And that means summer is on the way, come on somebody. That's exciting, we're looking forward to that. And last weekend we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus and we had 91 people make Jesus Christ the Lord of their lives here at Radiant Church. So we celebrate that powerful, powerful weekend and next weekend we are going to celebrate water baptism. And so as a part of the setup for that, I wanna share a message with you this week called What Happens in the Water? Talking about water baptism. And I came up with the title for this because years ago when I was a youth pastor in Kansas City, I remember this weekend where we did water baptisms.  Anybody know what I'm talking about? Okay, and so when we had baptisms, he was sitting next to his mom and his dad and he was just asking questions. He was like, mom, why are we doing this? Mom, why are people getting wet? Mom, what happens when they get baptized? And the mom turned to him and said, well, when people get baptized, they're changed. I mean, they're not different. It's like, it's a whole transformation. He's like, really, really? And then he like leans over to his dad and he says, dad, did you know that when people get baptized, it's like they change. They're never the same. And he goes, yeah. He said, it's a burial. It's like they're burying their old stuff. And he's like, really, this is a burial. And so we did the baptismal and it was in the stage. It was kind of like this.  And one of the particular people that the family knew was an older gentleman got baptized. And when he got out, everybody clapped and the little boy who was in the third row, he goes, he's not changed. He looks exactly the same. We need to bury him. And so imagine how that changed the whole dynamics of the service. And so oftentimes there is a misunderstanding about things. We use language that if you've been in the church, you understand that language. But if you're new or if you're just kind of learning or maybe come from a different faith tradition, we don't always understand the things that are taking place in church or as the church. Things that we walk out as followers of Jesus Christ. And it's important that we not just know what happens externally, but we need to know what happens spiritually because that's where the supernatural, that's where the grace of God, that's where the power of God really happens. There's a lot of things that we do externally. Why do we sing the songs that we sing? Why do we raise our hands in church? Why do we pray for other nations? Why do we take bread and juice or bread and wine? What's the significance of that? Well, the things in the natural, lifting your hand, singing a song, eating bread and juice, those things are not the significant part of what we do. It's what happens behind what we're doing that has the significance. And the same is true with water baptism. And so if you have your Bibles, I wanna invite you to turn with me to Acts chapter eight, Acts chapter eight, and I wanna set this teaching up out of the text. Acts chapter eight, it's Philip who's one of the early church deacons encounter with an Ethiopian eunuch who's traveling from Jerusalem back to Ethiopia. And he has an encounter with him that leads to a water baptism. Let's look here, verse 26. It says, now an angel, the Lord said to Philip, rise and go towards the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert place. And he rose and he went, and there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candice, Queen of the Ethiopians who was in charge of all of her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and he was returning seated in his chariot and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot. And so Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, do you understand what you are reading? And he said, how can I unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. And now the passage of scripture that he was reading was this, quote, like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before it shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth. In humiliation, injustice was denied him. Who can describe his generation for his life has taken away from the earth? And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom I ask you, does the prophet say this about himself or about someone else? And then Philip opened his mouth and beginning with this scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus. And as they were going along the road, they came and they saw some water. And the eunuch said, see, here is water. What prevents me from being baptized? And he commanded the chariot to stop and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord carried Philip away and the eunuch saw him no more and he went on his way rejoicing. This is a supernatural water baptismal service that takes place. So the reason why this eunuch from Ethiopia is in Israel to begin with is because he's there to worship and he's probably there during a high holiday. It's probably either Passover or the celebration of unleavened bread that kind of encapsulates the Passover holiday. Or he's there during the celebration of Sukkot, which is where they live outside of their homes and they build external, basically tense tabernacles to remember how God led them into the wilderness. And he's a eunuch, which means he's an official of Candus, the Ethiopian queen. And you might wonder why with an Ethiopian queen or a eunuch from Ethiopia be worshiping in Jerusalem during a time of a high feast. Well, you might remember in your Old Testament when Solomon was the king of Israel that a woman who was called the queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon. Well, Sheba is the area that is Ethiopia. And so Solomon so impacted the queen of Sheba that she took the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob back with her and established a Jewish community in Ethiopia. So some 1500 years later, there are still worshipers of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who are coming to Jerusalem to worship. And this is one of them. He's in his chariot. He's on his way home after worshiping and he's reading a scroll of Isaiah. He's actually reading a passage of scripture out of Isaiah chapter 53 that describes prophetically the Messiah, which ultimately would be Jesus. And that's what Philip does. Philip wakes up one day, he's a deacon in the church, but the Lord speaks to him to go onto a certain road, this highway that is leading from Jerusalem to Gaza, then along the coast down back towards Egypt and then Ethiopia. So he goes down there and he intersects this chariot. And as you just saw, he pulls up alongside the chariot. How many know the chariot's not moving really fast? If Philip's able to catch up to it and overtake it and run it down, and he begins a conversation with him, invites him up into the chariot and Philip begins to break down Isaiah 53 that the land that it's talking about or the suffering servants talking about Yeshua, the Messiah, Jesus. And he begins to share with them the good news of Jesus. Good news is the gospel. And so Philip is witnessing to this eunuch who has a biblical understanding but not yet completely fulfilled. He doesn't understand. And so in the process of time, faith arises in this eunuch's heart that Jesus is indeed the Messiah, the one that it's speaking of. And he says, so here's some water. What prevents me from being baptized? Now some translations, King James and New King James said, if you believe with your heart on the Lord Jesus Christ, you may, and the eunuch's response was, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. And so they both go down into the water and Philip baptizes him. And then they come back out of the water and it says the Spirit took him. How many want to ride like that? That's Holy Ghost Uber. When you're responding in obedience to what Jesus calls you to do and then when you're done, he just whoop, I mean, transports you to another place. And the Ethiopian eunuch has got to be standing there going, whoa, what just happened? It's supernatural. But it's interesting that in this whole process as Philip witnesses, shares within the good news, he believes his first response is there's some water. What prevents me from being baptized? In other words, water baptism was a part of the gospel. That Philip was preaching to the Ethiopian eunuch. Baptism was nothing new to Jewish believers. In fact, when John the Baptist came, he came baptizing. And it was part of ceremonial purifications before you could go into the temple. All around Jerusalem, there were these baptismal tanks that you had to have a ceremonial washing called a mikvah that you would go down, you would be cleansed before you would go into the temple to worship.  So when Jesus commissions his disciples to go into all the world and to preach the gospel, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This was not like Jesus comes out of left field with this idea about, I want you to go and preach.  They completely understood what was taking place. The external was speaking about something that was happening internal. And so that tradition carried into the followers of Jesus that we were called to believe and then be baptized. But when somebody gets baptized, a whole lot more is happening than meets the eye. And one of the things I want to say about baptism right off the bat is here at Radiant Church, we have things that we consider to be closed-handed issues that are significant and important that we will not let go of because they're important to us. Things like the deity of Christ, the inspiration of scripture, salvation by grace through faith. Those are closed-handed issues, the Trinity. Those are things that we're either in fellowship or we're not about. But then there are what we call open-handed issues and that's things like the timing of the return of the Lord. That's things like the presence of Jesus during communion and water baptism. We know that there are a lot of people who are like, well, we believe in sprinkling instead of immersion. Is that a deal-breaker? No, you can be a part of Radiant Church if you believe that.  Now, there are a lot of great Christians that believe other things. They believe, no, when you're baptized as a baby, that's it. No, sprinkling or immersion. And so those are non-salvation issues. They're believers in Jesus. They have a difference of opinion. This is our deeply held conviction, but yet salvation is not predicated on you getting baptized. Salvation is by your belief in Jesus Christ as the Savior who died for your sins on the cross and you by faith receiving him as Lord, okay? So you're not saved by baptism, but with that being said, let me say this, baptism is incredibly important. It's incredibly important. And I wanna show you why today it's important through talking about what happens in the water. When we're baptized, like this Ethiopian eunuch was, in response to faith in who Jesus is, what happens to us when we are baptized? What happens in the water? Number one, I'm gonna share with you three things that happen when you are in the water. Number one, water baptism is our first act of obedience as disciples of Jesus Christ. It's our first act of obedience. And this is important because it begins to set a new trajectory of our lives. When we go down into the water, we are responding in obedience to what Jesus called us to do. Mark chapter 16, verse 15 and 16, Jesus's words to his disciples were this. He said, go into all the world and to proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. So you notice here in Matthew chapter 28, verse 18, Jesus tells his disciples to go into all the world, preach the gospel. That's the good news. And then baptize. He says, and then those who believe and are baptized will be saved. So you might think to yourself, well, that means if I don't believe and I'm not baptized, then I'm not saved. No, notice the counterpart of that was Jesus said, and those who do not believe will be condemned. He doesn't say those who aren't baptized will be condemned. Why does Jesus say it so strongly though, when he says those who believe and are baptized, they will be saved?  And water baptism becomes the very first thing that we do as a disciple in obedience to the Lord Jesus because of what takes place there. And so if we have a hard time just taking that first step by saying, okay, I'm gonna go public with my faith by being baptized, I'll promise you we're gonna have a difficult time following Jesus in other areas of our life. Because listen, far too often, especially in our culture, we talk about Jesus being our personal Lord and Savior. He is indeed our personal Lord and Savior, but being your personal Lord and Savior is not the same as him being your private Lord and Savior. You need to go public with it. Jesus said, if you confess me before men, I will confess you before the Father. Water baptism historically for the church has been our public statement or our public profession of our faith. It's us going public saying, I prayed, I invited, I recognize Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God who died upon the cross for my sins. I've repented and I have made Jesus the Lord of my life. Now in front of the devil, hell, heaven, the congregation, family and friends, I am stating by being in the water that I am a Christian. And so historically, that was our profession of faith. If we're afraid to do that, then Jesus literally says that we're gonna, he won't confess us to the Father and we're gonna have a very difficult time stating that Jesus is Lord and standing up for that or even sharing the hope that's within us outside of the walls of the church. If we can't stand up in the middle of the church and confess him, we're gonna have a difficult time. This is why Jesus gives us this radical act of going into the water and being baptized. Back when I was in high school, I was a part of a youth ministry. It was a great youth ministry, but I had a friend in the youth ministry who was incredibly scared of crowds. And he wanted to be baptized. His name was Tim. He'd given his life to the Lord, but he didn't like being in front of crowds. And the church we grew up in had a 2,500 seat auditorium with a balcony. I mean, it was a big, big church, always full. And he's like, I wanna be baptized, but I don't wanna do it on Sunday night when everybody's there and you would come up behind the stage and they had it up high with cameras on you and you're on the screen. He's like, I don't wanna do that. And so we got baptized, but he didn't sign up for it.  This is like a couple of weeks later. And he's like, I did it. I'm like, what do you mean you got baptized? You did what? And he goes, I baptized.  And he says, here's what I did. I went into my bathroom and I filled our bathtub and I baptized myself. I'm like, Tim, I'm no theologian, but I don't think that counts. I don't think that counts. And he goes, well, why wouldn't it count? I'm like, because there's a going public act of obedience that's connected to it. There needs to be somebody there that is a witness to what you are doing because it is our first radical act of obedience to Jesus. And it sets a pattern in our life. So what happens in baptism is we're making a statement before everybody, Jesus is Lord, and I'm going to follow him. Now, here's the unfortunate thing in our culture. In American culture, we've replaced baptism with altercalls.  I believe in altercalls. I give altercalls, lead people in a sinner's prayer where you invite Jesus Christ into your life. And we then celebrate that you're saved. And that's absolutely right. But the problem with that is if we end it there, we've turned salvation into an event instead of a journey of obedience to Jesus. And yes, faith is what saves us, but historically for the church, it's water baptism that is our public profession to the whole world, to heaven, and to hell that we belong to Jesus. And the reason why I think it's more significant that way than just stopping and saying, well, I prayed a prayer one time, I invited Jesus into my life. Have you been baptized? No, because I just prayed a prayer is there isn't a next step of radical obedience.  If you wonder what's next in your journey with Jesus, it's taking that step of being baptized because there's other things that take place in the water, which leads to number two. Baptism is our burial of all old identities and allegiances. It's the burial of the old man with all of its identities and all of its allegiances. Colossians chapter two, verse 11 through 12 says this, in him talking about Jesus, you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God. Notice what Paul writes in Colossians that baptism is number one, it's a burial where we take the old us our sin ridden self and we literally bury, we identify with Jesus in his burial by putting our old flesh under the water like Jesus was buried in the tomb. But something more than that happens, he calls it a circumcision of the heart. Now, if you know what circumcision is, if you came into the Commonwealth of Israel in the covenant of God, all the way from Abraham, all the way up even including Jesus, on the eighth day they were baptized or they were circumcised, the males were circumcised as a symbol of the covenant. And the parents did that by faith. Paul is saying that there's a circumcision that's made without hands that happens when in faith we bury our old identities, our old sinful flesh in the waters of baptism. The Holy Spirit literally comes and does something to our heart. He doesn't circumcise us physically, he circumcises us spiritually. What does circumcision do? It cuts away flesh. There's a cutting away of the endemic sin nature that happens to us when faith is walked out in radical obedience by burying all old identities and allegiances. Think about that. All identities, all old identities and allegiances. We live in a world where we make covenants, vows, and allegiances with all kinds of things. And our identities are shaped by a lot of different things. Especially in our world today, so much of what we deem as our identity is shaped by me-centered living and even our own sin. But yet in the kingdom of God, Jesus says, I don't want to be an add on accessory to your current identity. And I don't want to be one of your many allegiances.  I want you to bury your old self, whatever sin you used to identify with. If you used to be a gang member and you're just like, you know, I've got the colors and I've got some tattoo, it's like bury that old identity. If the strongest identity that you had was politics, bury the politics.  If it's your sin, bury it. If it's your pride, bury it. Whatever your allegiance was and has been up until now, whatever identity, maybe your identity has been defined by the trauma that you've experienced or by what other people have said about you. Jesus will not be one among many. He wants to be total. And so what happens is we bring our old and we say, Jesus, you are Lord of all. You are my savior. I'm a sinner. You're the son of the living God. And so I repent and I'm burying my old self. All of the things I used to depend on to give me definition, to give me identity, all the old things that used to give me affirmation, all the old ways I used to find pride in who I was and in my life, I take it all and I consider it to be dead. Just like Romans six says, I reckon myself to be dead and I bury that thing. And when that happens, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit who then to our old heart, our calloused heart that has layers of sin and pride and the flesh as Paul calls it, which has the sin nature in it. There's a circumcision where that is removed from us. It's the work of the Holy Spirit. There was a Chinese or a missionary in China who told the story years ago about going into the Western provinces of China and ministering in some of the rural farm communities way out where nobody else had gone. And when they went there, the gospel had not yet penetrated these villages in these towns. But when they went there, do you guys hear the applause of heaven, look at that now, I love it. I love it when the angels clap for me, it's awesome. He talked about preaching in these villages where the gospel had never penetrated and in one particular village when he preached the gospel, the leader of the village came out and listened and because he came out, everybody else did. And he was a traditionalist like a Confucianist and that's how the village had always been. But he came out like three nights in a row, heard the gospel and on the third night, he said, I must stay up all night to consider what you've said. And the missionary, the evangelist was so glad that they were taking it so seriously. But the next morning, the man came to him and he said, all right, I believe what you say. And I'm ready to confess that Jesus is Lord of all and to be baptized, I am ready. I'm ready to give it all for Jesus. And he said, awesome. So he invited everybody, the chief invited his family, he invited the whole village that came out. And so they all came down by the river and the missionary took the man down into the river. But before he went down, he gave his wife a kiss, he's crying, he kissed his children, he kissed his extended family, hugged them, gave instructions to his son, went down into the water and the missionary is like, man, this guy is taking this really, really seriously. And so he took them down into the water and the man took a deep breath and he said, okay, I'm ready. And the missionary plugged his nose, held him and he said, I baptized you in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, put him down into the water and then brought him back up. And when he brought him back up, the man shook his head and he looked at him and he looked shocked and he looked surprised. And he said, what, what just happened to you? And he said, why did you bring me back up?  He had gone into the waters of baptism thinking that he was about to be held under and drowned so that he could gain eternal life. And then when the man figured out, no, you don't have to because Jesus already has, the man's smile on his face was from ear to ear and he said, it's like I have a whole brand new life all over again. That's as real as it gets church because that's exactly what happens. When we're baptized, we bury the old and then we come up in the new. So baptism is our burial. And there we don't just go through the motions. We're really burying our old identity and all other allegiances. Romans chapter six, verse three and four says, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised or raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life. See, there's a death to ourselves in following Jesus. Matthew 16, Jesus said, if any one would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. Jesus said, if any man chooses or desires to hold on to his life, he'll actually lose his life.  There's a burial of the old. It's an identification with Jesus and saying, when he died, I died. And because I died, all of my natural sin desires, all of my allegiances, all of the things that have shaped and for me, I am now a new creation. So it's water baptism becomes a burial of the old. But number three, here's what happens in the water as well. Baptism is also our uprising. It's our uprising against sin, against death and against the devil. We come up in the newness of life. It's exactly what Romans six says, that we too might walk in the newness of life. So just like Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day, we just celebrated that last weekend. When we go down into the waters of baptism, we're acting out what Jesus did, his death burial, but also his resurrection.  In Acts chapter two, where it records the very genesis, the beginnings of the first church in Jerusalem. It says in verse number 40, and with many other words, this is Simon Peter as he's preaching on the day of Pentecost, with many other words, he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation. So those who received his word, so they believed, were baptized and they were added to the church that day, 3000 souls. Now you might be wondering where they baptized all these people. Remember, they had baptismal tanks all over Jerusalem for mikvahs, purification rights. So they took these 3000 people who heard the gospel, who believed in Jesus and responded and said, what do we have to do? He says, be saved from this perverted and this crooked generation. And then they were baptized and added to the church and then look at what it says. And they devoted themselves to what? To the apostles teaching and the fellowship and the breaking of the bread and the prayers. What is that? It's a new way of living. They now become students or disciples of Jesus. Notice what they didn't do. I got baptized, now I go back to living the way I used to. Where I got baptized once upon a time but it really didn't change me. You see, the biblical order of things is that we hear the gospel, we believe the gospel and we respond to the gospel. This is why we dedicate children and we baptize believers. We dedicate children because we want them to experience the grace and the covenant of our families. So we dedicate them to the Lord. But the biblical pattern is that we hear the gospel. We believe the gospel just like they did here. And then we respond to the gospel. How do we respond to the gospel? We respond to the gospel and the demands of the gospel and the explicitly of the gospel by dying to ourself, burying our old identities and allegiances and allowing the Holy Spirit to bring us up out of the waters in the newness of life. And then devoting ourselves to following Jesus in a new and living way. Far too often what happens is we just, well, I believe in Jesus, but I believe in Jesus, but I want to kind of experience life or I don't want to get too crazy. I don't want to be a fanatic for Jesus. I just want to kind of have a nice form of religion that makes me feel good about myself and kind of spiritual therapy for my soul and I need to, but yet I'm gonna kind of live my life. No, that's not what they did. They heard the gospel and it so shook them church that Jesus came from heaven to earth as a man, died for our sins on the cross and then really was raised again from the dead and calls us to follow him, to radically forsake the pattern of the world and to begin to become students of Jesus by devoting ourselves to the apostles teaching, to the prayers, to fellowship with one another and to breaking the bread. As we do these things, what begins to happen is we're beginning to learn how to walk in the newness of life, a new life. We don't go back to walking in the old life. If you've ever seen a child learn how to walk, it's fun. It's fun to watch him. You know, some really pick up on it quick and others, what do they do? They take a couple steps and then poof. But give them six months, man, and they are booking. They're running. Why? It's because every time they fall, they get back up. Mom and dad are there to help them learn how to walk. Come on, you can do it. Take your first steps. And you make sure that they got good shoes on so that they're stabilized. You make sure that all the sharp objects, you know, like chainsaws are out of the living room because you don't want them to hurt themselves. You don't put them on ice skates. You don't make them tight rope. You don't stick them on mountain tops. You know, he's like, come on, you can do it. They're taking those first steps and they're learning how to walk because they're new to life. Part of being a disciple is learning how to walk and follow Jesus.  What's your first step? The first step though is always the hardest, but it's the most significant. And as disciples of Jesus, our first step is saying yes to Jesus and then stepping into the waters of baptism.  But I'm happy with just silver level, which is I pray to prayer and I got fire insurance. When I die, I'll go to heaven. Listen, there's only one way. Jesus didn't say, I've got multiple levels. So I've got one way. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them. Baptism is important. Baptism is significant. The eunuch said to Philip, here's water, what prevents me from being baptized? So here's my challenge. There are some of us that are watching online, joining us from places where you're not yet free to, or you don't have the ability to get to radiant or you don't have the ability to get to a community and be baptized in a church service. Here's what I want to challenge you to do. Find another believer to baptize you, videotape it and send it to us. But those of you who can, those of you who are here, those of you who are joining us online, I want to challenge you, be water baptized. You don't need me to baptize you, but you do need a believer to baptize you and you need to do it in front of at least two or three people as a witness. So invite family and friends and get baptized. Next weekend at radiant, both of our campuses, we're going to be performing water baptism. If you've believed in the gospel and you have not yet been water baptized or you feel a conviction because when you were baptized, it really didn't have any meaning to you because you were just doing it as a formality or maybe you were an infant or maybe you did it because mom and dad wanted you to do it when you were a child but it's not really been for you. This is why it's significant. I want to encourage you. I want to encourage you. Sign up, call a church office, get on the app, whatever you need to do and let's take that first step of radical obedience and following Jesus and then devote ourselves to following him in the newness of life. Amen, stand up with me if you would. If you would wherever you're at just buy your heads with me right now. As I said, the first step is hearing the gospel and then responding to it. And maybe you are hearing the gospel for the first time and you've never responded to it in faith.  You want to make Jesus Christ the Lord of your life. Turn from your sin, turn towards Jesus and receive forgiveness and grace. You want to make Jesus Lord of your life. Simon Peter said it like this, be safe from this crooked generation. And while you're praying, I think one thing that we can all agree on is our world is crooked. It's broken. We can't look to the world to save us. We can't look to our best intentions to save us. We can't look to any man to save us. Only Jesus can save.  I want to follow you. I will be a disciple of yours. You want that, I want to pray with you. Again, this is our first step. But for many of us, we may need to take this step. If that's you, right now, I want you to just raise your hand and say, pray for me today. I want to be saved. I want Jesus to save me. Thank you. Looking around the room, just if that's you, say, I need to get my life right with God, Jesus saved me. Thank you, I see that hand over there. Who else? Scanning the room.  Thank you to these two. You can put your hands down for a moment. We're gonna pray in just a moment.  I'm a believer, Jesus is Lord of my life, but I've never maybe understood baptism and I've never really taken it seriously. Or I know I need to take that radical step of faith. You say, you know, I know I need, I've not done that, but I know that I need to. And I'm saying before God that I'm committing myself. I'm going to obey him by going into the waters of baptism. If that's you, I just want you to raise your hand. Whatever way you're making that commitment before the Lord. I just want you to right now raise it up so that heaven sees that commitment. Yes, hands all over.  You've never done it and you know you need to. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. You can put your hands down, thank you. Those of you who raised your hand to receive Christ, right now I'm gonna lead you in a prayer. It's a faith confession. It's how we receive the gift of God's grace. I want everyone in the room and online to pray it out loud with me. Say, Heavenly Father, I believe in Jesus, that he is the Son of God, that he died for me and bore my sin in shame and then was raised from the dead. Today I repent of my sin, my offense towards you God, living for myself. Today I ask you to forgive me. Jesus, come into my life, be my Lord and Savior. I turn my back on the world. I turn my back on all old identities. I turn my back on all old allegiances. And today I believe I am a new creation. I am now a child of God. I have the spirit of God living in me. My heart is clean and I have an inheritance. In the kingdom of God. Thank you for loving me and saving me and leading me from this point forward in Jesus' name. Amen. Come on, can we just celebrate new life in Jesus?


The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Book Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Book Show, and this Wednesday, May 31st, is... It is the last... Last day of the month. It's the last day of May. Wow, that passed quickly. Amazing how quickly this year is passing. Okay. What's going on? I will be traveling just to give you a quick heads-up. I'll be traveling the first week in June, so starting tomorrow until next Friday. I will try to do as many shows as I can while I'm traveling. I will be in Dallas tomorrow doing a debate on inequality with James Golbrith, professor of economics from the University of Texas in Austin. It's a private event, so sorry. I know some of you might have wanted to come, but it is a private event. And then I'll be in Austin all of next week. All right, so, yes, I'll see when I do programs. I'll try to do one tomorrow and Friday for my hotel room. Hopefully that'll work out. We will see. And certainly I'll do some shows over the weekend. All right. Let's jump right in to our news roundup. So it's made the news that Uganda is in Africa, if you were wondering. A country in Africa, a former British colony, I guess, has just passed some of the most extreme anti-gay laws, probably in the world right now. Although much of the world has significant anti-gay laws, certainly Russia and much of Africa. So this is a law that's created a lot of angst, of course, in the western world, which has a very tolerant view of LGBTQ.  Not all of Africa. There are a number of countries. South Africa, for example. South Africa, for example, has legalized gay marriage. There are a number of countries in the African region that have, that basically have legalized the Oral Bisexual Act or decriminalized it. Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Lesotho, and Cichellis have decriminalized same-sex relationships just in the last decade.  Uganda passed a pretty restrictive law.    Somebody who knowingly promotes homosexuality, not clear what promotes even means, could spend 20 years in jail.  Organizations convicted of encouraging it could receive a 10-year ban. Currently, there are 22 nonprofits in Uganda that are under investigation for allegedly promoting homosexuality in the country. You can imagine how the government defines promoting homosexuality. And so, you know, this has obviously come under attack from much of the West. It turns out that the United States actually sends about $1 billion annually for various programs in Uganda. Did you know that? That our foreign aid goes $1 billion, $1 billion. And the Biden administration is threatening to withhold that $1 billion. I think they should permanently stop providing $1 billion to Uganda and maybe stop all this foreign aid stuff anyway. You're promoting all kinds of horrible, horrific things. Uganda and many African countries have very, very intolerant cultures to homosexuality. It is, you know, people are beaten, people are killed. People are treated just horrifically for being homosexuals. It is truly a travesty. And the fact that the United States supports this is, yeah, horrible. So, yes, withdraw their $1 billion, absolutely. For those of you who say, well, aggravated, disaggravated homosexuality, you know, rape. So what? So they got a death penalty for rape, big deal. Of course, raping a woman doesn't carry that kind of sentence. Anywhere near that kind of sentence. Rape of women is very, very common in Uganda. Almost a quarter of all women report that their first sexual encounter in Uganda was, I think it was 40% of women, was by rape.  There are new laws in the books that are more stringent about prosecuting rape of women and girls. But when it actually comes to courts, it is rare that these things are actually prosecuted. So clearly these laws, even if you think, yeah, rape, that's a bad thing.  So this is a bill basically that's anti-gay, anti-homosexuality. It's a bill that is trying to dictate what you do with your sex, what you do in the privacy room, in your bedroom. It is a disgrace, it is disgusting, it is horrific. This is kind of evil stuff that's just horrible. And of course, part of their energy comes from, you know, attacking the left.  Look at America and look at Europe. We don't want to be like them.  And it just feeds into, oh well, we kind of like Uganda because they're anti-woke. This is good. This is prevalent all over the world. Somebody says even China has some of that. Yeah, even China has it, although this is one of the worst. I mean, the death penalty is one of the worst. Horrible in the news and, you know, this is where you have to side, I think, wholeheartedly with those people advocating for gay rights, LGBTQ rights against authoritarian, horrific regimes like this that want to criminalize private human activity that affects nobody other than the people participating. What's interesting is that this is, what's interesting is what has happened with Ted Cruz with regard to this. So Ted Cruz put out a tweet yesterday about this, and the tweet read, the Uganda law is horrific and wrong. Any law criminalizing sexuality or imposing the death penalty for quote, aggravated homosexuality is grotesque and an abomination. All civilized nations should join together in condemning this human rights abuse. And he finished off with the hashtag, hashtag LGBTQ. This is Ted Cruz. So first, thumbs up to Ted Cruz. I haven't done that in like, I don't know, since he read out of Atlas Shrugged on the center floor years and years ago. I think that was 2014 or something like that. So, wow, Ted Cruz said this. I don't know what's happened to Ted, but good for him.  That is pretty unusual and pretty unexpected, I would say. But good for Ted. But what was truly, I don't know, informative and indicative is the comment section on Twitter, the response to Ted Cruz's tweet. Oh my God. Oh my God. His base, people who probably vote for him, voted for him. People in generally voted for him for president, maybe in 2016 in the primary. The right flipped out completely on Ted Cruz. Why do you care about human rights in Uganda? What about the January 6th writers? Wow. What's wrong with this law? Isn't homosexuality bad? Good for the Ugandans. They finally have the courage to do what we should be doing. Those are the responses. Here's one prominent right wing evangelical pastor. And I think this is indicative, right? Tell it to God, Ted. And he quotes Leviticus 2013. If a man lies with another male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon us. And the evangelical goes on to say, was this law God gave to his old covenant people, quote, horrific and wrong? Yes. It was horrific and wrong. Much of what God tells the people to do in the Old Testament is horrific and wrong. It would be cool if people stood up and said that stoning, stoning adulteresses, wiping out whole people, men, women, children, so not a seed among them over me, and beasts, by the way, beasts as well. Yeah, I mean, if you find Ted Cruz's tweet, I encourage you to find it and tweet it and retweet it. Look at the comments section. It gives you a flavor for a cross section of America that is truly scary. If you think woke is scary, you know, and woke is scary. Go read. People who follow Ted Cruz scary on steroids. And it doesn't seem to be just a few people. So it's going to be interesting. It's going to be interesting to see how Ted Cruz positions himself. And this does surprise me how strong his condemnation of this law is, the fact that he chose to comment on it. And he, you know, I think he actually doubled up on it later on. Let me see if I can find that story. I thought there was a something where he doubled up on it. And the stories are, you know, there's stories about Ted Cruz's wokeness, right? Ted Cruz is now woke because he's defending individual rights in Uganda. Where is, where did I see that? He kind of doubled up on it and followed up on it. Yeah, I don't see it, but okay. So be it. I think if you find it, you'll see him commenting afterwards. Ted Cruz has been forever a massive disappointment, good for him, good for him for standing up regarding this and for standing with individual rights for a change, even if it is in Uganda. My perspective is it's better than nothing. Bri, just because this is on topic, Bri says, when I was a kid, I said something homophobic and my mom yelled at me.  Morality can justify, well, a false morality, can justify any atrocity. Yeah, I mean, I found that super interesting. There was that movie about Alan Turing. I'd never known, didn't know much about Turing other than kind of Turing's law and, but what a hero he was during World War II. And then how the British government treated him, how horrifically they treated him afterwards. I didn't know any of that story and the movie brings it out and it really is chilling. He is a man who contributed enormously to the victory of the UK and the Allies in World War II.  Just horrible, just horrible. So I can't, if somebody remembers the name of the movie, I'll put it up because it's a good movie and it's worth watching and it's a nice slice of history and important slice of history that's worth knowing about. I just read Oscar Wilde, somebody mentioned Oscar Wilde, imitation game. Thank you, imitation game is the name of the movie. Somebody mentioned that Oscar Wilde died in Paris. In some context, I can't even remember. So I looked up Oscar Wilde, why was he in Paris?  And I knew Oscar Wilde was sent to jail for being a homosexual and he was in the early part of the 20th century in Great Britain. He was sent to jail, I think for three years, hard labor. Three years of hard labor. So horrific time in jail. And when Oscar Wilde got out of jail, he packed his bag and left England never to return and lived in Paris.   And I think gay marriage is brilliant. And it's, yeah, it just shows that the rest of the world needs to catch up. Western culture is superior. It is better. One of the indications of that is attitudes, I think, to homosexuality. And one of the things that we should be exporting to the rest of the world. Not in the form of crazy, you know, far out leftist LGBTQ, you know, crazy nutty of you, but the basic idea of individual rights, the basic idea of dignity and the right of people to engage in the sexual relationships as long as a consensual between adults of their choice. And that freedom is something the United States should be exporting through word of mouth, through the bully pulpit, through moral, you know, through morality and through moral example. And ultimately, through not supporting countries that choose to go the route of barbarism. It's it's it's certainly a reason not to be supportive of Russia. But yet it is one of the reasons the right is so supportive of Russia. More about that in the future. All right. Let's see. So that is the Ted Cruz Uganda story. Horrible story out of Mexico, but not not surprising really not surprising story out of Mexico. The Mexican president Andre Manuel Lopez Obrado has said that he would actually support an agreement, an agreement with some of the nation's most powerful violent cartels. Some kind of agreement to stop the violence. So he wants a peace deal with the cartels. I mean, what is the job of government? Somebody says, am I for cultural imperialism? Absolutely. I'm for cultural imperialism. Absolutely. Not by use of force, not by by coercion, not by going to war, but by exporting our culture and by advocating for our culture and by articulating the case about why our culture is superior to theirs. Absolutely. I'm for cultural imperialism, if that's what it's called. I'm for turning the entire world, the entire world into a haven of Western culture, because Western culture is a culture fundamentally of individualism. It is a culture that is superior. This current culture, as bad as it is, as bad as today's culture in the West is, is far superior to cultures anywhere else in the world. And in many respects, it's superior to any culture that's ever existed in human history.  But overall, overall, you have never been put aside the economics for a second. You've never been freer than you are right now. You've never had more protection for your freedom of speech than you have right now in the United States and in Western cultures. It's not perfect. It's far from ideal. It's far from what I would like to see. But God, you know, any kind of, any kind of perspective on history would suggest that, wow, life is so good right now. You know, people are complaining about the FBI and they should complain about the FBI. The FBI is doing a lot of horrific things. But what was the FBI like in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s under J. Edgar Hoover? It had a file on everybody, on all of you. They did horrific things. They followed J. Edgar Hoover's complete agenda. You could speak more freely. 10 years ago before anyone started calling everyone bigots, really? Is somebody calling you a bigot? Restrict your ability to speak freely? People call me a bigot all the time. I say exactly what I believe all the time. You know, part of this is people have become soft. Somebody yells at them and they freak out and they go hide. Somebody tries to cancel them at Twitter and they go running to, I don't know, the latest crying to Ben Shapiro or whatever. You know, part of the problem is that the current generation of kids doesn't have a spine. Doesn't have a spine. Stand up to the bastards. Stand up to people who call you a bigot. Tell them what you think of them. Yeah, it's time to stop self-censoring. People are constantly self-censoring. By the way, people were self-censoring 20 years ago. I know this and people are called bigots 20 years ago. I was yelled at 20 years ago. I was for standing up after 9-11. I was demonstrated against. I was attacked physically 20-something years ago. I couldn't publish. The Wall Street Journal wouldn't accept a four-page ad from the Einren Institute. We were willing to pay them $100,000. The Wall Street Journal wouldn't accept it because it might offend Islam. New York Times didn't accept it. Washington Post accepted it. But the Wall Street Journal wouldn't. I mean, everybody is so sensitive today and so focused on how bad things are today that you miss how good things are today. Ten years ago, gay couples couldn't get married. That's a big deal for gays. 50 years ago, white people and black people in Virginia couldn't marry each other. We've come a long way in the last 50 years. I mean, to not see the ways in which we today have in some ways a worse culture and in some ways a better culture, but no matter what, in a cumulative, a far better culture than any other country in the world and in some respects a better culture than we've ever had before. In some respects worse. You have to have that kind of perspective to be able to fight evil and to be able to fight what's bad. You have to also recognize what's good. I mean, just think of how much better I believe women, and I think objectively women are today than they were 50, 60, 70 years ago or at any point in time in human history. And women are not in good shape in Uganda. It's part of what a primitive culture is. Almost every kind of a culture treats women badly. That's part of they don't have rights. They don't have property. They're treated as sexual objects. The rape is more prevalent. That's part of it, right? All right, let's see. Mexico. A Mexican president is advocating for a deal with the cartels. These are cartels that are responsible for the killing murder of thousands and thousands of people. These are put aside the fact that drugs should be legal. But these are people who engaged in the most horrific violence. They kidnap people. They murder them. They often kidnap them and then use acid to melt their bodies so nobody ever finds them again. They massacre. They torture. I mean, I can't think of more, much more horrific organizations in the world than the Mexican drug cartels. And the Mexican president has come out and said, we need a peace deal. We need a truce. We need some kind of agreement where we reduce the crime that these cartels are involved in. I mean, the one job of a government, the one job of a government is to protect our physical well-being. The one job of a government is to protect us from violent criminals, is to catch the criminals, put them in jail, is to prosecute crime and to protect our streets and to make it safe for us to protect our individual rights. Life. That's the one most important job of any government. In many respects, if you understand the individual rights, it's the only job of the government. And basically, Mexico and government is treating it. No, no, no. We'll negotiate with these guys. We're not going to prosecute them. We're not going to put them in jail. We're not going to figure out who they've murdered and actually go after them. We're not going to work with the drug authorities to shut them down. We're going to allow them to be in business. We're just going to negotiate with them so they don't behave quite so meanly. We don't want them to be mean. It's just horrific. I mean, this guy is just unbelievable. Imagine if the United States' attitude towards the mafia was, well, we need to negotiate them. We need to figure it out.  But usually, they understand that they have to go after criminals inside the country. Mexico is at a different level, right?  No, sorry. That's the president. Recently, a woman who is searching for a missing brother published an open letter to the 10 organized crime groups, calling them to stop the practice of forced disappearance, where they melt the body and you never even know or burn it so you never even know that you never find the missing person. Again, this is the practice they should stop. Keep the murdering. You can keep the murdering. Keep killing people. Keep torturing people. Keep all that. Just please return the bodies after you kill them. So, Amlo, who is the president of Mexico, that's his nickname, says I agree and hope he can achieve peace. That's what we all want is peace. He says violence is irrational. And we're going to continue looking for peace to achieve peace and that is what we're doing. And if there is an initiative of this kind, of course, we support it.  Look what El Salvador did to its gangs. Maybe the Mexicans can learn a little bit from El Salvador. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I mean, I can't think of anything more outrageous that, I mean, I'm sure there is some, that a leader of a country can do than say we're going to negotiate with the main crime families in our country to achieve peace. All right. That looked longer than I thought. So, like, quickly, you know, the debt deal that McCarthy and Biden struck is now being voted on in the House of Representatives. We will see what happens. As I said, the debt deal is almost a non-event. But, you know, nobody seems concerned.  Within a few years, the percentage of debt to GDP is going to be higher than Italy's. Not a particularly healthy economy. Not a particularly wealthy country. Not a particularly, you know, successful economy. The United States has gone from about 60% of GDP debt, which I always thought was really high for the United States. In 2007, to double that, well over 120, close to 140 by 2028, maybe 140, but now it's 122% of debt. So double. In what? In 15 years? And by the way, this covers two Republican administrations, George Bush and Donald Trump. It covers Republicans, you know, in the House and the Senate, having majorities in the House and the Senate. Doesn't matter. GDP, debt as a percent of GDP has gone from 61, 62%, to over 120% during that period. Most of that period, I think. I think it's right to say that most of that period had the Republicans have at least the House or the Senate. So I have some control, and yet they have allowed this to happen. The only time you saw during this period kind of debt to GDP flattening a little bit is after the deal that Republicans cut with Obama, which was much better than the deal they just cut with Biden, that slowed the growth of government a little bit. But then, you know, Trump accelerated and then COVID blew it up and then Biden has just accelerated further. Just unbelievable. And the stunning thing is nobody really, nobody really cares. Nobody really cares. All right, finally, well actually let's call that a day. We'll call that a day. I'll keep these stories for tomorrow or for next time. And I will go to your questions. And we are only $50 short of our target. So, you know, two and a half, $20 questions will get us there. So it'd be great if you have a question and you can use the super chat to ask it and help us get to the goal. Thank you, John, for, John just says thanks for covering this topic, topic was the Uganda thing. All right, Remo, 119 euros. Thank you, Remo. Really, really appreciate it. Let's see. I just sent you an email with a three-minute timestamp of an interview with one of the greatest heroes, Michael Milken. Yeah, one of my, certainly one of my greatest heroes when it comes to business. I've added two questions with it related to private equity. Can you please answer it on your next show? Let me make sure I've got the email. I don't see the email. So just make sure you sent the email to the right address, Iran at your onbrookshow.com. Iran at your onbrookshow.com. And yes, I'm happy to answer any questions regarding Michael Milken and private equity that you might have. I will check that out. And thank you for 120 euros. Oh, that is very, very generous. I appreciate it. Okay, JJ Dick Bees. Again, we're short 50 bucks. I recently watched Ken Burns' Doc at Vietnam War, and it struck me just how chaotic and terrible the 60s were. People who think the world is falling apart today should watch that and see just how bad it was back then. Yeah, I mean, the Soviet Union was kind of at its peak power. Communism seemed to be spreading all over the world. The left in America was, there were riots. There were racial riots, race riots after a number of times during the 60s. There was Woodstock. There were hippies. There were demonstrations on American campuses, and people got killed in these demonstrations. The 1960s saw the assassination of an American president, assassination of a leading, his brother, a leading candidate for the Democratic Party. They saw other attempted assassinations, and of course it saw the assassination of a leading, you know, Martin Luther King, the leader of the Civil Rights Movement. Violence was starting to really pick up much more than today, and violence into the 1970s was horrific in the United States. No question, inflation was picking up in the 1960s from an economic perspective. Economic growth was declining. You know, the government established a welfare state for the first time in American history, a real developed welfare state. Medicare was instituted. I mean, yeah, I mean, it looked like the darkest of times. And in many respects, existentially it was, much worse than what we're seeing today. And hippie culture was celebrated, was celebrated by many. All right, Richard is with us. Richard says, if the United States implemented laissez-faire tomorrow, would there be a need for international supply chains outside of resources not in the ground here, would we be able to have diversified labor, etc. here? Well, I mean, you definitely have diversified labor here much more than you do. You'd have, I think with laissez-faire, you'd have, you know, basically some form of open borders policy. So you'd have a lot more immigrants and therefore a lot more workers. But at the same time, the United States would also lower part of laissez-faire, would involve lowering tariffs to zero. So allowing any American to buy any good from anywhere in the world, and it's still quite possible that goods from outside of the country could be better or cheaper. And therefore, I don't think it is the case that all supply chains would move to the United States or manufacturing would be in the United States. There are places that are better at manufacturing certain things than Americans are. You know, the Germans are better at manufacturing lenses than any American company is. You know, it's likely that the Vietnamese and the Bangladeshis are just better at producing cost-effective clothing than the Americans are. So there's a wide variety of goods. Again, comparative advantage would dictate that there is a wide variety of places where comparative advantage works and where other countries, people in other countries would be producing more. Zero tariffs allows you to create a division of labor society instead of over 300 million in the United States, over 8 billion people around the world. And that generates an increase in wealth and an increase in productivity and an increase in human well-being across the board, including in America itself. All right. Thank you, Richard. Frank says, for producing every day, even when you don't feel like it. Thank you, Frank. Really appreciate it. That's $50. Really, really appreciate it. You guys have really come through today. In the last few days, actually, we've hit and beaten and exceeded our targets in the last three days, the last few days quite generously. Richard said, did Michael Milken publicly speak out against leading politicians that support free markets in a way that got him targeted by Giuliani at all? Or was he simply targeted because his financial success and high salary comps? Yeah, he was targeted because of his financial success. He was targeted because Giuliani recognized that he could build a political career of overgoing after Wall Street. He was targeted because of the kind of rhetoric you see today about greed and about inequality and about salaries and about all of that stuff. Michael Milken basically became a poster child for Wall Street at a time when businesses in the Midwest were shutting down and Wall Street was doing amazing. And the perception was that the U.S. economy was rewarding finance and now rewarding production. The West Belt was being created. And there was just this whole attitude around negativity around what was going on in U.S. business. And he was a scapegoat. But more than that, he was a rung on the political ambition ladder explicitly for Giuliani. Giuliani took the office. He went from deputy justice, number two at the Justice Department, to District Attorney of the Southern District of New York specifically to reign in Wall Street and specifically in reigning in Wall Street to go after Michael Milken. And he took the change in position because he knew the Treasury job ultimately was a dead end politically. And if he wanted to go into politics, what he really needed was a position that got him in front of cameras and that was Wall Street and that's where he took the Southern District of New York position. But no, Milken was not political. Milken did not speak out particularly about these issues. But he was wrapped up in the anti-Wall Street and symbolized the evil of Wall Street. I will say one other thing and that is Milken's Drexel Burnham, the firm that Milken worked for, had been a small investment bank insignificant and had suddenly bolted to being the largest investment bank in the world or in the United States. And that created a lot of resentment among other investment banks that it had replaced. And there was really a lot of lobbying by traditional investment banks to try to crush, to try to go after Drexel Burnham and Mike Milken as a consequence and wrapped up in that, at least based on what I've read, was the fact that Drexel Burnham was also a firm dominated by Jews, Milken is Jewish. And some of the wasps that dominated the other investment banks did not appreciate these up-and-comers dominating investment banking. Now all of that has changed over the last 30 years, but that was true in the 1980s. Certainly in the 70s and the 80s as Drexel became a big deal and ultimately Drexel was destroyed, not only Mike Milken, shut down explicitly by the government.  Maybe, but I don't think so and it's not clear that they would leave. Germany is a pretty good place. A lot of knowledge is built up within German companies. There's a lot of IP. It's not that easy to take that IP away. It's not clear, Bangladeshis want to move again. It's not clear that making textiles in the U.S., you could live the kind of life, you know, you could own enough to live in the United States. The United States has a higher cost of living than Bangladesh. So no, it's not clear when you play out the economics of it that, no, everybody just gravitates to one place. There's no reason for them to, other than it's laissez-faire and they want to go towards freedom. And millions and millions of people would do that, but a lot would stay.  I think that's a more optimal outcome. And I think a cheaper one for us. So if the Bangladesh, he moves to the U.S., his wages will go up, his productivity goes up, but his wages also go up, his t-shirt won't get, won't get cheaper. It'll get more expensive. Whoops, I don't mean to do that. Okay, one more from Richard. For providing value for covering issues, not covered anywhere else. Thank you, Iran. Would love to see more coverage of financial markets, perhaps in the future of international trade and markets with current political trends. Yeah, happy to do that. We'll start doing that in the next few weeks. A lot going on in markets and with maybe possibly a recession coming, there'll be a lot to talk about. Robert, the reactionary sneering chant of go woke, go broke almost inevitably descends into go anti-woke, go morally ideologically bankrupt. Absolutely, absolutely. It's really sad to see how low the White has sunk and how they're willing to take out somebody like Ted Cruz is one of them in the name of, I don't know, in the name of their religiosity, in the name of their craziness, in the name of their, I'd say, primitive Middle Ages morality. Adam Reed, Alan Turing contributed the most to victory in World War II, teaching U.S. forces to break the Japanese code. Yeah, I mean, unbelievable what he did. Again, I encourage you to go watch Imitation Game, an amazing, amazing, amazing movie. Frank says, tomorrow's ideas for today's thinkers. Tomorrow's ideas for today's thinkers. Is that the tagline for the Iran book show? Is that what you're suggesting, Frank? Thank you, Frank. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, in particular, Remo. Really appreciate the support. And don't forget, send me that email. I'm still tracking my email looking for it. I haven't seen it yet. And you're on at youronbookshow.com. Thank you, Frank. Thank you, Richard, for a series of $20 questions. Thanks, everybody. I will see you. I hope tomorrow I will try to do a show tomorrow. I'll be in Texas time. So it might be later in the day. The news briefing might be later in the day. Same thing. It will be true probably on Friday. The news briefing later in the day. Of course, all contingent on the hotel having good Wi-Fi. I think it should. It's a good hotel. It should have good Wi-Fi. And talk to you then. Oh, don't forget, if you haven't seen the interview I did yesterday with Uncle Garte, I think you'll really, really enjoy it. So go check it out. Check it out. Frank says, forget woke, wise up. Yeah, we should all wise up and reject woke and wise up. But stop obsessing. Bye, guys.


Okay, very good morning to you. It is Friday the 22nd of January So if I'll come to the end of the week I'm gonna get you up to speed on what happened on the closing wall street obviously here we can see the heat map of the S&P 500 and We're gonna talk about one of the main things to look out for for the day ahead if you are watching here snapfire live Obviously, it's just gone 7 a.m. Now, so you're getting this early doors But if you're watching this on YouTube delayed don't forget to like and subscribe to the channel really appreciate it Leave a comment if you have any questions at all and also check out amplify live on the link below But look, let's look at the the close on Wall Street here. And there's a couple of Green hotspots and also red if you were looking at energy bit of a reflection of the latest policies the executive orders issued in the first day in office for Joe Biden, particularly more Negative in some respects for the energy sector, but on the flip side yesterday Again NASDAQ outperformer and the NASDAQ is outperform really for three consecutive sessions to see off the the second half of this week Closed up eight tenths of 1% in the NASDAQ 100 last night comparative to basically flat at the S&P and down Apple was up about three point seven percent came after a positive broker upgrade from Morgan Stanley Then you also had another standout here with some of the chip makers, which was Intel They had some strong numbers as well Which we'll talk about in a moment They actually pre-released their earnings just before the close on an apparent hacking of their corporate website But nonetheless, they had positive numbers They were up six point five percent and you can see that reverberate across the other chip making space NVIDIA AMD all moving considerably higher as well Both around three percent each respectively So continuation of the NASDAQ moves big tech as well Amazon Facebook obviously helping lift that index to to outperform the others Otherwise just looking at the broader context of the asset class mix this morning equity index futures if anything I would say This is a little bit of a period of consolidation in some respects or if anything profit-taking Just going over the news which I'll talk about in a moment. I think overall. I'm pretty neutral I would say in terms of directional biases I don't really have a definitive kind of positive or negative outlook as far as the intraday is concerned But just a quick cycle through some of these charts, and I think they'll explain them from a technical point of view When I'm looking at and here We've got a we got really this is the NASDAQ 100 future a kind of area of what I would say is consolidation now Perhaps it makes more It's more appropriate to put it on a 90 minute and this is reflected across the other US indices really and We've had such a such a good week for the equity market I mean if we go back to where we were right at the beginning of the week, you know trading down really From a percentage point of view if I go back to the beginning of the reopening of trade on the 18th 19th, and we were right back down there Here the low to the high we're looking at about a five plus percent gain So to see us just leveling off a little bit and just starting to consolidate on the upper bound of that move I think it's absolutely probably appropriate because there hasn't been really much in a way of singular catalyst it's been more of this kind of shared viewing markets about the The cohesion and collaboration that we'd like to see between the administration in the former Biden and the LMS Treasury Secretary with that of the Fed and that's what's really Cultivated this move throughout the entire week really irrespective of things like COVID still obviously Being a fairly precarious situation in terms of death counts and pressure on infrastructure in terms of hospitals and so on This is reflected across elsewhere and you know the NASDAQ has held up a little bit better I guess in the case of the S&P I don't think it would be surprising at all to see a little bit of profit-taking This is obviously the all-time highs seen here. This was touched Actually in the very early hours of yesterday's trade looking on the 90 minute candlestick here So we've kind of drifted south with down about 12 points this morning nothing dramatic Nothing really too much to mention the overnight Asia pack session if we drift back down Be looking for a key area of kind of support to come in Down at around that 38 kind of 17 18 level which would encapsulate the highs It was seen back on the 8th and again resistance on the 14 15th of this month. So Don't feel particularly apprehensive if we did have a negative day You know, we come down half percent percent. I think we'll find support lower down All things remaining equal for the time being Otherwise elsewhere gold has come down to a fairly interesting near-term technical level of support Which the market did respond to yesterday just marked it up here with a colored rectangle Which was going back to the end of last week It acted as resistance a few times before we broke through that middle of this week it acted as a nice Area of support alongside the pivot level yesterday took a decent bounce on the back of that We've just had a fail break again this morning So I do think that precious building on that level definitely worth keeping an eye on any breach of that then could open up Decent move to the downside probably looking to target the S2 on the day which would bring in some of these relative highs that was seen around 1850 type area Which would be right on that S2 level Oil markets they broke down a little bit in the overnight session Again, no real major news to to kind of trigger that move other than what I'd say is probably a technical breach This is where we had the API infantry data Early in the week. We haven't had the OEs is yet. We've had a kind of dual delay to that release given the Martin Luther King junior day holiday on Monday and then the inauguration we had midweek So we've broken down in the overnight session through what had been an area of support Which was around 52 86 in front-month futures and the markets just dropped in fairly Illiquid conditions in the overnight session and we're trading down around sixty seven cents at the moment. So I Wouldn't say it was any to do with so much covid developments people panicking on the demand side I'd say this is more just a technical based move than anything else does come at mid with gold trading a touch Heavier down four bucks a bit of resurgent Surgeons in the dollar this morning as Europe's coming to the market the Dixie's just picked up a touch Trading up now one tenth of one percent just reversing partially some of the losses that had been seen in the prior session How persistent do I think that that dollar strength will be? I don't think it will be that persistent I think we are going to resume this downward trend, but for now There is a bit of mild dollar strength and as such then it's putting a little bit of weight on some of these major currency pairs Cables just coming down to a relative area of interest in the near term. So just having a look here This is kind of 37 11 marker was really important You know, we were looking at the daily continuation this time yesterday about how important it was if cable were to see a Continuation and really a decent next push to the upside Ultimately tying in 140. It was really important that this week we managed to close ourself above what had been that key area of Resistance and support dating back to 2017 2018 and we're now turning away from there So it might be then that that area of resistance does hold If we remain as we are at the moment and then euro dollar as well just backing off a little bit just again Not so much sterling Euro-related a little bit more that rebound and a dollar but worth noting that cable is Underperforming that of Euro dollar and we're going to talk about cable a little bit more from a fundamental perspective Because there's been some updates on the UK lockdown strategy Which would have negative connotations for for sterling from a fundamental perspective. All right So look, let's get straight into some of the news flow then so we talked about this as the overall Kind of snapshot of how we finished. We did have some aftermarket earnings. So just very briefly IBM their shares did fall around six point five percent aftermarket. So fairly sizable decline Their sales have now declined or remain stagnant for ten quarters With no year over year increase in revenue their cloud and cognitive software IBM's biggest unit saw revenues decrease 4.5 percent from a year earlier the company hasn't given any specific financial guidance having stopped doing so back in April of 2020 so yeah, not good numbers at all for IBM and becoming a Familiar pattern there for that particular firm in turn on the other hand They were up over six percent and as I said, they needed to pre-release their earnings because of an apparent hacking of their corporate website The net result though was they had some pretty strong numbers Their revenues did slip one percent in the fourth quarter to twenty billion But that was in fact two and a half billion dollars above street expectations Just having a look then talking about COVID-19 and lockdowns firstly starting with New president Biden. He's unveiled his kind of COVID-19 response strategy Announcing a series of executive actions including stabilizing the supply chain for critical medical supplies and boosting the government's ability to rapid and equitable vaccine distribution, so Yeah, already feels like a very different approach to what we had under the Trump administration, which was kind of just almost ignoring the fact that this was going on and Biden's taken A little bit more of an assertive stance Well, it's too early really to say whether this will yield dividend It's one thing committing to a strategic plan. It's another thing executing it So I wouldn't say this is particularly anything that would move markets and also it's not really that out of line of Expectations of what people would expect Biden to do anyhow To give you a bit of context in terms of numbers, the US has administered at least 17.2 million doses of the vaccine so far. That's about five doses per 100 people according to the Bloomberg vaccine tracker Where does that put the US generally in terms of its rollout? Well, it's behind the likes of Israel and the UK But it is outpacing people like Germany Italy and Canada at the moment So they're kind of mid-table if you if you like The main talking point though for a lot of the press has been the UK and as I said the pound is underperforming a little bit this morning and You know, this is the one thing I think that could kind of Just Take a little bit of a shine out of this whole positivity that's been emerging with this whole kind of view About this kind of goalie lock scenario under under the Fed and POW and Yellen and so on and that is the fact that you know The reality here is that lockdowns will be extended You know, I've talked about this a lot on the briefing as soon as the UK government came out and said We're gonna we're gonna review the current lockdown status With an aim then to have administered 14 million Vaccines by the middle of February allowing us to loosen the lockdown. I mean that Was never gonna be met in my opinion And you know the talk of the town now is that the the third UK lockdown could last until the summer So let me give you a bit of detail around the kind of reasoning for this And a lot of this is emanating from Reports from late yesterday evening where Boris Johnson does warned basically it's too early To save England's coronavirus lockdown will end in the spring now him saying that phrase is quite a big U-turn In government communication before they've been pretty adamant and sticking to that I think ever since Dominic Rabb spoke at last weekend and he was talking about September time, you know, I think the The narratives change a little bit and realization is is that they definitely need to Prolonged this particularly given the fact that there was that Imperial College study yesterday talking about the reproductive rate really has had zero Change Irrespective of this national lockdown and a lot of that reminded me of this chart that This table here. I know it's a lot of text, but I'll summarize it this came out from Bank of America I tweeted it maybe three or four months ago And I was talking about positive and negative kind of trends that were emerging as we go through the pandemic and you know One of the main things here. I think has been Kind of three-fold out of the four bullet points at the bottom and the main one being pandemic fatigue You know the adherence to the rules which is the main rhetoric the government had been trying to push and This increasing kind of penalty fines that people will be paid is because people have become tired of Social distancing they're taking more chances You know their willingness to accept worsening public health for the opening of the economy to try and get back to work and things like that They're definitely I'd say is the main culprit of this the situation at the moment Then you've had super spreader events. You've had Christmas You've had new years all of these undoubtedly are contributing factors to it and then cold weather and fading fiscal backdrop, but you know the last one I think Rishi's really gonna have a real pain Later on in a few months time when hopefully we come out of the other side of the COVID situation because you know tax increases And as he said to MPs yesterday, there is no such thing as a money tree Someone's got to pay for all this and that's going to be another tricky point in time to tackle But something which will be much further down the line that went in really impact the market from here and now But yeah at some point the fiscal Side cannot support markets forever and it's got to show itself to be sustainable on its own two feet So going back to here then and what what's happening is basically Johnson's change to kind of rhetoric a little bit on the timing of the loosening of the lockdown because of the fact that leading scientific Advisors part of the scientific pandemic influenza group on modeling. They're called the spy M So it would be unwise to consider reopening pubs and restaurants until May Now a lot of what they were talking about was the efficacy rates of these vaccines Even though they're particularly high at 90 percent, you know, ultimately then there's 10 percent of the Vaccinated group and these are obviously the most at risk generally older Demographic or those with underlying new medical conditions are still Not going to respond to the virus and therefore have an ability to spread and also are at more risk of eventual death And at that category puts more pressure on the infrastructure things like the NHS so Yeah, I mean It's always been the same the sensible thing is always being to act fast act hard But obviously that's the worst thing economically and politicians are caught in that catch 22 so It's interesting to see now where the government go with this UK government source reported in the telegraph has suggested a two phase unlocking plan is under consideration Now what this would constitute of is whereby the national lockdown will be stretched out for several months Before moving the entire country into tier two restrictions And obviously tier two in terms of what the actual virus is performing on a case basis Would be quite a considerable drop in cases at that point before then the loosening could take place Um ministers have gone so far as saying according to the telegraph and the guardian this morning of considering making a 500 pound payment To everyone who tests positive for covet in order to persuade people with symptoms to come forward for a test So that's how far it's got now. I think the the maths Back of a napkin would work out about two billion pounds That would cost the government going on the current rates at the moment That you can anticipate the people coming forward then for tests um, so Yeah, the main bottom line here is that um Again, I I saw easter as more of a timing for the lockdown. This is going even beyond that at the moment Even it could be a strategy the government uses where they have some degree of loosening over easter again because it's cultural relevance And then we return back to the the status play of what we're in at the moment And then it rolls on for another few months so Yeah, that of course has implications in terms of the the economic kind of narrative at the moment in the uk and the speed of the The recovery going forward. So, yeah, sterling's had a really good run. Um, a lot of it Supported by some double weakness recently So that in combination with that long-term key technical level resistance Just backing off a little bit this morning and and if we um, I do think that we will hold potentially that resistance and we won't End up above that long-term level, which will be technically significant then for the time being I quick look at the calendar. Um, there are some interesting data points coming out this morning Just quickly the uk retail sales number came in at 0.3 percent. That was weaker than expected 1.2 So just further fuels the flame obviously of the already downward trend and under performance that sterling was seeing But I think it's a much lesser contributing factor in that respect. The main thing is really is the data coming out this morning You've got the flash. It is the jam flash pmi day And that means you need to have your wits about you these are market moving data points We saw some surprisingly strong numbers actually last time out however Since then we've had further restrictions coming in in the likes of Germany, Netherlands Restrictions so much so in the lockdown that they're even more stringent than what they were in the spring so particularly interested to see the german figure And I guess the anticipation here is that perhaps on the bias to a more weaker downside surprise And this definitely has the potential to be market moving for the euro european based assets as well across the board Otherwise for the u.s. We get the same So 245 you've got existing home sales. And as I said, you've got the delayed release of the department energy Oil numbers as well coming out later That is it though. I'm going to leave it there Let you guys get on with the day. I'm going to wish you a lovely weekend. Take care And I will see you on monday. Thanks


Hi everyone, Joe for Jaspy's casebreaks.com. Coming at you with 2022 Panini Chronicles Baseball one box break number five, Ram team break number five. Three different dice rolls happening here, giving away 12 spots in this Chronicles box. Then we're gonna do the break itself and then we're gonna finally give away those final five spots in that Chrome three and two team random, which is this one right here.  And we'll do that in the next video. Big thanks to this group right here for making it happen. So we sold 18 spots outright and we're giving away those 12. Here's the first dice roll. Right here, we're gonna do live dice. And that's five and a one, six times. So top 12 after six, good luck. One, two, three, four, five, and six, top 12. There we are right there. Adam, Adam, Michael, Adam, Devin, Adam, Michael, Michael, Devin, Michael, Michael, Wade. So we'll put those little roof tops next to your name. So you know you won those in the filler. Now we can do the box break itself and that'll be a second dice roll. And that's gonna be three and a six nine times for names and teams. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and ninth and final time. Nine times for the teams, two, eight, and ninth and final time. Audrey's down to blue jays. Here's the first half of the list right over there and second half of the list right there. Let's just alphabetize by team and let's get on with it. There's the final printout, hot off the presses. Thanks everyone for making this happen, appreciate it. And we've got a pretty backed up schedule, ladies and gentlemen. So keep an eye on that schedule to see when your break is coming up. So we finally unlocked two cases with this team random and then three more cases with that top's chrome black. So there's a lot going on today. You might be a little ahead of schedule at some points maybe behind the schedule at some other points. So just keep, just kind of roll with it. Thanks everybody. And away we go, just the microphone a little bit. Matt Brash in our first hit is Matt Manning. 27 out of 49, America's past time autograph for Detroit. It's gonna be for Michael. Michael F with one of the spots that he won. Got a Bobby Wood Jr. here, nice. Rookie card for the Royals, that's gonna go to Devin. Got a Stephen Kwan, nine out of 10, nice. Exact short and a Julio Rodriguez. Nice stuff here and a Wanderfranco and a Vidal Bruhan. So Vidal Bruhan, the autograph will go to Devin and the Reyes. The Wanderfranco rookie card in that Phoenix design and Silver goes to Devin and the Reyes. The Julio Rodriguez rated rookie from that clearly Donner's design, Seattle, Adam Cupperman with that one, A.K. and a Stephen Kwan to 10 for Cleveland. That will be for Wade. If Julio Rodriguez didn't exist, that Stephen Kwan might've had a shot at Rookie of the Year. It's O'Neill Cruz to 100.  The O'Neill Cruz, Rookies and Stars will go to Michael and the Pirates. Got a Wanderfranco, an acetate design that's for Devin and the Reyes. And there's a Jacob Robson for Detroit. Another Bobby Witt Jr. Rosie Contreras, O'Neill Cruz and Bregman in the back. All right. So another Bobby Witt for Devin and the Royals. We got the Robs, couple autographs for Michael and the Tigers popping out of here. And an O'Neill Cruz Rookie Crusade Insert Silver. And that's for the Pirates. That'll also be for Michael. There you go. Now, who's gonna win those spots? Let's gather everybody's names here for our final randomizer. So it's gonna be the top five after, top five after five and a two, seven times. Good luck. One, two, three, four, five, six, and seventh and final time. Fingers crossed, everybody. Spot six, sad times. Adam, thank you though. Thank you, everybody. Six through 30, sad times to everybody, but I appreciate everybody giving this a shot after seven times. Top five, you're happy, you're in the next stage. Michael is happy. So is Wade, Devin, and Devin again. Those extra spots coming in handy. Oh, and Adam! There you go, you snuck in there. I thought it was gonna be sad times for you, but you snuck in there. We'll see you guys in the next video. Jaspy'scasebreaks.com.