa We got no a kates Kovasevich to 399. That's just a number card Got a hundred rudas 65 ducks. Yeah, he's rusty guys. Yeah, you mean got a Raymond otter for the wings nice Raymond Ratcliffe to 10 for the flyers Suzuki for Montreal coal you took to 49 for the Yotes Yotes did well here, too Sam Reinhart Panthers auto and the Jordan Harris auto to 49 for Montreal Solid eight boxer moving on to the hockey mixer now


Chevy Chevy you know what this is an honor Chevy. It's an honor to start the vlog Say something nice say something clever say something Chevy like Hey guys Excellent so today has already progressed quite a ways my hair is all over the place, isn't it? I desperately desperately need a haircut.  We slept here overnight. We went into Surrey this morning to unload all of that glass We have an empty flat bed behind us right now We're on our way to Hope British Columbia to the flying J Where I'm gonna have a shower and wash myself all up and make myself all smell good again Not like a dirty trucker, right Chevy. It's true, man It's true.  He's right. He's right We just stopped at the gym snap fitness in Chilliwack, BC Which is pretty much just down the road that way from here. I'm just at that. There's the flying J right there There's a Chevron. I'm just parked at the old S. So here right now. Timmy's is just off to my right Right there And it's a good day. I'm feeling good We're gonna go up to Kamloops spend the night there and tomorrow sometime Mid-morning or so or early morning.  I thought it was in Kelowna It's actually in barrier BC and that's taken us to Eagle River, Wisconsin next week Not too sure if I'll be able to stop by at home on the way past or not Haven't figured that out yet for now. We're just going to Kamloops tonight.  So let's get on the road here.  Here you go. There you go You can hear me a little better, right? Okay Peter powder. Let's get at her. That's what they say, right? That's what they say down. That's right That's what I thought Chevy We're just just beginning here on the coca-cola highway We're still at the bottom. So the weather's not too bad. I'm guessing once we get to the top We may have to deal with a little bit more More nasty nasty white stuff Nasty yesterday coming through here It was pretty bad up at the top Lots of snow around that brake check if you're familiar with the route the final brake check on the way down to the mainland here So we'll see how it goes. We're losing our sunlight. So I'm not sure how easy it will be for me to vlog I don't have much Much said today already Also in such a rush to get unloaded first thing in the morning that I Didn't even bother talking to you guys at all. I apologize Not like I was telling you a chill-a-wack there and then we stopped in Hope British Columbia at the Flying J Just for some fuel This truck is I guess it was a pretty heavy load. Look that glass is a lot heavier than it looks It's a lot heavier than I Thought I guess it's Burnt a lot more fuel than I was expecting to My engine is still using a little bit of oil, which is concerning to me There's a little bit not enough to get like overly concerned But it's definitely enough to perk up my ears close attention to it right now Like I said, we're coming up to a million kilometers. We'll be at a million kilometers this summer some time and this engine is coming up to The time when it's gonna need a rebuild. I don't think it needs a rebuild yet Not the full rebuild and it might just need a new top end like I was telling you the other day new new valves on the top Because I think one of those valves is Malfunctioning like my dad was telling me. I don't know how to explain it exactly like he did But whenever something like this happens to me, I learn something new right? I learn what How a new part of how to fix something does that make sense? So after We get this fixed. I'll have something new that I can Pass on to my kids one day if they want to drive trucks Dad was telling me that there may be a valve that's sticking or maybe Hopefully it's not cracked, but it might be letting a little bit of oil through and the oil is coming out the blow by Pretty slowly and it's only coming out when the engine is very cold when you first start it up And when it's under high pressure by pulling that heavy load up the mountains It seems to drip out a little bit and a little bit of blow by is is normal. I don't think Oil dripping out of there is normal that that's definitely not so It's something I'm gonna keep an eye on and Again tell the shop about I mean every time I go home. It seems this truck's been in the shop lately It's getting a little bit depressing Eventually there's got to be a light at the end of this tunnel. You know what I mean? I'm not gonna give up though. I'm gonna keep going. I'm keep fixing it Eventually we'll find All the little problems and then new problems will arise. Hey, that's trucking. Isn't it? There's always problems wouldn't be trucking if everything was going smoothly Here we are not even at the top yet and lots of snow So the nice weather was Nice while it lasted Must be nice People to live down there must be nice to be able to afford to live down there Because that's the best place in Canada to live climate-wise. There's never snow hardly ever snow Good weather year-round rains a little bit Nice place to live so everybody wants to live there, right? Which means Housing prices are through the roof. Good luck getting like a two or three bedroom bungalow for under a million dollars Anywhere good luck Let me know if you find one there might be one or two left I might need some elbow grease might be some fixer uppers, but there might be one or two left under a million You want to buy a nice decent family suburban home? You'll be ready to fork out a couple of million Three million will get you a decent house, you know it'll probably get you what five hundred thousand dollars It gets you in Manitoba Man, you might even be able to get that same house for like four hundred thousand dollars in Manitoba But hey, you want to live in the good climate you want to live where it's nice and sunny, right? Nice and warm no snow Hope you got deep pockets We should be almost at the top here now. It's just gonna be a high mountain road All the way through till we get to Kamloops about a hundred and fifty kilometers from here 366 Then turn right Alrighty, let's do that So I'm here at the Petro Pass and Kamloops Just pulling up to it. This is where we're gonna spend the night about 45 minutes to an hour away from our shipper Or we got to go get our lumber tomorrow morning. I Just want to stay here because I know they have a 24-hour facility So if I need to get inside for any reason or something then at least to have a Shelter here right where I can go Drive that turn left and eat my signals on don't you see I'm turning You don't need to tell me twice Chattie all the time So today wasn't really much of a day just us rolling up here to Kamloops from I'm down there and hope BC where I started the vlog We made it through highway through hell. It wasn't too too bad actually this time. They say it's a highway through hell I've never actually seen hell on that highway before But they made a whole TV show about it. So it must be true arriving at 187 Evers little drive on left There you go So I don't need to fuel here. I fueled up the flying J and hope so I could get my points Let's see if they got parking here for me. I really hope they do Drive 1.3 kilometers then turn left on fuel and drive man. You don't get ahead of yourself.  I just like oh wait. There's one right here Nice I can nose in too There's quiet night that way you know what I mean Good enough for me So in a spot like this, I can just back straight out right in the morning And then I don't got to deal with trucks beside me Here we go And I'm right underneath the light to that's perfect Well, hello there The face behind the voice. I know I didn't show my face much in today's vlog Because there wasn't Much going on. I guess you're well aware of that by now since we're at the end of our day and you're like wait Where was the rest of the day? Some days in trucking are just like this just Not very far to go not very much to see I mean it is beautiful scenery But it got dark kind of quick because I took my time getting out of the lower mainland there Just because I I'm honestly I'm in no rush So I stopped Twice on the way out at the gym and for fuel for a shower Otherwise, we could have been here probably like two or three hours ago, but it's 9 30 p.m. Right now. I Could have been here at 6 30 I guess Wait nine eight seven. Yeah, that's three hours Chevy What do you think? How was the day today?  Yeah, should I help you? Should I help you? No, you can do it on your own give him a smile Come on. Come here Okay stretch for a stretch. Okay. Okay. Now you're stretched you're pulling on all my cords here. Okay Come up here. Come here. Come here. Come on. Don't careful where you put your paws But you can come up. Okay, you don't want you're too scared. Okay, it's probably better that way They're better that way You're a heavy boy. I wouldn't want you to step on the wrong parts Yeah, yeah, don't talk when you don't need to stick your nose there. That's weird man. That's really weird He's been he's such a good travel companion.  There was never a better boy. Did you know that? Don't tell diesel don't tell diesel Chevy's actually Way better behaved at his age than diesel was at the same age way better And that's for Frankie. Well, I wasn't there when Frankie was this age, so Can't judge that but from what I hear from what Britt tells me Chevy's the best dog ever Learned so quickly. He's so smart And all he wants to do is love you. Look at this. Look at this Chevy tell him how much you love them All of them. He just loves all of you so much. He doesn't even have the words to describe it I love you guys. I love you guys so much. I like that pole Why are you staring at that pole? It's a good pole, man. It's a nice shade of gray. It is. It's actually a It's actually uh, never mind. You're colorblind. I get it. I get it. I get it. Everything is a Shade of gray to you, right? I don't know what I'm talking about. So tomorrow Like I said 45 minutes to an hour north of here to barrier BC A load is waiting for us that we have to tarp the lumber that we've tried that means it's fancy lumber If they want the tarps on it, that means it's fancy expensive lumber It goes to Eagle River, Wisconsin.  So I'm filming this on Wednesday Yeah, Thursday Friday and it's got to be there for Monday. So we have Friday Saturday Sunday to get there three full days plus whatever I can get done tomorrow. So I'm probably gonna end up just going straight there I might pass by home just to give the wife a kiss and then Continue on down the road But I won't be stopping at home for any length of time this time because I'm thinking from Wisconsin I'm probably gonna go back to Otona for in Minnesota for more glass, which is probably coming back here to Surrey And then maybe I can swing by home then Or maybe Brit will be ready be able to come with me on the truck by then. I don't know Because right now Brit was supposed to be on the truck this trip already She's gonna come with for a little while on the truck just so we can spend some good time together It was my idea. It was my idea and I'm really glad she agreed So she was supposed to be here this trip, but our Ice damming at home is causing problems. It's the water was leaking into the house The reason we're doing metal roofing just to respond to some of the comments you guys have said you some of you said that Metal roofing creates ice dams too It it doesn't have the same problems as this because what happens is The house goes down in the veranda on the front meets the house roof and it creates a little valley here, right? And underneath two two and a half feet of snow the bottom Well on warmer days the water sinks to the bottom tries to get off the roof, right? But it gets stuck in this little valley and it creates a little ice dam We have about four inches. We had about four inches thick of ice Right there and then the ice just the water Rolls down the roof towards this ice dam and it dams up At the ice dam right and that makes sense and then it backs up backs up backs up And then it gets really cold down to minus 30 and all of that water that was backing up there freezes What does water do when it freezes it expands? But it has nowhere to expand to because everything behind it is already all Compacted and there's snow on there. So what it does is it goes up underneath the shingles It pushes up underneath the shingles and then the next time we have a really warm day and it starts to melt again It's under the shingles now, right? And it starts to melt and the water goes through the nail holes that are underneath the shingles through the Nail holes into the attic down to the poly and then it finds a hole to get into the house and Falls down into the house and it's a big mess with metal roofing You don't have that because there's no shingles for the ice to freeze up and go underneath, right? There may still be an ice dam Which is unlikely because on metal roofing usually the snow just slides right off the roof, right? You got to be careful that it doesn't fall onto your vehicles or onto people trying to come into your house You just slides right off But even if they're even if hypothetically there was a hypothetical ice dam in that same spot with the metal roofing We're not gonna have the leaking issues not the same issues because there's no shingles for that ice to freeze and go underneath and then Come through you know what I'm saying. So metal roofing will solve this problem 100% That's why we're going with metal roofing. We're actually having our guy come down tomorrow and give us an estimate He's gonna look in our attic. He's gonna look at our roof. He's gonna measure everything out Well thirsty there, but you're a loud drinker, you know, you have to let the whole world know when you're drinking It's not a bad thing, buddy be loud be proud I was just saying anyways you guys that our guys coming tomorrow He's gonna give us a quote of what it's gonna cost and then we're going to try and schedule a time for him to Come and do the roof We got to save up for a while yet So we're gonna try to get it done before next winter before the rainy season and fall probably beginning of September like first week of September or last week of August that's That's right about when the dry season starts turning into the wet fall season So we want to do it before it starts raining all the time But we want to wait as long as possible to save up as much as possible. So We'll get it done. We'll figure it out We're adults welcome to adult life turn Josh Thanks for warning me. I should have listened everyone tried to warn me but Adulting is hard all you kids out there who still live with your parents I'm gonna sound like a broken record to you like every other adult that talks to you. Enjoy it Because if your roof started leaking guess what mom and dad would have to fix it once you have your own house like I do You got to fix it Right once it's yours you got to fix it So don't stay at mom and dad's forever. That's not what I'm encouraging you to do get out of the house Get your own place, but just be ready for it You're ready for it. Don't be a you know 40 year old bachelor living in your parents basement. Don't do that Don't do that Where is this conversation going? I have to end this conversation right now So subscribe if you haven't already all of you new subscribers. We've been having a huge surge of growth recently That's awesome. We're almost to our hundred thousand subscriber mark awesome Where are you all coming from? I'm so happy you're here. I'd love to know where you're from Let me know down below in the comment section and let me know how you heard about my vlog Very curious. I'm probably gonna ask you guys again in the next couple of days as well Just because not everybody watches every day and we're having a lot of new people show up here And I'd love to know where you heard about the channel. Did someone give us a shout out or how? Our numbers have just been growing really quickly recently and that's awesome I would just like to thank whoever gave me a shout out if I need to thank someone Take care. I'll see you tomorrow